Month: March 2025

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy received a warm welcome in London from the British prime minister and other European leaders, after a contentious meeting with President Trump in Washington. Israel and Hamas are at loggerheads over the next phase of the six-week-old Gaza ceasefire. And, an NPR investigation finds gaps in the systems to report misbehavior by federal judges and a widespread culture of fear about reporting abuse.

Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.

Today's episode of Up First was edited by Miguel Macias, Didi Schanche, Krishnadev Calamur, Alice Woelfle and Mohamad ElBardicy.
It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Claire Murashima and Chris Thomas.
We get engineering support from Zac Coleman, our technical director is David Greenburg

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

About 25 years ago, James Whitford and his wife founded a ministry to the poor and homeless in Missouri. Not long after starting the ministry, Whitford felt led by the Lord to see for himself what it was like to be homeless. 

 

After several conversations with his wife, the couple agreed that Whitford would take a short period of time to live on the streets, and Whitford left his home with nothing but the clothes on his back. 

 

Whitford found himself sitting on a street corner next to a young homeless man in his 30s named Ralph. Whitford had known Ralph for some time and had ministered to him many times, but now, the two were homeless together. It was well into the day and Whitford was hungry. Ralph pulled out a sandwich and offered Whitford half. 

 

“And if you put yourself in that position of a homeless person offering his food to you, how do you respond? I didn't say it,” Whitford recalled, “but I remember feeling or thinking, well, ‘no, I'm not gonna take your sandwich, Ralph. I'm not gonna do that. I can go somewhere if I need to, and you're the ministry, and I'm the minister.” 

 

At that moment, Whitford says he realized he had been “treating Ralph and thousands of other people as objects of my good intentions … rather than subjects who have autonomy, capacity and agency.” The experience changed Whitford’s perspective on serving the poor, and permanently affected the way he led his ministry, moving from a “handout model to a hand-up model.”

 

“If we're not engaging people in reciprocity in our charity, we are failing them horribly, doing them a disservice and not really upholding the inherent human dignity that is in every person,” Whitford said. 

 

Unfortunately, Whitford says much of the government's programs intended to help the poor, and many charity programs, don’t engage the recipients dignity and have instead created significant harm through creating dependence on programs instead of empowerment. 

 

Whitford, co-founder and CEO of True Charity, joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss his new book, “The Crisis of Dependency: How Our Efforts to Solve Poverty Are Trapping People in It and What We Can Do to Foster Freedom Instead.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Host Christine Lee breaks down the latest news in the crypto industry as Donald Trump's support for a U.S. crypto reserve sent bitcoin, XRP and ADA skyrocketing.

Bitcoin skyrockets 10%, Cardano’s ADA up to 60% and Ripple’s XRP up to 25% within 24 hours of U.S. President Trump announcing his support for a Crypto Strategic Reserve. Meanwhile, Switzerland's central bank rejects the idea of holding bitcoin reserves and the Ethereum Foundation names two new executive directors. CoinDesk's Christine Lee hosts "CoinDesk Daily."

-

Friends, DeFi is having a moment — Uniswap Labs' web app and wallet connect you to the excitement. Swapping and bridging are simple, low cost, and lightning fast across 13 chains, including Base, Arbitrum and Unichain, the new Layer 2 network designed for DeFi.

Thanks to deep liquidity on Uniswap Protocols, you get minimal price impact on every trade, now with even greater efficiency through Uniswap v4.

Swap, send, on-ramp, off-ramp, and bridge into a bright future — get started at uniswap.org.

-

This episode was hosted by Christine Lee. “CoinDesk Daily” is produced by Christine Lee and edited by Victor Chen.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

South Africa voted for a UN General Assembly resolution calling for Ukraine’s territorial integrity to be respected last week, while the US abstained from the vote because it considered the resolution too anti-Russian. How does the very public falling out between the US and Ukraine affect South Africa's offer to broker peace between Moscow and Kyiv? What's South Africa's role in all of this?

Also, navigating the subject of witchcraft in Zambia.

And how did Guinea eradicate sleeping sickness?

Presenter: Audrey Brown Technical Producer: Francesca Dunne Producers: Yvette Twagiramariya, Bella Hassan and Nyasha Michelle Senior Journalist: Karnie Sharp Editors: Andre Lombard and Alice Muthengi

European nations step up for Ukraine amid fallout from Oval Office confrontation. Anora wins big at the Oscars. South Carolina wildfires. CBS News Correspondent Steve Kathan has today's World News Roundup.

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices