The World and Everything in It: June 11, 2024 (2024)

MARY REICHARD, HOST:The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like you, and for that I’m grateful!

LINDSAY MAST, HOST:As am I! We do not take your support for granted. We know that it keeps reporters reporting, writers writing, and producers producing. Thanks so much!

RICHARD: This is WORLD’s June Giving Drive and a time to remind you of the on-going nature of the news and the ongoing nature of the need:wng.org/donate

MAST: We hope you enjoy today’s program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST:Good morning!Activist shareholders want Google to stop doing business with crisis pregnancy centers.

AUDIO:Google is generating millions of dollars from ads placed by facilities known as crisis pregnancy centers or CPCs.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST:Also, China continues its crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong. Plus, former inmates are turning to the trades to get back into society.

AUDIO:So I got out, I didn’t have no birth certificate, no ID, no social security card, nothing.

And what happens when your smartphone becomes a social passport.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, June 11th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

MAST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Good morning!

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

AUDIO: 14 votes in favor, 0 votes against. The draft resolution has been adopted.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR:UN resolution, Blinken »The U.N. Security Council on Monday overwhelmingly approving a Gaza cease-fire proposal put forward by the United States.

Russia abstained from the vote but didn’t block it.

U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield:

GREENFIELD:  Hamas can now see that the international community is united, united behind a deal that will save lives and help Palestinian civilians in Gaza start to rebuild and heal.

The White House says Israel has already signed off on the deal, which would be rolled out in three phases.

The first phase includes a complete and immediate cease-fire including the release of some hostages still held by Hamas.

GREENFIELD:  In the second phase, upon agreement of the parties, there would be a permanent end to hostilities in exchange for the release of all other hostages still in Gaza and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

And phase three would include a multi-year reconstruction plan for Gaza with Hamas returning the remains of all deceased hostages.

UN vote reaction »Secretary of State Tony Blinken has returned to the Middle East and is urging regional governments to apply pressure to Hamas to accept the deal.

BLINKEN: If you want a cease-fire press Hamas to say yes. If you want to alleviate the terrible suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, press Hamas to say yes. If you want to get all the hostages home, press Hamas to say yes.

Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan said there’s reason to doubt whether an enduring cease-fire is possible long-term …

HASSAN: In the past, as you know, Hamas has broken cease-fires, uh, and, uh, not, uh, complied with their end of the agreement. It's imperative, though, uh, that we continue to work to get this negotiated ceasefire, get more hostages back, get that critical humanitarian aid into Gaza.

SOUND: [Hostage rescue]

Hostage rescue »And Israeli Defense Forces have released dramatic new footage of a hostage rescue mission over the weekend that brought four Israelis home.

SOUND:[Hostage rescue]

Israeli troops heard there bursting into an apartment building in central Gaza and engaging Hamas militants in a firefight.

Orit Meir, the mother of one of the hostages, told reporters yesterday she didn’t believe the news at first. Until she went to the hospital to see her son.

MEIR: I screamed, I was so happy and all the people gathered around me and we went to the room, we packed and we came home and they sang 'Am Israel Chai, am Israel Chai' (the people of Israel are alive) and they danced there, all the people around me. It was so…so excited.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry claims more than 270 Palestinians died amid that rescue operation.

Al-Jazeera denies reporter affiliation »Meanwhile, the Al Jazeera news network is denying claims that one of its reporters was hiding hostages in his home. Journalist Abdullah Al-Jamal died in the raid.

Al Jazeera’s Jerusalem bureau chief issued a statement saying that Al-Jamal has never worked for the outlet. But the Israeli Defense Forces call him a Hamas terrorist and posted a screenshot of what they say is Al-Jamal’s reporter bio taken from Al Jazeera’s website.

Ukraine strikes/F-16s at foreign bases »Moscow has renewed its warning that it could attack bases inside NATO countriesif they’re housing F-16s for Ukraine. WORLD’s Mark Mellinger has more.

