The World and Everything in It: May 6, 2026

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning!

The Trump administration says that U.S. control of the Strait of Hormuz is now a humanitarian mission.

RUBIO: We're the only ones that can do it, and we're going to do it as a favor to the world.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday, Hunter Baker is standing by.

Also today WORLD Tour: flights return to Venezuela, but is it really safe to go back?

Later, how simple communication skills can save marriages.

DEGANCE: 70 to 80% of divorces are considered not high conflict. People don't need counseling as much as they need coaching.

And WORLD Commentator Daniel Suhr says for kids TV, knowledge is power.

MAST: It’s Wednesday, May 6th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. 

I’m Lindsay Mast.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

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

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Iran - Trump remarks, Hegseth says ceasefire is holding » President Trump hit the brakes Tuesday on a U.S. military operation in the Strait of Hormuz. He paused Project Freedom — the effort to guide stranded commercial ships through the waterway.

Trump cited progress toward an Iran agreement … and said the pause gives negotiators room to seal a deal. The blockade of Iran's ports stays in place.

The move comes after a tense Monday — when U.S. ships sank six Iranian boats in the strait. Iran retaliated by firing missiles and drones at the United Arab Emirates for a second straight day.

Trump says Iran's recent attacks on commercial ships haven't broken the ceasefire. Asked at the White House what would, he replied:

TRUMP: Well, you'll find out because I'll let you know. They know what to do. They know what to do. They know what not to do, more importantly, actually.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the U.S. military has accomplished what it set out to do, and what happens next is up to Iran.

RUBIO: Operation Epic Fury is concluded. We achieved the objectives of that operation. I'm not going to, you know, we're not cheering for an additional situation to occur. We would prefer the path of peace. What the president would prefer is a deal.

Iran's foreign minister flies to Beijing Wednesday. Rubio is hoping China will lean on Tehran and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Ukraine latest » In Ukraine:

SOUND: [Russian air strike aftermath]

Five people were killed and at least a dozen others were injured after a Russian glide bomb strike on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk Tuesday. Authorities say another dozen died in a similar attack on the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia.

Meanwhile in Russia:

SOUND: [Ukrainian drone attack]

Video captured the moment that what was reported to have been a Ukrainian drone hit what officials said was a residential building just east of Moscow. Authorities say three people were injured in that attack.

All of this comes amid rival ceasefire proposals between the two countries. Russian leader Vladimir Putin declared a two-day ceasefire on May 8th and 9th to mark Russia's World War II victory over Nazi Germany. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the fighting should stop earlier...on May 5.

ZELENSKYY: [Speaking Ukrainian]

Speaking here, Zelenskyy says Ukraine has to know what kind of a ceasefire it's agreeing to. He goes on to accuse Russia of killing Ukrainian people and then demanding a ceasefire...which he calls flatly unfair.

White House drug price agreements » The White House projects big savings from the Trump administration’s “Most Favored Nation” drug policies..WORLD’s Harrison Watters has more now from the nation’s capital.

HARRISON WATTERS: The White House Council of Economic Advisors now estimates that Americans will save nearly $530 billion on new drugs over ten years.

So far, 17 drug companies have agreed to give the U.S. Most Favored Nation pricing, though the specifics have not been made public.

Federal research in 20-24 found that Americans typically paid more than 3 times what patients elsewhere pay for brand name drugs. Many new drugs are launched in the U.S. at premium prices before expanding to markets around the world, often at much lower prices.

The estimated savings depend on drug companies lowering prices in the United States, while raising prices for other wealthy nations.

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

Presidential fitness test award » Push-ups and pull-ups are coming back to American schools.

President Trump on Tuesday signed the new Presidential Fitness Award at his Oval Office desk, flanked by cabinet members and kids in sports jerseys.

TRUMP: We're bringing it back. We're bringing it back. My administration's working very hard to defend America's cherished athletic traditions and pass our values of excellence and competitiveness to the next generation. So important.

The Presidential Fitness Test was a school fixture for decades — a one-mile run, sit-ups, and other drills, with top scorers earning a presidential award. President Obama phased it out in favor of a non-competitive health program. Trump signed an order last summer to restore it.

Pro golfer Bryson DeChambeau chairs the President's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition:

DECHAMBEAU: Reestablishing the gold presidential — the golden standard of the presidential fitness test has been a huge, uh, deal for me is, is that these kids now are going to have a healthy future.

