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The World and Everything In It
1.29.25 GOP considers new pro-life strategies, World Tour, and military chaplains in South Sudan
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Les Sillers
Good morning. I'm Les Sillers, editor of World. Do your friends ever tell you that you seem to have a lot of opinions and you're not shy about sharing them? Well, we've got just the thing for you. We're looking for focus group volunteers, listeners and readers willing to tell us what you think of our stories, features and commentaries. I hope you'll join us for one of our Zoom calls beginning February 11th. To sign up, go to wng.orgfocusgroups so please, please give your friends a break. Wng.orgfocusgroups Good morning. Today on Washington Wednesday, the pro life pardons and a pro choice cabinet pick faces skepticism on Capitol Hill. Also today, our weekly international news roundup with Oniza Adua. And later, brave chaplains take to the front lines of a bloody conflict in South Sudan. I said, all I can tell you is what Jesus Christ, there's forgiveness and hope. And he said, will you come and share with my soldiers? And I said yes. And World Opinions contributor Brad Littlejohn has some questions about the decision to extend the grace period for the social media platform TikTok. It's Wednesday, January 29th. This is the world and everything in it from listener supported World Radio. I'm Lindsay Mast. And I'm Nick Iker. Up next, next, Kent Covington with today's news. A federal judge has temporarily blocked a push by President Trump to pause funding of most federal grants and loans. The White House had said earlier in the day on Tuesday that the funding would be paused until February 10 while the administration conducted a top to bottom review of federal spending. Press Secretary Caroline Levitt and the reason for this is to ensure that every penny that is going out the door is not conflicting with the executive orders and actions that this president has taken. Levitt said that would mean no more funding for, in her words, illegal DEI initiatives, some Biden era environmental programs and other holdover spending from the prior administration. Democrats strongly rebuked the move. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer this decision is lawless, dangerous, destructive, cruel. It's illegal, it's unconstitutional. U.S. district Judge Lauren Ali Khan blocked the funding freeze just minutes before it was slated to take effect. Caroline Levitt's remarks Tuesday were her first from the White House podium. She also provided new information on those mysterious drone flights over New Jersey after research and study. The drones that were flying over New Jersey in large numbers were authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons. She added that many of the drones were also hobbyist or recreational in nature. And she said it got worse due to curiosity, but they were not enemy drones. President Trump is reversing President Biden's policy which had allowed transgender service members in the military. World's Kristin Flavin has more. The President signed an executive order Tuesday stating that allowing transgender service members is not consistent with the Pentagon's focus on troop readiness. The order cites the medical, surgical and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria. It goes on to say that a man's assertion that he is a woman and his requirement that others honor this falsehood is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member. LGBT and liberal activist groups say they'll fight the order in court. For World I'm Kristen Flavin, President Trump has also signed an executive order cutting off federal funds from paying for transgender surgeries performed on people 18 years old or younger. The order says it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist or support the so called transition of a child from one sex to another and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life altering procedures. The US Senate has confirmed Sean Duffy as Transportation Secretary. On this vote, the yeas are 77, the nays are 22. The nomination is confirmed. Duffy, a 53 year old former Wisconsin congressman turned reality TV star, says he's ready to get to work. He has promised less regulation but also clear rules to help companies developing self driving cars. Duffy also vowed to hire more air traffic controllers, cut DEI programs and help restore global confidence in Boeing. Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Dannon, says his country will no longer cooperate with the United nations leading Palestinian aid group. UNRWA has miserably failed in its mandate and it has failed the people who were supposed to benefit from its services. He said that the agency known as UNRWA has failed to stop the infiltration in its ranks of Hamas in other terrorist groups. Dinant announced that Israel will end all cooperation with the organization beginning tomorrow, adding that it was a decision not made lightly. It follows decades of betrayal by an agency that has placed political agendas, neglect and cover ups over humanitarian principles. Israeli officials say there are other more effective aid groups with which the UN can partner that would have Israel's blessing and full cooperation. I'm Kent Covington and straight ahead an update from the nation's capital on Washington Wednesday. Plus bringing hope to the battle line. This is the world and everything in it. It's Wednesday 29th January. Glad to have you along for today's edition of THE WORLD and Everything in It. Good morning. I'm Lindsay Mast. And I'm Nick Eicher. This week, confirmation hearings continue. Tulsi Gabbard, Cash Patel, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. All of them coming to Capitol Hill. RFK's background as a critic of vaccines concerns some in Congress. His history supporting abortion concerns others. World's Washington bureau reporter Carolina Lumeta has that story and others. On today's Washington Wednesday, three fifths of the senators duly chosen are sworn and sworn not having voted in the affirmative. The motion is not agreed to. For the third time in 10 years, both chambers of Congress considered the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection act last week. It would impose fines and prison time on health care providers who do not provide adequate care to a baby born after a failed abortion. And for the third time, the bill passed the House but failed in the Senate on the first procedural vote. Disappointing day on the floor of the Senate yesterday. We were looking for a moment of just common sense, quite frankly. Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma held a news conference last week lamenting the lack of senators looking for common ground on abortion legislation. I caught up with him afterward. He compared the situation to bipartisan work on the Lake and Riley Act. We've had a hard time obviously finding common ground on immigration. We found an area on enforcement we could agree on. Pass it. It's about to become law. We got to take that next step as well on the issue about life and the value of children. With 53 seats, the Republican majority in the Senate falls short of the 60 votes required to pass most legislation. And every Democrat voted against the Born Alive Act. While few expected Democrats to break rank on this bill, Senator Lankford says the pro life strategy this year will be to keep the conversation going. I refuse to not speak out for children and just have them forgotten. This is a way to be able to bring it to the forefront and say let's talk about it as a country. Let's not just ignore this. This is happening. So let's talk about it. Other senators want to take quicker action using executive orders and a reconciliation process to get around the 60 vote requirement. Here's Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri speaking to world in the Capitol basement. I just think right now, for the foreseeable future, they're not going to come along on anything life related. So we're going to have to try to do everything we can on reconciliation or we can do that with 51 budget. Reconciliation bills require a simple majority to pass, but they must deal with legislation related to spending. So while pro life protections may be out, a move to cut federal funding for abortion providers like Planned Parenthood would be on the table. Hawley also says President Trump can use executive actions to enforce laws like the Hyde Amendment that bar federal dollars from paying for abortions. And I verged the president to do all of those things. So I hope that he will move on that quickly and we can work to do what we can legislatively. In a meeting with Trump last week, Hawley also brought up the FACE Act, a law that prohibits people from blocking entrances to abortion centers. The act also prohibits blocking houses of worship and pregnancy resource centers, but has mostly been used to prosecute pro life protesters who pray or stand near abortion center doors. Late Thursday night, Trump pardoned 23 people sentenced to years in prison for violating the FACE Act. This is a great honor to sign this. Many of those pardoned told world they are ready to hit the ground running to challenge the FACE act in court. Since there's no longer a constitutional right, there's an alleged constitutional right to kill your child. Chet Gallagher is a member of the Rescue Movement, which stages sit ins at abortion centers to convince mothers to keep their unborn babies. Gallagher was about to report to prison to serve a 16 month sentence when he received his pardon. We were found guilty in Michigan for the violation of the FACE act and also had a penalty of 10 years for conspiring against rights. And so there's a major move now to repeal that law. According to a Justice Department memo released last week, prosecutors are ordered to only enforce the law, quote, in extraordinary circumstances that would include significant property damage or bodily harm. A Saturday executive order repealed two Biden administration actions that Trump says violated the Hyde Amendment and politicized FACE act enforcement for his second administration. Trump has vowed to leave the issue of abortion to the states. But there will be some policies related to abortion handled by federal agencies and the people Trump has appointed to lead them. These are fantastic people and we can add a few names like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. And he's going to help make America healthy again. