The World and Everything in It: June 5, 2026

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: What if the most important stories are the ones that don’t make you panic?

NICK EICHER, HOST: Every weekday morning, WORLD sets out to do something increasingly rare: Report the news truthfully, carefully, and without despair.

MAST: If that mission matters to you, this month is an opportunity to help sustain it.

EICHER: Please visit WNG.org/donate and support our June Giving Drive!

NICK EICHER, HOST: Good morning!

What happens when politics takes over everything from the football field to the public square? And, the dangerous logic behind hate-speech laws.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: That’s ahead on Culture Friday with John Stonestreet.

Later, a classic Broadway musical turns America’s founding debate into surprisingly compelling entertainment.

CLIP: I’m not promoting John Adams. I’m promoting independence.

And George Grant has Wordplay.

EICHER: It’s Friday, June 5th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. 

I’m Nick Eicher.

MAST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Good morning!

EICHER: Up next, Kent Covington has today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Israel-Hezbollah » Israeli government spokeswoman Shosh Bedrosian says ongoing ceasefire talks between Israel and Lebanon are producing real results.

BEDROSIAN: This week, the 4th high-level trilateral meetings between Israel, Lebanon and the United States took place, achieving something unprecedented. For the first time, all three parties are aligned in their determination to keep Iran's terror proxy Hezbollah out of the equation.

The leader of Hezbollah issued a statement Thursday flatly rejecting the ceasefire. The group pledged to continue fighting until the Israeli military pulls out of southern Lebanon.

And the bloodshed continues. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Thursday that conflict took the life of a UN peacekeeper.

DUJARRIC: Sergeant Milovan Jovanovic would have turned 37 on June 6th. He was a son. He was a husband and a father to a son and daughter.

Dujarric said Jovanovic died after being hit by mortar fire. Two other UN peacekeepers were injured. Bedrosian laid the flame squarely at the feet of Hezbollah.

BEDROSIAN: I can also confirm that Hezbollah launched mortar shells that hit a UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) position and killed a UN personnel member in southern Lebanon.

Jovanovic arrived in Lebanon at the end of January for the peacekeeping deployment.

Cuba sanctions » The U.S. is tightening the screws once again on Cuba's communist government. WORLD’s Benjamin Eicher reports:

BENJAMIN EICHER: The Trump administration Thursday hit Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel with sanctions — along with his wife and relatives of former leader Raúl Castro.

The U.S. also blacklisted Cuba's military and its neighborhood surveillance network.

It's the latest move in a mounting pressure campaign. Trump signed an order expanding sanctions, and squeezed Cuba's fuel supply. The island is gripped by blackouts and shortages.

It comes weeks after the U.S. filed criminal charges against Raúl Castro. And Trump is openly floating military action — telling reporters he'll "handle" Cuba once he's done with Iran.

The threats carry new weight after U.S. forces toppled Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro, an ally of the Cuban regime, in January.

For WORLD, I’m Benjamin Eicher.

Reconciliation bill » The U.S. Senate worked deep into the early hours of this morning.

AUDIO: Mr. Murphy, aye. Mr. Kelly, Mr. Kelly, aye ...

Senators voted on amendment after amendment — in the marathon ritual known on Capitol Hill as a Vote-a-rama. Democrats dragged the process out as long as they could ... as Republicans pushed a roughly $70 billion bill to fund immigration enforcement — money for ICE and Border Patrol, and a top priority for President Trump.

Republicans were using a budget tool called reconciliation, which allows passage with simple majority — without a single Democratic vote, to get around the Senate filibuster.

Screwworm fly » In Texas, a flesh-eating parasite that ranchers thought they'd beaten decades ago has reappeared in the state.

The Department of Agriculture says the New World screwworm fly has turned up in south Texas — found in a 3-week-old calf near the Mexican border. It's the first confirmed case in Texas in 60 years.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told a House panel Thursday:

ROLLINS: We are using every tool at our disposal to eliminate this threat to our livestock producers and to our national security.

The fly lays its eggs in open wounds, and its larvae eat living flesh. It's a threat to cattle, pets, wildlife, even people. But officials stress the food supply is safe.

Texas has locked down a 12-mile quarantine zone around the case no moving animals out without an inspection. And the USDA is flooding the area with millions of sterile flies — the same method that wiped the pest out decades ago. The sterile flies mate with wild ones, so the eggs never hatch.

