The World and Everything in It - June 17, 2021

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

The postal service keeps trying—and failing—to balance its budget. Now, Congress may have an idea to help out.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Also President Biden and President Putin meet up in Geneva, Switzerland. We’ll hear what happened from our reporter there.

Plus tips for keeping your skin safe while you’re soaking up all that summertime sunshine.

And commentator Cal Thomas on the systemic problem in education.

BROWN: It’s Thursday, June 17th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard. Good morning!

BROWN: Now the news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden, Putin call Geneva meeting productive, not hostile » President Biden and Russian leader Vladimir Putin met face to face in Geneva on Wednesday.

Biden said the tone of the three-hour meeting was neither friendly nor hostile, but professional and matter of fact.

BIDEN: Just letting him know where I stood, what I thought we could accomplish together, and what in fact, if there were violations of American sovereignty, what we would do.

President Biden said he made no threats, but made clear that if Russia crossed certain red lines—including going after major American infrastructure—the United States would respond and—quote—“the consequences of that would be devastating.”

Biden also once again decried the jailing of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

For his part, Putin defended Navalny’s arrest. And he insisted once again that his country had nothing to do with recent ransomware attacks affecting U.S. infrastructure. But he agreed with President Biden that the meeting was not hostile, calling it instead productive.

PUTIN: Principally speaking, many of our positions — we don’t share the same positions in many areas, but I think both sides showed a willingness to understand one another and to find ways to bring our positions closer together.

To that end, both leaders agreed to return their nations' ambassadors to their posts in Washington and Moscow. They also agreed to begin work toward replacing the last remaining treaty between the two countries limiting nuclear weapons.

Texas gov. signs law prohibiting gvmnt from closing places of worship » Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has signed a bill into law that bars the government from ordering houses of worship to close.

It comes roughly one year after Abbott issued an executive order that closed many businesses and organizations deemed nonessential. That included houses of worship.

Some faith leaders then sued. They urged the governor to designate churches as essential. Shortly thereafter, he relented and reversed the order.

In a tweet, Abbott said “I just signed a law that prohibits any government agency or public official from issuing an order that closes places of worship.”

He added, “The First Amendment right to freedom of religion shall never be infringed.”

Senate bill would make Juneteenth a federal holiday » Lawmakers just sent a bill to President Biden’s desk that would create a new federal holiday. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: The House overwhelmingly approved a bill last night that had already passed in the Senate. It would make the annual Juneteenth celebration the nation’s 12th federal holiday.

Juneteenth is already a holiday or an official observance of the day in many states, marked each year on June 19th. It commemorates the day when the last enslaved African Americans learned they were free from slavery.

Confederate soldiers surrendered in April 1865, but word didn’t reach slaves in the South until June 19th. That’s when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to Galveston, Texas nearly two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Under the legislation, the federal holiday would be known as Juneteenth National Independence Day.

President Biden is expected to sign the bill into law.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

SBC attendees approve sex abuse investigation » Delegates gathered at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention said they had some doubts about the ability of the denomination’s leaders to oversee a probe of how they handled sex abuse claims.

Attendees voted instead to have newly elected SBC President Ed Litton appoint a task force. The panel would oversee an independent inquiry into allegations that members of the Executive Committee stood in the way of reforms and mistreated sexual abuse survivors.

The Executive Committee has agreed to hire an outside firm to investigate the allegations. But critics said an outside group should hold the committee accountable for whatever that investigation turns up.

Israeli airstrike hits militant sites in Gaza » Israeli airstrikes hit militant sites in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, the first since a May 21st ceasefire. WORLD’s Sarah Schweinsberg has that story.

SARAH SCHWEINSBERG, REPORTER: The airstrikes followed several arson attacks by Palestinians who launched incendiary balloons into southern Israel. The balloons sparked several blazes in parched farmland.

The Palestinians launched their attacks after Israeli nationalists paraded through east Jerusalem. Palestinians consider the parade a provocation.

The Israeli army said its strikes targeted facilities used by Hamas militants for meetings to plan attacks. There were no reports of injuries.

After the airstrikes, masked Palestinians sent more balloons, laden with fuses and flaming rags, into Israel.

The flare-up of tensions is testing Israel’s new government, which took office early this week.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Sarah Schweinsberg.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: the effort to save the Postal Service from financial ruin.

Plus, a pitch for rethinking public education.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday, the 17th of June, 2021. You’re listening to World Radio and we’re so glad to have you along today. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. First up on The World and Everything in It: the U.S. Postal Service.

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stops these letter carriers, but money problems might. Financial woes have plagued the Post Office for decades. Last year, the agency lost $9 billion. And efforts to balance the budget have largely failed. 

