Brazil’s Bolsonaro loses his bid to reform voting system

By MAURICIO SAVARESE and MARCELO SILVA DE SOUSA

August 11, 2021

SAO PAULO (AP) — President Jair Bolsonaro has suffered a major defeat in Congress when Brazilian lawmakers rejected a proposal to require printed receipts at some electronic ballot boxes.

Without presenting any evidence, Bolsonaro has insisted Brazil’s electronic voting system is prone to fraud, and that printouts would allow for auditing results. The proposed constitutional change needed 308 votes in order to pass, and received 229 Tuesday night.

The opposition, however, also fell short of reaching an overwhelming majority to rebuff the president’s relentless efforts to undermine confidence in the voting system. Only 218 lawmakers voted against the measure.

Electoral authorities and even many of Bolsonaro’s political allies opposed the proposal, saying the system is fully reliable and the change could create opportunities for vote buying. Critics contend Bolsonaro is trying to sow doubt among his passionate supporters about the 2022 election results, setting the stage for potential conflicts similar to those spawned by then U.S. President Donald Trump’s allegations of fraud in the United States.

Cláudio Couto, a political scientist at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university, said Tuesday’s vote marked the biggest legislative defeat for Bolsonaro since he took office in 2019. The measure was a watered-down version of an initial proposal to adopt printouts at all of the nation’s voting ballot boxes. That initiative was rejected last week by a congressional committee

“The administration is getting more fragile in every aspect,” Couto said. “By insisting on the printed vote — for a nonexistent problem — Bolsonaro made this defeat important.”

Bolsonaro told supporters on Wednesday that, despite the loss, the divided vote showed that a large part of Congress doesn’t believe elections are conducted seriously and that Brazilians won’t trust next year’s results.

He said some lawmakers who voted against the proposal were pressured by Brazil’s electoral court, while others were blackmailed or feared retaliation. He offered no evidence for those claims.

In pushing for the change, Bolsonaro has repeatedly insulted Luis Roberto Barroso, a Supreme Court justice who is president of Brazil’s electoral court, accusing him of working to benefit former leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is expected to run in next year’s election and is leading in early polls.

Earlier Tuesday, dozens of military vehicles and hundreds of soldiers paraded past the presidential palace as Bolsonaro looked on, then they continued past Congress. The vehicles left the city at night.

The navy issued a statement saying the convoy had been planned long before the congressional vote. But it was announced only on Monday and critics said it looked like an attempt to intimidate the president’s opponents.

Tuesday’s vote represented a bid by lower house Speaker Arthur Lira, a Bolsonaro ally, to resolve the dispute and ease tensions in the capital.

“In the lower house, I hope that this issue is definitively settled,” Lira told reporters last night.

___ Marcelo Silva da Sousa reported from Rio de Janeiro.

Military display rolls into Brazil capital before tense vote

DÉBORA ÁLVARES and MAURICIO SAVARESE

August 10, 2021

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An armored vehicle drives past Congressional buildings as part of a convoy after it passed by Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021. The convoy paraded by the palace on Tuesday, the day of a key congressional vote on a constitutional reform proposal supported by Bolsonaro that would add printed receipts to some of the nation’s electronic ballot boxes. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)


BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil’s military staged an unusual convoy of troops and armored vehicles through the capital Tuesday — an event that was announced only a day before and that coincided with a scheduled vote in Congress on one of President Jair Bolsonaro’s key proposals.

Hours later, Congress’ lower house did not approve the constitutional reform sought by Bolsonaro to require printed receipts from some electronic ballot boxes that the president alleges are prone to fraud. His allies needed 308 votes and got only 229. The opposition, which had hoped to get an overwhelming majority against the president, fell short, getting 218 votes.

Earlier in the day, dozens of vehicles and hundreds of soldiers paraded past the presidential palace as Bolsonaro looked on, then continued past the congressional building and Defense Ministry.

The navy issued a statement saying the convoy had been planned long before the congressional vote. But it was announced only on Monday and critics said it looked like an attempt to intimidate opponents of a president who has often praised the country’s past military dictatorship.

Military parades in the capital are usually limited to independence day events. Tuesday’s procession was described as a ceremonial invitation for Bolsonaro to attend annual navy exercises that are held in a town outside the capital. The army and air force also are participating for the first time.

President Jair Bolsonaro waves next to his Defense Minister Walter Braga Netto as a military convoy passes the presidential palace in Brasilia. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

The parade upset some lawmakers. Omar Aziz, the president of a Senate probe into the government’s COVID-19 pandemic response, said the parade was “a clear attempt to intimidate lawmakers and opponents. He (Bolsonaro) imagines he is showing strength, but he is showing a president weakened by investigations.”

