Good morning. Republicans in Congress sound the alarm about Islamic political influence. What does it mean for First Amendment protections? Principles of Sharia are at odds with the Constitution and the laws of the United States. That's ahead. Also, a change in climate policies. And the band that helped define Christian rock returns with a new album after 20 years. and world commentator Hunter Baker on the high cost of betting markets. It's Thursday, February 12th. This is The World and Everything In It from listener-supported World Radio. I'm Mary Reichert. And I'm Erna Brown. Good morning. Up next, Kent Covington has today's news. Many in Washington are bracing for another partial government shutdown, with funding set to expire for the Department of Homeland Security tomorrow night. Democrats are holding up funding as they demand changes to immigration enforcement, but DHS also oversees things like TSA airport security and the Coast Guard. And on Capitol Hill, acting TSA administrator Ha Nguyen McNeil pleaded with lawmakers. 12 weeks later, some are just recovering from the financial impact of the 43-day shutdown. Many are still reeling from it. We cannot put them through another such experience. It would be unconscionable. Many TSA employees are deemed essential and were expected to continue working through last year's record-long shutdown with paychecks delayed. And Coast Guard Admiral Thomas Allen told a House panel that a DHS shutdown would hurt morale among the Guard's roughly 56,000 members. The uncertainty of missing paychecks negatively impacts readiness and creates a significant financial hardship for service members and their families. He added that the Coast Guard would have to halt most of its work and focus only on missions tied to national security or saving lives. The latest U.S. job numbers may indicate that after a softer stretch last year, the job market may be picking back up. World's Mary Muncy has more. The Labor Department says employers added about 170,000 jobs in January, stronger than economists expected and well above December's softer gain. Healthcare, construction, and professional services led the way. Manufacturing posted modest growth. The unemployment rate edged down to around 4.3 percent, and wages rose around 3.7 percent compared to a year ago. That follows a weaker report last week that showed slower hiring late last year, which had raised concerns about cooling momentum. Some analysts say January's rebound suggests the labor market remains steady, even if it's not booming. For World, I'm Mary Muncy. A very good meeting. That's how President Trump described his sit-down with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Wednesday. Netanyahu's mission was reportedly to ask Trump to pressure Iran not only on its nuclear program, but also on its ballistic missiles. U.S. diplomats have been holding indirect nuclear talks with Tehran in recent days, and Trump has threatened military action if Iran does not cooperate. The White House says Tehran is much better off making a deal. Vice President J.D. Vance. Well, look, the president's told his entire senior team that we should be trying to cut a deal that ensures the Iranians don't have a nuclear weapon. But if we can't cut that deal, then there's another option on the table. So I think the president's going to continue to preserve his options. He's going to have a lot of options because we have the most powerful military in the world. Trump also alluded to Operation Midnight Hammer, the U.S. military action last summer that struck three Iranian nuclear sites. Iran's foreign minister yesterday said limitations on the country's ballistic missile program are not on the table. All flights briefly stopped over El Paso, Texas yesterday after federal authorities ordered a sudden closure of airspace over the border city. The FAA lifted the restriction after a few hours, saying that there was no ongoing danger to aviation and flights could resume. But El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson was not happy, saying the closure occurred. Without coordinating with the city, the airport, the hospitals, the community leadership, that failure to communicate is unacceptable. He said that all aviation operations were grounded, including emergency flights, and called it a disruption not seen since 9-11. Officials initially said the closure was in response to cartel drone activity near the U.S.-Mexico border, but it was unclear if the closure was in response to an immediate drone incursion or if it was part of longer-range planning. It was initially announced that the closure would last for more than a week, as heard here from one air traffic control tower in El Paso. The Pentagon had been planning to test a laser system aimed at disabling cartel drones. Authorities said the concern is now resolved, but lawmakers and local leaders are demanding answers about the abrupt ground stop. For the first time in nearly a year, FDA Commissioner Marty Makari addressed concerns from lawmakers about an abortion drug at a closed-door briefing. World's Carolina Lumetta has more from the nation's capital. Pro-life lawmakers left the meeting with more questions than answers about the abortion drug mifepristone. Republican Senator Josh Hawley. I'll just be honest with you, I was very disappointed by that. Last year, McCary promised to start an independent safety review into the abortion drug. But Hawley says it now looks like past reports that McCary was slow rolling that study may in fact be true. He added that it's now up to Congress to step in. We've got to think about how do we stop the flow of nefeprestone into these states, particularly states where nefeprestone is banned, but it's coming anyway. We've got more abortions now than we had when Roe was the law of