The World and Everything in It: July 13, 2026

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

He spoke up as a parent. And he says it cost him his job.

GROSSENBACH: If I just sit on the sidelines and say nothing, I am handing the fight over and pushing my children into the boxing ring.

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

Also today, the Monday Moneybeat, we’ll talk about the new federal housing bill and whether children have become the new investor class. Economist David Bahnsen is standing by.

And later, the WORLD History Book:

STEELE: Route 66 was 20th-century western expansion.

The legendary American highway turns 100 years old this year.

REICHARD:  It’s Monday, July 13th. 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: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Iran latest » Iran says the Strait of Hormuz is closed. The U.S. says it's open — and is bombing to keep it that way.

Iranian forces set a container ship ablaze over the weekend, leaving a crewman missing. The U.S. answered with three nights of airstrikes, more than 300 targets. Iran fired back at five countries in the region, including Oman, which summoned Iran's ambassador in protest.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz:

WALTZ: You can't throw sea mines in international waterways. You can't just indiscriminately attack civilian shipping if you don't get your way. You can't hold the world's economy hostage. The president's not gonna stand for it.

Peace talks are near collapse — the last round, in Qatar, ended with no progress. But mediators are still trying.

All of this comes amid reports from Israeli intelligence that Iran has been actively plotting to assassinate President Trump. U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matt Whitaker:

WHITAKER:  The threat is real. This is not some theoretical idea

Trump is suggesting that he’s left standing orders for the U.S. military to strike Iran harder than ever if he’s assassinated. Though, in that scenario, the vice president would ultimately make the call.

Sen. Graham death reaction » Senator Lindsey Graham died of a ruptured aorta — a tear in the body's main artery, brought on by heart disease. That's the medical examiner's preliminary finding.

The Republican senator — one of the most influential lawmakers on Capitol Hill, died Saturday night, after a brief and sudden illness at age 71.

And tributes continue to pour in. President Trump:

TRUMP: He's a tough one to lose. He was great. He was unique in every way.

Graham ran against Trump for the 2016 Republican primary but later became a close ally.

Fellow South Carolina Senator Tim Scott spoke to Graham's character — and what he faced at age 19:

SCOTT: Within 15 months, his mother dies, and then his father has a massive heart attack and he passes as well. Lindsey adopts his 13-year-old sister.

Over three decades in Congress, the former Air Force lawyer became one of Washington's leading foreign policy hawks. Democrats frequently criticized Graham over those hawkish views. But Delaware Sen. Chris Coons said Sunday, that does not mean they didn't respect him.

COONS: This was very hard news to wake up to this morning. No better friend, no tougher adversary. And he and I certainly fought plenty over our differences about politics and policy, but we also traveled the world together.

Graham had just flown home from Ukraine at the time of his death. He had been a staunch supporter of Ukraine amid the Russian invasion. In Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called him a true defender of freedom.

And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said of Graham:

NETANYAHU: I think America has lost a great patriot. Israel has lost one of the great champions of the American-Israeli alliance. And frankly, I've lost a beloved friend who I've had for many decades. There's just no one like him.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster will name a temporary replacement. A special Republican primary comes August 11, and November's winner gets a full term.

His death leaves GOP leaders scrambling. Graham chaired the Senate Budget Committee. That leaves gavel open — just as Republicans are looking to push through major legislation.

Hot weather » A massive heat dome is baking large swaths of the country, with more than 40 million Americans under heat alerts.

Over the weekend, it drove temperatures past 100 across the Northern Plains and Rockies. Joe Wegman with the National Weather Service says the worst of it is hitting several regions:

WEGMAN: Across the northern plains particularly, but also including portions of the Intermountain West around Utah and also down into the Los Angeles basin.

Billings, Montana, could top 110 — for the first time in nearly a century. Salt Lake City is near its all-time high of 107.

But it isn't staying put. That hot, humid air reaches the rest of the Midwest today and the East Coast tomorrow.

Pub fire in Bangkok kills at least 27 » A massive fire at a pub in Bangkok has killed at least 27 people and injured dozens more. Firefighters brought the blaze under control early Monday, but not before video footage showed people running from the building as billows of black smoke poured into the sky.

Investigators are trying to determine the cause of the fire.

Box office » At the weekend box office, Disney’s latest live action remake of an animated hit debuted in the top spot.

CLIP (Moana trailer): This mission has no chance. We gotta go through a whole ocean of bad.

The live-action version of Moana has Duane “The Rock” Johnson reprising his role as Maui, a character he voice-acted a decade ago in the original animated movie.