REICHARD: But a new bill in Congress aims to patch up the Postal Service and keep those mail carriers making the rounds. Here’s WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown.

AUDIO: [SOUND OF MAILBOX]

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: This blue mailbox is a dying breed. It’s on a quiet street corner in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Even residents who’ve lived on this block for years don’t know it’s here. But a postal worker comes to check it, every single day around 4 p.m.

That’s because the postal service has one core mandate: universal service.

WOODS: One of our missions is to ensure that every address in the country receives mail every day.

David Woods is a retired postmaster in Massachusetts. Every day, postal workers climb into trucks, ferries, and planes to deliver mail to every address, no matter how remote—from an island in Maine to a cabin in Montana. There’s even a little community in the Grand Canyon where postal workers deliver the mail by mule.

WOODS: Everywhere where there is a registered address, there's a letter carrier that is delivering mail.

This universal service obligation makes the postal service special, but it’s not necessarily cost effective. Sometimes, it would make more sense to cut service to a certain area. But the postal service doesn’t make the rules. Congress does.

GEDDES: The Postal Service is, in fact, in this limbo.

Rick Geddes teaches infrastructure policy at Cornell University. He says that, in some ways, the postal service is supposed to operate like a business. It generates revenue from stamps and fees, then uses that to cover the costs of operation, without any government funds.

But in other ways, the postal service runs like a federal agency. It doesn’t set its own service standards, or even the price for stamps. Congress does that.

GEDDES: So it's very much still a government entity, even though it's supposed to operate in this business like fashion.

Another problem? Twenty five years ago, Congress saddled the post office with an extra financial obligation. Here’s Chris Edwards, an economist at the Cato Institute.

EDWARDS: A 2006 law required the agency to pre-fund the future retirement benefits of its employees.

Every year, the postal service must put millions of dollars into retirement health care plans for employees it might someday hire. Up to 75 years in the future. That puts enormous strain on post office budgets and post masters like David Woods.

WOODS: We felt the pressure because you had to do your best to stick within the budget that you were given. But there was always a reduction of somewhere between three and 7 percent. So do what you did last year, just do it with less money. That's where the pressure came through.

So far, the postal service has paid about $21 billion into that retirement health care fund. But it’s short by almost $50 billion. Those delayed payments continue to count as an expense and show up red on the ledgers.

Earlier this year, House lawmakers introduced a bill intended to wipe that out.

MALONEY: The committee will come to order. I now call up HR 3076, the postal service reform act.

One of the bill’s key components would remove that pre-funding requirement. The postal service would no longer have to pay for future retirees’ healthcare. Instead, those benefits would be covered by Medicare.

Lawmakers say that change would save the postal service $46 billion dollars over the next 10 years.

But Chris Edwards points out that someone still has to fund those benefits. It’s just a question of who.

EDWARDS: The Postal Service Reform Act would essentially move the costs of USPS worker retirement over to the federal government Medicare system. They're just shifting the costs over essentially from people who use USPS services onto the general federal government taxpayer.

Another part of the bill would mandate the postal service continue delivering mail six days a week. That’s a move that doesn’t make a lot of sense to Rick Geddes because mail volume has been dropping steadily since 2001.

GEDDES: People don't send letters anymore, people send texts and phone calls and emails, and other electronic substitutes for a letter.

Instead of doubling down on six-day-a-week delivery, Geddes thinks Congress ought to consider reducing it.

GEDDES: It's not clear that people need to receive mail delivery six days a week to every address. What we think Congress should do is revisit that maybe it should be three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday is enough.

And those blue mailboxes on street corners? Geddes says we probably don’t need quite so many of them.

Both Geddes and Edwards say the reform bill is a good start. But they think the postal service needs more changes to keep the carriers going for generations to come.

EDWARDS: There is the weight of history here that the U.S. postal system has been, you know, a real key part of our republic now for two centuries. But times have changed. And I think we need our postal system to adjust to the new realities of 21st century economy.

For WORLD Radio, I’m Anna Johansen Brown reporting from Glen Ellyn, Illinois.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: meeting with a “worthy adversary.”

That’s how President Biden described Russian leader Vladimir Putin ahead of Wednesday’s summit in Geneva.

The White House was quick to tamp down expectations, calling the president’s objective “realistic.” Biden said he was simply seeking a “predictable and rational” relationship with Moscow in his first face to face meeting with Putin as commander in chief.

But did he achieve that objective?

MARY REICHARD, HOST: WORLD’s European correspondent Jenny Lind Schmitt joins us now to help answer that question. She is reporting from the news room in Geneva. Good morning, Jenny.

