CULTURAL & ETHNIC GENOCIDE

UN: Over 400,000 people in Ethiopia’s Tigray face famine now

In this Saturday, May 8, 2021, photo, an Ethiopian woman scoops up grains of wheat after it was distributed by the Relief Society of Tigray in the town of Agula, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. As the United States warns that up to 900,000 people in Tigray face famine conditions in the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade, little is known about vast areas of Tigray that have been under the control of combatants from all sides since November 2020. With blocked roads and ongoing fighting, humanitarian groups have been left without access. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations said Friday that more than 400,000 people in Ethiopia’s crisis-wracked Tigray region are now facing the worst global famine in decades and 1.8 million are on the brink, and warned that despite the government’s unilateral cease-fire there is serious potential for fighting in western Tigray.

The dire U.N. reports to the first open meeting of the U.N. Security Council since the conflict in Tigray began last November and painted a devastating picture of a region where humanitarian access is extremely restricted, 5.2 million people need aid, and Tigray forces that returned to their capital Mekele after the government’s June 28 cease-fire and exit from the region have not agreed to the halt to hostilities.

U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo urged the Tigray Defense Force “to endorse the cease-fire immediately and completely,” stressing that the U.N.’s immediate concern is to get desperately need aid to the region.

Acting U.N. humanitarian chief Ramesh Rajasingham said the situation in Tigray “has worsened dramatically” in the last 2 ½ weeks, citing “an alarming rise in food insecurity and hunger due to conflict” with the number of people crossing the threshold to famine increasing from 350,000 to 400,000. With 1.8 million a step away, he said, some suggest “the numbers are even higher.”

“The lives of many of these people depend on our ability to reach them with food, medicine, nutrition supplies and other humanitarian assistance,” he said. “And we need to reach them now. Not next week. Now.”

The largely agricultural Tigray region of about 6 million people already had a food security problem amid a locust outbreak when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Nov. 4 announced fighting between his forces and those of the defiant regional government. Tigray leaders dominated Ethiopia for almost three decades but were sidelined after Abiy introduced reforms that won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.

No one knows how many thousands of civilians or combatants have been killed. DiCarlo said an estimated 1.7 million people have been displaced from their homes, and more than 60,000 have fled into neighboring Sudan. Though Abiy declared victory in late November, Ethiopia’s military kept up the offensive with allied fighters from neighboring Eritrea, a bitter enemy of the now-fugitive officials who once led Tigray, and from the Amhara region adjacent to Tigray.

In a stunning turn earlier this week, Ethiopia declared a unilateral cease-fire on humanitarian grounds while retreating from advancing Tigray forces. But the government faces growing international pressure as it continues to cut off the region from the rest of the world.


DiCarlo said reports indicate that leaders of Tigray’s previous regional administration including its former president have returned to the regional capital Mekele, which has no electrical power or internet. “Key infrastructure has been destroyed, and there are no flights entering or leaving the area,” she said.

Elsewhere in Tigray, DiCarlo said, Eritrean forces, who have been accused by witnesses of some of the worst atrocities in the war, have “withdrawn to areas adjacent to the border” with Eritrea.

Amhara forces remain in western Tigray, and DiCarlo said the Amhara branch of the ruling Prosperity Party warned in a statement on June 29 that the region’s forces will remain in territory it seized in the west during the conflict.

“In short, there is potential for more confrontations and a swift deterioration in the security situation, which is extremely concerning,” she warned.

Ethiopia’s U.N. Ambassador Taye Atske Selassie told reporters later when asked if Amhara forces would remain in western Tigray, “that is a matter of fact.”

Selassie, who comes from that part of Ethiopia, said the western area was once part of Amhara but was “forcibly incorporated into Tigray in 1990 without any due process.” He said the dispute will now be submitted to a government border commission.

On the humanitarian front, Rajasingham said over the past few days U.N. teams in Mekelle, Shire and Axum have been able to move out to other places which is “positive.”

The U.N. now plans to send convoys to difficult-to-reach areas but the U.N. World Food Program only has enough food for one million people for one month in Mekelle, he said.

“This is a fraction of what we need for the 5.2 million people who need food aid,” the acting aid chief said. “However, we have almost run out of health, water, sanitation and other non-food item kits. Food alone does not avert a famine.”

Rajasingham urged “all armed and security actors” in Tigray to guarantee safe road access for humanitarian workers and supplies, using the fastest and most effective routes.

He expressed alarm at Thursday’s destruction of the Tekeze River bridge -- “and the reported damage to two other bridges -- which cut a main supply route to bring in food and other life-saving supplies.”

Rajasingham called on the Ethiopian government “to immediately repair these bridges and by doing so help prevent the spread of famine.”

“What we are seeing in Tigray is a protection crisis,” Rajasingham stressed, citing civilian killings during the conflict, and more than 1,200 cases of serious sexual and gender-based violence reported, “with more continuing to emerge.”

Selassie, the Ethiopian ambassador, reiterated the government’s call for a national dialogue and its commitment to ensure accountability for crimes and atrocities committed during the conflict -- moves welcomed by U.N. political chief DiCarlo.

She urged the international community to encourage the government and Tigrayan forces to ensure there is no impunity for the crimes.

