I'm Mike Slater from the podcast Politics by Faith. This is a crazy time in our country. It's stressful. A lot of anxiety and it's going to get worse.

And I realize that one of the things that helps me take away the stress is realizing that there's

nothing new under the sun. So on this podcast we take the news of the day and we

run it through the Bible and other periods in history to realize that we've been

through this before and we can rise above again.

Politics by Faith, anywhere you listen to the podcast, politics by faith.

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I have a quick day.

It's a good day.

It's Friday, 14 June.

Welcome to the P.D.B. afternoon bulletin.

I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage.

Let's get briefed. First, as we begin to learn more about the

extreme difficulties facing the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza, a senior Hamas official has said that no one in the terrorist group has any idea

how many are still alive.

Also, Russian leader Vladimir Putin issued what Kyiv called, quote, absurd demands for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine on Friday

as Switzerland prepares to host scores of world leaders to map out first steps towards peace. But first, our afternoon spotlight.

We begin with the Israeli Hamas conflict where hopes for a ceasefire to free Israeli

...