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The World and Everything In It
4.17.25 The REAL ID rush, international pressure on homeschoolers, and the take down of a criminal network
00:33:51
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- [00:06]
Myrna Brown
Good morning. The summer travel rush is on and so is the scramble for real id. The deadline to get it is near. How will TSA keep things moving?
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Daniel Velez
We're not going to be turning people away in droves. We're just going to be enforcing the Real ID enforcement date of May 7th.
- [00:24]
Lindsay Mast
Also, how some states are responding to recent stories of homeschool abuse and neglect and a car theft case in a quiet town leads one officer straight into the crosshairs of organized crime.
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Daniel Velez
We were able to uncover just in our investigation, around $4.5 million in stolen cars.
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Lindsay Mast
And world commentator Cal Thomas on what ails the U.S. postal Service.
- [00:51]
Myrna Brown
It's Thursday, April 17th. This is the world and everything in it from listener supported World Radio. I'm Myrna Brown.
- [00:59]
Lindsay Mast
And I'm Lindsay Mast. Good morning.
- [01:03]
Myrna Brown
Up next, Kent, with today's news, the.
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Stephen Gardner
Justice Department is suing the state of Maine's Department of Education for refusing to keep biological men out of women's school sports. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
- [01:17]
Lindsay Mast
We are seeking an injunction to get them to stop this, stop what they're doing.
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Daniel Velez
That's pretty simple. And we are seeking to have the titles returned to the young women who.
- [01:32]
Lindsay Mast
Rightfully won these sports.
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Stephen Gardner
She is also seeking to halt federal funding, perhaps even retroactively. The lawsuit says Maine's policies deprive girl athletes of fair competition, deny them equal athletic opportunities, and put them at greater risk of harm, both physically and psychologically. U.S. education Secretary Linda McMahon told reporters.
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Daniel Velez
We want to make sure that if.
- [01:57]
Cal Thomas
You open women's sports or intimate facilities to males, you expose yourself to federal rights.
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Daniel Velez
Federal civil rights investigations. Governor Mills will definitely get her wish.
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Stephen Gardner
State officials in Maine argue that state law permits student athletes to compete in accordance with their gender identity and assert that the federal government is overstepping its authority. Meantime, across The Atlantic, the UK's highest court says it's not hard to define what a woman is. The court unanimously ruled that for all legal purposes, a woman is a biological female. The judges found that men who identify as transgender do have some protections against discrimination, but they do not have the same protections as women under Britain's 2010 Equality Act. Susan Smith is with a group called 4 Women Scotland.
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Elizabeth Schenck
And today the judges have said what we always believe to be the case, that women are protected by their biological sex, that sex is real, and that women can now feel safe, that services and spaces designated for women are for women.
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Stephen Gardner
The organization in 2022 challenged a law passed by Scottish Parliament that included transgender men and its definition of a woman. That law required that at least 50% of all public board seats be held by women. Activists said the law could potentially allow biological men to occupy seats for women and jeopardize single sex spaces. The Trump administration is pushing back over criticism of its deportation of a man from El Salvador. The case involving 29 year old Kilmar Abrego Garcia has sparked a legal and now a political fight. Democratic Senator Chris Van Holland traveled to El Salvador, where Garcia is now locked up.
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Cal Thomas
As I've said before, the goal of my visit is to talk to people here about the release of Kilmart of Grego Garcia.
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Stephen Gardner
The Salvadoran government denied him. A meeting with Garcia. An immigration judge in 2019 shielded him from deportation and the administration said a clerical error landed him on a plane loaded with gang members to El Salvador. But the Department of Justice asserts that Garcia is himself a gang member. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said, among other things, that when he was first arrested in 2019, Garcia was also.
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Mary Muncie
Arrested with two other well known members.
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Daniel Velez
Of the vicious MS.13 gang.