the land. And I don't sense any urgency at all from the FDA about this. None. Zilch. Reporting for World, I'm Carolina Lumetta in Washington. Police in Arizona have released a man that they detained for questioning in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today Show co-host Savannah Guthrie. Police detained Carlos Pazuelos during a traffic stop on Tuesday, hours after investigators released recovered surveillance footage of a person in a ski mask tampering with Guthrie's doorbell camera. Pazuelos said police questioned him and searched his home for hours before releasing him on Wednesday. I didn't do anything. I mean, I hope they get the suspect because I'm not it. They better do their job and find the suspect that did it so they can clear my name. Pazuelos said he had never heard of Guthrie before police stopped him. Saturday will mark two weeks since the 83-year-old Guthrie was apparently taken from her Tucson home. I'm Kent Covington, and still ahead, Republicans in Congress sound the alarm about Islamic political influence and later a shift in climate policy. This is The World and Everything in It. It's Thursday, the 12th of February. So glad to have you along for today's edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning. I'm Mary Reichert. And I'm Myrna Brown. Up first, rejecting the logic of climate alarmism. In July, the EPA announced it would retract a study from 2009 used to justify emissions standards in the U.S. The agency is now in the final stages of rescinding the greenhouse gas endangerment finding that was the legal foundation for those standards. What does the policy change mean for everyday Americans? Joining us now to talk about it is Philip Rossetti. He's an energy policy researcher at the R Street Institute, a free market think tank in Washington. He previously advised members of Congress on the Select Subcommittee on the Climate Crisis Philip good morning Morning Well for our listeners who have not heard of it what was this 2009 EPA study and why did it guide emissions rules under the Obama and Biden administrations? It's definitely something that doesn't come up in frequent conversation or everyday conversation. But basically, rewinding a little bit further to 2007, there was a Supreme Court case, Massachusetts versus EPA, and that was the Bush administration's EPA. And obviously, there was no greenhouse gas regulation at that time, and Massachusetts said, hey, greenhouse gases are pollutants, and therefore EPA should regulate it. And it was a 5-4 split in favor of defining greenhouse gases as pollutants. And that set up the basis for EPA to say, hey, do these pollutants endanger public health? And that's what 2009 was. Under the Obama administration, they said, yes, they do. And therefore EPA has the authority to regulate them. Every regulation that includes a climate benefit or says that it improves climate is contingent upon the endangerment finding. And there are a lot of regulations that might include some climate benefits, but there's actually only a handful of really serious climate regulations that have been proposed or even finalized, but they've never really taken effect because of legal challenges to them. So something that always comes up because there's this big vision of having a big climate regulation that never kind of comes through. And this is the Trump administration saying, hey, we're trying to put that to bed and not let any more attempts at a climate regulation happen. There's always litigation going on in the background that you have to take into consideration. Okay, so suppose the EPA drops a study as planned. Where might ordinary Americans first feel the effect, say, in gas prices, electric bills, someplace else? Interestingly enough, I don't think it's going to change much for the everyday American. And the reason I say that is because even though there have been these big regulations focused on climate, because of the legal challenges of when they go into effect, what they can regulate, they never really kind of got the industry to fully position before they were repealed. So the classic example is the Clean Power Plan. That was 2015, and it would have required more renewable energy for the electric power sector. And ostensibly, it would of increased electricity prices. That got stayed by the Supreme Court pretty much right after it was finalized. It never went into effect. And a few years later, West Virginia versus EPA, Supreme Court decision, said, hey, you can't actually do the Clean Power Plan at all. So these sort of ideas that would be underpinned by the endangerment finding have never really come to fruition. So it's more this theoretical debate. And ironically, I've actually seen some folks who are in favor of climate regulation coming out against the endangerment fighting on the idea that they just don't see climate regulation as a very effective way of combating climate change. Well, you touched on this, but just to clarify, will this change affect only future EPA rules, or is it going to roll back regulations that we're paying for right now? So it would affect future regulations primarily, but current regulations that rely on a climate benefit would theoretically be impacted. But when we actually look at the breakdown of regulations that have climate benefits, climate benefits are usually only a small portion of their overall benefits. They're really looking at the public health benefits from mitigating other pollutants. Which Americans, if any, are most likely to benefit from this shift? And who might be worse off? Anyone who drives a car, anyone who uses electricity, would theoretically benefit from there being less regulation on that. But again, because those regulations didn't really go into effect, it's not like people are going to see a reduction