The World and Everything in It: August 17, 2026

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

How much of your financial life ought the government be permitted to see— without a warrant?

LITTLE: We have a Fourth Amendment right to not have our personal records and data taken by the government without any suspicion.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Legal Docket.

Also today, the Monday Moneybeat … the socialist left and the populist right have one thing in common—distrust of markets. David Bahnsen is standing by.

And the WORLD History Book: how a museum heist turned a masterpiece into a global icon:

GIROD: The theft was probably the best thing that ever happened to the Mona Lisa.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, August 17th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Now the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Storms » In Indiana, after a week of deadly storms ... residents are finally getting a break from the driving rain. But rivers there are still far over their banks.

Firefighters in Indianapolis pulled nearly a hundred people and dozens of pets from the water. Upstream, the White River broke records set in 1913.

Indiana Homeland Security Director Jonathan Whitham said over the weekend:

WHITHAM: We do know of five fatalities that have been confirmed to be storm related at this point. There are others that we are trying to confirm.

But the state has since confirmed a sixth death. About 130-thousand homes and businesses were still without power Sunday ... down from a peak of 300-thousand. President Trump has approved emergency federal money for rescue and shelter costs.

Meantime, Hawaii's Big Island is surveying damage from Tropical Storm Lala. Larry Kelly of the National Hurricane Center:

KELLY: Rainfall totals in excess of thirty inches have been reported on the eastern side of the island, of the Big Island, uh, and, uh, damaging winds as well.

Flash floods swept two homes off their foundations. One person died. Lala is pulling away to the west ... though rain will linger over Kauai.

Indonesia / Colombia quakes » In eastern Indonesia, rescue crews have reached villages that landslides cut off from the outside world after a massive earthquake. WORLD’s Benjamin Eicher reports.

BENJAMIN EICHER: Relief workers are handing out rice, drinking water, blankets and medicine … following the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that struck the island of Flores, Saturday.

More than 900 homes are gone and about 5,000 people are in tents.

Officials now say at least 53 people are confirmed dead … with well over a hundred injured.

Aftershocks keep coming over the weekend, and crews are still restoring power.

Meantime, in Colombia, the toll from a magnitude 7.4 quake a week ago has climbed to at least 288, with more than 200 still missing. Officials there say the search has shifted from rescue to recovery.

For WORLD, I’m Benjamin Eicher.

Iran ceasefire official ends » A ceasefire between the United States and Iran expires today, at least on paper … though both sides had long since declared the truce null and void. And Tehran says it has no intention of renewing the agreement … unless the White House submits to a list of demands.

At the moment, the conflict is more of a standoff than anything else. Iran is still obstructing commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz … while the U.S. Navy continues a blockade of Iranian ports.

Cassidy criticizes Trump vaccine order » One Republican senator is criticizing President Trump's push to space out childhood vaccinations.

Trump signed an executive order last week urging doctors to give childhood shots one at a time ... at separate visits. It also recommends vaccinating all children against 11 diseases ... down from 18.

Trump told White House reporters:

TRUMP: At one year you should have five separate visits for vaccines rather than getting them all in the same day.

The White House says other developed countries recommend fewer shots.

But Louisiana Republican Bill Cassidy ... a physician who chairs the Senate health committee ... told ABC’s This Week … it's a bad idea.

CASSIDY: Instead of the child getting, um, you missing work to take your child to the doctor two times, you're doing it six times. And instead of the insurance company paying for two visits, it's now paying for six visits. Now, this is gonna drive up the cost of your life, inconvenience you tremendously.

The order changes no law ... and carries no penalty for doctors, parents or states that ignore it. A federal health task force has 90 days to propose a new schedule. States still write their own school vaccine rules.

Tommy John dies » Major League Baseball pitching great Tommy John has died at the age of 83. He was a 4-time all-star who won almost 300 games … but his career was historic for a different reason: the fact that he was able to pitch at all … after blowing out his elbow in 1974.

JOHN:  I felt this banging sound in my elbow and this, and this sharp pain.

It was supposed to be a career-ending injury. But Dr. Frank Jobe tried something new … replacing a torn elbow ligament with a tendon from his other arm.

Against all odds, it worked. John pitched in roughly another 400 games over 14 years. But ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction surgery was mouthful … it was much easier for people to call it …

JOHN:  Tommy John surgery. And I didn't name it Tommy John surgery, Dr. Jobe did. And, uh, so he, he's the one that stuck me with that.

That from the Dan Patrick Show.

Tommy John surgery has since saved the careers of more than 2,600 pro baseball players

Box office » At the weekend box office … dinosaurs are back on the big screen.

