9.1.26 Venezuela’s oil investment, personal data bargain, Trump’s FDA nominee, and Sharia law

0:00Good morning, a surprise partnership. It is really stunning about face for the Venezuelan government. Venezuela's oil deal with the U.S. when will either side see benefits. Also, today keeping private data private and the president's choice to lead the FDA wants to reevaluate abortion drugs but faces challenges to her nomination. Later, the progress of Islamism. Politically, Islam is sophisticated and operating in the United States right now. And World Commentator Cal Thomas with a public service announcement on your PSA. It's Tuesday, September 1st. This is The World and Everything in it from listeners supported World Radio. I'm Mary Rykard. And I'm Nick Einkard. Good morning. Time now for the news with Kent Covington.

1:01Rescue crews airlifted people from the depths of the Grand Canyon on Monday after a weekend flash flood. As of last night, at least two people were confirmed dead and about 15 others still missing. More than 60 made it out safely. One man said he was camping when the storm hit Saturday afternoon and a flood tore through bright angel creek, a stopping point for hikers below the rim. The sky just opened up rain, hail, just battering the campsite. I was inside my tent and I could see about five to six into the water flowing around my tent. There's just nowhere for the water to go. The flooding also knocked out the only water pipeline serving Grand Canyon National Park. Officials have closed park lodges to overnight guests. Paige Kineshki with the National Weather Service says heavy rain is not unusual there in the late summer. Any time we're in our monsoon season, we're going to be dealing with you know tricky weather patterns. We had a few storms go over the Grand Canyon and create this after a environment and then the stronger storm just led to more hazardous flash flooding.

2:08The park warns that more storms could trigger flooding and rock slides. Forecasters say thunderstorms could build over the canyon once again today. Meantime near the China Nepal border, Napoli soldiers sent drones deep into a flooded power plant tunnel on Monday searching for workers buried in the mud, but the tunnel was empty and 93 people from the plant are still missing. A wall of rock ice and water tore down two Himalayan valleys last week, more than 900 people are confirmed dead, but nearly 5,000 are still missing. The Paul Ford Ministry spokesman Locke Bajadar Poudo. Over 10,000 people have been rescued from the reasons including over 323 foreign nationals. As per the available data, about 590 foreign nationals are still missing from 38 countries. Crews are still searching other power plants along the border with Indian and Chinese tunnel specialists helping and Chinese officials have reported rising water upstream,

3:12putting the Paul back on flood alert. President Trump is hinting at a possible strike on Carg Island. That is, the island in the Persian Gulf that carries almost all of Iran's oil exports. The threat came after Iran again fired missiles at American air bases in Jordan. Jordan's military says it shot down eight missiles that crossed into its airspace. No one was hurt. President Trump says Iran's leadership is in disarray and the country with it. They're a failed nation. They've got 350 percent inflation. They have no currency. They're not paying their soldiers. They're leaders are largely dead. The president says the U.S. has already defeated Iran and made the world safer by taking away its path to a nuclear weapon. But Democrats in Washington disagree, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. He got the country involved in a reckless and costly war of choice in Iran. Democrats point to hire oil and gas prices amid the war, oil climbed again on Monday.

4:15The United Nations is calling for greater protections for civilians in war-batterned Ukraine. The call comes after Russian drone attacks over the weekend killed nearly 60 civilians and injured more than 200 others. UN spokesman Stefan Dijarik. The Kiev region, including the capital city, was the hardest hit with drone strike and an ammunition depot triggering a powerful explosion that killed 38 people, including residents of a care facility for older persons and injured 52 others. Many of them children. One of the men who died in that ammunition depot explosion was a local village mayor. Warner's gathered Monday to remember him. The mayor was fatal again injured after rushing to the scene shortly after the strike. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky announced that he spoke with U.S. Special Envoy Steve Whitkopf and President Trump's Sen. Jared Kushner, an unofficial envoy. He said both men are planning dual visits to Russia and Ukraine soon.