in their bills. It's more just kind of, hey, you know, this potential opportunity for a future regulation that could have increased these costs is less likely to occur now. But this is a huge legal question about the EPA's authority to regulate it all and what a future regulation in the climate space could look like. So do you think that this change will mainly help big corporations and the benefits will then flow through to the consumer? I don't think that you're going to see any corporation that get like a profit boost or something from this, you know, because that's just not the nature of how the current regulatory environment is, right? There isn't a big regulation that is going to be reversed by unwinding the endangerment finding. All right. Philip, just one more question. Does this signal a broader change in how the EPA will justify major regulations going forward, you think? Oh, I think so. You know, you look at the tactic of how to regulate. And under the first Trump administration, the approach was really getting back to the basics of what is good regulation? What is the appropriate rate at which you measure a pollutant? And who can effectively be regulated? And what's the lowest cost way of mitigating pollutants? That was the old way under the first Trump administration. And now the approach is more saying, hey, we don't think that there is a justification for these regulations, and therefore we shouldn't have them. So to that extent, instead of seeing kind of a more kind of like focused regulation on these issues, I think you're probably just going to see less regulation. Philip Rossetti researches energy policy at the R Street Institute. That's a free market think tank in Washington, D.C. Philip, appreciate this. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Coming up next on The World and Everything in It, Islamic law and the Constitution. Since the 9-11 terror attacks, Americans have debated the boundaries between constitutional protections for religious freedom and identifying radical ideology before terrorists can act. Now, some lawmakers say the U.S. should ban Sharia, Islamic religious and political law. Supporters say the U.S. needs to raise its guard against Islamic influence growing in Western Europe and in states like Texas. But critics say the Constitution is sufficient and warn that banning Sharia could violate the First Amendment. The subcommittee will come to order. On Tuesday, Texas Congressman Chip Roy gaveled in the House Judiciary Subcommittee for the Constitution and limited government. Principles of Sharia are at odds with the Constitution and the laws of the United States. Sharia fails to include due process, treats non-Muslims as second-class citizens, and prescribes barbaric punishments. The subcommittee heard testimony about issues ranging from the unauthorized distribution of Islamic materials in a public high school last week to reports of honor killings and the subjugation of women. Krista Shield with the activist nonprofit group Rise, Align, Ignite, Reclaim said that in Texas, We now have over 330 mosques, at least 650 Islamic nonprofits channeling influence. Dozens of Islamic scholars and banks promoting Sharia compliance finance. More than $4 billion in taxpayer funds routed to Islamic entities since 2017. Numbers aside, Democrats on the committee were skeptical about how Muslim communities affect other Americans. Ranking member Mary Scanlon of Pennsylvania addressed concerns about a Muslim enclave under investigation in Texas. It seems the pretext for all this bluster is a proposed real estate development in the Dallas suburbs led by the area's growing Muslim population. But there's no evidence it has anything to do with imposing Sharia law on non-believers of Islam. So what is Sharia exactly? Lawmakers and witnesses offered a variety of definitions. Sharia is concerned with guiding individual personal religious observance, not shaping national laws. laws. Numerous tenets of Sharia show bias against women, the LGBTQ community, non-Muslims, former Muslims, and people designated as blasphemers. Almost all Muslims, to some degree or another, are Sharia law adherents because Sharia law is simply the religious precepts of Islam. Sharia doctrine demands subjugation of non-Muslims. One reason definitions vary is because there is no single source document called Sharia. Linguistically, the word Sharia refers to a straight path. A Ibrahim is professor of Islamic studies at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a contributor to world opinions He says the straight path for Muslims comes from the whole of Islamic teaching in the Quran and the stories about the Prophet Muhammad. But it is not limited to moral guidelines for fasting and prayer. It is a political legal order designed to regulate society, governance and law and power based on the model established by Muhammad as the prophet of Islam, not only as a religious figure, but as a lawgiver, judge, ruler. Ibrahim says if Sharia is applied directly, it makes legal and political claims that appear to contradict constitutional principles like due process and freedom of speech. Good afternoon, and thank you for being here. Last week, Texas Congressman Keith Self joined Chip Roy and other House Republicans to introduce the newly formed Sharia-free America Caucus. We put forward legislation to pause immigration until we have an immigration system that vets people for adherence to Sharia law. That bill would also allow the government to deport adherents of Sharia law, and it came under scrutiny during Tuesday's hearing. Here's Congresswoman Scanlon. This kind of government discrimination, based purely on a person's religious beliefs, not actions, is a blatant violation of the First Amendment's free exercise and free speech