MARK MELLINGER: Four NATO allies are set to provide over 60 F-16s in the coming months. And Ukraine says it may store some of those jets in NATO countries to protect them from Russian strikes.

But a key member of Russia’s parliament is parroting previous threats from Vladimir Putin that any bases hosting Ukrainian jets could become legitimate targets for Moscow’s forces.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has, for the first time, successfully struck Russia's most advanced fighter jet hundreds of miles behind the front lines in Russia.

The attack on the Su-57 fighter comes after Ukraine’s allies gave the green light to use Western long-range weapons for limited cross-border defensive strikes.

For WORLD, I’m Mark Mellinger.

Apple enters AI race »Apple is diving into the AI race, teaming up with OpenAI’s ChatGPT to create “Apple Intelligence.” That means big technology updates are coming soon to Apple products.

The company says among the new features, Siri will be smarter and more useful and users will be able to create their own custom emojis.

AUDIO: Simply type in a description of the emoji you want. How about a smiley face with cucumber eyes, or something random, like a squirrel DJ?

Sound there from the company’s rollout video. The new features will arrive in free software updates to iPhones, iPads, and Macs this fall.

Apple’s trying to catch up to early AI leaders Microsoft and Google.

Hunter Biden trial »Members of a jury in Delaware are huddling behind closed doors this morning working to reach a verdict in Hunter Biden’s federal trial on firearms charges. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: Lawyers for both sides wrapped up closing arguments on Monday.

The defense rested without calling Hunter Biden to the stand.

Defense attorney Abbe Lowell said the prosecution did not prove its claims that Hunter lied on a firearms purchase form when he said he was not using illegal drugs. And Lowell told jurors that they had Hunter’s “life in [their] hands.”

But Prosecutor Derek Hines told the jury, “You don’t have his life in your hands. Was he an addict? Did he know he was an addict when he filled out that form?”

He added that “Choices have consequences and that’s why we’re here.”

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Activist shareholders pressure Google to suppress pro-life clinics.Plus, getting a job after jail time.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST:It’s Tuesday the 11th of June, 2024. This is WORLD Radio and we thank you for listening. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST:And I’m Lindsay Mast. First up on The World and Everything in It:Abortion activists come for Google.

On Friday, Google’s parent company Alphabet livestreamed its annual shareholder meeting. Item number 10 on the agenda came from the Educational Foundation of America on behalf of Planned Parenthood. Here’s EFA’s Laura Nixon with its concern:

LAURA NIXON:Google is generating millions of dollars from ads placed by facilities known as crisis pregnancy centers or CPCs. These outfits present themselves as providers of legitimate reproductive health care but withhold or lie about the availability of abortion care.

REICHARD:Nixon says Google’s search tools direct women researching abortion to websites run by crisis pregnancy centers. Her group proposed that Google commission a report on the risks of doing business with crisis pregnancy centers to combat what the activists call “misinformation.”

MAST:Joining us now to talk about the proposal is Jerry Bowyer. He’s an economist, President of Bowyer Research, and a regular contributor to World Opinions.

Jerry, good morning!

JERRY BOWYER: Good morning, Lindsay. How are you?

MAST: I’m well, thank you. Well, this isn’t a new controversy. I remember back in 2021, pro-abortion watchdog groups called out Google for selling ads to clinics offering treatments to reverse abortions.

So it's not what Google's saying publicly that worries me. It's what they're saying and doing privately. Now, crisis pregnancy centers are customers, so it would be unlikely that Google would say, by the way, pay us for ads, and then we'll suppress them, so you're wasting your money. You know, it's not likely they would do that. And that might even be actionable under some of the consumer legislation in some states. But it's the behind the scenes collusion that's of concern to me.

MAST: Tell us, if you could, a bit about how organizations like the Educational Foundation of America use these shareholder resolutions to push companies to take certain actions.

