Taiwan parade celebrates LGBT Pride, island’s virus success
FINALLY LET OUT ......OF LOCKDOWN 

1 of 12

Participants march during the "Taiwan Pride March for the World!" at Liberty Square at the CKS Memorial Hall in Taipei, Taiwan, Sunday, June 28, 2020. This year marks the first Gay Pride march in Chicago 1970, and due to the COVID-19 lockdown, Taiwan is one of the very few countries to host the world's only physical Gay Pride. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)


TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — The Taiwanese capital held its annual LGBT Pride parade on Sunday, making it one of the few places in the world to proceed with such an event in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

The parade in Taipei has drawn tens of thousands of people in the past, but participant numbers Sunday were reduced by both virus concerns and heavy rain. Taiwan’s Central News Agency said that over 1,000 attended.

Those who did take part said it was a testament both to Taiwan’s ability to contain the pandemic and its commitment to rights for people of all sexual orientations.

Taiwan is the only place in Asia where same-sex marriage is legal, and its liberal political system has long promoted human rights, free speech and freedom of assembly.

American student Loren Couse, 28, said Taipei’s ability to hold the parade was “really impressive.”

“I think Taiwan has done a really good job so far, and I am really proud of living here, not only because it’s so open to people like myself, the gay community, but also because I think it’s such an example for the world and how to handle the pandemic so far,” Couse said.

New York was among the cities compelled to cancel its gay Pride parade this year to comply with social distancing measures.

Taiwan has largely dropped such restrictions after quarantines and case tracing helped bring the coronavirus infection rate down radically. In all, the island of 23.7 million people has confirmed 447 cases, including seven deaths.

Paris mayor reelected, green wave in France local elections
By SYLVIE CORBET

1 of 21https://apnews.com/16e161a4349cd2712c5cb084259f1ece 

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo blows a kiss to the audience after her victorious second round of the municipal election, Sunday, June 28, 2020 in Paris. France on Sunday held the second round of municipal elections that has seen a record low turnout amid concerns over the coronavirus outbreak and anger at how President Emmanuel Macron's government handled it. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

PARIS (AP) — Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo declared victory in her reelection bid as municipal elections postponed by the coronavirus crisis have seen a strong breakthrough from the greens across the country.

Sunday’s voting also appears as a setback for French President Emmanuel Macron’s young centrist party, which was fielding municipal candidates for the first time and still lacks local roots across France.

Hidalgo, a Socialist, largely beat conservative candidate Rachida Dati, according to estimates based on partial results. She was first elected as Paris mayor in 2014. Her reelection will allow her to oversee the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Hidalgo is backed by the Europe Ecology-The Greens party, which gained strong influence nationwide.

Green candidates won in France’s major cities including Marseille, Lyon, Strasbourg and Bordeaux, often taking the lead in their alliance with the weakened Socialist Party.

The second round of the municipal elections has seen a record low turnout amid lingering worries about the pandemic.

Only 40% of voters cast ballots as people were required to wear masks in polling stations, maintain social distancing while in lines and carry their own pens to sign voting registers.

Poll organizers were wearing masks and gloves for protection, and in some places they were separated from voters by transparent plastic shields. Mail-in voting isn’t allowed in France.

Macron expressed his “concerns” over the low turnout, “which is not very good news,” according to his office.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, in charge of organizing the elections, said that “everywhere across France, health measures ... were able to be respected. That is a satisfaction.”

Sunday’s voting was meant to choose mayors and municipal councilors in about 5,000 towns and cities.

The electoral process was suspended after the first round of the nationwide municipal elections on March 15, which produced decisive outcomes in 30,000 mostly small communes. Macron’s critics say he shouldn’t have allowed the first round to go ahead at all, since it was held just as infections were exploding across Europe and just two days before France introduced sweeping nationwide lockdown measures.

The spread of the coronavirus has slowed significantly in France in recent weeks and almost all restrictions on social and business activity have been gradually lifted over the last month. France has reported nearly 200,000 confirmed cases and 29,781 deaths in the pandemic but experts believe all reported figures are undercounts due to limited testing and missed mild cases.

