3.17.26 Threats in the Strait of Hormuz, Cuba’s crisis point, the SAVE Act, and Florida’s Space Coast wildlife

Good morning. President Trump calls on U.S. allies to help open the

Strait of Hormuz. Iran has always used that as an economic weapon and it's

not going to be able to be used very long. Also today Cuba hits a crisis point

and the Save America bill heads for a vote today. Later a Christian

conservationist challenging believers to greater environmental care.

If God is the creator of all that includes the non-human creatures.

And a new opportunity to restore the Boy Scouts, commentary from World

Opinions writer Daniel Sirr.

It's Tuesday March 17th. This is The World and everything in it from

listeners supported World Radio. I'm Mary Reichard. And I'm Nick Eiker. Good morning.

Now news here's Kent Covington.

The war in Iran is likely to be wrapped up soon. That's the word from President Trump

speaking to reporters at the White House, but he did not elaborate on what soon might mean.

The president says the U.S. and Iran have had talks about a potential peace deal

to end the war, but he stresses that he does not believe Iran is ready to agree to a deal

and he believes that maybe tied to questions about the country's new supreme leader

Mochtevach Ammanai. Some question whether he is truly in charge or even if he's still alive.

Now they think maybe the sun is gone. They're all gone. My biggest problem is I have no

idea who we're talking to because nobody ever heard of it. It is people. They're all dead.

But we did a job for the world, not a job for us for the whole world.

The president has refused to rule out using ground troops in Iran and told reporters

that he's not about to tip his hand.

Why would I tell you that?

The Pentagon recently deployed some 2500 Marines to the Middle East,

analysts largely believe that their role in the conflict would likely be limited defensive or deterrence missions.

In Israel, air raid sirens blared in Tel Aviv last night and flashes lit the night sky

as Israeli interceptors neutralized incoming Iranian missiles.

Israel's foreign minister accused Iran of targeting civilians of all faiths

that after Shrapnel from ballistic missiles landed just a few meters from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,

the traditional site of Christ's resurrection.

The Iranian regime is targeting holy sites in the old city of Jerusalem.

They are targeting Muslims. They are targeting Christians and they are targeting Jews.

Meanwhile, in southern Lebanon, columns of smoke poured into the sky

as Israel continued its military campaign against the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah,

Israeli ambassador to the UN, Denny Denon.

Israel supports diplomacy, but diplomacy only works when agreements are enforced.

Denon added that Hezbollah is not supposed to operate south of the Latani river

yet the group continues to fire rockets into Israel.

Cuba is in the dark, plunged into a nationwide blackout for the third time in just over four months

as an American oil blockade squeezes the island.

And President Trump is hinting that the U.S. may force a resolution soon.

In all my life, I've been hearing about the United States and Cuba.

When will the United States do it?

I do believe I'll be the honor of having the honor of taking Cuba.

The president did not spell out exactly what he means by taking Cuba.

No oil has reached the island since early January, crippling its power grid

and deepening an already dire economic crisis.

But Havana may be looking for a way out.

Cuba's deputy prime minister told NBC that the island is open for business

and announced that Cuba will now allow Cuban Americans to invest and own businesses there.

Trump has confirmed that the two sides have begun talks.

The Justice Department's commission on religious liberty

heard testimony on Monday about obstacles to faith in healthcare and social services.

World's Harrison Waters has more now from Washington.

Nurse practitioner Abby Cinnett was among the witnesses.

She told commissioners that Colorado settled a lawsuit over treatments to reverse chemical abortions.

But other states have not.

In states like California and New York,

they are still targeting religious providers who would offer abortion to reversal.

Other witnesses and board members pointed at government policies violating freedom of religion

in issues tied to so-called transgenderism, abortion, and assisted suicide.

President Trump formed the commission last May to investigate the foundations of religious liberty in America

and challenges facing it.

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick chairs the commission.

So many of our witnesses, they've been punished.

And that is evil and America better wake up.

The commission is down two members following a contentious hearing on anti-semitism in February.

Catholic conservative influencer Carrie Prejean Bowler was fired after challenging fellow board members on Zionism.

Then last week, Muslim advisory board member Samira Munshi resigned in protest.

