CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M; BUSINESS UNIONISM

Culture of Corruption: ex-UAW leader gets 28-month sentence

By TOM KRISHER

yesterday

FILE - In this July 16, 2019, file photo, Gary Jones, United Auto Workers President, speaks during the opening of their contract talks with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in Auburn Hills, Mich. Jones was sentenced to 28 months in prison for scheming to embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars in union dues. U.S. District Judge Paul Borman in Detroit sentenced the 64-year-old Jones on Thursday, June 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)


DETROIT (AP) — He plotted to steal up to $1.5 million in union dues, and the money he diverted was spent on golf clubs, vacation homes, booze and lavish meals, fostering a culture of corruption within the United Auto Workers union.

Now former UAW president Gary Jones will have to spend 28 months in a federal prison and repay thousands of dollars for his crimes.

Jones, 64, was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge Paul Borman in Detroit after pleading guilty to two counts of conspiracy last year. Borman ordered that Jones surrender for his term in 90 days and recommended a low-security federal prison in Seagoville, Texas, so he would be close to his wife who now lives near Dallas.

Before sentencing, Jones choked up in the courtroom as he apologized to his family and union members for his actions. “I failed them. I failed the UAW that elected me as president,” he told Borman. “All I can say is I’m sorry I let them down, I let my family down.”

Federal sentencing guidelines called for Jones to get 46 to 57 months in prison due to his high position in the union. But prosecutors asked for 28 months because Jones accepted responsibility and cooperated as the government went after his cohorts in a wide-ranging probe of union corruption.

“He was willing to assist in any way,” Assistant U.S. Attorney David Gardey told the court. “And he was truthful.”

Gardey said that in many ways, Jones is a good man who worked in a “culture of corruption,” following the crowd of other union leaders who thought they were “entitled to get ours.” He said Jones helped with prosecution of Dennis Williams, who preceded Jones as president.

But Gardey also said Jones’ crimes were serious and have scarred the union and destroyed members’ confidence in their leaders. He recommended that Borman issue a sentence that would let labor unions know that this behavior won’t be tolerated.

Eleven union officials and a late official’s spouse have pleaded guilty in the corruption probe since 2017, although not all the crimes were connected. The first wave of convictions, which included some Fiat Chrysler employees, involved money from a Fiat Chrysler-UAW training center in Detroit.

But the union was able to hold off a possible government takeover by agreeing to spending controls, a court-appointed monitor to oversee operations for six years, and an election for members to decide if they want to vote directly for union leaders rather than choosing delegates to a convention.

Millions in union dues will now go toward funding the court-appointed monitor, and the UAW had to pay significant attorney’s fees for officials who were charged, Gardey wrote in a sentencing memo.

Jones, now of Corsicana, Texas, south of Dallas, also will have to repay $550,000 to the union and another $42,000 to the Internal Revenue Service. But his liability could be lower depending on amounts paid by other defendants, including Williams.

He also was fined $10,000, and he’ll have to forfeit more than $151,000, including money in two bank accounts, plus a set of golf clubs seized by authorities at the Missouri regional office where Jones was director before becoming president.

Gardey told Borman that Jones will help in other matters as the UAW investigation continues, as well as help the union monitor with internal disciplinary cases. He said it’s possible prosecutors will return to the court and ask Borman to recognize that cooperation, presumably with a lighter sentence.

Gardey blamed the scandal on what he said was a lack of democracy in the union, which lacked financial controls and had no opposition to leadership. “There is no opportunity to provide checks and balances to abuse of power,” Gardey said. Instead, he said the union is dominated by its administrative caucus, which curried favor of leaders rather than serving members.

Jones led the 400,000-member union from June 2018 until November 2019, when he stepped down as the investigation intensified.

Prosecutors alleged that he conspired with at least six other high-level union officials. He let some of them vacation with their families at union expense for months at a time at villas in Palm Springs, California. He spent union money on lavish meals, and over $60,000 on cigars, entertainment, booze and rounds of golf.

During the scheme, UAW leaders took over $100,000 worth of clothing, golf equipment and other items. Jones also took $45,000 in cash for his own use.

“The exorbitance was jaw-dropping,” Gardey wrote in the memo.

Jones spent on other senior officials because of his “desire to obtain and retain power” in the union, the memo said.

Jones’ lawyer, J. Bruce Maffeo of New York, wrote that Jones should get a lower sentence because of his cooperation, and because most of the crimes to which he pleaded guilty took place when he was a regional director in St. Louis, before he was was elected UAW president.

His crimes continued practices put in place by other union officials, including former president Dennis Williams, Maffeo wrote. In May, Williams was sentenced to 21 months in prison as part of the same embezzlement scheme.

Judge Borman said the criminal conduct was a bad period in Jones’ life, but he lived a “wonderful period” for most of his life. “I’m sure that he henceforth will continue on the good side of the street,” the judge said.

ALIENATION

Poll: Millions in US struggle through life with few to trust

By ALEXANDRA OLSON

yesterday

NEW YORK (AP) — Karen Glidden’s loneliness became unbearable during the coronavirus pandemic.

The 72-year-old widow, who suffers from vision loss and diabetes and lives far from any relatives, barely left her house in Champion, Michigan, this past year, for fear of contracting the virus. Finally vaccinated, she was looking forward to venturing out when her beloved service dog died last month.

It doesn’t help that her circle of trusted friends has dwindled to one neighbor she counts on to help her shop, get to the doctor and hang out.

“I feel like I’m in a prison most of the time and once in a while, I get to go out,” said Glidden, whose adult children live in California and Hawaii, where she was born and raised.

She is not alone in her sense of social isolation.

Millions of Americans are struggling through life with few people they can trust for personal and professional help, a disconnect that raises a key barrier to recovery from the social, emotional and economic fallout of the pandemic, according to a new a poll from The Impact Genome Project and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.