The elections, though ostensibly focused on local concerns, are also seen as a key political indicator ahead of the 2022 French presidential election.

Macron had said he wasn’t considering the elections as a pro- or anti-government vote.

Yet a government reshuffle is expected in the coming weeks, as Macron seeks a new political boost amid the economic difficulties prompted by the virus crisis. French authorities have faced criticism during the pandemic over mask shortages, testing capacity and for going ahead with the first round of elections instead of imposing a lockdown earlier.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, whose job may be threatened by the reshuffle, won a large victory in his hometown of Le Havre where he was running for mayor.

Philippe has seen his popularity increase significantly in recent weeks. He may appoint someone else to act as mayor if he remains at the head of the government.

Recent opinion polls show Macron’s popularity rating is hovering around 40%, which is higher than from before the virus outbreak.

His party, Republic on the Move, didn’t have candidates in every race and in some instances was backing local politicians from the left or the right instead.

Government spokesperson Sibeth Ndiaye acknowledged the party’s modest result in the elections, stressing that planting local roots “is taking time.”

The conservative Republicans party, which was the big winner in the 2014 municipal election and has a strong network of local elected officials, appeared to do well again.

The anti-immigration, far-right National Rally won a symbolic victory in the southern city of Perpignan, leading Louis Aliot to become the first member of the party to run a city of more than 100,000 inhabitants.

___

Alex Turnbull contributed to this report.

As French Greens notch gains, Macron renews his green agenda

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo gets a bouquet of flowers after her victorious second round of the municipal election, Sunday, June 28, 2020 in Paris. France on Sunday held the second round of municipal elections that has seen a record low turnout amid concerns over the coronavirus outbreak and anger at how President Emmanuel Macron's government handled it. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) https://apnews.com/aaea64ef65bfdf80a876f7d808a244bc

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron, who once declared “Make The Planet Great Again” but whose climate agenda got knocked off course by persistent street protests, is under new pressure to fight climate change after the Green Party did well in Sunday’s local elections.

France’s Green party and its left-wing allies made significant gains in the second round of voting, capturing cities such as Lyon, Strasbourg and Besançon.

To show that he is taking the gains seriously, Macron is meeting Monday with a citizens’ group that he convened earlier this year in response to criticism that he wasn’t doing enough on the climate.

The citizens’ group is giving him a new list of climate proposals drawn from an ambitious report it compiled, which includes recommendations on fighting CO2 emissions by weening the French off solo car rides and proposing alternatives such as electric cars, as well as capping the harmful effects of air travel.

The group reserved most of its fire on travel, which produces 30% of greenhouse gases in France.

The yellow vest economic justice protests that brought France to its knees for months knocked some of Macron’s green agenda off track as it was was triggered by opposition to a new fuel tax that he planned to help in the climate fight.

Earlier this year, Macron tried to woo green voters by calling the battle against climate change and environmental destruction “the fight of the century.” The words came during a February visit to a melting glacier in the French Alps but it was condemned as a hollow electoral stunt by environmental campaigners. Critics accused Macron of using the icy photo-op to burnish his government’s green credentials ahead of the local elections.

Auction of contested African artifacts going ahead in Paris

PARIS (AP) — A Nigerian commission has called for the cancellation of Monday’s auction in Paris of sacred Nigerian statues that it alleges were stolen.

Christie’s auction house has defended the sale, saying the artworks were legitimately acquired and the sale will go ahead.

In recent years, French courts have consistently ruled in favor of auction houses whose sales of sacred objects, such as Hopi tribal masks, were contested by rights groups and representatives of the tribes.

A Princeton scholar, professor Chika Okeke-Agulu, alongside Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments, raised alarm earlier this month that the objects were looted during the Biafran war in the late 1960s.

Christie’s wrote earlier this month to the Nigerian commission, saying the sale would go ahead.

Okeke-Agulu, who is a member of the Igbo tribe, said the objects were taken through “an act of violence” from his home state of Anambra and that they should not be sold. An online petition with over 2,000 signatures is demanding that the auction be halted.

