The World and Everything in It: March 5, 2026

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The Trump administration is crowdsourcing the war on fraud.

ANDERSON: We finally have another partner in looking for the fraud with the American public.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Also today, a new tactic lawyers are using to hold social media companies accountable for harming kids.

And later: who should get the first word on sexuality.

URBANOWICZ: The public school system or even the church should never be the ones introducing sexuality to children.

And WORLD commentator Cal Thomas says the war in Iran may mark a turning point for the people of Iran.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, March 5th. 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 war-1 » President Trump says Operation Epic Fury in Iran is not just going well, he says it’s going even better than hoped.

TRUMP:  Somebody said, on a scale of 10, where would you rate it? I said, about a 15. And, uh, we're gonna continue to do well. We have the greatest military in the world by far.

Officials insist the military objectives are only on eliminating ballistic missiles, Iran's nuclear program, and its navy – not regime change.

Still, the president says he hopes to see a leader in Iran who is not a violent fanatic, like the late Ayatollah Khamanei. Multiple leaders in the line of succession have been killed in recent strikes.

TRUMP: Everybody that, uh, seems to want to be a leader, they end up dead.

Six U.S. service members have been killed in Iranian attacks launched in retaliation. The White House says the president will attend stateside ceremonies to receive each of their remains.

Iran war-2 » Also on Wednesday, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and the nation’s top general, Dan Caine, updated the media on the military action in Iran.

Caine said the U.S. military spent days targeting anything in Iran that could be used to take down U.S. aircraft. And:

CAINE:  We will now begin to expand inland striking progressively deeper into Iranian territory and creating additional freedom of maneuver for US forces.

In a show of supreme confidence, the U.S. Air Force just began using its oldest bomber, the B-52, in Iran. It’s powerful, but vulnerable. Its deployment signals that the Pentagon is confident it has devastated Iran’s air defenses.

And Hegseth said indeed, the U.S. military is very close to owning skies over Iran.

HEGSETH:  Iranian leaders looking up and seeing only us and Israeli air power every minute of every day until we decide it's over.

And he said there is nothing the Iranian regime can do about it adding that Iran’s capabilities are “evaporating by the hour.”

War powers vote » Meantime, on Capitol Hill:

AUDIO:  On this, the yays are 47, the nays are 53. The motion to discharge is not approved.

The Senate rejected an effort by Democrats to halt the military action against Iran.

Republican Rand Paul and Democrat John Fetterman both crossed the aisle, siding with the opposite party on the vote. Aside from that, it was straight down party lines.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer asserts that the White House lacks a clear goal or exit strategy in Iran.

SCHUMER:  The conflict is widening. Oil prices are already skyrocketing. Wars without clear objectives do not remain small. They get bigger, bloodier longer and more expensive.

But Republicans accuse Democrats of putting politics first in their opposition to the mission. Majority Leader John Thune:

THUNE:  In their blind hatred of the president just being opposed to anything that, that he wants to do. I mean, clearly there are Democrats I believe, who understand that what we are doing in Iran right now makes all the sense in the world from a national security standpoint.

Strait of Hormuz, oil prices » Meanwhile, the Trump administration is working on plans to secure the Strait of Hormuz to ensure safe passage for oil tankers.

The strait is one of the world's most critical energy corridors. Iran claims to have control of the strait and has launched attacks on nearby commercial vessels.

But White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that's about to change:

LEAVITT: I don't want to commit to a timeline, but certainly it's something that is being calculated actively by both the Department of War and the Department of Energy. They're working very closely. Both secretaries are in all of the briefings on this subject with the President. And this is, again, something they're monitoring. And if and when necessary, the United States Navy, will provide assistance to escort oil tankers through the strait.

President Trump has also ordered the U.S. to provide risk insurance for maritime trade in the Middle East.

Walz, Ellison hearing » The House Oversight Committee met Wednesday, to grill Minnesota officials about rampant Medicaid fraud. Chairman James Comer:

COMER: What we've uncovered in Minnesota is not a paperwork error, or a few bad actors slipping through the cracks. It is sustained failure of leadership.

Republicans picked apart statements from Governor Tim Walz and state Attorney General Keith Ellison, both Democrats about their efforts to investigate misused welfare funds.

The Committee’s investigation pegs nutrition fraud alone at $300 million.

Walz defended the state’s decision to continue payments for autism support and food programs despite reports of fraud.

WALZ: We're not going to shut down programs that have things that are going well in it, and we need to find that proper balance.

