The World and Everything in It: April 16, 2026

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

A new report calls out selective federal prosecutions of pro-lifers.

AUDIO: The Department of Justice was working very closely with outside organizations to actually target individuals that were just had different views.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: We’ll have a report.

Also, firefighters who lost their jobs for refusing the COVID vaccine plan to ask the Supreme Court to take up their case.

And how a doctor’s theology of work shapes the way he sees patients and ordinary tasks.

TOPAZIAN: I love to reflect back to people the bits and glimpses of the image of God that I see in them.

And World Commentator Daniel Suhr on the growing paywalls between sports and their fans.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, April 16th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

BROWN: And I’m Myrna Brown. Good morning!

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

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Iran » Pakistan is working to bring Iran back to the bargaining table.

Pakistan’s army chief has arrived for meetings in Tehran in an effort to arrange a second round of peace talks between U.S. and Iranian leaders.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters:

LEAVITT:  We've remained very much engaged, uh, in these negotiation, in these talks. You heard from the vice president directly and the president this week. Um, that these conversations are productive and ongoing. Uh, and that's where we are right now.

Meantime, in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. military is enforcing a blockade of shipping traffic in and out of Iran. Centcom posted audio of the broadcast warning sent from Navy ships …

AUDIO:  All vessels are advised to immediately return to port if leaving and discontinue transit to Iran. If that is your next quarter call, do not attempt to breach the blockade.

The Pentagon says no vessels have breached the blockade.

AUDIO:   If you do not comply with this blockade. We will use force the whole of the United States Navy is ready to force compliance.

President Trump said largely cutting off Iran’s commerce had drawn a strong response with Iran threatening to disrupt trade throughout the region.

TRUMP:  They reacted to this even I think we're, you know, we've obliterated them and this almost seems to be more of a reaction than we had before. So we'll see. I mean, look, it only matters, uh, the end result.

The president again, though, struck a cautiously optimistic tone, saying Iran wants to make a deal to end the war. The current temporary ceasefire expires in less than a week.

FISA » Congress is debating whether to extend a key part of a law that U.S. spy agencies and law enforcement heavily rely on for surveillance before its authorization expires on Monday. WORLD’s Mary Muncy reports.

MARY MUNCY: Agencies like the CIA and FBI are urging Congress to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — or FISA.

The section allows government agencies to spy on non-U.S. citizens outside of the United States without a warrant.

They argue that it's an invaluable tool giving them flexibility to detect and respond quickly to threats.

For example, the CIA says Section 702 allowed them to prevent a mass casualty event at a Taylor Swift concert.

But critics and privacy advocates note that the communications of Americans’ can sometimes be scooped up by accident. And courts have flagged compliance violations, even after 2024 reforms.

The current bill would extend Section 702 until October of next year.

For WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

Zelenskyy pursues more arms deals » Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been on a European tour, meeting with leaders across the continent. But he wasn’t just drumming up support for Kyiv in its ongoing fight against Russia. He’s also touting Ukraine’s recently acquired knowledge of drone technology.

AUDIO: [Zelenskyy in Germany]

On Monday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz welcomed Zelenskyy in Berlin...with full military honors.

AUDIO: [Zelenskyy in Norway]

From there it was onto Oslo where he met with the Norwegian prime minister.

And on Wednesday…

AUDIO: [Zelenskyy in Italy]

...the Ukrainian president met with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome.

MELONI: [Speaking Italian]

Speaking here...Meloni says supporting Ukraine is not just the right thing to do morally but also strategically with the security of Europe at stake.

Zelenskyy, while gathering assurances of financial support and weapons also agreed to share Ukraine's knowledge of drone technology with allies.

Roblox settlement » The popular kids' gaming platform Roblox will pay more than $12 million dollars to the state of Nevada and expand protections for young users.

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford called it a first-of-its-kind agreement.

FORD: As our children connect online, we must be aware that there are those who would seek to harm them, who would prey upon them, and who must be kept as far away from them as possible.

Under the deal, Roblox will build on its existing protections — such as age verification and restrictions on chats between adults and minors and will expand parental oversight to children under 16.

Nearly half of all U.S. children under 16 use Roblox. The platform faces lawsuits in other states as well — though in this case, Roblox settled without litigation. Ford said the money will be used for “preventive programs” including offline clubs that pull kids away from screens.