The commission meets once more in April before submitting its final report in May.

Reporting for World, I'm Harrison Waters in Washington.

Some schools and businesses across the east coast are reopening this morning after extreme wind and rain

from a powerful storm system slammed the region.

Brian Hurley with the National Weather Service says millions from New Jersey all the way down to Northern Florida

were under high wind alerts and tornado watches on Monday.

At the same time midwesterners were being buried under feet of snow.

Put in half to 20 inches or so in parts of upper Michigan.

They could get another 20 inches over what's already fallen, which is almost 20 inches.

So a lot of snow in the upper Midwest, but especially parts of Southeast Minnesota into Wisconsin and Michigan.

The aggressive wind and snow knocked out power in many places and created treacherous driving conditions.

Civil rights leader and evangelical pastor Reverend John M. Perkins has died at his home in Jackson, Mississippi.

He was 95 known for a lifetime of preaching racial reconciliation.

Perkins built a network of ministries across the country and wrote more than a dozen books.

A University of Michigan historian called him the most influential African American Christian leader since Martin Luther King, Jr.

His daughter Elizabeth said that to the world her father was a voice of justice, reconciliation, and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But she said to me, he was daddy.

I'm Kent Covington and straight ahead.

Analysis on the war in Iran with an expert on military strategy plus a collapsing Cuba.

This is the world and everything in it.

It's Tuesday, the 17th of March. So glad to have you along for today's edition of the world and everything in it.

Good morning. I'm Mary Reichard and I'm Nick Eiker first up moves and counter moves in Iran.

President Trump yesterday said the US has destroyed Iran's explosive mind laying ships,

but called on other nations to help make the straight-of-war moves safe for shipping.

You know, we get less than 1% of our oil from the straight.

Some countries get much more Japan gets 95%. China gets 90%. Many of the Europeans get quite a bit.

So we want them to come and help us with the straight.

Meantime the US says the war has severely limited Iran's ability to fire missiles and manufacture drones.

Joining us now to talk about it is retired rear admiral Mark Montgomery.

He served on the Senate Armed Services Committee staff coordinating efforts on national security strategy and cyber policy.

He now helps lead both the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation and the Air and Missile Defense Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Admiral, good morning.

Good morning. Thank you for having me.

How would you describe the current phase of the US military action in Iran?

We're still in that four-week period of imposing cost to remove their, not just their ballistic missiles,

but their ability to produce them and the secondary suppliers for that.

The drones are their ability to produce them and their ships and their ability to produce them.

I mean, really knocking back the Iranian Defense Industrial Base five, seven years.

And their enemy air defense, right? This question of enemy air defense.

And hitting IRGC facilities and taking care of the nuclear program. So you're doing all six of these.

So from my perspective, somewhere around four weeks after the initiation, after February 28th,

we'll have hit enough targets, including reattacks and new attacks as we study the battlefield after our initial 15 or 17,000 strikes.

And we'll be satisfied that we have reduced significantly to greater Iran's capability to conduct war.

And I would say very importantly in the, what's an important strategic end here?

A Iranian regime that cannot impose its will on its Arab partners, Israel, the United States.

They can't inflict damage on them and they can't terrorize them as they have been over the last 40 years.

Okay. Well, now President Trump says the State Department is organizing this coalition to protect ships, transiting the straight of horror moves.

What are the threats that they'll need to address before shipping can return to normal?

That's a good question because it's, it's not just mines, which is what people talk about.

It's missiles, anti-ship cruise missiles, drones, fast attack, kind of unmanned fast attack craft, a la Ukraine that Iran has started building, and mines.

So though all four of those, and they all have to be being degraded over this four week period, so that their risk to mission, their ability to impact the military mission,

is down at an acceptable level in the combat commander, Admiral Cooper says, you know, we can go ahead and start doing these transits.

Let's talk about this girl's school in Iran.

There are reports that outdated information led to a deadly bombing by the US of a girl's school in Iran.

What can you tell us about how the US military assesses civilian risk?

Well, first I would say categorically, the US never intentionally attack schools, period.

We do not attack, intentionally attack civilians.

It does occur, and when it occurs, you find out why it occurs, you investigate it, you hold people accountable, and you fix the processes that allowed it to allow you to make that mistake.