The committee wrapped up by voting to subpoena U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi for mixed messages she has sent about handling the Epstein files.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: the government invites Americans to help root out fraud. Plus, who should teach kids about sexuality.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Thursday the 5th of March.

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, the War on Fraud.

Days after President Trump announced the war on fraud, Vice President J.D. Vance pinpointed a major focus in combating waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars.

VANCE: The main source of fraud, whether it's a small business or a bigger company, is you have people who are billing the government millions, 10s of millions, billions of dollars, saying that they're providing a service, but there's no actual confirmation. There’s no followup.

BROWN: The Department of Health and Human Services halted funds to Minnesota and a handful of other vulnerable programs. And Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Director Dr. Mehmet Oz then called on Americans to join the investigation.

OZ: We want your input on how to prevent, detect and respond to fraud for in government funded health care. Whatever ideas you have, we're interested in.

REICHARD: What can Americans do to help fight fraud?

Washington Producer Harrison Watters has the story.

HARRISON WATTERS: Right before Valentine’s Day, a team at the Department of Health and Human Services made an elaborate gesture, and it didn’t involve flowers.

FOREST PARK PHARMACY: DOGE dumped all the Medicaid data online for everyone to see.

FOX BUSINESS: You can scroll through seven years worth of data for procedures billed, claims submitted and how much Medicaid paid out.

More than two hundred million rows of data, representing individuals and organizations in all fifty states seeking reimbursement for services provided to low income Americans.

One in five Americans are on government assisted healthcare plans. Medicaid alone cost $618 billion in 2024. And HHS wants to minimize any fraud associated with such programs.

After reports of widespread daycare and autism services billing fraud in Minnesota, HHS responded by clamping down on reimbursements to the state. Now the administration is moving forward with a plan to bring in more help.

ANDERSON: We finally have another partner in looking for the fraud, with the American public.

Hannah Anderson is Senior Director of Policy at the America First Policy Institute. She also served on HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s transition team. She says while the Department of Government Efficiency was focused on cutting costs for HHS, officials have also been compiling internal data to release to the public.

ANDERSON: It takes one click to download the dataset. And you can start searching by provider. You can start searching by, what kind of services are costing the most, and really start tracking and trying to figure out, is that provider in LA County actually providing the services that they're supposed to be providing to Medicaid, or are they using Medicaid fraud to enrich themselves?

The Medicaid dataset only shows provider data—no patient information is included, for privacy reasons. The providers range from billion dollar companies to mom and pop transportation services.

The government already has several departments devoted to investigating and prosecuting fraud. But Anderson says Medicaid has some unique flaws prompting the government to invite more scrutiny.

ANDERSON: Medicaid, , is a partnership between the states and the federal government. So if a state has decided that they're going to send in bad or fragmented data, or they're not going to take it on themselves to be identifying fraud, it gets even harder for CMS, to find that fraud.

HHS told WORLD that allowing access to the information “will help identify unusual increases in specific treatments.” The dataset covers 2018 to 2024—a time when the government dramatically expanded access to Medicaid during the COVID-19 pandemic.

EKIN: …because of the urgency, we weren't able to necessarily do our due diligence.

Tahir Ekin is Professor of Analytics at Texas State University, and author of the 2019 book Statistics and Healthcare Fraud. He says the Medicaid dataset is a helpful starting point for finding red flags.

EKIN: So, for instance, some providers might have billed more than 24 hours per day. So there are those like impossible scenarios that basically any person could track by using their favorite Gen AI tool these days.

But Ekin has a warning as Americans begin mining the data: He says although some numbers look suspicious, not all overspending is fraudulent, and cautions it requires subject matter expertise to tell th difference.

EKIN: We really need to validate those results, and sometimes those false red flags may have bigger consequences, because obviously there is reputation at stake.

Vice President Vance told WORLD that restoring the money that’s been lost to fraud, waste, and abuse is a complicated task.

VANCE: There are certainly ways to claw some of the money back. It depends on the circumstances of the case. When you're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars, potentially in fraud, that's that's a big universe of cases.

Professor Ekin says investigators are likely to get back just a fraction of what’s been lost.

EKIN: Even if we find fraud, even if we validate it within context, traditional numbers put the recovery as 10 cents over $1. So we will only be able to get 10% of the lost money back.

Meanwhile, Ekin says true fraudsters are getting more sophisticated in their schemes, as generative AI tools get better and cheaper.

EKIN: From the government side, we need to be also proactively getting ready, knowing that there are really smart actors out there. And whenever we do an adjustment, they do an adjustment as well.

For now, policy analyst Hannah Anderson is hopeful HHS and the American public will shine a light on where taxpayer dollars are going.