JENNY LIND SCHMITT, CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Mary!

REICHARD: It sounds really busy in the press room there. Describe what it’s like.

SCHMITT: It is busy. This is a big media tent set up just down the hill from the Villa La Grange, where the summit took place and right on the shores of Lake Geneva. 

REICHARD: Just curious as to why Geneva was chosen as the location for this summit between Biden and Putin?

SCHMITT: Yeah, a couple of reasons. First of all, the Swiss take security very seriously. And as much as some of the locals are complaining about the hassles involved in having a large part of the city blocked off, they're pretty used to it. A lot of international organizations are here, the Red Cross began here, and then the United Nations followed and after that there's a lot of organizations that are based here. Switzerland is politically neutral, historically. It's not part of the European Union and so some of the disagreements the EU has with Russia seem just a little further away and that makes it seem like neutral ground. And that's the other reason Geneva was chosen. It's symbolic. Reagan met Gorbachev here in 1985—the last time U.S. and Russian leaders met here. And historians point to that meeting as kind of the first thaw at the end of the Cold War.

REICHARD: Okay, let’s move on now to the summit itself. Biden is no Reagan, and Putin is no Gorbachev.

SCHMITT: That's right, very different era, very different men. And yet eerily relations between Russia and the United States are really at their most strained since the end of the Cold War. Russia recalled its ambassador to the U.S. in March of this year after Biden said in an interview that he did think Putin was a killer. And then in April, Russia suggested that the U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan returned to the United States for consultation. So for a couple months now, there haven't been ambassadors in either nation, and that's made the strained relationship even more so.

REICHARD: Well, Jenny, what came out of this meeting?

SCHMITT: So, at Biden's press conference after the summit, he said that he was very pleased, it was a constructive meeting. And he had said he had come to do three things and that he accomplished them. One, identify areas of mutual interest. Two, communicate directly with Putin. And three, clearly lay out our country's values and concerns.

The topics that Biden said that he spoke to President Putin about, the big ones were cybersecurity. And in President Putin's press conference, he was dismissive at the allegations that those attacks are coming from Russia, but he did say that they had decided and agreed that they would work on those together. In Biden's press conference, he said that he and President Putin had talked about how certain critical infrastructure should be off-limits for both nations, from the energy sector to water. He also said responsible countries need to take action against criminals and he pressed Putin on that and said that if Russia continues to harbor people who are committing criminal cyber activity, that there will be consequences, there will be a response. 

The other big topic that kept coming up was human rights. He brought up Alexy Navalny, of course, the opposition leader who's been imprisoned. He also raised the cases of two Americans who've been wrongly imprisoned in Russia. And then he brought up the need for the free press to operate freely .

REICHARD: Jenny, final question. What else did you personally find interesting there?

SCHMITT: Well, so much of these in-person meetings is a lot about posturing and body language, both personally and also as an ensemble. And when the motorcades came by I was down at the media center, and I was able to get out and I saw first Putin's and then Biden's. And something I thought was interesting is just that the size of Biden's motorcade was about twice as big as Putin's. The other thing I thought really interesting was that as the two met and sat down in the library and the photographers were snapping photos, they were both pretty stoney faced. But Putin was just kind of slumped in his chair. And the thought that crossed my mind is the look of a naughty child who knows he's got a scolding coming. And I was not in those meetings. I don't know what happened. But I would say that from the reactions and the press conferences afterwards, I got the impression that Putin was not completely happy with how things had gone and that Biden was. So that's my little takeaway.

REICHARD: Very good. Jenny Lind Schmitt is WORLD’s correspondent in Europe. Jenny, get some rest, and thanks so much!

SCHMITT: Thank you, Mary. Take care.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Instincts are powerful things, as a 2-year-old border collie named Tilly just proved in Idaho.

The Oswald family was driving along State Highway 41 last week when they crashed into another car.

The impact shattered the rear window and poor Tilly was ejected from the vehicle. Everyone was okay, but the dog was nowhere to be seen.

The family and volunteers searched for the dog for about 10 hours. No luck. But when the Oswalds took their search online and posted a picture of Tilly to Facebook, they got a hit!

A local farmer found Tilly, perfectly healthy, outside of his house trying to herd his sheep. Tyler Potter told KXAN

POTTER: The sheep were getting scared. He was running here. All our dogs were all like freaking out.

Border collies are a herding dog breed, and Potter believes Tilly was instinctively drawn to his livestock.

Border collies have a strong work ethic! I should know. I have one! Smartest dog ever.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, June 17th. This is WORLD Radio and thank you for turning to us to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Sunscreen!

