The World and Everything in It: June 4, 2026

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Every morning, you join a growing family of listeners who rely on WORLD for news, analysis, and encouragement.

In fact, more than 300,000 people listen to WORLD programs each month. 

That's a remarkable thing when you stop to think about it. 

Hundreds of thousands of people choosing reporting that takes truth seriously. And that treats people fairly. And that remembers that God is sovereign over the news.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: He is. 

During our June Giving Drive, we're asking: If you value that work, would you help sustain it?

If you have not given yet, would you consider making a gift today? You can support WORLD at wng.org/donate.

Thank you for listening—and for helping make this work possible.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Fighting the growing Ebola outbreak in Africa brings unique challenges.

FRIEDEN: Trust is the one thing you can't surge in to a community during a crisis.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Also, a new policy aims to protect women’s privacy in homeless shelters.

Plus, the rise and fall of the antiweaponization fund.

And, a veteran astronaut explains how he fends off fear even in a crisis.

WILMORE: Because if the Lord takes me to that level, I'm ready.

And WORLD Commentator Daniel Suhr on who will bear responsibility for so-called transgender procedures on minors.

BROWN: It’s Thursday, June 4th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. 

I’m Myrna Brown.

REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard. Good morning!

BROWN: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Iran latest » In Kuwait, an Iranian missile strike killed at least one person, wounded dozens more, and damaged the country’s main airport early Wednesday morning.

It was a deadly blow against a key Gulf ally of the United States. Iran also attacked Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th fleet, but the Iranian missiles were intercepted there.

The U.S. struck back at targets inside Iran. All of that again testing a fragile ceasefire.

Even so, President Trump confirmed reports that Iran's new supreme leader — Mojtaba Khamenei is personally engaged in peace talks:

TRUMP: He is, uh, giving approval. Mm. Because that's the way it is, has been for a long, long time. Mm. Uh, his father and then him, I guess it's a succession. But, uh, we seem to be getting along quite well.

U.S. and Israeli airstrikes killed Mojtaba’s father Ali Khamenei.

Iran's state media claims that Tehran has cut off negotiations. Trump calls that “false and erroneous.”

And the president said he'd like to meet Iran's leader face-to-face.

Israel-Hezbollah latest » Possible tension between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Media reports described a profanity-laced phone call the president had with Netanyahu. The president reportedly used the word stupid for Israel's continued attacks on the Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah.

Trump told the New York Post's Pod Force One podcast:

TRUMP: I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon, you know? At some point, I said, "Bibi, you gotta stop this. You gotta stop it."

Israel accuses Hezbollah of repeatedly violating a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. Over the weekend, an Israeli soldier was killed and three others wounded in a Hezbollah drone attack in southern Lebanon after Israel expanded its operations there.

During testimony before the House Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio laid the blame squarely at the feet of Hezbollah.

RUBIO: We are hopeful that we can create a paradigm in which Lebanon's government and Israel can work together to disarm Hezbollah and allow the people of Lebanon to reclaim its country. But it's complex.

Netanyahu agreed, accusing Hezbollah of firing missiles at civilians in Israeli cities while at the same time hiding behind their own civilians. He also tried to smooth over differences with President Trump, telling CNBC on Wednesday:

NETANYAHU: I have to tell you again, President Trump has been the greatest friend of Israel ever. We've never had such a friend in the White House. He's outstripped everyone.

Meanwhile, Iran continues to insist that before it will agree to any peace deal with the United States, the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah must stop.

House passes war powers resolution » For the first time, the House has passed a measure aimed at ending the war with Iran.

AUDIO: On this vote, the yays are 215 and the nays are 208. The concurrent resolution is adopted.

The resolution orders President Trump to pull U.S. forces out of the fight, unless Congress votes to formally declare war.

But the measure is largely symbolic.

Even if the Senate were to pass it as well, President Trump could veto it. And it would take a two-thirds majority to override that veto, which is highly unlikely.

Still, it was a rare crack in Republican ranks. Four Republicans broke with the president to join every Democrat.