ANDERSON: Having transparency and whether it's posting it on the internet or following, like the prescribed channels to report, report fraud. But you know, sunshine is the best medicine.

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

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It… digital justice.

Last week, a 20-year-old woman testified in a high profile trial that her near-constant use of social media as a child hurt her mental health. Now, she’s suing Meta and YouTube. It’s the first time the social media giants are defending themselves before a jury. To protect her privacy, the woman goes by the initials, KGM. She says the companies built their platforms on purpose to addict children.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: TikTok and Snap settled out of court. This is the first in a wave of thousands of cases against social platforms going to court this year. The trial started in January and is set to end in April.

Joining us to talk about it is attorney Matthew Bergman. He’s founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center and represents the young woman.

Good morning, Matthew.

BERGMAN: Good morning. How are you?

REICHARD: Doing well, so glad you’re here. Tell us about your client. How does KGM say these platforms harmed her?

BERGMAN: Well, from the age of six, when she got on YouTube, she became addicted to social media. It took over her life and robbed her of her childhood. And over a period of time, she developed very extreme mental health challenges that she struggles with to this day, anxiety, depression and body dysmorphia, to be particular, as a result of these addictive social media apps.

REICHARD: Now, in the past, plaintiffs like your client have lost because of a law that says platforms can’t be held liable for content posted by users. It’s Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. How is this case different?

BERGMAN: Well, we filed the first cases in the country involving individuals such as KGM—suffering from harms as a result of social media—that were allowed to go forward. Up until we started doing our work, any effort to hold social media companies accountable was stopped in its tracks. The cases were being dismissed under Section 230 before they even got started. And we developed a different approach. Not suing the companies for bad content moderation, although they clearly do that, not suing them for negligently allowing malign material to be posted on its platforms, although they do that, but rather for intentionally designing an addictive product that hooks kids, not by showing them what they want to see, but what they can't look away from. So, rather than focus on the content, we focused on the design and the failure to warn. And courts have held that that is a different theory of liability than holding them liable as a publisher. And for the first time, allowed these cases to go forward, allowed discovery to proceed and allowed us to determine and discover many hot, many smoking gun documents that demonstrate the company's deliberate intention to addict young people to their platforms.

REICHARD: You know, some people are comparing this to the cases against Big Tobacco in the 1990s—treating the platforms as a product that causes harm instead of a publication deserving free speech protections. What do you think about that analogy?

BERGMAN: Well, not only is that a viable comparison, Meta’s own documents support that. They analogize themselves to tobacco. The evidence also indicates that the addiction to social media is a physiologic addiction, very similar to the addiction to a substance or to nicotine. And very much like the tobacco companies that focused on adolescents and young teens as being their lifetime users of tobacco products, so have social media companies focused on tweens as the greatest growth potential for their dangerously defective and addictive products.

REICHARD: Matthew, if you win this case, what do you think will happen to the platforms and the internet in general?

BERGMAN: Well, it's not just this case. It is the many cases that we have brought. The fact that we simply have the opportunity to bring our case to trial before a fair and impartial jury is a cataclysmic change in the landscape for social media companies, who, heretofore, have assumed that they don't have to play by the same rules as every other company. And so we believe that simply starting this trial is a great victory. But this is this is a new chapter of accountability. And we are hopeful that when the companies have to bear the financial consequences of their deliberate design decisions, to prioritize profits over safety, that they'll implement modifications that will make their platforms much safer for vulnerable young people.

REICHARD: Your organization, as we mentioned is The Social Media Victims Law Center—is representing thousands of clients. Are there any other cases that stand out to you in particular?

BERGMAN: So the people that I represent are mothers and parents of children who have lost their lives to social media, either through taking their own lives or through accidental deaths, through dangerous challenges, or in other cases, fentanyl poisoning. I have never in 30 years of law practice, been more privileged to represent clients, less concerned about money and more concerned about justice than these mothers and these families,

REICHARD: That’s so moving. Are there aspects of this case that you think are underreported?

BERGMAN: What is significant about this case is it was specifically selected by the court as being representative of many other cases. And the young woman in this case is somebody whose injuries are not unique, unfortunately, but are very representative of an entire generation of young people who have literally had their youth stolen from them through these exploitative and addictive and dangerous social media apps.

REICHARD: If Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg or YouTube’s leaders were here right now, what would you ask them to answer under oath?