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Stephen Gardner
The DOJ's assertions about his gang affiliation are contested. The department, though, says it's releasing documents that it says will show Ms. 13 ties. However, Garcia has never been charged with a crime. Levitt added that Maryland court documents revealed Wednesday showed that Garcia's wife in 2021 petitioned for an order of protection against him for alleged domestic violence. Meantime, District Court Judge James Boasberg says he has found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in contempt for not following his earlier order in the Garcia case. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Says he is determined to get to the bottom of a rise in autism cases in the U.S. in.
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Cal Thomas
1987, out of 1 million, every 1 million kids, 330 were diagnosed with autism.
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Stephen Gardner
But he says today that number has jumped from a few hundred cases per 1 million kids to nearly 30,000 per 1 million. Some have pointed to more accurate diagnoses of autism as the reason for the jump. But Kennedy says with numbers like these, he's not buying that explanation. He also argues that genetics alone cannot explain it.
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Cal Thomas
We know it's an environmental exposure. It has to be. Genes do not cause epidemics. They can provide a vulnerability. You need an environmental toxin.
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Stephen Gardner
Kennedy says he is commissioning a series of studies into whether mold, pesticides, food, chemicals, medicines or other factors could be to blame. He's vowed to identify the root cause of the autism spike by September. Israel says it plans to build a buffer zone around Gaza to help prevent future terror attacks. World's Christina Grub reports Israel says its.
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Mary Muncie
Military will not be leaving areas it.
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Daniel Velez
Has seized around Gaza. That land amounts to just under 30.
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Mary Muncie
Square miles along the borders, about one fifth of Gaza's territory.
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Daniel Velez
Instead, Israel says its forces will remain in those areas permanently to effectively create.
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Mary Muncie
A buffer zone around the Gaza Strip.
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Daniel Velez
Israel also says humanitarian aid into Gaza must be halted until there's a way.
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Mary Muncie
To prevent Hamas from stealing it. For World I'm Christina Grub.
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Stephen Gardner
Police in South Africa have rescued an American pastor from a band of kidnappers after a shootout with law enforcement. Masked men had abducted 45 year old Josh Sullivan at gunpoint as he was preaching in the Eastern Cape Province last week. Police located the suspects in a car near a house where the pastor had been held. The suspects tried to escape and opened fire on officers as they approached. Three unnamed suspects were killed in the shootout. Officials say Sullivan, who was also in the car, was miraculously unharmed.
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Daniel Velez
FOREIGN.
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Stephen Gardner
Covington and Straight ahead, a September 11th initiative is about to begin after decades of delay. Plus, how a small town cop took down a crime ring. This is the WORLD and Everything in it.
- [07:46]
Lindsay Mast
It's Thursday 17th April. Glad to have you along for today's edition of the WORLD and Everything in It. Good morning. I'm Lindsay Mast.
- [07:55]
Myrna Brown
And I'm Myrna Brown. Up first, a deadline nearly two decades in the making. Starting May 7, airport security will begin enforcing the Real ID act of 2005. After years of delay, TSA announced on Friday it's ready to raise the bar at airport security. But is America really ready? World's Mary Muncie has the story.
- [08:26]
Mary Muncie
About 45 people stand in line outside of the Department of Motor Vehicles in Asheville, North Carolina. Yeah, so how long have you guys been standing here?
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Daniel Velez
About an hour.
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Mary Muncie
Jay Bursky and his wife Lauren are trying to get their real IDs so they can visit their children out west.
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Lindsay Mast
Definitely, I would say by the summer.
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Stephen Gardner
And our son's moving out to New Mexico in a few months.
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Daniel Velez
We need to be ready.
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Mary Muncie
State governments and federal agencies have been working for decades to get ready for Real ID enforcement. It goes back to the years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. After that, lawmakers considered ways to prevent similar attacks.
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Stephen Gardner
Dozens, maybe hundreds of different security efforts got underway and one of them was the idea of strengthening our identification systems in the United States.
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Mary Muncie
Jim Harper is a non resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. In the early 2000s, he worked with the Department of Homeland Security's Data Prevention and Integrity Advisory Committee.
