The World and Everything in It: April 1, 2025

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Voters in Wisconsin today will choose a new justice for the state Supreme Court the outcome likely to affect a contentious abortion case.

DEGNER: And what that case would do is it's seeking to create a constitutional right for abortion in the state of Wisconsin.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today, a new report shows South Korea violated the rights of children in its foreign adoption program.

And later:

JAMES: This all started because I decided to take a year off drinking alcohol in late 2019.

A cafe owner in San Francisco sees a buzz-worthy opportunity, but without the booze.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, April 1st. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, Mark Mellinger with today’s news.

MARK MELLINGER, NEWS ANCHOR:  Russia sees ending Ukraine War as drawn-out process » Russia is now calling its efforts to end its war with Ukraine ‘a drawn-out process.’ A Kremlin spokesman says Russia is working to implement some elements of a potential peace deal with Ukraine, and the work is ongoing.

But the EU says Ukraine’s allies need to find a way to turn up the pressure on Vladimir Putin.

KALLAS: Russia is playing games and not really wanting peace.

That’s EU Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas.

Over the weekend, President Trump called out Russian leader Putin for questioning Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s credibility.

ZELENZSKYY: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

Meantime, Zelenskyy says there’s been no letup in Russian attacks, which he says shows Putin couldn’t care less about diplomacy.

Russia has effectively rejected a U.S.-brokered plan for a 30-day ceasefire.

Three U.S. soldiers killed in Lithuania » The U.S. Army says the bodies of three of the four U.S. soldiers who went missing in Lithuania, have been discovered.

SOUND: [Lithuania search]

They were found dead in their armored vehicle, after it was pulled from a swampy area Monday.

The soldiers were on a tactical training exercise in Lithuania when they and their vehicle were reported missing last week.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Eric Costello is part of the U.S. Navy dive team involved in the search. He says environmental factors have made diving in the area difficult.

COSTELLO: Just the amount of mud diving in a peat bog. You know, just complete zero vis, hard to move kind of diving. It's been an interesting experience for us.

Crews are still looking for the fourth missing soldier.

Myanmar quake death toll eclipses 2,000 » The death toll from last week’s earthquake in Myanmar has now passed 2,000. That’s according to the country’s state media.

Aid groups are worried hunger and disease outbreaks will only get worse in a country already struggling with civil war.

Michael Dunford with the World Food Programme says the WFP has just begun its relief efforts.

DUNFORD: And that’s the start of an operation which we expect we will need to scale up dramatically over the course of the next days and weeks. The devastation caused by this earthquake is immense.

In addition to over 2,000 dead, Myanmar’s government says about 4,000 people are hurt and another 270 missing. Relief groups expect all those numbers to rise sharply, since access is slow to remote areas where communications are down.

Trump causes stir with third term talk » President Trump is raising eyebrows with talk of running for a third term. After broaching the topic over the weekend, he talked about it again with reporters in the Oval Office Monday.

TRUMP: People are asking me to run, and there’s a whole story about running for a third term. I don’t know. I’d never looked into it. They do say there’s a way you can do it, but I don’t know about that.

The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution forbids Trump from running for a third term. And the 12th Amendment bars Trump from even running for vice president, meaning he couldn’t run as the number two and then be handed the baton by his running mate after the election, as Trump suggested this weekend.

Trump brought this idea up as a joke before, so it’s not clear how serious he is. But the only way he could legally win a third term would be if Congress and the states amended the Constitution.

Florida special elections preview » Republicans are hoping to protect their slim margin in the House of Representatives today, during two special elections in Florida.

The races are to fill the seats vacated by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Matt Gaetz, who was originally President Trump’s nominee for Attorney General.

Polls show tight races, but Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley projected confidence to FOX News’s The Story with Martha McCallum.

WHATLEY: Republicans are going to hold both of those seats in Florida. It’s going to be a hold, and we’re going to continue the work that we’re doing in Congress to work on the president’s agenda.

The GOP has a razor thin 218 to 213 seat margin in the House over the Democrats.

There’s also a big election in Wisconsin today to fill the seat of a retiring state Supreme Court justice. An in-depth look at that race is just a few minutes away.

Rescued astronauts speak publicly for first time » Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are speaking out, after their extended stay aboard the International Space Station.

They were only supposed to visit the station for eight days. But they wound up stuck there for more than nine months, after problems surfaced with their Boeing Starliner capsule.

Wilmore told reporters there's plenty of blame to go around.

WILMORE: And I'll start with me. There were questions that I, as the commander of the spacecraft, that I should have asked, and I did not.