The Security Council took no action and made no statement but U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said its first open meeting after six closed discussions was important to show the people of Tigray and the parties to the conflict that the U.N.’s most powerful body is concerned about the issue and closely watching developments.

“And hopefully it will lead to further action by the council if the situation there does not improve,” she said.

French far-right chief under fire for her mainstream turn
By ELAINE GANLEY

SEPARATED AT BIRTH LePEN & HILLARY



PARIS (AP) — French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is facing stinging criticism for making her party too mainstream, dulling its extremist edge, and ignoring grassroots members, with voices from inside and outside warning this could cost her votes in next year’s presidential race.

The rumblings grew louder after the National Rally’s failure a week ago in regional elections, and come just ahead of this weekend’s party congress.

Le Pen is the anti-immigration party’s unquestioned boss, and her fortunes aren’t expected to change at the two-day event in the southwestern town of Perpignan, hosted by local Mayor Louis Aliot — Le Pen’s former companion and, above all, the party’s top performer in last year’s municipal elections. But there could be an uncomfortable reckoning, just as Le Pen is trying to inject new dynamism into the National Rally.

Critics say Le Pen has erased her party’s anti-establishment signature by trying to make it more palatable to the mainstream right. As part of the strategy, she softened the edges and strove to remove the stigma of racism and antisemitism that clung to the party after decades under her now-ostracized father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. She even changed the name from National Front, as it was called under her father, who co-founded the party in 1972 and led it for four decades.

“The policy of adapting, of rapprochement with power, even with the ordinary right, was severely sanctioned,” said Jean-Marie Le Pen. “(That) was a political error and translates into an electoral failure, and perhaps electoral failures,” he added, referring to the regional election result and the 2022 presidential vote.

The defiant patriarch, now 93, was expelled in the effort to boost the party’s respectability, but his criticism reflects that of more moderate members who say his daughter has muddled the message.

Her goal is to reach the runoff in the presidential race in 10 months with greater success than in 2017, when she reached the final round but lost to centrist Emmanuel Macron.

National Rally candidates — including several who originally hailed from the mainstream right — failed in all 12 French regions during elections last Sunday marked by record-high abstention with only one in three voters casting ballots. Polls had suggested the party, which has never headed a region, would be victorious in at least one. Instead, it lost nearly a third of its regional councilors, in voting regarded as critical to planting local roots needed for the presidential race — a task that some say has been neglected.

“It’s local elections that are the launch pad for the rocket” that could take Marine Le Pen to the presidential palace, Romain Lopez, mayor of the small southwest town of Moissac, said in an interview. “Today, we look like eternal seconds. That can ... demobilize the National Rally electorate for the presidential elections.”

Some local representatives have resigned in disgust since the regional elections defeat, among them the delegate for the southern Herault area, Bruno Lerognon.

In a bitter letter to Le Pen, posted on Facebook, Lerognon blasted his boss’ strategy to lure voters from other parties as “absurd.” He said members of the party’s local federation were “odiously treated” — removed from running in the regional elections in favor of outsiders. Cronyism, had “rotted” the local far-right scene, he wrote, alluding to long-standing criticism of power clans within the National Rally whose voices are decisive. Le Pen replaced him a day later.

In western France, all four members of a small local federation resigned between rounds of the regional elections. None of the four was represented on local electoral lists — “pushed aside,” as they claimed, by higher-ups elsewhere. They bemoaned a “losing strategy” born at the Lille party congress in 2018, when Le Pen first proposed changing the party’s name and severed remaining ties with her father.

A party figure with a national reputation, European Parliament lawmaker Gilbert Collard, has criticized the strategy of opening up as “a trap.” He said he won’t attend the congress.

Lopez, the mayor of Moissac, will be there, hoping that he and others with complaints will be heard.

Lopez, 31, is a proponent of Le Pen’s outreach to other parties, and credits his own broad appeal to voters for his election last year, in an upset for the previously leftist town.

But the party hierarchy is disconnected from its scarce, albeit vital local bases, Lopez said. National officials treat local representatives like children “and impose everything, how to communicate, build a local campaign,” Lopez said. “And by imposing everything from the top, you have a national strategy ... disconnected from the reality of each town or region.”

He is unsure whether the party will give local officials like himself speaking time, beyond his five minutes at a roundtable, but hopes to be heard.

“When you’re in self-satisfaction, when you refuse to look at imperfections, you go straight into the wall,” he said.

SCOTUS 

Justices turn away florist who refused same-sex wedding job



WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday declined to take up the case of a florist who refused to provide services for a same-sex wedding, leaving in place a decision that she broke state anti-discrimination laws.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said they would have agreed to hear the case and review the decision. Four justices are needed for the court to take a case.

In 2018 the high court ordered Washington state courts to take a new look at the case involving florist Barronelle Stutzman and her Arlene’s Flowers business. That followed the justices’ decision in a different case involving a Colorado baker who declined to make a cake for a same-sex wedding.

After that review, the Washington Supreme Court ruled unanimously that state courts did not act with animosity toward religion when they ruled Stutzman broke the state’s anti-discrimination laws by refusing on religious grounds to provide flowers for the wedding of Rob Ingersoll and Curt Freed.