BERGMAN: I would ask them, first and foremost, ‘why do you produce a platform that you don't let your own kids on?’ I would ask them, ‘how many billion dollars is enough? Why have you subordinated safety to profit?’ And ‘why have you been deaf to the cries of parents and the cries of children who've called out again and again and again for say, for social social media products, what is so important about making money that it subordinates any other ethical or moral or legal priority.

REICHARD: Matthew Bergman is the founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center and represents KGM, the teen who is suing Meta and YouTube.

Matthew, thank you so much for your time and your work. We’ll be watching.

BERGMAN: Well very good! I thank you for covering this issue and it’s going to be a very very interesting and informative process.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: A balloon ride over East Texas turned into a harrowing rescue nearly a thousand feet up.

Saturday morning, a hot-air balloon slammed into a radio tower and got tangled up in its guy wires.

It took 14 firefighters an hour to climb the tower to save the stranded balloonists.

Meantime, the basket just swayed in the breeze with ripped up balloon fabric wrapped around the tower. After the rescuers got to the pilot and passenger, then came the hard part: getting them down.

It took about two hours to hand off the balloonists rope-by-rope all the way down.

Fireman Stephen Winchell.

WINCHELL: Thankful for their sweat equity and just the Lord being with us and answering prayers allows us to have a very good outcome.

One firefighter who helped lead the rescue later had a surprise confession.

Despite nearly two decades of this, he doesn’t really like heights.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, March 5th. 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: parents’ rights in education.

Two weeks ago, a U.S. District judge in Maryland approved a $1.5 million settlement.

It grows out of a major Supreme Court case last year about a public school board’s refusal to notify parents when teachers present gender ideology to students. The parents who sued, and even some who didn’t, wanted to opt their kids out. The settlement lays out how that must now be done.

BROWN: Even so, many parents find it awkward to talk to their kids about human sexuality, and are tempted to leave it to the schools. WORLD’s Jenny Rough spoke with a former teacher with a masters in Christian apologetics who helps parents navigate the talk.

JENNY ROUGH: The Supreme Court case protected the rights of parents to help ensure their children’s education aligns with their faith. But the case begs an important question:

ELIZABETH URBANOWICZ: Whose job is that to teach children about sexuality?

Elizabeth Urbanowicz is the founder of Foundation Worldview.

URBANOWICZ: Is it the job of the school system or the public library or even the church to teach children about the gift of sexuality?

She equips Christian adults with resources to help kids evaluate ideas and get to the truth.

URBANOWICZ: I think when we’re looking at it from a biblical basis, that God has oriented society around the family. And the family is the primary vehicle through which children should learn about sexuality.

Urbanowicz says elementary school teachers should not have the first word here.

URBANOWICZ: I would say, from a biblical perspective, that the public school system or even the Christian school system, or even the church should never be the ones introducing sexuality to children. That is always the responsibility of the family.

When thinking about what age to introduce the topic, Urbanowicz recommends starting young.

URBANOWICZ: Well, the age that I’m going to recommend will probably shock some people. But at Foundation Worldview, we recommend that parents have the first of many sex and sexuality talks with their children around the age of 4.

She says there’s two reasons to start the conversation before the world does. Whoever gets the first word often becomes the expert in the child’s mind.

URBANOWICZ: So if we want our children to come to us with their questions rather than a teacher or Google or a YouTube influencer, we have to be the ones that talk with them about it first.

And? That initial conversation sets the tone for how kids view sexuality.

URBANOWICZ: Which when we look at sexuality from a biblical lens, we know that it is inherently good. That God designed us in his image as distinctly male or distinctly female. And he made the sign and seal of the marriage covenant the act of sexual intercourse.

Parents can make sure to start with the positive. But—

URBANOWICZ: If we wait until our children are exposed to some book at school—

or the secular culture in other ways, chances are:

URBANOWICZ: Their first exposure to the concept of sexuality is going to be negative. It’s going to be how sin has corrupted this good gift that God has given us.

That requires being intentional.

URBANIWICZ: Like, do we need to fight against the darkness? Yes, we’ve been called to do that as Christians. But we need to make sure that we’re first grounding our children in the truth because we don’t want their vision of gender and sexuality and marriage and family to be what’s wrong and all the ways that we as humans in our sin have corrupted it. We want them to know what is inherently good.

Urbanowicz recommends parents have three basic talks with their children between the ages of 4 and 7.

URBANOWICZ: The first one is about genitalia. Just the correct name for body parts. …

She says this is the time to emphasize that no one else should see those parts except for mom, dad, or a doctor during a health exam.

URBANOWICZ: So that’s the first conversation. Just the basic difference between male and female anatomy.

Urbanowicz says the second conversation is the most uncomfortable — at least, for parents!