The poll finds 18% of U.S. adults, or about 46 million people, say they have just one person or nobody they can trust for help in their personal lives, such as emergency child care needs, a ride to the airport or support when they fall sick. And 28% say they have just one person or nobody they can trust to help draft a resume, connect to an employer or navigate workplace challenges.

The isolation is more acute among Black and Hispanic Americans. Thirty-eight percent of Black adults and 35% of Hispanic adults said they had only one or no trusted person to help navigate their work lives, compared with 26% of white adults. In their personal lives, 30% of Hispanic adults and 25% of Black adults said they have one or no trusted people, while 14% of white adults said the same.

Researchers have long debated the idea that the U.S. has suffered from a decline in social capital, or the value derived from personal relationships and civic engagement.

The General Social Survey, a national representative survey conducted by NORC since 1972, suggests that the number of people Americans feel they can trust had declined by the early 2000s, compared with two decades earlier, although there is little consensus about the extent of this isolation or its causes. The rise of social media has added another layer of debate, as experts explore whether it broadens networks or lures people in isolating echo chambers.

The Impact Genome/AP-NORC poll sought to measure how much social capital Americans can count as they try to pick up the pieces of lives fractured by the pandemic. The findings suggest that for many Americans, the pandemic has chipped away at whatever social capital they had going into it.

Americans were more likely to report a decline than an increase in the number of people they could trust over the past year. Just 6% of Americans said their network of trusted people grew, compared with 16% who reported that it shrank. While the majority of Americans said the number of people they could trust stayed the same, nearly 3 in 10 said they asked for less support from family and friends because of COVID-19.

Community bonds have proved to be critical to recovery from calamities such as Superstorm Sandy in 2012, said Jennifer Benz, deputy director of The AP-NORC Center.

But the nature of the pandemic made those bonds difficult or even impossible to maintain. Schools, community centers, churches, synagogues and mosques closed. People couldn’t ask neighbors or grandparents for help with child care or other needs for fear of spreading the virus.

About half of Americans are engaged in civic groups such as religious institutions, schools or community service groups, according to the new poll. And 42% of all adults said they have become less involved with civic groups during the pandemic, compared with just 21% who said they became more engaged.

“Compared to the way social capital can be leveraged in other disasters, the key difference has been that this is a disaster where your civic duty was to be on your own,” Benz said.

Surveys from the Pew Research Center suggested that relocation increased during the pandemic. While some people moved to be closer to family, more relocated because of job loss or other financial stresses.

Warlin Rosso, 29, has moved often in pursuit of financial stability, often at the cost of his social ties.

He left behind his entire family, including 14 siblings, when he immigrated to the U.S. five years ago from the Dominican Republic. He worked at a warehouse in Chicago for three years, sharing an apartment with a girlfriend. But when that relationship fell apart, he couldn’t afford to move out on his own. In December 2019, he relocated to Jackson, Mississippi, where a childhood friend let him move in.

That friend, Rosso said, remains the only person in Jackson he can trust for help. As the pandemic closed in, Rosso struggled in a city where the Hispanic community is tiny.

Through social media, he found work with a Nicaraguan man who owned a construction business. Later, he found a training program that landed him a job as hospital aide.

His co-workers are friendly, but he feels isolated. Sometimes, he said, patients bluntly ask to be helped by a non-Latino worker. He hopes eventually to get a similar job back in Chicago, where he has friends.

“It’s not always welcoming for Hispanics here,” Rosso said. “Here, I’m alone.”

___

The AP-NORC poll of 2,314 adults was conducted March 25-April 15 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

UN: Don’t forget to save species while fixing global warming

By SETH BORENSTEIN and CHRISTINA LARSON

yesterday

FILE - In this Monday, July 16, 2012 file photo, corn stalks struggling from lack of rain and a heat wave covering most of the U.S. lie flat on the ground in Farmingdale, Ill. To save the planet, the world needs to tackle twin crises of climate change and species loss together, using solutions that fix both not just one, two different teams of United Nations scientists said in a joint report released on Thursday, June 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman, File)

To save the planet, the world needs to tackle the crises of climate change and species loss together, taking measures that fix both and not just one, United Nations scientists said.

A joint report Thursday by separate U.N. scientific bodies that look at climate change and biodiversity loss found there are ways to simultaneously attack the two global problems, but some fixes to warming could accelerate extinctions of plants and animals.

For example, measures such as expansion of bioenergy crops like corn, or efforts to pull carbon dioxide from the air and bury it, could use so much land — twice the size of India — that the impact would be “fairly catastrophic on biodiversity,” said co-author and biologist Almut Arneth at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany.

Policy responses to climate change and biodiversity loss have long been siloed, with different government agencies responsible for each, said co-author Pamela McElwee, a human ecologist at Rutgers University.

The problems worsen each other, are intertwined and in the end hurt people, scientists said.

“Climate change and biodiversity loss are threatening human well-being as well as society,” said report co-chair Hans-Otto Portner, a German biologist who helps oversee the impacts group of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Earth’s naturally changing climate shaped what life developed, including humans, but once people in the industrialized world started pumping fossil fuels into the air, that triggered cascading problems, Portner said.

“It’s a high time to fix what we got wrong,” he said. “The climate system is off-track and the biodiversity is suffering.”

FILE - In this March 19, 2019 file photo, blades turn at a wind farm atop a hill behind a large tree in Canton, Maine. To save the planet, the world needs to tackle twin crises of climate change and species loss together, using solutions that fix both not just one, two different teams of United Nations scientists said in a joint report released on Thursday, June 10, 2021.(AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

There are many measures that can address both problems at once, the report said.

“Protecting and restoring high-carbon ecosystems,” such as tropical forests and peatlands, should be high priority, said co-author Pete Smith, a plant and soil scientist at the University of Aberdeen.

While some climate solutions can increase species loss, scientists said efforts to curb extinctions don’t really harm the climate.

Yunne Shin, director of research at French National Research Institute, said the bulk of measures taken to protect biodiversity will also help curb climate change. While she applauded growing interest in nature-based solutions, she said, conservation measures “must be accompanied by clear cuts in emissions.”