After the ceremony, kids putted, kicked soccer balls, and tossed baseballs on the South Lawn with pro athletes.

Transgender policy of women’s college under Title IX review » The Education Department is investigating one of America's largest all-women's colleges for admitting men. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: Federal civil rights officials opened the Title IX probe Monday into Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. The school was founded in 1871, but began admitting males who identify as women back in 2015.

Title IX gave women equal access to education more than 50 years ago and lets colleges keep single-sex student bodies. But the Education Department says that exception is rooted in biological sex, not gender identity. Investigators want to know whether Smith broke the law by letting men into women's bathrooms and other intimate spaces.

The Trump administration has sued or threatened to pull federal funding from several colleges over similar policies. Smith College has not commented.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

I'm Kent Covington.

Coming up, what’s changed in Venezuela since the capture of Nicolas Maduro. Plus, simple steps that can help save marriages.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Wednesday, May 6th. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Time now for Washington Wednesday!

Yesterday was a busy day in Washington: Press conferences and events featuring the Secretary of War, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the Secretary of State.

EICHER: Joining us is to talk about it now is political scientist Hunter Baker. He is a WORLD Opinions Contributor and provost at North Greenville University. Hunter, good morning!

HUNTER BAKER: Good morning!

EICHER: Let’s start where the events started yesterday at the Pentagon. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth laid out details about Project Freedom: the U.S. plan to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

AUDIO: We're not looking for a fight, but Iran also cannot be allowed to block innocent countries and their goods from an international waterway. Iran is the clear aggressor, harassing civilian vessels, threatening mariners from every nation indiscriminately and weaponizing a critical chokepoint for its own financial benefit, or at least trying to.

He said that already two U.S. commercial ships have passed through the strait, and said that’s a humiliation for Iran.

But Hegseth also framed it as a humanitarian effort, using America’s strength to help others: protecting global trade routes that hurt many of the world’s poorest people when there are supply chain disruptions.

I wonder what you think about this, because it sounds like a very different messaging tone, from “lethality” to humanitarianism. Clearly polls show the war is unpopular politically. Is there a connection and does the administration risk looking weak?

BAKER: I think that they are trying to get control of the narrative. So I think that right now, what the narrative has been is is that the United States interceded in Iran's affairs, and that it has turned out not to be a short thing, but a long thing, and that it has been very destructive and very costly, and that we are sort of blamed for it.

And I think that what's going on now is that we are taking on the mantle of the problem solver, that we have exited sort of the offensive part of this engagement, and we have entered into the solving the problem element. So we recognize that the Strait of Hormuz is the reason why we are all facing these high gas prices, which will then spur on additional inflation and other problems. And we know that this is affecting, you know, essentially everybody in the world and the U.S. is basically saying we're ready to intervene. We're going to solve this problem of the Strait of Hormuz. And if anybody such as Iran tries to prevent us from solving that problem, then they will be to blame. It will be very clear who the villain is in that situation.

MAST: Well, meanwhile, over at the White House. You can just imagine the memes as Secretary of State, Marco Rubio took up yet another job, standing at the podium, usually reserved for the White House press secretary. Now, Caroline Leavitt is on maternity leave, so this is likely a temporary post for the administration's swiss army knife. But let's start first with what did you think about how he handled the press?

BAKER: You know, when it comes to politics, I am like a person who is a really serious fan of something like football, right? And so you really enjoy football, and then let's just imagine that you enter into a long period where it just seems like there are so many people who play football and who do it terribly. Today was the opposite of that.

Today was watching somebody play the game of politics and doing it really well the hour or however long it was that he stood in front of the press. It passed very quickly for me. I was, I was deeply impressed, because this was not somebody just standing there, filibustering or trying to score points.

This was somebody answering questions with legitimate knowledge and expertise, and the kind of person where you watch him standing there and you're like, you know what? I'm proud. I'm proud that this is the person who's representing my country in this moment.

EICHER: I want to ask about one question that was asked and answered both in Spanish. I don't think that's ever been done in a White House briefing.

BAKER: Yeah, that was interesting. I almost wondered if she was testing him when George W Bush was in the thick of his political career. You know, there was always this sort of understanding that. He could speak Spanish. Now, I think that his brother Jeb was actually better as he was actually married to a native speaker. But I just wondered if they were testing Marco. You know, is he sort of a Hispanic just by virtue of being born to a family of that type or having that ancestry? Or is he really part of Hispanic culture in some way? Is he a native speaker of the language? And so she she asked the question, and he answered in English, and then she insisted on following up in Spanish, and he was able to handle it flawlessly.