But he says he'd be more than happy to climb aboard the spacecraft again.

WILMORE: Because we're going to rectify all the issues that we encountered. We're going to fix them, we're going to make it work.

Williams said she was more than happy to set her personal goals aside for nine months to see the mission through to its end...regardless of when that turned out to be.

WILLIAMS: We came, as Butch has mentioned before, prepared, and we were ready to do that pivot and be part of that bigger thing that’s not just about us.

Both agreed space travel is inherently complex and difficult, and astronauts have to be prepared to roll with the punches.

I’m Mark Mellinger.

Straight ahead: South Korea admits its adoption program after the Korean War harmed many children and families. Plus, the rise of non-alcoholic social drinking.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday, the 1st of April.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Up first, Wisconsin heads to the polls.

After 30 years on the bench, a liberal justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court is retiring. That’ll leave the seven-member court evenly divided ideologically. Today, voters will decide which way the balance will tip.

EICHER: Conservatives hope to reclaim the majority after losing it in 2023, and they are spending big to do it. As of Wednesday, spending on the race has broken a record: $81 million from groups inside and outside the state. That’s almost $30 million more than the race two years ago.

REICHARD: WORLD’s Leah Savas now with a story on where the candidates stand.

CAMPAIGN AD: When she was a lawyer, Susan Crawford defended Planned Parenthood, and she personally trusts women to decide whether to have an abortion.

LEAH SAVAS: That’s the message of a March ad from Susan Crawford’s campaign. She’s the liberal Wisconsin judge competing with conservative Judge Brad Schimel for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Crawford is hoping pro-abortion sentiment will fuel her victory.

CRAWFORD: There's been a lot of talk about this Supreme Court race but here's what's really at stake. Brad Schimel wants to make sure women don't have the right to make their own health care decisions. If he wins, that right is gone.

There is currently no right to abortion enshrined in the Wisconsin constitution or in state supreme court precedent. But Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin filed a lawsuit last year trying to change that. Susan Crawford previously represented that Planned Parenthood chapter as a lawyer, and the court has already agreed to hear the case.

DEGNER: And what that case would do is it's seeking to create a constitutional right for abortion in the state of Wisconsin.

That’s Daniel Degner, president of the Christian advocacy group Wisconsin Family Council.

DEGNER: And so that case has not been heard yet, but it is very likely that if the liberal Susan Crawford wins this race, that then that case will be heard, and it is very likely that the liberal state Supreme Court would find a right to abortion in the state constitution under our protections for life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

In his campaign, Schimel has emphasized that it’s not up to judges to decide the legality of abortion. He and his wife adopted two daughters born to teen moms facing unplanned pregnancies.

SCHIMEL: I’m personally grateful for the choice their birth mothers made. But a judge’s job is to apply the law, not make the law. The people of Wisconsin through referendum or their elected representatives should decide the question of abortion. I’m Brad Schimel, and I will respect the will of the people.

In November, the court heard another case regarding a state law that protects unborn babies from abortion throughout pregnancy. It became law in 1849, but the legislature has not repealed it in all this time. So the state’s own pro-abortion attorney general sued in 2022 to block its enforcement. Crawford’s campaign suggests Schimel could be the deciding vote in that case.

NARRATOR: Brad Schimel wants to take us back—back to an abortion ban from 1849.

But according to the Wisconsin Court System’s public information office, the court will issue that ruling before the new justice is sworn in. So even if Schimel wins, he won’t get to weigh in on the case. The current liberal majority on the state supreme court will likely permanently block enforcement of that law.

Still, with another abortion case on the horizon that could lead to a state right to kill unborn babies, Degner from Wisconsin Family Council says this election is key.

DEGNER: If Brad Schimel loses this election, for conservatives to be able to take the court back, they have to win in … 2026 they have to win in 2027 and then they have to win again in 2028 before they can have the opportunity to take the court back.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leah Savas.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It:

Holding South Korea accountable.

There’s a new report from South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It says the government played a direct role in violating the rights of children in the country’s foreign adoption program.

NICK EICHER, HOST: WORLD’s Lindsay Mast reports on what the commission found, including disturbing details about practices that went on for decades.

ROBYN JOY PARK: It really kind of flipped my world upside down and had me really questioning … “Well, who am I then?”

LINDSAY MAST: When Robyn Joy Park moved from America back to South Korea after college, she wanted to know more about her heritage. She was born there, then adopted in 1982. An adoption agency found the birth mother on Park’s paperwork. They grew close.

Audio from a documentary produced by Frontline PBS.