“This report is an important milestone,” said Simon Lewis, chairman of global change science at University College London, who was not part of the report.

“Finally the world’s bodies that synthesize scientific information on two of the most profound 21st century crises are working together,” he said. “Halting biodiversity loss is even harder than phasing out fossil fuel use.”
___

Read stories on climate issues by The Associated Press at https://apnews.com/hub/climate
___

Follow Seth Borenstein and Christina Larson on Twitter at @borenbears and @larsonchristina.
___

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

Legislators, students push for K-12 Asian American studies

By ANNIE MA

1 of 5
In this Monday, May 10, 2021 photo, Senior Annie Chen, center, listens with classmates as Connecticut Attorney General William Tong speaks for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month at Farmington High School in Farmington, Conn. The year of anti-Asian violence has led students and teachers to advocate for reexamining how Asian American studies and history are taught in public schools. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — When the Asian American Student Union at a Connecticut high school organized a Zoom call following the killing of six Asian women in Atlanta, senior Lily Feng thought maybe 10 or 15 classmates would attend. When she logged on, more than 50 people from her school were online. By the call’s end, nearly 100 people had joined.

Seeing her peers at Farmington High School turn out for the conversation — one piece of a student-led effort to explore Asian American identity issues — made her realize how much they wanted to listen and learn about a topic that is often absent from the curriculum.

“Our Asian American and Pacific Islander community members, they want their voices to be heard,” said Feng, co-president of the student group that also has brought in speakers, hosted panels and created lessons about Asian American history. “They are almost desperate to be speaking about it. This is so heavy, this is heartbreaking and it was a space for them to really voice that.”

As students push for more inclusive curriculum, some lawmakers, educators and students themselves are working to address gaps in instruction and fight harmful stereotypes by pushing for more Asian American history to be included in K-12 lesson plans.

Illinois would become the first state to require public schools to teach Asian American studies if the governor signs a bill that cleared the state Legislature. Lawmakers have proposed similar mandates this year in Connecticut, New York and Wisconsin.

Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz, an Illinois representative, said she sponsored the bill in response to the increasing anti-Asian violence and rhetoric. Growing up, she said she knew little of the discrimination her family had faced in earlier generations because it wasn’t taught in school and her family did not openly speak about it.

“I think, like a lot of Asian families, their response to that discrimination was to endure, to survive,” she said. “And that meant moving past it, not talking about it, not educating the next generation about the struggles faced by a first generation.”

It wasn’t until law school that Gong-Gershowitz learned about the Chinese Exclusion Act, an 1882 law that prohibited Chinese workers from immigrating and the only law to exclude a specific ethnicity from entering the country, and the deportation threat it represented for her grandparents. Understanding that history is central to addressing the violence today, she said.

“When people talk about what are we going to do about racism, hate, violence, otherization, my answer is always look at the root cause of that,” she said. “Empathy comes from understanding, and we cannot do better unless we know better.”

On the federal level, U.S. Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., has reintroduced legislation intended to promote teaching Asian American history. The bill would require Presidential and Congressional Academies, which offer history and civics programming to students and teachers, to include Asian American history in their grant applications. It would also encourage state and national assessment tests to include Asian American history.

Asian Americans are largely excluded from textbooks, shown as stereotypes or framed as model minorities, said Nicholas Hartlep, an associate professor at Berea College in Kentucky who authored a book on those depictions in instructional materials. He said it is encouraging to see the legislation, but funding to support the requirements is necessary for them to make a difference.

“Is that an unfunded mandate where they just say, ‘Yes, it has to be covered?’” Hartlep said. “Or does it come with funding? And what quality assurances do we have for what’s being taught? Because if it’s just glossing over, that can be equally damaging.”

The growing conversations around anti-Asian hate have also given new urgency to long-running efforts to develop and introduce instructional material for schools that explores Asian American history.

Some educators have taken it upon themselves to fill the content gap.

As public school teachers earlier in their careers, Freda Lin and Cath Goulding each saw little of their personal history reflected in the lessons they were teaching unless they designed their own. Now, as co-directors of YURI Education Project, they provide curriculum and professional development around teaching Asian American history.

Goulding said that while the push for inclusion dates back to the 1960s, recent advocacy to expand Asian American and ethnic studies, including Black, Latino and Native American history, in K-12 classrooms has tried to go beyond representation to look at how race shapes power structures and lived experiences.

“When I was becoming a teacher in the early 2000s, the trend in education then was multiculturalism,” Goulding said. “At its core, it was not about critiquing power and for me that’s been the real shift in the conversations.”

At its best, ethnic studies helps students understand their own agency and teaches children to draw connections between historic events like the Chinese Exclusion Act and modern-day immigration issues, said Jason Oliver Chang, a professor at the University of Connecticut who has worked to advance the state’s legislation on Asian American studies.

“I think ethnic studies is in some ways a way of practicing citizenship,” Chang said. “Learning about ourselves, but then also acting on that knowledge. It’s about teaching in a way that engages the student and their own story and perspective, with content that engages with the structures of power that shape their world.”

Students at Farmington High School are pushing those lessons forward on their own. This year, the Asian American Student Union’s leaders met with the school administration to propose changes to the social studies curriculum.

Mingda Sun, a member of the organization, recalls being taunted by racist slurs from her peers in elementary and middle school. Back then, she said, she was too young to fully understand the racism that fed the bullying, and her experiences were rarely acknowledged at school.

She hopes the advocacy that has followed this year of violence can change that in the future, starting with her own school and state.

“At the end of the day it’s about empowering young Asian Americans to feel proud of who they are,” she said. “It’s about helping schools that are able to provide resources and opportunities to do that.”

___

Ma covers education and equity for AP’s Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/anniema15 ___

The Associated Press’ reporting around issues of race and ethnicity is supported in part by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. ___

This story has been corrected to show that the spelling of a quoted teacher’s name is Cath Goulding, not Golding, and to show Goulding is a co-director of the YURI Education Project, not Project YURI.