Typhoon aftermath » Residents in U.S. territory are surveying the damage today after a super typhoon ripped through the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports:

KRISTEN FLAVIN: Super Typhoon Sinlaku is the strongest tropical cyclone on Earth this year. It pounded the islands with relentless rain and sustained winds approaching 150 miles per hour flipping cars and toppling utility poles.

So far, no deaths have been reported. But the power was out Wednesday across Saipan, home to about 45-thousand people and many roads are impassable.

FEMA says it's ramping up relief supply shipments and sending more personnel to the region.

The typhoon also battered Guam, site of several U.S. military bases, with tropical-force winds.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: A new report calls out selective federal prosecutions of pro-lifers. Plus, the AI schools promising personalized lesson plans and high test scores.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Thursday the 16th of April.

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

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

First up: Pro-lifers in the crosshairs.

The Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group released its first report this week, alleging that the Biden administration targeted pro-life Americans.

BROWN: The nearly 900 pages claim that the Justice Department unfairly used a 32-year-old civil rights law to go after pro-life activists.

WORLD’s Carolina Lumetta has the story.

CAROLINA LUMETTA: The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, known as the FACE Act, makes it illegal to block access to houses of worship, crisis pregnancy centers, and abortion centers. Penalties range from misdemeanors to felonies carrying a decade of prison time. And on Tuesday, the Justice Department released the massive report, saying the Biden administration selectively used it against pro-life advocates

The DOJ’s weaponization working group reviewed more than 700,000 internal records implicating the Biden administration in partnering with pro-abortion groups to identify, track, and then arrest pro-life activists. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told NBC News:

BLANCHE: The Department of Justice was working very closely with outside organizations to actually target individuals that were just had different views from that outside organization.

According to emails included in the report, several DOJ attorneys received dossiers on pro-life activists from the National Abortion Federation. Text messages revealed one attorney complained about a Catholic judge. The report also alleges the DOJ tried to screen Christians out of juries on FACE Act cases and sought harsher-than-normal sentences compared to pro-abortion activists.

BLANCHE: This is about the department of justice working hand in hand with outside organizations that were their sole mission was to go after individuals who were pro-life and the department of justice took that information, used it as part of their ongoing investigations and prosecutions. 

During the Biden administration, 46 pro-life advocates were charged with felonies under the FACE Act. More than half were convicted, and then pardoned by Trump.

Some of the emails between lawyers and pro-abortion groups began in 2020, during the first Trump administration. On Tuesday, a Justice Department spokesperson said personnel have been fired… but did not say how many. Two assistant U.S. attorneys out of the Eastern District of Michigan confirmed to the Detroit Free Press that they had been fired. One said she was proud of her service and maintained she upheld the law.

Blanche pushed back during his interview on Tuesday with NBC News:

BLANCHE: We have never and will never fire somebody for just doing their job. However, every lawyer and every prosecutor knows that they take an oath just like I did, and if they violate that oath, there should be consequences.

Missouri Senator Josh Hawley told me he wants to see more accountability from the DOJ.

HAWLEY: We need to have further hearings on this issue to expose it. And you know, we need, if necessary, we need to consider a change in the law to stop this abuse.

For years, pro-life advocates have petitioned the government to repeal the FACE Act, arguing it could be leveraged against them during a future administration. But there has not yet been movement during the Trump administration to do so. Here’s Hawley again:

HAWLEY: I tend to think that it probably can't be salvaged. It'd be better just get rid of it, but at the very least it has got, there's got to be protections for pro lifers, people of faith, and it needs to be if we're going to use it, then we need to be prosecuting people who deface churches, who try to blow up Pregnancy Care Centers, obviously the last administration didn't do it all.

Earlier this year, the Justice Department charged 39 protesters with a FACE Act misdemeanor for demonstrating inside a Minneapolis church. Here’s what U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon told NewsNation in January:

DHILLON: Even though protection of houses of worship is an equal part of that statute, the DOJ hasn't used it before. And so we're using it now…

When asked about the report and the president's position on repealing the FACE Act, the White House would not comment directly, directing me back to the DOJ. Since releasing its report, the DOJ vacated FACE Act convictions for all the pro-life activists listed.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta…in Washington.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday the 16th of April.

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.

Coming up next: Fighting for medical freedom.

A group of Christian firefighters is expected to petition the United States Supreme Court today in a religious discrimination lawsuit. WORLD’s legal correspondent Jenny Rough says the case involves vaccine mandates.

