The World and Everything in It: March 20, 2025

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Syria’s new leadership strikes a deal to regain control. But will it bring peace or more conflict?

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Also well-known protestor Mahmoud Khalil faces the threat of deportation, raising big questions about freedom of speech.

And in Louisville, volunteers are putting the Word of God right into the hands of those who need it.

GRANDERSON: If you had the entire Bible in Braille, it would stack to the ceiling, all of those Braille Bibles.

REICHARD: And WORLD commentator Cal Thomas says due process for all, even the bad guys.

BROWN: It’s Thursday, March 20th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard. Good morning!

BROWN: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Trump – Zelenskyy call » During a phone call on Wednesday,  President Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed on a limited ceasefire on energy targets — the same deal Vladimir Putin agreed to in a call with Trump one day earlier. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says Trump also floated the idea of the United States taking ownership of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants.

LEAVITT: American ownership of those power plants. Plants would be the best protection for that infrastructure and support for Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

Delegations from the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine are expected to continue talks to expand a ceasefire into the Black Sea. Special envoy to Ukraine, retired Gen. Keith Kelloogg explains the next steps:

KELLOGG:  We're going to head to technical talks. That's a term where you actually have the talks from both sides, sitting down until we get to a comprehensive ceasefire, which leads you to a peace treaty. And we're only at day 58.

U.S. negotiators are heading back to Saudi Arabia this week for more talks with Ukrainian leaders. They also held peace talks there last week. 

Fed to leave interest rates unchanged » Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says the central bank is keeping its key interest rate right where it is for now four and a quarter to four and a half percent. He said the future of the economy is hard to predict with the Trump administration making big changes in trade, immigration, fiscal policy, and regulation.

POWELL:  It is the net effect of these policy changes that will matter for the economy and for the path of monetary policy. While there have been recent developments in some of these areas, especially trade policy, uncertainty around the changes and their effects on the economic outlook is high.

With all that in mind, Powell says the Fed is very much taking a wait-and-see approach to monetary policy. But he added that right now, both the economy and the job market appear stable. 

University of Pennsylvania federal funding, trans athletes » The Trump administration is suspending about $175 million dollars in federal funding for the University of Pennsylvania. That stems from the school’s decision to allow male swimmer Lia Thomas, who identifies as a woman, to compete on the women’s swim team in 2022. Former volleyball player Payton McNabb, who was injured by a transgender player from an opposing team, reacted to the news:

MCNABB:   Personally, I'm thrilled. This is something that, you know, he, the Trump administration has promised. And for everything that they've put these girls through, this is what they deserve.

This follows President Trump’s executive order stating that under the Title IX provision of civil rights law women are shielded from having to compete against men in scholastic sports. Advocates hailed it as a victory for fairness in women’s athletics. But Penn argues that it was simply following the NCAA rules at the time. 

Bondi challenges Judge Boasberg's actions » Attorney General Pam Bondi is blasting U.S. District Judge James Boasberg for his order temporarily halting the deportation of high-risk illegal immigrants, such as gang members.

BONDI: Why is a judge trying to protect terrorists who have invaded our country over American citizens?

Bondi notes that the president has legally declared certain foreign gangs as designated terrorist organizations. Boaserg, an Obama appointee, issued the 14-day block on Saturday. It bars President Trump’s administration from ordering the deportations under the rarely invoked Alien Enemies Act.

BONDI:  You have one unelected federal judge trying to control foreign policies, trying to control the Alien Enemies Act, which they have no business presiding over.

Bondi asserts that the Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua gang is supported by the regime of Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro and is acting on its behalf. 

Illinois homeschool bill protest » Thousands of homeschool parents protested inside the Illinois state capitol on Wednesday. They showed up to protest legislation that they’re calling an assault on parental rights.  The sponsors of the Homeschool Act argue that it will help regulate the fast growing homeschool movement and ensure that kids are getting a good education. But parents at the capital pushed back.

PARENT 1:  I feel like it's overage because I don't co parent with the government. My children are mine and I get to decide what we learn.

PARENT 2: It doesn't feel great to have the government who is struggling to educate in the public school sector to tell us how we should educate our children.

Under the bill, government officials could demand educational portfolios without stated cause. Non-compliance could lead to fines or even jail time.

SOUND: [IDF in Gaza]

Israel latest » Israel is once again on the move in the Central Gaza Strip. The Israeli military today released video of what it says are Israeli forces carrying out a limited ground operation to retake a key Gaza corridor. That comes more than two weeks after a ceasefire expired. Hamas is once again refusing to release hostages and flat-out rejected a U.S.-proposal for a renewed ceasefire deal supported by Israel.