guarantees. But others say it's possible to screen immigrants for specific concerns and not Islam in general. Here's Ilya Shapiro, director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute. Institute. The devil is in the details about what exactly is being targeted through immigration law, but it is legitimate through immigration law to say we don't want to admit people who disagree with these basic American precepts. That said, Shapiro is skeptical about the need to pass laws banning Sharia in the courts. So already under existing law, the Constitution, federal statutes, treaties are the supreme law of the land. No religious legal system, be it Islamic, Jewish, Catholic canon law or anything else, can override that. For now, direct legal challenges to the Constitution are not on the table. Here's Congressman Tom McClintock II, a Republican from California. Are you aware of any proposals to enact laws that would assist in imposing Sharia law on others or giving it precedence over our own civil law? Anyone? Okay, well, good. So far, 14 states have passed laws banning the use of foreign law that violates due process. Lawmakers in Congress have introduced similar legislation, though for now it would take much more support to get it through both chambers and to the president's desk. For Professor Ibrahim at Southern Seminary, legislation is only part of the equation, while debating worldview in the public square is more foundational. Christians should clearly and confidently expose and oppose Islam's theological claims, teachings, and legal system where they contradict biblical truth and the moral foundations of Western civilization. Without objection, this hearing is adjourned. Additional support comes from the Masters University, equipping students for lives of faithfulness to the Master Jesus Christ. masters.edu From the Joshua program at St. Dunstan's Academy in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Work, prayer, and adventure for young men. stdunstansacademy.org And from Water's Edge, competitive rates and supporting churches, 4.55% APY on a 13-month term investment, watersedge.com slash invest. Most of us spend winter trying not to fall down. Rich Ruinan makes a living off the ones who do. He's a personal injury attorney. Slip and fall cases, oh yeah. Now he's an alternate on the U.S. Olympic curling team. The Wall Street Journal had some fun with that. A 51-year-old lawyer who could become the oldest American winter Olympian, but only if a teammate, you know, slips and falls. But here's the thing about curling. You strap a slick slider onto one shoe and deliberately launch yourself across a sheet of ice, pushing a 44-pound granite stone. Now, Ruanan gets the humor of his situation, but he's also honored to be there. What the Olympics means is excellence, respect, friendship. And that's the twist. A man whose day job revolves around accidents drawn to a sport where the whole point is precision. It's the world and everything in it. Today is Thursday, February 12th. Thank you for turning to World Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I'm Myrna Brown. And I'm Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It, five decades of faith and rock and roll. Petra is the longest-running band in the history of Christian music. They've been at it since 1972. That's when four students at the Christian Training Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana, got together and formed the band. It was a group that would go on to sell over 10 million records and win multiple Dove and Grammy Awards. Now, more than 50 years and multiple lineup changes later, Petra has a new album. According to world's music critic Arsenio Orteza, it does their legacy proud. Petra wasn't the first Christian rock band. The 1960s British combo The Pilgrims probably deserves that distinction. Petra wasn't even the first American Christian rock band. But Petra does go back pretty far, all the way to the days when most churches thought rock and Jesus shouldn't mix. So far, Petra is also the only Christian band still going half a century after its birth. True, the group retired in 2005, but it unretired in 2013 for a 40th anniversary tour. In 2022, I'm retired again for a 50th anniversary tour. And the lineup that's touring, Bob Hartman, John Schlitt, John Lawry, Greg Bailey, and Christian Borneo, has just released a new album, Hope. It's the first new Petra recording of original material since 2003. It's also among the band's best. This is Filthy Lucre, the new album's opening song. In typical Petra fashion, it combines hard rock with an overt and easily understood biblical message. In this case, that the spiritually mature must not be lovers of money. Also, like the majority of Petra's songs, it was written by the band's guitarist Bob Hartman. Hartman founded Petra 54 years ago with the guitarist Greg Ho, the bassist John DeGroff, and the drummer Bill Glover. It was these guys who'd signed with Murr Records in 1973 and that recorded the group's first two albums, Petra in 1974 and Come and Join Us in 1977. The latter album opened and closed with a song that would become associated with Petra, even though the group didn't write it. It was a cover of a UK hit written by the ex-zombie Rod Argent for his band, Argent. Petra would go on to record God Gave Rock and Roll to You again for its 1984 album Beat the System God gave rock and roll to you Gave rock and roll to you Put it in the sun the system The lead singer in both cases was Greg X Volz But the 1977 and 1984 versions sound very different, mainly because during that seven-year period, all of the original musicians except Hartman were replaced, sometimes more than once. The band also moved Vols from guest vocalist on albums two and three to full-time member. By album number four, Never