Stutzman had sold Ingersoll flowers for nearly a decade and knew he was gay. But she contended his marriage went against her religious beliefs and she felt she could not provide services for the event.

Washington state law says businesses offering services to opposite-sex couples must provide the same service to same-sex couples.

A CENTURIES OLD REVOLUTIONARY TRADITION
In Cuba, novels and news accompany rolling of cigars

By ANDREA RODRÍGUEZ

Odalys de la Caridad Lara Reyes entertains employees by reading to them as they work making cigars at the La Corona Tobacco factory in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, June 29, 2021. She's one of a tiny band of tobacco factory readers, a job that dates to the 19th century and has become a unique part of Cuba's culture. (AP Photo/Ismael Francisco)

HAVANA (AP) — Every morning Odalys de la Caridad Lara Reyes gets to work, takes her seat and starts to read out loud. Usually there’s a novel. She’s partial to books by Victor Hugo and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Of late, during the pandemic, it’s just been the news.

She’s one of a small band of tobacco factory readers — a job that has become a unique part of Cuba’s culture.

“If I am born again, I would be a reader again, because through this profession I have learned in all areas,” said Lara, a short, 55-year-old woman with straight, graying hair, a deep voice and perfect diction.

Arrayed before her at the La Corona factory are scores of workers rolling the world’s finest cigars — San Cristobals, Montecristos, Cuabas.

By legend, at least, cigars like the Montecristos and Romeo y Julietas owe their very names to books being read as they were being rolled.

If they like what they’re hearing, the torcedores rattle their cutters. If they don’t, they may drop them to clatter on the floor.

During the pandemic, so many cutters have been absent so often — sometimes under quarantine or caring for children — that following a novel day to day is impossible. So for the time being, Lara has just read the news, reading items about COVID-19 therapies, the repatriation of migrants or the upcoming Tokyo Olympics.

Sitting at a podium on a wooden stage near a Cuban flag, she’ll also read out birthday reminders and factory announcements, such as what’s on offer at the cafeteria.

Historians say the practice dates to about 1865, when workers at the El Fígaro factory picked a colleague to read to them as they rolled — promising to produce more cigars to compensate for the missing worker. Later, they chipped in to pay a salary. Despite initial resistance from factory owners, the practice spread.

It became a way for workers to educate themselves. It also helped spread the cause of Cuban independence at the end of the 19th century — political activism that led to temporary bans.

Independence hero Jose Marti once took a turn at the reader’s chair to deliver a speech to emigrant Cuban tobacco rollers working at a factory in Florida, said Spanish language Professor María Isabel Alfonso, a specialist in Cuban culture at St. Joseph’s College in New York. The job “occupies a special place within the Cuban collective imagination,” she said.

Today more than 200 readers are on staff at state-owned factories. The government has declared the job a “cultural patrimony of the nation.” But the workers still elect the readers and vote on what will be read.

In 1996, Lara, then a mother with two small children, was working as an announcer at a radio station when she heard that a position was open at La Corona. She applied and was given a tryout along with two men.

“We spent 20 days reading ... and when the vote came, the workers elected me as the factory reader.”

She said that perhaps the most difficult days came in 2016, when she was reading out accounts of the death of former President Fidel Castro.

“We cried to see the loss and there are no words to describe what one feels trying to convey to many people who are also hurting,” she said.

Norma Perez selects the best leaves to roll cigars at the La Corona Tobacco factory where a worker reads to them in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, June 29, 2021. Readers are on staff at the state-owned factories, a job the government has declared a “cultural patrimony of the nation,” and workers elect the readers and vote on what will be read. (AP Photo/Ismael Francisco)

Biden backs changes in military sexual assault prosecution

By AAMER MADHANI and LOLITA C. BALDOR

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FILE - This March 27, 2008, file photo, shows the Pentagon in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday put his stamp of approval on a long-debated change to the military justice system that would remove decisions on prosecuting sexual assault cases from military commanders.

Biden, however, stopped short of backing a congressional effort to strip commanders of oversight of all major crimes.

The president formally approved more than two dozen recommendations made by an independent review commission on sexual assault in the military. The changes include shifting decisions on prosecuting sexual assault cases to special victims prosecutors outside the chain of command to remove any appearance of conflicts of interest.

The military’s sexual assault response coordinators and victims advocates also would be removed from the command structure system.

Reports of sexual assaults in the military have steadily gone up since 2006, according to Defense Department reports, including a 13% jump in 2018 and a 3% increase in 2019.

“I look forward to working with Congress to implement these necessary reforms and promote a work environment that is free from sexual assault and harassment for every one of our brave service members,” Biden said in a statement endorsing the recommendations.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., has the support of 66 senators for a bill that would have independent prosecutors handle all felony cases that call for more than a year in prison. But other key lawmakers and leaders of the military services have balked at including all major crimes. There are concerns that stripping control of all crimes from commanders could hurt military readiness, erode command authority and require far more time and resources.

Biden hailed Gillibrand’s work on the issue. But he asked the commission to focus only on addressing the problems of sexual assault and harassment in the military, said a senior administration official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Asked about the Gillibrand legislation, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden “looks forward to working with Congress to implement these necessary reforms,” but she sidestepped whether he would be supportive of the proposed legislation.