BOWYER: Yeah, this is very interesting. What an activist group can do, is they can buy just enough shares to fulfill the minimum requirement in order to put proposals on the ballots of companies. Activist groups, which are not acting as genuine investors, they're not there to make money, they're there to create social change, often, which is counter to the business interest of the company. I mean, it's not in Google's business interest for them to suppress crisis pregnancy center search results, because crisis pregnancy centers are customers. So these groups show up, and they take advantage of it's not even a law, that in many cases, it's not even regulation. It is interpretations of regulations by the Securities and Exchange Commission, by which activists are able to basically force their way onto the ballot of companies, commandeer three minutes of time to make their usually left wing speeches, and force onto the attention of the board of directors and top management to focus on this. So they're able to sort of set the agenda and steer the conversations with these board meetings.

MAST: On this vote with Alphabet, the Board of Directors recommended that stockholders vote against the resolution, and it did ultimately fail. Now, why would the board recommend that?

BOWYER: Because they always do. I've never in the history of doing this ever seen a board of directors recommend a yes vote on a shareholder resolution. They like to be in control. They don't want anyone telling them what to do, even groups that they agree with. By the way, a proposal on the ballot like this, to me is good news. You say, "Why is this good news?" Because the proposal on the ballot means that the activists are not happy. They tried to talk to Google, Google said no. And so they went ahead and put the proposal on the ballot. So, to me, having this proposal on the ballot means Planned Parenthood could not get through negotiation what they wanted to get from Google. So, they're trying to shame them into doing this. So, if proposals are getting 30 or 40%, support, boards and management tend to maybe say, oh, maybe we need to do something. Whereas if they're getting 10% support or something like that, then they can safely write it off.

So it's interesting, I mentioned that As You Sow group, that and the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, which is a faith group that is pushing pro-abortion stuff, that when they did the rollout of proposals this year, they pointed out that these Reproductive Health Access proposals, as they call them, have been "cut in half" in terms of voter support. So things that used to get 40% support are now getting 10% support. So this is one where we're winning. Just a little bit of presence from Christians in the boardroom, because our movement trying to counter this, and Bowyer Research working to counter this, and our clients working to counter this, we are tiny compared to the ESG movement, but just a little bit of exposure appears to have made a huge difference, especially on these abortion resolutions.

MAST: Jerry Bowyer is president of Bowyer Research and a contributor to World Opinions. Jerry, thank you for your analysis!

BOWYER: My pleasure. Thank you.

MARY REICHARD, HOST:Up next: Beijing continues to crack down on dissent in Hong Kong.

Last week marked 35 years since the pro-democracy protests that led to the massacre at Tiananmen Square. Those protests ended with the killing of hundreds of people when the government sent in armed troops.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST:Since then, China has expanded its efforts to quell dissent in nearby territories including Hong Kong.

Pro-democracy rallies have replaced commemorations of the 1989 massacre. And in recent years police stopped anyone who appeared to raise awareness of the event.

REICHARD:Here now is World Reporter Josh Schumacher on what the democracy supporters now face

JOSH SCHUMACHER: The pro-Beijing government in Hong Kong passed the National Security Law in 2020. The law officially criminalizes secession, subversion, terrorism, and colluding with a foreign government.

Activists and governments abroad have criticized it as a tool for Beijing to use in suppressing dissent.

U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken earlier this year said he spoke with Chinese leaders about their encroachment on Hong Kong:

TONY BLINKEN:I also raised concerns about the erosion of Hong Kong's autonomy and democratic institutions.

Before about two weeks ago, prosecutors in Hong Kong had brought roughly 70 people to trial under the law with a 100% conviction rate.

But then late last month, three judges in Hong Kong acquitted two defendants charged with violating the law. They were part of a larger group, known as the Hong Kong 47, who set up an unofficial primary election in 2020. Thirty-one of the defendants accepted plea deals rather than face trial. Fourteen others who did go to trial were found guilty.

But activists living abroad say the ruling benefits China more than everyday citizens of Hong Kong.

NATHANLAW: The verdict shows that as long as the government is in charge, the court serves the interests of the Chinese Communist party.

Nathan Law ran in the Hong Kong 47’s unofficial primary election in 2020. He said the strategy the pro-democracy activists used is a normal maneuver in democracies around the world.

