Judge nixes claim that Bronx Zoo elephant is ‘imprisoned’

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FILE - In this Oct. 2, 2018 file photo, Bronx Zoo elephant "Happy" feeds inside the zoo's Asia habitat in New York. On Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020, animal rights advocates have lost a bid seeking to get Happy declared to have human-like rights and transferred to a sanctuary, though a judge said the case for sending the pachyderm to a sanctuary was "extremely persuasive." Judge Allison Tuitt dismissed the Nonhuman Rights Project's petition arguing that Happy the elephant is "unlawfully imprisoned" at the zoo where she has lived since 1977. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)




NEW YORK (AP) — Animal rights advocates have lost a bid to get a Bronx Zoo elephant declared to have human-like rights and transferred to a sanctuary, though a judge said the case for sending the pachyderm to a sanctuary was “extremely persuasive.”

Bronx Judge Alison Tuitt on Tuesday dismissed the Nonhuman Rights Project’s petition arguing that Happy the elephant is “unlawfully imprisoned” at the zoo where she has lived since 1977. She has been kept separate from other elephants for more than a decade.

New York courts have previously said animals aren’t legally considered “persons,” and Tuitt said those rulings applied to Happy, too. But the judge said she was “extremely sympathetic to Happy’s plight.”


“This court agrees that Happy is more than just a legal thing, or property. She is an intelligent, autonomous being who should be treated with respect and dignity, and who may be entitled to liberty,” the judge wrote, calling the arguments for transferring Happy from her “lonely” exhibit to a sprawling elephant sanctuary “extremely persuasive.”

Zoo Director Jim Breheny said the ruling keeps Happy in a place providing her with “excellent care.”

“The veterinarians, keepers, and curators at the Bronx Zoo believe it is best for Happy to remain in familiar surroundings with the people she knows, relies on and trusts,” Breheny said in a statement Wednesday.

The Nonhuman Rights Project lamented that the 48-year-old Happy would stay at the zoo but hailed the judge’s comments and vowed to press on.

“Happy’s freedom matters as much to her as ours does to us, and we won’t stop fighting in and out of court until she has it,” Executive Director Kevin Schneider said in a statement.

The group said Happy was in fact living a sad life, isolated from other elephants in a 1-acre (0.40-hectare) exhibit that covers far less territory than she would in the wild, or in a 2,300-acre (931-hectare) sanctuary that has agreed to take her.

Born in the wild in Asia and brought to the U.S. as a 1-year-old, Happy was paired with a female elephant named Grumpy for 25 years. In 2002, Grumpy was fatally injured in a confrontation with two other Bronx Zoo elephants, Maxine and Patty. Happy was then paired with another elephant until its death in 2006.

After that, the Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the zoo, said it would no longer acquire new elephants.

Happy was kept apart from Maxine and Patty due to concerns they wouldn’t get along. Maxine was euthanized in November, after the zoo said she had neurologic deterioration and generalized muscle weakness that left her unable to eat.


The Nonhuman Rights Project wants Happy to be relocated to a large sanctuary where she could socialize with other elephants and roam more freely.

The zoo’s Breheny says the activists have been spreading misinformation about Happy’s circumstances and exploiting the pachyderm “to further their misguided philosophical agenda and fund-raise for their cause.”

The zoo has said that while Happy doesn’t share a holding area with other elephants, she has “tactile and auditory contact with them” and isn’t languishing.

Breheny said Wednesday that zookeepers “continually assess Happy’s situation and will make decisions based on what is best for her as an individual.”


FILE - In this Oct. 2, 2018 file photo, Bronx Zoo elephant "Happy" strolls inside the zoo's Asia Habitat in New York. On Tueday, Feb. 18, 2020, Bronx Judge Allison Tuitt dismissed the Nonhuman Rights Project's petition to have the elephant declared to have human-like rights and transferred to a sanctuary. They argued at that Happy is "unlawfully imprisoned" at the zoo where she has lived since 1977. She has been kept separate from other elephants for more than a decade. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

#MKULTRA

After learning of Whitey Bulger CIA LSD tests, 
juror has regrets

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Janet Uhlar sits for a photo at her dining room table with an arrangement of letters and pictures she received through her correspondence with imprisoned Boston organized crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger, Friday, Jan. 31, 2020, in Eastham, Mass. Uhlar was one of 12 jurors who found Bulger guilty in a massive racketeering case, including involvement in 11 murders. But now she says she regrets voting to convict Bulger on the murder charges, because she learned he was an unwitting participant in a secret CIA experiment in which he was dosed with LSD on a regular basis for 15 months. (AP Photo/David Goldman)


EASTHAM, Mass. (AP) — One of the jurors who convicted notorious crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger says she regrets her decision after learning that he was an unwitting participant in a covert CIA experiment with LSD.

Bulger terrorized Boston from the 1970s into the 1990s with a campaign of murder, extortion, and drug trafficking, then spent 16 years on the lam after he was tipped to his pending arrest.

In 2013, Janet Uhlar was one of 12 jurors who found Bulger guilty in a massive racketeering case, including involvement in 11 murders, even after hearing evidence that the mobster was helped by corrupt agents in the Boston office of the FBI.

But now Uhlar says she regrets voting to convict Bulger on any of the murder charges.

Her regret stems from a cache of more than 70 letters Bulger wrote to her from prison. In some, he describes his unwitting participation in a secret CIA experiment with LSD. In a desperate search for a mind control drug in the late 1950s, the agency dosed Bulger with the powerful hallucinogen more than 50 times when he was serving his first stretch in prison — something his lawyers never brought up in his federal trial.

“Had I known, I would have absolutely held off on the murder charges,” Uhlar told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “He didn’t murder prior to the LSD. His brain may have been altered, so how could you say he was really guilty?” At the same time, Uhlar says she would have voted to convict Bulger on the long list of other criminal counts, meaning he still would likely have died in prison.

