--:-- Nick Miles: This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles, and at 13 Hours GMT on Monday the 30th of September, these are our main stories.
--:-- Nick Miles: Israel expands its military operation in Lebanon. Our correspondent has been speaking to people caught up in the violence in the Bekar Valley.
--:-- Orla Guerin: Reports now from the Riak Hospital in the Beqar Valley in Lebanon. You may find some of the details in her report upsetting.
--:-- Orla Guerin: I'm standing outside a ward in a paediatric intensive care unit. There's a 60-year-old girl inside in the bed closest to the window. She's called Noor. Her head is bandaged and she's seriously ill.
--:-- Rima: Her mother, Rima, is with me. Reema, can you tell me what happened? How did Noor get these injuries?
--:-- Rima: We were sat right by the front door, not brave enough to go inside because we thought the building would collapse on us if it was hit. Then when the bombing got closer and more intense, we decided to go in, whatever the consequences.
--:-- Rima: I picked up Noor and her brother, but the missile was much faster than I was. The next thing I remember I was on the floor and when I got up it was obvious she was the one most badly hurt.
--:-- Rima: She wasn't responding and her head was bashed open with blood pooling under her. Her brother had an eye injury. All her cousins were also on the floor hurt.
--:-- Rima: Before Noor was injured was she very scared because of what was going on?
--:-- Rima: Yes. I would try and soothe her, telling her not to be afraid, that nothing would happen. She called on God and the prophets for help.
--:-- Rima: But it was her fate to be hurt the worst.
--:-- Orla Guerin: Well, within the last few seconds, we've had a strike. We heard the plane in the air, then we felt the impact. The windows here shook, they rattled.
--:-- Orla Guerin: And it's an indication of how nowhere here is safe. Even patients in hospitals can't feel completely safe.
--:-- Dr. Basil Abdullah: With me is the medical director, Dr. Basil Abdullah.
--:-- Dr. Basil Abdullah: Doctor, tell me what kind of cases have you been receiving in recent days of people wounded by Israeli attacks?
--:-- Dr. Basil Abdullah: In total, we had more than 400 injured patients. Almost the majority of the patients are coming from the same family.
--:-- Dr. Basil Abdullah: And are you receiving casualties every day?
--:-- Dr. Basil Abdullah: Yeah, every day.
--:-- Dr. Basil Abdullah: It must be very difficult for you and for your colleagues to be receiving so many wounded in such a short space of time.
--:-- Dr. Basil Abdullah: Seeing children bombed, seeing elderly patients, seeing women bombed, it's difficult. The majority of the nurses, the doctors are depressed.
--:-- Dr. Basil Abdullah: An ambulance has just arrived now, bringing casualties from the latest airstrike. They're being treated in the emergency department.
--:-- Dr. Basil Abdullah: There's a lot of anger and tension. People are stressed, wondering when this is going to stop.
--:-- Orla Guerin: That was Orla Guerin.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: Hezbollah's deputy leader, Naim Qassem, has insisted that it will fight back and that despite the death of Hassan Nasrallah and other Hezbollah commanders, the group's military capacity has not been diminished.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: The Islamic resistance will continue to confront the Israeli enemy in solidarity with Gaza and Palestine, in defence of Lebanon and its people, and in response to the assassinations of leaders and the killing of civilians.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: We recognise that the battle may be long and all options are available to us. Should the Israelis decide to launch a grand invasion, the resistance forces are ready to engage with it.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: I think it's a fact that Hezbollah has been heavily damaged by two weeks of intense Israeli airstrikes. Its entire leadership has been decimated.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: So they are in a difficult position, obviously, and their communications network has been breached.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: So it is very difficult to see how they are going to come up with some kind of coordinated response to these attacks.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: And, you know, Naim Kassem said the group is ready to confront any Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: So the signs coming from Israel suggest that this is imminent.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: Yoav Galant, the Israeli defense minister, was visiting troops along the border. He said the killing of Hassan Nasrallah was a very important step, but not the final one.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: And I think here in Lebanon, this is the concern that we're going to see a wider Israeli campaign against Hezbollah, including a ground invasion of southern Lebanon to create what the Israeli officials describe as a buffer zone in the south, to destroy the infrastructure that has been created by Hezbollah and push Hezbollah away from the border.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: So he was defiant, but the situation is very different for Hezbollah.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: Hugo the Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati has just been saying that he is ready to send troops of the Lebanese army to the southern border.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: One would imagine that would be worrying for Israel because it would put Hezbollah and the Lebanese armed forces on the same side.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: Yeah I mean it very difficult to see how any kind of deal or any kind of negotiation can reach a ceasefire at the moment.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: The Israelis think they are being extremely successful with the operation they've carried out so far in terms of weakening Hezbollah.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: And they want to change the reality along the border. So the Lebanese are saying that they are ready to implement the United Nations Resolution 1701, which is the resolution that was approved in 2006 to put an end to the last war between Hezbollah and Israel.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: And I think it's very difficult to see why the Israelis would accept any kind of deal at the moment.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: They feel that they have inflicted a significant blow and they believe that they have the momentum now to degrade Hezbollah quite significantly, to again change the situation along the border.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: They say that the goal of this operation is to allow the return of those 60,000 residents who have been displaced because of those rockets that have been fired by Hezbollah.