These activists organized the unofficial primary election in an attempt to gain a majority on the Hong Kong Legislative Council and veto the territory’s budget. That way they could force the Chinese government to come to the negotiating table and address their interests.

LAW: But in Hong Kong, it turns out to be a subversive action.

So if it’s a subversive action, why would the Beijing-appointed judges acquit people who participated in this plan?

LAW: Those two got acquitted because they managed to convince the court that they didn't know about the plan in full, and they didn't really agree with the most important part, which is whether they would veto the government's budget in order to negotiate with the government.

But on a deeper level Law says the real reason for the acquittal may have been more about appearances.

LAW: I think it is a play by the authority trying to show that, oh, actually, there's a possibility that you can be acquitted under the National Security Law. Because before that, the court remained 100% conviction rate in the national consecutive law cases, which is being criticized heavily.

Even so, the court’s rulings haven’t inspired hope among those in Hong Kong.

Kennedy Wong is a researcher at the Washington, D.C.-based Hong Kong Democracy Council.

KENNEDY WONG: For domestic Hong Kong people, the 47 cases actually is sending a chilling effect.

Wong says thousands of people participated in the primary election aside from the 47 activists who faced charges. And it remains unclear whether the Chinese government will prosecute any of them. Some have stayed in Hong Kong, but others have fled, like Nathan Law. He is currently living in the United Kingdom and says he has a bounty $140,00 U.S. dollars on his head for whoever would turn him in to Chinese authorities.

LAW: If I were to go back to Hong Kong now, I’d probably spend that case in prison.

Facing those consequences isn’t easy. And Nathan Law sees something to admire in the activists who chose to face them head-on:

LAW: Most of the people who dare to plead not guilty understood the risk. But they decided to do so because some of them also believed that giving a historical remarks, that providing another perspective of the primary election that challenged the ridicule of the government was also really important.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST:Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: three opinions handed down last week by the US Supreme Court.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST:First, a unanimous opinion in Truck Insurance Exchange versus Kaiser Gypsum Company. It’s a big change in bankruptcy law: now, insurers with financial responsibility to pay for bankruptcy claims may object to a Chapter 11 plan.

REICHARD: Here, thousands of people sued two manufacturers of asbestos products, claiming they caused cancer. The companies filed for bankruptcy and a judge approved the plan, but the insurer thought the plan didn’t sufficiently flag fraudulent claims. So it sought to intervene.

MAST:But the lower courts stuck by established practice and found the insurer had no legal standing here.

Established practice no longer! You could hear the eventual ruling from Justice Amy Coney Barrett during oral argument in March in this comment to the companies:

JUSTICE BARRETT:Why do you want Truck to not even be heard? What is your motivation to be fighting this so hard?

REICHARD:This means bankruptcy proceedings may take longer, but more parties with a stake in the proceedings will have a say.

Next, a win for the IRS.

Two brothers were sole shareholders of a building supply company. They agreed that if one of them died, the company could redeem the shares using life insurance proceeds.

MAST: One brother did die, and his estate reported the value of his shares at $3 million. But the IRS valued the shares at more than $5 million… the value of the company, plus the $3 million in life insurance proceeds.

That added nearly $900,000 in taxes, which the surviving brother disputed.

REICHARD: But the Supreme Court agrees with the IRS here.

Bottom line: this decision impacts business owners, requiring careful analysis of estate planning for tax purposes.

MAST:Final opinion comes in Becerra versus San Carlos Apache Tribe. It’s a 5 to 4 victory for Native Americans. This says that the federal Indian Health Service must reimburse tribes for overhead costs related to running their own health care programs.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion. He showed his hand in this comment to the government’s lawyer during oral argument in March:

JUSTICE ROBERTS:Under your approach, a tribe is worse off the more they undertake in the direction of self determination. They are undertaking more healthcare responsibilities and getting a smaller percentage of the money back from the government.