Uhlar has spoken publicly about her regret before but says her belief that the gangster was wrongly convicted on the murder charges was reinforced after reading a new book by Brown University professor Stephen Kinzer: “Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control.” The book digs into the dark tale of the CIA’s former chief chemist and his attempts to develop mind control techniques by giving LSD and other drugs to unsuspecting individuals, including colleagues, and observing the effects.
“It was encouraging to know I wasn’t losing my mind, thinking this was important,” Uhlar said. “It told me, this is huge. I mean, how many lives were affected by this? We have no idea.”

Gottlieb’s secret program, known as MK-ULTRA, enlisted doctors and other subcontractors to administer LSD in large doses to prisoners, addicts and others unlikely to complain. In Bulger’s case, the mobster and fellow inmates were offered reduced time for their participation and told they would be taking part in medical research into a cure for schizophrenia.

“Appealed to our sense of doing something worthwhile for society,” Bulger wrote in a letter to Uhlar reviewed by the AP.


Letters addressed to Janet Uhlar that she received through her correspondence with imprisoned Boston organized crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger, sit on her dining room table, Friday, Jan. 31, 2020, in Eastham, Mass. Before he died, though, Bulger engaged in extensive correspondence with Uhlar, writing her more than 70 letters, including several that detailed his unwitting role in the MK-ULTRA experiments. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

But nothing could have been further from the truth.

“The CIA mind control program known as MK-ULTRA involved the most extreme experiments on human beings ever conducted by any agency of the U.S. government,” Kinzer said. “During its peak in the 1950s, that program and it’s director, Sidney Gottlieb, left behind a trail of broken bodies and shattered minds across three continents.”

After Bulger was found guilty by Uhlar and the other jurors, a federal judge sentenced him to two life terms plus five years. But his life behind bars ended a little more than a year ago, at age 89, when he was beaten to death by fellow inmates shortly after arriving in his wheelchair at the Hazelton federal prison in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. No criminal charges have been filed.

Although much had been written about the CIA’s mind control experiments before Bulger’s trial, Uhlar said she knew nothing about them until she began corresponding with the renowned gangster following his conviction.

Uhlar started writing Bulger, she said, because she was troubled by the fact that much of the evidence against him came through testimony by former criminal associates who were also killers and had received reduced sentences in exchange for testifying against their former partner in crime.

“When I left the trial, I had more questions,” she said.

After Bulger started returning her letters, Uhlar noticed he often dated them with the time he had started writing in his tight cursive style. “He always seemed to be writing at one, two, or three in the morning and when I asked him why, he said it was because of the hallucinations,” Uhlar said.

When Uhlar asked him to explain, Bulger revealed what he had already told many others: that since taking part in the LSD experiments at a federal prison in Atlanta, he’d been plagued by nightmares and gruesome hallucinations and was unable to sleep for more than a few hours at a time.

“Sleep was full of violent nightmares and wake up every hour or so — still that way — since ’57,” he wrote.

“On the Rock at times felt sure going insane,” he wrote in another letter, referring to the infamous former prison on Alcatraz Island, in San Francisco Bay, where he was transferred from Atlanta. “Auditory & visual hallucinations and violent nightmares — still have them — always slept with lights on helps when I wake up about every hour from nightmares.”

The mobster also recalled the supervising physician, the late Carl Pfeiffer of Emory University, and the technicians who would monitor his response to the LSD, asking him questions such as, “Would you ever kill anyone? Etc., etc.”

That question struck a nerve with Uhlar. After hearing from Bulger about MK-ULTRA, “as if I should have known about it,” she visited him at a Florida federal prison on three occasions to discuss the experiments and started reading everything she could find about them.

At one point, she reviewed the 1977 hearings by the U.S. Senate Committee on Intelligence, which was looking into MK-ULTRA following the first public disclosures of the top-secret program.

The hearings included testimony from CIA director Stansfield Turner, who acknowledged evidence showing that the agency had been searching for a drug that could prepare someone for “debilitating an individual or even killing another person.”

“That’s just horrifying, in my opinion,” Uhlar said. “It opens up the question of whether he was responsible for the murders he committed.”

According to at least two of the several books written about Bulger and his life of crime, associates including corrupt former FBI agent John Morris said they assumed Bulger would use the LSD experiments to mount an insanity defense, if he were ever caught and tried.

But in 2013 Bulger’s Boston attorneys, J.W. Carney Jr. and Hank Brennan, unveiled a novel defense in which they admitted Bulger was a criminal who made “millions and millions of dollars” from his gangland enterprise, but was enabled by corrupt law enforcement officers, especially those in Boston office of the FBI.

Neither Carney nor Brennan would comment on their decision — attorney client privilege outlasts a client’s death. But Anthony Cardinale, a Boston attorney who has represented numerous organized crime defendants, said he would have opted for an insanity defense, in part because of the abundant evidence against Bulger.

“I would have had him come into court like Harvey Weinstein, all disheveled, and in a wheelchair,” he said.

Still, Cardinale acknowledged there would have been challenges to presenting an insanity defense, including the fact that Bulger spent 16 years outwitting several law enforcement agencies, before he was captured in 2011 in Santa Monica, Calif., where he’d been living quietly with his longtime girlfriend while on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.

“The problem is, he lived for a very long time on the lam in a very secretive and a very smart way,” Cardinale said. “But that doesn’t diminish the notion that, based on the LSD experiments, and the doses he was experiencing, he could have convinced himself of things that were not true, including that he had immunity from prosecution and could do whatever he wanted.”

To his dying day, Bulger insisted he’d received criminal immunity from a deceased federal prosecutor who once headed the New England Organized Crime Strike Force.

John Bradley, a former Massachusetts federal prosecutor and assistant district attorney, agreed that defense lawyers would have faced high hurdles waging an insanity defense, noting that most end in convictions.