CLIP: I think that our neighborhood has moved. … We’re in the past, aren’t we?

The time travel thriller The End of Oak Street opened with an estimated $21 million dollars for the weekend. But that was only good enough for third place. The Odyssey took in another $23 million … and Spider-Man: Brand New Day is still dominating … earning another $70 million domestically. Globally, it has now crossed the $2 billion dollar mark.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead on Legal Docket … what the Fourth Amendment says about the government’s access to your personal records. Plus, the World History Book.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for this 17th day of August, 2026. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning! I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard … welcome back!

EICHER: Thank you. Good to be back! Ready to get back to work.

REICHARD: Hope it was restful. Let’s get back at it! All right, time now for Legal Docket.

Every day, detailed records of Americans’ stock-market orders flow into a vast database called the Consolidated Audit Trail—C-A-T, “CAT.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission required the system but does not currently run it. The database is operated by the nation’s stock exchanges and the private regulator for brokerage firms known by the acronym FINRA.

EICHER: Regulators say they need the information CAT collects to detect and investigate market manipulation. The plaintiffs suing to shut down CAT call it suspicionless government surveillance.

REICHARD: But before a federal judge decides who’s right, the Securities and Exchange Commission is putting the court on hold once again.

EICHER: Last week, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins directed staff to consider rescinding the rule that created CAT. The database would remain, but responsibility for it would shift to the SEC.

REICHARD: It’s the second time this summer an SEC policy has changed while the advocacy group New Civil Liberties Alliance was seeking judicial review.

NCLA says this is becoming a pattern.

Earlier this summer, the group had another SEC case pending at the Supreme Court. The plaintiff was Thomas Powell, an investment manager who settled an SEC enforcement action.

EICHER: Under SEC policy, Powell could settle without admitting wrongdoing. But he also had to agree not to publicly deny the agency’s allegations. Powell says he learned just how broad that restriction was when reporters later called him about the case.

REICHARD: As Powell explained it to me, he was only trying to give a general response.

POWELL: And when we responded with a just very generic vanilla statement, the SEC immediately called and said, “You can’t do that.”

For Powell, that meant the government’s version of events could keep circulating, while he remained bound by the settlement.

POWELL: And I said, boy, this really is something. And this is going to be for the rest of my life. ... the narrative that they focus upon changes what the actual facts of the story are.

EICHER: The SEC rule was known as the no-deny policy. NCLA challenged it on First Amendment grounds, arguing the government cannot make silence the price of settlement. Powell’s petition got to the Supreme Court. But then the SEC rescinded the rule.

REICHARD: Here’s NCLA senior litigation counsel Peggy Little.

LITTLE: It was two days before their brief was due. They repeal the rule… and then the only brief they file is to say, “well, the case is moot. We made the rule go away.” It reminds me of …Lucy with the football. You know, they whip it away at the last minute and say, “there's no rule here. What are you talking about?”

EICHER: With no high court ruling, there’s no definitive decision whether the SEC policy violated the First Amendment. And thus, later administrations are theoretically free to restore it.

Which brings us back to the lawsuit about the database CAT.

The two disputes are not legally alike. One is ostensibly about free speech; the other concerns the collection of financial records. But they do raise the same procedural question: What becomes of judicial review when the disputed agency policy changes before the court gets to the merits of the policy?

REICHARD: CAT’s designed to let regulators retrace every stock and options trade in the U.S. The government says it’s essential to help regulators police the financial markets. It points to the so-called “flash crash” in 2010 … when stock prices took a dive and then recovered minutes later.

EICHER: Regulators had a hard time figuring out what happened, because trading information was dispersed among different exchanges and systems. So the agency says CAT is needed to more rapidly understand situations like that.

But investors Erik Davidson and John Restivo have sued to shut down CAT. NCLA is representing them, saying the audit trail CAT captures is a threat to constitutional rights:

LITTLE: The audit trail contains the name, address, birth year, trade by history of every retail brokerage customer in America, every buy and sell order, every account, every investor, and all of it is mapped to a single government-assigned identification, now called the CCID.

The SEC did make some changes: It now says direct, personally identifiable information reporting is eliminated. The transaction database retains anonymized order and event data, plus CCIDs that link activity across brokers, accounts, and markets. Regulators can seek identity information from brokers when needed.

REICHARD: I contacted FINRA, the SEC, and an organization that supports CAT called Better Markets. They all responded but declined to interview in time for this story.