AI executive order » President Trump wants a national-security check on the most powerful artificial intelligence. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports:

KRISTEN FLAVIN: The president signed an executive order Tuesday letting federal experts screen the most advanced AI systems for security risks ... up to 30 days before they reach the public.

It is entirely voluntary right now. The order even bars the government from forcing any company to get a license before releasing a new model.

But analysts say the big AI labs — Anthropic, OpenAI and Google — will likely cooperate anyway, to fend off the tougher, mandatory rules that could come later. In return, they get early collaboration with the government's top cyber experts.

The White House calls the light touch deliberate — as Trump doesn't want to slow what he calls America's AI lead over China.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Primaries update » Votes are still being counted in California after Tuesday’s primary election. But in Los Angeles, with a majority of the ballots now tallied, it still appears that incumbent mayor Karen Bass is heading to a runoff against political newcomer, former reality TV star Spencer Pratt. Bass told her supporters:

BASS:  You know who I am. I have devoted my entire life to serving the city that I love, where I was born, and I'm gonna continue to do that all the way to victory in November!

But Pratt said he’s also feeling confident.

PRATT:  Again, Mayor Bass, this is the first time, what, since 2005 an incumbent is going to a runoff. This is not a, a, a, a candidate that I'm too concerned about.

In the California governor’s race, Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra are still the leading vote-getters, likely to face off in November.

I'm Kent Covington.

Coming up: fighting the growing Ebola outbreak in Africa. And later, a veteran astronaut explains how he fends off fear even in a crisis.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday the 4th of June.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

First up: slowing the spread of Ebola.

More than 300 people are infected with a rare strain of the Ebola virus in central Africa. It’s been about a month since the first case was confirmed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

REICHARD: The DRC’s outbreak is already the second largest Ebola outbreak ever. But it’s spreading faster than the largest outbreak did.

WORLD’s Mary Muncy has the story.

MARY MUNCY: Etienne Ezo contracted the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola earlier this year.

ETIENNE EZO: [French] I was vomiting badly. At one point, I started to feel tingling. I was scratching myself from head to toe.

His symptoms started with vomiting and tingling.

EZO: [French] I was scratching myself from head to toe.

Then he was scratching from head to toe.

EZO: [French] I didn't even have hope of finding myself here, and seeing my friends, my family, everyone else again.

TOM FRIEDEN: This is an outbreak of Ebola that's probably gone on for months, where we only began a global response in the past couple of weeks.

Tom Frieden is the president of Resolve to Save Lives, and he was the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the Ebola outbreak in 2013 and 2014, the largest in history. He says the response that time started sooner.

FRIEDEN: There were about forty or fifty cases by the time we began the response. This time there are between four hundred and five hundred cases by the time the response is beginning.

Surging healthcare professionals and medical supplies to the area can help slow an outbreak.

FRIEDEN: It requires almost perfection in how well we manage and any lapse can result in the infection of a healthcare worker or the spread of infection to a new community.

That perfection is almost impossible in the DRC.

Armed groups have displaced about six million people since 2022. Putting the DRC in the top five countries with internally displaced people. President Donald Trump said he had ended the conflict in December, so far, the fighting has continued.

Even without the conflict, hospitals may not have adequate equipment or space. And then there are cultural factors.

FRIEDEN: One of the ways that Ebola spreads most explosively is by traditional burial practices, where people out of love and devotion will wash, touch, sometimes kiss the body of the deceased.

The virus spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids and it’s at its most contagious right before and immediately after someone dies.

But that burial tradition is deeply ingrained in the culture, and last month, people burned an Ebola treatment center in the DRC to retrieve a body for burial. Other treatment centers have been attacked as well.

FRIEDEN: The level of trust in government is very low, and change happens at the speed of trust. Trust is the one thing you can't surge in to a community during a crisis.

The African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about ten percent of the population believe the outbreak isn’t real or that a vaccine is being kept from them.

Right now, there is a vaccine for the more common Zaire strain of the virus but not for the Bundibugyo virus.

Darryl Falzarano is the principal scientist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization. About ten years ago, he studied whether the Zaire vaccine could work for other Ebola strains in non-human primates.