“The flip side is that jurors are sometimes swayed by morality more than legality,” he said. “The whole shtick that the government played a role in creating this monster, uses him as an informant and then goes after him — that’s an argument that could affect one or two jurors.”

And it only takes one to vote not guilty on all the criminal charges to produce a hung jury, Bradley noted, forcing prosecutors to decide whether to retry a case.

Given Bulger’s decades as a crime boss who corrupted the Boston office of the FBI, paying cash and doing favors in exchange for information that helped him thwart multiple investigations, a retrial would have been a near certainty. Nevertheless, Cardinale said, a hung jury in the Bulger case “would have been a monster victory” for the defense.

Even if Bulger were convicted on the other criminal charges and received a sentence that would have kept him behind bars for life, a refusal to find him guilty on the murder charges would have meant anguish for family members of his victims.

“As in any case involving a tragic murder, a conviction of the perpetrator helps family member obtain closure and move on with their lives,” said Paul V. Kelly, a former federal prosecutor who has represented the family of one of Bulger’s murder victims. “An acquittal of Whitey Bulger on the murder charges would have just caused additional pain and anguish.”

Uhlar has written about the Bulger trial in “The Truth be Damned,” a fictionalized account she published in 2018 and advertises on her website. She also gives occasional talks on the trial at community centers and libraries.

During her correspondence and visits with Bulger, Uhlar said, she grew fond of the gangster, though he often warned her that he was a criminal and “master manipulator.” When asked if Bulger might have manipulated her, she said, “I’ve asked myself that many times. I’ll finish reading a letter and say, ‘Could he have?’ “

Bulger often wrote to Uhlar as if she were a friend, even joking with her. But in one letter he also enclosed a more menacing message inscribed to her on the back of a photo taken of him on “the Rock,” at a time when he was fending off LSD-induced nightmares while contemplating his return to Boston’s violent criminal underworld.

“At end of Alcatraz, getting more serious and capable of about anything,” he wrote. “Hard time makes hard people.”

___

AP investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.

Follow Associated Press investigative reporter Michael Rezendes at https://twitter.com/mikerezendes

Amid protests, Portugal lawmakers vote to allow euthanasia

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Demonstrators protest outside the Portuguese parliament in Lisbon, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2020. Protesters gathered Thursday outside Portugal's where lawmakers were due to debate proposals that would allow euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide. Groups which oppose the procedures waved banners and chanted "Sim a vida!" ("Yes to life!") in bright sunshine outside the parliament building in Lisbon. One banner said, "Euthanasia doesn't end suffering, it ends life." (AP Photo/Armando Franca)

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Portugal’s parliament voted Thursday in favor of allowing euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill people.

The landmark vote left Portugal poised to become one of the few countries in the world permitting the procedures. However, the country’s president could still attempt to block the legislation.

The 230-seat Republican Assembly, Portugal’s parliament, approved five right-to-die bills, each by a comfortable margin. Left-of-center parties introduced the bills, which had no substantial differences.

Before lawmakers voted, hundreds of people outside parliament building protested the measures. One banner said, “Euthanasia doesn’t end suffering, it ends life.” Some protesters chanted “Sim a vida!” (“Yes to life!”) and others held up crucifixes and religious effigies.


Demonstrators, some of them holding statues of saints, protest outside the Portuguese parliament in Lisbon, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2020. Protesters gathered Thursday outside Portugal's where lawmakers were due to debate proposals that would allow euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide. Groups which oppose the procedures waved banners and chanted "Sim a vida!" ("Yes to life!") in bright sunshine outside the parliament building in Lisbon. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)


Inside the parliament building, underlining the historical weight of the moment, each lawmaker was called, in alphabetical order, to state their vote on each bill, instead of voting electronically. Such a lengthy method is usually used only for landmark votes, such as a declaration of war or impeachment.

After the five bills passed, some lawmakers took photographs with their smartphone of the electronic screen on the wall announcing the results. The bills were approved by margins of between 28 and 41 votes.

President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who is known to be reluctant about euthanasia, could veto the new law, but parliament can override his veto by voting a second time for approval. The Portuguese president doesn’t have executive powers.

The head of state also could ask the Constitutional Court to review the legislation; Portugal’s Constitution states that human life is “sacrosanct,” though abortion has been legal in the country since 2007.

Euthanasia — when a doctor directly administers fatal drugs to a patient — is legal in Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland. In some U.S. states, medically-assisted suicide — where patients administer the lethal drug themselves, under medical supervision — is permitted.

Ana Figueiredo, a math teacher, became a supporter of euthanasia after her 70-year-old father with terminal cancer killed himself with a gun almost six years ago.

“He was conscious, in deep pain and ... he went on begging his doctors to take his pain away because he was in such a terminal state,” Figueiredo said. “It was very sad to see him begging for a dignified death without pain.”


The Catholic church in Portugal has led opposition to the procedures, which currently are illegal and carry prison sentences of up to three years. Church leaders have urged lawmakers in vain to hold a referendum on the issue.

In a similar debate two years ago, lawmakers rejected euthanasia by five votes.

Most parties allowed their lawmakers to vote their conscience, with some diverging from their party line.

Socialist lawmaker Isabel Moreira said the aim of the bills was to let people “make intimate choices, without breaking the law.”

In recent years, the Socialist Party has also led successful efforts to permit same-sex marriages and abortion in Portugal.

“Everyone can be the architect of their own destiny, as long they don’t harm others,” Moreira said during the debate.

Telmo Correia, a lawmaker from the conservative Popular Party, described euthanasia as “a sinister step backward for civilization.” He said none of the parties presenting the legalization proposals mentioned euthanasia in their platforms for October’s general election.

The governing Socialist Party’s bill, similar to the others, covers patients over 18 years of age who are “in a situation of extreme suffering, with an untreatable injury or a fatal and incurable disease.”