PARK: The relationship with her developed over time. It was about, like six years.

She wanted to know more about her father, so she did some DNA testing.

PARK: I learned that this was not my biological mother. Initially it was kind of denial, no this can’t be true. All this paperwork shows otherwise.

Park was left to wonder what had happened. Later, she would learn she wasn’t the only Korean adoptee with questions.

AUDIO: Park Sun Young, chairperson of Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Last week, the South Korea Truth and Reconciliation Commission released findings from a two-year-plus investigation into its international adoption program, placing children from Korea in other countries. The commission found human rights violations including fraudulent orphan registrations, child identity tampering, and the inadequate vetting of adoptive parents.

Historian Paul Cha is a senior lecturer at Hong Kong University specializing in modern Korean History.

PAUL CHA: There was a confluence of forces that led to South Korea coming to be this very pivotal place and location where international adoption suddenly became big business.

Korea’s intercountry adoptions grew rapidly in the 1950s, following the U.S. occupation of the peninsula and the Korean War. The country was shattered. Many children had been orphaned or separated from their families.

From the 1950s to 1990s, more than 140,000 Korean children were adopted internationally. Early on, many were the mixed-race children of Western soldiers and Korean women. Those children would have been at risk in a homogenous culture that wouldn’t have accepted them.

CHA: So there's demand in the US, for babies, for adoptions, there is supply in Korea caused by the Korean War. And then there's also the Cold War context, and religion, in particular, Christianity.

As the country worked to overcome the effects of the war, Cha says Christian aid agencies spread the word that children in South Korea were in danger. And people in the west—many of them Christians—were eager to help.

The commission says the Korean government saw intercountry adoption as a cost-effective way to strengthen the country’s child welfare system. But some adoption practices it allowed violated the rights of both the children and their birth parents.

CHA: At least half, if not more of the children who are at these orphanages are not orphans. So if you're not careful, right, you are sending abroad children who are not orphans. They're not abandoned in the true sense of the word. And so in a rush to do something, in a rush to act, they didn't take proper care and time, and children got hurt as a result of that.

The report says in giving adoption agencies authority over the process, it left little oversight to regulate their conduct. That left Korean children vulnerable.

AUDIO: Park Sun Young, chairperson of Truth and Reconciliation Commission

The chair of the commission says 367 adoptees from 11 countries filed petitions requesting the investigation. Its findings are dark.

The report documents babies who were taken from biological parents who hadn’t given proper consent, as well as deliberate neglect by adoption agencies in finding the parents of abandoned children.

There were cursory processes for approving adoptive parents. Thousands of approvals processed in just one day.

The commission also found forced donations to adoption agencies … and discussions about just how many babies the agencies could make available each month.

A black and white photo in the report shows rows of children on a plane headed to Denmark. The infants lay swaddled in their blankies, held in place with seatbelts.

CAMERON LEE SMALL: There was deception involved. This is disturbing information.

Cam Lee Small is a licensed professional clinical counselor in Minnesota. He specializes in helping adoptees work through adoption grief and trauma.

He was also adopted from Korea in the 1980s. He has memories of his mother and father, before his father died. He is not part of the investigation, but it hits close to home.

SMALL: For adoptees who are my age, or just people who were adopted back then, and now, we're wondering, okay, well, what was I rescued? Was I trafficked? Was my information falsified? Did my mom want me or not, like, which one is it? I was told she loved me so much she gave me away. Now I'm finding out that some mothers were coerced or lied to.

He was reunited with his mother as an adult. But grappling with his identity drove him to help other adoptees do the same. He says it can be especially hard for cases where a person’s origins aren’t clear.

SMALL: So in that sense of betrayal trauma, the literature, uh, talks about the loss of trust in authority figures, the loss of continuity. Is my story true? Where am I from? Who am I from? Why was I placed for adoption? Why have I had to live with these questions and sadness and different, uh, conflicts and tension throughout my life?

So far, the commission has found more than 50 of the cases showed human rights violations. It plans to investigate the remaining cases by May. It recommends the government issue an official apology, and ratify the Hague Convention rules for protecting children in international adoptions.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports since 2012, 15,000 adoptees have asked South Korea for help finding family members. Only a fifth have reunited with relatives.

The other 12,000—and perhaps many more—are left wondering about their origins.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: In the news business, you never bury the lede. Except, when you do. Because sometimes it’s buried treasure.

High school band members desperately wanted news on how well they’d done in a state competition.

So the band director steps aboard the bus, starts off with what a growing experience this was for them.

