The World and Everything in It: March 19, 2025

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning!

DOGE protests are taking over Republican town hall meetings:

EDWARDS: Like him or not, Elon Musk has brought a lot of really smart people to DOGE… [loud booing]

How is GOP leadership responding to the pushback by constituents? That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Also today, WORLD Tour, Christians in Nigeria are in danger and a recent Supreme Court decision there puts more people at risk.

And recent egg shortages have families considering keeping chickens in the backyard, and not just for economic reasons.

URISAKA: Most chickens aren't getting sunlight, most chickens aren't getting the chance to kick up a grub and eat it as a snack. And so I think that's what makes a difference.

And protecting our children online.

BROWN: It’s Wednesday, March 19th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

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

BROWN: It’s time for the news now with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Ukraine ceasefire talks »  In a phone call with President Trump, Vladimir Putin agreed to seek a limited ceasefire with Ukraine, which would halt attacks against energy and infrastructure targets.

TRUMP:  We had a great call. It lasted almost two hours. Talked about a lot of things and, uh, toward getting it to peace. And we talked about other things also.

Trump said they discussed many elements of a contract for peace. And he said that the process of working toward an end to the war is now well underway.

ZELENSKYY: [Speaking Ukrainian]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted to the news Tuesday:

ZELENSKYY: [Speaking Ukrainian]

He said, “We support all steps towards ending the war.” And he added that he would like to speak with President Trump again by phone very soon to better understand the details, and “to discuss next steps.”

A statement from the Kremlin says Putin called on an end to military and intelligence assistance for Ukraine as part of a peace plan at the White House.

Israel latest » Israel says renewed strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza this week are “only the beginning.” Israeli Foreign Minister official Oren Marmorstein:

MARMOSTEIN: Israel will act against Hamas with increasing military intensity.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel had shown restraint since a ceasefire expired more than two weeks ago as negotiators tried to renew it.

NETANYAHU:  Hamas refused offer after offer to release our hostages. In the past two weeks, Israel did not initiate any military action in the hope that Hamas would change course. Well, that didn't happen.

The Hamas-controlled health ministry claims that hundreds of people died in the latest Israeli strike, including women and children.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer says any and all civilian deaths are tragic, and serve as a further indictment of Hamas.

MENCER:  They continue to use their own people as human shields, which is an international war crime … and Hamas continues to openly incite terrorism against Israelis.

A senior Hamas official has threatened to execute the remaining Israeli hostages.

Department of Justice task force » Meantime, the U.S. Department of Justice is revving up efforts to bring Hamas terrorists to justice. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: Attorney General Pam Bondi says the Department of Justice has established a joint task force on the Oct. 7th massacre in Israel. It will have multiple objectives, including:

- To investigate and prosecute Hamas members responsible for the attack.

- To take the lead on existing investigations.

- And to target civil rights violations and antisemitic acts by Hamas supporters in the United States.

Hamas killed nearly 50 Americans in the Oct. 7th, 2023 massacre … and kidnapped eight others.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Astronauts return » After nine long months stranded in space, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are back home:

AUDIO (SpaceX): And splashdown, Crew-9 back on Earth [cheers]

Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into Gulf waters near the Florida Panhandle last night.

President Trump welcomed the news. He noted that it will take quite a while for them to reacclimate to Earth’s gravity.

TRUMP: They’ve got to get better. It's not easy. You know, they're up a long time … and when they do, they'll come to the Oval Office.

The astronauts departed on a Boeing test flight last year on Boeing’s new Starliner capsule. They expected to be gone for only a week or so. But the Starliner had so many technical issues that NASA deemed it unsafe, and later reassigned Williams and Wilmore to SpaceX for the ride home.

FBI on Tesla fires » Law enforcement is investigating a string of attacks against Tesla vehicles and dealerships.

Police in Las Vegas are searching for someone who lit five cars on fire at a Tesla Collision and Sales Center.

Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren:

KOREN: We're still in the process of collecting evidence, but it appears the suspect fired at least three rounds into different tesla vehicles. So we do believe a firearm was used.