Gillibrand in her own statement said the commission’s recommendations — and the administration’s embrace of them — would add momentum to efforts to reform the military justice system. Still, she urged a broader overhaul.

“We must resist the urge to create a separate but unequal system of justice within the military and must guarantee a professional, unbiased system for all service members,” said Gillibrand, adding she would push for debate and a vote on a broader military justice reform bill when Congress returns.

Last month, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, for the first time, voiced support for taking sexual assault and related crimes away from the chain of command and letting independent military lawyers handle them.

He issued a memo to Pentagon leadership Friday directing that they immediately move on the commission recommendation including adding sexual harassment as an offense under military law.

Austin’s support came even as military service secretaries and chiefs, in memos to Austin and letters to Capitol Hill, said they were wary about the sexual assault change, and laid out greater reservations on more broadly revamping the military justice system.

Gillibrand has argued against limiting the change to sexual assault, saying it would be discriminatory and set up what some call a “pink” court to deal with crimes usually involving female victims.

“I’m deeply concerned that if they limit it to just sexual assault, it will really harm female service members. It will further marginalize them, further undermine them, and they’ll be seen as getting special treatment,” she previously told the AP.

The Army’s handling of sexual assaults and other violence has come under significant scrutiny in the aftermath of a series of crimes, including murders and suicides last year at Fort Hood, Texas. A review panel found that military leaders at the post were not adequately dealing with high rates of sexual assault and harassment and were utterly neglecting the sexual assault prevention program.

“These special victims require and deserve all critical decisions about their case to be made by a highly trained special victim prosecutor who is independent from the chain of command,” the report says. “A commander’s position within the unit leads to an inherent appearance of a conflict of interest.”

Biden said during an International Women’s Day speech in March that there would be “an all-hands-on-deck effort under my administration to end the scourge of sexual assault in the military.” He underscored on Friday that reform was essential for the health of the military.

“This will be among the most significant reforms to our military undertaken in recent history, and I’m committed to delivering results,”″ Biden said.

The commission made 28 recommendations and 54 sub-recommendations in its report to Biden, including specific changes to improve accountability of leadership, climate and culture and victim care and support.

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Biden and Austin’s embrace of the commission’s recommendations demonstrated the administration is “treating this issue with the urgency it deserves.”

“As I have said, the scourge of sexual assault in our military must come to an end, and after years of trying and failing to address the problem the time has come to remove the prosecution of sexual assault crimes from the chain of command,” Smith said.

NATO SNEAKS AWAY IN THE NIGHT
Most European troops exit Afghanistan quietly after 20 years

By GEIR MOULSON and KATHY GANNON

June 30, 2021

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Soldiers of the German Armed Forces have lined up in front of the Airbus A400M transport aircraft of the German Air Force for the final roll call in Wunstorf, Germany, Wednesday, June 30, 2021. The last soldiers of the German Afghanistan mission have arrived at the air base in Lower Saxony. The mission had ended the previous evening after almost 20 years. The soldiers had been flown out with four military planes from the field camp in Masar-i-Sharif in the north of Afghanistan. (Hauke-Christian Dittrich/Pool via AP)

BERLIN (AP) — Most European troops have already pulled out of Afghanistan, quietly withdrawing months before the U.S.-led mission was officially expected to end — part of an anticlimactic close to the “forever war” that risks leaving the country on the brink of civil war.

Germany and Italy declared their missions in Afghanistan over on Wednesday and Poland’s last troops returned home, bringing their deployments to a low-key end nearly 20 years after the first Western soldiers were deployed there.

Announcements from several countries analyzed by The Associated Press show that a majority of European troops has now left with little ceremony — a stark contrast to the dramatic and public show of force and unity when NATO allies lined up to back the U.S. invasion to rid the country of al-Qaida after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

In the ensuing decades, the war went from one mission to another. Former U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration shied away from nation-building and the United Nations advocated a light footprint. But with the passing years, NATO and U.S. troops took on greater roles developing Afghanistan’s National Security and Defense Forces and training police. At the war’s peak, the U.S. and NATO military numbers surpassed 150,000.

NATO agreed in April to withdraw its roughly 7,000 non-American forces from Afghanistan to match U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to pull all American troops from the country, starting May 1.

Biden set a Sept. 11 deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. But more recently, American officials have said that pullout would most likely be completed by July 4 — and many allies have moved to wrap up their own presence by then as well.

NATO declined to give an update Wednesday on how many nations still have troops in its Resolute Support mission. But an analysis of 19 governments’ announcements shows that more than 4,800 of the non-American forces have left.

The U.S. has refused to give troop figures, but when Biden announced the final pullout, between 2,500 and 3,500 troops were deployed. As of February, a total of some 832,000 American troops had served in Afghanistan, while about 25,100 Defense Department civilians had also served there.

The U.S. has also refused to give a clear date for a final withdrawal.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday only that the U.S. withdrawal remains “on the timeline that the president announced ... which is to get our troops out of Afghanistan, while having a remaining diplomatic presence on the ground, by September.”

Germany announced the end of its nearly 20-year deployment in a statement and a series of tweets from the defense minister late Tuesday, shortly after the last plane carrying its troops had left Afghan airspace.