Two doctors, at least one of them a specialist in the relevant illness, and a psychiatrist would need to sign off on the patient’s request to die. The case would then go to a Verification and Evaluation Committee, which could approve or turn down the procedure.

The process is postponed if it is legally challenged, or if the patient loses consciousness, and health practitioners can refuse to perform the procedure on moral grounds. Oversight is provided by the General-Inspectorate for Health.

To discourage people from traveling to Portugal to end their life, the bills all stipulate that patients must either be Portuguese citizens or legal residents.

The Socialist-led coalition government in Portugal’s neighbor Spain has also set in motion the legislative steps needed to allow euthanasia.

___

AP reporter Helena Alves contributed from Lisbon.

New Mexico’s sued Google over allegations it is illegally collecting personal data generated by children 

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s attorney general sued Google Thursday over allegations the tech company is illegally collecting personal data generated by children in violation of federal and state laws.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque claims Google is using its education services package that is marketed to school districts, teachers and parents as a way to spy on children and their families.

Attorney General Hector Balderas said that while the company touts Google Education as a valuable tool for resource-deprived schools, it is a means to monitor children while they browse the internet in the classroom and at home on private networks. He said the information being mined includes everything from physical locations to websites visited, videos watched, saved passwords and contact lists.

The state is seeking unspecified civil penalties.

“Student safety should be the number one priority of any company providing services to our children, particularly in schools,” Balderas said in a statement. “Tracking student data without parental consent is not only illegal, it is dangerous.”

Google dismissed the claims as “factually wrong,” saying the G Suite for Education package allows schools to control account access and requires that schools obtain parental consent when necessary.

“We do not use personal information from users in primary and secondary schools to target ads,” said company spokesman Jose Castaneda. “School districts can decide how best to use Google for education in their classrooms and we are committed to partnering with them.”

UnlikeEurope, the U.S. has no overarching national law governing data collection and privacy. Instead, it has a patchwork of state and federal laws that protect specific types of data, such as consumer health, financial information and the personal data generated by younger children.

New Mexico’s claim cites violations of the state’s Unfair Practices Act and the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which requires websites and online services to obtain parental consent before collecting any information from children under 13. In a separate case, Google already has agreed to pay $170 million combined to the Federal Trade Commission and New York state to settle allegations its YouTube video service collected personal data on children without their parents’ consent.

According to the New Mexico lawsuit, outside its Google Education platform, the company prohibits children in the U.S. under the age of 13 from having their own Google accounts. The state contends Google is attempting to get around this by using its education services to “secretly gain access to troves of information” about New Mexico children.

The attorney general’s office filed a similar lawsuit against Google and other tech companies in 2018, targeting what Balderas described as illegal data collection from child-directed mobile apps. That case still is pending in federal court, but the companies have denied wrongdoing.

The latest lawsuit claims more than 80 million teachers and students use Google’seducation plaform. Balderas said in a letter to New Mexico school officials that there was no immediate harm if they continue using the products and that the lawsuit shouldn’t interrupt activities in the classroom.

THE POPE'S FAVORITE NFL TEAM

NFL Saints backed by church in effort to keep emails secret

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FILE - In this Thursday, Nov. 28, 2019 file photo, New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson waves to the crowd before the first half of an NFL football game between the Atlanta Falcons and the New Orleans Saints in Atlanta. Benson, who inherited the team following her husband Tom Benson's 2018 death, said the team's senior vice president of communications advised Archbishop Gregory Aymond to be “honest, complete and transparent” about clergy abuse. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An attorney for New Orleans’ Roman Catholic archdiocese Thursday strongly defended the New Orleans Saints’ behind-the-scenes help in dealing with the clergy sex abuse crisis, saying the legal effort to release hundreds of confidential emails between them is aimed at trying to shame those “who had the audacity” to back the church.

Claims that the NFL team’s public relations help was improper are “nothing more than a clear attack on the Catholic faith and the Catholic Church for wrongs of the past that the church has acknowledged,” attorney E. Dirk Wegmann argued.

He added that the emails are private and “should not be parsed through simply for the purpose of annoying or embarrassing — or bringing public scrutiny on — individuals who supported the church.”

The impassioned remarks came amid a court hearing on the Saints’ request to keep secret hundreds of emails the team exchanged with the archdiocese in 2018 and 2019. A special master overseeing the proceeding was not expected to rule immediately.

The hearing comes amid claims the Saints joined the church in a “pattern and practice” of concealing sexual abuse — an allegation team officials have vehemently denied.

Attorneys for some two dozen men suing the church say the emails show team officials had a say in deciding which priests the archdiocese named on a 2018 list of dozens of “credibly accused” clergy members. An Associated Press analysis found that roster was undercounted by at least 20 names.


2/5 FILE - In this Oct. 23, 2016, file photo, a New Orleans Saints helmet rests on the playing field before an NFL football game in Kansas City, Mo. An Associated Press review of public tax documents found that the Bensons' foundation has given at least $62 million to the Archdiocese of New Orleans and other Catholic causes over the past dozen years, including gifts to schools, universities, charities and individual parishes. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)



The Saints say their involvement was limited to a team executive preparing church leaders for the publicity surrounding the credibly accused list.

Retired Judge Carolyn Gill-Jefferson heard arguments from attorneys for the archdiocese, the Saints and the AP, which broke news of the emails and filed a motion urging their release.

AP attorney Mary Ellen Roy argued that neither the Saints nor the archdiocese had met their legal burden to demonstrate the emails are confidential. The news organization argued in court papers that any privacy interests “are minimal compared to the public’s concern about the roles the Archdiocese and the Saints played in managing public opinion.”

“They’re trying to have it both ways,” Roy said. “They’re trying to say, ‘Everything we did was fine and dandy, but let us tell you that. Don’t look at them yourselves and make your own determination of that.’”