The apparent acts of political violence started after Tesla CEO Elon Musk began his work with President Trump. Last week, vandals targeted numerous dealerships in the Pacific Northwest.

FBI special agent Spencer Evans issued this warning:

EVANS:  And specifically to those who might think that something like this is justifiable or potentially even admirable, we want to let you know it's a federal crime. We will come after you, we will find you and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.

Musk reacted, calling the attacks acts of domestic terrorism. He said, “Tesla just makes electric cars and has done nothing to deserve these evil attacks.”

I'm Kent Covington.

This is The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday, the 19th of March.

Thanks for listening to WORLD radio today! Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

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

First up on The World and Everything in It, Washington Wednesday.

The Senate and House of Representatives are on recess this week, and lawmakers are back home with their families and constituents.

MAST: Many use the time to catch up on meetings, community gatherings, and town hall events. This spring, however, many Republicans are seeing angry constituents swarm their meetings: protestors venting frustration over workforce cuts prompted by entrepreneur Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency.

BROWN: Here now with more on what’s happening is Washington Bureau Reporter, Carolina Lumetta.

EDWARDS: I happen to agree with a lot of that things that’s going on in Washington, DC [crowd boos].

CAROLINA LUMETTA: In an auditorium in Asheville, North Carolina, Republican Congressman Chuck Edwards found out why his party leadership told him not to hold in-person town halls.

EDWARDS: Our last question Here Amelia from zip code 28805, What Are you doing for your constituents regarding musk and his minions having reading writing privileges with the Treasury Department's database.

Yeah. Well, thank you. So, can I answer this one also before you start yelling at me, uh, let's let's be honest with one another if if the name of the person that was running that agency was anything more than Elon Musk you probably wouldn't be as angered. [booing]

The Thursday event turned rowdy. Attendees frequently booed or yelled over Edwards and security escorted a few angry demonstrators from the room.

Hundreds more chanted outside and pounded on the auditorium room doors.

CROWD: Do your job, do your job…

The object of their frustration? Elon Musk’s approach to trimming the federal workforce.

EDWARDS: Like him or not, Elon Musk has brought a lot of really smart people to DOGE, and they’re finding vulnerabilities and inconsistencies in our databases [loud booing]

Several attendees told WORLD they were on the receiving end of those actions.

DOWNIE: When suddenly I received an email that told me my performance was lacking, in spite of my supervisors providing me with exemplary performance reports, and that I was no longer needed by the government.

Martin Downie took a remote job with the Department of Agriculture in 2020. Before that, he served for 30 years in the Army. Along with thousands of other federal employees, he accepted a buyout offer last month. But he is worried about what will happen to agencies and programs Americans like him benefit from.

DOWNIE: I'm scared to death that they're just going to chop back all of the progress that they've made with the Veterans Administration. They're going to take it all back again. If that's what they call making America great again, I humbly disagree.

Similar protests cropped up at Senator Roger Marshall’s town hall last month in Oakley, a small town in northwestern Kansas, hundreds of miles from any large city. Irritated constituents repeatedly interrupted Marshall when he talked about DOGE.

MARSHALL: If you all keep cutting me off, if you're rude which you’re being, I'm going to leave. I mean, people from Oakley don’t deserve this.

When a veteran said cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs were shameful, Marshall ended the town hall early.

MARSHALL: I do got two more commitments today. I appreciate everybody making the drive out and God bless America, thank you. [yelling]

Louise Ehmke attended that town hall. She and her husband, Vance, own a western Kansas farm that’s been in the family since 1885. They have contracts with the Department of Agriculture to use the land for research. They worry DOGE will cut the contracts. But they are more concerned that lawmakers aren’t listening.

EHMK: He represents Democrats and Republicans. It’s not a Republican meeting, it’s for his constituents.

Earlier this month, House Speaker Mike Johnson and other party leaders told their members to temporarily stop holding in-person town hall meetings. They said that Democrats are busing in activists just to cause a scene. So Republican leadership advised a switch to virtual town halls, where staff may screen questions from constituents calling in. But it’s a risky strategy.

GREEN: It makes lawmakers look like they're scared of their constituents. And that that is not the message you want if you are an incumbent lawmaker.