KATZ: [Speaking Hebrew]

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz says airstrikes against Hamas terrorists this week were only the first step of a renewed offensive. He says that unless all of the Israeli hostages are released immediately and Hamas is expelled from Gaza, Israel will act with an intensity that hasn’t been seen yet.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: bringing stability to Syria. Plus, how one church in Louisville helps the visually impaired read the Bible.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday, the 20th of March.

This is WORLD Radio and we thank you for listening! Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Up first on The World and Everything in It: new alliances in Syria.

After rebel groups toppled the regime of Bashar al-Assad in December, Syria’s interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa promised to end the violence. But conflict rages on.

REICHARD: Earlier this month, Islamist rebels carried out a brutal massacre in Syria’s northern coastal region—targeting Alawites, Christians, and other minorities.

Now, in an effort to regain control, al-Sharaa announced a deal with the Syrian Democratic Forces…a Kurdish-led group backed by the United States.

If the deal holds, what would it accomplish?

BROWN: Joining us now is David Adesnik. He’s a Senior Fellow and Vice President of Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. A former official at the U.S. Department of Defense, he’s spent years studying Syria and Iran.

REICHARD: David, good morning.

DAVID ADESNIK: Good morning.

REICHARD: Let’s start with some background…Syria’s interim leader al-Sharaa is also the head of the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham … or HTS. This is a group with past links to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS). What’s the significance of this group making a deal with the Kurdish forces of SDF, again, that group supported by the US?

ADESNIK: Sure. I think the important thing to notice for several years, Shahra, even before he was president and the group, have tried to present themselves as moving on a moderating path and no longer being committed to global jihad. I think it's likely the case they have not directly engaged in international terrorism although they have many ties to other groups that have not repudiated those things. They've feuded with other al-Qaeda groups. They have feuded with the Islamic State rather bitterly. And they've persuaded a lot of people that they've made this move. I think there's a lot of open questions about how much they've changed. And of course now they're effectively in charge. al-Sharaa as the president, he has installed his HTS allies throughout the government, especially in the military and security services. And I think the significance of the deal is its significance in theory and not significance in fact, that it is very unlikely this will lead to an actual integration, the nominal goal of all sides is that Syria should have one national army. But the Syrian Democratic forces and their heavily Kurdish components really, I think, have very little faith in al-Sharaa that he has changed. And by the same token, Shahra will not really want to accept another group having a force that numbers perhaps as much as 100,000 operating with U.S. support on Syrian territory. So the U .S. will push this deal. It wants to avoid a bigger conflict, but it might simply be a delaying tactic until we could see more things play out in the Syrian transition.

REICHARD: Israel and Iran are watching Syria closely, for good reason, as is the rest of the world. What does Syria’s interim government and its initial actions mean in particular for Israel and Iran?

ADESNIK: Well, I think there's a deep hostility toward Iran from the new Syrian government, right? Iran backed Assad relentlessly during the civil war. They backed all of his atrocities. They helped form militias, send Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy and terrorist group in Lebanon to facilitate everything Assad was doing. And those who are on the receiving end are not likely to forget it anytime soon. Hundreds of thousands have died, tens of thousands disappeared. As for Israel, I think you could tell from some of the public statements of their leaders that they believe once someone was an al -Qaeda commander, and he was a commander for quite a long time, they have a very hard time believing that tiger has changed its stripes, that obviously part of the al -Qaeda worldview is hating Jews, hating Israel, hating America, and so of all the audiences that have been exposed to the campaign to show HTS's moderation, al-Sharaa's moderation, the Israelis are the ones buying it absolutely the least. On the other hand, what's been somewhat surprising is al-Sharaa has clearly signaled a number of times he's not looking for a fight. And I think that's likely because he's in such a weak position. He doesn't have unified control of his own country. In the final days of Assad's rule, Israel destroyed most of the weapons stores that Assad had. And then while al-Sharaa deals with other challenges, the last thing he needs is another fight, regardless of what he feels about Israel.

REICHARD: David, going back to the massacre from earlier this month, do we know who is responsible for the killings?