Gill-Jefferson was appointed “special master” in the dispute by an Orleans Parish Civil District Court judge overseeing a lawsuit against the archdiocese over a longtime deacon accused of abusing schoolchildren decades ago.

The Saints say they have nothing to hide but have asked Gill-Jefferson to apply “the normal rules of civil discovery” in the lawsuit, rather than allowing attorneys for the men suing the church to “selectively disseminate” the emails before trial. The team has said it does not oppose the emails being made public at a later stage of the litigation.

“The Saints motion to maintain confidentiality is not rooted in a desire to conceal information,” Saints attorneys wrote in court filings last week.

Team owner Gayle Benson, a devout Catholic who has donated millions of dollars to church causes, said last week she is proud of the role the team played in assisting the archdiocese, efforts she said were part of a bid to help “heal the community.”


Benson, who inherited the team following her husband Tom Benson’s 2018 death, said the team’s senior vice president of communications advised Archbishop Gregory Aymond to be “honest, complete and transparent” about clergy abuse.

The attorneys for the men suing the church, however, have said the Saints and archdiocese have misled the public about their coordination and the contents of the emails.

They argued in court papers that the public has a right to know “whether this is an untoward relationship designed not only to mitigate the PR fallout from the church sexual abuse crisis but also to spin some of the underlying facts.”

Wegmann, the archdiocese attorney, said the AP’s reporting on the Saints’ involvement ignited a “media storm.”

“It was like you threw a match in a warehouse full of gasoline,” he said.

All the while, Wegmann added, church leaders have been contending with some claims of clergy abuse that “could not ever have happened” based on the assignments of certain priests.

“The fact that an allegation is made does not mean ... that you get a red letter,” he said.



3/5 FILE James C. Gulotta, Jr., attorney for the New Orleans Saints, right, leaves a hearing at Orleans Parish Civil District Court in New Orleans, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2020. The New Orleans Saints headed to court Thursday in a bid to block the release of hundreds of confidential emails detailing the behind-the-scenes public relations work the team did for the area's Roman Catholic archdiocese amid its sexual abuse crisis. The request comes amid claims that the NFL team joined the Archdiocese of New Orleans in a “pattern and practice” of concealing sexual abuse — an allegation the Saints have vehemently denied. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)


4/5 Edward Dirk Wegmann, attorney for the New Orleans Archdiocese, right, and James C. Gulotta, Jr., attorney for the New Orleans Saints, leave a hearing at Orleans Parish Civil District Court in New Orleans, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2020. The New Orleans Saints headed to court Thursday in a bid to block the release of hundreds of confidential emails detailing the behind-the-scenes public relations work the team did for the area's Roman Catholic archdiocese amid its sexual abuse crisis. The request comes amid claims that the NFL team joined the Archdiocese of New Orleans in a “pattern and practice” of concealing sexual abuse — an allegation the Saints have vehemently denied. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)

U.S. medical schools boost LGBTQ students, doctor training


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In this Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019 photo Harvard Medical School student Aliya Feroe, of Minneapolis, Minn., poses for a photograph on the school's campus, in Boston. Feroe recalls a flustered OB-GYN who referred her to another physician after learning she identified as queer. Medical schools are beefing up education on LBGTQ health issues. And some schools are making a big push to recruit LGBTQ medical students, backed by research showing that patients often get better care when treated by doctors who are more like them. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)


2 of 3

In this Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019 photo Harvard Medical School student Aliya Feroe, of Minneapolis, Minn., displays a button resembling a Harvard School of Medicine coat of arms lion, in rainbow colors that symbolize LGBTQ pride, left, and a button featuring pronouns, center, on the lapel of her lab coat on the school's campus, in Boston. The pronoun button is meant to show support for preferred gender pronouns. Some medical schools are making a big push to recruit LGBTQ medical students, backed by research showing that patients often get better care when treated by doctors who are more like them. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)


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In this Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019 photo Harvard Medical School student Aliya Feroe, of Minneapolis, Minn., poses for a photograph on the school's campus, in Boston. Feroe recalls a flustered OB-GYN who referred her to another physician after learning she identified as queer. Medical schools are beefing up education on LBGTQ health issues. And some schools are making a big push to recruit LGBTQ medical students, backed by research showing that patients often get better care when treated by doctors who are more like them. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Aliya Feroe recalls the flustered OB-GYN who referred her to another physician after learning she identified as queer. For Rhi Ledgerwood, who was designated female at birth, identifies as trans and doesn’t have sex with men, it was a doctor advising about condoms and pregnancy prevention. For Tim Keyes, who came out as gay at age 17, it’s when doctors automatically assumed he sleeps with women.

Ask any LGBTQ patient about awkward doctor visits and chances are they’ll have a story to tell.

When being heterosexual is presumed even in doctors’ offices, those who identify otherwise can feel marginalized and less likely to seek medical care, contributing to health problems that include high rates of depression, suicidal behavior, alcohol and drug use and inadequate health screenings, LGBTQ advocates say.

Now, moves are afoot to remedy that. The American Medical Association vowed in November to push for a federal ban on gay conversion therapy. Medical schools are beefing up education on LBGTQ health issues. And some schools are making a major push to recruit LGBTQ medical students, backed by research showing that patients often get better care when treated by doctors more like them.

Feroe, Keyes and Ledgerwood — all pursuing medical careers — are part of the trend.

“LGBTQ physicians deserve an equal standing in the medical community and LGBTQ patients deserve the same quality of care awarded to anyone else,” said Feroe, a third-year Harvard medical student.

Increasing LGBTQ enrollment and training in LGBTQ health issues in medical schools can help achieve those goals, advocates say.