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Began his campaign for president as a pro abortion Democrat in 2023. He's now Trump's choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services and will be on Capitol Hill today to testify before the Senate Finance Committee. While most Democrats oppose Kennedy for his anti vaccine positions, some Republicans are concerned about where he stands on the sanctity of life. After openly supporting abortion up until birth, Kennedy posted a video last June saying he supports protecting unborn babies after a certain number of weeks, but would oppose total bans. More recently, I've learned that my assumptions were wrong. Sometimes women abort healthy, viable late term fetuses. These cases of purely elective late term abortions are very upsetting. Once the baby is viable outside the womb, it should have rights and it deserves society's protection. But some pro lifers say Kennedy's pivot does not qualify him to helm the nation's health agencies. And so I think pro life senators have an obligation to put this stuff on the record and to ask very tough questions. Tim Chapman is president of Advancing American Freedom, a think tank co founded by former Vice President Mike Pence. The group is lobbying senators to vote against Kennedy's nomination. Chapman says he does not trust Kennedy's recent turn toward conservatism to extend to pro life policy. I think what you're seeing from Kennedy is a real struggle to get his own views where he's comfortable with them. On this issue. Converts are welcome, but we don't need to put somebody who's in the process of trying to figure this out at the top agency dealing with the issue of life. In recent weeks, Kennedy has reportedly told senators in private meetings that his deputies at HHS will be pro life. Meanwhile, pro life organizations like Susan B. Anthony, Pro Life America and Life Action have been largely quiet on Kennedy's credentials. Chapman says that pro lifers have called him to thank Advancing American Freedom for raising the issue, but they're hesitant to go up against a Trump nominee. One of the ways that the number of abortions would rise in this administration is if the abortion pill is unfettered and unregulated and is allowed to be used as a backdoor way to infiltrate conservative states who want to be pro life. People should ask Kennedy that question. What are you going to do to ensure that there are tight regulations around the abortion pill? Other pro life advocates say Kennedy is merely the figurehead of Trump's agenda and they trust Trump to set pro life policies. I spoke with Steve Dase, who hosts a conservative talk show on the Blaze. We're getting the best of both worlds. We're getting the most pro life president of all time, resetting us back to where things were before Biden took over. And we're getting RFK Jr. As a proven crusader in an arena that has for too long been overlooked. So I'm. I'm ecstatic. Deese supports many of Kennedy's positions, including vaccine skepticism. He admits that the former Democrats stance on abortion is concerning, but says the bigger picture is reassuring. On the vaccine side, the same people putting the fetal tissue cells in their vaccines are the same vaccine manufacturers that RFK Jr doesn't trust. So our reasons may not necessarily be the same, but our interests are aligned. After Kennedy testifies before the Senate Finance Committee today, he will report to the Committee on Health, Education, labor and Pensions tomorrow. Pro life Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama have publicly endorsed him. But other lawmakers are waiting for more pro life commitments during those hearings. Reporting for WORLD I'm Carolina Lumeta in Washington. Additional support comes from One Life, a Christian gap year program that allows students to grow in their faith, travel and earn college credit. More@onelifepath.org and from Abwe, offering the free ebook Seize the Eight Ways Pastors Can Leverage Today's Freedom for Tomorrow's Mission. Abwe.org SeizetheMoment Coming up next on THE WORLD and Everything in IT World Tour with our reporter in Africa, Onise Adua. We start today in Central Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where heightened rebel violence in the eastern region has sent millions fleeing. Gunfire rocked the region's largest city of Goma on Monday as The Rwanda backed M23 rebels claimed they captured the city. M23 is one of the most active rebel groups in the mineral rich area, though they are only one of more than a hundred. The group