5:17Vice President JD Vance rallied Republicans in the Detroit Suburbs on Monday. He was backing former Congressman Mike Rogers and a Senate race that could decide which party controls the chamber. Vance pointed to Rogers years as an Army officer and an FBI agent. And he's going to bring that legacy of courage and leadership when he fights for you in the United States Congress starting this November. Rogers is running against Abdul Al-Sahyd, a doctor and former Detroit health director, closely aligned with the Democratic Party's Socialist Wing. The Al-Sahyd says he is a capitalist. Democrats need a net gain of four seats to control the Senate, and Michigan is a key battleground. Vermont Democratic Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders told Politico that party leaders are not excited enough about Al-Sahyd. But... Most understand, we may not like Al-Sahyd, but you know what? If we win Michigan and if by some miracle we win Florida, you know what? We're going to control the U.S. Senate.

6:18An average of recent polls gives Al-Sahyd a lead of about two points with election day nine weeks out. I'm Kent Cuffington and straight ahead. The president's pick to lead the FDA wants to re-evaluate abortion drugs, but faces challenges to her nomination. And later commentator Cal Thomas on the importance of caring for our health. This is The World and Everything in It. It's Tuesday, September 1st. You're listening to World Radio and we're so glad to have you along with us today. Good morning. I'm Nick Eiger. And I'm Mary Reichard. First up on The World and Everything in It, the Venezuelan Oil Deal. Few details are known about the oil deal with Venezuela that President Trump calls the biggest in world history, but it does reflect a major shift in policy.

7:20So it is really a stunning about face for the Venezuelan government and for this movement. Gilgara is a Latin America expert with the Hudson Institute. The deal would give a new, unnamed company rights to 17 Venezuelan oil fields, some 65 billion barrels worth, for at least 25 years. The deal also gives the US a majority stake in the venture, including the right to buy oil at cost. Gilgara says it's a major shift for Venezuela's interim president, Delce Rodriguez. She had previously been critical of the government's opposition party for wanting to sell to the US. And this had a lot of resonance with the Venezuelan public to some extent historically because of this perception of the United States as being an extractive power within the region. Now it's Rodriguez herself who is party to a deal. She says will boost the Venezuelan economy, hurting after a recent earthquake. Since the removal of former dictator Nicholas Maduro in January, critics have complained the motivation was access to Venezuelan oil.

8:25The western oil companies were driven away by government nationalization under former president Chavez. But today, Garis says their hesitation comes down to basic instability. The reaction from the American private sector and from a lot of the western international oil private sector has actually been to say hold on, wait a minute, this country isn't stable. We don't know whether this long term investment because it is a long term investment to actually try to take the oil out and develop it. For a time before you actually begin to turn a profit. President Trump expects the deal eventually to bring US gas prices down. But how long will that take? Energy analysts say Venezuela's oil fields are wrecked. Garis says two decades ago production was at well over two million barrels a day, but by June it was cut in half. They've had a lot of mismanagement. It's a classic tale of Chavezza rule and mismanagement in Venezuela where a lot of the technical experts were taken out of actually developing the oil fields and they were replaced with people who were political lackeys lacking actual technical expertise.

9:29Fixing them will take years and billions of dollars he thinks, but the deal ensures Venezuela oil that may otherwise have gone to communist countries like Cuba and China now will not. Obviously in my book that's a positive for American energy security, but it's also not something that will necessarily cripple China. China has plenty of other sources of oil that they are able to get. There is some question about whether Rodriguez can maintain such a long term deal. She's an interim president in a government that the US didn't recognize as legitimate. Senator Ted Cruz told Meet the Press Sunday that the country still needs to have democratic free elections. Maduro was a legitimate, he was a Marxist, he had seized power contrary to the will of the voters and from the beginning I have been urging and I believe the administration is working towards this that there should be free and fair elections before an oil deal is finalized. But those may be a long way off. Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifying to Congress in June.