Three transport aircraft landed at the Wunstorf air base in northern Germany on Wednesday afternoon. The troops, wearing masks, lined up on the tarmac for a brief ceremony, but the military dispensed with a bigger reception because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We have worked long and hard to stand here today,” said Brig. Gen. Ansgar Meyer, the last commander of the German contingent. “As your commander, I can say for you: ‘Mission accomplished.’ You have fulfilled your task.”

But the top American general in Afghanistan gave a sobering assessment Tuesday, warning about the recent rapid loss of districts to the Taliban and cautioning the country could descend into civil war.

The German pullout came amid a spate of withdrawals by European nations. Poland’s last departing troops were greeted Wednesday by Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak. Some 33,000 Polish troops have served in Afghanistan over the past 20 years.

The last Italian troops from Italy’s base in Herat arrived at the military airport in Pisa late Tuesday. Italy officially declared its mission in Afghanistan over in a statement Wednesday, with Defense Minister Lorenzo Guerini paying tribute to the 53 Italians who died and 723 who were injured over the past two decades.

Going forward, Guerini said Italy’s commitment to Afghanistan would remain, “beginning with the strengthening of development cooperation and support for Afghan institutions.”

Georgia’s last troops returned home Monday, while Romania brought home its remaining 140 troops Saturday, when Norway also pulled out. Troops from Denmark, Estonia and the Netherlands also returned home last week. Spain withdrew its last troops on May 13, Sweden on May 25, and Belgium on June 14. The small contingents deployed by Portugal, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Finland, Albania, North Macedonia and Luxembourg have left as well.

The pullout is nearing its end as security in Afghanistan worsens. Since May 1, when the withdrawal began, the Taliban have overrun district after district, including along major transportation routes. Many have fallen after Afghan soldiers surrendered, often convinced to leave their posts by elders. But elsewhere there have been bitter military battles, with Afghan troops sometimes losing when their positions could not be resupplied.

The U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Austen S. Miller, meanwhile, expressed concern about the resurrection of militias, which were deployed to help the beleaguered national security forces but have a brutal reputation for widespread killing.

“A civil war is certainly a path that can be visualized if this continues on the trajectory it’s on right now, that should be of concern to the world,” he said.

At a ceremony last week to mark the official end of the Dutch deployment, Dutch Defense Minister Ank Bijleveld-Schouten underscored the uncertain outlook.

“We see reports of the rise of the Taliban, growing violence, also in areas where we were stationed,” she said. “A lot has been achieved but we must be realistic: The results are not irreversible.”




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Italian Army soldiers carry the flag of the Folgore Brigade as the last Italian troops withdraw from Afghanistan, in Herat, Tuesday, June 29, 2021. The last German and Italian troops returned home from Afghanistan to low-key receptions on Tuesday and Wednesday, June 30, 2021, nearly 20 years after the first soldiers were deployed. Their withdrawal came after many other European allies pulled out their troops without much ceremony in recent days and weeks, bringing the Western mission in Afghanistan close to an end as the United States' own withdrawal looms. (Italian Defense Ministry via AP)


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This story has been updated to correct that Italian troops arrived home late Tuesday, not Wednesday.

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Gannon reported from Kabul, Afghanistan. Associated Press writers Nicole Winfield in Rome; Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands; Robert Burns in Washington and reporters from around Europe contributed to this report.

New US LGBTQ-rights envoy sees reasons for hope and worry


In this Dec. 7, 2019 photo provided by Brad Hamilton, Jessica Stern, head of Outright International, speaks during the OutSummit in New York. Stern, to become the U.S. State Department's special diplomatic envoy for LGBTQ rights in September 2021, sees a mix of promising news and worrisome news almost everywhere she looks as she assesses the challenges that lie ahead. (Brad Hamilton/OutRight Action International via AP)


NEW YORK (AP) — Jessica Stern, soon to become the State Department’s special diplomatic envoy for LGBTQ rights, sees a mix of promising news and worrisome developments almost everywhere she looks, both at home and abroad.

In the United States, Stern’s admiration for President Joe Biden’s moves supporting LGBTQ rights is offset by her dismay at other developments. These include persisting violence against transgender women of color and a wave of legislation in Republican-governed states seeking to limit sports participation and medical options for trans youth.

“I don’t think there’s a country or region that’s all good or all bad,” she told The Associated Press on Friday. “When you look around the world, you see progress and danger simultaneously.”

Stern, whose new post was announced by Biden last week, has served since 2012 as executive director of New York-based OutRight Action International, which works globally to prevent abuses of LGBTQ people and strengthen their civil rights. She expects to start the State Department job in September.

From her vantage point at OutRight, she’s been monitoring far-flung threats to LGBTQ people: recent mass arrests in African countries such as Ghana and Uganda, three killings within a week in Guatemala, and legislation in Hungary that has been assailed by many European leaders and human rights activists as denigrating LGBTQ people.

Stern is also worried that LGBTQ people in Myanmar are suffering disproportionately amid the military’s violent suppression of demonstrators and opposition groups.

Regarding the United States, she said, LGBTQ developments this year have reflected deep-seated contradictions.

