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The World and Everything In It
1.19.26 Women’s sports at the Supreme Court, the race for the Fed chair, and the beginning of AMBER Alert
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Good morning. It's Martin Luther King, Jr. Day at the Supreme Court. Civil rights and women's sports. The justices consider two cases that go to the heart of what the law means and what fairness requires.
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Title 9 prohibits discrimination on basis of sex. It's a statutory term. It must mean something. Also today, the Monday money beat and the world history book 911. Woody, he grabbed a little girl and he took off toward town with her. She hollered real loud. A case from 30 years ago with consequences still unfolding.
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It's Monday, January 19th. This is the world and everything in it from listener supported World Radio. I'm Mary Reinkert.
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And I'm Nick Iger. Good morning.
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Up next, Kent Covington with today's news.
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The European Union held an emergency meeting Sunday as President Trump turns up the pressure in his effort to buy Greenland. Trump says he plans to impose 10% tariffs starting February 1st. On a list of US allies who are not on board with the Greenland takeover bid. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant echoed the president's position, telling NBC's Meet the Press that Trump believes enhanced security is not possible without acquiring Greenland.
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If there were an attack on Greenland from Russia, from some other other area, we would get dragged in. So better now, peace through strength. Make it part of the United States and there will not be a conflict.
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But Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Bart Ida countered.
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That's exactly why we are stepping up our presence in Greenland, because if there are security concerns, we can meet them jointly in both bilaterally, Denmark and the US but also as a NATO alliance.
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Some European nations are pushing back against President Trump's tariff list. Denmark's prime minister said Europe will not be blackmailed. The UK's Prime Minister said these tariffs are completely wrong. And the prime minister of Ireland said the EU will retaliate. In Minnesota, anti ICE protests continue outside of a federal building in Minneapolis. Demonstrators are chanting and cursing at federal agents as they go by. And the protests have at times turned violent. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons accused Democratic city and state leaders of fomenting unrest and violence against ICE agents.
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ICE agents and deportation officers have arrested murderers, gang members, serial rapists, people wanted from their home country for heinous crimes. Yet unfortunately, you don't hear that we're automatically assuming from elected officials that ICE is out there doing something wrong.
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The Pentagon has ordered about 1,500 active duty soldiers to be ready in case of a possible deployment to Minnesota. And Governor Tim Walls has mobilized the state's National Guard to help quell the violence, but has not yet deployed the guardsmen on the streets of Minneapolis. Iran's supreme leader is blaming President Trump for unrest in Iran, as President Trump backs the protests there and has not ruled out the possibility of US Action. Republican Senator John Cornyn, who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee, said of Trump.
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He has multiple options and only he.
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Knows which of those options he will choose.
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But I'm glad to see him standing up for these protesters.
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Demonstrations in Iran have thinned out considerably in recent days. During widespread protests. Trump had told demonstrators that, quote, help is on the way, and he said his administration would take action if the killing of demonstrators continued or if Iranian authorities executed detained protesters. But he later said Iran had canceled executions and suggested he was satisfied with that. However, he has not taken any response off the table. Reuters reports that an unnamed Iranian official has admitted that the death toll during the widespread demonstrations has topped 5,000 people. An Ohio appeals court may have just given new life to parts of a pro life law, World's Dennis Crowley explains.
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In 2023, Ohio voters passed an amendment to the state constitution stating Ohioan has the right to make personal reproductive decisions, which it said included abortions. The state's Republican attorney general tried to preserve some protections for unborn children under the state's pro life heartbeat law, but a judge later ruled that the heartbeat law could not be enforced. After the constitutional amendment, however, an appeals court said the trial judge went too far by striking down every part of the law and it ordered the lower court to go back and decide piece by piece which provisions of the law can still stand. For now, none of the pro life protections have yet been reinstated. For world, I'm Dennis Crowley.
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Two high speed trains have derailed and collided in southern Spain, killing at least 21 people and injuring more than 100 others. The accident happened Sunday near Adamu in Cordoba Province when a train from Malaga to Madrid jumped the tracks and struck another train coming from Madrid to Huelva. Rescue crews worked through the night to free passengers from twisted carriages and authorities warned that the death toll could rise as they continue their work at the scene. I'm Kent Covington. And still ahead, civil rights and women's sports at the Supreme Court. Plus, the Monday Money beat. This is the world and everything in it.