Moana debuted with an estimated $43 million dollars for the weekend. But that was actually a disappointing number for Disney against the quarter-of-a-billion dollars it cost to make the film — not including marketing.

I'm Kent Covington. 

Coming up, how the legendary Route 66 changed the towns along its way.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for July 13th, 2026. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning! I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Time now for Legal Docket: Summer edition, where we step away from the U.S. Supreme Court to hear of legal battles in the lower courts.

Today: A professor says a public university fired him not for anything he taught—but for what he said as a parent at school-board meetings.

Dan Grossenbach is a former ethics professor fired from his alma mater and former employer, the University of Arizona.

EICHER: The university says it fired Grossenbach because it wanted to hire a tenure-track full time professor of ethics. As an adjunct, Grossenbach was only part time.

His performance reviews had been exemplary on all counts. And he had a long association with the university:

GROSSENBACH: I went to U of A, was a criminal justice major in the School of Government and Public Policy, and maintained a relationship. I also worked in government and had a relationship with them, managing interns from their program, coming back as a guest speaker, and I … had a really good relationship. So I was brought on as an adjunct … to teach in the school … 0:39 I was teaching about three and a half, almost four years, and things were awesome … .

REICHARD: Three years ago, he was looking to expand his duties:

GROSSENBACH: I was working with a publisher who was asking if I’d be interested in writing a text on this niche area of ethics for the public administrator, because there wasn’t a lot of resources for this kind of class that I was satisfied with.

And so I was looking at doing a book, and I had to answer some housekeeping questions, some basic administrative questions about how many people were in the program, how many other teachers were teaching, because maybe other teachers would be interested in teaching or contributing to this book….

When he put those questions to his department, he received no answers, just a surprise invite to a meeting.

GROSSENBACH: I went along with it and had a Zoom session….set up with the director of the program, who told me, “you’ve been a great teacher. Our students love you…but we no longer need you, because we’ve been endowed with extra financial resources to be able to hire full-time tenure-track professors, and your time has come to an end.”

So, with that, I thanked her, and we ended the call, but something didn’t sit right with me, because I know in the news they had this major multi million, multi 100 million dollar shortfall in a financial crisis so I thought that was strange.

EICHER: Strange enough that Grossenbach decided to dig deeper.

GROSSENBACH: So I sought out a freedom of information request … said, anything with “Grossenbach,” ….I’d like to see it. A month went by, nothing. Another month went by, nothing, and I kept asking until the point where I had to go to….a law firm to…demand them, through a demand letter, and it was at that point, … when I come across these anonymous emails sent to my department saying I’m anti-gay. I want trans people not to exist. I don’t want anybody in my classes who aren’t part of the Christian church, and all these nasty, untrue statements about their perception of what my religious beliefs were. And I also saw evidence of behind the scenes chatter of some concern about these emails and about concern about me teaching, which never before was an issue.

EICHER: Those records told a very different story about why he’d lost his job.

They showed anonymous complaints accusing him of anti-LGBT views—and those complaints traced back to something he’d done outside the university.

The records also showed what had triggered the complaints. He’d learned the school district had a policy of keeping parents in the dark about their children’s gender identity and mental health.

GROSSENBACH: There were questionnaires that asked specifically the child’s, and this is early high school, so this was, I think, 10th grade, asking them their sexual preferences, what turns them on, you know, what their identity is in their sexuality, and whether they want to talk one-on-one with the teacher, and whether or not their parents can know about these sexual preferences and identities. It was couched in a “getting to know you” survey, I think that was the title of it. …but it was very intrusive of parental rights, intrusive of the child’s own rights to be parented and directed by their parents…and I also learned that the school refused to provide copies of these records to the parents once asked….I have to say that I’m speaking as a personal private citizen, not as a representative of the University of Arizona….I wanted to be extra clear that there was no authority coming from my role implied or explicitly stated.

REICHARD: So he began speaking up at meetings of the Catalina Foothills School District school board.

Grossenbach argued the district’s policy was wrong. He said officials would answer questions if parents asked—but never tell parents there was something they needed to ask about.

GROSSENBACH:… See, the problem with these is that you’re intentionally hiding something that we have a moral duty to disclose … This interferes directly with a parent’s ability to give the best medical and mental health care to their child, and directly hurts the kids.

REICHARD: He wasn’t the only parent speaking up. He and others brought up the lack of transparency on textbook selection. Grossenbach again at different meeting:

GROSSENBACH: Here’s a list of textbooks that this board voted just in April. First on the list is Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime, required for every ninth grader, including my son next year. The book teaches it’s okay to steal something if you identify as poor, black, and you really want it.