Exact numbers of LGBTQ medical students and doctors are unknown. In 2018, the AMA added sexual orientation and gender identity as an option for members to include in demographic profiles the group compiles. Of the 15,000 doctors and students who have volunteered that information so far, about 4% identify as LGBTQ. That’s similar to Gallup estimates for the general U.S. population, although LGBTQ advocates believe the numbers are higher and rising as more people are willing to “out” themselves.

This past fall, Harvard’s entering class of medical students was 15% LGBTQ, a milestone that is no accident.

The Association of American Medical Colleges’ primary application used by U.S. schools began offering prospective students the option of specifying gender identity and preferred pronouns in 2018. Harvard’s school-specific application allows applicants to identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer. A response is not required, but the option “sends a message that you’re wanted,” said Jessica Halem, the medical school’s LGBTQ outreach director.

“We know that doctors need to look like and be a part of the communities they serve,” Halem said.

“We have gay Muslim students. Lesbians from China. Students who are survivors of conversion therapy,” she said. “They are now out and very proud gay people and they are healing those wounds.”

Feroe had intended to present herself as straight in medical school, fearing doing otherwise would be off-putting for patients and make her feel like an anomaly among her peers.

But Harvard has an active LGBTQ student group on campus, faculty members who ask students if they prefer being called her, him or they, and coursework addressing LGBTQ medical care. Halem said that includes what screening tests are needed for women who have sex with transgender men, the hormone treatments to prescribe for transgender patients, and what it means when someone identifies as pansexual.

Feroe said she was “blown away” during a recent surgery rotation at one of Harvard’s affiliated hospitals, where a few patients were accompanied by same-sex partners. The doctors she was training with “smoothly asked about people’s lives” and were completely comfortable “when learning patients were queer,” she said, important steps toward offering non-judgmental “patient-centered” care.

A 2017-18 Association of American Medical Colleges report found that while most schools include some LGBTQ coursework, half reported three or fewer lectures, group discussions or other learning activities.

And a study of medical residents published last March found a widespread lack of knowledge on LGBTQ health issues. Dr. Carl Streed, the lead author and an associate professor at Boston University’s medical school, is among advocates pushing for a standardized, mandatory LGBTQ curriculum to fill the gaps.

Streed said a harrowing doctor’s visit nearly 15 years ago when he had symptoms of a cold and swollen lymph nodes motivated him to pursue a medical career.

“When I explained I was a gay man, the physician became very brusque, suggested HIV testing, left the room and never came back,” recalled Streed, who was an undergraduate at the time.

Testing elsewhere showed Streed did not have HIV, but no one suggested tests for illnesses more common among college students, including mononucleosis, and he never received a diagnosis.

Physicians’ personal beliefs should not “determine the quality of care and compassion that is delivered to patients,” he said.

Rhi Ledgerwood entered the University of Louisville medical school in 2014, the year it became the pilot site for coursework and training in LGBTQ health issues based on guidelines from the Association of American Medical Colleges.

At Louisville, LGBTQ health care topics are woven into the curriculum in classes that explore issues such as gender-affirming hormone therapy, taught along with more traditional coursework.

Ledgerwood, now a medical resident in pediatrics, remembers feedback from classmates “who felt it didn’t apply to them or their future practices. It went against their beliefs and they didn’t feel like they should be wasting their time on this subject.”

They were politely told the curriculum was here to stay, and Louisville now serves as a model for other medical schools.

When Tim Keyes enrolled in Stanford University’s medical school in 2015, he was surprised to learn he was one of only two gay students in the first-year class who were “out.”

“Because we’re here in the California Bay area, I was expecting the community to be a little bit different,” Keyes said.

LGBT health issues were crammed into one elective class that attracted relatively few students, but now a broader focus is part of the mandatory curriculum.

Two years ago, Keyes was among six students at four universities who created the Medical Student Pride Alliance. The group has 31 chapters on U.S. campuses and works to promote recruitment of LGBTQ students in medical schools, more enlightened coursework and improvements in LGBTQ medical care.

A lecture he heard at Stanford in which a professor mentioned that nearly 1 in 2 teens under age 18 who identify as transgender will attempt suicide shows why the group’s work is so important, Keyes said.

The professor went on to note that studies have shown “the risk becomes much closer to zero,” Keyes recalled, “if a physician simply counsels them and offers affirmative care.”

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Homeland Security waives contracting laws for border wall
February 18, 2020

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FILE - In this Nov. 7, 2019 file photo, the first panels of levee border wall are seen at a construction site along the U.S.-Mexico border, in Donna, Texas. The Trump administration said Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020, that it will waive federal contracting laws to speed construction of the border wall with Mexico. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Trump administration said Tuesday that it is waiving federal contracting laws to speed construction of a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, moving the president closer to fulfilling a signature campaign promise in an election year but sparking criticism about potential for fraud, waste and abuse.

The Department of Homeland Security said waiving procurement regulations will allow 177 miles (283 kilometers) of wall to be built more quickly in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. The 10 waived laws include a requirement for open competition and giving losing bidders a chance to protest decisions.

The acting Homeland Security secretary, Chad Wolf, is exercising authority under a 2005 law that gives him sweeping powers to waive laws for building border barriers.


“We hope that will accelerate some of the construction that’s going along the southwest border,” Wolf told Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends.”

Secretaries under President Donald Trump have issued 16 waivers, and President George W. Bush issued five, but Tuesday’s announcement marks the first time that waivers have applied to federal procurement rules. Previously they were used to waive environmental impact reviews.

The Trump administration said the waivers will allow at least 94 miles (150 kilometers) of wall to be built this year, bringing the Republican leader closer to his goal of about 450 miles (720 kilometers) since he took office and made it one of his top domestic priorities. It said the other 83 miles (133 kilometers) covered by the waivers may get built this year.

“Under the president’s leadership, we are building more wall, faster than ever before,” the department said in a statement.

Critics say the waivers do away with key taxpayer safeguards. U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said the president’s “cronies are likely to be the beneficiaries.”