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It's the world and everything in it for this 19th day of January, 2026. So glad you've joined us today. Good morning. I'm Mary Reichert.
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And I'm Nick Iker. Time now for legal docket. This is absolute nonsense. On the steps of the U.S. supreme Court a week ago. Tomorrow, hundreds gathered to argue over women's sports. For generations, the term required no explanation. Now the court is being asked to decide what it means. But before we get to legal doctrine or definitions, there is another basic reality the justices will not be able to avoid. That sports are zero sum, meaning there are limited roster spots, limited starting positions, limited scholarships, limited podiums. In other words, one athlete included means another excluded and unjust. Inclusion equals unjust exclusion.
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That reality sits at the center of two cases the high court will decide before summer recession. Cases that could determine whether states may safeguard athletic opportunities for female athletes only. One is Little v. Hecox out of Idaho, and the second is West Virginia v. Bpj. The legal questions in both are identical. A group of boys who say they identify as girls mounted legal challenges to both laws.
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And it's important to be precise about what the court is not deciding. These cases are not about whether states must protect women's sports. They are about whether they may. Whether legislatures can recognize sex based differences in athletics or whether doing so violates federal civil rights law.
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For athletes like Macy Petty, it's no abstraction.
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I played volleyball in high school and college and had to play against a man during my recruiting process to college. And that's kind of what brought me into this fight to begin with.
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That was eight years ago before so called trans rights became an issue. Today she's a spokeswoman with Concerned Women for America and she's not forgotten what she went through.
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Yeah, it was totally humiliating. All I knew that this was blatantly cheating and I was confident that USA Volleyball, the sanctioning organization for the event, was going to find out that this man was cheating and put an end to it. Because I was completely naive to believe that these sports institutions had anything having to do with my good in mind.
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Petty expected the adults in the room would step up, especially the ncaa. She says she attended its annual conference year after year to try to speak with leadership.
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As a female athlete, I felt like I was nothing but a burden to them, despite them wearing Title IX T shirts and shirts that say they want to empower women and them telling the press that. So I had extended public invitations to Charlie Baker, the president of the ncaa, because the court case oral arguments are the biggest things to happen to women's sports in a very long time. And this man who claims to champion women's sports was nowhere to be found.
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She never heard back. I didn't either. I reached out to NCAA for comment but received no response. That silence is important because when governing bodies decline to draw lines legislatures often.
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Do inside the Supreme Court. The work of legislatures in Idaho and West Virginia were at issue. Both states passed laws grounded in biology. Supporters say the goal is straightforward and easily verified preserve fairness and safety in sex segregated competition. Medical verification can be as simple as a cheek swab, the same as for drug testing already required of athletes.
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And that brought the dispute squarely into federal court. In West Virginia, a boy identified in court papers only as BPJ began taking on a female identity as early as third grade and has reportedly used puberty blockers and estrogen ever since. Challenging Idaho was a young man identifying as a young woman. Lindsey Hecox sued after trying out for Boise State's women's cross country team.
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Defending the Idaho law that kept Hickox off the team was state Solicitor General Alan Hurst. Idaho's law classifies on the basis of sex because sex is what matters in sports. Gender identity does not matter in sports. It treats all males equally and all females equally, regardless of identity. Idaho's law is a substantial fit for 99% of males, and a perfect fit is not required. If it were, that would be the end of all sex based classifications. He pointed to male advantages in size, muscle mass, bone density, heart and lung capacity, along with safety concerns in cases where male athletes have injured females.
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At that point in the argument, another problem surfaced. The case turns on sex based classification, but the language used in the courtroom was anything but settled. Throughout oral argument, lawyers and justices, conservative ones too, repeatedly relied on categories that do not appear in the statute terms like cisgender and in several instances referred to a man as she as though those premises were already resolved in the law. But they are not. And that matters because Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, not gender identity and not self perception. Like so many Supreme Court questions, precision of language matters here. The legal test depends on it.