ADESNIK: There's certainly more to learn, but the basic narrative that most observers seem to agree on is that initially there was an attack by a pro -Assad insurgent group remnants of the regime that does not want the new government in place and that may have included some attacks on civilians but what really happened after that was an overwhelming response that included both hitting those pro -Assad insurgents as well as slaughtering a tremendous number of Alawites and then after that the Alawite pro-Assad groups retaliated killing a lot of other Syrians. So there's obviously some debate about who committed the first atrocity but it seems relatively clear that it was the government forces and I should say it's not clear they're under the government's control and that's a big part of problem. These are clearly ideal forces ideologically aligned with al-Sharaa and what he does, but he seemed to be saying, “Don’t do this. Don’t make my life harder, because my international image is going to suffer.” And these forces just wanted to go ahead and take revenge.

REICHARD: Wrapping up here…are you encouraged or concerned about the direction Syria’s taken in the months since the fall of Assad? And why?

ADESNIK: Well, I guess at the beginning there's just the encouragement that comes with the end of a very brutal regime that was advancing all of Iran's goals in the region, you know, threatening both American interests and threatening Israel. So that's encouraging. But in terms of what it could have been, I see a lot of troubling signs. The most recent one I would point to is the new constitution, or technically a declaration and interim constitution for five years. It's in a lot of ways a blueprint for dictatorship. It puts the executive power under al-Sharaa. It lets him appoint the entire legislature and it lets him appoint their Supreme Court, as well as giving him numerous other powers and saying that all civil liberties can be violated if by the government, if they believe there's a threat to public order or even public norms. So we are not seeing a state that is headed in the direction of a more tolerant, inclusive, or representative government.

REICHARD: David Adesnik is with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. David, thank you so much.

ADESNIK: Thank you.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It :free speech for people who aren’t American citizens.

REUTERS: Down down with occupation!

Pro-Palestinian protests have roiled many universities and colleges in the US since the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians, along with Israel’s response.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: The Trump administration has responded by pledging to combat anti-Semitism. Part of its response are efforts to deport student protesters it claims are Hamas supporters—among them, Mahmoud Khalil.

PROTEST LEADER: Release Mahmoud.

PROTESTERS: Right now.

Khalil’s supporters say the First Amendment protects him… the Trump administration says he’s supporting a terrorist organization.

BROWN: Joining us now to talk about it is Steve West. He’s a reporter for WORLD who worked for more than 30 years as a federal prosecutor in Raleigh, N.C.. Steve good morning.

STEVE WEST: Good morning, Myna.

BROWN: Steve, Mahmoud Khalil has been in the news. Remind us who he is.

WEST: Khalil is a recent Columbia University graduate who was significantly involved in the protests on that campus. He was an outspoken critic of Israel and its military response to the attacks by Hamas. He often served as a negotiator between the administration and protesters—some of whom were simply protesting but others of whom were illegally occupying buildings or encampments. He’s not an American citizen but is a legal permanent resident—he has his “green card”—and was on track to becoming an American citizen until he was taken into custody by immigration agents on March 8th.

BROWN: The Trump administration has called for his deportation. What is the administration’s case?

WEST: Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said it’s not a case about free speech. I think what he really means to suggest is that it’s about immigration law and whether the government’s foreign policy and national security interests trump Khalil’s free speech rights. The government is relying on a provision of federal law that allows it to remove or deport someone if “the secretary of state has reasonable grounds to believe that their presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” The government says Khalil was a supporter of Hamas, a designated terrorist organization, that he distributed pro-Hamas leaflets on campus. But so far it hasn’t really been put to its proof.

BROWN: Some advocates are jumping in…saying this is an infringement on free speech rights. What is their case?

WEST: They have a strong case. Once someone is legally in the country, they have the same free speech rights as an American citizen. And the First Amendment protects all kinds of despicable, hateful speech—speech that may evoke strong emotions. And, in Khalil’s case, speech that may make us want to kick him out of the country. It doesn’t protect conduct that is criminal in nature. But so far the government hasn’t contended that Khalil was involved in criminal activity or gave any material support to Hamas. That may come, but not yet. Until yesterday, the court in New York has been hearing arguments over where the case will be heard. Now we know: It’s been transferred to New Jersey, where Khalil was confined when the petition for his release was filed.

BROWN: What are the larger stakes in this case?

WEST: If this can happen to Khalil over anti-Semitic speech that most people would deplore, what’s to keep a different administration from deporting those who voice support for other culturally unpopular ideas? And can the constitutional guarantee of free speech be overridden when the government simply says the person’s presence or activities will cause potentially adverse forfeit policy consequences? Or does it have to make a showing of what that will be? We’re about to find out.