Fight over Canadian oil rages on after pipeline’s demise


1 of 9

FILE - In this Jun 12, 2019, file photo, walking up Main Street the procession protesting against the Keystone XL pipeline makes its way to Andrew W. Bogue Federal Courthouse in Rapid City, S.D. The sponsor of the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline says it's pulling the plug on the contentious project, Wednesday, June 9, 2021, after Canadian officials failed to persuade the Biden administration to reverse its cancellation of the company's permit.(Adam Fondren/Rapid City Journal via AP)

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Keystone XL is dead after a 12-year attempt to build the oil pipeline, yet the fight over Canadian crude rages on as emboldened environmentalists target other projects and pressure President Joe Biden to intervene — all while oil imports from the north keep rising.

Biden dealt the fatal blow to the partially built $9 billion Keystone XL in January when he revoked its border-crossing permit issued by former President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, sponsors TC Energy and the province of Alberta gave up and declared the line “terminated.”

Activists and many scientists had warned that the pipeline would open a new spigot on Canada’s oil sands crude — and that burning the heavily polluting fuel would lock in climate change. As the fight escalated into a national debate over fossil fuels, Canadian crude exports to the U.S. steadily increased, driven largely by production from Alberta’s oil sands region.

Even before the cancellation, environmentalists had turned their attention to other projects, including Enbridge Energy’s proposal to expand and rebuild its Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota, the target of protests this week that led to the arrest of some 250 activists.

“Don’t expect these fights to go away anytime soon,” said Daniel Raimi, a fellow at Resources for the Future, an energy and environmental think tank in Washington. “This is going to encourage environmental advocates to do more of the same.”

Bill McKibben, an author who was arrested outside the White House while protesting the Keystone XL in 2011, said its defeat provides a template to kill other pipelines, including Line 3 and the Dakota Access Pipeline from North Dakota’s Bakken oil field.

Describing Keystone XL as “a carbon bomb,” McKibben said Line 3 is the same size and “carries the same stuff. How on earth could anyone with a straight face say Line 3 passes the climate test?”

Enbridge said the cancellation of Keystone XL will not affect its projects, describing them as “designed to meet current energy demand safely and in ways that better protect the environment.”

A second TC Energy pipeline network, known simply as Keystone, has been delivering crude from Canada’s oil sands region since 2010. The company says the line that runs from Alberta to Illinois, Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast has moved more than 3 billion barrels of oil

Canada is by far the biggest foreign crude supplier to the U.S., which imported about 3.5 million barrels a day from its neighbor in 2020 — 61% of all U.S. oil imports.

The flow dropped slightly during the coronavirus pandemic but has largely rebounded. Import volumes have almost doubled since the Keystone XL was first proposed in 2008, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said Thursday that it expects no immediate effect on production from Keystone XL’s cancellation, but the group predicted more oil would be moved to the U.S. by rail.

A series of fiery accidents occurred in the U.S. and Canada after rail shipments of crude increased during an oil boom on the Northern Plains, including a 2013 incident in which 47 people were killed after a runaway train derailed in the Quebec town of Lac-Megantic.

The dispute over Keystone XL and other lines raised diplomatic tensions between the two countries, but Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau adopted a conciliatory tone with Biden, who canceled the pipeline on his first day in the White House.

Canada uses much less oil than it produces, making it a huge exporter, and 98% of those exports go to the U.S., according to the Natural Resources Canada.

Trudeau raised Keystone XL as a top priority with Biden while acknowledging that the president had promised in his campaign to cancel the line.

Both leaders have taken heat at home over Keystone, with Republicans slamming Biden for shutting it down while construction was underway, costing hundreds of jobs. The project was meant to expand oil exports for Canada, which has the third-largest oil reserves in the world, and provincial officials in Alberta wanted Trudeau to do more to save it.

The White House declined to comment on the cancellation. Spokesman Vedant Patel declined to say if Biden plans to address increased crude exports from Canada or intervene in other pipeline disputes.

His action on Keystone “signals at least some appetite to get involved,” but pipelines that have operated for years would be tougher targets, Raimi said.

Winona LaDuke, executive director of the Indigenous-based environmental group Honor the Earth, called on Biden to withdraw an Army Corps of Engineers permit for Line 3 and to order a new study.

“He could stop the project,” she said. “Don’t ask us to be nice to Enbridge. They’re all over our land. They’re hurting us.”

The Biden administration has been “disturbingly quiet” on Line 3 and the Dakota Access line, said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. He urged the administration to declare both unacceptable.

Fiercely opposed by Native Americans, the Dakota Access pipeline was the impetus for protests that were quashed by law enforcement. The Biden administration has not sought to stop the line, and it’s still in court after a judge revoked its permit but allowed oil to keep flowing.

Alberta sank more than $1 billion into Keystone XL last year to kick-start construction. Officials in the province are considering a trade action against the U.S. to seek compensation.

Keystone XL’s price tag ballooned as the project languished, increasing from $5.4 billion to $9 billion.

Another question: What to do with pipe already in place at the U.S.-Canada border and other infrastructure along its route.

Jane Kleeb, a pipeline opponent in Nebraska, said state regulators should revoke the permit they approved for a route through the state. Otherwise, she said, TC Energy might try to sell the easements to another company.

Until the state acts, farmers and ranchers will continue to face TC Energy attorneys in court, “protecting their property from an eminent domain land grab by a foreign corporation,” she said.

___

Daly reported from Washington and Flesher from Traverse City, Michigan. Rob Gillies contributed from Toronto and Grant Schulte from Omaha, Nebraska.

___

Follow Brown on Twitter: @MatthewBrownAP

AMERICA'S HOME GROWN RELIGION

Secret recordings show Southern Baptist dispute on sex abuse

By PETER SMITH and TRAVIS LOLLER 

today


1 of 4

FILE - In this Tuesday, June 14, 2016, file photo, Pastor Ronnie Floyd, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, addresses members during the organization's annual meeting in St. Louis. In a Thursday, June 10, 2021, open letter to Floyd, president of the Executive Committee, and Mike Stone, then-chairman of the committee and now a candidate for convention president, critics sought to show top leaders were slow to address sexual abuse in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, more worried about the convention’s reputation and donations than about victims of abuse. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Releases of leaked letters and secret recordings from within the Southern Baptist Convention intensified Thursday as critics sought to show top leaders were slow to address sexual abuse in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination and worried more about its reputation and donations than about victims.