Critics allege that Bolsonaro, who trails rivals in early opinion polls, is trying to sow doubt among his passionate supporters about the 2022 election results, setting the stage for potential conflicts similar to those spawned by former U.S. President Donald Trump’s allegations of fraud in the United States.

Supporters of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro cheer with a Brazilian flag as protesters in opposition to the president hold flowers to give to soldiers from a military convoy. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

A soldier in a parked military vehicle outside Navy headquarters in Brasilia. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo, a lawmaker, on Monday reinforced the family’s close association with Trump by posting on social media what appeared to be a recent photo of himself standing alongside the former U.S. leader and saying he (Eduardo) is “on the side of men with unblemished reputations and the moral authority to walk down the street, head held high.”

Tuesday’s military procession shows Bolsonaro is either a poor judge of the political climate or is knowingly straining against democratic norms, said Kai Kenkel, a specialist on Brazil’s military at Rio de Janeiro’s Pontifical Catholic University.

“We still need to know for sure whether there is a connection between Bolsonaro’s agenda and the motivations of the navy to do this, because the navy has been much more careful not to make political statements,” Kenkel told The Associated Press.

Electoral authorities have repeatedly denied any problems with the voting system and Bolsonaro has failed to present proof despite a Supreme Court order to substantiate his allegations.

The president has repeatedly insulted Luis Roberto Barroso, a Supreme Court justice and the electoral court’s president, accusing him of working to benefit former leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has been leading in the polls.

Tuesday’s measure is a watered-down version of an initial proposal to adopt printouts at all of the nation’s voting ballot boxes — a bill rejected last week by a congressional committee.

Electoral authorities and even many of Bolsonaro’s political allies oppose the plan, saying it attacks a nonexistent problem and would create opportunity for vote buying.

The call for a vote appeared to be a bid by lower house Speaker Arthur Lira, a Bolsonaro ally, to settle the dispute for good and ease tensions.

On Monday, Lira called the military exercise taking place the same day as the vote a “tragic coincidence.″

Amid red smoke from flares lit by protesters, police detain two protesters blocking a military convoy that was heading to Planalto presidential palace. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

“We hope that this subject is finally ended in the lower house,” Lira said after the vote.

Cláudio Couto, a political scientist at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, said Tuesday marked the biggest legislative defeat for Bolsonaro.

“The administration is getting more frail in every aspect. It suffers in polls, it is investigated in the Senate inquiry on the COVID-19 pandemic, and the chances that Bolsonaro is not reelected are getting bigger,” Couto said. “By insisting in today’s proposal to solve a problem that does not exist, Bolsonaro has made this defeat to be important.”

Bolsonaro has repeatedly hammered on the fraud claims to rally supporters and shows no sign of dropping the issue.

“We will do everything for our freedom, for clean, democratic elections and public count of votes,” he told backers Saturday at a rally in Santa Catarina state. Any election without that isn’t an election.”

He led another rally, a motorcycle convoy, in the capital on Sunday.

“It isn’t just now that there are rumors about fraud in the ballot boxes, but now there’s this proposal and he (Bolsonaro) resolved to go in head first,” said Maria da Silva, a 61-year-old homemaker from Sao Paulo. “I trust him.”

Women offer flowers to a soldier in a show of opposition to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro after a military convoy passed Planalto presidential palace and parked outside the Navy headquarters in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021. The convoy paraded by the palace on Tuesday, the day of a key congressional vote on a constitutional reform proposal supported by Bolsonaro that would add printed receipts to some of the nation’s electronic ballot boxes. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Hours before the tense vote, Bolsonaro had another defeat in Congress. A dictatorship-era national security law, which was frequently used by police against critics of the president, was scrapped by the Senate. The law, which dates from 1983, made it a crime to harm the heads of the three branches of government or expose them to danger.

Juan Gonzalez, the U.S. National Security Council’s senior director for the Western Hemisphere, told reporters on Monday that Biden administration officials were “very candid” speaking last week with Bolsonaro about elections, particularly in light of parallels with what has happened in the U.S.

“We were also very direct, expressing great confidence in the ability of the Brazilian institutions to carry out a free and fair election with proper safeguards in place and guard against fraud,” Gonzalez said. “And we stressed the importance of not undermining confidence in that process, especially since there were no signs of fraud in in prior elections.” 

___ Mauricio Savarese reported from Sao Paulo. AP journalist Eraldo Peres contributed from Brasilia

#ENDWOLFHUNTS ZERO WOLF LIMIT
Wisconsin sets 300-wolf limit after runaway spring hunt

By TODD RICHMOND

FILE - This July 16, 2004, file photo, shows a gray wolf at the Wildlife Science Center in Forest Lake, Minn. Wildlife officials in Wisconsin were set Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021, to consider adopting a 130-animal limit for the state's fall wolf hunt, saying they want to protect the population after hunters killed scores more wolves than they were allowed during a rushed spring season. (AP Photo/Dawn Villella, File)


MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wildlife officials in Wisconsin set a 300-animal limit Wednesday for the state’s fall wolf hunt, exceeding biologists’ recommendations as they study the impact of a rushed spring season that saw hunters take almost twice as many wolves as allotted.