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At argument, lawyer Kathleen Hartnett represented boys wanting to play girls sports. She said the laws are overly broad, adding that experts agree the naturally occurring hormone testosterone after puberty is what Dr. The advantage boys have. Her client, she argued, gave up much of that by using female hormone. Lindsay Hecox has mitigated that advantage because she has suppressed her testosterone for over a year and taken estrogen, going on to say that if her client had not taken female hormones, he wouldn't be on the girl's team just like any other boy. That analysis would come out the other way for the untalented cisgender boy. He would have the same sex based advantage, the circulating testosterone. He just would not be as good at sports. But that framing depends on treating sex as something other than a biological classification rather as something mutable, something that can be medically adjusted. That uncertainty surfaced repeatedly during questioning from the bench Justice Sonia Sotomayor. There's no question here that a male who identifies as a female, but it's a male is being excluded from a female sport, correct? That's correct. All right. By its nature, that's a sex classification.
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By contrast, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson disputed the entire premise.
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You have an individual who says what is happening in this law is that it is treating someone who is transgender but who does not have because of.
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The medical interventions, who does not have the same threat to physical competition and safety and all of the reasons that the state puts forward.
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So you're not treating the class the same.
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Justice Jackson returned again and again to the same point of confusion in her Senate confirmation hearing almost three years ago. Then Judge Jackson encountered Senator Marsha Blackburn. The senator anticipated a case with facts like these where definitions would be central. She challenged Jackson to provide a definition of the word woman. Can I provide a definition?
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No.
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Yeah.
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I can't.
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You can't? Not in this context.
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I'm not a biologist.
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Over the course of the argument last week, Justice Jackson expressed uncertainty at least seven separate times when questioning the state's reasoning.
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I'm not sure I understand.
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I don't understand and I don't understand why that is.
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I guess I don't understand.
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I don't understand why that's the case. I don't understand why.
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I'm still struggling to understand why the state.
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The uncertainty is notable given the legal standard at issue. Because this case involves sex based classification, the court applies intermediate scrutiny that requires the government to show an important objective for a law and that law must be substantially related to achieving it. And it's difficult for the analysis to proceed unless the court first agrees on what sex means.
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Justice Samuel Alito pressed the point directly in questioning lawyer Hartnett. Representing the boys, do you agree that a school may have separate teams for a category of students classified as boys and a category of students classified as girls? Yes, your honor. If it does that, then is it not necessary for there to be for equal protection for purposes an understanding of what it means to be a boy or a girl or a man or a woman? Yes, you, Honor. And what is that definition? We do not have a definition for the court. Well, how can a court determine whether there's discrimination on the basis of sex without knowing what sex means for equal protection purposes? Justice Alito continued to press and he caught Hartnett in an illogical tangle that forced a concession that under her theory, a school can exclude a so called trans athlete based on fairness concerns, which means discrimination on that basis is permissible. Can the school say no, you cannot participate on the girls team? Yes, they can. Is that person not a woman in your understanding? If the person says I sincerely believe I a woman, I am in fact a woman, I think is that person not a woman? I, I would respect their self identity in addressing the person. But in terms of the statute, I think the question is does that person have a sex based biological advantage that's going to make it unfair for that person to be part of the women's team? And that's the rationale for the regulation. And so that's the way we would.
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Be testing that hypothetical.
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Well, the reason I'm asking has to do with discrimination on the basis of transgender status. So what you seem to be saying is yes, it is permissible for the school to discriminate on the basis of transgender status. In other words, under the challengers theory, schools may exclude a so called transgender athlete for fairness reasons, even while saying sex itself cannot be defined. Hartnett seemed to realize the tangled knot she was in. In this exchange with Justice Brett Kavanaugh. This is an important moment to just take a step back and say is this law actually responding to a problem in a rational manner or is it actually overreacting on the presumption that transgender women are categorically going to be strong athletes when that's not the case? Well, just to put the big picture.
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And you know this, obviously one of.
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The great successes in America over the last 50 years has been the growth of women in girls sports. And it's inspiring.
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It's worth noting how the court arrived here five years ago. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion in Bostock vs. Clayton county that was an employment law case that held discrimination based based on sexual orientation or transgender status could violate federal civil rights law. That decision explicitly said it did not address sports, bathrooms or Title ix. But the reasoning did not remain confined to employment. Schools and athletic associations adopted broad inclusion policies anyway, often preemptively out of fear of lawsuits or financial pressure. Those policies are now colliding with sex segregated sports and landing back before the court.