DARRYL FALZARANO: It turned out it did… It's about a 50% increase in in survival. What you normally see with a matching vaccine is 100% protection.

That’s where the research stopped, because outbreaks of Bunibugyo have been relatively small and rare.

But Falzarano says that while a vaccine for Bunibugyo doesn’t exist yet, the structure, research, and technology to fast-track one does. There are currently three in the works.

FALZARANO: The timelines that are being stated right now is around nine months.

For now, John Hopkins scholar Amish Adalja says this outbreak shouldn’t cause anxiety for the general US population, where we have access to state of the art care facilities and equipment.

AMISH ADALJA: Even though Ebola finds it very hospitable in certain circumstances to spread, like it did in West Africa, it wasn't really able to do much outside of that outbreak zone. It didn't find other parts of the world hospitable.

There was no vaccine for Ebola during that outbreak, and more than 20,000 people contracted it, and 10,000 died. This outbreak is currently bigger than the one in West Africa was at this stage, but it’s still far behind in total cases and deaths.

He says the most important thing global officials can do is work through the trusted people on the ground. Resources and manpower will only help if citizens believe it’s for their good.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It, the end of a controversial justice fund.

On Tuesday, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche answered questions about the Department of Justice’s Antiweaponization fund. It was designed to compensate victims of alleged Biden-era political targeting…but faced bipartisan opposition in Congress.

BLANCHE: We are not moving forward with the fund.

MENG: Not moving forward ever?

BLANCHE: Correct.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: What’s behind the rise and fall of the fund?

WORLD’s Harrison Watters reports from Washington.

HARRISON WATTERS: Attorney Brett Tolman was getting calls multiple times a day after the DOJ announced the fund in May.

TOLMAN: Individuals wanting to know, you know, what can I do because this is what happened to me or a loved one of mine and this is what they did…

Tolman is a former United States Attorney for Utah, and now Chair of American Justice at the America First Policy Institute.

The Antiweaponization fund came out of a recent settlement between President Trump and the IRS in a case about Trump family tax records leaked to the media in 2020. While Trump sought $10 billion in damages, he settled for roughly $1.8 billion, but not for himself.

TOLMAN: That was really just the mechanism to do what I think he all along wanted to do, and that was to somehow, while he's in charge of the executive branch, make amends to those who found themselves in the crosshairs unfairly and unlawfully by the Justice Department.

The plan was to compensate Americans targeted by the Biden administration with elevated misdemeanor and felony charges. A five-member committee would review cases and award payments. While Vice President J.D. Vance told reporters all were welcome to apply, many wondered about one category in particular: January 6th Capitol protestors.

REPORTER: Should people that attacked the Capitol building and assaulted police officers, should they be eligible?

Vance said each case would be reviewed on its own merits.

VANCE: If we think that somebody was unfairly prosecuted and deserves just compensation, then that's what this fund is going to exist to provide.

Some Conservatives like Tolman saw the fund as an olive branch. Others saw something more self-serving. Paul Larkin is Senior Legal Fellow at the think tank Advancing American Freedom.

LARKIN: The whole thing is rather a shady effort to try to get around the proposition that only when Congress has authorized money to be paid, should it be paid.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche cited Obama-era cases where the government created a new process to settle lawsuits. Larkin says Blanche went too far by not requiring claimants to have a pending legal case against the government, just a legal claim stating he or she was a victim of lawfare.

LARKIN: You actually need to have suffered some harm in order to be able to bring a tort suit against anyone, including the United States.

Democrat lawmakers cried foul when the DOJ announced the fund, and some Republicans agreed.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune delayed votes on funding for immigration enforcement agencies, saying the White House first needed to answer questions about the fund. Then on Friday, a district judge blocked the fund while a lawsuit by former Capitol Hill police officers continues. The DOJ later said it would abide by that order. Reporters asked Majority Leader Thune about it on Tuesday.

REPORTER: Speaker Johnson just told us it's his understanding that this fund is off the table. So is that your understanding as well after speaking with you?

THUNE: That is correct.