What I gather from research is that these organizations say CAT is a tech upgrade that makes enforcement more efficient. But NCLA says collecting everybody’s information in advance of suspicious activity is quite different from collecting info after suspicion arises.

LITTLE: We have a Fourth Amendment right to not have our personal records and data taken by the government without any suspicion.

EICHER: Legally speaking, the government argues that under the third-party doctrine, investors don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy in business records they voluntarily give somebody anyway.

REICHARD: Defenders of CAT say the system’s been around for years, with no evidence of abuse, at least not publicly documented.

But NCLA argues the absence of catastrophe to this point cannot be the end-all. The Inspector General found the SEC didn’t have good enough measures to prevent hacking or leaking private information.

EICHER: The SEC acknowledges the risk and has taken some steps to reduce it. But NCLA questions whether Congress even authorized CAT in such a sweeping way.

Little says this falls under the Supreme Court’s Major Questions Doctrine. That says that when an agency claims power to decide something of massive economic or political significance, the courts expect Congress to first give clear authorization.

LITTLE: First of all, I don't think a single congressman would ever introduce a bill saying the government gets to collect all the data on everyone all the time. That would be hugely unpopular, especially, I might add, to congressmen who seem to be profiting quite readily in the stock markets.

REICHARD: Another constitutional objection is over who pays for the CAT system.

LITTLE: What they do is they lean on the self-regulatory organizations that they also regulate. And this would be the financial —FINRA is one of them, but the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, the various exchanges, about 25 of these companies. And they say, no, you pay for our surveillance system.

EICHER: The CAT case ultimately asks whether this is simply a faster filing cabinet for records regulators may already demand. Or whether collecting, linking, and keeping every investor’s trading activity in advance becomes a Fourth Amendment search.

This past term, the Supreme Court said in a case titled Chatrie vs. U.S., that police access to a large store of digital location data was a “search” under the Fourth Amendment. The justices left to the lower court the decision whether the search was unreasonable. Chatrie, though, was not about financial records and it doesn’t decide the CAT lawsuit.

REICHARD: Still, Chatrie does sharpen the question in the CAT case: when government technology makes it possible to assemble a detailed picture first and ask questions later, is that still ordinary regulatory record keeping?

For now, that question remains in federal trial court in Texas, where the SEC is asking for more time to rethink the CAT system. The judge has to decide whether to wait again, or let the suit move forward.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket!

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: The Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Time now to talk business, markets, and the economy with financial analyst and advisor David Bahnsen. David heads up the wealth management firm The Bahnsen Group. He’s here now. Good morning, David.

DAVID BAHNSEN: Well, good morning, Nick. Good to be with you.

EICHER: David, the challenge to free enterprise now seems to come from two directions: democratic socialists on the left and a populist right increasingly skeptical of markets.

Vice President J.D. Vance says Republicans shouldn’t answer young people’s economic frustration by sloganeering about the free market, but by crafting policies that make their lives better. Here he is on Fox’s The Will Cain Show.

JD VANCE: I guess I would say to that young person that you, as an American citizen, deserve to have a good life in this country, and you deserve to have a government that is making it easier for you to start a family, for you to afford to get a good education, for you to have a good job, for you to afford a home. … And my warning to my fellow Republicans, Will, would be: If we don’t get this right, don’t blame young people for being sympathetic to socialism. We’ve got to blame ourselves. … You don’t stop socialism by throwing slogans at people about the free market. As much as I love the free market, you stop socialism by making people’s lives better—and that’s what we’re trying to do every single day.

I think there’s something politically right about insisting that public policy produce results. But that can quickly become a mandate for government to engineer those results. Where do you say conservatives ought to draw the line?

BAHNSEN: Well, I think first of all, you want to start with this issue of limiting principles. Why could a socialist not say this exact same sentence? We don’t need free market slogans. We need the government to make people’s lives better. That is what socialists say. So just merely parroting and echoing the exact same line is unhelpful.

But I would throw it back at the critics of free markets and ask a question: Don’t we need more than slogans about making people’s lives better? In other words, what is it you’re referring to?

If you’re referring to protecting the free market in a way that it will enable the conditions for human flourishing, then why do you have to pit it against free markets? And if what you mean is, no, I need the government to transcend, supersede, put its thumb on the scale, do something against a free market, where is that appropriate line?

I’m not sure I agree with the general language that I want a government that will make my life better, but I know what a lot of people might mean by it in the sense that we want them to promote the general welfare, the common defense, and that is done in constitutional ways by removing impediments, so protecting rule of law, protecting us from foreign invaders, settling civil disputes, things of that nature.