--:-- Hugo Bashega: So very difficult to see how any kind of diplomatic solution can be found right now.
--:-- Nick Miles: Let's head to the French capital Paris now, where Marine Le Pen, the leader of the right-wing populist party, the National Rally, is on trial for allegedly misusing European parliamentary funds.
--:-- Hugh Schofield: So how serious is this for her personally and for her political ambitions?
--:-- Hugh Schofield: She's accused of presiding over a system going back many years in which party workers, at a time when the party was in financial difficulty, were paid effectively not with the party's own money but with European money.
--:-- Hugh Schofield: The system relates to MEPs, people working as deputies in Brussels and Strasbourg, who 15 years ago the party had several, 20 or more of these MEPs.
--:-- Hugh Schofield: They all get an envelope from the Parliament, money to pay for assistance. In theory, these assistance should be people who are helping purely with parliamentary work in Strasbourg and Brussels, but what the party is accused of doing is using that money to pay Paris-based workers who occasionally would take trips up to Strasbourg to sort of keep up the front that they were working in the Parliament, but weren't really, were basically fully-fledged members of the party apparatus in Paris.
--:-- Hugh Schofield: That's the accusation. Of course, they're saying it's not true, And they're saying also that Brussels is a, the European Parliament was a place where this kind of thing went on to varying degrees a lot.
--:-- Hugh Schofield: Hugh, her party did extremely well in European parliamentary elections earlier this year.
--:-- Hugh Schofield: It looked at one stage as if she was going to be the largest party in the French parliamentary elections.
--:-- Hugh Schofield: It certainly was in the first round. So her party is riding high.
--:-- Hugh Schofield: What would a guilty verdict mean for her and her party?
--:-- Hugh Schofield: Well, I think there are two things there. One thing is the kind of technical consequence of her being found guilty and possibly declared ineligible for public office.
--:-- Hugh Schofield: That would be a huge blow to her personal ambitions. There's no guarantee that it would happen even if she's found guilty.
--:-- Hugh Schofield: It's only one possible punishment would be this punishment of ineligibility for five years, which would mean she couldn't run for president in 2027.
--:-- Hugh Schofield: So that would be a major blow.
--:-- Hugh Schofield: So the other side of this thing, what would it do to the image of the party?
--:-- Hugh Schofield: What would it do to its standing as a vote winner in France?
--:-- Hugh Schofield: I think there the answer is rather different.
--:-- Hugh Schofield: I think such is the cynicism towards Europe and towards the establishment in general.
--:-- Hugh Schofield: A lot of people will simply say, well, OK, she's been found guilty. I don't care.
--:-- Hugh Schofield: In fact, once again, it's a system attacking an outsider.
--:-- Hugh Schofield: And I think politically, overall, for the party, it would probably make little difference if she was found guilty.
--:-- Hugh Schofield: In fact, it might even help them.
--:-- Nick Miles: Japan's incoming Prime Minister has called a snap general election for the end of October.