10:45You have to have certain conditions in place. I'm not telling you that's five years from now, but it's been five months so I want to be relative to that. For now the transition government's immediate hurdle is establishing enough stability to satisfy both Western energy investors and US benchmarks for democracy. Coming up next on the world and everything in it data privacy rights. Last week meta agreed to pay nearly $17 billion to settle a case with 29 states over app design features alleged to addict miners. It's the largest penalty meta has paid so far, but may not be the last one as other lawsuits proceed. As big tech companies find new ways to monetize user data, some policy experts warn that new legal tools are needed for Americans to protect their data. Yesterday the Institute for Family Studies published a proposal written by a mix of policy and tech experts.

11:48Their recommendation? Pass laws that give Americans the ability to form data rights associations, kind of like labor unions, to bargain with tech companies on their behalf. Joining us now to talk about this is Daniel Cochran. He's a senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies. Daniel, good morning. Good morning great to be with you Mary. Your report says that our current legal strategies just are not working government regulation on the one hand is cumbersome, but why do you think individual rights are not a workable foundation? Why isn't that enough? Well, because the inherent nature of data is that it's co-produced and what that means is that when a big tech company is assembling a data set to train its algorithms, they're taking for all kinds of information from millions and millions of users. So the problem with individual rights is that you'll never overcome the asymmetric power that a company like TikTok has, because TikTok knows far more not just about you, but about the larger social groups and the people you're interacting with invisibly than even you do.

12:52And so it's very hard for an individual to be able to overcome that power without having some mechanism in place. You know, I'm thinking correlation versus causation. How do you know technology is causing this decline in relationships and not just simply coinciding with that? I mean, there are other factors going on during the time of social media. Well, there's certainly multiple factors. I'm not saying that that social media is the only cause of familial decline, but look, one study estimated that just looking at the iPhone's release in the mid 2000s explains a significant part of the fertility decline during that same period. So rather than pursuing romance or marriage, people are looking at pornography, people are scrolling on their phones, people are constantly being fed this toxic content. What it means is that it distracts us from the real world and takes us away from the things that matter most, our families, our work, our friends, our faith. You say individuals and communities as well have three interests that need to be protected, privacy, control, and fair value.

13:59So suppose a group of parents formed a data rights association, DRAs, they're called, how would it protect those interests for those families? Well, you're talking about families in particular. Look, a lot of folks have these smart devices in their home. So think about Amazon Alexa, for example, or think about now people have these kitchen appliances that are connected to the internet. What people don't recognize is that those devices are sending data back to big tech. And big tech is using that data in all kinds of ways, and some of the ways we just talked about it, and some of the things we talked about it, dicting, but also allowing other corporations to get a view on what you're doing in your own private home. So what DRAs would accomplish essentially is it would allow those families to say, look, if we're using your product, you can't send that data to some tech company unless it's for a purpose that we explicitly approve of. So suppose, for example, you have a smart fridge. You could say, if I'm running out of milk, I'm okay for that data, like to be shared with my company that helps me do grocery shopping, but I'm not okay with that data being shared to advertisers, or to data brokers that then sell that data to really whoever can pay the highest price.

15:11So DRAs would essentially be a backstop. It would prevent these tech companies from being able to just use all this data and whatever way they want. They would have to fulfill certain conditions first. There's all kinds of ways that you can get at these problems if you just allow people to be able to associate and use these mechanisms to bargain with these companies. And how politically viable do you think this is? Well, look, it's a fairly novel idea, but a lot of states have been on the front lines of doing novel things. You think about Utah. Utah was really the first state to do comprehensive social media safety back just a couple years ago and other states have followed suit like Texas and Florida. So I think the states are ready to do something on this to give normal people a say in our digital and AI future. And this is one way they could go about it. What we're seeing with these data center protests around the country, this bipartisan angst is really not, it's not just limited to the local impacts. It's really reflective of a nation that is sick, entire of big tech, having so much power and control and really nothing to do about that.