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Justice Kavanaugh has two daughters and coaches their teams. So he knows usually with teams they're cuts. Those mean a lot to people. They're starting lineups. Those mean a lot to people. Who gets a college recruit, that means a lot to people. And I think we have to recognize on both sides the zero sum. It's not like, oh, just to add another person to the team. That's not how sports works. It's, it's someone else is going to get disadvantaged.
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That's what women like Macy Petty keep saying. Women's sports create opportunities like scholarships, records, championships, trophies and safety and dignity. Yet women deprived of those things had no representation in court.
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A final note now, at a women in sports gala last week put on by Alliance Defending Freedom, Abby Cross told of her daughter's track team where a boy joined and began dominating. He was suddenly throwing 25ft farther than the, you know, than he had been, which was not an increase that the other girls were making. Cross said even the coach was afraid to speak up. The one guiding factor that has kept us going through this, given us the courage to speak up, is our relationship with Jesus. I've realized that my relationship with God has given me something stronger than fear to answer to.
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From fear to faith, to the Supreme Court and the meaning of words. As Justice Alito put it, Title 9.
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Prohibits discrimination on basis of sex. It's a statutory term. It must mean something. You're arguing that here there's discrimination on the basis of sex. And how can we decide that question without knowing what sex means in Title ix?
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Good question. And that's this week's legal docket.
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Additional support comes from Pensacola Christian College, Academic Excellence, Biblical Worldview, affordable cost, go PCCI edu world. And from the Joshua program at St.
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Dunstan's Academy in Virginia, a gap year shaping young men through trades, Farming, Prayer, St. Dunstansacademy.org.
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Coming up next on THE WORLD and everything in it, the Monday Money beat.
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Time now to talk business, markets and the economy with financial analyst and advisor David Bonson. David heads up the wealth management firm the Bonson Group, and he is here now. Good morning, David.
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D
Well, good morning, Nick. Good to be with you.
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B
Well, the White House appears to be narrowing the field for the next Federal Reserve chair. We have said for months that it's been a jump ball between the two Kevins, Kevin Hassett and Kevin Warsh. Kevin Hassett, currently the director of the National Coordinating Economic Policy across the administration, widely seen as a frontrunner to succeed Jay Powell. And we will get to Powell in just a moment because that is its own story. But President Trump has now said that he wants Kevin Hassett to stay put, to stay right where he is. So that leaves Kevin Warsh the top choice. He's a former Fed governor He's now at Stanford and the Hoover Institution. He has deep ties to the private sector. Warsh now increasingly the clear alternative. This coming at a moment when tensions between the White House and the current Fed Chair could hardly be higher. So, David, when you step back from the personalities for just a moment, if that's even possible, how meaningful is it when we hear Kevin Hassett? You stay put. How meaningful is that signal from the President?
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D
Well, I've been on record for some time that I very much would prefer that the President nominate Kevin Warsh. And I even separate from my hope that he nominates Kevin Warsh, very much hope that he doesn't nominate my old friend Kevin Hassett. I will say that, you know, with the prediction markets now, in response to what President Trump said, pushing Hassett's odds all the way down to 16% and Warshup around 57%, it doesn't mean that there isn't what one source of mine is predicting, which is a door number five, a candidate that will materialize that is not currently being discussed. So it would be really hard to believe after what the President said Friday that Kevin Hassett will remain on that list. If that wasn't a way of saying he's not, then I certainly don't understand it. Although the President does sometimes like keeping people on their toes and. But that was a rather explicit way of doing it. What does it mean? Well, look, for all of us listening in terms of just people wondering what it means for interest rates, it means nothing because there's not gonna be a person nominated that isn't gonna do what the President wants in the immediate term. The issue here is beyond 2026, the President is gonna nominate who he wants, as is his right to do, and he will nominate someone that he has a virtual certainty is going to cut rates a couple more times this year. That much I'm quite confident of. Now, let's say you were to get something in 2027 or 2028 where the data suggests a different course is taken, or there's just different things that require Federal Reserve action that may not be in line with what the President wants. What person is most likely to then go be a Fed Chair as opposed to an order taker from the President. I think Kevin Warsh is more likely to be that person. And I think that's what matters more into the future. Where a lot of people are focusing on here, Nick and I'll wrap this up is just way down the line. Even when President Trump's out of office, is anything going on right now, the threats of lawfare, the attempt to fire the, the statements that the President should be allowed to help set interest rates. Is anything happening that is going to really undermine credibility of the US dollar, of the bond market, of our own Federal Reserve? And so far the answer has been no. And the reason is because I don't think most credible financial actors have taken all that stuff seriously. I don't think it's good. I don't think this process has gone very well. But I do think that we're really just talking about a short term decision and that the longer term things will hold, even though the precedent has deserved a little more respect than it's gotten.