--:-- Mickey Bristow: Shigeru Ishibe was only elected as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Friday and is due to be approved as Prime Minister in Parliament on Tuesday.
--:-- Mickey Bristow: I asked our Asia-Pacific editor, Mickey Bristow, why call an election now?
--:-- Mickey Bristow: He probably feels that he wants to establish his administration with legitimacy in the eyes of the public.
--:-- Mickey Bristow: In fact, at a press conference, that's exactly what he said.
--:-- Mickey Bristow: He wanted to give people the earliest opportunity to test his administration, which is still developing, by the way.
--:-- Mickey Bristow: There's probably a little bit more to it than that, though, because the race to allow him to become Prime Minister of Japan through the LDP was a really tight one.
--:-- Mickey Bristow: There were nine candidates. Initially, there was a runoff with a challenger between two people.
--:-- Mickey Bristow: He just won. So it's probably more about establishing his legitimacy with the public to give him credibility within the LDP.
--:-- Mickey Bristow: That's perhaps why he's called the election now.
--:-- Mickey Bristow: Now, is this a gamble, though, for him and also for the Liberal Party?
--:-- Mickey Bristow: Because he is coming to office on the back of a corruption scandal, isn't he?
--:-- Mickey Bristow: His elections are always dangerous in democracies because you don't know who's going to win.
--:-- Mickey Bristow: Less so in Japan because the LDP has been in power mostly in the post-war period, really rarely been out of power.
--:-- Mickey Bristow: So there's less risk associated with that.
--:-- Mickey Bristow: As you say, you mentioned corruption scandal there.
--:-- Mickey Bristow: That's related to the LDP under a previous prime minister, suggestions that money was misappropriated.
--:-- Mickey Bristow: This is a chance for the party to kind of have a fresh start, have an election, giving the party a clear new mandate is a way to kind of look forward rather than looking back.
--:-- Nick Miles: In just under five weeks time, Kamala Harris will be hoping to become America's first female president.
--:-- Amal Rajan: But at the moment, polling looks too close to call.
--:-- Amal Rajan: And if she does lose, she wouldn't be the first woman to suffer election defeat by Donald Trump.
--:-- Amal Rajan: The other was, of course, Hillary Clinton back in 2016, who's been speaking to the BBC's Amal Rajan.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: What does she think? Is at stake this time around?
--:-- Hillary Clinton: I think the election outcome in the United States will have repercussions far beyond our borders.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: It will also determine whether or not we continue supporting Ukraine, whether we can get some kind of workable resolution in the Middle East and so much else.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: And I say that because the two candidates have presented extremely different agendas for where they want to take our country.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: And so I think it's really important that people around the world understand that we know what the stakes are and we're doing everything we can to elect Kamala Harris.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: Everyone can understand why you of all people would take what Donald Trump says seriously.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: But do you give any credence to the idea that he did identify and articulate, perhaps sooner, perhaps better than some others, the legitimate grievances of many Americans who feel that globalization has robbed them of their agency and of their future.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: You know, I think it's fair to say that people support him for different reasons.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: And certainly for people who feel that they are overlooked, they're unseen, the economy doesn't work for them, and they just want change, and they are willing to risk the most dramatic kind of change.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: Although, frankly, he didn't help them very much the first time.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: So why they think he would this time is sort of a question mark.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: But I think our problem is, frankly, we are not the most effective messengers about what we see and what we're trying to do to address these real and legitimate concerns that people have.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: And I recognize and accept my share of the responsibility.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: But it is hard in a time when politicians are expected to be more entertaining where social media demands that you be outrageous that you say something that breaks through to do the hard boring work of actually getting things done.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: You've known Joe Biden for decades.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: Now, hindsight is a wonderful thing. But do you think, with the benefit of hindsight, that he should have stepped down earlier?
--:-- Hillary Clinton: No, no, I do not.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: Why not?