It's more and more seems that it was not like, it was probably not an errant missile.

Sometimes that happens, a missile gets deflected in flight by anti-air fire or something, and then hits the wrong target.

I think this is probably going to come down to, as you mentioned, invalid targeting data that was out of date, and that's not acceptable, and you have to find out how it happened and fix that problem.

Let's talk about long-term views versus short-term views.

Iran's strategy seems to be, it is taking a multi-pronged long-term approach, squeezing various pressure points, one of those being cyber warfare capabilities.

And on Wednesday, the US medical equipment company called Striker reported that it was hacked by the group, Handala, which does have ties to Iran.

Mark, how widespread are attacks like these so far in the fight with Iran?

Iran has cyber capability. They're certainly not China or Russia.

I don't believe they have sector impacting others where they could attack multiple elements of a US industrial sector and cause it to collapse or an electrical power grid damage,

but they clearly can do some damage, and we are very vulnerable.

I mean, it has been pointed out many times by the place I'm at foundation for defensive democracies, but other assessments have clearly stated that the US is not investing enough in the cyber security of its critical infrastructure and its companies in cyber space.

And that includes, particularly includes water systems, K through 12, rural health care, farms and ag, and all these things are vulnerable and could be attacked.

And some may more in addition to Striker, that's happening every day with criminal activity.

You know what I mean? There's criminals doing this sort of activity every day that far exceeds what the Iran's nation state activity is or Iran's criminal activity.

Final question here for you, Mark. What else are you watching this week as this conflict continues?

I'm hoping that our allies come around. You mentioned that earlier, and that's been a big part of this.

And there's certain allies that do get a lot of their fossil fuels from the Arabian Gulf, and they are allegedly committed to freedom of navigation.

Those, if you're allegedly committed to freedom of navigation, you receive a lot of fuel from the Gulf and you're a persistent ally in the United States.

You should be alongside us doing this. I get that President Trump started this war, but he started this war with the strategic end, you know, the goal of reducing Iran, the IRGC, a terrorist state's ability to impose its will and terrorize its neighbors.

That is a good worry. As part of that, he has to control a final strategic objective as he has to control flow through the streets or her moves at the end of the conflict.

And to do that, we would be assisted and would be helped by the air warfare destroyers or high-end air warfare frigates of our key allies and partners.

Mark Montgomery is a former Senate Armed Services Committee advisor and senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Mark, thank you so much.

Thank you for having me.

Coming up next on the world and everything in at the Save America Act. Nearly a year since it passed the House of Voting Reform Bill is set to head to the Senate floor today.

But it's running into partisan headwinds and new pressures from the White House to add more. World's Carolina Lumeta has the story from our Washington Bureau.

With the midterm elections coming this fall, the bill has become a top item on President Trump's lengthy to-do list. Here he is giving the task to Congress at this year's State of the Union Address.

We stop illegal aliens and others who are unpermitted persons from voting in our sacred American elections that cheating is rampant in our elections.

It's rampant. It's very simple. All voters must show voter ID. All voters must show proof of citizenship in order to vote.

The House first passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility or Save Act last April but has stalled in the Senate where it needs 60 votes to overcome a certain filibuster by Democrats.

Trump has begun calling it the Save America Act, the name of a separate House Bill still in committee that goes even farther.

Jason Sneed is the executive director of the Honest Elections Project and he supports federal election reforms.

So the newly rebranded Save America Act is a little bit more comprehensive in the sense that it requires both proof of citizenship to register and voter identification in order to cast a ballot that aligns with best practices that we have identified for decades now in the election space.

Accepted proofs include a passport, a real ID, birth certificates and marriage licenses if last names have changed. Democrats criticize the plan as Jim Crow 2.0 comparing it to post civil war era racially discriminatory laws.

They argue it would disenfranchise minority voters who they claim do not always have easy access to such documents. Sneed disagrees.

We're always working to keep it easy to vote in the United States, but we also need to make it hard to cheat.

If the Save Act passes, it could change the proof requirements for the upcoming midterm elections.

Trump posted on true social that he will not sign any other legislation until the Act gets through Congress.

Certainly a very popular thing. I don't think there's ever been a bill that's more popular than the Save America Act.