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Yeah.
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B
Well, David, you've been clear for quite some time that you preferred Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair and it seems like that may be the case. But help me understand the preference for Warsh. What does he bring to the job that Hassett does not?
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D
Well, I know both of them and I first of all would make the comment on just financial markets credibility that I believe sovereign wealth, the bond market, the currency markets would view Warsh as a more credible candidate than Hassett. And the reason is that I've known Kevin Hassett for decades as a incredibly strong free trader who now in the last 10 months has become an anti free trader. And so because of the way that I've seen when Kevin Hassett was the chair of the Council of Economic Advisors in the first term of President Trump, he fought back against Pete Navarro, he fought back against some of the COVID stuff that happened, he fought back against some of the really extreme tariff issues that were proposed. And now he's the head of the National Economic Council in the second term. And I hear him say things almost weekly that he's never believed. And it has done a lot to undermine my confidence in his ability to be independent. And therefore my Warsh advocacy is much more about my haccit opposition. Now that said, I was a managing director at Morgan Stanley in the time period that Kevin Warsh was an economist at Morgan Stanley. I was very fond of his work and I have seen him in the past when he was a Fed governor, take an opposition viewpoint, take a minority viewpoint, make an argument about some of the concerns he had with quantitative easing, for example, something I would point out that Jay Powell did as well back in the day. So Kevin Marsh is not a risk free pick, but he's one who I just think on the margin has more credibility at this moment than Kevin Hassett does.
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B
Well, David, all of this is going on against an incredible backdrop, we found out last Sunday night that Jay Powell and others at the Federal Reserve are now evidently under investigation over cost overruns tied to a renovation project at the Fed's offices in Washington, D.C. now, for a full year of the second Trump term, it seems that Jay Powell and Donald Trump have been at odds. And Powell has been almost completely unflappable during these confrontations with the President. But what we saw this week was very different. Jay Powell releasing a video rejecting the whole thing, saying there's nothing to it. I have never seen a fighting mad Jay Powell quite like this. So how does that kind of aggressive pushback strike you, David? Does it strengthen the Fed's institutional credibility or is there some downside risk here?
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D
Well, it was an incredibly successful week for Jay Powell because what he did by getting in front of it that way and taking that posture was get the support of literally everybody and got the White House to completely retreat and actually have to put out a narrative that, oh, the President didn't even know about it and we weren't even a part of it. And this U.S. attorney Jeanine Pirro, formerly a Fox News, was doing this all on her own. There isn't any question that it is ridiculous and outrageous. And if cost overruns are now a criminal offense, then I gotta have a talk with my wife on a few things, but.
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B
Well, maybe that and check in with your member of Congress as well and.
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D
Every government employee in human history. But, but no one believes that there is really a concern about legality and criminality. It cost overruns, it's a bullying technique. And I actually, now that I've heard the whole story and had a few days to talk to people and process it, I think it is entirely possible that Pirro was on her own and that the President wasn't a part of it. Either way, this man has a few months left. His term is going to end. And there is absolutely no rationale for this. But what happened this week, Nick, that is important and why I say it was such a successful week for Jay Powell is you couldn't find a Republican that was willing to defend what happened. Everyone was taking Powell's side of it. And remember, there's enough Republican senators that are leaving that they can hold up votes. And that's exactly what happened with Senator Thom Tillis of the great state of North Carolina saying, I won't approve more Fed replacements if this thing isn't put away. So the leverage is not with lawfare right now. The leverages with the Fed and this thing look, it's unfortunate that the relationship deteriorated the way it did. I am not defending all the monetary policy decisions J. Pal's made, but a criminal investigation is ridiculous and I'm looking forward to being on the other side of this drama. So we can get back to the other drama of interest rate policy.