JENNY ROUGH: In August 2021, nearly 18 months after the start of the COVID pandemic, then-Washington Governor Jay Inslee ordered health care workers vaccinated, and that included firefighters. Audio from King 5 Seattle:

JAY INSLEE: We will be requiring our state workers and our contractors who come on to our sites, and workers in private health care and long-term care settings to be vaccinated as a condition of further employment.

After the Washington vaccine mandate, a case out of Snohomish caught the eye of attorney Jennifer Kennedy. It involved a group of eight Christian firefighters she called the Snohomish 8.

All the firefighters had requested religious exemptions.

JENNIFER KENNEDY: Every single one of the Snohomish 8 firefighters has a personal faith relationship with God … in which they pray for guidance, they pray for big life decisions, they follow the teachings of the Bible.

Objections ranged from a concern the vaccine was derived from aborted fetal cell lines … to more generalized health concerns around the belief that God created humans in his image and with sophisticated immune systems.

KENNEDY: People of faith can be smart, critical thinkers, and they can read the science and understand the implication of what happens if I inject synthetic RNA into my perfect design.

The governor’s mandate said employers should comply with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. That obligates employers to provide reasonable accommodations for employees with sincerely held religious beliefs, like the Snohomish 8.

KENNEDY: You don’t eliminate the employee. You eliminate the conflict.

Unless an accommodation would cause the employer an undue hardship. That’s the exception. And that’s what the fire department told the Snohomish 8.

KENNEDY: They said, we can’t possibly accommodate you. You men remaining unvaccinated are now an undue hardship to this department and the public we serve.

When the department put the men on unpaid leave, the Snohomish 8 filed a religious discrimination case in federal court. But they lost before it even went to a jury trial. The judge granted what’s known in the law as a motion for summary judgment. Think of it this way: Essentially, the defendant, the fire department, said to the judge: Here’s the evidence the Snohomish 8 plaintiffs have. And even if you took all of their evidence as true, they’d still lose their case. No rational juror would find in their favor.

Kennedy believes that ruling was wrong.

KENNEDY: Why? Because they had spent nearly two years successfully doing their jobs with PPE, masking, testing, social distancing, and crazy disinfecting.

If the Snohomish 8 could work with personal protective equipment, sanitizing, and safety measures before the mandate, why not after?

KENNEDY: Good morning, your honors. … May it please the court.

Last year, Kennedy argued the case on appeal to the Ninth Circuit. She said the fire department’s claim defied logic. At the same time that it placed the Snohomish 8 on unpaid leave, it partnered with neighboring fire districts who employed unvaccinated workers. In other words, the Snohomish fire department allowed its vaccinated firefighters to work side-by-side with unvaccinated firefighters anyway! Here’s Kennedy before the Ninth Circuit.

KENNEDY: How does that make any sense? That you will ban a firefighter being near his coworkers when he’s on your roster and on your dime, but when he’s not, it doesn’t matter. It’s absurd. And it’s irrational. And it shows they didn’t really fear them as a health and safety threat.

Lawyer Shannon Phillips argued for the fire department. She said alternative safety precautions, like masks and social distancing, would not work because firefighters are also EMTs. That requires close contact with the public. Here’s her exchange with 9th Circuit Judge Danielle Forrest.

SHANNON PHILLIPS: They go into people’s homes, they go into prisons, they go into long-term care facilities that were the epicenter of some of the COVID outbreaks.

JUDGE DANIELLE FORREST: I think that’s a very compelling argument. But what do you do with her point about if that was such a concern, why were firefighters from other places who were not vaccinated being allowed to work alongside your people?

Despite that acknowledgment, the Ninth Circuit would go on to affirm the lower court’s decision. First Liberty Institute and the law firm Williams and Connolly joined the legal team to petition the Supreme Court. Cliff Martin of First Liberty:

CLIFF MARTIN: We’re asking the court specifically to look at a circuit split between three circuits and three other circuits.

Meaning, different circuits had different standards—a classic conflict that often causes the Supreme Court to hear a case. The split arose after the high court ruled in Groff versus DeJoy, a Title VII case that strengthened the religious rights of employees. A unanimous Supreme Court said for an employer to claim it would suffer an undue hardship it must show it would suffer substantial increased costs.

Martin says the Ninth Circuit applied that test incorrectly.

MARTIN: There are three circuits that hold an undue hardship under Groff can be shown by an employer through a reasonable suspicion or reasonable belief that they will experience a substantial increased cost. 

Three other circuits have held “undue hardship” cannot be hypothetical. The bar is higher.