The petition said “as the world awakens to the reality of systemic racial injustice and inequality, thanks to the #BlackLivesMatter movement, we must not forget that it is not just the Black body, but also Black culture, identity and especially art that is being misappropriated.”

It claims that between 1967 and 1970, as Nigeria’s Biafran civil war raged and while more than 3 million civilians were dying, a renowned European treasure hunter was in Biafra “on a hunting spree for our cultural heritage.”

In a statement to AP Monday, Christie’s said “these objects are being lawfully sold having been publicly exhibited and previously sold over the last decades prior to Christie’s involvement.”

While the auction house said it recognized the “nuanced and complex debates around cultural property,” it said that public sales should go ahead of objects like these to stop the black market flourishing.

Paris has a long history of collecting and selling tribal artifacts, tied to its colonial past in Africa, and to Paris-based groups in the 1960s, such as the “Indianist” movement that celebrated indigenous tribal cultures.

Interest in tribal art in Paris was revived in the early 2000s following two high-profile — and highly lucrative — sales in Paris of tribal art owned by late collectors Andre Breton(FOUNDER OF SURREALISM) and Robert Lebel.

Controversy over sales can be a double-edged sword for an auction house. In the past, such contested sales have served to raise the ultimate selling price of the objects going under the hammer because of media interest, but there has also been instances where buyers have been deterred from purchasing artifacts over fears of a backlash.

Israeli court releases anti-Netanyahu activist after arrest
By TIA GOLDENBERG yesterday

Protesters against Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wave flags and banners outside his residence in Jerusalem, Sunday, May 24, 2020. Hundreds of protesters calling him the "crime minister" demonstrated outside his official residence, while hundreds of supporters, including leading members of his Likud party, rallied in support of him at the courthouse. Netanyahu faces charges of fraud, breach of trust, and accepting bribes in a series of corruption cases. The signs say "Netanyahu resign," and "Justice shall you pursue." (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)


JERUSALEM (AP) — A court ordered the release of a former Air Force general and leading critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from jail on Sunday, a day after hundreds of people protested outside the Israeli leader’s residence calling for him to be freed.

Retired Brig. Gen. Amir Haskel has been a leader of the protest movement against Netanyahu, demanding that the long-time leader step down while facing charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes. Haskel and several others were detained on Friday in what police said was an “illegal” demonstration because the protesters blocked roads.

The arrest of Haskel, a former top Israeli Air Force general, has turned him into a symbol of the protest movement that opposes Netanyahu’s continued rule. Demonstrations have been held regularly around the country, with protesters waving signs reading “crime minister” and calling for Netanyahu to resign.

“A line was crossed that must not be crossed. The reason for my arrest was a desire to silence the protest against the person accused of a crime, Benjamin Netanyahu,” Haskel told a news conference Sunday evening. “In the moral state of Israel, there is no way a person accused of a crime should be prime minister.”

“If my arrest, and the arrest of two of my friends, lit the flame, the price was worth it,” he added.

The arrests drew angry denunciations from prominent Israelis and sent hundreds out to protest outside Netanyahu’s residence on Saturday, with many slamming the police for making what they viewed as politically motivated arrests.

Police said they offered to release Haskel and others if they agreed to refrain from returning to the scene of the protests. Haskel and two others refused the conditions and remained in detention.

Gaby Lasky, Haskel’s lawyer, told Israeli Army Radio that the court eventually released him without conditions, saying protesting was the foundation of democracy.

The country’s acting police chief said the force would learn from the incident.

“The role of the police is to allow freedom of expression and demonstration to every person and to keep the public peace and security, this regardless of the protest’s subject, the identity of the protesters or their opinions,” acting commissioner Motti Cohen said.

Netanyahu is on trial for a series of scandals in which he allegedly received lavish gifts from billionaire friends and traded regulatory favors with media moguls for more favorable coverage of himself and his family. The trial is set to resume next month.

Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing, calling the charges a witch-hunt against him by a hostile media and a biased law enforcement system.