Matt Green is a politics professor at the Catholic University of America. He says lawmakers have a responsibility to hear the opinions and concerns of their constituents.

GREEN: And so if Republicans are simply refusing to have in public, large town hall meetings because previous meetings went south, it does look like they are running scared from their constituents, and then indirectly, they're running scared from Trump.

Republican lawmakers allege that the demonstrations are coming from paid activists, not real constituents.

In both Asheville and Kansas, attendees told WORLD this wasn’t true, but some national groups are organizing people to attend Republican town halls to voice concerns about DOGE.

EZRA LEVIN: You as a constituent have a right to request this.

Ezra Levin is an organizer for the group Indivisible, an organization formed to “resist Trump’s authoritarian agenda.” The group has been encouraging its members to attend town halls, or organize their own, and set up empty chairs if lawmakers don’t show up. Here’s Levin again in an instructional video.

LEVIN: Any response of ‘no I'm not going to hold a town hall or I'm I'm going to hold a virtual Town Hall’ it's not real. you want in-person access to your representative, you have the right to get that. And whether it’s a Democrat, Independent or Republican saying ‘no I don’t think I’m going to do that,’ you shouldn’t accept no for an answer.

Republican communications consultant Mark Weaver disagrees.

WEAVER: There's certainly no legal duty. Members of Congress are elected for their full two years, and they can spend all of it in Washington, or all of it back home, or all of it in the Caribbean getting a suntan.

Weaver says with town halls becoming more raucous, lawmakers could lean into other ways to meet with constituents. That could include unannounced visits at county fairs, taking a factory tour, or stopping by a diner.

WEAVER: It’s important that members of Congress keep in touch with folks back home but there are so many other ways they can do it, particularly when these lately have become traps, partisan traps set up by these astroturf groups.

Artificial astroturf,as opposed to an organic grassroots movement.

WEAVER: It won't make for much of an exchange if you have somebody who's going to get on and scream and use four -letter words, because that's not how we talk to one another in a civil environment.

Back in Asheville, Congressman Edwards pressed through the town hall. He thanked attendees for bringing their contradicting perspectives to the table.

EDWARDS: And I hope that you will certainly stay engaged with my office and all of those folks that are elected to represent you. God bless you all. [boos and shouts continue out].

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: a World Tour special report.

The Supreme Court of Nigeria this month upheld the death sentence of a farmer in the country’s crisis-hit northern region. His offense? He stabbed a knife-wielding herdsman who attacked him on his farm.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: The case has triggered concern in Nigerian communities where militant cattle herders have repeatedly targeted majority-Christian farming communities.

WORLD’s Africa reporter Onize Oduah has the story.

ONIZE ODUAH: Twenty-year-old Sunday Jackson was working on his farmland in Adamawa state a decade ago when a Fulani herdsman named Buba Bawuro brought his cattle to feed on Jackson’s crops.

When Jackson challenged him, both men began fighting. Bawuro brought out a knife and stabbed Jackson a few times before Jackson grabbed the knife and stabbed him back in the neck, killing him.

That altercation kept Jackson waiting behind bars for years until a court in Adamawa’s capital of Yola dished out a sentence in 2021. That sentence is death by hanging for culpable homicide.

This month, the Supreme Court in Nigeria’s capital of Abuja upheld that ruling.

Joshua Nwachukwu is a Nigerian lawyer.

NWACHUKWU: We all know that there's a constitutional right of self-defense.

He says here that the case has left many wondering what exactly constitutes self-defense.

The court argued that Jackson could have fled the scene instead of stabbing his attacker in self-defense. Unlike in the United States, Nigeria does not have a stand-your-ground law that allows people to use deadly force in self-defense without a duty to retreat.

Some extremist Fulani herders have targeted mostly Christian farming communities across northern and central Nigeria, allowing their cattle to graze on their crops and attacking their communities.

States like Benue—known as Nigeria’s food basket—have seen repeated attacks.

Wilfred Anagbe is the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Makurdi, Benue’s capital. He appeared before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa last week for a hearing on Nigeria.