MARTIN: There’re three other circuits that have held, no an employer must prove that there is an actual substantive cost. And so the question is just the degree of proof.

Under that standard, the case would likely go to a jury, rather than be tossed out by a judge in summary judgment.

MARTIN: And that’s where this case should be going. It should be heading to trial with a jury to determine if there was, in fact, an undue hardship.

Most of the Snohomish 8 returned to their jobs. But almost all state mandates have lapsed. Some states now even prohibit them.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jenny Rough in Washington, D.C.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Up next: can lessons at school be one-on-one, or even none-on-one?

That’s what parents and lawmakers want to know about a new kind of online education with AI-guided curriculum.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Some worry about the effect on kids of learning with less human interaction. But others say the test scores speak for themselves.

WORLD’s Lauren Smyth has the story.

LAUREN SMYTH: At Unbound Academy, students can take classes from their sofa, or the local Mexican restaurant, or anywhere with an internet connection. But that’s not the part that catches most people’s attention.

PROMO: And me? I’m their personal AI guide. I craft schedules according to each child’s strengths and weaknesses.

Unbound is an all-online, AI-powered charter school—Arizona’s first. It makes a big promise about those AI guides. Students are guaranteed to score in the top 10% nationally on standardized tests. From the school’s social media:

UNBOUND: At Unbound Academy, core academics happen in just two focused hours, so afternoons are open for creativity, projects, and real-world learning.

During those two hours, an AI algorithm assigns personalized tasks in reading, writing, math, and science or social science. Unbound’s head of school, Michael Goto, says the program gives students freedom to learn at their own pace.

MICHAEL GOTO: Every kid gets the same feel, and every kid gets to feel like they’re part of the same exact experience, without any discrimination or without any unintended social consequence.

In the afternoon, students attend online life-skill clubs. AI is no longer just a background process. It has a name: Phoebe or Phillip. These chatbots can be reached by phone or text and are programmed to speak in a playful, kid-friendly way. Students are encouraged to consult Phoebe or Phillip before asking for help from the human teacher overseeing the classroom.

ROCHELLE RUEN: We were one of the first people to sign up.

Rochelle Ruen’s son, Zaiden, is a fourth grader at Unbound. He was never a confident reader before, but after just one semester at his new school, Ruen says he’s crushing his standardized tests.

RUEN: He’s really proud of himself and feels like he can really do anything now.

And Zaiden is not alone. Unbound has shown strong results in standardized test scores, with most of its students performing significantly above the national average.

Zaiden says he misses hanging out with his friends. But if he had to choose between going back to traditional school and staying at Unbound:

ZAIDEN RUEN: Probably stay at Unbound.

Unbound isn’t the only school that uses AI as a teacher. Alpha School is also AI-powered with in-person campuses around the country. Tuition at some locations hits $75,000.

AI schools get around some concerns about AI by incorporating the technology, rather than avoiding it. Even when AI isn’t built into classroom materials, students are still using it. Most parents and many teachers don’t know about this usage, and it can be problematic. The Center for Democracy and Technology says nearly half of teens admitted they or friends had troubling conversations with a chatbot. But while parents might want the high test scores and personalization AI schools promise, critics say there’s more to the picture when it comes to education.

Jason Thacker is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

JASON THACKER: There’s just an assumption that this has to be better because it’s faster, it’s more efficient, it’s more convenient, it’s more personalized. To go to a fully online, or a fully AI first type of education is, again, not simply about transferring information and filling our head full of knowledge and facts, but becoming a certain type of person in relationship with other people.

He also sees a growing social problem with technology that presents itself as human.

THACKER: What we’re doing when we humanize our machines, treating them as if they’re human and like us, is we actually are reducing ourselves. We’re treating ourselves as nothing but the sum of our parts, and I think that is especially on display in the AI conversation.

Arizona was quick to approve Unbound’s charter, but other states seem to share Thacker’s concerns. Prior to COVID, Pennsylvania had the most students enrolled in cyber charter schools of any state. Even so, lawmakers denied Unbound’s application to open a new campus there. Child psychologist Roger Harrison testified before the governor that students are already overreliant on other forms of AI, even using it for mental health support.

ROGER HARRISON: I think about the fundamental need that we have as human beings particularly as we’re growing for real, human, social connection. And how, with no regulation, I’m seeing young people who are up until two, three, four in the morning just engaging with the chatbot.

Since Unbound is a new school, Arizona officials will periodically review its charter and conduct a surprise pop-in visit. But as an administrator, Goto says the biggest test is enrollment. If parents don’t like what their kids are learning, they’ll pick another school.