16:18This is this gives normal people some leverage to be able to actually demand better terms. I'm curious, Daniel. Could groups with Ames different from yours? I'm thinking of an LGBT advocacy group. Could someone like that use the same framework to advance their goals? Well, certainly we, one of the goals of this is it's limited to people who use the actual products. So of course, they'll be liberal, they'll be conservative groups just like you have an embodied civil society. But the brilliance of this framework is that no one group gets the final say, right? It's designed to be a multiplicity of different terms. So these DRAs get to negotiate with the companies. And in cases where there's common terms agreed to, all the DRAs would get us to say in what those terms are. So there's no one single DRA that would have their thumb on the scales. It would be about competing for the best interests of users across the board. Daniel Conchorin is a senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies and co-author of Toward Associational Data Rights, a digital economy for families and the common good.

17:28You can find a link to the report in today's transcript. Daniel, thank you so much. Thank you so much, Mary. Additional support comes from Cedarville University, equipping students for professional excellence and gospel impact. Cedarville.edu slash world. From WorldWatch, a 10 minute current news program designed for daily school rhythms. A free 30 day trial is available at worldwatch.news slash podcast. And from Boyce College, where truth comes first, every class begins with scripture and prepares students to live with wisdom, conviction and Christ-like faithfulness. Boycecollege.com

18:29Up next on the world and everything in it, a new leader for the Food and Drug Administration. President Trump recently said he would nominate White House policy aid Heidi Overton as FDA Commissioner. The change comes three months after former FDA chief Dr. Marty McCary handed in his resignation. That was due in part to pressure from pro-life groups. Demanding answers about a stalled safety review of the abortion drug, MIFA Pristone. Pro-livers hope Overton will make finishing the review a priority, but her confirmation faces a tight timeline and potential friendly fire from the Senate. World's Harrison Waters reports from Washington. A judge in Louisiana says the FDA has five weeks left to provide an update on its safety review of the abortion drug, MIFA Pristone. Back in April, district judge David Joseph paused a case between Louisiana and the FDA. Overton air a guidelines that allowed MIFA Pristone to be prescribed without the patient seeing a doctor in person.

19:32John Mies with Americans United for Life says taking the warning labels off to allow online prescriptions has endangered women. The Ethics and Public Policy Center published an analysis last year that showed in the real world using claims data that about 11% of women that take this medication will have a serious adverse event. That report sparked a congressional hearing last spring where Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised he would ask the FDA to investigate. Clearly, it indicates that at very least the label should be changed. Mies says the abortion industry has previously provided controlled clinical studies suggesting MIFA Pristone is safe. But what we haven't seen other than this claims data from EVBC is what the data looks like in the real world. What's actually happening to patients? That's where White House policy advisor Heidi Overton comes in. She previously worked at the Conservative Think Tank, the America First Policy Institute.

20:33There, she dug into how the Biden administration loosened the rules on MIFA Pristone, letting women get the abortion pill after just a video consultation. She called that teleabortion and said Congress should pass laws to protect women and their unborn children. Mies says Overton could be the kind of public health leader willing to make tough decisions about drugs based on real world impact and not just controlled clinical studies. Having worked in the White House, she understands the politics behind all of this as well. And when I've talked to Dr. Overton, it's very clear that her goal is peer review, gold standard science and an objective review. But her confirmation in the Senate is not a sure thing. Some lawmakers have concerns about one of her other policies, changing the childhood vaccine schedule. Here's Overton in a White House press conference in August. We do still recommend Miesel's vaccine for all children, but we want parents to be informed about the timing and have the option to separate them out. President Trump ordered HHS to reduce the number of recommended vaccines and split up bundled doses.