Officials say it's the only case they're tracking ... and they're urging ranchers and pet owners to stay put.

Bolton to plead guilty » Former national security adviser John Bolton has agreed to plead guilty to mishandling classified information. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports:

KRISTEN FLAVIN: John Bolton will admit to a single count of keeping classified material. The deal resolves an 18-count case accusing him of jotting down sensitive government secrets — some top secret — and sharing them with family while writing a memoir.

The plea covers those private notes — not his published tell-all.

Under the agreement, Bolton would pay a fine of more than $2 million dollars … and will likely avoid prison, though a judge has the final say.

He served under President Trump before becoming one of his sharpest critics.

Bolton has called the case political payback — part of what he says is a Trump effort to punish his opponents. The Justice Department isn't commenting.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

New Delhi fire » Families are mourning today in India after a fire swept through a building in New Delhi, killing at least 21 people and injuring several others. The blaze ripped through a building with a restaurant and hotel.

Fire crews rescued 40 people. Local residents joined rescue efforts, helping evacuate people trapped inside.

The cause of the blaze remains unclear.

Fires are common in India due to often-flouted building codes.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead, John Stonestreet is standing by for Culture Friday. And later, Wordplay with George Grant

This is The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Friday the 5th of June.

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

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

Before we get started, a quick update on WORLD's June Giving Drive.

As we wrap up the first week, we're encouraged by the response.

So far, more than 600 listeners have made gifts to support WORLD's journalism.

And here's something that especially caught our attention:

About one in every ten of those gifts came from a first-time donor.

MAST: That’s a reminder that new listeners are still finding WORLD ... and deciding this work is worth supporting.

We’re grateful for every gift. Grateful for every listener who starts each day with us.

So, what a great start to our June Giving Drive. That gives us strong momentum, yet plenty of time for you to get involved as well. Please visit WNG.org/donate and be a part of our strong start this week.

WNG.org/donate.

And thank you.

It’s Culture Friday and joining us is John Stonestreet. He’s president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast … and he’s here now. Good morning John.

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning

MAST: Well, John, last weekend, Backrooms, a small-budget film by a 20-year-old, earned eight times what it cost to make, so $80 million so far on a $10 million budget.

The little film wiped out The Mandalorian and Grogu movie, which is evidence that the age of the spin-off may be mostly dead.

An article in The Free Press makes two great points: (1) that Backrooms could be both an allegory for the way art has been devouring itself in the digital age and (2) a parable about how the internet feeds into remake culture.

So what do you think Neil Postman would say about the culture’s obsession with reboots, remakes, and remasters?

STONESTREET: I can’t speak on his behalf, but I do know that when art becomes something of the trivial, then it loses its hold, and it has a pretty limited shelf life. At this point, what you’re doing is just trying to capture people’s attention, but it’s notoriously hard to maintain when we have so many different things claiming our attention.

I do think it’s a real shame. Look, I’m all for building off of old stories. I don’t think we need to start from scratch every time. But you have these centers of power that are really out of ideas, and so it does have to rehash, and it does have to reboot.

I think part of it is that you get boxed in by rules—rules that change from one generation to the next. Certainly the rules that have boxed in these two centers of storytelling in the West have been boxed in by critical theory in some ways or another. There’s things you can’t talk about. There’s things you have to talk about. There are people you have to include and people you’re not allowed to include.

I also think there’s something here, and maybe almost no one’s interested in this except for me because I’m the president of the Colson Center, but years and years ago Chuck Colson got into a pretty dramatic argument in the pages of Christianity Today and others with James Davidson Hunter, who had proposed a particular theory about how culture changes in his book, in which he really advocated for a top-down method.

Chuck was a populist. He wanted to do a grassroots-up method.

What I thought even at the time, and especially in the years after that, was that after Hunter made his very strong case that you have to go to the centers of cultural power in order to get anything done, right after that social media took over the world and the internet took over the world.

Those things didn’t come out of the centers of cultural power. Those things came out of college students’ garages.

In other words, I think culture is primarily sustained by these institutions, but disruption comes from the outside. The story of the Backrooms film is an example of that. A whole lot of people can make movies today that couldn’t just a generation ago.

Then, of course, we’ve got the ever-present threat that a whole lot of computers now can make movies that might be better than anything coming out of Hollywood.