--:-- Hillary Clinton: I do not.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: We are now in a much different world because Joe Biden has been our president in so many different ways, including the huge climate investments that have been made, advanced manufacturing, so much else.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: And I was with him a week before that disastrous debate, and I saw no reason why he should have stepped down.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: But once that debate happened, he could not recover, and he did the right thing.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: It was a selfless, patriotic act for him to step down and then endorse his vice president.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: And what would it mean to you if she went all the way, if Kamala Harris won and that she got the presidency that you got so close to?
--:-- Hillary Clinton: It would be exhilarating.
--:-- Hillary Clinton: I mean, I am so excited by this opportunity for her to be president, not only because I know her and I believe she would be a good president, but it's imperative to defeat Donald Trump, to break the fever that he has caused in our political system and to try to, you know, help the Republican Party become a party of principle again, not a party that basically follows him.
--:-- Nick Miles: Coming up. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. Nothing he would, nothing but his freedom.
--:-- Nick Miles: We say farewell to the American singer, songwriter and actor Chris Christopherson, who's died aged 88.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: It was more than 140 years ago when the UK became the birthplace of the world's first coal-fired power plant, producing electricity for homes and factories across the land.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: But today, its last remaining coal plant is closing for business.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: It is the first G7 country to phase the fossil fuel out completely.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: So what are the reasons behind it?
--:-- Justin Rowlett: Anxiety about coal really peaked back in the 50s when we had these terrible smogs.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: So there were concerns about the quality of the air.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: You could trace back the beginning of the end perhaps to there.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: But really what's happened in the last kind of few decades is in the 90s, the North Sea in Britain started producing a lot of gas.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: That gas became cheaper and more efficient than coal, happening at the same time as anxieties about acid rain across Europe, which meant the EU had brought in regulations to control the emissions of coal plants, which pushed up the price.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: So that was the first wave.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: They call it the dash to gas, which squeezed a bit of coal out of the system.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: And then there was a second wave of reduction of coal use when we began to roll out renewables in the UK, which has created the space, if you like, that's allowed us now to close that last coal plant up in Nottinghamshire, Ratcliffe-on-Saw.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: And allowed us to become the first of the D7, the wealthy group of nations to do so.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: How are other G7 nations doing on that front?
--:-- Justin Rowlett: Not as well.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: I mean, the other thing that happened in the UK was our last big kind of build out of new coal stations was in the 60s.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: And we never replaced those other countries, Germany, America, built out new coal stations 10, 15, 20 years ago.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: So they've still got a fleet of coal stations that are kind of if you like, in inverted commas, economically viable.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: Ours were on their knees, they were at the end of their life.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: So it was kind of relatively easy to close them down.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: So Germany, for example, is not looking to end the use of coal until about 2035, so we are ahead of the pack.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: There are other European countries that have done it, much smaller ones.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: Belgium, Sweden, Portugal, Austria have ended coal, but, yeah, we are the first.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: I mean, and the other interesting picture, not just coal plants, but, of course, the Industrial Revolution itself began here in the UK.
--:-- Justin Rowlett: The first industrial nation now ending the use of coal.
--:-- Nick Miles: The BBC has discovered McDonald's failed to stop the exploitation of nine men who'd been trafficked to the UK from the Czech Republic and forced to work in a branch of the fast food chain.
--:-- John Ironmonger: The victims worked in a Cambridgeshire McDonald's for more than four years.
--:-- John Ironmonger: They were controlled by the gang with threats and violence and nearly all their wages were stolen by the criminals who trafficked them to the UK.
--:-- John Ironmonger: But neither McDonald's nor the franchisees running the branch noticed the signs they were victims of modern slavery, including that the wages for multiple people were being paid into the same bank accounts and individuals were working up to 100 hours a week.
--:-- John Ironmonger: The company and its franchisee say they've taken action to help detect potential risks in future and are committed to helping every employee.
--:-- John Ironmonger: The same gang forced other victims to work in a London factory, supplying own brand pitterbreads to leading supermarkets.
--:-- John Ironmonger: The British Retail Consortium, speaking on behalf of the industry, says retailers do investigate and take swift action.
--:-- John Ironmonger: But it's important the retailers learn from cases like this.
--:-- Nick Miles: Tributes are being paid to the American singer, songwriter and actor Chris Christopherson, who's died at the age of 88.