Charles Tiefer a professor at University of Baltimore School of Law who specializes in government contracts, said the government “can just pick the contractor you want and and you just ram it through ... The sky’s the limit on what they bill.”

Scott Amey, general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, said waiving a law for contractors to provide the government with certified cost data — such as how much they pay for labor or parts — could lead to grossly inflated prices.

“It’s equivalent to buying a car without seeing a sticker price,” Amey said. “This could be a recipe for shoddy work and paying a much higher price than they should.”

Administration officials say providing cost data can be onerous and difficult.

Congress gave the secretary power to waive laws in areas of high illegal activity in 2005 in legislation that included emergency spending for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and minimum standards for state-issued identification cards. The Senate approved it unanimously, with support from Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The House passed it with strong bipartisan support; then-Rep. Bernie Sanders voted against it.

The waiver authority has survived legal challenges. In 2018, a federal judge in San Diego rejected arguments by California and environmental advocacy groups that the secretary’s broad powers should have an expiration date. An appeals court upheld the ruling last year.

The waivers, to be published in the Federal Register, apply to projects that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will award in six Border Patrol sectors: San Diego and El Centro in California; Yuma and Tucson in Arizona; El Paso, which spans New Mexico and west Texas, and Del Rio, Texas.

The move came five days after Defense Secretary Mark Esper approved a $3.8 billion request from Homeland Security to pay for walls in those same areas, and the Pentagon acknowledged that more cuts could be coming to provide additional funding. The Pentagon’s decision stripped money from major aircraft and procurement programs that touch Republican and Democratic districts and states.

The Defense Department transferred $6.1 billion to wall construction from its counter-narcotics and construction budgets after Congress gave Trump only a portion of what he wanted. The administration has been able to spend Pentagon money during legal challenges.

The administration said the waivers will apply to contractors that have already been vetted. In May, the Army Corps named 12 companies to compete for Pentagon-funded contracts.

Those shortlisted companies are

Fisher Sand & Gravel Co. of Dickinson, North Dakota, whose leader has sought publicity on conservative media; Texas Sterling Construction Co., of Houston, a unit of Sterling Construction Co.; a joint venture Caddell Construction Co., of Montgomery, Alabama, and Gibraltar Construction Co. of Annapolis, Maryland; Barnard Construction Co. of Bozeman, Montana; West Point Contractors Inc. of Tucson, Arizona; Southwest Valley Constructors Co. of Albuquerque, New Mexico, a unit of Kiewit Corp.; Bristol Construction Services LLC of Anchorage, Alaska; Randy Kinder Excavating Inc. of Dexter, Missouri; CJW Construction Inc., of Santa Ana, California; Burgos Group LLC of Albuquerque, New Mexico; Posillico Civil Inc. / Coastal Environmental Group Inc. of Farmingdale, New York; and Martin Brothers Construction Co. of Sacramento, California.

NFL owners approve negotiated terms for new labor agreement

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John Mara, owner of the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL), arrive for a meeting with NFL owners to discuss a proposed labor agreement, Thursday Feb. 20, 2020, in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

NEW YORK (AP) — The NFL has put the labor ball in the players’ hands.

In a somewhat surprisingly strong decision, the 32 team owners voted Thursday to “accept the negotiated terms on the principles of a new collective bargaining agreement.”

Details of that agreement were not forthcoming from any of the owners or Commissioner Roger Goodell. They quickly scurried from a Manhattan hotel without nothing more than “sorry, can’t help you,” or “I can’t comment” when asked about the proposed CBA.

Now the onus is on the players, who have a conference call Friday involving the union executive committee and player representatives. The NFL Players Association said it would not comment Thursday on the NFL’s announcement.

Such quick action by the owners indicates their eagerness to replace the 10-year labor agreement that concludes in March 2021. Several elements of a new CBA could be implemented for the upcoming season should the players vote in favor of it.

That, of course, is no given. Should the players vote against accepting this proposal or seek further negotiations, the NFL has said the current agreement would remain in place for 2020. A league statement put a deadline on acceptance by the union, saying “since the clubs and players need to have a system in place and know the rules that they will operate under by next week.”

The league’s business year begins March 18.

Among the items in that proposal, according to several people familiar with the negotiations but speaking anonymously because they are not authorized to release such information:


— A 17-game schedule, which always has been a stumbling block in talks with the NFL Players Association. More roster spots per team would be a must for the players.

A 17th game would preferably be played at neutral sites, which one of the people familiar with the talks said could include non-NFL U.S. venues as well as Europe, Mexico and Brazil.

— A reduction of the preseason, initially from four games to three.

— A higher share of revenues for the players; the current number is 47 percent. The cut the players would receive is dependent on the length of the regular season, but would remain below 50 percent regardless.

—An expansion of the playoffs, something the NFL has been seeking for years.

Commissioner Roger Goodell suggested back in 2015 that increasing the postseason field to seven teams in each conference was in the works. The owners could unilaterally add a wild-card team in the AFC and the NFC, but are willing to make such a move part of a new CBA.

The provisions for two more wild-card games, developed years ago, would have only the team with the best record in each conference receiving a bye for the first weekend of the playoffs.

There’s even a chance one of those wild-card matchups would be played on a Monday night.

Also being considered is a second bye week to go with a 17th game, although almost certainly not for the 2020 season. The expansion of the playoffs easily could occur this year, however, if a new CBA is reached.

The current labor agreement was reached in 2011 after a 4½-month lockout of the players.

In a copy of a union fact sheet posted on Twitter by sports attorney Darren Heitner, several other items were revealed.

The players are seeking a neutral decision maker on some disciplinary cases to replace Goodell, something the commissioner’s office always has fought.

Also on the fact sheet are upgraded pensions for past and current players; increases in minimum salaries; larger practice squads with fewer limitations; reduced workouts in preseason; narrowing the testing period for players for marijuana use, plus lowered discipline for using it; and a reduction in on-field fines.