But that’s probably a question for a different Friday.

EICHER: Well, those computers certainly have made a lot of good political commercials; I think we learned that with that mayor candidate in LA, Spencer Pratt. But I agree: another question for a different Friday.

Hey, John, I know you saw this one. This week the New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart found himself in the news in an unwanted way.

He introduced President Trump at an event. Afterward he got flushed out of the pocket, started scrambling around, trying to evade the media blitz of, How dare you introduce this president?

Meanwhile, one of his teammates Abdul Carter joined in the sacking.

And the whole episode, of course, got Ted Kluck involved at WORLD Opinions. He said what was really on display was an unwritten rule of modern public life—that some political opinions are treated as normal, while other political opinions require explanation. Boiled down to that, John, what do you think is the real issue here?

STONESTREET: I think there’s two things.

One is this imbalance that is described here by Ted Kluck is exactly right, but it’s not new. We’ve known this for quite a while.

Let’s reverse the roles. Had Carter chosen to introduce a progressive president or a progressive politician, then there would have been no controversy.

Not only that, but Jaxson Dart, as a conservative, would not have written on social media about his decision to do that.

In other words, it goes in layers. One side of the political aisle is acceptable across multiple spheres of culture, and the other side is not. Not only that, you’re allowed to question it out loud in one situation, and you’re not in another.

But I think there’s something else here as well. That is something that was said this past weekend at the Colson Center National Conference by Carl Trueman, talking about how and why politics has taken over so much of our culture.

There’s a place that politics should have in our life, in our brain space, in our bandwidth, in our imaginations, and it’s way bigger now than it should be.

It’s really hard to avoid that temptation, whether you’re on the left or whether you’re on the right.

I would really hope that Christians can model a better way, both because we have a higher set of loyalties, so that we don’t just let everything become politically adjudicated in popular culture or every aspect of life, and we also have an understanding of the created order that things were created to have a particular sphere, to borrow the language of the Dutch Reformed folks, especially Abraham Kuyper.

When things leave their sphere, or when things do not properly fill their sphere, then things get out of balance.

There’s just no question right now that on every level politics has sucked all the air out of the room.

We put way too much weight on this political table, and the legs are certainly wobbly.

We see the outcome of that kind of overweight everywhere, and this is the great contribution of Christian theology: that it centers things not just on beliefs but fundamentally on loves, and then it puts those loves in an order.

When those loves get out of order, then things really begin to break down.

MAST: Well, John, a member of Finland's parliament testified this week before the Canadian Senate about a proposed hate speech bill there, known as C-9.

Supporters say the measure is aimed at protecting vulnerable groups from hatred and intimidation.

Critics say, though, that it goes much further, removing protections for religious speech and potentially exposing people to criminal penalties for expressing traditional Christian views on sexuality.

The witness was Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen, who knows something about that firsthand. She spent seven years fighting hate speech charges in her own country over statements about Christian teaching on marriage and sexual ethics.

Here's the question: Is there something about the logic of hate speech laws that makes that outcome almost inevitable?

STONESTREET: Yeah, there is.

There's something about the foundation of hate speech laws, and the foundation that lawmakers bring to the table, that also makes this outcome inevitable.

I think we can understand it in two ways.

The first is: thank God for the First Amendment. Thank God for the Bill of Rights.

I don't think we can overstate just how differently these things play out, even if it takes a while, like it did in the U.S. in the case of Jack Phillips for 13 years.

Eventually you have this thing that courts, lawmakers, and individuals have to reckon with, and that is that there is a freedom of speech.

That includes both the freedom to say what one wants and not to be forced to say what one doesn't want.

Yes, there are limits. It's not unlimited. But those limits are very generous.

We just don't have that in other places around the world.

You have lip service to some of the same freedoms, but the Bill of Rights really is a remarkable thing, and the First Amendment is a remarkable thing.

To hold that is a real gift.

It's the 250th anniversary of the Declaration and the 250th birthday of America. Let's celebrate that thing, because it's worth celebrating.

It does point to the kind of creatures that humans are. We're free thinkers. We can't be compelled.

Of course, that vision of the human person comes out of Christianity pretty dramatically, and that comes to the foundation of these rights.

If you think about those who are trying to push hate speech laws that do not have these hard fixed boundaries that the First Amendment has, very often there's an illusion here that law is a social construct and that in order to deal with the social conditions that we're faced with, we now have to move the goalposts.