While the antiweaponization fund is effectively dead, Tolman says the DOJ still has a way to make good on the President’s promise to rectify alleged political prosecutions.

TOLMAN: There was a weaponization group that was organized when Trump came in last year…

So far, that DOJ working group has published just one report, on the prosecution of pro-lifers under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances—or FACE—Act. Tolman says the DOJ can use existing powers to dismiss cases—even where defendants have already been sentenced.

TOLMAN: Many of those right now could be dismissed under Rule 48, which would in, I I would promise you, in a lot of cases, mean far more than any compensation would be to, you know, get that case dismissed and a and a clean slate for folks who were unfairly and improperly targeted.

While the DOJ has not appealed the court order blocking the fund, it still has a court date for next Friday.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Harrison Watters in Washington.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Up next, protecting vulnerable women.

Later this month, the public comment period will close on a new policy proposed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: The policy would keep men who identify as women out of women-only homeless shelters. While the proposed rule has faced severe criticism in the public comments section, experts and legal minds say it will provide much-needed safety to women who need care.

WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: In Anchorage, Alaska, Downtown Hope Center, a religious organization, provides shelter and resources to homeless people.

MIKAYLA CULBERTSON: They serve everyone. They provide meals, clothing, showers, and resources to everyone who walk through their doors daily.

That’s ADF, or Alliance Defending Freedom, attorney Mikayla Culbertson. ADF represented the religious organization after it ran into legal trouble in 2018 when it declined to provide shelter to a man identifying himself as a woman.

The man violated shelter admissions policies: showing up drunk and after check-in time had ended. The shelter declined to admit him, but did pay for a ride to the hospital since he was also injured. The city investigated the Center for alleged discrimination after the man claimed he was turned away based on gender identity.

The city said that the Center needed to allow men who claimed they were women to stay in the parts of the shelter reserved for women.

After a year-long court battle, the city finally agreed that Downtown Hope Center could keep men out of women-only shelter facilities.

Now the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, aims to ensure all homeless shelters receiving government funding follow the same rules as Downtown Hope Center.

Culbertson explains:

CULBERTSON: So the proposed rule would remove the phrase gender identity from about 50 federal housing regulations, and it would restore biological sex as the standard.

HUD explained that its proposed regulations superseded any local laws that conflicted with it, and that any homeless shelters that didn’t comply would lose access to federal funding.

For homeless women, this provides much-needed protection.

CULBERTSON: It means that they can seek shelter knowing that they will not be forced to share intimate spaces with a man. Women deserve safety, privacy, and dignity. This proposed regulation gives shelters the clear authority to provide that.

But some homeless and housing-focused advocacy groups have criticized HUD’s proposed policy.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness says vulnerable individuals shouldn’t have to be subjected to invasive searches to determine their biological sex, searches it says could leave them feeling demeaned, threatened, and traumatized.

But the proposed change gives shelters the right to request “reasonable” assurances and evidence to find out someone’s sex, and other shelter directors say that’s pretty simple.

Bram Begonia is the CEO of the Bay Area Rescue Mission.

BRAM BEGONIA: One question. What were you at birth? It's just that simple. Right.

Begonia says when someone lies, the truth tends to come out.

When that happens, staff members move that person to a different part of the facility.

Begonia says there’s a long list of individuals that can complicate matters for shelter staff, registered sex offenders, people who repeatedly start fights, or individuals with ankle monitors.

But on the issue of separate-sex spaces, the new policy would make it easier for shelters to keep homeless women safe. It would also allow homeless shelters like Downtown Hope Center in Anchorage to stay loyal to their religious beliefs.

Public comment on the HUD policy ends later this month. After that, it’s up to the department to decide whether it will abandon the new policy, revise it, or implement it as proposed.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: New Yorkers are used to strange sights.

But even by Big Apple standards, this one was weird.

Security cameras in Queens captured three people stopping in the middle of the night, decked out in hip waders, protective gear, and headlamps.

SOUND: Manhole cover scraping open

Then they pried open a manhole cover.

One by one, they climbed into the city sewer.

The last person paused:

SOUND: Manhole cover closing

And sealed the cover shut.