There’s more…..The central message of another book you approved that same day, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, teaches students to say, "F___ the police,” page 46, “because all cops are racist murderers."

You have rules of decorum here. So, unless we’re directly quoting your agenda material, we can’t use language like that here. I can’t say with my own words the very same words you require our freshmen to read.

EICHER: He asked the board directly:

GROSSENBACH: Where did these resources come from? What’s the criteria to select them? Who’s on the review team? We can’t know, because the process is hidden. That’s why, in 2017 the legislature outlawed what the Arizona Supreme Court calls secret textbook meetings. In a few minutes, you’re about to vote on another set of resources brought to you from another anonymous team. Even if these resources were free from controversy, which they’re not, and even if it was legal for you to hide the process, which it’s not, secret meetings give the perception at least that you’re hiding something. … Please table tonight’s vote until the entire process can be done openly and legally. Thank you.

Evidently, what he said offended someone. Anonymous complaints about his comments at his children’s school made it over to the University—where he taught.

REICHARD: The university ultimately declined to renew his teaching contract. Grossenbach says the anonymous complaints—not budget reasons—were the real reason. He sued the university, alleging it retaliated against his protected speech and discriminated against him because of his religious beliefs.

His attorney is Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel.

STAVER: They found out through information that one of the individuals in the school district actually leaked... 

Staver says the university’s response is what violated the law:

STAVER: They said that they were going to bring in a full-time professor, they got funding. They didn’t bring in a full-time professor, and in fact…they issued ads for part-time adjunct professors with the exact same credentials as the Professor Daniel Grossenbach whom they terminated.

EICHER: The lawsuit alleges the university’s stated reason for firing Grossenbach was pretext. It claims the university retaliated against his protected speech and religious exercise in violation of the First Amendment, Title VII, and Arizona law.

REICHARD: I asked both the University and the local school district for an interview or to comment for this story. I left word with the media department at U.A. as well as school-board members at Catalina Foothills, its leadership, and its staff. After more than four days, I still haven’t heard back. So we won’t know their position until they respond to the lawsuit.

EICHER: Grossenbach is seeking a permanent injunction declaring what the university did unconstitutional, along with reinstatement, restoration of benefits, and compensatory damages.

REICHARD: My last question to him: Did you ever think of just giving up? The answer was a resounding no.

GROSSENBACH: …If we don’t fight this battle, our kids are going to have to fight it. So that is a horrifying thought to think. If I just sit on the sidelines and say nothing, I am handing the fight over and pushing my children into the boxing ring. You know, we don’t want to fight battles just for the sake of being controversial or being provocative. …We want to be loving and we want to focus on what matters, and I think a lot of times, you know, we’re not doing that, and we’ve got the truth on our side as Christians, and I think we have the law on our side as citizens, and so we just need to go boldly with that assurance. We’re blessed by having the greatest country on earth and that country has our back.

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: It’s 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, and he is here now. Good morning to you.

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

EICHER: Well, David, let’s begin with some news—what’s being described as the biggest federal housing bill in a generation.

It’s not a big money bill, but rather seems aimed at housing affordability by encouraging local markets to make it easier to build homes, streamlining permitting, encouraging denser kinds of development, removing barriers to manufactured housing.

What do you think: Does Congress have at least the diagnosis right that it’s looking at the supply side rather than trying to stimulate demand, as so many of these things try to do?

BAHNSEN: Well, I think that there is no question that the diagnosis of it being a supply issue is right. The question is whether or not this bill is able to do much about that, or any bill, from a federal government standpoint. You talk about the kind of zoning and various issues that are restrictive of new supply, and none of that is under the purview or jurisdiction of Congress.

So this bill is kind of interesting because it will say that it encourages local municipalities. I don’t know what that means. Yes, there is—what is it?—$200 million for grants. I know it seems like a lot of money in the grand scheme, but what we’re talking about here would be equivalent to a paperclip to encourage local municipalities with grants to ease up on zoning laws.

Look, I think there’s a couple things in this bill I like. There’s a couple of things in it I don’t like. I don’t mean to be cynical, but I do want to be very realistic and honest for WORLD listeners. If you got 85 or 90% of this Congress to vote for it—Democrats and Republicans—then how good can it be?

The fact of the matter is that it is a pretty classic case of a bill passed for the purpose of them being able to say they passed a housing bill.