MAST: In other matters, Secretary Rubio also took a firm stance that project freedom is a defensive measure.

RUBIO: The primary responsibility for this project freedom is on the United States, because we're the only country that can project power in that part of the world the way we're doing now. We're the only ones that can do it, and we're going to do it as a favor to the world. Understand this. This is a favor to the world because it's their ships that are stranded…

So it seems to me like he may be developing a theme, maybe advancing the theme that Secretary Hegseth had mentioned earlier in his press conference. What did you think about that?

BAKER: I think that what Rubio is responding to is this general sense that the United States may have done something wrong, that we may have been sort of a wrongful or unnecessary aggressor, and that when it comes to international law, if somebody has broken international law, that it's us. And I think that Rubio really wanted to take on that claim, and so he strongly advanced this idea that international waterways are subject to the freedom of navigation, and that by attempting to basically capture or dominate or engage in piracy on the Strait of Hormuz, that actually Iran is the one who has broken international law, and has done so in a flagrant way, and that the United States, who has really, for a long time been sort of the guarantor of international trade and freedom of the waterways, is stepping in, as we have always done that this is not strange to try to restore order to that situation.

EICHER: So he was also asked about his meeting upcoming with the Pope. What? What was your read on that?

BAKER: It's a good question. I think, I think that he was wary, first of all, of being put at odds with the President. I think, I think he doesn't want to be sort of the the nice guy to Trump's bad guy. And so he tried to sort of re-characterize things that Trump had said in a way that I think was reasonable and, you know, to reduce any friction that might exist between Trump and the Pope, and then to express his own long standing commitment to working with the Catholic Church and as a faithful Catholic to ideas such as religious freedom and humanitarian aid.

MAST: Hunter, I wanted to ask towards the end of the press conference, he took a couple of questions about the War Powers Act. Now he and the President have both said that Operation Epic Fury has ended, and we're now in a new phase this right around the time that that would have come up for a vote under the War Powers Act, he said he's never supported that, that other administrations have not supported it. What did you think about him ending with those questions and not leading with those answers to begin with?

BAKER: Well, I think that he really tried to respond to what he was asked. He was really good about that. He was really good about not kind of just answering the question he wished he had been asked, but instead to respond very directly to the things that were raised as they were brought up. And so this question of the War Powers Act came up, and he was eager to jump at it and to express his opinion, which is, you know, he characterized it that there have been no American administrations, no American presidents, who have ever accepted the constitutionality of the War Powers Act. And the reason that this is important is this, again, goes to this idea that the United States is not some rogue on the international stage, that he believes that the United States is acting lawfully and responsibly.

MAST: Well, in other cabinet news, President Trump signed a proclamation, reviving the Presidential Fitness Test, declaring this month National Physical Fitness and Sports month. He was flanked by cabinet officials, several pro athletes, a room full of kids and athletic gear. Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. says this is about more than gym class. He's tying it to national strength, even echoing his uncle Jack's warning. Listen:

KENNEDY: He published an article before his inauguration called the soft American, in which he said that there’s a national security issue. It threatens our economy. We need a vigorous population that is in good shape, spiritually, morally, physically, if we’re going to continue to exercise leadership around the world. And he launched the physical fitness test, which became a milestone for my generation.

Kennedy pointed out we’ve gone from 5% to 20% of childhood obesity. He explicitly linked the phase-out of the test to rising childhood obesity. Is that a fair connection—or is that overstating what a school program can do?

BAKER: I don't know if it's a fair connection. I think the reason for rising childhood obesity is largely in the difference in how children spend their time. I think a lot of us of a certain age remember the period when you came home from school? Maybe you did your homework first, maybe not, and then you immediately set out upon the neighborhood, you know, in your bikes or to play touch football or sandlot baseball or basketball or whatever, very, very active all the way up to dinner. And I think that that's less the case now the kids come home, they do stuff on their phones, or they play video games, or they sit in front of the super wide screen. It's just a different world. And my understanding is, is that there are real impacts to this, including on our military readiness. I understand that they have difficulty finding people who can actually pass, you know, even sort of the basic physical tests to be considered for the armed forces. So yes, it's a school program, but I do think that we probably need to have the government pushing here, not only for military readiness and things like that, but also just for the general health of the population. We all know that we're spending an astounding amount on health care at this time, and it's simply the fact that if Americans were healthier, those costs would be lower.