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B
Oh, in drama galore, let's turn to the drama involving voter sentiment. David. A new Wall Street Journal poll finds that voters are broadly unhappy with the economy. They're skeptical of the administration's handling of inflation. They are not convinced that economic growth is improving their lives. That's what came through pretty loud and clear in the Journal poll. Do you think that the voters are misreading the economy possib? Are they responding to something that the data don't fully reflect? What do you say?
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D
Well, remember, economy is not something that people read. The economy is something people do and feel. And so somebody who believes their standard of living is going down or not getting better or certain particular promises that were made to them are not happening, there's no data point that you can offer to make them feel better. And the reality is that I'm one who believes the inflation rate will actually be heading down from here, despite those various elements that tariffs are pushing higher just because I'm quite confident that housing and some of the rent numbers are going to be coming lower, which will help the data point. But for people to meaningfully feel better, you will have to see something in housing and rent levels. And that is right now we're seeing a couple different proposals a week come from the White House that are just really disappointing and really awful. But what could very well happen when some of the provisions from the big beautiful bill get enacted is I'm very hopeful you'll get an increase in capital spending, capital expenditures, business investment, something to drive productivity besides telling people, oh, we're building a data center upstate from you that'll be a booster to productivity. If the only thing we have going to try to boost productivity is stuff adjacent to AI, then I don't think that's going to be a great narrative this year. But there could very well be more. I just want to remind people the new tax Bill gives businesses 100% immediate expensing on capital expenditures and useful things put to work, the ability to deduct our research and development expenditures. Some of those things I hope will be stimulative. I do, because these questions come up more. I do spend more time criticizing the things I don't like that the administration does. And there's been a lot more of them than I expected.
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B
Okay.
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D
In the first year. We're now at one year anniversary and I feel disappointed in the way the first year has gone compared to the way I felt after the first year of the first term where I was largely very encouraged. But there have been some positive things and those things could very well pull through in 2026, the energy independence, the deregulation. But the problem is a lot of the deregulatory efforts are being offset by other regulatory suggestions. And so it's really going to be difficult to make voters feel good. But you know, I will say this, Nick, one of the ways to not disappoint voters is to not promise them stupid things and to promise voters that you're going to do things that you really can't do as a politician. Everyone has to do it, I guess to get elected. But I long for a day where we don't, where the government, the people running for government, their promise in the economy will be limited to the things they're going to stop doing, the damage they're going to try to get rid of, not we're going to go divide the oceans for you. That type of stuff I think sets a bad expectation. It's a messianic view of politics.
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B
All right. David Bonson is founder, managing partner and chief investment officer of the Bonson Group. He writes@dividendcafe.com has a new article out at World Opinions as well. David, hope you have a great week. We'll talk to you next time.
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D
Thanks so much, Nick.
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B
Good morning. THIS is the WORLD and everything in it from listener supported World Radio. I'm Nick Eicher.
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A
And I'm Mary Reichard. A quick note before we continue. Our next story includes details that may not be suitable for younger listeners. So we'll pause for a few seconds now before moving ahead. Up next, a story that begins with a single heartbreaking crime 30 years ago this month and ends with a nationwide response. World's Emma Eicher has the world history book.
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E
It was 30 years ago on a January afternoon when a nine year old girl named Amber was kidnapped in broad daylight. Amber was with her younger brother Ricky. He remembers that day in a documentary about Amber's disappearance.
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B
We would always ride our bikes around.
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D
The neighborhood and we did it very often.
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E
It was warm and sunny in Arlington, Texas. Amber and Ricky had just arrived at their grandparents house and went out for a ride. Amber had just gotten a new bike for Christmas, a pink one. Amber's mom Donna remembers when they took.
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D
Off and I hollered out. I said, we all stay together and.
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B
Y' all come right back.
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And Amber turns around and she looks at me.
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B
Okay, Mommy, we will.
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E
The kids usually just biked around the block and came right home. This time they didn't.
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B
But that day, we took a lift where we weren't supposed to go. We went to a abandoned parking lot. They have a little ramp that we can ride down.
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E
Worried they might get in trouble, Ricky turned back. Amber stayed while her brother biked home alone. When their grandfather asked where Amber was, Ricky said she was still in the parking lot.