made major gains along the shared border with Rwanda in recent weeks. Word of Goma's capture comes after the M23 rebels issued a deadline for the Congolese army to surrender their weapons. When they didn't, the rebels attacked. The violence has sent people who have been displaced multiple times fleeing again. Adele Shimier joined others traveling six miles from an IDP camp to Gomez City center. She says there are also bombs in Goma, so she's unsure where to go next. Congolese authorities have accused Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebels to gain political and economic influence in the region. Teres Kaikwamba Wagner is Congo's foreign affairs minister. She told the United Nations Security Council over the weekend that Rwanda is planning an open air carnage that must be stopped. Kenya has called for an emergency meeting today between the leaders of Rwanda and Congo to discuss the crisis. Next we head to France, where flood waters submerged buildings and cars in the western city of Rennes. Over the weekend, authorities evacuated more than 400 people due to heavy rainfall from Storm Herminia. It's the city's worst flooding in 40 years. City officials partnered with the Red Cross to house some of the displaced in gymnasium. This displaced resident describes the flooding as a nightmare, saying he and his brother lost everything. Storm Hermenia also struck Spain and brought strong winds and severe flooding to parts of the United Kingdom this week. Another storm battered the UK Ireland and France last week, leaving more than a million people without power. This weekend, thousands of Australians joined celebrations to mark the country's founding. The Sydney Opera House lit up with traditional paintings to commemorate the annual Australia Day. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also led a citizenship ceremony in the national capital of Canberra. Meanwhile, chanting protesters marched through Sydney as indigenous activists considered the day as Invasion Day. And in Melbourne, thousands of people gathered outside the Victorian parliament and carried a large Aboriginal flag through the city center. Caroline Kell joined the protests. Today we're gathering in our thousands to rise and resist and come together to mourn the loss of life and culture, but also to celebrate our existence and our resistance as aboriginal sovereign people of this land. Protestors also complained about issues surrounding Aboriginal land rights, missing indigenous women and high deaths in police custody. Back in 2023, Australians voted down a referendum that sought to include indigenous protections and political rights in the constitution. We closed today in China, where Lunar New Year celebrations are underway. Millions of people traveled home ahead of the holiday, also known as Spring Festival. In China, railway authorities reported an estimated 510 million travelers, while more than 90 million people were expected to fly. Celebrations also took place across other Asian cities. In Malaysia, a drone show welcomed the holidays in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur, while lion dance parades already started ahead of the day. In Burma's city of Yangon, the official Spring festival holiday season will run until February 4th. That's it for this week's world tour. Reporting for World I'm Onize Odua in Abuja, Nigeria. You know, you'd think creatures with ravenous appetites wouldn't have such picky palates, but we're talking pandas with diplomatic immunity. Bao Li and Ching Bao are newcomers to the National Zoo in Washington. The panda diplomats, as they are known, are thoroughly pandered, too. I did say that Mike Maslanka is head of nutrition at the zoo. The audio comes from NBC. Early on in my career when I started here, we ran out of bamboo, and that was terrible. Yeah, lesson learned, because pandas are not just picky, they are porky. We're going to be looking at about, let's say, 100 pounds per animal per day. So there's a specific farm nearby that harvests bamboo four days a week just to keep the pandambassadors happy. Only the Freshest, greenest stems meet panda standards. So these two spend up to 16 hours a day chowing down on all that bamboo, which, let's be honest, can't leave a lot of time left over for embassy work. It's the world and everything in it. Today is Wednesday, January 29th. Thank you for turning to World Radio to help start your day. Good morning, I'm Lindsay Mast. And I'm Nick Iker. Coming next on the World and everything in it, peace under fire. Authorities in South Sudan imposed a nationwide dusk to dawn curfew this month following clashes in the capital city of Juba. The rioters were retaliating after video clips appeared on social media purportedly with images of Sudanese soldiers to the north killing civilians. From South Sudan. It's another clash in one of the world's longest running conflicts. It resulted more than a decade ago in mostly Christian South Sudan gaining independence from the larger predominantly Muslim nation known simply as Sudan. Yet