A former executive of the denomination’s ethics agency posted audio clips he clandestinely recorded in internal meetings to bolster claims that leaders of the SBC’s Executive Committee sought to slow or block policies responding to abuse by ministers and other church leaders, and that they tried to intimidate those seeking a more robust response.

The committee members defended their actions, saying the recordings reflect the normal give-and-take of trying to develop the best policies.

The timing comes less than a week before the SBC’s annual meeting, which is expected to draw its highest attendance in more than 25 years, amid tensions over abuse, race and other issues and growing calls for an independent investigation of the Executive Committee’s response.

Phillip Bethancourt, a Texas pastor and former executive vice president of the denomination’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, posted the audio online in an open letter to Ronnie Floyd, president of the Executive Committee, and Mike Stone, then-chairman of the committee and now a candidate for convention president.

“Southern Baptists deserve to hear you in your own words,” Bethancourt wrote.

One set of clips came from a meeting following a Caring Well conference on sexual abuse sponsored in 2019 by the ethics commission.

In the recording, Floyd questions Russell Moore — who was president of the commission until his resignation last month — about one of the speakers, Rachael Denhollander, an attorney and prominent advocate for fellow abuse survivors.

Denhollander had publicly criticized the Executive Committee for its handling of an abuse case. The denominational news agency, overseen by the Executive Committee, had reported on the case in a way that implied consent by the victim, who was then publicly vilified in social media. The agency later apologized.

Floyd asks Moore in the recording: “What do I say ... to the Executive Committee when Rachael’s come after them?”

Moore replies, “We didn’t script anybody in terms of what they could say,” and says the best response is to “not do stupid stuff again.”

In another recording, Floyd tells Moore he “wanted to preserve the base,” which Bethancourt interprets as putting a priority on maintaining funding from churches.

Bethancourt also released audio from an earlier meeting showing resistance to the proposed creation of a credentials committee to investigate churches’ handling of abuse cases.

In a statement Thursday, Floyd said he put his staff to work immediately after that meeting in laying the groundwork for the credentials committee before its approval by the full convention.

“The convention was — and still is — divided over methods of response to sexual abuse,” he said. “However, the SBC is not divided on the priority of caring for abuse survivors and protecting the vulnerable in our churches.”

He said his questioning about the Caring Well conference was to get answers he could provide to churches. “However, I apologize for any offense that may have resulted from my remarks,” he said.

Jennifer Lyell, whose case was cited in Denhollander’s criticism of the Executive Committee, disputed Floyd’s characterization, tweeting that he “was not a poor middleman” trying to get answers to others’ questions but rather “one of THEM” on the Executive Committee.

“They weren’t attacked,” Lyell said. “They were exposed.”

Stone told The Associated Press that as a survivor of sexual abuse himself, it’s “outrageous” to say he would block efforts to respond to such misconduct.

He said his debates with Moore were over process and that he “felt that we did not have enough time to do this credentials committee properly” in 2019.

Stone added that the SBC can’t dictate policies to its self-governing churches the way a hierarchical denomination can, and said a “heavy-handed” approach could prompt churches to leave the convention, with no improvement in children’s safety. He said he favored equipping and training churches to respond to abuse.

The release of the recordings followed a series of leaks that have stoked debate in recent weeks among Southern Baptists, including lengthy letters Moore penned in 2020 and last month to denominational colleagues.

In them he said he received “undiluted rage” from Executive Committee leaders as they debated how to respond to abuse, which Moore called a “crisis in the Southern Baptist Convention.”

A 2019 investigation by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News revealed that about 380 Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers had faced allegations of sexual misconduct, involving several hundred victims. These and subsequent reports told of cases of offenders returning to ministry and even as victims were blamed.

Those revelations galvanized efforts to do more. At its 2019 annual meeting, the SBC stated that congregations could be expelled for mishandling abuse cases and created the credentials committee to review such cases.

Floyd said the Executive Committee is now talking with a “highly credible outside firm” to investigate its handling of the controversy.

But two Southern Baptist pastors are preparing a competing proposal for next week’s annual meeting that would have the next SBC president create a task force to pick the investigator.

Denhollander said the newly public recordings corroborate her own experiences in advocating for victims of abuse within the SBC, and that she has offered to help many times but her offers have been rejected.

“Hopefully over the last two weeks, Southern Baptist messengers (voting representatives) have begun to ask very important questions,” she said. Among them is how church officials could “misreport a case of violent abuse as an affair and nobody would care? ... Because they had done it in the past.”

Denhollander said there will be two resolutions addressing abuse at the upcoming meeting and they are being carefully worded to take into account Southern Baptist theology and polity. And she disputed Stone’s contention that the SBC’s structure makes it difficult to take certain actions against sexual abuse.

“It’s actually very easy to do in a way that is legally sound and respects Southern Baptist autonomy,” Denhollander said.

___

Smith reported from Pittsburgh

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

IT'S THE DUTY OF EVERY PRISONER TO ESCAPE***
Prison break: 29 inmates escape federal lockups in 18 months

By MICHAEL BALSAMO and MICHAEL R. SISAK

today

FILE - In this Aug. 28, 2020, file photo, a no trespassing sign is displayed outside the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Ind. Over the past 18 months, 29 prisoners have escaped from federal lockups across the U.S. - and nearly half still have not been caught. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Over the past 18 months, 29 prisoners have escaped from federal lockups across the U.S. — and nearly half still have not been caught. At some of the institutions, doors are left unlocked, security cameras are broken and officials sometimes don’t notice an inmate is missing for hours.