Police say similar groups have been spotted entering and exiting sewers in Brooklyn as well.

Some appeared to spend hours underground.

No damage has been found. No arrests have been made.

City officials stress that entering the sewers is illegal and dangerous.

But whatever these people were looking for, they apparently thought it was worth enduring the odor to find it.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, June 4th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: faith under extreme pressure.

Two years ago, astronaut Barry Wilmore began his last mission in space. The mission didn’t go as planned, culminating with an unexpected nine-month stay on the International Space Station before returning safely to earth.

BROWN: What spiritual disciplines sustain a believer in a high-risk technical environment?

WORLD’s Todd Vician has our story.

TODD VICIAN: A day into Boeing Starliner’s first manned flight, Barry Wilmore calmly reported a problem. The computer display was flashing as he and his fellow astronaut were conducting tests before docking with the International Space Station.

AUDIO: The white converged and then at 4.02, then inbound fly around and then destination A and B in the region. Not all flashing at the same time, different ones would flash at different times…

250 miles below the orbiting spacecraft, NASA engineers quickly began assessing the implications of Wilmore’s observations.

AUDIO: Just moments ago, we had confirmation from Mission Control, a second reaction control system maneuvering jet has now failed. Mission Control has told Butch Wilmore, the commander, to hold Starliner at 260 meters from the station…

Engineers in Houston began hot-firing thrusters to bring them online again, but Wilmore knew it was worse than it sounded. Five of the six thrusters used to maneuver the capsule as it approaches the space station had malfunctioned. Without a fix, they couldn’t dock. If they couldn’t dock….

WILMORE: There is not another option, because if we don't dock… I don't think we can do a de-orbit burn and get back to Earth. So we have to dock.

It took roughly 2 hours to assess the problem. Wilmore manually pointed the capsule to maintain its orbit and keep its navigation sensors tracking so they could return to auto control before docking.

WILMORE: The reason I was able to maintain control is because I had lived rendezvous and docking and orbital mechanics.

That means he’d studied how to maneuver two objects flying in close proximity. And he spent more time than required in the simulator, often going in on Saturday mornings at 6. Now that training was paying off.

WILMORE: My control inputs, what I’m putting into the system, the thrusters, how that will affect the orbital mechanics, I’m thinking through all this in my mind.

Wilmore forged his calm-under-pressure-mentality before he lifted off on his first space mission. He spent 8 years as a Navy test pilot—routinely testing airplanes’ limits. On one flight in an FA-18, the jet began to stall when not enough air was moving over its wings.

WILMORE: It's departed normal flight, and it starts to fall back to Earth, kind of like a leaf, kind of fluttering through, through the air.

Wilmore let his less-experienced co-pilot run the checklist while he monitored the altimeter.

WILMORE: The procedure is neutralize, stick full forward. That's the quick, and you just hold it, because if you don’t, you’ll fall like a leaf all the way to the ground, which is not good.

As they approached the altitude where they would have to bail out, Wilmore took control of the stick.

WILMORE: So I grabbed it and I went through the procedures, and it didn't come out initially, but eventually did right before we hit 10,000 feet and recovered.

Wilmore also flew against Iraqi air defenses in Desert Storm. Each test flight and combat mission resulted in more confidence. It grew even more when he began to seriously study God’s word.

WILMORE: When it says fear not, it says, don't be anxious. It doesn't mean that I'm never anxious. It means that I know there's a path to not be anxious if I follow the path that he has outlined, and I believe it to the core of my being.

Wilmore is also quick to say he was able to stay focused on his mission—whether in space or in the cockpit—because he’s not distracted by life’s bigger questions, like what will happen when we die.

WILMORE: There is no price for me to pay. That comfort, that contentment, in stressful situations I can block all, everything out and go forward with whatever the situation I'm dealing with, because if the Lord takes me, if to that level, I'm ready.

Before pilots perform their first solo flight, they spend hundreds of hours in books, flying with an instructor, and preparing for every “what if.” Wilmore has approached the Bible with the same discipline.