The fundamental difference between that and something that is way more stable is where rights come from.

Chuck Colson used to say it this way: Either our rights come from God or they come from the state.

If they come from God, then the state's job is to recognize the rights, not to make them.

But the social construct theory says that rights come essentially from those who are in power.

If the government gives those rights, the government can change those rights, remove those rights, and take away those rights.

It is a dramatically different vision of jurisprudence.

I think we need to tip our hats to those who not only gave us the First Amendment, but those who are willing to defend and define the First Amendment and educate a new generation of lawmakers in the First Amendment.

It comes back to worldview.

What is it that you actually believe about the nature of reality, the nature of speech, the nature of language, the rights of man, the kind of creatures that humans are?

All this is wrapped up into that.

God bless Päivi Räsänen.

You talk about someone who has just been unbelievably mistreated and is willing to stick it out and stay in the game.

She's an impressive, impressive leader.

Thank God for her too.

EICHER: John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint Podcast. Thanks John.

STONESTREET: Thank you!

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, June 5th.

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

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a classic musical to get you in a patriotic spirit.

We’re less than a month away from America’s semiquincentennial. And it’s not too early to start planning your celebratory entertainment choices. There are plenty of patriotic movies out there, but Collin Garbarino suggests lovers of Broadway might want to try out the mostly forgotten musical 1776.

[“Overture” playing under next graf]

COLLIN GARBARINO: The musical 1776 debuted on Broadway in 1969 and got a film version in 1972. It’s a surprisingly joyful adaptation of the Continental Congress’ thorny debates over the question of independence.

The musical begins with a morose John Adams complaining that he can’t get any traction for his resolution on independence.

JOHN ADAMS: I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace. That two are called a law firm. And that three or more become a Congress!

Adams is played with gusto by William Daniels, who many listeners will remember as Mr. Feeny on Boy Meets World. Just a bit of trivia, later this month Daniels and his wife Bonnie Bartlett will celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary, a rarity in Hollywood.

One of John Adams’ only friends in the Continental Congress is the venerable Ben Franklin. A man who shares his ardent desire for independence but nonetheless manages to maintain a sunnier disposition.

BEN FRANKLIN: John, why don’t you give it up. Nobody listens to you. You’re obnoxious and disliked.

JOHN ADAMS: I’m not promoting John Adams. I’m promoting independence.

BEN FRANKLIN: Inevitably they can’t help connecting the two.

The story really gets going when Franklin and Adams manage to convince one of the delegates from Virginia to take up the resolution. If independence isn’t seen as merely the cause of some rabble-rousing New Englanders, then maybe some of the other colonies will join in.

JOHN ADAMS: [singing] I say vote “yes”!

CONGRESS: Sit down, John!

JOHN ADAMS: Vote for independency!

Eventually, a young dreamy delegate named Thomas Jefferson gets tasked with drafting a “declaration.” Part of the musical deals with Jefferson’s writer’s block and the subsequent alterations and amendments demanded by the other delegates. Who would have thought watching a committee edit a governmental document could be so entertaining?

JOHN ADAMS: For a man of only 33 years, you possess a happy talent for composition and a remarkable felicity of expression.

1776 isn’t going to appeal to everyone. First, it’s more than two and a half hours long, so folks with short attention spans might struggle. Second, if you dislike those cheesy Broadway musicals of yesteryear, then this film might make you cringe. It’s certainly not as hip and self-aware as Hamilton. Also, the movie was rated G in 1972, but rating standards were a lot looser back then. These delegates tend to take God’s name in vain as they verbally abuse one another. There are also a couple of instances of innuendo.

But for a Broadway musical, it’s surprisingly historical. Of course the story simplifies the stances of many characters.

JOHN DICKINSON: Oh say, do you see what I see? Congress sitting here in sweet serenity.

The overall tone of the film is patriotic, but it still shows the messiness of the legislative process. Most notable is the musical’s readiness to tackle the historical hypocrisy of proclaiming freedom while maintaining slavery.

It even includes the historical fact that Jefferson originally included a passage in the Declaration condemning the slave trade, claiming it was contrary to nature. How could Thomas Jefferson say all men are created equal while he kept other human beings enslaved? What can I say? Jefferson was a complicated guy.