At one Texas lockup, security is so lax that local law enforcement officials privately joke about its seemingly “open-door policy.”

Prisoners have broken out at lockups in nearly every region of the country. Twelve of the inmates who escaped in 2020 — from prisons in Florida, California, Louisiana, Texas and Colorado — remain at large. Two others who escaped since January this year have also not yet been caught. Their crimes include racketeering, wire fraud, bank robbery, possession of methamphetamine and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and other drugs.

All of the escapes happened at minimum-security federal prison camps, some of which don’t even have fences, and house inmates the Bureau of Prisons considers to be the lowest security risk.

“Anybody can escape from any camp any minute of any day,” said Jack Donson, a prison consultant and former case manager at a federal prison in Otisville, New York. “They’re not secure facilities. They have no fence, no metal detectors.”

The numbers raise serious concerns that the agency long besieged by chronic mismanagement, misconduct and a severe staffing crisis is failing at performing its most basic function: keeping prisoners in prison. While a Justice Department budget report submitted to Congress said the Bureau of Prisons had no escapes from secure facilities, it does not count those who escape from minimum-security prisons or camps.

Federal officials often refer to them as “walk-aways,” though it is still an escape from federal prison under the law and law enforcement officials say there is still a risk to the community when an inmate absconds.

Federal prison camps were originally designed with low security to make operations easier and to allow inmates tasked with performing work at the prison, like landscaping and maintenance, to avoid repeatedly checking in and out of a main prison facility. But the lax security has now not only opened a gateway for contraband but is also the source of most of the prison system’s escapes.

Aside from Texas escapees, law enforcement officials have also routinely learned of inmates at the prison just walking off the grounds to retrieve drugs and other contraband that is dropped off in the woods and then bringing the illegal items back inside with them.

It has become routine at FCI Beaumont for cars to drop drugs, cellphones and other contraband in the woods, leaving them for inmates to break out of the prison at night and pick up the items before sneaking back inside, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the matter. The official could not discuss the investigations publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The Texas escapes, at least, have attracted the attention of the Justice Department’s inspector general. The office issued a memorandum this week highlighting glaring security gaps at Beaumont and other federal prison camps.

In one case, four inmates sneaked out and went undetected for more than 12 hours even though prison officials conducted three inmate counts overnight during the 12-hour period, according to an inspector general’s report. The inmates put dummies in their beds to trick the officers, the report said.

“These are very small, unsecure facilities,” said Cameron Lindsay, a retired Bureau of Prisons warden who now testifies as an expert witness on prison matters. Because of their size and the generally low risk the inmates pose, federal prison camps often have the lowest levels of staffing in the Bureau of Prisons’ system, sometimes with just one officer working to supervise inmates during a shift, he said.

In a statement, the Bureau of Prisons said that it strives to ensure safety and security at every one of its prisons and that when an inmate “walks away” from a prison, officials will notify other law enforcement agencies and the media. The agency stressed that the inmates who are placed at the minimum-security camps are the lowest risk offenders who “pose minimal risk to the community” and generally are allowed to participate in outdoor work programs and other initiatives.

“The BOP remains vigilant in its efforts to maintain safe and secure institutions at all times,” the agency said. Officials said a review is conducted following every escape to determine “if any security weakness exists and if warranted, corrective actions are taken.”

In Beaumont, officials said they were building a fence around the prison, repairing the broken door alarms, adding and upgrading video cameras and putting up additional lights. The agency said it was also considering adding additional staff members at some of the prison camps.

“We take seriously our duty to protect the individuals entrusted in our custody, as well as maintaining the safety of correctional staff and the community,” agency officials said in the statement.

The Bureau of Prisons has been plagued by chronic violence, significant security issues and persistent staffing shortages for years. The AP reported last month that nearly one-third of federal correctional officer jobs in the United States are vacant, forcing prisons to use cooks, teachers, nurses and other workers to guard inmates.

The expanded use of that practice, known as augmentation, has been raising questions about whether the agency can carry out its required duties to ensure the safety of prisoners and staff members while putting in place programs and classes required under the law.

The Bureau of Prisons insists its latest hiring initiative is bringing on additional personnel to close the gaps.

___

Sisak reported from New York.

***

COACHING IS ABUSE
Schembechler son, players say Michigan coach knew of abuse

By COREY WILLIAMS and MIKE HOUSEHOLDER

today


1 of 12

Matt Schembechler, son of former University of Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler, participates in a news conference, Thursday, June 10, 2021, in Novi, Mich. Schembechler described Thursday how he was molested and sexually assaulted by the team's longtime doctor and how his father turned a blind eye when he was told about the abuse. (AP Photo/Jose Juarez)

NOVI, Mich. (AP) — One of late University of Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler’s sons and two of his former players described in detail Thursday how they were molested by the team’s longtime doctor and how Schembechler turned a blind eye when they told him about the abuse, telling one to “toughen up” and punching his son in anger.

Matt Schembechler, 62, and former Wolverines players Daniel Kwiatkowski and Gilvanni Johnson told similar stories about how Dr. Robert E. Anderson, who died in 2008, molested and digitally penetrated them during physical exams decades ago. They also talked about how Bo Schembechler, a Michigan icon whose statue stands outside a university building that bears his name, refused to protect them and allowed Anderson to continue abusing players and other patients for years.

Anderson “was supported by a culture that placed the reputation of the university above the health and safety of the students,” Matt Schembechler said during a news conference in the Detroit suburb of Novi. “That is the culture that made my father a legend and placed his statue in front of Schembechler Hall.”

“Dr. Anderson was part of the University of Michigan team,” he continued. “He was part of Bo’s team, therefore, he was more important than any man. It’s very clear that Bo and the university always put themselves before any student-athlete or son, just to support the brand.”

The three are among hundreds of men who were allegedly abused by Anderson during his nearly four decades working for the university — a period in which he also treated staffers, their families and other patients. And their assertion that Bo Schembechler, who died in 2006, knew about the abuse and allowed it to continue calls into question his legacy at the university.