Totally priming the kids for bad news, when he revealed a plaque.

AUDIO: I knew it was going to be important to the students

Yeah, kind of important … it was precisely the “superior” rating they sought—the highest honor from the North Carolina Bandmasters Association.

Student Haley Kinzler caught the whole thing.

KINZLER: Halfway through, I thought it was going to be, like, a sad video… but I was just getting it for my friend. And then I decided to post it.

Band director Andrew Howell saying the moment meant as much to him as it did to them.

HOWELL: I share in their excitement when they’re successful… I think that was the most rewarding part of the entire experience.

Indeed it was.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, April 1st.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: alternatives to alcohol.

More people are cutting back on alcohol— or giving it up entirely. Different people have different reasons: some are part of a growing emphasis on personal wellness. Others are reacting to public-health warnings—that even moderate drinking may increase risk of health problems, including cancer.

REICHARD: To meet the growing demand, sober bars and bottle shops are opening across the country. But some who forgo alcohol are seeking something different.

Here’s WORLD’s Kristen Flavin.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: There’s a cafe between the Golden Gate Park and Ocean Beach in San Francisco. It looks like a great spot for a mid-afternoon pit stop.

AUDIO: [Coffee sounds]

HINDELANG: To be honest, we were just looking for a place to use the restroom and grab some food.

Brad Hindelang and his wife Rosella are tourists from Austin, Texas. They’re in town with their six- and eight-year old sons.

They quickly learned this spot is anything but typical.

JAMES: My name is Joshua James. I own Ocean Beach Cafe…

WORLD senior writer Mary Jackson reported our story from San Francisco and visited this first-in-the-country cafe.

JAMES: … Now there's probably over 100 of them out there and this all started because I decided to take a year off drinking alcohol in late 2019.

James is a former bartender who realized he had a problem with alcohol in his mid-thirties. After a DUI and being let go from another job, he checked himself into rehab.

JAMES: Alcohol really exaggerates things that you have within you. And it wasn't some kind of exaggeration of things that were within me. It was more like in extreme cases where it was like being possessed. That's the only way I could describe something. It's like when something else is operating. So like being told I said certain, certain things when I was blacked out. I'm like, Okay, this is not cool.

So, James quit drinking alcohol. And he soon discovered he didn’t like most of the non-alcoholic options. But at just the right time, major companies were rolling out new selections. James wasn’t the only one looking for better alternatives.

While wine and beer sales have declined post-pandemic, the market for non-alcoholic drinks has risen 27 percent, nearing $1 billion. Then, in January, the former U.S. surgeon general called for cancer warnings on alcoholic beverages.

With his eclectic menu, James now finds himself at the forefront of the so-called “sober-curious” movement.

AUDIO: [Sound of drinks being made]

JAMES: Gently slide the ice into the spritz, so I can retain as much carbonation for my sparkling wine.

While Brad Hindelang’s wife and sons use the restroom, he eyes the fridge stocked with craft nonalcoholic beer.

James strikes up a conversation.

JAMES: So like, gentlemen like this, come in and they're like, What do you got? I'm like, I got Imperial IPAs. [laughs] What do you usually like to drink?

Brad and his wife have cut back on alcohol. It was making them tired and giving them headaches.

JAMES: You gotta try this. This one's on me. I want you to try a beer. There's no alcohol.

When Rosella and the boys join, she settles on a bottle of nonalcoholic red wine James imports from Austria.

James says interactions like this happen every day. Nonalcoholic drinks make up 40 percent of his sales. And he’s passionate about reaching what he sees as a wide-open market.

One challenge is educating people about the array of options.

AUDIO: [Sounds of scooping ice]

JAMES: It’s going to have this ginger burn, and it’s gonna have lemon, it’s gonna have all these herbs.

The cafe’s non-alcoholic cocktails cost between $16 and $18. And while some customers seek a drink that resembles traditional alcoholic beverages, others are looking for an alternative buzz. James offers some drinks with psychoactive and alternative medicinal ingredients.

That’s where this new market gets a little murky.

JAMES: And we certainly have people that are like, Okay, what do you got? Ooh, you got Kava? I'd love to have a kava drink. Kava is super hot right now. We probably sell more kava beverages than anybody else in the city right now

Kava is a root that comes from the Pacific Islands. It’s marketed as an herbal supplement––and now, a drink. James says it tastes like dirt and numbs your mouth. But it’s said to relax your muscles and relieve anxiety.

JAMES: If you took another shot of it, then it'd be like, Okay, now I'm feeling like, relaxed. I'm having an experience here, and I kind of like it.

