WORLD Radio Rewind

LEIGH JONES: This is WORLD Radio Rewind: a 10-minute review of some of our news coverage and features from the past week on WORLD Radio. I’m managing editor Leigh Jones. First up, inflation. On Tuesday’s program, Lauren Dunn reported on how higher prices are affecting Christian ministries.

LAUREN DUNN, REPORTER: Paul Dohm is standing in a large metal building filled with rows and rows of clothing racks.

DOHM: And we organize it, you know – men's women's boys girls. Everything here is donated, we just make it available for people.

Dohm is the executive director of His Helping Hands. It’s been serving at-risk and low-income families in Wichita, Kansas, since 2002. Dohm estimates the ministry has experienced a 12 to 15 percent increase in costs due to inflation. That’s mostly in wages, fuel, and trash.

DOHM: As we manage the donations and get those ready for different distributions, some of these, we have to put in the trash, you know, and so, we do have a fairly high trash bill every year…We've seen rate increases of 50 to 70 percent in that area.

Nationwide, inflation is at a three-decade high. In the last year, fuel oil prices rose by nearly 60 percent, and gas prices by nearly 50 percent. Food prices have increased by about 5 percent overall.

Jerry Bowyer is chief economist of Vident Financial. He says inflation can have a greater effect on lower-income families. So, it’s not surprising that it also would increase the need for a nonprofit’s services.

BOWYER: The people that they serve are going to need them more because inflation does not hit the poor and the rich equally. Inflation hits the poor much harder, because poor people spend a far higher proportion of their income on food, shelter, clothing, than rich people.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lauren Dunn in Wichita, Kansas.

LJ: Next up, Mississippi’s fight for life. On Tuesday’s program, Kim Henderson met the woman who argued this week’s challenge to Roe v. Wade at the Supreme Court.

KIM HENDERSON, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: It’s a sunny September day, and Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch is standing outside the U.S. Supreme Court Building. She’s wearing a bright blue pantsuit tailored to fit her thin frame, and she’s going full throttle, talking with supporters and taking pictures.

Fitch inherited Mississippi's blocked Gestational Age Act when she took office in 2020.

FITCH: We knew this case was out there for us, but you know, at that point, you think it's just a long shot…

Fitch recalled how she felt when the justices agreed to hear Mississippi’s case.

FITCH: I'm going through the airport, and all the different TVs are blaring in the Atlanta airport -- Dobbs case, Mississippi Attorney General…

In the final stretch before the December 1 hearing, Fitch has become a face of the Dobbs case. Her picture accompanies op-eds in newspapers across the country. She tweets information about pregnancy resources centers. She pushes back against the assumption that abortion creates equal opportunity for women.

And Fitch knows she’s not alone in thinking it’s high time for the High Court to reconsider Roe.

FITCH: You know, with 76 amicus briefs -- which is an incredible amount -- to ever have that supported us. I mean, we have one, a 3D to 4D, that they allowed him to attach as part of their brief. Unheard of, you know, so I think they're ready, I think I think the court is ready.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kim Henderson in Washington, D.C.

LJ: Next, threats from Moscow. On Thursday’s program, Jill Nelson reported on why Ukraine—and its Western allies—are getting nervous about Russia’s latest military moves.

JILL NELSON, REPORTER: The 2014 Russian takeover of eastern Ukraine is still a painful subject for Kostya Farkovets.

FARKOVETS: It absolutely devastated our lives. We had to separate with part of my family.

When fighting broke out near his hometown of Gorlovka, Farkovets locked up his apartment and took his wife and three sons to Kyiv. He thought it would only be for a few months. Instead, it’s been nearly eight years. Now, fears are mounting that Moscow may be planning another land grab.

Ben Hodges is a former commanding general of the U.S. Army forces in Europe and now works with the Center for European Policy Analysis. He’s concerned about the massive troop buildup in the east, but he’s also keeping an eye on the south: the territory near Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.

Russia invaded and illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 and increased its troop presence there. But the peninsula is now suffering from a water shortage. Hodges says Russian President Vladimir Putin could spin the situation as a humanitarian crisis that requires Moscow’s intervention.

HODGES: It's all the fault of the evil Ukrainian government and the people of Crimea are suffering. And so the Russians are going to have to step in and do something about it. So that's a textbook Russian disinformation. Create the provocation and then have to send in humanitarian forces to do something.

All this just months after Putin penned an article claiming Ukraine has never been an independent state. Hodges says the Kremlin is promoting a twisted narrative to Russians and attempting to discredit Ukraine in the eyes of the West.

HODGES: The number one objective for the Kremlin is to present Ukraine to the West as a failed state, to limit or dissuade Europe from further integration of Ukraine into the European Union, for example, and certainly to prevent Ukraine from ever being able to join NATO.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jill Nelson.

LJ: And finally, omicron. On Thursday’s program, Mary Reichard talked to pharmacist Zach Jenkins about the latest COVID-19 variant.

REICHARD: What has caused global health officials to sound alarms about this variant when other strains have more or less come and gone. That is, they didn’t materialize into major threats. Why the concern over Omicron?

JENKINS: Thus far, most of our experience with variants we've heard about have all been from a single lineage. So there are a lot of mutations that are happening that are pretty related. What's really different about Omicron is that it's a very different lineage. It's its own set of mutations, its own generated pathway to those mutations. What's particularly concerning about it is that it has several mutations on the spike protein, which a lot of our vaccines have been targeting. And natural immunity can be impacted by that as well. And it's a large number of mutations that we're seeing. So we don't know necessarily what all of that means just yet.

REICHARD: Zach, what do we know about how virulent or destructive this virus actually is as compared to previous strains?

JENKINS: Yeah, that's a great question and, honestly, one of the big challenges with mutations as they occur. They can actually harm viruses in their ability to spread farther, but also, they may actually cause less damage potentially. What we can't say right now is whether or not it causes more damage, more severe disease or less severe disease, based on these mutations. So the jury's still out on that there are only about 250 cases that we're aware of in the world at this point in time, and that's what we've identified through testing. There very well could be more cases out there. So until we have more data, there's not a lot we can say.

REICHARD: Zach Jenkins is Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice at Cedarville University. Professor, thanks so much!

JENKINS: Thank you!

LJ: That’s it for this edition of WORLD Radio Rewind. We’ve posted links to each of the stories we highlighted today in our transcript. You can find that on our website.

Next week, we’ll find out how schools are dealing with an increase in homeless students. And we’ll visit the Post Office, where delayed deliveries are curbing Christmas cheer but could end up saving the agency.

For the latest news, features, and commentary from WORLD News Group, visit wng.org. For WORLD Radio, I’m Managing Editor Leigh Jones.

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