URBANOWICZ: That’s just the basics of sex. And the way we recommend that parents talk about that is to talk about if their kids have ever made a promise to someone. And then we make the connection to the act of sex.

Explaining that marriage is a promise, and that God gave a special symbol for the marriage promise to show it’s serious.

On a different day, the third conversation: reproduction.

URBANOWICZ: For this one, we recommend that parents take a walk with their kids and look at flowers and gardens. And then when you come back to the house, say do you know how that flower got started? They started out with a tiny seed and when that seed was planted into the ground and got water and sunshine, it eventually grew into a full-grown plant. And then we talk about God has given men and women something in their bodies that are kind of like seeds, and then you introduce the basic terms.

Urbanowicz says if kids ask questions that are shocking or embarrassing, parents can buy more time to think about how they want to answer.

URBANOWICZ: Affirm the question with a smile on your face and say, we’re going to talk more about this tomorrow.

Once parents have the foundational conversations with their kids, Urbanowicz says it’s easier from there to have more—and harder—conversations. Like about transgender or same-sex topics and the way feelings can sometimes trick people into believing things that aren’t true.

Or the difficult topic of divorce. A broken promise that sometimes has a biblical justification.

URBANOWICZ: And as kids grow, just anchor all of these things in scripture. Again, we’re not talking about, you know, going into graphic detail about all the rampant sexual sin that resides in our culture and even, at times, within our own hearts. But we’re laying the building blocks to help them understand that everything in our body points to the fact that we have been designed and therefore we have to understand who designed us and what is the purpose of our design.

She remembers from her own teaching experience how easily young students can idolize teachers, convinced they’re always right. She says that, too, is why it’s important for parents to know what’s going on in a child’s classroom.

URBANOWICZ: We don’t want to go in with pitchforks, because we want to assume that those who are educating our children have their best interests in mind even if they don’t understand what that best interest is. So we want to be kind and loving. But our ultimate goal is we want to disciple our children well. So we have to know what they are being taught.

About that ultimate goal, Urbanowicz adds:

URBANOWICZ: You know, it’s not that our children would have perfect marriages, or perfect sex lives, or perfect families. The ultimate goal in all of this is that as our children see God’s good design that they would turn from their sin, that they would trust him, and that they would seek him and serve him all the days of their lives.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jenny Rough.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. WORLD commentator Cal Thomas says the war with Iran carries with it both risks and remarkable opportunity.

President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to end America’s wars.

And now he has done something no previous president dared to do—strike directly at the leadership of the Iranian regime.

In a coordinated operation with Israel, U.S. forces targeted Iran’s top command structure. Among those killed: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of senior officials.

For decades the Iranian regime has funded terrorism, threatened Israel, and fueled violence across the Middle East. Now, suddenly, the regime looks vulnerable.

AUDIO: President Trump! Thank you! President Trump! Thank you!

In cities across the United States—and inside Iran itself—people with Iranian roots took to the streets celebrating the strikes.

The moment has stunned many critics. Some media outlets and political leaders are already warning the attack could destabilize the region.

But supporters argue the opposite—that removing the regime’s leadership may give the Iranian people their best chance in decades to reclaim their country. Which is what President Trump emphasized from the beginning of Operation Epic Fury.

TRUMP: I call upon all Iranian patriots who yearn for freedom to seize this moment, to be brave, be bold, be heroic, and take back your country. America is with you. I made a promise to you, and I fulfilled that promise. The rest will be up to you, but we'll be there to help.

There are risks, of course. Iran still has proxy militias across the region. Intelligence officials warn sleeper cells could attempt retaliation abroad.

But there are strategic consequences as well.

Iran supplies the vast majority of its oil exports to China. A weakened regime could disrupt those shipments—and reshape the geopolitical balance across the Middle East.

For now, the outcome remains uncertain. War always carries more questions than answers.

But if this moment leads to a new government in Tehran—one that abandons terrorism, restores basic freedoms, and rebuilds relations with the West—then this operation could mark one of the most consequential turning points in modern Middle Eastern history.

And it would give the Iranian people something they have been denied for nearly half a century.

A real chance at freedom.

For WORLD, I’m Cal Thomas.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Tomorrow: John Stonestreet is back for Culture Friday. And, Collin Garbarino reviews Disney Pixar’s latest. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Myrna Brown.

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

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: “You have set up a banner for those who fear you, that they may flee to it from the bow. That your beloved ones may be delivered, give salvation by your right hand and answer us!” —Psalm 60:4, 5

Go now in grace and peace.

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