Some studies show Kava could cause liver damage and other complications. People taking antidepressants should not consume it.

This cafe sells other drinks containing psychoactive ingredients that could pose health risks for pregnant and breastfeeding women. Those are awkward questions to pepper a new customer with.

Still, James seems unphased.

AUDIO: [Ice, bar sounds]

JAMES: I have a pretty glass with flowers on it, gonna give this a nice, hard shake.

AUDIO: [Ice shaking]

Until recently, James offered “Hemptails,” which are low-dose hemp-derived THC drinks. THC is the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis that makes you high. And while marijuana is legal for adults in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom approved an emergency ban in September on products containing hemp-derived THC. The move highlighted the growing tension between the state’s heavily regulated marijuana industry––and the burgeoning hemp sector.

James argues drinks with a low dosage of THC are less harmful than alcohol. Or the high THC levels found at the dispensary down the street.

JAMES: And this one you can have because there's like, there isn't any, like, buzzy ingredients in here. It's just awesome. You'll see, I gotta garnish this one up too.

But it’s clear the nonalcoholic market is in for some road bumps. And consumers should do their homework.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, April 1st. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. WORLD Opinions contributor Hunter Baker now on the lasting legacy of a pro-life champion.

HUNTER BAKER: In February, members of the DuPage County board in Illinois voted to remove longtime Congressman Henry Hyde’s name from the county courthouse. To my knowledge, this is the first time a name has been removed from a government building for a person whose primary achievement was pro-life legislation.

Who was Henry Hyde? He was a member of Congress representing a suburban district in Chicago from 1975-2007. Although he never ascended to a greater office, Henry Hyde’s name was attached to some of the most important legislation of the last 50 years. His Hyde amendment passed in 1976. It prohibited the use of federal funds to pay for abortions except in certain circumstances such as protecting the life of the mother. The legislation was historic in its impact because it represented the first reversal for pro-abortion policy after the sweeping decision of the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. Through Congress, Americans were able to draw a line so as to limit the federal government’s support of abortion. It was important to do so because abortions soared despite the belief of some abortion advocates that the procedure would be little-used given the availability of the birth control pill.

While it was Ronald Reagan who emphatically made the Republican party a pro-life party it was Hyde who made the first big move. Until the Court overruled Roe with its Dobbs decision, the Hyde amendment was a staple of the national debates over abortion. It stood as a kind of marker indicating that while abortion was permitted as a constitutional right, it was more tolerated by the nation than enthusiastically endorsed. Hyde’s amendment was both morally right and politically brilliant.

Now, Hyde’s name comes off of a county courthouse. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out, this is no removal of a former Confederate or proponent of southern segregation. Henry Hyde’s signature contribution to American public affairs was preventing federal money from being used to fund abortions. Joe Biden supported the Hyde amendment for nearly four decades. Hillary Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine, U.S. senator from Virginia, had also been a supporter of the amendment. It looks as though a blue-leaning county now finds it acceptable to remove the name of a man who successfully authored an abortion limitation once supported by some of the biggest names in American politics, left and right. Given that the removal of a name conveys a sense of real dishonor, this is a moment that should not pass lightly.

There are some important responses to the removal of Hyde’s name. First, there is nothing dishonorable about Henry Hyde’s career as a pro-life stalwart. On the contrary, the measure he authored gained the support of many major American politicians. Second, there is something painfully partisan about going around to various edifices and wiping out names of people who no longer fit the electoral profile of the area.

The assumption would seem to be that ardent pro-life leadership of the type Hyde embodied somehow doesn’t accord with that Obama-esque arc of history that bends toward justice.

But I think the board members of DuPage County are the ones who have failed to see far enough to discern the arc of just sentiments and action. Abortion no longer has the prestige of the Supreme Court behind it, and that’s important.

And no matter how many short-term victories contribute to the seeming triumph of abortion rights advocates, I believe the longer the issue stands before us the more likely it is that we will confront the reality. We cannot continue to sustain the illusion that one child has rights and the other does not merely because he or she is wanted by his or her parents. Henry Hyde is likely to see his pro-life reputation grow as we stride into the future.

I’m Hunter Baker.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Brokering peace. The Trump administration says it is closer than ever to a deal between Russia and Ukraine. But both sides have yet to commit to it on paper. And, a nearly 70-year-old organization that’s about helping moms feed their babies … finds itself in a battle over activists nursing gender-identity grudges. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: 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.

The Psalmist writes: “For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.” –Psalms 84:10

Go now in grace and peace.

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