But here's what the president wants added. A ban on mail-in ballots except in rare instances. A ban on men competing in women's sports and a ban on transgender surgeries on minors.

None of that is currently in the legislative text of the Save Act. And the president's new wish list has some supporters worried.

And every time you add a new item to a bill, you don't pick up yes votes. You pick up no votes.

Ken Kuchinelli is the national chairman of the Election Transparency Initiative, and he briefly worked in the first Trump administration.

He's lobbied for this bill, but he's not sold on the new elements Trump wants.

I don't disagree with the president on any of those issues. Nonetheless, we believe that simplicity allows a greater prospect for passage of the core elements of the Save Act,

which are the voter ID and the citizenship verification for voters registering to vote.

A recent Harvard Harris poll found that 75% of Americans support requiring proof of citizenship, and 81% support requiring photo identification.

But other elements of the bill are not quite as popular. With more than half of Americans in favor of voting by mail, efforts to restrict it could face opposition.

Majority leader John Thune said on Thursday, he can't guarantee the outcome of the vote.

But I can guarantee that we are going to put Democrats on the record.

That they will be forced to defend their outrageous positions on these issues, and explain to the American people why common sense and the Democratic Party have parted ways.

If a majority of senators approve a motion to proceed today, it opens the floor for a period of limitless debate.

But Thune is not allowing what's known as a talking filibuster, which would lower the threshold for passage from 60 votes to a simple majority.

Instead, any senator may propose as many amendments as he or she would like, and Democrats have promised to use that as a delay. Here's minority leader Chuck Schumer.

It's an outrageous bill, an outrageous bill, and we're going to fight it tooth and nail last one.

If the Senate adds any amendments to the bill, including provisions the president wants, it will head back to the House for another vote.

Reporting for World, I'm Carolina Lumetta.

Additional support comes from the Master's University, equipping students for lives of faithfulness to the Master Jesus Christ, Masters.edu.

From Truth for Life, and a book to share this Easter title, The Man on the Middle Cross, by Bible teacher Alistair Begg, truthforlife.org slash world.

And from Barnabas Aid, hope in support for our suffering brothers and sisters around the world.

Aid from Christians, through Christians, to Christians, Barnabas Aid.org.

Up next, Cuba in crisis.

Yesterday, the Caribbean countries' electrical grid collapsed, leaving some 10 million people without power.

The blackout comes after weeks of widespread power disruptions and increasing pressure from the U.S.

Our producer, Lindsay Mast, joins us now with more about where things stand. Lindsay?

Well, thanks, Nick and Mary. Cuba relied heavily on Venezuela for oil to produce energy and lost access to a large percentage of what it needs when the U.S. captured Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, and then imposed new sanctions.

Last week, Cuba confirmed it is in talks with the U.S. over the future of the country.

Joining us now to talk about the situation is Charles Shapiro.

He is the former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela, and during his more than three decades at the State Department, he also served as the coordinator for Cuban affairs. Ambassador, good morning.

Good morning. How are you, Lindsay?

I'm doing well. Thank you.

So President Trump recently called Cuba a failed state and reports of the situation there for the people are pretty dire.

What can you tell us briefly about the situation on the ground in Cuba?

Their economy is ground or halt. They produce only about 40% of the petroleum that they consume on that. They generate electricity using petroleum.

So they are essentially out of oil, out of the energy.

So the Cuban stated goals for the talks are vague, things like bilateral issues and finding solutions. Can you uncloke that from the official terminology for us?

I mean, they're not going to say we're having talks with surrender and find a way for us to flee the country.

And so we'll see how far those talks go. I mean, the strong guy in Cuba is still Raul Castro, even though he's no longer president.

He's allegedly retired. The government of Cuba, who put out that statement, really is out of options and isn't the real authority in Cuba.

Raul Castro is and there's a private business that's run by the Ministry of Defense and owns most of the tourist hotels in the country.

And they're the two institutions in the country that work. What doesn't work is the Communist Party, the economic system that they've been following since 1959.

And the state on enterprise is all of which are failing.

There were reports of protests over the weekend at the Communist Party headquarters, which is, I understand, is outside of the Capitol.