I asked Brad Jacob, a constitutional law professor at Regent College of Law, to weigh in.

BRAD JACOB: What if Kamala Harris had won the presidential election and she's now president of the United States and you have somebody who's in the country on a green card who goes and does a pro-life protest outside of an abortion clinic and they're screaming, you know, you're murdering your baby, you're murdering your baby. And so President Harris says, "Well, we're revoking your green card. We're going to kick you out of the country because this is so offensive, what you've been saying. Same situation. You just flipped the politics.

BROWN: The Trump administration has threatened that this is only the first of many other similar actions…how important is Khalil’s case to their future plans?

WEST: I’d say pretty important. They’ve claimed a very powerful right to deport anyone deemed against the foreign policy interests of the United States. I don’t expect the federal district court will be the end of it but it will likely be appealed at least to the court of appeal if not the Supreme Court. And undoubtedly there are other ways to work on this issue—like whether to grant a student visa or let someone in the country in the first place. Or, as has already occurred, threatening to withdraw federal funding from universities that don’t take actions to curb anti-Semitic activity.

BROWN: It’s not just the government making this a case of national significance, is it?

For their part, Khalil’s attorneys have sought to make his case a referendum on the Trump administration’s goal of quelling what it has termed anti-Semitic activity. Earlier this week they asked the court to block the administration’s efforts nationwide to arrest, detain, or remove any noncitizens who engage in constitutionally protected expressive activity in support of Palestinian rights or who are critical of Israel. So, it’s a bellwether case for the Trump administration efforts to quell anti-Semitism, and it could also be its judge.

BROWN: Steve West is a legal reporter for WORLD and editor of the weekly Liberties newsletter. We encourage listeners to check that out. Steve, thanks for this report.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: A mix-up at a Bulgarian soccer match left fans grieving for a former player.

Before kick-off, the club held a solemn moment of silence for Petko Ganchev:

SOUND: [Moment of silence]

Nice gesture, except Ganchev is very much alive and well.

In fact, he was driving home to watch the game on TV when his phone started buzzing with concerned calls. Then his wife ran out, crying over the announcement of his untimely demise.

At 78, Ganchev assured everyone he’s still kickin’.

The club quickly apologized for the mix-up, blaming bad information. But Ganchev wasn’t rattled—because if soccer teaches you anything, it’s how to recover from a bad call.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, March 20th.

We’re glad you’ve joined us today on The World and Everything in It. Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

More than 43 million people throughout the world are blind or visually impaired. According to Lutheran Braille Workers: 95-percent of them don’t have a church home. Now, some congregations are stepping up to bring the Word of God right to their fingertips.

Recent WORLD Journalism Institute graduate Betsy Brown has the story.

SOUND: [Chatter from volunteers]

BETSY BROWN, REPORTER: A small group gathers in the foyer at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Louisville, Kentucky.

They get together every week to print scripture in braille.

DONNA GRANDERSON: This is Jeremiah volume two and Lamentations…

Donna Granderson is one of six volunteers today.

Normally there are 12 and each one has a role.

SOUND: [Press turning on, machine start up, “It’s gonna be loud”]

The process starts by placing blank sheets of paper between metal plates. And that’s when Jerry Granderson steps in.

JERRY GRANDERSON: Basically, I load the grill plates into this envelope, you know, a hinged envelope, and then we put it through the press and that's what puts the bumps on the paper, so to speak.

Leslie Faulkner takes the newly printed pages…

FAULKNER: I just take the imprinted pages out in order and get the plates ready to go again to be re-stuffed.

The book they’re printing contains 61 sheets of paper and is just over 2 inches thick.

Jerry puts it in perspective.

JERRY: So if you can then imagine what it would look like if you had the entire Bible in Braille, it would stack to the ceiling all of those Braille Bibles.

AUDIO: [“Oh wait a minute…”]

Every now and then the group slows down to check their work..

While they’re all familiar with scripture, Sisters Debbie and Sue Wolter point out they’re not able to read the words they’ve printed.

DEBBIE: Jerry here has numbered, because none of us reads braille so if we get them out of order we’re in trouble.

SUE: And that's the hardest thing, because, again, if we can't read the Braille, so we have to, you know, check page numbers and just continually be, you know, observant.

Samples are sent to The Lutheran Braille Ministry headquarters in California for proofreading and quality control.

DEBBIE: I don't think we've ever had a problem with books that we've had to send to them. We usually catch the problem if there is one here.