___ More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL

Amid ‘Anonymous’ fallout, NSC adviser reassigned

FILE - In this Nov. 3, 2019, file photo, the south side of the White House is pictured before President Donald Trump arrives. Victoria Coates, a top official on the National Security Council, is being reassigned amid fallout over the identity of the author of the inside-the-White House tell-all book by “Anonymous.” (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Victoria Coates, a top official on the National Security Council, is being reassigned amid fallout over the identity of the author of the inside-the-White House tell-all book by “Anonymous.”

Coates, who serves as national security adviser for the Middle East and North Africa,will be joining the Department of Energy as a senior adviser to Secretary Dan Brouillette, the NSC announced Thursday.

The move comes amid renewed speculation about the author of the book, “A Warning,” and a New York Times essay that were deeply critical of President Donald Trump, written under the pen name “Anonymous.”


But a senior administration official insisted the move had nothing to do with the speculation, saying top White House officials reject rumors that have circulated in recent weeks suggesting Coates is the author. The move, they said, has been in the works for several weeks.

“We are enthusiastic about adding Dr. Coates to DOE, where her expertise on the Middle East and national security policy will be helpful,” Brouillette said in a statement. “She will play an important role on our team.”

“While I’m sad to lose an important member of our team, Victoria will be a big asset to Secretary Brouillette as he executes the President’s energy security policy priorities,” Robert C. O’Brien, who leads the NSC, added.

The move also comes as the president has been working to rid the administration of those he deems insufficiently loyal in the wake of his acquittal on impeachment charges. Since then, Trump has ousted staffers at the National Security Council and State Department and pulled the nomination of a top Treasury Department pick who had overseen cases involving Trump’s former aides as a U.S. attorney.

At the same time, Trump has been bringing back longtime aides he believes he can trust as he heads into what is expected to be a bruising general election campaign.

Trump this week renewed questions about the identity of “Anonymous” when he told reporters that he knew who it was. Asked whether he believes the person still works at the White House, Trump responded: “We know a lot. In fact, when I want to get something out to the press, I tell certain people. And it’s amazing, it gets out there. But, so far, I’m leaving it that way.”

White House spokesman Hogan Gidley declined to say Wednesday why, if Trump knows the person’s identity, they would still be working in his administration.

In the book, published by the Hachette Book Group in November, the writer claims senior administration officials considered resigning as a group in 2018 in a “midnight self-massacre”to protest Trump’s conduct, but ultimately decided such an act would do more harm than good.

ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTING AGENCY

Toxic Superfund cleanups decline to more than 30-year low

FILE - In this Oct. 12, 2018 file photo, water contaminated with arsenic, lead and zinc flows from a pipe out of the Lee Mountain mine and into a holding pond near Rimini, Mont. The community is part of the Upper Tenmile Creek Superfund site, where dozens of abandoned mines have left water supplies polluted and residents must use bottled water. The Trump administration has built up the largest backlog of unfunded toxic Superfund projects awaiting clean-up in at least 15 years, nearly tripling the number of sites where clean-ups are ready to go but awaiting money, according to 2019 figures quietly released by the Environmental Protection Agency over the winter holidays. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration completed the fewest cleanups of toxic Superfund sites last year than any administration since the program’s first years in the 1980s, figures released by the Environmental Protection Agency indicated Wednesday.

The federal government wrapped up cleanups at six Superfund sites around the country in the 2019 budget year, the fewest since three in 1986, EPA online records showed.

The Superfund program was born out of the 1970′s disaster at Love Canal in New York, where industrial contaminants poisoned groundwater, spurred complaints of health problems and prompted presidential emergency declarations. Congress started the Superfund program in 1980, with the mission of tackling the country’s worst contaminated sites to remove the threat to surrounding residents and the environment.


President Donald Trump campaigned on pledges to cut environmental protections he saw as unfriendly to business. In office, Trump has presided over rollbacks and proposed rollbacks of a series of protections for air, water, wildlife and other environmental and public health concerns, as well as sharp declines in many categories of enforcement against polluters.

The EPA posted the 2019 figures on its website earlier this month. The tally also shows one cleanup completed so far this budget year.

“Cleaning up Superfund Sites has been and remains a top priority of this Administration,” EPA spokeswoman Corry Schiermeyer said in response to questions from The Associated Press. “Many of the sites currently on the NPL (National Priorities List) are very large, complex and technically challenging and often require numerous construction projects to complete that are frequently phased in over many years.”

Superfund cleanups completed fell into the single digits just once before in the past 20 years, in 2014.

The AP reported in January that the administration also has built up the biggest backlog of unfunded toxic Superfund cleanup projects in at least 15 years, nearly triple the number that were stalled for lack of money in the Obama era.

The administration called Superfund cleanups part of the core mission of the EPA. But Trump’s budget proposal for next year calls for slashing money for the Superfund program by $113 million. As in previous years, the White House asked Congress to cut the EPA budget by more than 20%.

Congress largely has ignored Trump’s calls for EPA cuts, keeping the agency’s money roughly stable.

Elizabeth Southerland, a former EPA official who now is part of a network of hundreds of former EPA staffers often critical of Trump rollbacks, said the administration was failing to brief Congress on how much it really needs for the program. She called it “heartbreaking” for the people at risk around the sites.


“Communities are being forced to live for years longer than necessary waiting for cleanup to be completed,” Southerland said.

Under Trump, the EPA pointed to a different measure in declaring it was making progress on Superfund cleanups: the number of cleaned up sites officially deleted from the roster of more than 1,300 Superfund projects.

But deletions from the list typically reflect cleanup work done over decades and often completed on the ground years ago, meaning Trump frequently was taking credit for work done under President Barack Obama and other predecessors. The EPA said it deleted all or part of 27 sites