The scandals, and Netanyahu’s indictment, featured prominently in three Israeli election campaigns over the course of a year. The political stalemate finally ended last month when Netanyahu reached a power-sharing agreement with his chief challenger, retired military chief Benny Gantz.

But tensions were still evident at Sunday’s weekly Cabinet meeting when Gantz, the defense minister and alternate prime minister, noted Haskel’s arrest and said the right to protest was a “sacred right.”

Netanyahu, seated alongside him, retorted that the right to protest was never in question and that Israel allowed it even amid the most restrictive of times during the recent coronavirus outbreak.

“The argument that we are looking to limit it is absurd,” he said. “ At the same time, the laws and regulations of the state of Israel must be maintained. It is not the prerogative of one side to say they support the rule of law and then to trample it.”

Boris Johnson says COVID-19 has been a disaster for Britain

ACTUALLY IT'S BORIS WHO HAS BEEN THE DISASTER FOR BRITAIN 

By JILL LAWLES   https://apnews.com/c264bede9442cf8ce15a217d4fc54f92

Religion

Israel orders US-based Christian TV channel off air
yesterday



FILE - In this Oct. 1, 2015 file photo, evangelical Christians from various countries wave American flags in Jerusalem. Israeli regulators on Sunday, June 28, 2020, announced they ordered a U.S.-based evangelical broadcaster taken off the air, saying the channel hid its missionary agenda when it applied for a license. The controversy over GOD TV’s “Shelanu” station has put Israel and its evangelical Christian supporters in an awkward position. Evangelicals, particularly in the United States, are among the strongest supporters of Israel, which Israel has long welcomed. But most Jews view any effort to convert them as deeply offensive. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner, File)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli regulators on Sunday announced they ordered a U.S.-based evangelical broadcaster taken off the air, saying the channel hid its missionary agenda when it applied for a license.

In his decision, Asher Biton, the chairman of the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council, said he had informed “GOD TV” on Thursday that it had seven days to stop broadcasting.

“The channel appeals to Jews with Christian content,” he wrote. “Its original request,” he said, stated that it was a “station targeting the Christian population.”

The decision was first reported by the Haaretz daily.

The controversy over GOD TV’s “Shelanu” station has put Israel and its evangelical Christian supporters in an awkward position, exposing tensions the two sides have long papered over.

Evangelical Christians, particularly in the United States, are among the strongest supporters of Israel, viewing it as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Some see it as the harbinger of a second coming of Jesus Christ and the end of days.

Israel has long welcomed evangelicals’ political and financial support, especially as their influence over the White House has risen during the Trump administration, and it has largely shrugged off concerns about any hidden religious agenda.

But most Jews view any effort to convert them to Christianity as deeply offensive, a legacy of centuries of persecution and forced conversion at the hands of Christian rulers. In part because of those sensitivities, evangelical Christians, who generally believe salvation can only come through Jesus and preach the Gospel worldwide, rarely target Jews.

In a statement, Shelanu said it was stunned by what it called Biton’s “unprofessional decision.”

It said its existing license “stated unequivocally” that it would broadcast its content in Hebrew to the Israeli public. Most Christians in the Holy Land speak Arabic. “Therefore it is not at all clear what was wrong beyond political considerations,” it said.

Ron Cantor, Shelanu’s Israeli spokesman, said the station would reapply for a license. He said the station’s management hopes the council will approve the request “and thus avoids a severe diplomatic incident with hundreds of millions of pro-Israel evangelical Christians worldwide.”

When GOD TV reached its seven-year contract with Israel’s main cable provider earlier this year, it presented itself as producing content for Christians.

But in a video message that was later taken down, GOD TV CEO Ward Simpson suggested its real aim was to convince Jews to accept Jesus as their messiah.

“God has supernaturally opened the door for us to take the Gospel of Jesus into the homes and lives and hearts of his Jewish people,” Simpson said in the video.

In a subsequent video, Simpson apologized for any offensive remarks and said GOD TV would comply with all regulations.