GOTO: And most schools want to step up and compete. So it has created more of a competitive culture where a lot of districts are responding very positively to what they need to do to keep enrollment.

So far, that competition has brought week-over-week growth for Unbound and a new milestone: 200 students enrolled, its current maximum.

For WORLD, I’m Lauren Smyth.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Call this one … no one left behind.

In New Zealand a hiker had to be rescued after a serious fall.

But in the rush, her best friend was left behind.

Alone in rugged backcountry for almost a week.

SOUND: [Helicopter rotor]

So a small team went back—this time for Molly, a border collie.

Using thermal cameras, they spotted the pooch not far from where her owner fell.

A rescuer climbed out and lifted Molly to safety by helicopter.

SOUND: [REUNION LAUGHTER/CRYING]

No words needed. Just relief.

And a reminder: The rescue isn’t finished until everyone’s on board.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, April 16th.

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: how vocation, suffering, and the unnoticed tasks of daily life can reflect the image of God.

BROWN: Mark Topazian is a gastroenterologist and professor of medicine who has taught and practiced at institutions including Yale University and the Mayo Clinic, and works in healthcare ministry circles. He’s also the author of a new book exploring the spiritual realities of healthcare and what those realities mean for all of us, regardless of profession.

The book is called Healing Purpose: Finding Satisfaction in a Healthcare Career, published this past fall.

REICHARD: I spoke with Dr. Topazian recently about lessons he’s learned over decades of medical practice.

He connects work in Genesis to the image of God. I asked him how people in any profession can start to see their daily tasks as spiritually meaningful.

TOPAZIAN: I think that it's easy in almost any work that involves interacting with people to have a very transactional form of interaction. You know, you have a need, I'm here to meet the need. We deal with each other on the basis of transaction. But as humans, we're made for communion. And that's an old word, often a religious word, but what it really means is just to share life together. And so with a patient in a busy medical or nursing or therapy practice, you don't have time for a lot of extended conversation. But I love to find out something about my patient, about who they are, beyond just the facts of their illness. So I might start off by saying, ‘Tell me about yourself,’ or for someone I've seen in the past, ‘How's your summer been?’ Or again for a new patient, ‘what kind of work do you do?’ And then, oftentimes, the best communicators, you not only ask about facts, but ask a follow up question that gets at sort of the underlying proclivities or nature of the person, like, ‘Why did you go into that line of work?’ Or ‘What do you like the most about that?’ Or ‘What do you do for fun?’ And, you know, a question like this takes a few seconds to answer. 

But to me, it makes a difference, because I’m for myself pausing just to recognize this is a whole person in front of me, and I think some of my patients don't like that. They sort of duck the question, and that's fine. They don't have to answer. But a lot of people actually enjoy revealing something of themselves and appreciate that, and it forms a basis, oftentimes, for a therapeutic relationship that's so important in healthcare. So that's just the simple thing of recognizing the person before you and getting to know them as a person before you get to know them as a problem or an issue that needs fixing. The Scripture says that we're all made in the image of God, but the image of God in all of us is broken. It's shattered, and theologians have used the image of a shattered mirror. But we all sort of intuitively value the reflections we still get from those shards, those bits and pieces of the image of God in all of us. And the New Testament says that the spirit is putting that mirror back together in each of us, making us more like the image of Christ. So I love to reflect back to people the glimpses of the image of God that I see in them. You know, whether they're brave in the face of illness, or they've maintained their sense of humor in the face of illness, or they really are concerned for their family, or many other things. To be able to reflect that back to someone I think is beautiful, and again, very helpful in understanding each other and working together.

REICHARD: Theology gets real personal when suffering hits. Get an illness, suffer a loss, or when disappointment strikes people will ask, “Why me?” You describe how Scripture shifts the focus from “why” to “who.” How does that shift from “why” to “who” help people move toward peace during personal crises?

TOPAZIAN: People are often asking themselves that question, although they might not voice that question to someone wearing a white coat unless that person in the white coat shows an interest and asks about their spirituality. But to the answer to the question, ‘Why me?’ The Bible gives us three broad themes: Our world's a broken place, not through any fault of yours or mine, but it's a broken place and suffering and sickness and unfair things happen all the time in our world. It also says that our own shortcomings are sometimes part of the issue for why bad things happen. And it says that bad things, suffering are an opportunity for God to display his work from John 9. You know, we've got Job's friends who are dead wrong about why he's sick. We've got the man born blind in John 9, Jesus’ disciples were dead wrong about why that man was blind. 