EICHER: Political Scientist Hunter Baker, our regular guest on Washington Wednesday, thanks, Hunter.

BAKER: Thank you.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Up next: WORLD Tour.

Production of Venezuelan oil and gas is set to ramp up after U.S. companies signed new contracts with interim President Delcy Rodriguez. It’s just one change following the capture of former President Nicolas Maduro, .but some Venezuelans say the country needs much more.

WORLD’s Mary Muncy reports.

SOUND: [Flight arriving]

MARY MUNCY: Cheers marked last week’s first direct flight from the U.S. to Venezuela in six years. In 2019, the previous Trump administration ordered an indefinite suspension of commercial flights and shut down the U.S. embassy, saying the country was too dangerous. The U.S. reopened the embassy in March.

The developments paved the way for new oil and gas agreements, despite years of corruption surrounding Venezuela’s oil market.

RODRIGUEZ: [Spanish] This is where the interests of the United States and Venezuela converge.

Interim President Delcy Rodriguez says this is where the interests of the U.S. and Venezuela converge.

Venezuela sits in the Orinoco Belt, which holds the largest known oil reserves in the world. In the past few years, Chevron has been the only foreign oil producer in the country. But last week, representatives from large oil companies like Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips, along with smaller operators, met with Rodriguez. That’s a big turnaround from earlier this year, when Exxon said the country was “uninvestable.”

But on the ground, Venezuelans say a lot still needs to change.

SOUND: [Protests]

On Monday, relatives of political prisoners continued protesting, saying their loved ones are still being kept unjustly.

In February, Rodriguez made headlines for implementing an amnesty law for politicians, opposition activists, and military personnel.

Her administration says it’s released more than 8,000 people. But at least one NGO says it can only verify about 400 releases, with about 600 people still detained.

AVILA: [Spanish] Torture continues in detention centers where political prisoners are held, and we, their families, are still waiting for a response.

This activist and relative of a prisoner says prisoners are being tortured and families are waiting for a response from the government.

On top of that, Rodriguez ended the amnesty law last week.

GAMARRA: It solely released people from prison, but it did not relieve them of the charges against them.

Eduardo Gamarra is a professor of international relations specializing in South America at Florida International University. The law also gave amnesty to people currently in power, protecting them from future accusations.

Right now, it’s unclear how much longer Rodriguez will remain president. Venezuela’s court says Nicolas Maduro is still officially in power, though he’s incapable of governing while in jail in New York. The country’s constitution says the vice president takes over for 90 days in the event of a “temporary absence” of the president. That deadline passed in April.

GAMARRA: If you read the Constitution strictly … if it continues after 90 days, she needs to call elections. And what she has recently declared is some kind of sarcastic comment about, ‘well, there'll be elections someday.’

Exiled opposition leader Maria Corina Machado remains popular among voters. But both Machado and Gamarra say Venezuela’s entire political system needs an overhaul to make elections fair.

MACHADO: [Spanish] We estimate that around 40% of Venezuelans entitled to vote are not on the electoral roll.

Machado says about 40 percent of eligible Venezuelan voters are not on the electoral roll. The country would need to register everyone, change the electoral assembly, and revamp the country's election laws.

MACHADO: [Spanish] We estimate that it will take around nine months to complete all of these steps.

She says that will take around nine months. Gamarra thinks that’s optimistic.

He says so far, the old regime is still effectively in place. A few people have moved to different positions. A brutal military leader moved to agriculture, and the leader of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service took his place.

GAMARRA: That's like, I don't know, like changing one thug for another.

He thinks the only way change will come is if the Trump administration stops working with Rodriguez and demands elections.

Venezuelan Immigrants Aid Director Nikura Melendez fled the country in 2016. She says the lingering questions mean many don’t feel safe enough to return… even with new flights.

MELENDEZ: Almost three decades of building this horror and this criminal system cannot be gone even within six months.

She says when she left, neighbors would report on each other for politically incorrect speech. That, plus Venezuela’s economic devastation, means it will take time for people to get back to normal.

MELENDEZ: ‘Hey guys, hey, we don't need to cut the napkins in half, we can buy a napkins without any fear that we won't have the napkins tomorrow.’

For now, Melendez says she wants her country to understand that fear is not normal, and democracy is about more than voting.