ANAGBE: The Makurdi diocese in Benue state has been the epicenter of the invasion by these herders who are more like hired guns of cattle oligarchies who manipulate religion to rally the herders to eliminate the Christian population and cleanse the land in the name of Islam.

Anagbe said the police and army do not respond when they call for help.

ANAGBE: At the end of 2024, several villages were warned by the attackers of the upcoming violence and the leaders called the police for defense ahead of time, but they did not come.

At least 47 people died in a Christmas Day attack.

In north-western Kaduna state, Alheri Magaji’s majority-Christian Adara community has suffered multiple attacks for years at the hands of armed herdsmen.

MAGAJI: You're attacked in church. You go to church. They come to pack all of you in church. You're at home. They come to your house. It's just terrible, like, so what are people supposed to do? You have to defend yourself. But then if you defend yourself, and they come and the security personnel come and catch you, then you're termed as a terrorist as well.

Magaji’s hometown relies mostly on the men in the community for defense.

MAGAJI: They don't sleep at night at all. They're on guard the whole time, the whole time. And then sometimes they even attack in the mornings when the men are tired and just got back home to sleep. So it's just constant living on the edge.

Back in 2019, authorities detained Magaji’s father and other local community leaders for three months over accusations that they backed reprisal attacks against Fulanis. Magaji said in another instance, some 20 youths were also detained for six months for defending their community.

MAGAJI: But since Sunday Jackson's case, it makes us wonder, like, Okay, if Sunday Jackson is going to be sentenced to death, what happens to our people?

Nigerian lawyer Nwachukwu said he and other colleagues are still waiting on the Supreme Court to release the full judgment on Jackson’s case.

But since the Supreme court’s ruling is final, Nwachukwu says that Jackson’s future rests with the Adamawa state governor, who is now facing pressure to grant clemency. But he could also leave Jackson on death row without ever signing the final approval for his execution.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Oduah in Abuja, Nigeria.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: So what were you doing at age 10? Likely not setting world records!

Meet Alberto Davila Aragon, a boy from Bristol who just broke a Guinness World Record for the most decimal places of pi recited in one minute.

It all started last year, when his school held a contest. The prize? The chance to pie the headmaster in the face! A boy’s dream come true.

Aragon memorized 150 digits to win, but he didn’t stop there. This year, he shattered the world record, rattling off 280 digits in just 60 seconds.

Pi Day was March 14 and it’s all about celebrating math. But Alberto? He’s in a league of his own.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, March 19th.

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

Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

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

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Sharing good food. The price of eggs continues to be a talking point for both politicians and consumers.

MAST: U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said recently that nearly 160 million birds have been killed as a result of an outbreak of avian flu. That’s caused egg shortages, price increases, and now a run on spring chicks. 

Even so, Rollins suggested raising chickens on small farms or even backyards might be part of the solution. Audio from Fox News:

ROLLINS: I think the silver lining, we've got chickens too in our backyard. How do we solve for something like this. and people are sort of looking around like, wow, maybe I could get a chicken in my backyard, and it's awesome.

For those thinking of starting backyard flocks, there are a few things to keep in mind. WORLD’s Paul Butler has some suggestions from a small-scale operator.

SOUND: [FEEDING CHICKENS]

PAUL BUTLER: Isaac Hebert has been raising chickens since he was a kid. He’s a small egg producer in North-central Illinois with about 70 hens. He does it to get people to the farm. And it’s working. Business is booming with egg buyers on a three week waiting list.

He says he’s found that people have lots of questions about raising chickens. He starts by making sure they’re getting into it for the right reasons.

HEBERT: If you're just a family hoping to produce eggs in your backyard for yourself, and you think you're going to save money, you’re not. To go out and build a chicken house and buy all the equipment, the eggs would cost you 10 times what they do in the grocery store...

In other words, before you start, count the cost. And not just the cost of the chicks and bags of feed. There’s a lot of other stuff you need. All things Hebert already had laying around the farm.

The second thing Hebert tells would-be chicken raisers is the same thing animal shelters tell folks wanting to adopt a pet:

HEBERT: You gotta care for these animals. You're their support.

Daily feeding and watering, and of course collecting the eggs. But also remember that chicken coops don’t clean themselves, and the birds require protection from the elements and other wildlife.