On a normal week the group will repeat the process until they have 15 copies to box and ship that same day.

Jerry says the books go to individuals and organizations throughout the world.

JERRY: Some of them go here in the United States, but the majority of them go overseas to, like, Nigeria, Bangladesh, India. We send a lot to those places.

The Congregation’s efforts reached more than 56-hundred people with the word of God in 2023.

The braille ministry has been part of the church for several decades. Sue says that’s drawn the group close.

SUE: Once you join Braille, you stay in Braille until you can't do it, and, yeah, until you can't do it, until you physically feel you can't do it anymore. You know, other than that, I've never seen anybody not want to be doing it.

Lutheran Braille Workers credits the congregation for giving more than $183,000 in labor in 2023. It’s something the volunteers say they’re glad to do.

JERRY: This is a pay-for-play service so each week we each contribute into the kitty to help fund for the materials. So I like to tell people you know the pay is not that great here but the benefits are heavenly.

AUDIO: The friendship is phenomenal. The fellowship we get each week is great.

And according to Sue, they’ve seen the fruit of their work in their own congregation.

SUE: We have a gentleman who comes to our church periodically, who is blind, and we had the youth, second graders here one day learning how we do this. They got to see he could read it just as fast in braille as they could with their eyes.

SOUND: [Printing and sorting sounds]

After about an hour, all 122 pages of the volume are printed, and Donna binds it together.

DONNA: There you go, a finished book.

Another volume of scripture ready for new hands to read.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Betsy Brown in Louisville, Kentucky.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, March 20th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. WORLD commentator Cal Thomas says even “very bad people” have constitutional rights.

CAL THOMAS: President Trump is using an 18th-century law to justify the deportation of hundreds of people he says are members of a vicious Venezuelan gang. The Alien Enemies Act was last used during World War II by the Roosevelt administration to justify the internment of Japanese Americans. The government later apologized for that action. It paid reparations to the detained survivors, but not until 1988 in the last year of the Reagan administration.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered a halt to deportations until a hearing could be held. The administration said the planes deporting Venezuelans were already in the air and over international waters last Saturday before the judge’s order. President Trump has called for the impeachment of Boasberg, a President Obama appointee.

One can agree that these Venezuelans are “very bad people” while still defending their right to due process, a concept at least as old as the Magna Carta.

In a summation of the Magna Carta’s influence on modern law, a posting on the Library of Congress site says: “The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which guarantee that no person shall ‘be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,’ incorporated the model of the rule of law that English and American lawyers associated most closely with Magna Carta for centuries. Under this model, strict adherence to regular procedure was the most important safeguard against tyranny.”

There was at least one option other than paying $6 million to El Salvador to take the Venezuelans and imprison them. It’s what the administration initially planned – send suspected criminals to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to await a hearing before an immigration judge. Hundreds of tents were erected for the prospective deportees. The administration apparently preferred a faster strategy. Perhaps to demonstrate how tough it could be when following through on Trump’s campaign and subsequent promises to rid the country of undocumented aliens and “known criminals.”

That approach has likely contributed to Trump’s record high poll numbers, but at what cost?

If the Venezuelans had been sent to Guantanamo and each one appeared before an immigration judge, it’s likely they would end up being deported. That would uphold constitutional law and produce the same results as the administration desires.

Think of it this way: If you were charged with a crime, would you want the government bypassing a jury trial to satisfy a government or political objective? This is the way totalitarian regimes behave. It should not be a policy of the United States. No president should be allowed to unilaterally remove constitutional rights from anyone, including those who may have broken the law to get to this country.

Founding Father George Mason said: “…No free government, nor the blessings of liberty can be preserved, to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue; by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles; and by the recognition by all citizens that they have duties as well as rights, and that such rights cannot be enjoyed save in a society where law is respected and due process is observed.”

Either due process is for everybody, or it is for nobody.

I’m Cal Thomas.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: Culture Friday with John Stonestreet. Collin Garbarino reviews Disney’s latest take on Snow White. And, Bob Case brings us back to the Great American Songbook. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

If you enjoyed Betsy Brown’s story today, just a quick reminder that it’s the sort of journalism we’ll teach during our upcoming WORLD Journalism Institute course. Our two-week annual seminar for college students and recent graduates is coming up in May. We’re currently accepting applications. The deadline is next Friday. Apply today. You can learn more at wji.world.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

Jesus said: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.” —John 15:9

Go now in grace and peace.

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