MELENDEZ: Democracy is the freedom of your mind and be able to talk the way I'm talking to you, Mary, without feeling fears.

Hearings for Marduro and his wife have been rescheduled multiple times since their capture. Their next court date is set for June.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

NICK EICHER, HOST: You know the old saying, Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Well, sometimes where there are burns, there’s an arsonist.

Firefighters in Columbus, Ohio, responded to a call involving fuel storage containers. Evidence showed someone removing fuel from storage tanks and putting them into a truck. That’s when a flash fire occurred, and spread. Video of the theft led authorities to a suspect.

And when they called him in, the evidence got even stronger: burns on his cheek and earlobe, singed eyebrows, and a bandaged burn on his arm. Don’t worry, it wasn’t that bad.

But once confronted, he said, yeah, you got me. Turns out he was a former employee, and you’ll not be surprised to learn he didn’t quit. He was… wait for it… fired.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, May 6th.

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

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

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

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: marriage and divorce.

Recent studies show divorce is on the decline, but it’s still an issue that touches many American families. In 2023 alone, more than 1.8 million Americans got divorced.

EICHER: That’s why author J.P. DeGance started a program that helped drive down the divorce rate by 24 percent in Jacksonville, Florida.

But DeGance also finds it troubling that the number of marriages is on the decline. He argues that decline is more than a cultural trend, it’s at the root of weakening faith, rising fatherlessness, and growing social instability.

Our colleague Mary Reichard spoke with DeGance recently.

MARY REICHARD: J.P., you have said that churches stepped back from strengthening marriage or even talking about it. So where do we go wrong? Where did the churches get it wrong?

J.P. DEGANCE: You know, I think biblically speaking, we got away from the simple reality that marriage is the covenantal sign of salvation. Okay, it's there in the beginning of salvation history in Genesis, and all salvation history points to it at the end of time in the book of Revelation with the eschatological wedding feast of the Lamb. It's everywhere. The nuptial meeting of Scripture is dripping from the minor to the major prophets from Hosea to Isaiah. And you see it in the apostle Paul's writings where he elevates it, and he identifies that great mystery that the sacrificial love between husband and wife is that living icon of Christ's love for his bride, the church. And I think at a fundamental level, we backed away from it out of fear. We don't talk about it in a helpful way. We don't preach about it. We don't run ministry for it. Largely, I think the most common is, I'd say, fear of offending those who are from a non-marital home, those who've had family and relationship trauma. And that fear has led the church to abdicate its role to form and catechize its people. And as a consequence, and in the absence of that, the world is forming and discipling our young people on marriage.

REICHARD: I read that in Jacksonville, Florida, after using your intervention model, the divorce rate dropped 24%. Now, why is that? How did that happen?

DEGANCE: Yeah, look, we have a lot of agency here. You know, I think one of the giant opponents we have is this idea that success in marriage is just, you know, a coin flip. You know, the reality is the vast majority of first time marriages will last a lifetime. That's between 60 and 65 percent of those who marry today. And so what happened in Jackson was there's an entire academic field of marriage and relationship education. There's skills to be good and successful at marriage. And so we scaled through the local church the number of people who consume that kind of Christian marriage relationship skills education. We have a phenomenal partner in Live the Life Ministries providing boots on the ground with 93 churches. We saturated the area with digital outreach targeting those who are at highest risk for divorce. The net-net was that the divorce rate dropped 24% because we moved so many people through it. Again, 58,900 through that kind of ministry over just a three year period.

REICHARD: What would be a concrete example of one thing that really made a difference?

DEGANCE: OK. So I’ll point to Adventures in Marriage as a really great program that has four tools in it that teaches most of the interpersonal skills and five of the intrapersonal skills. And so zeroing right in, you've got something like the daily temperature reading that was part of that particular tool. And it was a simple exercise where people learn how to have a daily touch-in. With these mobile devices that we have, with the busyness of today, a lot of people are not able to share expectations of their day, what happened, new things that are happening. As a consequence, they also frequently have conflict over those expectations, and they don't have the skills to resolve those conflicts in a healthy way. So that daily temperature reading, which was one of the four tools that were part of that program, became actually taught, I think it was 27,000 times to people in the county as one for instance. And based on the exit surveys that we're running in these particular programs, we know of concrete marriages that were saved over and over again.

REICHARD: Sounds like it boils down to communication.