REICHARD:The ruling means federal support for tribal healthcare programs must be on equal footing with other Indian Health Service programs.

MARY REICHARD, HOST:File this under “It’s never too late for love!”

Listen to these two lovebirds this past Saturday in Normandy, France. Each of them widowed, both from New York City:

HAROLD TERENS:I love this girl. This woman! She is one of the most magnificent women I've ever known in my entire life.

That’s Harold Terens, part of the Allied forces that staged the invasion of Normandy in 1944. The French honored him as part of the 80th anniversary of D-Day…and he chose to pledge his love to Jeanne Swerlin there.

Although the union isn’t legally binding yet because the two aren’t French citizens…still…he’s lived a full 100 years, and it’s not over yet!

Here’s Jeanne who’s 96:

JEANNE SWERLIN:Being in love is not just for the young. We get butterflies, just like everybody else. And he's just soamazing guy. He's smart and he's, he has a sense of humor, which I love, and it's just nice to be with.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: I like her criteria!

TERENS:I think it’s the most exciting time of my life. Right now!

REICHARD:It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST:Today is Tuesday, June 11th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST:And I’m Lindsay Mast. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: jobs after jail.Some inmates are one-time offenders who need some help to become productive members of society. For them, trade schools are often the answer.

REICHARD:WORLD’s Todd Vician has our story.

TODD VICIAN: A few months ago, Robert Drayer graduated from trade school. But before starting the seven-week program, he wasn’t sure he could even get a job again.

DRAYER: You know they got that reentry program that supposed to get you a ID, a social security card…I got out. I didn't have no birth certificate, no ID, social security card, nothing.

That’s because in 2023 he was released from jail. Drayer grew up near Little Rock, Arkansas. He was a five-star basketball player who left college early when his mom was diagnosed with cancer. Even with several run-ins with the law, he found a job at a local warehouse before being laid off during COVID. Desperate for money, he said, “yes” when a friend offered to share his illegal drug trade.

DRAYER: Once you get involved in it, you know, you get to live in a lifestyle, you become part of that lifestyle, you know, it's just like I always knew that I wasn't, I didn't belong there.

Drayer was eventually shot in a botched drug deal and almost died in the Emergency Room. After recovering from surgery, he turned himself into a Dallas-area jail to serve time for a parole violation after convictions for selling drugs and stealing a friend’s car.

In jail, he met a pastor who leads the Dallas Leadership Foundation’s prison reentry program. One day after a Bible study, the pastor told Drayer about a scholarship the foundation offers to a trade school. It helps formerly incarcerated men earn a second chance.

MARVIN KEY: The second chance community or the justice-involved community, which is a massive universe of candidates…

That’s Marvin Key, he’s co-founder of ForgeNow, the trade school in Dallas.

KEY: This is tens of thousands of people who are one-timers. They’re kind of – they got in, made a mistake, they’re serving their time and they’re gonna get out.

Employers usually skip over applicants with a criminal record unless they see a reason to pause and take a chance.

KEY: What we do over the seven weeks because of the demands of our 7am to 4pm program, because of the uniform, because the tools, we’re in effect putting our graduates through a seven week internship or a seven week job interview.

At ForgeNow, Drayer learned how to service heating and air conditioning units. He also built a new record, one that shows diligence, commitment, and follow-through instead of just crime and punishment.

KEY: The employer who hires our people, is going to at least have the appreciation that our guys can get there on time. They can wear their uniform effectively, pass the weekly assessments, all that kind of thing.

Drayer’s road to recovery continued when he was released and moved into the Leadership Foundation’s transition house. Men who stay there commit to attending weekly Bible studies and worship services, going to school, and living there for 10 to 12 months. Program managers have found that’s enough time to finish school, get a job, build savings and break the chains of jail and a former life.

DRAYER: I had someone tell me not too long ago, you know, they had a friend, guy that did eight years and being incarcerated. And say he wasn't out a full month before he went right back to doing the same things that he was doing.