John Adams opposed slavery and thought its condemnation necessary. The southern states opposed the language and demanded it be struck from the document. In the musical, they claim the New England opponents of slavery have benefited from the arrangement just as much as they have. The price of freedom from Britain was a moral compromise regarding the plight of America’s enslaved.

EDWARD RUTLEDGE: [singing] Molasses to rum to slaves… Who’ll sail the ships back to Boston?

1776 is a deft piece of work. It’s a light-hearted patriotic musical that manages to show that 250 years ago the fight for independence was a rather precarious thing. But perhaps one of the most important things about the movie is that it reminds us that from its inception, America has included strong-minded people holding differing opinions. The question is, “How much are we willing to compromise for the sake of unity?” Part of the genius of this film is that it doesn’t offer us any easy answers. Americans today still find themselves divided. Refusing moral compromise might be the more courageous path but it doesn’t necessarily bode well for national stability.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

MAST: 1776 is currently available to stream for free on Tubi.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

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

Some of the most impressive people you'll ever meet make difficult things look easy. Speaking of such people it's time for George Grant who says there's actually a name for that effortless-seeming skill. Here's Wordplay for June.

GEORGE GRANT: There ought to be a word for that. At least, that is what I thought when I first encountered the ancient Roman poet Ovid's aesthetic principle of studied nonchalance.

He called it, “The art that conceals art.” He believed that the highest form of craft or skill is one that appears altogether effortless and unstudied, hiding its technical labor.

Have you ever watched someone who makes even the most difficult of tasks look easy? Have you ever seen a carpenter or a mechanic or a plumber or an electrician use his tools as if they were a natural extension of his hands? Have you ever watched the uncanny grace and dexterity of a gifted athlete making even the most arduous challenges look simple? Have you ever read a writer whose lucid, sophisticated prose completely recedes into the background allowing you to become immersed in the plot, the characters, and the setting of their story? Have you ever been transported by a musician’s deft touch and virtuosity? Have you ever witnessed an effective coach or a savvy leader unobtrusively mentor, encouraging his or her team to feel as if they had accomplished their goals all by themselves? It is as if their proficiency, competence, and know-how are innate.

It is that elegance that never looks like it is trying to be elegant. It is labor that never looks laborious. It is the actor’s immersive believability. It is the sort of mastery that modestly allows the work to speak for itself. It is quiet expertise. It is that refined, polished technique where the touch of a craftsman’s hand is altogether uncontrived and very nearly invisible. Technical precision and hard work remain backstage allowing beauty, goodness, and truth to take the spotlight. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde declared that art is most revealing when the artist is most concealing.

There ought to be a word for that—and there is, except that it is in Italian. In his Book of the Courtier, the Italian Renaissance diplomat and military officer, Baldassare Castiglione, coined the term sprezzatura to describe the idea.

It was, he said, a certain nonchalance to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without even the slightest effort—making difficult actions, behaviors, or styles appear simple and unstudied.

Alas, sprezzatura doesn’t exactly slip off the American tongue effortlessly, easily, or unostentatiously. So, I’ll say it again: there ought to be a word for that.

I’m George Grant.

NICK EICHER, HOST: WORLD's June Giving Drive continues.

And if supporting WORLD is on your mind this year, you've still got plenty of time to do it—but why wait? Why not visit our website today at WNG.org/donate?

Now it’s time to name the crew who helped with this week’s programs:

Mary Reichard, David Bahnsen, Josh Schumacher, Jenny Rough, Myrna Brown, Esther Arnusch, Janie B. Cheaney, Joyce Wu, Cal Thomas, Mary Muncy, Hunter Baker, Todd Vician, Daniel Suhr, Collin Garbarino, George Grant, John Stonestreet, and Josh Goniea.

Thanks also to our breaking news crew: Kent Covington, Steve Kloosterman, Travis Kircher, Daniel Devine, and Christina Grube.

And thanks to the guys who are up late so your program is ready early: Tech producers Benj Eicher and Carl Peetz.

Harrison Watters is Washington producer, Kristen Flavin is features editor, Emma Eicher is assistant producer. I’m Executive Producer, Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m producer Lindsay Mast.

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, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’” —Romans 1:16–17

Sunday is coming, and what a blessing. Be sure to worship with your brothers and sisters in Christ in a Bible believing church. And Lord willing, we’ll meet you right back here on Monday.

Go now, in grace and peace.

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