Good morning. I'm Les Sillers, editor of World. Do your friends ever tell you that you seem to have a lot of opinions, and you're not shy about sharing them? Well, we've got just a thing for you. We're looking for focus group volunteers, listeners and readers willing to tell us what you think of our stories,

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give your friends a break. WNG.org slash focus groups.

Thank you. break. WNG.org slash focus groups. Good morning. Today on Washington Wednesday, the pro-life pardons, and a pro-choice cabinet pick

faces skepticism on Capitol Hill. Also today, our weekly international news round up with Onise Adua,

and later brave chaplains take to the front lines of a bloody conflict in South Sudan.

I said, all I can tell you is what Jesus Christ, there's forgiveness is slid and hope.

And he said, will you come and show with my soldiers? And I said, yes.

And world opinions contributor Brad Littleohn has some questions about the decision

to extend the grace period for the social media platform TikTok.

It's Wednesday, January 29th.

This is the world and everything in it from listener-supported World

Radio. I'm Lindsay Mast. And I'm Nick Einker. Up next, Kent Covington with today's news.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked a push by President Trump to pause funding of most federal grants and loans.

The White House had said earlier in the day on Tuesday that the funding would be paused until February 10th,

while the administration conducted a top-to-bottom review of federal spending for Secretary Carolyn Lovett.

And the reason for this is to ensure that every penny that is going out the door

is not conflicting with the executive orders and actions that this president has taken.

Levitt said that would mean no more funding for, in her words, illegal DEI initiatives,

some Biden-era environmental programs and other holdover spending from the prior administration.

Democrats strongly rebuked

...