DEGANCE: Yeah, yeah. Look, a big challenge that we have is 70 to 80 % of divorces are considered not high conflict. People don't need counseling as much as they need coaching. They need to learn the tools and skills for them to communicate better, to share expectations better, to resolve conflict in a more healthy way. When you learn those skills and the tools that work in your marriage, to practice those skills, people by and large are able to resolve their own challenges and get out of them. A minority of folks can't. Right? Where there's higher conflict and there's bigger, deeper-seated issues like addiction or physical abuse. But the vast majority of marriages are not in that situation. So there's a big part that the church can play in being leaven in a solution here.

REICHARD: Well, I want to ask about you personally. I believe I read that you're the father of eight. Is that true?

DEGANCE: Yes! I am. I am.

REICHARD: Okay, and so you have been around the block. What is one habit that couples should adopt right now that would strengthen their marriage?

DEGANCE: Okay, take 10 minutes of every day and set aside time with no devices, with no TV, no computer, and be situated so that you are face-to-face and able to talk. And in that situation, take a few moments for appreciation. Say one thing to your spouse that you appreciate that she did over the last day, the last week. And then flip that around, have your spouse do the same thing. Just being able to hear someone say what they're grateful for is something. We know in the Christian walk a huge part of a healthy Christian spirituality is spending time to be grateful to God for all that we've been given. And actually, God has given us the spouse to be our help and aid in our journey to heaven. So cultivating that 10 minutes—start off with something that you're grateful for over the last day. And I think setting aside that 10 minutes will change your marriage.

MAST: You can hear more from J.P. DeGance on a special weekend edition of The World and Everything in It. You can find it Saturday wherever you get this podcast.

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

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

The Federal Communications Commission is taking a fresh look at TV ratings—and whether parents are getting clear information about what’s in children’s programming.

WORLD commentator Daniel Suhr says this FCC debate is about more than labels.

DANIEL SUHR: At issue is simple transparency.

Are parents being clearly told what’s in the shows their children are watching? Or is important context getting lost … or left out?

That question goes back nearly 30 years.

In the 1990s, Congress—on a bipartisan basis—pressed the television industry to address concerns about sex and violence on TV. That led to the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

The deal was simple: The industry would regulate itself … or Washington would step in.

So broadcasters created a voluntary ratings system—modeled on movie ratings.

But the system still relies on companies to rate their own content.

And critics say that is part of the problem.

There is supposed to be a monitoring board, including parent representatives.

But some argue that today that board is dominated by industry insiders and advocacy groups—not families.

That disconnect is what the FCC is now examining.

And it comes at a moment when cultural debates over children’s content have intensified.

In recent years, themes around gender identity have moved into mainstream entertainment—including programming aimed at younger audiences.

You see it in shows like ABC’s Modern Family…

Nickelodeon’s Transformers: Earthspark…

Disney’s Baymax series…

and even PBS Kids’ Work It Out Wombats.

For some families, that shift raises concerns about age-appropriateness—and about whether those themes are being clearly labeled.

The stakes are higher … because the audience is younger.

And none of this is happening by accident.

Back in 1989, a book called After the Ball laid out a media strategy for reshaping public attitudes toward homosexuality.

Over the following decades, American opinion did shift—dramatically.

From state-level fights over marriage… to the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell… culture—especially entertainment—played a powerful role.

Today, many see a similar dynamic unfolding around gender identity.

That is part of what makes the FCC’s inquiry more than just a technical review.

It is a question about who decides what children see … and how much parents are told.

GLAAD, an LGBTQ advocacy group focused on media issues, calls the inquiry discriminatory… and a threat to the First Amendment.

Parents’ groups say if parents are going to trust the ratings system, they need clear disclosure about the themes in children’s programming.

And that brings us back to the central issue.

This is not about banning content. It is about labeling products accurately.

In a world of constant screens, parents are not asking to control everything.

They are asking for something far more basic: To know… what their children are watching.

For WORLD, I’m Daniel Suhr.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Tomorrow: we’ll have a report from Georgia on the wildfires burning there. And, the message Jewish followers of Christ in Jerusalem have for Western churches. 

That and more tomorrow. I’m Lindsay Mast.

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

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: “The LORD has remembered us; he will bless us; he will bless the house of Israel; he will bless the house of Aaron; he will bless those who fear the LORD, both the small and the great. May the LORD give you increase, you and your children! May you be blessed by the LORD, who made heaven and earth!” —Psalm 115:12-15

Go now in grace and peace.

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