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B
He grabbed me and put me in the truck, and we went to go look for her. We just found her bike laying there.
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E
Around the same time, someone nearby called. 911 Arlington 911, what are you reporting?
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B
Yeah, I saw Mike pickup pull up.
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D
Over here on Avery street, and he.
- [37:40]
B
Grabbed a little girl and took off toward town with her. She hollered real loud because I could.
- [37:45]
D
Hear her from over here.
- [37:46]
B
So that's what made me think there was something foul about it. Okay, we'll be out there shortly, sir.
- [37:51]
E
That caller was a neighbor who lived near the parking lot. He gave police a description. Patrols started pulling over black pickup trucks all over the city, and officers called local media to spread the word. Local news crews surrounded the family's house, interviewing Donna and Amber's dad, Richard, Please bring home Saint. Please.
- [38:13]
D
If anybody out there has seen anything, call the police. Tell them.
- [38:17]
B
Let them know.
- [38:18]
E
As the search widened, investigators turned their attention to Amber's parents, Donna Williams and Richard Hagerman. And the grandparents, as family members are often the first suspects in abduction cases. By day three, they were all cleared. Police worked round the clock, every lead a dead end. Day four, the search was over.
- [38:41]
B
What are you reporting? Yes, ma', am. My neighbors are yelling right now. They're saying that they're down the local fire.
- [38:50]
E
A man walking his dog found Amber's body in a Creek. More than 2,000 people attended her funeral. Police kept searching for the murderer, but the case turned cold.
- [39:01]
B
And unfortunately, her. Her murder, her untimely death, horrific, still remains unsolved today.
- [39:07]
E
That's John Bischoff. He works with the national center for Missing and Exploited Children. He says what happened to Amber forced the community to ask what could be done differently.
- [39:18]
B
The community, you know, we're looking for answers. One person, a lady by the name of Diane Simone, suggested a program to notify the public when a child was critically missing.
- [39:28]
E
Simone began looking for a faster way to get the public's help. At the time, there was already an emergency alert system used only in the most extreme situations. But Simone wondered if it could be used for local crimes too, specifically for child abduction.
- [39:45]
B
And hence started the first iteration of what an Amber Alert is today.
- [39:50]
E
With help from police and local media, the Amber Alert system was established later that year in Arlington, Texas. Named for Amber Hagerman and also forming an acronym standing for America's Missing Broadcast Emergency Response, it was first used in Amber's home hometown in 1997.
- [40:11]
B
This is an activation of the Amber Alert system at the request of the Arlington Police Department. Arlington police say a child, a two month old white female baby, has been kidnapped.
- [40:22]
E
The alert led police to that baby within 13 hours of her disappearance. She was the first of many rescued children.
- [40:29]
B
When an Amber Alert's involved, about 89% of the children are recovered within 24 hours.
- [40:35]
E
By 2003, the Amber Alert became a national program and the national center for Missing and Exploited Children began collecting statistics on its effectiveness.
- [40:44]
B
So it's actually really effective if you take a look over time to all the Amber Alerts that have gone out, only 40 remain still active today.
- [40:53]
E
For Ricky Hagerman, it's a bittersweet comfort to know that his sister's tragic death created a chance for other children to be saved.
- [41:01]
B
Every time I hear an Amber Alert.
- [41:03]
D
I say to myself, it's time to go to work, sis.
- [41:06]
B
Do your thing. I just wish that Amber had something in place at the time.
- [41:11]
E
This story draws select audio from the documentary the Girl behind the Alert. If you want the full account, the film is available to stream on peacock. That's this week's world history book. I'm Emma Eicher.
- [41:37]
A
Tomorrow, a teenage athlete injured on the court and the questions that followed. Peyton McNabb. Now in her own words and what makes art an investment. That and more tomorrow. I'm Mary Reichardt.
- [41:49]
B
And I'm Nick Einker. 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 lives and blessed be my rock. And exalted be the God of my salvation. The God who gave me vengeance and subdued peoples under me, who rescued me from my enemies. Yes, you exalted me above those who rose against me. You delivered me from the men violence. For this I will praise you, O Lord among the nations and sing to your name Great salvation he brings to his king and shows steadfast love to his anointed. To David and his offspring forever. The final five verses of Psalm 18. Go now in grace and peace.