But that is not, of course, what anyone, right or left, in this populist moment that is anti-market is talking about. They are all talking about some version of price controls, of wage controls, or of subsidies, of some form of governmental intervention, what we refer to as central planning of the economy, and I’m here to say it doesn’t make anybody’s life better, and it never has.

EICHER: After the Dobbs decision overturned Roe vs. Wade and returned abortion law to the states, abortion providers began mailing DIY abortion kits into states that protect unborn life.

Our mutual friend Jerry Bowyer argues that the Comstock Act may already prohibit those shipments ... and that Attorney General Todd Blanche’s commitment to enforcing the law creates real risk for the companies carrying them. Bowyer praised Walmart, Amazon, and Costco for declining to sell or ship the drugs.

What does that result tell us about the power of sustained shareholder engagement, compared with boycotts or government mandates?

BAHNSEN: Well, you may have noticed that years and years of boycotting companies that were doing things we didn’t like didn’t help very much. And, of course, the issue of boycotts, to the extent that you’re trying to make an impact on activity, it cuts both ways.

Hopefully, those that advocate boycotts understand from a market impact standpoint that there are more pro-choice people than pro-life people. So I would hate for companies to respond to the market incentive the other way.

What you want is to do exactly what Jerry did, which is point out that there is risk for the company because of the various nature, either in explicit or ambiguous law, and the companies voluntarily saying we don’t want to take this particular risk on.

However, that legislative clarity isn’t there, and so it leaves judicial ambiguity, which leaves companies exposed, and Jerry is wisely going after that.

But Nick, to your point, engagement is the way to move that process along in a way that is favorable to shareholders and to the type of society we want to have. A boycott is just simply an impotent way of dealing with it.

EICHER: Jerry also coauthored a report finding that participation by major banks and asset managers in net-zero alliances has fallen nearly 90 percent in four years.

JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo have all left the UN-backed Net-Zero Banking Alliance. But leaving an alliance doesn’t necessarily mean their lending and investment practices have changed.

How can we tell whether this is a durable return to fiduciary responsibility rather than a temporary response to today’s politics?

BAHNSEN: You have to take it case by case because each company’s motivation is going to be different.

I would start not with why did they leave net zero, but why did they first go into it, and there were some who were true believers that now got away because of the political winds blowing. But there were some J.P. Morgans in this camp that only went into it because they were being forced into it, and they were gladly taking the out to get out of it.

So I think I’m less concerned about where J.P. Morgan would go in the future, more concerned with where there are some that are true believers. But this has been my position for a long time. That’s a very small minority in much of the ESG, environmental extremism, and some of the cultural wokeism issues.

There are some out there in media, in Hollywood, but when you’re talking about the financial institutions where I have intimate connections with many of the C-suites of some of these companies, it’s extremely rare that I ever found anyone that was a real believer in a lot of this stuff.

And so the cultural winds moving are a good thing because the companies get the out they need to go back to market-oriented signals and activity.

The winners are the stakeholders of these companies that have the companies returning to fiduciary thinking and making decisions that are best for their customers, for their business models, for the stakeholders.

I agree with you entirely that I do not believe all of the cultural insanity that existed five and 10 years ago is totally gone. I do not agree that the election removed it. I think the election was a byproduct of the cultural shifts, not the vice versa. There’s a chicken or egg issue there.

But for Christians who care about these things, Nick, if you want durable change, it’s in evangelism and reformation. Those are the things that bring durable change.

If all we want to do is go election to election and press release to press release and vibe to vibe on social media, then yes, we’re going to get blown around a lot more.

EICHER: Finally, David, we got a new CPI report last week ... the Consumer Price Index for July ... and we see core consumer prices rising two-tenths of a percent in July and 2.5 percent from a year earlier. What do you see in the inflation data?

BAHNSEN: I think it’s unfortunate to see the CPI still higher than it was when Biden left office. It’s good to focus on core because even headline is a lot higher, and people can decide if that’s a good thing or bad thing around the oil price situation with Iran.

But to see goods prices come up the way they have and stay up the way they have as a result of tariffs is really disappointing.

But the housing issues are coming down a little bit, and that’ll put some downward pressure on the total inflation number, and we’ll see that bake in in the months to come.

EICHER: All right, David Bahnsen, founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group. He writes at DividendCafe.com each week and at WORLD Opinions. David, have a terrific week. We’ll see you next time.

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next … a museum heist.

115 years ago, a former employee slipped inside the Louvre and stole the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci’s then-400 year old masterpiece.

The painting was lost for two years as police searched for the man responsible.