She hailed Biden for moving to bolster transgender rights, including lifting a Trump administration ban that blocked trans people from joining the military. And she welcomed the ground-breaking appointments of LGBTQ people to important administration posts –- including Pete Buttigieg, who is gay, as transportation secretary, and Dr. Rachel Levine, who is transgender, as assistant secretary of health.

“At the same time, the work in the U.S. for the safety and security of transgender Americans is far from complete,” said Stern. She urged Congress to pass the Equality Act, a bill that would extend federal civil rights protections to LGBTQ people. The bill is stalled in the Senate for lack of Republican support.

“There’s no country that has gotten this right,” she said. “We all have work to do to ensure we are free from discrimination and violence. ... We’re all in this together.”

She does see reasons for optimism, even in Africa, where South Africa is the only one of 54 nations to have legalized same-sex marriage.

In Nigeria, for example, she said a recent poll showed 25% of the public opposes discrimination against LGBTQ people -- a substantial increase from a few years ago,

“There’s no doubt it’s a slower journey for LGBTQI rights in any place where conservative religions play a dominant role, but progress is happening,” she said.

“Every day I get an email from a new organization -- maybe starting a film festival or an arts festival,” she said. “As long as LGBTQI civil society is strong, it’s only a matter of time before we see a change in attitudes and even in law and policy.”

Hungary PM calls EU leaders ‘colonialists’ in LGBT law feud

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Friday accused European leaders of acting like “colonialists” in their criticism of a controversial law that’s seen as limiting the rights of LGBT people in that country.

European Union leaders challenged Orban on the law at a summit in Brussels last week, with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte suggesting that the Hungarian leader should either uphold EU values or pull out of the 27-member bloc.

Speaking on public radio, Orban defied calls to repeal the law which prohibits the “display or promotion” of homosexuality or gender reassignment in television shows, films and sexual education programs to kids in schools.

“They behave like colonialists,” Orban said of his EU critics. “They want to dictate what laws should take effect in another country, they want to tell us how to live our lives and how to behave.” He added that the criticism was a result of “bad reflexes caused by their European colonialist past.”

Hungary’s right-wing government - which faces elections next year - insists the law is necessary to ensure that the sexual education of children under 18 is the sole domain of parents.

But LGBT advocacy groups and high-ranking politicians in Europe have slammed the legislation, arguing it stigmatizes sexual minorities and seeks to stifle discourse on sexual orientation.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week called the law “a shame,” and sent a letter to Hungary demanding a clarification of its impact on fundamental rights.

The heads of 17 EU countries signed a joint letter condemning the legislation, and urged the European Commission to take Hungary before the European Court of Justice over the matter.

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US Federal executions halted; Garland orders protocols reviewed

By MICHAEL BALSAMO, COLLEEN LONG and MICHAEL TARM

Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks during a news conference on voting rights at the Department of Justice in Washington, Friday, June 25, 2021. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is halting federal executions after a historic use of capital punishment by the Trump administration, which carried out 13 executions in six months.

Attorney General Merrick Garland made the announcement Thursday night, saying he was imposing a moratorium on federal executions while the Justice Department conducts a review of its policies and procedures. He gave no timetable.

“The Department of Justice must ensure that everyone in the federal criminal justice system is not only afforded the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States, but is also treated fairly and humanely,” Garland said. “That obligation has special force in capital cases.”

Garland said the department would review the protocols put in place by former Attorney General William Barr. A federal lawsuit has been filed over the protocols — including the risk of pain and suffering associated with the use of pentobarbital, the drug used for lethal injection.

The decision puts executions on hold for now, but it doesn’t end their use and keeps the door open for another administration to simply restart them. It also doesn’t stop federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty; the Biden administration recently asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the Boston Marathon bomber’s original death sentence.

President Joe Biden has said he opposes the death penalty and his team vowed that he would take action to stop its use while in office. But the issue is uncomfortable one for Biden. As a then-proponent of the death penalty, Biden helped craft 1994 laws that added 60 federal crimes for which someone could be put to death, including several that did not cause death. He later conceded the laws disproportionately impacted Black people. Black people are also overrepresented on death rows across the United States.

Anti-death penalty advocates had hoped for a more definitive answer from the Biden administration. Sup​port for the death penalty among Americans is at near-historic lows after peaking in the mid-1990s and steadily declining since, with most recent polls indicating support now hovers around 55%, according to the nonpartisan Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.

Ruth Friedman, Director of the Federal Capital Habeas Project, which represented some of the prisoners on death row, said Garland’s action was a step in the right direction, but it’s not enough. She called on Biden to commute the sentences.

“We know the federal death penalty system is marred by racial bias, arbitrariness, over-reaching, and grievous mistakes by defense lawyers and prosecutors that make it broken beyond repair,” she said. There are 46 people still on federal death row.

White House spokesman Andrew Bates said Biden was “pleased the Attorney General is taking these steps” and emphasized that the president has “significant concerns about the death penalty and how it is implemented.”

The review is strikingly similar to one to one imposed during the Obama administration. In 2014, following a botched state execution in Oklahoma, President Barack Obama directed the Justice Department to conduct a broad review of capital punishment and issues surrounding lethal injection drugs.