So when a patient says to me, why me? They're really asking the spiritual question: what is the meaning of this, and how could God let this happen? We can say—but we do know, or I do believe—that there is a God who loves you and that He has not abandoned you, and He's here with you, and He's going to walk through us and help us through this journey. And so this is shifting the focus from why to who, from ‘Why did this happen?’ To ‘Who is God, and is He here now? And how can I connect with Him?’ I think that that shift is very helpful. I think that at our best in responding to suffering, that we can seek a new experience of God. Yeah, so that's what I think it means to stop focusing on why, and to start asking “Who.”

REICHARD: When you study scripture, what do you see that God wants us to understand about our work?

TOPAZIAN: I'd say that God wants you to find joy in the work he's put in your hands, the work he's prepared ahead of time for you to do. And that might be changing a diaper, it might be picking your kids up from school, it might be serving people at work, in a situation where you don't get a lot of kudos, a lot of credit or recognition, and it can be tough, but satisfaction in all of those things I really believe comes from recognizing that God is present, that He's put this work in your hands, that He has a purpose for what you're what you are about and what you are doing, and connecting to Him in real time will help you find that purpose, and will help you find joy In what you're doing. I really believe that, Mary. That's been true for me in my own work and my own profession. I think it's true for almost all of us. And nothing makes me happier at this point than talking to a colleague who has read my book and says, I'm really enjoying seeing patients again. I mean, that is just so sweet.

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.

Sports have a power in American life that’s becoming more rare: They bring together people who may agree on almost nothing else. But as more games move behind streaming paywalls, that shared experience is getting harder to access.

Here is WORLD Opinions commentator Daniel Suhr.

DANIEL SUHR: Federal regulators are starting to question whether fans are being priced out of the games they love.

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the National Football League over how it sells media rights…

And FCC chairman Brendan Carr is warning leagues not to push too many games behind paywalls.

Here he is in an interview with CNBC:

CARR: There’s been a great partnership between broadcasters and sports leagues. It’s helped grow their fan base. Americans have enjoyed turning on TV and quickly finding their favorite team—usually for free. That experience has become frustrating. People feel like they’re paying more and signing up for multiple streaming services. There’s a tipping point where too many games behind a paywall raises serious questions about that exemption.

That “exemption” matters.

For decades, Congress has allowed leagues like the NFL to pool their media rights—because games were widely available on free, over-the-air television.

But that model is changing.

More games are moving to subscription platforms. And for fans, that means confusion… and rising costs.

A fan of the New York Yankees trying to watch every game this season could need access to as many as eight different networks—costing hundreds of dollars.

NFL fans may face even more fragmentation, with games spread across a growing list of streaming services.

At the same time, fan behavior is changing—and not always for the better.

Fantasy sports started the shift. But the rapid rise of sports betting has taken it much further.

Millions of fans now have money riding on games across the league. They are not just watching their hometown team—they are tracking individual players, point spreads, and outcomes in multiple matchups at once.

That fuels demand for more access … more games … more platforms.

But it also changes the nature of the experience. What used to be a shared civic pastime risks becoming something more transactional—more individualized, and in some cases, more addictive.

All of that demand is colliding with a system built to maximize revenue … not fan access or affordability.

Now regulators are asking whether the balance has tipped too far.

The Justice Department is reviewing whether the NFL’s antitrust exemption—written for an earlier era—still applies when games are sold off to tech platforms.

And the FCC is watching closely, especially because local broadcasters still rely on sports to fund local news.

So here is the tension.

In a free market, leagues and networks should be able to strike their own deals.

But sports have never been just another product.

Teams rely on taxpayer-funded stadiums. And for generations, the games themselves have been part of a shared public experience.

At the close of the Olympics, NBC’s Mike Tirico put it this way:

TIRICO: Our country loves sports—and it brings us together unlike anything else… and if you didn’t know that, you saw it in Team USA hockey winning the gold.

If that shared experience disappears behind a maze of paywalls, fans will not be the only ones who notice.

Congress will.

For WORLD, I’m Daniel Suhr.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: John Stonestreet will be here for Culture Friday. And, a sci-fi film worth revisiting after the Project Hail Mary movie hype. We’ll have a review of Edge of Tomorrow. 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, “When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened. But he said to them, ‘It is I; do not be afraid.’” —John 6:16-20

Go now in grace and peace.

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