WILMORE: Just like when you're a student pilot, it's repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition. You learn it by going over and going over it and going over. It's the same thing with God's word.

The stakes were never greater for Wilmore than when he was in space, and he still remembers the charge he received as a new astronaut 26 years ago.

WILMORE: He says, ‘Your task as an astronaut is to know everything and perform it well.’ You can’t know everything, but that’s the goal and it's the same thing in the life of a believer. Why would you accept being average, an average Joe, an average Christian, when great is attainable, and God calls us to that.

Wilmore says astronauts have confidence, in part because they don’t just prepare until they can get it right. They prepare until they think they can’t get it wrong. But Wilmore’s confidence extends even beyond that, to trusting in God’s sovereignty no matter the emergency.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Todd Vician, in Houston, Texas.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

For years, debates over transgender procedures on minors centered on legislatures, school boards, and questions of public policy.

BROWN: Now, a growing number of disputes are finding their way into courtrooms.

WORLD commentator Daniel Suhr says that shift may tell us something important about where the debate goes next.

DANIEL SUHR: Within days of one another, Texas and New Jersey offered two very different answers to the same question: Who should be held responsible when a child undergoes irreversible transgender procedures and later regrets it?

In Texas, state officials and the U.S. Department of Justice recently announced a $10 million settlement with Texas Children’s Hospital. The settlement holds the hospital accountable for its role in transgender procedures on minors.

Whistleblower Dr. Eitan Heim reacted:

HEIM: This is the first legal victory we've all been waiting for since the Trump administration, you know, came into office. You've had investigations, you've had indictments, but nothing has ever gone to the finish line. This is the first one, and the other important thing, too, is that the reason it's at the finish line is not because of powerful people or a lot of money. It's because of like a handful of people who refuse to give up, who are willing to work hard, be strategic, stick to their values, and, and you know, put their faith in God above all else.

Accountability. That may define the next phase of this debate.

In New Jersey, though, lawmakers are moving in the opposite direction. They are advancing legislation designed to shield hospitals and providers from lawsuits and other legal consequences related to so-called gender-affirming care.

Those two developments may signal where this issue is headed.

For years, the debate focused on whether these procedures should be allowed.

Now a different question is emerging:

What happens afterward?

And concerns about accountability are not limited to conservative states.

A New York jury recently awarded roughly $2 million to a plaintiff who argued that transgender procedures amounted to malpractice. Whatever one thinks of that verdict, it demonstrates that ordinary citizens serving on juries are beginning to wrestle with these cases.

That matters because the people bringing these lawsuits are not political abstractions. They are young men and women who say they underwent life-altering interventions as minors and now believe they were harmed.

As more of those cases reach the courts, pressure will grow to determine who bears responsibility.

Parents certainly make medical decisions for their children. That is an important aspect of family authority and liberty. But the state also has a legitimate interest in protecting minors from harm. The U.S. Supreme Court recently reaffirmed that principle in its decision upholding Tennessee's restrictions on transgender procedures for children.

Bringing us back to accountability.

Much as critics of abortion often argued that responsibility should rest first with providers rather than patients, critics of pediatric transgender procedures argue similarly: that doctors and medical institutions should answer for the procedures they promoted.

New Jersey's proposal points in a different direction. The bill would not simply permit these procedures. It would make it harder to hold providers legally responsible for them.

The central question is no longer merely whether transgender procedures for minors should continue. But increasingly whether the institutions that promoted those procedures have to answer for the harm they cause.

Texas and New Jersey have offered very different answers. The rest of the country will likely have to answer, too.

For WORLD, I’m Daniel Suhr.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: WORLD’s June Giving Drive continues.

If you’ve already made up your mind about supporting WORLD this year, why not take care of it today? 

It’s easy and secure to give online at WNG.org/donate.

Tomorrow: it’s Culture Friday with John Stonestreet. And, Collin Garbarino has a review of the 1970s historical musical, 1776. That and more, tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

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: “And disagreeing among themselves, they departed after Paul had made one statement: ‘The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet: “Go to this people, and say, ‘You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed; lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.’ Therefore let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen.” —Acts 28:25-28

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.