--:-- Michel Hussain: He appeared in the hit movie A Star Is Born with Barbra Streisand and wrote songs like Me and Bobby McGee and Help Me Make It Through the Night.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: Michel Hussain spoke to Joseph Hudak from Rolling Stone magazine about Chris Christopherson's legacy.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: When you talk about Chris Christopherson, yes, he's a singer, but above all else, he was a songwriter.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: Chris had this ability to just get into the heart of human emotion and human vulnerability, and particularly loneliness.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: There was something about the way that Chris could write about this idea of not having anyone there to support you or any sense of structure that no one else could.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: We were talking a bit about some of his songs, and one of them that really gets to the heart of this is Sunday Morning Coming Down.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: And Sunday Morning Coming Down was most famously recorded by Johnny Cash.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: But I would argue that Chris D'Opperson's version is even more powerful.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: Another of his songs that became very well known is Me and Bobby McGee.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: Did he mind when his work became much better known when it was covered by others?
--:-- Joseph Hudak: No, I don't think so at all.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: He didn't hear Janis Joplin's version of Me and Bobby McGee, which of course is the most famous one, until after Janis passed.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: And I believe he said he just walked all over Los Angeles just in tears and he could barely listen to the song without breaking up.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: When you're a songwriter here in Nashville, the Nashville songwriter community is so based around writing songs, not just for yourself, but for others.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: Right. There's the community is about sharing those songs and you don't particularly own a song per se.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: So if that song resonated with someone else, Christopherson was more than happy to have them recorded.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: Help Me Make It Through the Night is another one of his really beautiful songs.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: Do you see him as a pioneer of Nashville?
--:-- Joseph Hudak: Oh without a doubt
--:-- Joseph Hudak: Yeah I mean you know we said it before but Nashville is really a songwriting town
--:-- Joseph Hudak: There a phrase that they use here They say it all begins with a song
--:-- Joseph Hudak: And that's really what is at the heart of this community.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: And that's why Chris Dofferson is like the North Star in that respect.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: I mean, you know, we talk about help me make it through the night.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: I mean, everyone from Jerry Lee Lewis to Tina Turner, and most famously, Sammy Smith recorded that song and she had a number one with it.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: But Chris's is just so hard to beat.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: Take the ribbon from your hand. Shake it loose, let it fall.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: The thing about Christofferson's voice is he would even admit he was not a good singer.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: You know, his voice was croaking.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: You know, when he uttered those sounds in a song like Help Me Make It Through the Night, you're really kind of worried that he may not see the morning light.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: You know, that's what that song is about.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: One of his acting roles was in A Star is Born.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: When Barbara, I think I saw this, she tweeted this today after Chris passed.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: She said she first saw him perform at the Troubadour Club in Los Angeles.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: And right away, she knew that he had what she wanted for the script that she was developing, which was A Star was born.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: He was on stage at the Troubadour strumming his guitar barefoot, very much the folky, hippie kind of Troubadour at that time.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: But, you know, I think acting was just another part of who he was, was just another facet of the man that is Chris Christopherson.
--:-- Joseph Hudak: I don't think it's anything that he pursued any harder per se than he did songwriting.
--:-- Nick Miles: For many people around the world, the UK is high on the list of places they'd like to visit, although those used to the blazing heat might find the grey and wet weather a little dreary if they stay too long.
--:-- Nick Miles: But Holly Hennessy, a cruise enthusiast from Florida, was left without a choice.
--:-- Holly Hennessy: She and her cat, called Captain, are finally now setting sail after four months stranded in Belfast because of a problem with the ship.
--:-- Holly Hennessy: So is she sad or excited to be leaving?
--:-- Holly Hennessy: She's been speaking to the BBC's Nick Robinson.
--:-- Holly Hennessy: You know, it's a little bit of both.
--:-- Holly Hennessy: The ship people, we all rented the pedal taverns yesterday.
--:-- Holly Hennessy: We had three of them. We had quite a group.
--:-- Holly Hennessy: And one of the residents had made a beautiful soundtrack to go with it.
--:-- Holly Hennessy: And as we were passing City Hall, that beautiful Belfast City Hall, time to say goodbye came on the music, and I cried.