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Stephen Gardner
It's plausible that if you knew who everyone was you'd have a better chance to stop attacks like the September 11th terrorist attacks. That doesn't necessarily bear out.
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Mary Muncie
When Congress considered a bill in 2004 to create federal standards for identification, many lawmakers saw the benefits of being able to identify terrorists before they could act. But Texas Congressman Ron Paul objected.
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Cal Thomas
So you're registering all the American people because you're looking for a terrorist, and all the terrorists are going to do is avoid the law. But we, the American people, have to obey the law. If we don't, we go to prison.
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Mary Muncie
That bill passed anyway, and the Real ID act soon followed. It set rules for states to create a form of identification that would raise the bar for verifying a person's identity with documents proving date of birth and legal residency. Real IDs are not required to drive or vote, but they will be required in order to get through airport security and access federal buildings. After nearly two decades of deadline extensions for states to start issuing real IDs and delays for a global pandemic, TSA announced in January that the May 7 deadline is for real. That sparked a rush for the DMV in many states.
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Daniel Velez
In March we issued 82,000, which is about 16,000 more than we had been over the last several months.
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Mary Muncie
Marty Homan is the communications director for the North Carolina DMV. He says the state just passed the 50% mark for residents carrying Real ID. Many are still in the process or have not been able to get appointments before the deadline. That's prompted officials in many states to ask residents to wait to apply until they need a real id.
- [11:18]
Stephen Gardner
If you're someone who's not traveling until.
- [11:20]
Daniel Velez
Later this summer or even the holiday season, you can wait. There's no reason to rush to try and get it by May 7.
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Mary Muncie
But what does the deadline mean for people without real ID who do need to travel?
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Daniel Velez
We're not going to be turning people away in droves. We're just going to be enforcing the Real ID enforcement date of May 7th.
- [11:41]
Mary Muncie
Daniel Velez is a spokesman for TSA covering airports in New England and North Carolina. He explains what will happen when enforcement begins.
- [11:51]
Daniel Velez
So if you come to the travel document checker and you do not have an acceptable id, what's going to happen is you are going to have to go through a process. Your screening process is going to take longer.
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Mary Muncie
People without real ID will be asked a series of questions to establish their identity by other means. But that will take time.
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Daniel Velez
If you were coming to the airport two hours early, come three hours early.
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Mary Muncie
And even for folks that do have acceptable id. Going through security may take more time.
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Daniel Velez
In your smaller airports where we may not have that ability to pull people aside. The folks who are in line may experience a little bit longer wait times. But we're going to do the best we can at every single airport to ensure that one, people are safe and then two, we're getting people expedited through security screening as fast as possible.
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Mary Muncie
Velez says just over 8 in 10 travelers already come to the airport with acceptable forms of identification, and many of the remainder likely already have the documents they need, like a passport or military ID.
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Daniel Velez
There's probably close to 20 different identifications that you can use and some people may already have them. They don't know it.
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Mary Muncie
Back at the Asheville dmv, James Serafini is leaving for California in two weeks. He'll make it on the plane before the deadline, but he's worried he might not be allowed onto his return flight.
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Cal Thomas
When I get to the airport, I'll beg and plead and bring all kinds of documents.
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Mary Muncie
He's almost to the front of the line. Further back, Jay and Lauren Bursky are determined to get their real IDs, too, even if it means standing in line all day.
- [13:35]
Stephen Gardner
I don't want to come back here.
- [13:36]
Daniel Velez
And have to wait again.
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Stephen Gardner
So we're hoping, I guess we're stuck here.
- [13:39]
Daniel Velez
Hopefully we'll get in before 5:00.
- [13:42]
Lindsay Mast
I thought you have an appointment at 3.
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Daniel Velez
I'm going to just have to skip it.
- [13:45]
Lindsay Mast
Yeah, we hope.
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Mary Muncie
Today, reporting for world I'm Mary Muncie in Asheville, North Carolina.
- [13:55]
Lindsay Mast
Coming up next on THE WORLD and everything in it, the growing homeschool crackdown. Since the pandemic, the homeschooling movement has surged in popularity across the U.S. and the U.K. but some lawmakers believe that when more children are taught at home, there's a greater risk of abuse.