Protest can come with prison sentences in Cuba. So what does that tell you about the situation on the ground?

Okay, first of all, it was in a small town in spontaneous. There's no organized opposition in Cuba because they've all either been put in jail or they've left the country in herd, they've left mostly in the United States or in Spain.

What you had in this town called Morone, which really is in the center of the country and is not even the biggest city in the province it's located in.

I mean, so it's a fairly small town. But there's no electricity and it essentially was protest against, you know, why are we so poor? Why is stuff such a mess?

And it was spontaneous. And they did set the local Communist Party headquarters on fire.

And yes, it takes a lot of nerve to do that because Cuba is literally a police state with police everywhere and you get arrested and you get long jail sentences.

So when those people take to the streets and they shout Liberty, what do they mean? What do you think they're asking for?

Well, you'd have to ask them for Cubans, ordinary Cubans. The Cuban economy over the, since 1959, is shifted from an economy that produced sugar, an exported sugar, to economy based on tourism.

And what they see with tourism is people dress like you and me showing up with money to spend.

Give me things a way that would cost a fortune in Cuba, right? Everybody has access to internet now. It's prepaid internet cards and there's internet hot spots.

And so people are talking to their relatives again in Spain, in Miami wherever they are. And people are seeing what life is like.

So people are hungry, people are can't believe that they're still living this way. They want to be able to get a hit and they don't want to live in the dark.

So turning back to the talks, how would, how would you judge success in those?

Well, this is for me. Okay, don't speak for the US government. I can only speak for myself. What success would look like would be an agreement under which we would allow,

you know, whether it's Mexico or maybe the United States, you know, why not, why not the United States oil companies to sell oil to Cuba so that they can generate electricity and all that stuff they need.

And, you know, so that the United States would agree to supply it in return for an opening in the economic system.

But the major sort of money that, you know, you think of with foreign direct investment is not going to go until you've got a legal system set up that would give confidence to investors that, you know, if I sign a contract with you and you break the contract, I can take you to court.

And that can be done. You know, so you do that and at the same time you start opening up the political system in Cuba.

And it should be the people of Cuba, humans outside of Cuba and the United States government deciding that.

Ambassador Shapiro, you've been involved with Cuba for so long. How do you rate this as far as how close they may finally be to having a change there versus in the past?

That's a great question. Look, I mean, they have shown amazing ability to hold on in the face of adverse circumstances. I mean, the government of Cuba has the Communist Party of Cuba has.

When the Soviet Union collapsed and Soviet Union stopped providing, I mean, they went through our 10 years of a depression greater than the depression of the United States experience in the 1930s.

And they survived that, right?

They had an opportunity under Barack Obama to find an off-ground and they turned it down. They couldn't bring themselves to accept it.

So now, you know, are they at the point where they have no alternative? They may well be, which means they might just have to accept this.

Charles Shapiro is former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela and during his three decades at the State Department also served as the coordinator for Cuban Affairs Ambassador Shapiro. Thank you so much.

Thanks, Susie. This is fun. Enjoy it.

And they're off two dozen couples in southern England putting their relationships to the test.

The annual UK Wife Carrying Race sends competitors up and down a grassy hillside, the wives clinging on while the husband's clear hay bales and dodge water hazards. One racer summed up his approach.

My strategy is to run as fast as I can.

There you go. Another competitor had a different priority.

That's number one. If I fall, I need to fall forward on my face.

Very good advice. Most couples use the so-called Estonian hold, the wife hanging on upside down on the runner's back, the legs hooked over the shoulders.

After about a quarter mile of scrambling and sprinting, the winners were a couple from Finland.

Amazing.

Yes. It feels amazing.

Adding new urgency to the marriage vow to have and to hold tight.

Very.

It's the world and everything in it.

Today is Tuesday, March 17th.

Thank you for turning the world radio to help start your day. Good morning. I'm Mary Reichard.

And I'm Nick Eiger. Coming next on the world and everything in it, caring for creation.

On Florida's space coast, business is booming. Millions of visitors come from all over to tour the Kennedy Space Center,

to enjoy the beaches and to watch the wildlife along its 72 miles of Atlantic Ocean coastline.

But some of that building and developing has had negative impacts on animals and the environment.