Kwiatkowski and Johnson said it was common knowledge among their teammates that Anderson abused players during the physicals they had to get from him, which Johnson said players jokingly referred to as “seeing Dr. Anal.” Both players said Bo Schembechler broke a promise to protect them that he made while recruiting them to the school.

“Bo promised them that if I attended the University of Michigan and played football that Bo would be a father to me and look after me like I was family,” Kwiatkowski said, referring to his parents. “We were a poor, working-class family and my parents were very worried about my future and being able to pay for medical bills. Bo promised my family that he would keep me safe, make sure I got the best medical treatment. We were sold.”

Kwiatkowski, an offensive lineman from 1977-79, said Anderson abused him on four occasions. He said that during his first mandatory physical his freshman year, Anderson groped his genitals and inserted fingers in his rectum. The former player said he approached Schembechler after one practice and told him about the physical.

“Bo looked at me and said ‘Toughen up,’” Kwiatkowski said.

Matt Schembechler said Anderson abused him during a 1969 physical that he needed to get in order to play youth football. He said when he told his father, who was then in his first year of his iconic run with the Wolverines, his father punched him in the chest.

“This was the beginning of the end of the relationship with him,” Matt Schembechler said Thursday about his father. “I hoped my father would protect me, but he didn’t.”

He said his mother Millie, a registered nurse, “didn’t give up,” inviting the athletic director at the time, Don Canham, to their home so he could describe the abuse.

“It was my understanding Mr. Canham terminated Dr. Anderson, but shortly thereafter, Bo had him reinstated,” Matt Schembechler said. Canham died in 2005, one year before Bo Schembechler.

A report commissioned by the university and released last month found that Bo Schembechler and other officials were aware of complaints about Anderson but he was allowed to remain at the school for decades.

Asked why they decided to come forward about the abuse, Johnson said it was important to put faces to the allegations and to make sure there could be no doubt that Bo Schembechler was aware of the sexual abuse. He also talked about how the abuse has affected his life.

“Because of my experience at Michigan, I did not trust doctors,” Johnson said, adding that he “had trust issues, relationship issues and intimacy issues” and that he “lost two marriages” because of the abuse.

Johnson, who broke down at one point, said he has “always been too promiscuous in an effort to prove to myself and to others that I was a man.”

The university said in a statement Thursday that it is committed to resolving claims made by Anderson’s victims and is continuing confidential mediation ordered by a judge.

“Our sympathy for all of Anderson’s victims is deep and unwavering, and we thank them for their bravery in coming forward. We condemn and apologize for the tragic misconduct of the late Dr. Robert Anderson, who left the University 17 years ago and died 13 years ago,” the school said in its statement, which didn’t mention Bo Schembechler once.

Michigan’s current football coach, Jim Harbaugh, who played quarterback for Schembechler in the 1980s after growing up in Ann Arbor as the son of an assistant coach, was asked last week how the university should treat Schembechler’s legacy in light of recent reports related to Anderson.

“There was nothing that I saw in the times that I was a kid here, my dad was on the staff or when I played here,” Harbaugh told reporters. “He never sat on anything. He never procrastinated on anything. He took care of it before the sun went down. That’s the Bo Schembechler that I know.”

Harbaugh wasn’t available to speak Thursday about the latest revelations.

Bo Schembechler led the Wolverines from 1969-89 and had 194 wins at college football’s winningest school. His career record was 234-65-8, including six seasons at Miami of Ohio.

Another of his sons, Glenn “Shemy” Schembechler, told ESPN he did not believe what his brother, Matt, said to reporters. While Glenn “Shemy” Schembechler could not refute the stories shared by former players, he does not think his father was aware that Anderson was doing anything unacceptable in a physical exam.

“None of us were in that room when those players were talking to Bo,” Glenn Schembechler said to ESPN. “The Bo I knew would have taken care of it and found another doctor. It would be that easy.”

___

Williams reported from Southfield. AP Sports Writer Larry Lage in Ann Arbor contributed to this report.

___

This story was corrected to delete a reference to Bo Schembechler dying in 2004 — he died in 2006 — and to note that Don Canham died a year before, not after, Schembechler did.

TRUMP TOO
Israel's Netanyahu lashes out as end of his era draws near

AP NEWS
By JOSEF FEDERMAN

today


1 of 5

FILE - In this June 6, 2021 file photo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a ceremony showing appreciation to the health care system for their contribution to the fight against the coronavirus, in Jerusalem. In what appear to be the final days of his historic 12-year rule, Netanyahu is not leaving the political stage quietly. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)

JERUSALEM (AP) — In what appear to be the final days of his historic 12-year rule, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not leaving the political stage quietly.

The longtime leader is accusing his opponents of betraying their voters, and some have needed special security protection.

Netanyahu says he is the victim of a “deep state” conspiracy. He speaks in apocalyptic terms when talking about the country without his leadership.

“They are uprooting the good and replacing it with the bad and dangerous,” Netanyahu told the conservative Channel 20 TV station this week. “I fear for the destiny of the nation.”

Such language has made for tense days as Netanyahu and his loyalists make a final desperate push to try to prevent a new government from taking office on Sunday. With his options running out, it has also provided a preview of Netanyahu as opposition leader.

For those who have watched Netanyahu dominate Israeli politics for much of the past quarter century, his recent behavior is familiar.

He frequently describes threats both large and small in stark terms. He has belittled his rivals and thrived by using divide-and-conquer tactics. He paints his Jewish opponents as weak, self-hating “leftists,” and Arab politicians as a potential fifth column of terrorist sympathizers. He routinely presents himself in grandiose terms as the only person capable of leading the country through its never-ending security challenges.

“Under his term, identity politics are at an all-time high,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a non-partisan think tank.

It is a formula that has served Netanyahu well. He has led the right-wing Likud party with an iron fist for over 15 years, racking up a string of electoral victories that earned him the nickname, “King Bibi.”