Freedom of religion is enshrined in Israeli law, and proselytizing is allowed as long as missionary activities are not directed at minors and do not involve economic coercion.

GOD TV was founded in the U.K. in 1995 and eventually grew into a 24-hour network with offices in several countries. Its international broadcasting licenses are held by a Florida-based non-profit. It claims to reach 300 million households worldwide.

Mathematicians behind JPEG files honored by Spanish awardJune 23, 2020

In this May 30, 2019 file photo, Mathematician Ingrid Daubechies is presented with an honorary Doctor of Science degree during Harvard University commencement exercises. An international team of mathematicians whose theories have improved the compression of large digital files of data, including images and sound, will be recognized by one of this year's Princess of Asturias awards, one of the most prestigous in the Spanish-speaking world. The Spanish foundation that organizes the annual awards announced Tuesday that the 2020 prize for Scientific and Technical Investigation will go to Yves Meyer, Ingrid Daubechies, Terence Tao and Emmanuel Candes. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)
MADRID (AP) — An international team of mathematicians whose theories have improved the compression of large digital files of data, including images and sound, will be recognized with one of the most prestigious awards in the Spanish-speaking world.

The Spanish foundation that organizes the annual Princess of Asturias awards said Tuesday that the 2020 prize for Scientific and Technical Investigation will go to Yves Meyer, Ingrid Daubechies, Terence Tao and Emmanuel Candes.

The contributions by Meyer and Daubechies in the mid-80′s on the theory of “wavelets” were key in developing the system that compresses images into JPEG 2000 files, a much more advanced version of the original JPEGs. Among other practical applications in the digital world, their theories also allowed images taken by Hubble, the space telescope, to be received on Earth and the study of the cosmic gravitational waves caused by colliding black holes.

In this Aug. 22, 2006 file photo, mathematician Terence Tao poses for the media before a press conference in Madrid. An international team of mathematicians whose theories have improved the compression of large digital files of data, including images and sound, will be recognized by one of this year's Princess of Asturias awards, one of the most prestigous in the Spanish-speaking world. The Spanish foundation that organizes the annual awards announced Tuesday that the 2020 prize for Scientific and Technical Investigation will go to Yves Meyer, Ingrid Daubechies, Terence Tao and Emmanuel Candes. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, FILE)

Building on their fellow scientists’ research, Tao and Candes later developed theories and techniques that were used for health screening with magnetic resonance imaging scanners, or MRIs.

“This award underscores the social contribution of mathematics and its significance as a cross-cutting element in all branches of science,” the jury wrote in a statement.

The annual awards, named after crown heir Princess Leonor, are handed in eight different categories ranging from arts to sports. Recipients are awarded 50,000 euros ($56,000) at a lavish ceremony to be held in October.

In this Aug. 19, 2010 file photo Yves Meyer during an event in Hyderabad, India, Thursday. An international team of mathematicians whose theories have improved the compression of large digital files of data, including images and sound, will be recognized by one of this year's Princess of Asturias awards, one of the most prestigous in the Spanish-speaking world. The Spanish foundation that organizes the annual awards announced Tuesday that the 2020 prize for Scientific and Technical Investigation will go to Yves Meyer, Ingrid Daubechies, Terence Tao and Emmanuel Candes. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A., File)

More fragments from 1952 crash in Alaska found in glacier
By MARK THIESSEN June 26, 2020

1 of 10
In this June 18, 2020, photo provided by U.S. Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations, crash recovery team personnel assigned to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, search for crash remains at Colony Glacier, Alaska. A military plane carrying 41 passengers and 11 crew members crashed into a mountain near Anchorage in 1952, but remains of the victims are still being discovered. (Senior Airman Jonathan Valdes Montijo/U.S. Air Force via AP)

JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska (AP) — A lucky Buddha figurine, a flight suit, several 3-cent stamps, a crumpled 1952 Mass schedule for St. Patrick’s Church in Washington, D.C., and 480 bags containing individual human remains.

Those were among the items recovered this month from Alaska’s Colony Glacier, where an annual somber search continues for human remains and debris after a military plane crashed 67 years ago, officials said Friday.