21:37But Louisiana Senator and physician Bill Cassidy told ABC the move doesn't make sense. Now instead of your child getting two shots, she has to get six shots. Cassidy took to social media after Trump nominated Overton, saying her vaccine policy work is almost disqualifying. He's also concerned about her lack of management experience, especially for an agency with what he called staffing and morale issues. That matters because Cassidy has the power to block her. He chairs the committee that must advance her nomination, and just one Republican no vote on the tightly divided panel would likely stall Overton's confirmation. But others argue that her lack of management experience is not necessarily a deal breaker. Scott Gottlieb led the FDA during Trump's first administration, and he told Face the Nation that Overton could be a strong candidate. This is first and foremost a policy role. It's really not an operational role. Dr. Gottlieb says Overton likely knows she'll need to hire and retain people on key roles. But he'd like to see her clarify her stance on vaccines.

22:39I think hopefully when she has time to explain herself before Congress and get into this in a more substantive way, not just press conference in the White House, you're going to hear something more thoughtful from her. The earliest Overton's confirmation hearing could happen is after the Senate returns in two weeks. Meanwhile, the FDA faces an October 7 court deadline to give an update on its Miffa Pristone safety review. Reporting for World, I'm Harrison Waters in Washington. You know, fashion trends come and go in the blink of an eye. What's in style this year is out of style next year. But for a Vermont woman named Eve Ogden-Shob, none of that matters apparently. She is pushing back against fast fashion by growing her own dress, meaning planting the flags, harvesting the crop, spinning the thread, and weaving the fabric by hand.

23:49She admits she has no idea when the dress will actually be finished and doesn't appear to care. So who knows? By the time it's all done, whatever was out of fashion may be back. Proving perhaps that patience never goes out of style. It's the world and everything in it. Today is Tuesday, September 1st. Thank you for turning to World Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I'm Mary Rackard. And I'm Nick Eiker. Coming next on the world and everything in it, Sharia and the US Constitution. Today an excerpt from a longer conversation about a critical question in American civic life. How does classical Islamic law intersect with the freedoms guaranteed by our laws and Constitution? I spoke with A.S. Ibrahim. He's a professor of Islamic studies at Southern Seminary and author of the book titled Sharia vs. the US Constitution. Why Americans must choose freedom.

24:58In this portion of our interview, we discuss the distinction between personal religious faith and political Islam. And why he argues that distinction matters for the future of religious liberty. So I think it's best if we first define the terms. So there's Islam as a personal faith that an individual would have. And then there's Islamism that is not that. So tell us about those terms and what they mean. We need to understand that Islam is a religious belief system that includes the prayer fasting, charity, pilgrimage, personal devotion to Allah. This is the Islam that the Constitution fully protects. We also talk about Muslims as individuals, human beings made in God's image. And my argument is never against them as people. Now we are talking in this book about Sharia. And this is a legal system, a comprehensive political, legal, social order drive mainly from the Quran.

26:05It's not just personal piety, but legal punishment, governance, the treatment of non-Muslims, the equality or not equality between men and women, warfare and the political authority. Finally, we're talking about a component in Islam that we define as Islamism or people call it political Islam. This is the organized disposition to establish Sharia, which is Islamic law, as the governing law of a society. This is real. Islamism or political Islam is real. We'll find it strategically sophisticated and operating in the United States right now through advocacy groups, through academic institutions, through political alliances. And this is what I want to tell Americans about.

27:08Why do you think American Muslims aren't more vocal about this than they seem to be? I think you have a variety of thoughts in America about Islam. So there is no doubt you have cultural Muslims who have no idea about Islam and what it dictates. So why they are Muslims because they were born Muslims. And then you have the religious and I would say also mostly conservative Muslims who have this desire to see Islam implemented as written or many of them are Islamists who want political Islam to prevail and replace the US social order and political order. And then you have some Muslims who are reformists and they want to say, okay, you know what? There are some elements in our religion that are incompatible with the West, but we are fully Western and we want to live in the West.