Drayer spent seven weeks taking hour-long bus rides back and forth from the transition house to the school. He learned how to properly handle refrigerants and trouble-shoot equipment. And he also learned how to acknowledge his past in job interviews in a way that helps applicants with criminal backgrounds get to the second interview. And just like 90 percent of ForgeNow graduates, he was offered a job. But the offer was from a company in Phoenix, so Drayer declined it. He didn’t have enough money to get there, let alone pay the first and last month’s rent and security deposit before getting his first paycheck.

DRAYER: Some days, being honest with you, I would get four or five jobs or five phone calls a day. But one is, they're the ones that I couldn’t get to. So it was like, either I couldn't get the job because of no license or the job was just too far out where I couldn't reach, you know.

But when one door closed, another opened. Drayer had volunteered nights after trade school at a United Methodist church, just a block from his transitional house. They offered him a full-time custodian job.

DRAYER: I never first off expected to get this job. To be blessed, you must first understand what a blessing is. My blessing was just being able to be here, you know, being able to be in a different environment that I was, that I’ve been in before.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Todd Vician in Dallas Texas.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST:Today is Tuesday, June 11th, 2024. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

MARY REICHARD, HOST:And I’m Mary Reichard. World Opinions commentator Brad Littlejohn now on that little surveillance agent we all carry around.

BRAD LITTLEJOHN: Remember back when conservatives were up in arms about the use of vaccines as “social passports”? Many worried about the implications of a society in which one had to carry around proof of vaccination to work at a job, attend a movie, or even order lunch. And rightly so—such mandates strike at the very basis of a free society.

It is odd, then, that we’ve allowed ourselves to submit to another form of social passport—the smartphone. If you want to order a taxi, you’ll probably need an app like Uber. To order off some menus (or get the discounts), you’ll need to scan the QR code. To pay for parking, attend a sporting event, access the state park, even to view your sports team’s practice schedule—you name it, and you need a smartphone to do it, or soon will. Most adults and many teenagers now assume their vocations require a smartphone in their pockets.

Now, if the smartphone were just a useful gadget, this phenomenon would be a minor annoyance. But recently, data on the harms of smartphone addiction have exploded. For instance, Jonathan Haidt’s new book, The Anxious Generation, summarizes a reality we cannot afford to ignore. It turns out that giving 12-year-olds a 24/7 distraction machine, access to hardcore p*rnography, and a hotline to sexual predators in their pockets is not a good idea.

Frankly, it may not even be a good idea for 32-year-olds, especially if they’re trying to model healthy habits for their kids. I know that my smartphone makes me a worse parent. And for conservatives worried about surveillance, the idea of wedding ourselves to a little machine that tracks our every movement and whim should be unsettling.

Unfortunately, the typical conservative response tends to be, “Let’s promote individual responsibility and healthy habits.” But the market will always follow the path of least resistance, and telling customers to download an app is often more profitable than saying, “Come talk to one of our sales associates.” And for parents of teenagers, it can be almost impossible to promote healthy choices when peers, employers, schools, and churches all require them to communicate via smartphone.

The soft tyranny of the smartphone is one area where individuals cannot push back on their own. There is an appropriate role for public policy in keeping useful but dangerous technologies out of the hands of children. (Take cars, for instance!). Government can also preserve spaces where we don’t need to use smartphones. Florida governor Ron DeSantis required businesses to serve customers equally whether or not they had a vaccine card. In the same way, we should require businesses to serve customers with or without a smartphone.

While government can help, we must also work through our own local institutions. How many churches today expect you to scan a QR code to participate in worship or give money? How many Christian schools use an app for managing extra-curricular activities?

Technology is a great servant but a bad master. These devices may be here to stay, but we have a responsibility to ensure we are using them, rather than them using us.

I’m Brad Littlejohn.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST:Tomorrow:The spending battle begins for funding the government in 2025. We’ll have a report on Washington Wednesday. And a beauty shop owner helps women who have lost their hair. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Lindsay Mast.

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 Bible says: And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the Lord commanded. —I Kings 11:9-10

Go now in grace and peace.

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