The goal is to identify and return remains from everyone onboard the C-124 Globemaster, which smashed into Mount Gannett north of Anchorage on Nov. 22, 1952, killing all 41 passengers and 11 crew members, military officials sai

The remains of those killed weren’t retrieved at the time, and the plane and all it held slowly fell to the bottom of the mountain, where it eventually became part of Colony Glacier.

The crash was virtually forgotten until a military training mission spotted a yellow life raft on the glacier. Efforts began in 2012 to scour the glacier to see what else may have churned up, including human remains and other debris.

Now, the race is on to identify as many service members as possible before the glacier dumps the wreckage into Lake George, which will become a final resting place for everything that isn’t saved.

So far, remains have been identified for all but nine of those on board the flight from McChord Air Force Base in Washington state to Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage.

Capt. Shelby Yoakum, chief of the Readiness and Plans Division at Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operation at Dover Air Force Base, led this year’s three-week recovery effort at the glacier.

She said they might have only several more years of searching the glacier before the debris field calves into the lake.

“I think we can all safely say that there are still remains out there that have yet to melt out of the ice, and that we will be back for at least the next few years to continue this mission, especially since we have not identified all 52 that passed away,” Yoakum said.

The last area they found remains this year was about 656 feet (200 meters) from the toe of the glacier, where the ice falls into the lake.

Officials could not say when all the remains and debris from the glacier would be lost to Lake George.

“The reality of the situation is all of the debris and the remains are constantly falling to crevasses, big and small, and moving down to the toe of the glacier faster than some,” said Army Staff Sgt. Isaac Redmond, who was the mountaineering subject matter expert for the excavation.

The human remains will be respectfully shipped to Dover in transfer cases, about the same size as caskets, and draped with flags. At Dover, the process will begin to match DNA from the remains to samples that surviving family members have provided at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory.

It’s not known how many of the nine service members who have not had matches yet could be among these remains or how long it might take to get results.

“We’re hopeful that we’ll at least get a couple of new IDs out of this,” said Katherine Grosso, a medicolegal investigator with the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System. “There will always be reassociated remains from previously identified service members, and so we’ll be able to provide those, as well, to the families.”

Tonja Anderson-Dell of Tampa, Florida, continues to lobby for the families of the nine service members whose remains haven’t been found, even after her own journey had closure.

For years, she waited for the military to identify the remains of her grandfather, Isaac Anderson, who was 21 when the plane when down.

After years of attending services for others whose loved ones were on the plane and laid to rest, in late 2018, she received word her grandfather’s remains had been found. A memorial service was held the following May.

“That was overwhelming,” she said by telephone Friday. “I finally got to see it. I’ve been to so many services and to now have my grandfather come home — very emotional for myself and for my father.”

She plans to continue being an advocate for the families but says some may never get their loved ones.

“I know that in my heart there may be one or two because it just may be that way, but I’m hoping that all of them get closure, you know, to know that it has been found,” she said.

Experts see no proof of child-abuse surge amid pandemic

By DAVID CRARY yesterday

FILE - This Thursday, April 16, 2020 file photo shows a sign announcing an elementary school in Helena, Mont., is closed. When the coronavirus pandemic took hold across the United States in mid-March, forcing schools to close and many children to be locked down in households buffeted by job losses and other forms of stress, many child-welfare experts warned of a likely surge of child abuse. Fifteen weeks later, the worries persist — yet some experts on the front lines, including pediatricians who helped sound the alarm, say they’ve seen no evidence yet that a marked increase has taken place. (Thom Bridge/Independent Record via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — When the coronavirus pandemic took hold across the United States in mid-March, forcing schools to close and many children to be locked down in households buffeted by job losses and other forms of stress, many child-welfare experts warned of a likely surge of child abuse.

Fifteen weeks later, the worries persist. Yet some experts on the front lines, including pediatricians who helped sound the alarm, say they have seen no evidence of a marked increase.

Among them is Dr. Lori Frasier, who heads the child-protection program at Penn State’s Hershey Medical Center and is president of a national society of pediatricians specializing in child abuse prevention and treatment.