HEBERT: It's a huge commitment…you can't just put these birds in the backyard. Just expect them to take care of themselves.

One more thing Hebert reminds folks: while it’s warming up across the country:

HEBERT: Don't forget about what the weather was there a couple months ago, because that'll come in a year from now, you're going to be out there with zero taking care of your chickens again. So keep that in mind.

Hebert isn’t trying to keep folks dependent on his own egg production. He’s just seen a lot of people jump in with both feet and then regret it. The costs. The responsibilities. The sick or dead birds.

Yet even with all the complications, he enjoys it. It was his introduction to caring for animals as a kid, and he’s teaching his three year old son those same lessons now, one egg at a time.

For WORLD, I’m Paul Butler in Arlington, Illinois. 

BROWN: And now the story of one New York couple, who look at their small farm and the eggs they raise as a way to care for people. WORLD’s Lindsay Mast has that story.

SOUND: [Chickens]

MAST: The chickens roaming the grounds of Cucumber Hill Farm in New York live 50 miles from the busy streets of Manhattan. Owner Miho Urisaka and her husband didn’t start out as farmers, but a few years ago, they took an opportunity to get out of the city.

URISAKA: That's always been our dream. We moved during the pandemic. We moved from Brooklyn to Putnam Valley to get a little bit of land and truly, the connection back into the earth is something that we're missing in our society and our lives.

SOUND: [Gathering eggs]

Urisaka pulls eggs–dark brown, blue, mocha– from the nesting boxes at Cucumber Hill. She wants the eggs to be the best, so she gives her chickens the chance to be chickens.

URISAKA: Most chickens aren't getting sunlight, most chickens aren't getting the chance to bathe in the soil. Most chickens aren't getting the chance to kick up a grub and eat it as a snack. And so I think that's what makes a difference.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says the average price of a dozen eggs nationwide hit nearly six dollars in February. In some Manhattan stores, eggs cost more than $12. But for Urisaka, raising chickens isn’t about turning a profit. It’s about providing the opportunity to eat great food.

The chickens get their fill of locally-sourced, organic feed. Their baby chicks stay indoors until they’re a few weeks old. Then the busy little birds get to free range on the farm. Urisaka’s husband, Justin Baker:

BAKER: They're healthy birds. They're birds that still know how to be chickens. So you can see in their behaviors, they're able to move about. They're able to scratch and peck and just live, express these natural chicken behaviors.

The chickens are free to roam, eating ants, and exploring. But the eggs are headed somewhere a little more confined.

PATIENT: That’s so weird, so tender right there.

Urisaka still works as a physical therapist in Manhattan. Over her years of treating patients in pain, she developed an interest in how the food we eat might influence our health.

URSIAKA: Quality of food has a huge effect on how your body feels on the physical level, on the mechanical level - and that's why we started bringing in all these other modalities into our clinic.

SOUND: [Sound of stocking the fridge]

One of those modalities? It’s not a new breathing or movement technique. It’s those eggs, fresh from the farm. She stocks the office refrigerator with cardboard boxes full of them.

URISAKA: As soon as the chickens started laying, we started bringing them into here.

The farm generally charges $9 a dozen for the eggs–a number that’s stayed pretty steady despite changes in the egg market. And it’s not much more than current prices for organic eggs at a Manhattan Whole Foods.

URISAKA: We've always sold out even prior to the shortage. So this is really done more as a service to our clients who appreciate this kind of quality to our customers and our patients who really value what they're putting into their body.

Baker says the farm adjusts prices based on what they have to pay–not on the demands of the current egg markets.

BAKER: Feed costs have gone up, but not tremendously, largely, I think probably (due to) fuel costs. But as our feed prices fluctuate, that might affect the prices of our eggs. But other than that, we haven't been affected by bird flu or any of the other pressures in the market.

For some people and restaurants, the high price of eggs has been challenging. But for those who have the means to afford higher quality eggs, it can be worth the expense. And Urisaka’s PT clients are eating up the opportunity to buy eggs from a farmer they know.

PATIENT: And so I know what went into them. So I know there's integrity and they just taste actually better.