Barr announced the restarting of executions in 2019, saying the Obama-era review had been completed and clearing the way for executions to resume. He approved the new procedure for lethal injections that replaced the three-drug combination previously used in federal executions with one drug, pentobarbital. This is similar to the procedure used in several states, including Georgia, Missouri and Texas, but not all.

Donald Trump’s Justice Department resumed federal executions in July, following a 17-year hiatus. No president in more than 120 years had overseen as many federal executions. The last inmate to be executed, Dustin Higgs, was put to death at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, less than a week before Trump left office.

They were carried out during a worsening coronavirus pandemic. Toward the end of the string of executions, 70% of death row inmates were sick with COVID-19, guards were ill and traveling prisons staff on the execution team had the virus. It’s impossible to know precisely who introduced the infections and how they started to spread, in part because prisons officials didn’t consistently do contact tracing and haven’t been fully transparent about the number of cases. But an Associated Press analysis found the executions were likely a superspreader event.

There were major discrepancies in the way executioners who put the 13 inmates to death described the process of dying by lethal injection. They likened the process in official court papers to falling asleep and called gurneys “beds” and final breaths “snores.”

But those tranquil accounts are at odds with reports by The Associated Press and other media witnesses of how prisoners’ stomachs rolled, shook and shuddered as the pentobarbital took effect inside the U.S. penitentiary death chamber in Terre Haute. The AP witnessed every execution.

Secrecy surrounded all aspects of the executions. Courts relied on those carrying them out to volunteer information about glitches. None of the executioners mentioned any.

Lawyers argued that one of the men put to death last year, Wesley Purkey, suffered “extreme pain” as he received a dose of pentobarbital. The court papers were filed by another inmate, Keith Nelson, in an effort to halt or delay his execution. But it went forward.

The federal Bureau of Prisons has declined to explain how it obtained pentobarbital for the lethal injections under Trump. But states have resorted to other means as the drugs used in lethal injections have become increasingly hard to procure. Pharmaceutical companies in the 2000s began banning the use of their products for executions, saying they were meant to save lives, not take them.

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Tarm reported from Chicago.

Medicaid expansion takes effect in 

deep-red Oklahoma

By SEAN MURPHY and RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR

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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra, center, shakes hands with Oklahoma Medicaid advocates following a news conference Thursday, July 1, 2021, in Tulsa, Okla., as Oklahoma expands its Medicaid program. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A voter-approved expansion of Medicaid took effect Thursday in Oklahoma after a decade of Republican resistance in a state that has become emblematic of the political struggle to extend the federal health insurance program in conservative strongholds.

Oklahoma moved ahead with its expansion at a time when Democrats in Washington and across the states are pressing to complete the work of the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, recently upheld by the Supreme Court for the third time in a decade. So far, 38 states and Washington, D.C., have expanded Medicaid, and expansion in a dozen mostly Southern states may be the biggest piece of unfinished business.

“Anyone banking on the idea that Obamacare was just going to be struck down — the Supreme Court has moved past that,” said Cindy Mann, who served as federal Medicaid chief during the Barack Obama administration.

“All of the states that are still debating the issue are constantly looking at other states’ experience to get a sense of what they can expect,” added Mann, now with the Manatt Health consultancy. “Having Oklahoma — a very red state — moving forward judiciously and with very strong enrollment is showing that this is a sensible path to go.”

More than 123,000 low-income people already have been approved for Medicaid coverage in Oklahoma, a state where nearly 15% of the population has been uninsured — the highest rate in the nation behind Texas, according to the non-profit Kaiser Family Foundation. State Medicaid officials say they expect that number to increase to more than 200,000 as more people get approved.

Danielle Gaddis of Oklahoma City is 26 and preparing to begin medical school. She has been without private health insurance since her mother, whose health plan she was on, retired two years ago.

When Gaddis began running a fever over the winter, she couldn’t afford to see a doctor and instead spent two weeks trying to recover on her own. That will change since she’s been approved for Medicaid thanks to the expansion.

“Just the financial worry is gone,” Gaddis said. “It’s nice to know that’s something I don’t have to worry about.”

Oklahoma voters narrowly approved a constitutional amendment last year to expand eligibility for benefits. Now, an individual who earns up to $17,796 annually, or $36,588 for a family of four, qualifies for Medicaid health care coverage. By contrast, the median income limit for parents in states that didn’t expand their program is about $8,905 for a family of three, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

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FILE - In this Oct. 24, 2019 file photo, supporters of Yes on 802 Oklahomans Decide Healthcare, calling for Medicaid expansion to be put on the ballot, carry boxes of petitions into the office of the Oklahoma Secretary of State, in Oklahoma City. Tens of thousands of Oklahoma residents are now covered by health insurance as a result of Medicaid expansion in Oklahoma. The voter-backed expansion took effect on Thursday, July 1, 2021. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki File)

“I want to congratulate Oklahoma on joining the ranks of states that are bringing quality health coverage to our neighbors and families,” said U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who visited Oklahoma Thursday to discuss the significance of Medicaid expansion.

Medicaid started out in the 1960s as a federal-state health insurance program for severely disabled people and low-income families on welfare, but it now covers nearly 74 million people, or more than one in five Americans. The program expansion under Obama brought in some 12 million low-income people, mostly low-wage workers.