This weekend is the official start of summer. Which means you’ll be outside doing things in the blazing sun.

REICHARD: You know you need to protect your skin. But you go down the sunscreen aisle at the store, and there are so many options! So what to use? WORLD’s Paul Butler did some research and brings us this report.

CALVO: Sunscreen really does help protect your skin against the cumulative damage that can lead to sagging wrinkles, and even more importantly, skin cancer…

PAUL BUTLER, REPORTER: Tricia Calvo is the deputy editor of health and food at Consumer Reports...she covers sunscreen.

CALVO:  Sunscreen is a product that you put onto your skin that's designed to block the harmful UVA...

That’s ultraviolet radiation A...it causes sunburns and aging skin.

CALVO: ...and UVB rays that the sun produces…

Ultraviolet radiation B—the more damaging UV radiation—leads to skin cancer.

CALVO: So you really do want to take measures to protect yourself against the sun's rays.

Just about everybody knows they should protect themselves, but have you seen how many sunscreen choices there are? And the labels aren’t a lot of help.

SOUND: ENTERING PHARMACY

I sent Josh Schumacher, our summer intern, into a big box store pharmacy earlier this week to try to pick out a bottle of sunscreen:

JOSH SCHUMACHER, INTERN: Hey ma’am, where do I find the sunscreen? [off mic: I think it’s all the way on the back wall.] All the way on the back wall? Ok, thank you.

The Food and Drug Administration regulates sunscreen and the terms on the labels—it’s considered an over-the-counter medication.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: Ah, sunscreen. Ok, we’ve got 60 SPF. 30 SPF. 100 SPF! Whatever that means...

When it comes to packaging, there are a lot of terms. Let’s start with SPF. Again, Tricia Calvo.

CALVO: So SPF,  stands for sun protection factor, that's a term that has a specific meaning and some standards behind it.

CALVO: Theoretically, it's a measure of how long a sunscreen will protect you in the sun compared to how long it would take for you to burn.

SPF is a measure of how well a product blocks UVB rays with its shorter wavelengths and higher energy levels. According to the Food and Drug Administration: SPF is not directly related to the amount of time you can be exposed to the sun, but rather the intensity of the solar exposure.

CALVO: SPF 30 will will shield you from about 97% of the sun's UVB rays. And as you go higher, you get an incremental, an incremental percentage more of blocking of the sun's rays…

But SPF is just the beginning…there are a lot of other terms and marketing slogans.

SCHUMACHER: Water and sun protection. Light weight. Fast drying. Clinically proven. Suitable for sensitive skin. Protects against 99 percent of burning waves...

Consumer Report’s Tricia Calvo says you really only need to look for two additional meaningful terms:

CALVO: Broad spectrum.

“Broad spectrum” is simply sunscreen that protects against both UVA and UVB radiation.

CALVO: Water resistant.

“Water resistant” indicates that it remains effective for a short period of time while swimming or sweating—usually 40 or 80 minutes. Notice, it’s not the same as waterproof.

CALVO: Waterproof actually is a term that the FDA banned many years ago because it was giving people a misconception that you could put it on and it would stay on no matter how long you were in the water.

But no sunscreen is waterproof.

CALVO: It's really important to reapply that sunscreen as soon as you dry off. Because the friction from the water, the friction from your clothing, and your toweling off is going to start to have that sunscreen dissipate from your skin.

Sunscreens come in two main categories: chemical and mineral.

CALVO: Chemical sunscreens are the ones that contain active ingredients like avobenzone and oxy bands…

Chemical sunscreens create a fine film that absorbs the heat from the sun’s rays, mimicking the Ozone Layer. On the other hand—and arm—mineral sunscreen sits on the surface of your skin and deflects the sun’s rays.

CALVO: So they both are protective, but they protect in different ways.

Over the years, Consumer Report tests consistently find that mineral sun screens aren’t as effective as chemical ones. But many islands like Hawaii and U.S. territories like St. Croix have outlawed chemical sunscreens with oxybenzone or octinoxate. So mineral products are growing in popularity.

Regardless of which you choose, Tricia Calvo says most people don’t use enough of either product.

CALVO:  I think a lot of people don't realize just how much sunscreen it really takes to cover your whole body…

She says it takes a little less than a quarter cup if you’re in a swimsuit. Or...

CALVO: ...you need at least a teaspoon on different body parts. So a teaspoon for your arms, a teaspoon for your face and your neck and your ears, a teaspoon for your chest…

If you’re concerned about covering your body with chemicals, or your skin is sensitive to some of the mineral products, you can still go out in the sun safely.