Say Die, Petra finally had a consistent and distinctive vocal identity. The group's revolving door membership policy would continue throughout most of the 80s, But its choice of producers and its apparent desire to blend in with the ever-changing sounds of mainstream rock also affected the band's sound. The five albums that Petra recorded during the Vols years, for instance, were produced by Jonathan David Brown. They often sounded like a clever synthesis of Kansas, Journey, and Toto. Then, Brown was replaced behind the production console by John and Dino Elefante. Foles himself left in 1986 and was replaced by John Schlitt. These changes resulted in the heaviest-sounding Petra yet. If you're where you live, you can't hold back When you're struck by your glove, you will know John Schlitt was well-suited to late-'80s Petra. He'd been the lead singer of the secular band Head East before getting fired in 1980 due to his addiction to drugs and booze. He eventually became a Christian, cleaned up, and auditioned for Petra's lead vocal slot. The rest, as they say, is history. But no band can go from strength to strength forever, and by the late 80s there were signs that Petra was treading water. There was a praise album of mostly other people's compositions, then a re-recording of that album in Spanish. Another praise album followed in 1997, then an unplugged collection. At one point, Hartman even retired, briefly leaving the lineup with no original members. And yes, there was a third praise album. But if the 21st century found Petra coming to an end, it was doing so not with a whimper but a bang. The 2003 album Jekyll and Hyde contained its most heavily metallic music ever. Nothing on the band's new album, Hope, sounds quite that hard. But coming from five guys who've only performed reunion tours during the last dozen years, is confident and limber with something for almost everyone stylistically speaking. The song Oxygen even adds Jamaican rhythms to their palate. In the silence of the morning When the world is still For a group that believes God gave rock and roll to you, the idea that he gave reggae to you as well isn't much of a stretch. In the chaos of the daytime When the noise begins I'm Arsenio Orteza. Your Word is my heart, sinking, breathing life into my soul. Your truth, my foundation, makes the broken pieces whole. And your Word, I find my strength, again, your Word is my heart. Good morning. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported World Radio. I'm Mary Reichard. And I'm Myrna Brown. For most of American history, gambling lived at the margins of public life. Now it's everywhere, in stadiums, on our phones, and woven into the sports we love. World commentator Hunter Baker says this isn't just a business story. It's a moral one. As Olympic hockey ramps up and the NBA heads into All-Star Weekend, the games aren't the only action. The betting markets are heating up, too. Before we go any further, listen. Miss my window. Ah, you could get in on the action right now. Now? Now. Deb's team has been out of it since week six. But in playoff mode, she's in on every drive. Only on FanDuel. That's called for football. What the season has been. To that 33-point fourth quarter. To the overs. And the unders. No more points. To the spreads we cover. Three more points. To the parlays we hit. One more catch. One more yard. Here's to football. It's awesome. Did you catch that? It's not about the game anymore. It's about the wager layered up on top of it. One more catch. One more yard. Not for the team. For the ticket. Get in on the action right now. Not watch. Get in. The game becomes raw material for the bet 20 years ago, I went to a football game in New York The outcome was clear before the final whistle But a group of men near the railing were still shouting as if everything depended on it It dawned on me They weren't watching the game anymore They were watching the point spread Whether the team covered mattered more than whether they won What used to be a sideshow is now the main attraction There was a time when we understood gambling as dangerous, not because of killjoy moralism, but because people saw what it did. Paychecks disappeared. Marriages cracked up. Families absorbed the shock. Even Las Vegas functioned like a kind of quarantine. Keep it out in the desert. Contain it. Now, it lives in our pockets. The old casinos removed clocks so you would lose track of time. They comped cheap meals and drinks to keep you glued to your seat. Today, betting apps are tied directly to your credit card and powered by sophisticated psychological design. Engineered urgency. Constant notifications. Personalized prompts. Now. Last chance. One more. The house is not hoping to win. It is built to win. Plato warned that reason must govern appetite. C.S. Lewis urged the cultivation of virtue rather than impulse. Modern gambling does the opposite. It trains appetite. It monetizes impatience. It exploits weakness and calls it entertainment. The ads say, get in on the action. But when appetite runs the show, it is not freedom. It is captivity with better graphics. And despite the marketing, the odds were never in your favor. For World, I'm Hunter Baker. Tomorrow, Katie McCoy joins us for Culture Friday. And Colin Garbarino reviews a new animated sports comedy in theaters. That and more tomorrow. I'm Myrna Brown. And I'm Mary Reichard. The world and everything in it comes to you from World Radio. World's Mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires. Scripture records the appearance of the angel after the resurrection. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead. And behold, he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him. See, I have told you. Verses 3 through 7 of Matthew 28. Go now in grace and peace.