One Christian conservation group is trying to change that, looking for ways to be more mindful of God's creatures as development continues.

World Grace Snell has the story.

At Space View Park in Titusville, Florida, wide concrete walkways overlook the Indian River Lagoon.

Just across the water is where Apollo 11 launched.

Crowds of visitors still come here to watch NASA and SpaceX launch rockets.

But all that activity and development has had other impacts as well.

So you can see like with this parking lot, the rains, whatever's in these cars,

just going right straight down into the Lagoon right here.

Robert Sluka heads up the Marine Conservation Program at Arrasha.

It's a Christian environmental group with projects here and around the world.

The Lagoon is one of the most biodeverse estuaries in North America.

It's teeming with life.

Manatees, dolphins, sharks, sea turtles, and all kinds of birds and fish.

You know, the shoreline in this area you can see all these rocks, all this cement, sea walls.

There's a bit of natural shoreline here, but mostly concrete sea walls run down to the waterline.

A man-made barrier designed to protect against hurricane damage and erosion.

Animals and creatures can't use that.

Sluka loves the ocean.

He also loves God, and he wants this area to be a place where people and sea creatures can both flourish.

This region is one of the primary nesting grounds for horseshoe crabs in Florida.

But the sea walls built to protect people also keep horseshoe crabs from crawling ashore to lay their eggs.

And that affects all kinds of creatures. Humans included.

Horseshoe crabs have a chemical in their blood that's used in saline drips and used in a lot of medicines to test for purity of the solutions.

Horseshoe crabs aren't listed as endangered in the U.S.

But their numbers have fallen as much as two-thirds along some parts of the Atlantic coast since the 1990s.

That's due to a combination of factors, including habitat loss and pollution.

And Sluka says horseshoe crabs aren't the only sea creatures at risk.

This lagoon has suffered a lot of damage at people's hands.

And so this lagoon that was created to praise God is a shadow of its former self.

Several years ago, manatees along Florida's east coast suffered an unusual mortality event, which is a nice way of saying tons of manatees starved to death.

Experts say pollution from septic tanks, fertilizers, and rain runoff, fueled algal blooms that destroyed their food supply.

You know, because of how we acted and we built and we didn't care for that lagoon, those manatees suffered.

Over 50 other creatures in the Indian River Lagoon are either threatened or endangered. Some of them only exist here.

And when an animal goes extinct, it's like, you know, one of the voices of God's orchestra require going out.

Sluka says God made all creation to praise him.

And one way Christians glorify God is by helping his creatures thrive.

So if you've got this crab sitting on a beach, how does a crab flourish? Well, it flourishes by being what a crab is supposed to be.

A crab in all its crabbyness.

But the Bible doesn't give an exact prescription for how to care for God's world.

Sluka says that's where science comes in.

We can study them and understand, like the lagoon, the things that we're doing that are keeping that animal,

biblically speaking, from glorifying God, from praising God.

He says there are lots of different ways to help.

Growing local plants to help naturally filter rain runoff, cutting down on single use plastic, and pitching in with beach cleanups to name a few.

Not far from space view park, a tiny island bobs off shore.

This is a spoil island, one of dozens that popped up from extra sediment.

Left after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dug the intracostal waterway.

It provides great habitat. We've caught sea horses nearby here.

Here's the molt of a horseshoe crab.

You know, this is a place where horseshoe crabs can spawn.

Sluka says man-made islands like this one are a great example of living with nature instead of against it.

People can come out in the weekend for recreation, but also it provides good habitat for species.

Sluka acknowledges most environmental issues don't have easy or clear cut answers.

An associated political and economic concerns can make them even more complex.

But he encourages Christians not to retreat from the environmental sector.

The environment is not political, it's biblical.

If God is the creator of all, that includes the non-human creatures as well.

And he challenges those who appreciate God's creation to look for ways to care for their own corners of it.

We need Christians to get out there and say, okay, I don't maybe like some of the solutions that are being offered,

but I'm going to be creative and come up with other ones that fit in with how I believe.

Reporting for World, I'm Grace Snow in Titusville, Florida.

Good morning. This is The World and everything in it from listeners supported World Radio. I'm Mary Reichard.