On the margin, there are a couple things that I think are good. The National Environmental Policy Act on specific housing projects, trying to streamline some approvals where that stuff is relevant—there is a federal jurisdiction in certain cases that has been problematic, and it attempts to deal with some of that.

Putting cosmetic limits on institutional ownership of housing is, I think, totally silly and counterproductive. But again, the president did end up calling it a “nothing burger” himself and decided not to sign it. But it had enough votes. It got through anyways.

EICHER: David, interesting New York Times piece over the weekend, provocative headline: “Babies Are the New Investor Class.” The notion that investing is becoming something that ordinary families do from the time that a child is born.

It was only lightly concerned with specific policy, but it did discuss the new Trump Accounts program. I wanted to get your view on that. Do you think that this possibly portends a kind of expansion of the ownership society in America? Is there a positive here?

BAHNSEN: Well, I do. I think that it’s not the way I want it done. I don’t believe in expanding the ownership society through redistribution.

Michael Dell voluntarily wanting to give billions of his net worth, or other employers wanting to contribute from their corporate money like a 401(k) match does now—I’m all for that. And parents and grandparents putting into an account and getting a tax advantage to build up their own savings—that’s all classic ownership society stuff.

My problem with this is it being funded with deficit-borrowing dollars for the initial funding. That part is a transfer payment, but it is held by the individual. They own something in the stock market.

It’s not like Social Security, where you just have a promise of a future payment and you don’t really know where the asset that is going to make that payment is. It’s a good thing you don’t, because it isn’t anywhere.

So there are things about it that I like better than other things we have going, but it isn’t necessarily the way I like. We promoted an ownership society with 401(k) accounts. We promoted an ownership society with IRAs. This is adjacent to that, but it is the fact that the funding is coming from taxpayer dollars that I have a problem with.

EICHER: I’m going to hit a political-slash-economic theme here in a couple of different ways. I’ve got some audio of Vice President JD Vance talking about the repudiation in some Republican circles of the economist Milton Friedman. Kind of came out of nowhere. What does he mean when he says that, do you think?

BAHNSEN: Well, first, I think he is wrong to go after Milton Friedman. He’s claiming that Milton Friedman had this kind of radically laissez-faire, hands-off libertarian approach to economics. It represents a misrepresentation of Milton Friedman’s views.

Friedman gave us school vouchers. Milton Friedman was an advocate of a social safety net. There was nothing extreme about his views. What he was was an absolutely profound defender of a free society.

So it’s unfortunate that, when I hear others talk so much about the need for us to have a big tent, the vice president chose such a 20th-century iconic legend as Milton Friedman as a source of criticism.

So I was quite disturbed by the comments. But I’m also really pleased to say that a lot of other people were too.

EICHER: I want you to hear this bite. It’s an interview with conservative commentator Michael Knowles, someone I listen to fairly regularly. I happened to miss his interview with the vice president, but I did go back and catch it. Vance touches on a theme you emphasize in your own thinking and writing, and I want you to interact with it. Let’s listen, Vice President Vance on the Daily Wire with Michael Knowles.

VANCE: Part of why Milton Friedman’s ideas made more sense in the 1980s is because they were being advocated in a country that still had a very rich and powerful institutional Christianity, and so, like being laissez-faire in a world where there are Christian guardrails on everything, yeah, is a much different proposition than being laissez-faire in a world where globalized liberalism has become the sort of status quo of American elites.

How do you evaluate that?

BAHNSEN: Well, I have developed an entire economics course around the very principle that markets work better in a free and virtuous society.

The notion that, because we don’t have the virtuous society that would be the optimal condition for free enterprise, therefore we need to bring the government in—I am not quite sure where that argument goes.

I’ve heard it made by others before who were generally socialists or progressives or Marxists. I would like to know if we believe that this government has the virtue, that our current political realm has the morality necessary to enforce what some people seem to believe free citizens, left up to their own devices, won’t.

We all deal with the limitations imposed upon us by the Fall, by a sinful world. The idea that free society and a market economy should be sacrificed and exchanged for greater government intervention because various moral pillars are breaking down is a confusion of category.

What we need are stronger families, stronger churches. We do not get that by limiting freedom. We get that by enhancing freedom—enhancing both religious, social, moral, and economic freedoms, not pitting these things against each other.

This is something, by the way, Nick, our Founding Fathers knew very well.

EICHER: All right. I’m going to leave it right there. David Bahnsen is founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer at the Bahnsen Group. You can read him each week at Dividend Cafe, which is helpfully located at DividendCafe.com. David, thanks.