Islamic raiders still cross the border into the country. But there is a group of Christian military chaplains, all of them from South Sudan, all of them armed. Still, they say they are trying to bring the peace of Christ into the conflict. Today we meet a few of them, men like this Lino Emanuel, during the war. Are you preaching or is it. Yeah, we're preaching. Yeah, we're preaching while the bullets are flying. Yeah, yeah. We pray and we go. Amban bullet is coming. We pray and we go. Patrick Henry College journalism student Clay Ramirez met Emmanuel last fall in South Sudan during a chaplain training conference. And he has this story. Lino Emanuel recalls when the original civil war broke out in 1983, the north was attempting to impose Sharia law on the South. Okay. But our enemy from the north, he's come to destroy our country. Killing people, killing our mothers, our brothers, taking everything, even the cow, the car, looting and burning the older house. They want to convert us to be a Muslim. Yeah. Many of the chaplains were caught up in the violence of the Sudanese civil war. As children in the 80s and 90s, they lived in constant fear of air raids, death and pain. All that time my father was a soldier and he was killed by Arab Muslims. You know that the South Sudanese and those of Khartoum were being fired and my mother also dead. 28 year old Emmanuel Dietzek has served with the Chaplaincy Corps for just under a decade. He felt his only path in life was to follow his father's footsteps and fight. Most of them are my enemy, accredited because they kill my father, killed my uncles and, and many people. It was a vicious cycle. The Islamic north would brutalize the south, and the south would retaliate fiercely. By the time the war ended in 2005, about 2 million people had died. Wes Bentley is the director of far reaching ministries, the organization that runs the chaplaincy training program. Bentley is a former marine. In the late 1990s, he was serving as a missionary in east Africa. One day, a soldier walked into his camp in south Sudan. The soldier said the Arabs from northern Sudan had killed every single member of his family. He said, we recaptured a village from the Islamic north, and when we did, I captured a pregnant Islamic woman. The soldier confessed that he had brutally murdered the woman in revenge. And of course, it was quite shocking to hear. And I had to think for a moment. I said, all I can tell you is with Jesus Christ, there's forgiveness, sin, and hope. And he said, will you come and share with my soldiers? And I said, yes. Bentley started the chaplaincy school in 1998 to teach the Sudanese army and people how to win the spiritual battle, not just the physical war. The conference brought about 350 chaplains from their various military posts to the program's castle base in Nimali. There, the chaplains ate well, rested, and heard Bible lessons from American pastors. Despite the African heat. For the chaplains, this was like a vacation on the front lines. Their job is to preach, plant churches, and spiritually encourage the troops. But they go into battle fully armed. You know, we're not there to be soldiers. I went there to be a pastor, but the rebels started coming down and killing all the women and children. So when that happened, I realized that we needed to train these men to be able to defend those that cannot defend themselves and protect those that cannot protect those. You defend yourself and you defend your people. For lino, it was simple. Clay, I come to your home, I'm going to kill your father, your brother, your children. Are you going to allow it? No. Yes. That is what we're doing. I spoke with dozens of chaplains at the training conference. Almost all had amazing stories from the battlefield. None of them seemed afraid to die for Christ. We dance because Jesus answered our prayers. Peter Akesh is a senior chaplain with the south Sudanese army. Jesus can command those of mine and they can obey voice of the lord. He said, jesus can command those are mine bullet. And the bullet will obey the voice of the lord. Once, during a battle, he told me other soldiers in his unit were talking about how the bullet seemed afraid of the chaplains. And I said, yeah, we asleep. For Jesus Christ in the Akesh told me that one time a piece of shrapnel wounded his wrist and penetrated his uniform, but it stopped at his clerical garment. One of the soldiers told him, it's a good thing your garment and collar are bulletproof. After that, all the soldiers wanted Bibles. The young chaplain Dicek says he changes perspective after joining the chaplain corps. But for the Muslims that are not Christian, up to now that they are different, they are not in Christ, I try to forgive them. But when I see my life now, life without family, I see that one, it is a very faint in my heart to forgive the Muslim. Yeah, but I used to forgive. Yeah, for the sake of God's word, I can forgive them for the word of God. Many of these men joined back up with their military units shortly after I interviewed