CALVO: The other thing that you can do is really be very, very diligent about covering up in other ways—sit under an umbrella, wear a rash guard, make sure that you're covering up your skin with a physical blocker of material.

Like wearing a hat, or a long sleeve shirt. And if possible, don’t go out when the sun is strongest—usually between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. for most of the country.

CALVO: And these are things that you should do, even if you are wearing sunscreen.

AUDIO: PHARMACY SOUNDS

Back in the sunscreen aisle...

PAUL BUTLER: [OFF MIC] How in the world would you make up your mind which of these you need?

JOSH SCHUMACHER: Oh, I don't know. Probably take into account what's cheapest and then probably. I'm ashamed to admit it. You know, how does the product look?  Probably go with something like this. Just because this brand looks like it knows what it's doing.

Well, turns out, Josh isn’t that far off.

CALVO: You don't have to spend a fortune to get a good sunscreen. In CR's tests over the years we haven't seen any clear relation between price and performance. Don't let the marketing hype sway you—when it comes to effectiveness, all sunscreens are held to the same standards. But if the scent, the packaging, or even the name makes you want to use it, that's great because the best sunscreen is one you'll actually use.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Paul Butler with Josh Schumacher in Princeton, Illinois.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, June 17th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Here’s commentator Cal Thomas on public education’s dismantling of western ideals.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: A New Jersey school district has voted to eliminate "the names of all religious and secular holidays from the school calendar ... opting for the more generic description 'Day Off.'" You can guess the reason. They used those increasingly popular words—"inclusive" and "equitable."

No more Christmas, Hanukkah, Memorial Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, or even Indigenous Peoples Day (formerly known as Columbus Day). Maybe they should keep April Fools' Day because that accurately reflects their decision. Or, since they have chosen "Day Off," they could name them after the film character Ferris Bueller.

In Fairfax County, Virginia, the country's 10th largest school district, leaders are taking such foolishness even further.

School board member Abrar Omeish delivered the commencement address at Justice High School. Before her speech, RedState.com reports, a student recited the Pledge of Allegiance, but not the one we are used to: "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under Allah, indivisible, and with liberty and justice for all."

Under Allah?

Omeish told students the United States was guilty of stealing land from Native Americans. She also denounced "extreme capitalism, individualism, and white supremacy." She has previously made remarks that "target and marginalize Jewish students and their families," according to the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington.

These and other incidents and decisions made by school boards across the country have raised the ire of many parents. Some have shown up at public board meetings, denouncing members. Others are engaged in recall efforts. But will any of their replacements be better than the current ones?

This summer offers a unique opportunity for parents and their children. After more than a year of distance learning that has left some students behind, especially those in marginalized communities, now is an excellent time to rethink our entire education system. Public education, established three centuries ago with values that are in sharp contrast to what is taught today, has long exceeded its expiration date.

Parents should take advantage of school choice in states that allow them to choose the schools that best teach subjects that matter. Those that at a minimum do not undermine the country, its history (good and bad), their faith, and societal values.

The pandemic has allowed parents to see the contrast between what many public schools have become—"missionaries" for a far-left and secular agenda—and what they were taught as students in an altogether different country.

Parents have it in their hands to make a lasting difference by depriving the system of raw material—their children—who in many cases are being indoctrinated with secular progressive ideas.

An admonition by the late first lady Barbara Bush seems even more important today: “Your success as a family ... our success as a nation ... depends not on what happens inside the White House, but on what happens inside your house.”

And in schools.

I’m Cal Thomas.

CAL THOMAS: I’d like to add another thought here before I go.

Around half the states in this country make school choice available, but you already have full news-media choice and I’m glad you’ve freely chosen to listen to WORLD.

But I want to challenge you today to support it.

WORLD doesn’t bring in big-time ad dollars from woke corporate America and receives no taxpayer support like public media.

WORLD relies on its audience for support and that’s you. And it’s me.

This is WORLD’s June Giving Drive. I hope you’ll head over to WNG.org/donate and make as generous a gift as you can.

Like I’ve just done. Yes, I donate, too.

I’ve been in news for 50-plus years and each year my conviction grows as the evidence piles up that the mainstream media are hopelessly in thrall to leftist ideology.

I’ve worked with liberal news people—some of the best in the business—and at least they strove for balance. Often they succeeded. They were pros.

But that day is gone.

This is why the success of WORLD is so critically important.

Please support WORLD’s June Giving Drive at WNG.org/donate.

Thanks so much.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: John Stonestreet joins us for Culture Friday.

And, summertime Scripture reading. We have some recommendations for how to soak up the Word in a new way.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers.

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.