PATIENT: It's a little pricier than some of the... we normally buy pasteurized, so it's a little pricier than that, but not by much at this point with where prices are going. So it's worth the extra dollar or so to get really local.

SOUND: [Sounds from the farm]

Back on the farm, Urisaka and Baker tend to the goats and bees, turkeys and ducks, who live alongside the 400 chickens they keep. Their Instagram account shows the couple’s care for the animals throughout the changing seasons of the Hudson Valley. And they’ve found the benefits their animals enjoy apply to humans, too.

URISAKA: You need your food, you need your water, you need your sunshine, you need recreation, those are all things that are good for all living beings.

SOUND: [Sound of chickens]

And unlike seasons, feed prices, or egg supply, those needs don’t change.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Wednesday, March 19th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Up next, age verification and protecting our kids online. Here’s WORLD Opinions contributor Brad Littlejohn.

BRAD LITTLEJOHN: Even after a decades-long war on childhood, there are still a great many things in this country you cannot do if you’re under 18. You can’t take out a loan or enter any binding contract. You can’t buy risky products like alcohol or tobacco. You can’t access sexually explicit venues, like strip clubs. You can’t even open a bank account without a parent present. But go online—where many kids spend their time—and all that goes right out the window. You can sign away all of your privacy rights to the world’s most powerful corporations. Be whisked into the presence of digital sex workers and predators. And access an endless array of dangerous and addictive apps.

This bizarre state of affairs has been wreaking havoc on the mental health of our youth. But it is at last being challenged by a growing movement. One of the newest groups to join the fray is the Digital Childhood Alliance. The alliance has focused its crusade on the two biggest gatekeepers of the digital world: the Apple and Android app stores. Studies suggest that 1 in 6 children in the United States, and 1 in 8 globally, experience some kind of online sexual harassment or exploitation. And that stat doesn’t include exposure to graphic pornography online.

Most of this happens on mainstream apps like Instagram, Tiktok, and Snapchat. Far more than most parents realize. Even seemingly innocuous apps often have social-media-type functions that offer an open gateway for children to be targeted with explicit messages. Some have built-in web browser functionality that can bypass parental controls. And while both Google and Android app stores feature age ratings, these ratings are effectively meaningless. Why? Because they are not enforced. Neither platform makes any effort to check user age.

Last week, Utah became the first state to pass the App Store Accountability Act. It aims to finally close this massive legal loophole destroying America’s children. The law is being considered in at least eight other states and the U.S. Congress. According to the law, developers can be sued for misleading age ratings. Apple and Google will be required to verify whether app store users are 18 or older. If they aren’t, explicit parental consent will be necessary for every single app download and every in-app purchase. The law constitutes a remarkable redistribution of power away from two of the largest companies on the planet and back to the bedrock unit of every society: the family.

For years, Apple and Google have denied that such age-verification is technically possible. That changed a couple weeks ago when Apple suddenly announced an upcoming major overhaul of its app store. It will enable an iPhone to tell an app whether a user is too young to use the app, without giving away the user’s actual birthdate. The announcement is not all that impressive as a child-safety initiative. It leaves plenty of loopholes in place—including allowing minors to agree to complex terms of service contracts without parental consent. Clearly, Apple is trying to convince legislators to leave it alone, much as Meta did last year in introducing “Instagram for Teens.” But the announcement is an earthquake that could shake the tech industry to its core. It is an admission that parents were right all along—that the app store was unsafe and exploitative, and that Apple had the technology to fix it.

It is essential for parents to keep up the pressure. Technologically, there is now no reason why we can’t age-gate the internet at least as effectively as we do the brick-and-mortar world. And given the well-documented perils of the online world, we owe it to our children to demand nothing less.

I’m Brad Littlejohn.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Tomorrow: can the First Amendment shield a permanent U.S. resident from deportation? We’ll talk about it. And, refugees find help at a Pittsburgh church after government resettlement programs shut down. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Lindsay Mast.

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

Special thanks today to Naomi Balk for her reporting from Asheville, North Carolina.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

Jesus said: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” —John 14:15

Go now in grace and peace.

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