Frasier said she got input in recent days from 18 of her colleagues across the country and “no one has experienced the surge of abuse they were expecting.”

A similar assessment came from Jerry Milner, who communicates with child-protection agencies nationwide as head of the Children’s Bureau at the federal Department of Health and Human Services. “I’m not aware of any data that would substantiate that children are being abused at a higher rate during the pandemic,” he told The Associated Press.

Still, some experts believe the actual level of abuse during the pandemic is being hidden from view because many children are seeing neither teachers nor doctors, and many child-protection agencies have cut back on home visits by caseworkers.

“There’s no question children are more at risk — and we won’t be able to see those children until school reopens,” said Marci Hamilton, a University of Pennsylvania professor who heads CHILD USA, a think tank seeking to prevent child abuse and neglect.

Several states said calls to their child-abuse hotlines dropped by 40% or more, which they attributed to the fact that teachers and school nurses, who are required to report suspected abuse, no longer had direct contact with students.

“While calls have gone down, that doesn’t mean abuse has stopped,” said Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, which reported a 50% drop in hotline calls.

Comprehensive data on abuse during the pandemic won’t be available for many months, according to Milner.

And whatever the current level of abuse, there’s no question some of it is horrific.

Georgia Boothe of Children’s Aid, a private agency that provides some of New York City’s foster care services, said some of the children now entering the system were brought in by police officers investigating domestic violence reports.
ADVERTISEMENT



“The level of severity in some of those cases is unreal,” she said.

Frasier, the Pennsylvania-based pediatrician, said some of her colleagues documented a sharp increase in shaken baby syndrome and children’s head injuries during the 2008 recession, which they attributed at least partly to economic stress.

“With the pandemic, we saw the high jobless rates, the layoffs, and we thought ‘OK, now we’re in for it again,’” she said.

She and others have noted some changes during the pandemic — for example, more accidental injuries from burns, falls and mishaps on farms. What they have not seen is a surge of child abuse.

Frasier has a couple of guesses as to why — a protective effect in households where multiple people were locked down together and federal financial aid that eased the stress on some vulnerable families.

In Nashville, Tennessee, Dr. Heather Williams says she and her colleagues who specialize in child-abuse pediatrics were braced for a pandemic-fueled surge, based on the experiences of 2008. Now she wonders if the recent infusion of federal unemployment assistance may have helped ward off such an increase.

“We’d be really excited if we’re wrong,” she said.

At the Children’s Bureau, Milner says he’s gratified that child protection is deemed a high priority during the pandemic, but he was troubled by the tone of some of the early warnings. He suggested that some had “racist underpinnings” — unfairly stereotyping low-income parents of color as prone to abusive behavior.

“To sound alarm bells, because teachers aren’t seeing kids every day, that parents are waiting to harm their kids — it’s an unfair depiction of so many parents out there doing the best under very tough circumstances,” he said.

One of Milner’s top aides, special assistant David Kelly, noted that in normal times a large majority of calls to child-abuse hotlines don’t trigger investigations.

“We know that the majority of findings of child maltreatment are for neglect, not physical abuse or exploitation, and we know that there are strong associations between neglect and challenges associated with poverty,” Kelly wrote in a June 12 article in the Chronicle of Social Change.

“If we take a closer look … we might be able to see the depth of resiliency that is present and the remarkable efforts poor parents make to get by on the smallest fraction of what many of us have.”

Concerns about children’s well-being amid the pandemic extend beyond physical abuse. There are worries about children missing vaccinations as their parents skip visits to doctors’ offices.

For children with internet access, weeks away from school have increased the risk of online sexual exploitation, according to Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau. She heads the Johns Hopkins Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse.

However, Letourneau is encouraged by one recent trend — more older children are calling hotlines themselves to report exploitation and abuse.
ADVERTISEMENT



ADVERTISEMENT




Top Articlesby The Associated PressWorst virus fears are realized in poor orwar‑torn countries

READ MORE




SKIP AD



ADVERTISEMENT