them. Out of the 560 chaplains far reaching ministries has trained in the last 25 years, 70 have lost their lives in service to date. Reporting for world, I am Clay Ramirez in Emily, South Sudan. Today is Wednesday, January 29th. Good morning, this is the World and everything in it. From listener supported World Radio, I'm Nick Iger. And I'm Lindsay Mast. Up next, the future of TikTok. World Opinions contributor Brad Littlejohn says he's not so sure about the presidential stay of execution for the Chinese company. As one of his very first actions as president, Donald Trump signed an executive order promising to extend a lifeline to the floundering Chinese company ByteDance. For the next 75 days, he would direct the Department of Justice to hold off on enforcing the ban against TikTok that had gone into effect the day before he took office. With his legendary skills as a dealmaker, Trump seems determined to use the ban as a bargaining chip to bring China to the table. Evidence suggests it's already working. China, which formerly had insisted that divestment was simply impossible, issued a statement last Monday declaring its fervent belief in the right of companies like ByteDance to decide any questions of corporate acquisition on their own. That said, there's a tangle of legal questions that any buyer would have to navigate first. The first clause of the EO reads, by the authority vested in me as president, by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered. But do the constitution of the laws vest Trump with such authority? While the law did provide for the possibility of a 90 day extension that would have had to be ordered before the ban went into effect, now that the ban has gone into effect, any company that hosts TikTok content or facilitates Access to the app is technically in violation of federal law, although Trump has directed the attorney general to withhold prosecution for now. For conservatives, this situation poses some real conundrums. On the one hand, it's almost unprecedented to restrict access to a media platform used by half of all Americans. Many, like Elon Musk, have trumpeted free speech concerns as a reason to keep the app online. However, it's critical that TikTok be held accountable to operate according to US laws. Until now, it's been able to operate with impunity despite numerous privacy and consumer welfare violations. It has demonstrated that it cares more about the priorities of its Chinese Communist Party owners than the interests of the American people. If TikTok is to remain available to consumers, it must be run by investors who have America's interests at heart. The executive order might succeed in accomplishing that goal. That said, President Trump is in uncharted waters with this order. The reality is that the terms of the law were very clear. It was passed by overwhelming margins in both houses of Congress, it was signed by the president into law, and it's withstood multiple legal challenges, ending with a rare unanimous Supreme Court verdict that there is no constitutional obstacle to the law. Elon Musk may tweet about the First Amendment all he wants, but our country should be ruled by courts, not by tweets. Conservatives have often complained about President Joe Biden's use of executive orders to bypass what he deemed inconvenient acts of Congress and Supreme Court rulings. What's good for the goose must be good for the gander. It would be dangerous for President Trump to set a precedent of governing by mere fiat. Whichever way the TikTok situation settles out, it will be critical for conservatives going forward to articulate a principled basis for regulating technology in the American interest. Hand waving invocations of free speech miss the mark by a mile. Even in the very permissive trends of recent First Amendment jurisprudence, courts have always distinguished between limits on content and restrictions on the time, place, or manner of speech. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. You can't put strip clubs near a preschool. And to stick closer to the case at hand, you can't sing at a karaoke bar that's been shut down for health code violations. American citizens are still free to post expressive content on social media, but they should not be able to do so using a platform that violates our laws with impunity. I'm Brad Littlejohn. Tomorrow, organizations and governments are abandoning diversity, equity, and inclusion. But what can be done to prevent similar DEI efforts in the future. And Christians in law enforcement. One man grapples with his profession after a shooting that changed his life. That and more tomorrow. I'm Nick icar. And I'm Lindsay Mast. The world and everything, and it comes to you from World Radio. World's mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates and inspires. The Bible says, but as for me, I shall walk in my integrity. Redeem me and be gracious to me. My foot stands on level ground in the great assembly. I will bless the Lord. Verses 11 and 12 of Psalm 26. Go now in grace and peace.