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Myrna Brown
Yeah. They're proposing tighter rules ostensibly to protect children. But what does that mean for the freedom to homeschool?
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Lindsay Mast
Here's Paul Butler with the story reported and written by Becca McCallum.
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Paul Butler
Pushback on homeschooling is nothing new. Decades ago, some argued that parents couldn't provide a quality education without a teaching degree. Then opponents focused on claims that homeschooled students lacked socialization. Today, regulators have a different neglect and abuse high profile cases have fueled legislation in places like West Virginia, Illinois and in the UK In January, some members of Parliament pointed to the death of 10 year old Sara Sharif. Liberal MP Will Forster, her father and.
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Daniel Velez
Stepmother used this loophole in homeschooling to withdraw the child from school because signs were being noticed. And this new legislation could have protected.
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Cal Thomas
Her and should protect others.
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Paul Butler
Concerns about child abuse are not unfounded. Last year, the U S based Coalition for Responsible Home Education reported 423 cases of abuse and neglect in homeschool environments. That's over the last 25 years. By comparison, a study in 2000 estimated that in the 1990s alone, roughly 290,000 students nationwide experienced some sort of physical or sexual abuse while at public school. Even so, the concerns over abuse and homeschooling shouldn't merely be brushed aside. According to HSLDA International director Kevin Bowden, the possibility of abuse could go up as homeschooling becomes more common.
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Daniel Velez
If you have 6 million kids that are educated at home versus 2 million, the chance of something happen if there's 6 million, do it versus 2. I mean, that's just a numbers game.
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Paul Butler
But recent research suggests the problem isn't really homeschooling. Brian Ray is president of the National Home Education Research Institute based in Salem, Oregon. In a 2022 study, Brian Ray found that after controlling things like parental education level, household income, years in foster care, and ethnicity, the data is clear.
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Daniel Velez
There's no difference in the abuse and neglect rates between the institutionally schooled and the homeschooled.
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Paul Butler
Still, some advocacy groups claim that stricter homeschooling laws are crucial for better protecting children. For instance, the Children's well Being and Schools bill currently being debated by the UK Parliament would require, among other things, for home educating parents to provide local authorities with extensive details each time a parent veers off course by enrolling a child in a new sport or hiring a new tutor, they would have to notify authorities within 15 days. And that's not the only reporting the bill requires. Wendy Charles Warner is chairwoman of the advocacy group Education Otherwise.
- [17:11]
Myrna Brown
The bill requires the parent to declare.
- [17:14]
Elizabeth Schenck
How many hours each parent spends with the child, and that includes out of.
- [17:21]
Myrna Brown
School hours, weekends and holidays because they're educating.
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Daniel Velez
So the level of intrusiveness into the.
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Paul Butler
Family privacy is extreme in this country. The Coalition for Responsible Home Education released a model bill last July calling it the Make Homeschool Safe Act. That legislation called for local registrations, minimum teacher qualifications or educator oversight, student immunization records, and a catalog of other regulations that many argued would make homeschooling more difficult. The thinking seemed to be by requiring more transparency about their homeschool plans, it would result in better and safer education. But National Home Education Research Institute's Brian Ray maintains that there's no data to support the claim.
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Cal Thomas
The simple answer is we have no empirical evidence that that's true. So if you want to use research evidence as the way to control policy.
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Paul Butler
There is none to back that up. Ray pointed to another 2022 study, this time by Angela Dills, a professor of economics and a fellow with Ed Choice, a nonprofit advocating for educational freedom. Dill's research, published in the Journal of School Choice, looked at child abuse related deaths from 1979 to 2008. During that time, many states made legal provisions for homeschooling, and I can look.
- [18:45]
Elizabeth Schenck
At the effect of those laws that led to an increase in homeschooling and see if there's a change in child fatalities during that period. And mostly what I see is not a whole lot.
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Paul Butler
She insists that homeschooling on its own does not create an environment for abuse.