He fended off pressure by President Barack Obama to make concessions to the Palestinians and publicly defied him in 2015 by delivering a speech in Congress against the U.S.-led nuclear agreement with Iran.

Although Netanyahu was unable to block the deal, he was richly rewarded by President Donald Trump, who recognized contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, pulled out of the nuclear agreement and helped broker historic diplomatic pacts between Israel and four Arab nations.

Netanyahu has waged what appears to be a highly successful shadow war against Iran while keeping Israel’s longstanding conflict with the Palestinians at a slow boil, with the exception of three brief wars with Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers.

The situation with the Palestinians today is “remarkably the same” as when Netanyahu took office, Plesner said. “No major changes in either direction, no annexation and no diplomatic breakthroughs.”
ADVERTISEMENT



But some of Netanyahu’s tactics now appear to be coming back to haunt him. The new Biden administration has been cool to the Israeli leader, while Netanyahu’s close relationship with Trump has alienated large segments of the Democratic Party.

At home, Netanyahu’s magic also has dissipated — in large part due to his trial on corruption charges. He has lashed out at an ever-growing list of perceived enemies: the media, the judiciary, police, centrists, leftists and even hard-line nationalists who were once close allies.

In four consecutive elections since 2019, the once-invincible Netanyahu was unable to secure a parliamentary majority. Facing the unappealing possibility of a fifth consecutive election, eight parties managed to assemble a majority coalition that is set to take office on Sunday.

Israeli politics are usually split between dovish, left-wing parties that seek a negotiated agreement with the Palestinians, and religious and nationalist parties — long led by Netanyahu — that oppose Palestinian independence. If any of the recent elections had centered on the conflict, then right-wing parties alone would have formed a strong, stable majority.

But the Palestinians hardly came up — another legacy of Netanyahu, who has pushed the issue to the sidelines.

Instead, all anyone seemed to talk about was Netanyahu’s personality and his legal troubles, which proved to be deeply polarizing. The incoming government includes three small parties led by former Netanyahu aides who had bitter breakups with him, including the presumed prime minister, Naftali Bennett.

Bennett and his right-wing partners even broke a longstanding taboo on allying with Arab parties. A small Islamist party, which Netanyahu had also courted, is to be the first to join a ruling coalition.

Netanyahu and his followers in Likud have grown increasingly desperate. Initially, Netanyahu tried to lure some “defectors” from his former allies to prevent them from securing a parliamentary majority.

When that failed, he resorted to language similar to that of his friend and benefactor Trump.

“We are witnesses to the greatest election fraud in the history of the country,” Netanyahu claimed at a Likud meeting this week. He has long dismissed the corruption trial as a “witch hunt” fueled by “fake news,” and in the TV interview he said he was being hounded by the “deep state.”

His supporters have held threatening rallies outside the homes of lawmakers joining the new government. Some of the parliamentarians say they and their families have received death threats, and one said she was recently followed by a mysterious car.

Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox partners have meanwhile cast Bennett as a threat to their religion, with one even calling on him to remove his kippa, the skullcap worn by observant Jews.

Online incitement by Netanyahu’s followers has grown so bad that several members of the incoming government were assigned bodyguards or even moved to secret locations.

Some Israelis have drawn comparisons to the tensions that led to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January, while others have pointed to the incitement ahead of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.

In a rare public statement, Nadav Argaman, the head of the Shin Bet internal security agency, recently warned of a “serious rise and radicalization in violent and inciting discourse” on social media that he said could lead to violence.

Netanyahu has condemned the incitement while noting that he too has been a target.

Late Thursday, Netanyahu’s Likud Party issued a statement on Twitter in English saying his fraud comments were not directed at the vote counting process and that he has “full confidence” in it. “There is also no question about the peaceful transition of power,” it said.

Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at Hebrew University, said she expects the coming months to remain volatile.

“We’re going to see a very assertive and aggressive head of the opposition, meaning Netanyahu, determined to make sure that this coalition of change would be a short-lived one and that we will have another election as soon as possible,” she added.

“We don’t have even a memory of what normal politics looks like,” Talshir said.

___

Associated Press writer Joseph Krauss in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

GREETINGS FROM THE RED PLANET
Photos show Chinese rover on dusty, rocky Martian surface

In this image released by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) on Friday, June 11, 2021, the Chinese Mars rover Zhurong is seen near its landing platform taken by a remote camera that was dropped into position by the rover. China on Friday released a series of photos taken by its Zhurong rover on the surface of Mars, including one of the rover itself taken by a remote camera. (CNSA via AP)

BEIJING (AP) — The dusty, rocky Martian surface and a Chinese rover and lander bearing small national flags were seen in photos released Friday that the rover took on the red planet.

The four pictures released by the China National Space Administration also show the upper stage of the Zhurong rover and the view from the rover before it rolled off its platform.

Zhurong placed a remote camera about 10 meters (33 feet) from the landing platform, then withdrew to take a group portrait, the CNSA said.

China landed the Tianwen-1 spacecraft carrying the rover on Mars last month after it spent about three months orbiting the red planet. China is the second country to land and operate a spacecraft on Mars, after the United States.

The orbiter and lander both display small Chinese flags and the lander has outlines of the mascots for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics.



The six-wheeled rover is surveying an area known as Utopia Planitia, especially searching for signs of water or ice that could lend clues as to whether Mars ever sustained life.

At 1.85 meters (6 feet) in height, Zhurong is significantly smaller than the U.S.’s Perseverance rover which is exploring the planet with a tiny helicopter. NASA expects its rover to collect its first sample in July for return to Earth as early as 2031.

In addition to the Mars mission, China’s ambitious space program plans to send the first crew to its new space station next week. The three crew members plan to stay for three months on the Tianhe, or Heavenly Harmony, station, far exceeding the length of any previous Chinese mission. They will perform spacewalks, construction and maintenance work and carry out science experiments.

Subsequent launches are planned to expand the station, send up supplies and exchange crews. China has also has brought back lunar samples, the first by any country’s space program since the 1970s, landed a probe and rover on the moon’s less explored far side.