WORLD’s Emma Eicher has this week’s history book:

The painting was lost for two years as police searched for the man responsible.

WORLD’s Emma Eicher has this week’s history book:

EMMA EICHER: On August 21st, 1911, Vincenzo Peruggia pulled off the perfect crime.

GARY GIROD: He was able to essentially abscond with this priceless artifact.

Gary Girod is a history professor at Florida Southwestern State College. He says Peruggia was an Italian-born man working at the Louvre museum in Paris, France.

He had worked as a glazier, helping install protective glass around paintings. In fact, Peruggia’s work had involved the Mona Lisa … the same painting he had come to steal.

GIROD: He goes up, literally just walks up to it, takes it off of the wall, covers it up with this type of sheet …

Some accounts say that two Italian brothers assisted Peruggia in lifting the painting off the wall and removing its glass case.

And to add insult to injury, the story goes that an unwitting plumber helped Peruggia leave the museum with the covered painting tucked under his arm:

GIROD: He comes upon a locked door. He actually runs into a plumber who says, ‘Oh, let me get that for you.’ Unlocks it, literally walks out, goes right back to his apartment, and stores it there.

The theft wasn’t discovered until the following day, when an artist wanting to make a copy of the Mona Lisa asked where it was.

The museum guard assumed the painting was taken down for photographing or maintenance. After confirming it wasn’t in the building, authorities finally realized the Mona Lisa had been stolen.

GIROD: The art director said that he didn't believe it, because who would do such a thing?

The heist set off a media frenzy.

GIROD: Clearly, this was a national embarrassment. You have politicians saying that this is a disgrace …

A swarm of policemen searched the Louvre for clues. The leading officer said it was only a matter of time before they found the painting. He even predicted the investigation would be over in two or three days.

But the truth was, police had very little physical evidence to pin the crime on anyone.

GIROD: For the most part, they were just going off of hunches. First, they would interview all of the staff …

Among the people questioned were other artists, including poet Guillaume Apollinaire and Cubist painter Pablo Picasso:

GIROD: This was because, among other things, Apollinaire had written a poem in which he said to burn down the Louvre. And there had been a Belgian man who stole some antique statuettes, and he ended up selling those to Pablo Picasso to use as his inspiration for some of the paintings he would paint.

But they were cleared, leaving everyone still guessing the mastermind behind the whodunit. Wild theories ranged from foreign governments, to wealthy art collectors, to avant-garde extremists.

GIROD: The accusations are going to run pretty wild. In fact, J.P. Morgan, the famous American businessman, there's going to be conspiracies that he had organized this high-profile, sort of Ocean's 11-style heist so that he could steal the Mona Lisa.

Almost overnight, her face and the story behind it became known around the world.

European newspapers displayed photos of the painting and promised a hefty reward for the thief’s capture. Police distributed Wanted posters, and the painting even appeared on chocolate boxes and postcards.

The Mona Lisa had become a global icon.

And the whole time, she was tucked away at Peruggia’s apartment, only two miles from the Louvre.

GIROD: There's actually a story that police went to his apartment. They interviewed him, and at one point the police leaned up against the table where the Mona Lisa was right under it.

Whether that story is true or not, Peruggia didn’t become a formal suspect for two years. In late 1913, he wrote to an art dealer, offering to bring the Mona Lisa to Italy in exchange for money. He apparently was convinced that the painting belonged to Italy, even though Leonardo da Vinci himself had taken it to France.

The art dealer arranged the meeting and then turned Peruggia in. Police arrested him at his hotel in Florence.

Newspapers speculated Peruggia was a genius who had cleverly evaded capture. But at his trial, a court-appointed psychiatrist found Peruggia to be partially mentally impaired:

GIROD: Peruggia very much disappoints people because he wasn't this grand thief. He was just some guy.

The Mona Lisa fever returned as the world celebrated. The painting was displayed in Florence and Rome until returning to the Louvre in early 1914:

GIROD: The theft was probably the best thing that ever happened to the Mona Lisa, to be honest.

The crime exposed serious weaknesses in museum security. At the Louvre today, the Mona Lisa hangs behind a specially designed bulletproof glass case.

And every year, millions of visitors try to catch a glimpse of it. That’s mostly thanks to the heist that helped the Mona Lisa become the most famous painting in the world.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Emma Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST:  Tomorrow: We’ll talk to an expert about America’s efforts to push back on China’s growing influence. And, how a change in approach to Bible-reading can help us enjoy the Scriptures. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

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, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” —Philippians 4:4–7

Go now in grace and peace.

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