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Elizabeth Schenck
But I think empirically it's a claim that's just not substantiated with research.
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Paul Butler
Child abuse is rightly troubling. Everyone World spoke to for this story shares a common belief that children must be protected. Brian Ray says the difference is in how that's accomplished for them.
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Cal Thomas
It basically comes down to philosophy that.
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Daniel Velez
They think that the civil government should.
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Cal Thomas
Control all of us more to somehow try to reduce bad behavior.
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Paul Butler
Restrictions do aim at the real problem of child abuse, but HSLDA's Kevin Bowden says that by targeting homeschooling, law abiding families may get caught in the crossfire and restricting homeschooling may do very little in the end to protect at risk children.
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Daniel Velez
Let's do the right thing, which is the hard work of some. Deal with a child neglect case as a child neglect case under the child neglect laws of the state, of which every state has them. And so let's follow them. Let's deal with known risk factors and not punt to homeschooling because we think that that's how we can win or because it's somehow more available to us.
- [20:08]
Paul Butler
For World, I'm Paul Butler.
- [20:23]
Stephen Gardner
Additional support comes from Pensacola Christian College Academic Excellence Excellence Biblical Worldview, Affordable Cost, go pcci, edu World and from Ambassadors Impact Network, helping purpose driven entrepreneurs explore financing options that align with their values. More@ambassadorsimpact.com.
- [21:07]
Lindsay Mast
Filed this one under Long Suffering Taxpayer a letter from the late Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense. He faced down warlords and dictators, but admitted defeat to the US Tax code. On tax day, he'd send in his tax return along with a letter to the IRS admitting he had no clue whether his taxes were done correctly. His wife posted his letter online in 2014, and taxpayers everywhere commiserated. Rumsfeld wrote that he had absolutely no idea whether his tax returns and payments were accurate. He hired a professional accounting firm, and his wife signed them, too, though she also also had no idea if they were correct. Rumsfeld wrote he hoped the tax code might get simpler during his lifetime. It didn't. And somewhere deep inside the IRS bureaucracy, a form is still being processed. It's the world and everything in it.
- [22:17]
Myrna Brown
Today is Thursday, April 17th. Thank you for listening to World Radio. Good morning. I'm Myrna Brown.
- [22:24]
Lindsay Mast
And I'm Lindsay Mast. Coming next on THE WORLD and everything in it. Stealing cars car thefts in the US have topped 1 million per year. That's one car stolen every 37 seconds. Losses total around $8 billion annually. But most cases go unsolved.
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Myrna Brown
Why? Police departments often have neither the time nor resources to crack the sophisticated theft rings behind them.
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Lindsay Mast
But a determined officer in a sleepy Southern town takes the case up and uncovers a criminal network stretching up the East Coast. World associate correspondent Elizabeth Schenck has the story.
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Elizabeth Schenck
On a crisp December morning, Lillington, North Carolina, woke up to squealing tires, burnt rubber and empty parking spots where expensive cars and trucks sat minutes before it was big news on the local TV station wral.
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Daniel Velez
This is the exact brick that one brazen thieve used to bust through this.
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Cal Thomas
Door around 4:45 this morning before running.
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Daniel Velez
Down the hall and prying open a keybox. Around 4:15 a u haul pulls up near the Heaster Chrysler, Dodge Ram, Jeep and several people in hoodies run.
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Elizabeth Schenck
A surveillance camera at the dealership recorded more than 15 shadows weaving between Chargers, Challengers and TRX trucks. They were listening for key fob beeps. As soon as they found a match, the thieves slid behind the wheel.
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Daniel Velez
High end, high horsepower cars worth $631,000 taken in a matter of minutes.
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Elizabeth Schenck
The ringleaders pre selected the vehicles online and scouted out the parking lot at least a week in advance.
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Daniel Velez
They know what they're looking for when they get there. They even have inventory control numbers from car gurus. They know what the stock or lot number is for the car.