--:-- Holly Hennessy: So I'm going to be sad to say goodbye to Belfast, but we'll see again probably on the next circumnavigation.
--:-- Holly Hennessy: You're not going to miss the weather, I suspect, Holly.
--:-- Holly Hennessy: Not at all. Not at all.
--:-- Holly Hennessy: Lots of time with the umbrella spent in Belfast, but what are the happy memories there?
--:-- Holly Hennessy: Well, part of the happy memory was surviving it.
--:-- Holly Hennessy: I actually wore out an umbrella. It lost its waterproofing. It got so much use.
--:-- Holly Hennessy: I loved that my day trips, the Lord Mayor had us, all the shipmates for a reception at his chambers.
--:-- Holly Hennessy: It was wonderful. He invited the cat.
--:-- Holly Hennessy: Cat couldn't make it because it was raining that day.
--:-- Holly Hennessy: But that's the kind of welcome we've had here in Belfast.
--:-- Holly Hennessy: Well, make us jealous now, because you live on this ship. This is your home.
--:-- Holly Hennessy: Where are you going now?
--:-- Holly Hennessy: Well, our first port of call will be Brest, France, and then we will meander down the coast of Europe and cross over the Atlantic to the Caribbean and then get back with our normally scheduled itinerary.
--:-- Holly Hennessy: When your old friends in Florida ring you up and say, should we go to Belfast, what will you say to them?
--:-- Holly Hennessy: Get the weather forecast before you go.
--:-- Nick Miles: And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later.
--:-- Nick Miles: We're also planning a special edition of the podcast, marking one year since the Hamas attacks on Israel from Gaza.
--:-- Nick Miles: We'll be putting your questions to our correspondents who've been covering events in the Middle East over the past 12 months.
--:-- Nick Miles: Please email us your questions. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk
--:-- Nick Miles: You can also find us on x at globalnewspod.
--:-- Nick Miles: This edition was mixed by Martin Williams and the producer was Vanessa Heaney.
--:-- Nick Miles: The editor is Karen Martin.
--:-- Nick Miles: I'm Nick Mars.
--:-- Nick Miles: Until next time, goodbye.
--:-- Nick Miles: We'll be right back.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: Hi I'm Cindy Crawford and I'm the founder of Meaningful Beauty.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: Well I don't know about you but like I never liked being told oh wow you look so good for your age like why even bother saying that why don't you just say you look great at any age every age that's what meaningful Beauty is all about.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: We create products that make you feel confident in your skin at the age you are now.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: Meaningful Beauty, beautiful skin at every age. Learn more at MeaningfulBeauty.com.
--:-- Dr. Whitney Brown: According to a nationwide survey conducted by GeneSight, nearly 9 in 10 Americans who've been diagnosed with depression or anxiety believe that mental health medications are somewhat or very effective.
--:-- Dr. Whitney Brown: However, despite that belief, more than half of those individuals say they have avoided taking medication due to concerns about potential side effects.
--:-- Dr. Whitney Brown: That's why Dr. Whitney Brown, a family and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner based in Alabama, often recommends genetic testing to our patients as part of their treatment journey.
--:-- Dr. Whitney Brown: Dr. Brown explains.
--:-- Dr. Whitney Brown: As part of my treatment plan, I offer the gene site test, which analyzes how a patient's genes may influence how they metabolize or respond to certain mental health medications.
--:-- Dr. Whitney Brown: It gives me insights and takes out some of the guesswork that can be associated with prescribing them.
--:-- Dr. Whitney Brown: If you or someone you love is facing challenges with depression or anxiety, talk to your doctor about how genetic testing may help.
--:-- Dr. Whitney Brown: To learn more, visit genesight.com.
--:-- Dr. Whitney Brown: That's genesight.com.
--:-- Asma Khalid: America is changing, and so is the world.
--:-- Asma Khalid: But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval.
--:-- Asma Khalid: It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
--:-- Asma Khalid: I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C.
--:-- Asma Khalid: I'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is The Global Story.
--:-- Asma Khalid: Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet.
--:-- Asma Khalid: Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