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much Nick.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

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

Up next on the WORLD History Book: Route 66 turns 100.

The iconic highway started as a way to move goods from Chicago to Southern California. Along the way, it connected rural midwestern towns, bringing people to previously unknown places and connecting them to big cities.

REICHARD: The introduction of bigger highways threatened to undo that economic boom, but a few businesses found ways to preserve the road’s glory.

WORLD’s Mary Muncy reports.

MARY MUNCY: If you get on U.S. Route 66 in Chicago and drive for about 550 miles, you end up in Springfield, Missouri.

In the 1920s, Springfield was a town of only about 40,000 and was already a rail transportation hub. But when the government established Route 66 in 1926, the town got some new additions—thanks to a businessman named M.E. Gillioz.

GEOFF STEELE: So Gillioz wanted to be on Route 66 so he bought this property.

Geoffe Steele is the Executive Director of the Gillioz Center for Art and Entertainment. Gillioz saw something in the route coming through Springfield: opportunity.

STEELE: A car in 1926 wasn't really built for long distance, and it wasn't built to deal with the heat. They would travel in the cool of the morning, and then they would stop at midday

And sometimes watch a show at the Gillioz theatre.

STEELE: This was the beauty of Route 66. Route 66 was 20th-century western expansion. This was the answer to the American independent spirit that didn't want to be tethered to a railroad schedule or the constraints of a wagon train.

Travelers with a car could go where they wanted and stay as long as they wanted. And that brought new people to small towns across the Midwest and West.

STEELE: Route 66 is central to our existence.

The National Park Service and the Federal Highway Administration officially created Route 66 as part of a larger project to systemize American roadways and connect major trade hubs. But an Oklahoma road commissioner named Cyrus Avery is known as the “father” of the route.

Avery argued that the Midwest needed to be connected to the West. So he pushed for a diagonal road that stitched together existing roads to create a 2,500-mile highway with consistent signage and markings—a rarity at the time. After much discussion, officials named the new highway Route 66.

JOHN SELLARS: It was so much to so many different people.

John Sellars is the director of the History Museum on the Square in Springfield.

SELLARS: It was a way to escape during the time of the Dust Bowl and escape to a hopefully a brighter future. It was a way to interact with people across the entire state and across the entire western half of this wonderful country.

But it wasn’t all glory. Many towns along the highway were “sundown cities.” Or places where black people were not safe. In the 30s, a black man created The Green Book, which listed places along Route 66 and other places that were safe for black people to stay and eat.

SELLARS: It was important that they be able to travel like anyone else.

At the time, every town was different—with unique hotels, food, and shopping.

SELLARS: You could really experience what the communities were like.

Now, the road is a staple of American culture…

GRAPES OF WRATH TRAILER, PA JOAD: Ain’t you going with us?

appearing in movies like The Grapes of Wrath.

JIM CASY: I’d like to. There’s something going on out there in the West and I’d like to know what it is, if you feel you’ve got the room.

And Cars.

DISNEY, SALLY: 40 years ago, that interstate down there didn’t exist.

LIGHTNING: Really?

SALLY: Well the road didn’t cut through the land like that interstate. It moved through the land, you know. It rose, it fell, it curved.

And just like in Cars, some of those towns are making a comeback.

SELLARS: We have so many tourists that come through here from foreign countries. It's amazing how that, how that it has become romanticized, even in foreign lands. They bring their cars over here and drive them down the highway.

Debbie Meija has seen the same turnaround in her town, Seligman, Arizona—one of the towns that inspired Cars.

DEBBIE MEIJA: You're still living in the past when you're traveling on Route 66 and I think that's the draw to everything

Meija is a part-owner of hotels, restaurants, and other tourist attractions centered on Route 66. She says the creation of our modern highway system in the 50s put a strain on towns like hers—creating a bypass for travelers and trade. But she says the iconic nature of the highway has brought some of that business back.

MEIJA: Our little town, Seligman, going from a railroad and, and ranching town and becoming a little, little place for, you know, people to come and enjoy, you know, what was before, you know, is it's pretty neat. I'm pretty proud of our town.

She drove Route 66 a few years ago and thinks it represents the quintessential American experience—traveling freely and experiencing unique places and people along the way.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: how some groups are supporting would-be fathers in their pro-life conversation. And, a firefighter on the toll of recovery efforts and his story of forgiveness.

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.

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The Bible says, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” (ESV) —1 Corinthians 15: 57–58

Go now in grace and peace.

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