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Elizabeth Schenck
That's Detective Sergeant Stephen Gardner. Gardner specializes in everything from arson to car theft. But Lillington is home to only about 5,000 people. The town had never seen a case this big. Gardner said the planning happened on underground end to end encrypted chat sites like telegram sites that won't cooperate with law enforcement. The Thieves nabbed a total of 12 vehicles.
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Daniel Velez
That was the biggest rip that they got in all of their days of thievery.
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Elizabeth Schenck
By 10pm that night, Gardner and his lieutenant, Sunaso Latuli, had tracked two of the cars to a suburb of Charlotte about three hours away. They didn't realize they had pulled on a thread of a far reaching web, one that only God could help untangle.
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Daniel Velez
We had no idea this stuff was going on, and that's on us because we should be on the forefront of this stuff. We should be sharing the information.
- [25:07]
Elizabeth Schenck
Unlike police departments, thieves do share information. Their chat sites have links for YouTube tutorials on disabling tracking devices, cloning vehicle identification numbers, and using key fob reprogrammers, they post videos of themselves driving away from the troopers who pull them over.
- [25:24]
Daniel Velez
Some agencies have a no chase policy. So they're literally just stand and watch them drive away.
- [25:29]
Elizabeth Schenck
But even stolen cars need fuel. That's how Gardner had two thieves in custody just days after the heist. The morning of the robbery, a tip led Gardner to a gas station's camera footage.
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Daniel Velez
You can see he's putting gas in multiple cars, just like a NASCAR pit crew.
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Elizabeth Schenck
The thief's credit card was caught on camera. That's all the financial investigators working with Gardner needed. Hours later, Gardner arrested and interviewed the thief. That first interview snowballed into an avalanche.
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Daniel Velez
I remember his exact words were, look, I'm not built for prison. I'll tell you whatever you want to know. And something that we found with these auto theft crews is there's not a lot of loyalty among them.
- [26:09]
Elizabeth Schenck
They ratted each other out until 13 were apprehended, including the mastermind. Gardner networked with hundreds of police departments, Homeland Security, even the FBI. They uncovered a total of seven crime rings that spanned from New York to Florida. They were masters in every kind of fraud. The investigation started slowly. Bigger police departments were hesitant to work with the small town cops. But Gardner and Latuli kept at it. They drove up to people on the street at all hours of the night and interviewed them. Once they almost got into a shootout.
- [26:40]
Daniel Velez
We threw caution to the wind. And if it wouldn't have been for God's protection out there, who knows what could have happened.
- [26:44]
Elizabeth Schenck
It took six months to track down the thieves and retrieve eight of the stolen cars. In that time, Gardner also identified 100 other cars stolen from up and down the East Coast.
- [26:53]
Daniel Velez
We were able to uncover, just in our investigation, around $4.5 million in stolen cars.
- [26:58]
Elizabeth Schenck
Most car thefts never get solved. What made Lillington different.
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Daniel Velez
God put this thing together from day one. It was quick, it was fast, it was super aggressive. And if it wouldn't have been for our chief without, without his guidance and without him saying, you know, go forth and do the Lord's work, if it wasn't for him, we would have never figured this thing out.
- [27:18]
Elizabeth Schenck
Although Gardner had worked a lot of different cases in his 21 years with the department, he never had one quite like this.
- [27:24]
Daniel Velez
Before this case, I didn't know a thing about financial crimes.
- [27:27]
Elizabeth Schenck
That was more than three years ago. Now he's an expert.
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Daniel Velez
I'm still getting phone calls. You know, people are like, we just had a few cars stolen that exact same way. So the information has got to be blasted out there so everybody knows about it.
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Elizabeth Schenck
Gardner trains other law enforcement agencies, including the Secret Service and the FBI. He's been named one of the top three financial crimes investigators in the world. Despite the accolades, Gardner doesn't take credit for his success breaking up that first car theft ring.
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Daniel Velez
And if God wouldn't have lined all these pieces up, it would have never been solved. 100%. 100%. I believe God's in every single thing we do.