28:14Why don't we just ban Sharia then with that help curb the influence of Islam in the US or do you think there's a better course of action? I would say ban in Sharia is about protecting a democratic society from ideological systems that undermine its constitutional foundation. I hope that every American who cares for this land to speak with their policymakers representatives in the Congress and tell them that we are supportive of religious freedom. But don't think of Islam as only a religion. Once you think of Islam as a religion, you're disarming yourself. Think of Islam as an ideology that comes against the fabric of the US Constitution and the US social order. Are you in danger speaking the way you do?

29:16I'm a happy man. I don't know. And I get weird messages and unkind comments, but I'm grateful to live in a country that allows me to speak, allows me to think and give me not only one PhD but two. I'm really grateful to be here and I'm grateful to God for protecting me and my family. That was just a portion of my conversation with AS Everhan, author of Sharia versus the US Constitution. In the extended interview, we go much deeper into specific legal contrast from how classical Sharia treats women's rights and religious freedom to what legal precedence in Europe can teach Americans about parallel court systems. We also discuss why he believes Christians can hold a stance of courage and clarity rather than fear.

30:16You can hear that complete conversation this weekend on a special edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning. This is The World and Everything in It from Listener Supported World Radio. I'm Mary Reichard. And I'm Nick Einker. Next up, World Commentator, Cal Thomas. Now, you'd never know it because Cal simply does not miss deadlines. He wants filed a commentary for us from his hospital bed. But over the summer, he went through a personal health trial he's sharing with us today. It's a direct message for men and the families who love them on why a simple blood test can be a matter of life and death. The diagnosis really came as no surprise, like so many men facing a health issue. I tried to deny and delay getting a diagnosis. But we all know the truth. Early detection is critical to a cure.

31:21For two years, my blood test numbers have been slowly creeping upward. The relevant figure to watch is known as the PSA, the prostate specific antigen. When my PSA reached 9.0, along with a high gleece in score, my doctor said it was time to act, a biopsy revealed a cancerous tumor. My doctors gave me two choices, surgery or radiation paired with hormone treatment. I chose option two. It took 38 radiation treatments five days a week. But today my PSA is down to zero. The tumor appears to be completely gone, though I'll remain on hormone therapy for two years. I'm sharing something this deeply personal because I want to speak to you directly. If you're a man over 50, I urge you to get regular checkups, including a simple PSA blood test. That goes for even younger men and high risk groups. And the family and friends encourage them. This is so preventable. Roughly one and eight men will be diagnosed in their lifetime. Black men face an even higher risk.

32:21The American Cancer Society estimates this year alone more than 333,000 new cases of prostate cancer in the US. 10% will die. But here's the most important figure. When cancer hasn't spread outside the prostate, the survival rate is 99%. Mine had not spread. Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among American men behind lung cancer. Again, early detection changes everything. Men are notoriously reluctant to see doctors, especially regarding our private parts. Me too, but denial is not a cure. Refusing an exam guarantees the cancer will spread. Potentially, past the point where medicine can help. Yes, treatment can have side effects, including loss of libido. For some men, even a temporary loss of libido sounds worse than cancer. But ask yourself, how does death sound? So don't wait. Do it for your family, your friends, and yourself. It appears I'm going to be around for a few more years to annoy my liberal friends. I'm deeply grateful to my God, my supportive wife, and a tremendous medical team acting as instruments of healing that the Lord provides. For World, I'm Cal Thomas.

33:34Tomorrow it's Washington Wednesday with Hunter Baker and the legacy of Dolly Parton. That and more tomorrow, I'm Mary Rykard. And I'm Nick Eiker, 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, incline your ear and hear the words of the wise and apply your heart to my knowledge, for it will be pleasant if you keep them within you, if all of them are ready on your lips. That your trust may be in the Lord, I have made them known to you today, even to you. Verses 17 through 19 of Proverbs 22. Go now in grace and peace.