And I'm Nick Eichert.

The Boy Scouts of America now calling itself Scouting America is at a crossroads with an unexpected opportunity to change direction.

Here is World opinions commentator Daniel Sir.

The Boy Scouts of America is not what it used to be. It's not even called that anymore.

The century-old organization now goes by Scouting America after years of cultural battles, falling membership, and even bankruptcy.

As an eagle scout myself, I know firsthand what that program meant to generations of American boys.

Our two sons are now in a scout troop where they still find fellowship, adventure, and strong adult male role models.

Now Scouting faces a new challenge. It's relationship with the United States military.

Secretary of War Pete Hagseth recently warned the Pentagon might end its long-standing partnership, absent significant changes.

He says rightly that the program that once shaped generations of boys has drifted far from its roots.

For more than a century, Boy Scouts of America prepared over 130 million American boys to make moral and ethical choices.

Boy Scout training focused on responsible citizenship, character and leadership development, patriotism, personal fitness, self-reliance, faith, and a wide range of outdoor skills.

Scouting also had a close relationship with the military.

Eagle Scouts have long been a pipeline into America's service academies like West Point, and many former Scouts go on to serve in uniform.

But Hagseth says something has changed.

After 2012, however, the Boy Scouts lost their way. Diversity, equity, and inclusion, DEI crept in.

The focus on God as the ruler of the universe was watered down to include openness to humanism and Earth-centered pagan religions.

Scouting became an organization that no longer supported and celebrated boys.

Those concerns triggered months of negotiation between the Pentagon and Scouting's national leadership.

The result is a new agreement requiring several changes.

The organization will discontinue the controversial citizenship in society, Merit Badge, criticized by many parents as a DEI-style program for teens.

Scouting will also introduce a new military service Merit Badge, developed in partnership with the Pentagon, and membership categories will now be based on biological sex.

For the Pentagon, these changes are a condition of continuing the relationship.

As President Reagan famously said, trust but verify. This agreement is new, and the Department's support for Scouting America is contingent on them making substantial progress toward reaching these and many other positive changes in the next six months.

Scouting really needs to take this opportunity seriously. Membership has fallen sharply. The organization once counted millions of participants.

Today, it is barely a million youth members. It also endured one of the largest youth organization bankruptcies in American history, establishing a multi-billion dollar trust to compensate abuse victims.

But the deeper issues are cultural.

25 years ago, the Boy Scouts went all the way to the United States Supreme Court to defend their right to set leadership standards.

And in Boy Scouts of America versus Dale, the court agreed. But in more recent years, the organization has moved in a very different direction.

First, it allowed homosexual leaders, then admitted girls who claimed to be boys. Eventually, it opened membership to girls more broadly.

And finally, dropped the name Boy Scouts altogether.

Those changes have come with real consequences. The Latter-day Saints withdrew their enormous Scouting program.

Many Catholic and evangelical sponsors followed and families who still wanted a traditional boys program began looking elsewhere.

In recent years, new organizations like Trail Life USA, along with church-based programs like Oana and others, have stepped in to fill the gap, offering that outdoor adventure, character training,

and explicitly Christian mentorship for boys. But wouldn't it be something to have the Boy Scouts back?

And boys need institutions like that. They need male role models. They need camaraderie. They need responsibility and encouragement, as they navigate those difficult years of adolescence.

For generations, the Boy Scouts helped provide it.

Now, the Pentagon's agreement may push the organization back toward its roots. But one deal will not fix everything.

If Scouting hopes to regain the trust and the influence it once had, it may need to return to the words that generations of boys once recited at the start of every meeting.

On my honor, I will do my best. For World, I'm Daniel Sir.

Tomorrow, Washington Wednesday with Hunter Baker. We'll talk about the politics of the Iran War and look at the president's choice to lead the currently paralyzed Homeland Security Agency.

And you think your experiencing flight delays will talk with a retired astronaut who spent nine months stuck in space.

That and more tomorrow, I'm Mary Record.

And I'm Nick Eiker, 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 records Jesus telling would be followers the high cost of following him. Yet another said, I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.

Jesus said to him, no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.

The Gospel according to Luke 9 verses 61 and 62. Go now in grace and peace.