The states most closely watching Oklahoma are Missouri – where voters approved an expansion but GOP legislators balked at funding it – as well as Kansas, where Medicaid expansion has been actively debated. In Missouri, a judge recently ruled that the ballot question there was unconstitutional.

In South Dakota, several major health care systems last month announced plans to begin gathering signatures for a ballot measure to expand Medicaid there.

Opponents of expansion argue that the costs to the states are excessive. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson has described the expansion as “a massive tax increase that Missourians cannot afford.” Oklahoma helped offset the costs by increasing a fee that hospitals must pay.

President Joe Biden’s coronavirus relief law dangles a significant financial bonus in front of states that expand their programs now. Oklahoma is the first to qualify.

Under the Biden legislation, states newly expanding will receive a two-year, 5-percentage-point bump up in federal matching funds for their regular Medicaid programs. That’s on top of a 90% federal match for the costs of covering the newly insured through the expansion. Manatt estimates the bonus alone would work out to $786 million for Oklahoma, but bigger states like Texas and Florida would reap much more.

More than 2 million low-income uninsured people remain in a coverage gap as long as Medicaid expansion is unfinished. They make too much to qualify for Medicaid under their individual state’s rules, but not enough to qualify for “Obamacare’s” subsidized private insurance.

“Right now, millions of Americans do not have health care coverage through no fault of their own because their states haven’t expanded their Medicaid programs,” said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., chair of the U.S. House committee that oversees Medicaid.

In Washington, there’s a growing demand among Democrats for the federal government to step in and take direct action if states continue to hold out. It’s seen as a health equity issue, since many of the uninsured people in the coverage gap are racial and ethnic minorities.

“Having Oklahoma and Missouri going in two different directions really illustrates the need for the federal government to do something,” said Jesse Cross-Call, a health policy expert with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, which advocates for low-income people. “There continue to be states that are going to throw up roadblocks and resist this no matter what you put in front of them.”

James Capretta, a health policy expert with the business-oriented American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said there’s also been a reluctance among Democrats to compromise, since they reject ideas that would alter the basic terms of the Obama health law.

Nonetheless, “there ought to be a bipartisan consensus here, since there really is no alternative to Medicaid as the safety net health insurance program,” Capretta added. “We already have a program. And there is still a gap population. The logical thing to do is find some way to make sure these people are at least being helped.”

USA
Overhaul makes it easier for aspiring teachers to get grants

By COLLIN BINKLEY

July 1, 2021

FILE - In this March 17, 2021, file photo, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington. The U.S. Education Department on Wednesday, June 16, expanded its interpretation of federal sex protections to include transgender and gay students, a move that reverses Trump-era policy and stands against proposals in many states to bar transgender girls from school sports. In announcing the shift, Cardona said gay, lesbian and transgender students “have the same rights and deserve the same protections” as workers. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

The U.S. Education Department on Thursday loosened the rules around a grant program that’s intended to help aspiring teachers pay for college but has actually left thousands stuck with student debt.

The update is part of a federal rules overhaul that was finalized under the Trump administration but is just now taking effect. Unlike other Trump-era rules that the Biden administration is working to reverse, however, this rule was heralded as a victory for the nation’s teachers.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the changes deliver much-needed improvements to help teachers get grants “without having to jump through unnecessary hoops.” He said the White House now hopes to take it a step further by expanding funding for the program and adopting other policies to address teacher shortages.

The TEACH Grants — short for Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education — were created in 2007 to expand the nation’s teaching force and steer more teachers to schools in low-income areas.

Under the program, students can get up to $4,000 a year if they plan to teach high-demand subjects in schools that serve low-income students. They must teach for at least four years within eight years of graduating. If they fall short of that goal or fail to submit regular paperwork, the grants become federal loans that must be repaid in full and with interest.

Since its creation, more than 200,000 students have received grants through the program.

Lawmakers in both parties began calling for improvements after a federal watchdog agency found in 2015 that thousands of the grants had been converted to loans. As of 2019, almost half of grants awarded through the program had become loans, according to an Education Department report, in many cases only because recipients failed to turn in annual forms proving their teaching status.

Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos moved to ease some of the requirements last year amid a flurry of policy changes. Her updated rule adds flexibility and reduces the paperwork that has posed problems for recipients. The rule was scheduled to take effect July 1.

With the new policy in place, recent college graduates will no longer have to submit a form indicating they have started teaching or plan to within 120 days. Once they begin teaching, they still have to file annual forms proving their teaching status, but failing to do so will not automatically get their grants turned into loans.

On Thursday, Education Department officials emphasized that the only way a grant can now be turned into a loan is if students request it or if they run out of time to complete four years of teaching within the eight-year deadline.

An expanded appeals process will also allow students to request reconsideration if their grant is turned into a loan for any reason. And the Education Department will accept a wider range of reasons that would allow students to get credit for a full year of teaching even if they work just part of the year.

President Joe Biden is proposing to expand the program through his American Families Plan. His proposal would double the grant size, to $8,000, for college juniors and seniors and all graduate students. It would also eliminate the interest when grants are converted to loans, and it would expand the program to include early childhood teachers.

The White House says the proposal would increase the number of grant recipients by more than 50%, to nearly 40,000 in 2022.