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Elizabeth Schenck
Reporting for World I'm Elizabeth schenck in Lillington, North Carolina.
- [28:24]
Lindsay Mast
Today is Thursday, April 17th. Good morning, this is the World and everything in it. From listener supported world Radio. I'm Lindsay Mast.
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Myrna Brown
And I'm Myrna Brown. Is it time to cancel the US Postal Service? Here's world commentator Cal Thomas.
- [28:45]
Cal Thomas
Better buy your forever stamps now because the US Postal Service has announced another price increase. On July 13, the cost of a first class stamp is scheduled to rise from $0.73 to $0.78. The plan is to raise prices four more times by 2027. Meanwhile, it appears for many people that service is declining. As a kid, I couldn't wait for the mailman to arrive always at the same time and the same person every day. At Christmas, there were deliveries in the morning and afternoon. For a while, I collected stamps, especially those from overseas. Before the Internet, mail was how people kept in touch. In 1985, the price of a first class stamp was 22 cents. My grandparents sent penny postcards. Domestic postcards will now cost 62 cents more if you mail them to another country. I recently sent a book from one major east coast city to another. It was by media mail, the cheapest rate. Normally it takes four to five days to arrive. This time, it took 11 days. The USPS tracking webpage revealed the book sat in the originating post office for a week before moving a reader wrote to me about his own frustration with a once reliable post office. He sent a letter by the more expensive yet supposedly more reliable Priority Mail Service. Mailed on April 7th, it was supposed to arrive in High Falls, New York on April 10th or the 11th. The postmaster verified the correct address and zip codes before adding to the pile of other letters ready to go out. After it left southwest Kansas, it got to Pennsylvania on the 10th, then apparently onto Richmond, Virginia. Then it was forward again in error to Chesapeake, Virginia. Records claim a delivery attempt was made before they discovered their error. They even marked it in red as out for final delivery. However, Chesapeake sent it back to Richmond via Norfolk, where it sat a while longer before Richmond sent it back to Chesapeake for delivery again. Once there, the post office noted the error and marked it for redelivery after returning it to Richmond. It's presumably on its way to High Falls, New York. But the reader bemoans. But who knows how long that will take? Or if they send it to the wrong post office again. You know, I'm beginning to experience and hear more of these stories. My local post office is usually understaffed. Even when there's a long line. Those who apply for passports take up large amounts of time and keep the rest of us waiting to mail a single item. And that brings us back to the cost. A major contributor to the rising prices of stamps is the Postal Service's obligation to its retirees. As axios reports, the USPS faces substantial pension obligations with unfunded liabilities totaling $409 billion against just 290 billion in assets. This is largely due to a system where USPS is responsible for its own retirement funding. Unlike other federal agencies, which receive annual appropriations, the USPS is required to pre fund retiree health benefits. And this mandate, along with other factors, contributes to the significant unfunded liabilities. As prices go up, usage declines. It's like many states run by Democrats as they raise taxes, people leave. When taxes are raised again to make up for lost revenue, even more leave. Most everyone enjoys getting a personal note in the mail, but bills can now be paid through online banks. Free digital holiday cards can be emailed. Saving money on stamps and cards, President Trump has proposed shutting down the Postal Service and rolling it into the Department of Commerce. Since 1792, the Post Office has had exclusive rights to deliver letters. Lifting that restriction would open things up to competition and presumably lower prices. What we have now is too expensive and inefficient. It's time to stamp it out. I'm Cal Thomas.
- [32:44]
Lindsay Mast
Tomorrow, John Stonestreet is back for Culture Friday. Plus, reviewer Max Bells on the desire for true humanity in a Disney classic. And an author reflects on some of the eyewitnesses to the crucifixion of Christ. That and more tomorrow. I'm Lindsay Mast.
- [33:01]
Myrna Brown
And I'm Myrna Brown. Our thanks to Washington producer Harrison Waters for his reporting on the Real ID story. 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 washing the disciples feet at what became the Last Supper, saying, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. Verse 34 of John chapter 13 Go now in grace and peace.