State Department of Natural Resources scientists asked its policy board to cap kills at 130 animals, saying board members must be cautions because the four-day season in February took place during wolves’ breeding season and the long-term ramifications on the population are unknown.

But conservative-leaning members of the board countered that the population is still well above the DNR’s goal of 350 animals and they have a responsibility to manage the pack and protect livestock from wolf attacks. The board ultimately voted 5-2 to set aside the department’s recommendation and up the quota to 300 animals.

“The department can’t go against the management plan now of 350,” board member Greg Kazmierski said. “We are stuck with the plan in front of us today. We need to show we’re trying to move toward that goal. If we don’t, we can throw out all the management plans in the state because we don’t need them.”

The working quota for state-licensed hunters will almost certainly be less than 300, however. The state’s Chippewa tribes are entitled to claim up to half of the quota under treaty rights dating back to the 1800s. The Chippewa consider wolves sacred and refuse to hunt them. If the tribes claim their full half of the quota, state-licenses hunters will be allowed to kill only 150 wolves.

The vote marks another testy chapter in what has becoming a bitter saga over wolf management in Wisconsin. The animal has made a remarkable comeback in the state — the DNR’s latest estimates from the winter of 2019-2020 put the population at around 1,000 animals statewide. The department’s management plan, adopted in 1999, sets out a population goal of 350.

DNR attorney Cheryl Heilman told the board that 350 number in the management plan isn’t a population target but the minimum number for holding a hunt. Conservative board members disputed that, insisting it was a population goal

As more wolves have appeared on the landscape conflict over how to handle them have only intensified.

Farmers and residents across northern Wisconsin say wolves menace their pets and livestock and hunting is the only way to control them. Conservationists counter that the population is still too small to sustain hunting and the creatures are so majestic people should just leave them alone.

Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker signed bills in 2011 and 2016 requiring the DNR hold an annual wolf hunt between November and February. The state held three hunts from 2012 to 2014 before a federal judge placed wolves back on the endangered species list. The Trump administration removed them from the list days this past January, days before Joe Biden was inaugurated.

DNR officials were planning to hold a hunt this November, but hunter advocacy group Hunter Nation won a court order forcing the department to hold a season in February. The group argued that President Joe Biden’s administration might put wolves back on the endangered species list before fall, robbing hunters of the chance to go after the animals.

The department rushed to put a season together in just days. The results were chaotic; state-licensed hunters killed 218 wolves in just four days, blowing past their quota of 119 animals. Many hunters used dogs to track and corner their prey. Fresh snow helped tracking. A state law requiring 24 hours notice before the season was closed along with the issuance of twice as many permits as usual contributed to the kill rate as well.

The kills left a sour taste in the mouths of conservationists and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ administration, which controls the DNR. The agency recommended the board take a conservative approach heading into the November hunt, hence the 130-animal limit. The department concluded that the impact of the February hunt is still unclear and a quota of 135-140 animals probably wouldn’t result in a overall population reduction.

Nearly 60 people registered to speak at the board meeting Wednesday, with most calling for the DNR to put a stop to wolf hunting altogether.

“The hatred toward this being is based on myth,” said John Johnson Jr., president of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. “You’ve had the functional equivalent of two seasons already this year. (But) nothing will dissuade the desire for more blood from our brother. What will be in short supply today is respect. Respect for science, respect for the tribal community, respect for the ma’iingan,” he said, using the Chippewa term for wolf.

But hunt supporters demanded the board raise the fall quota to as high as 500 animals, insisting that the DNR has grossly underestimated the wolf population.

“We ask you, members of the Natural Resources Board, to listen to science, to listen to the people of northern Wisconsin, to listen to the elected county officials of the region, to listen to Wisconsin’s farmers, and to listen to the Wisconsin sportsmen and women who actually encounter and deal with wolves in pursuit of their sporting heritage,” Carl Schoettel, president of the Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association, said in written remarks to the board.

Macy West, an Evers appointee on the board, said the vote will cost the board credibility with animal advocates and conservationists who demanded an end to wolf hunting. She warned that if the hunt results in a precipitous population decline federal wildlife officials will seize management rights from the state, costing farmers the right to kill problem wolves.

“We’re just teeing it up to lose credibility again,” she said.

Megan Nicholson, director the Humane Society of the United States’ Wisconsin chapter, called the new quota “egregious” in an email to The Associated Press.

“The only scientifically and ethically defensible path forward would have been a quota of zero,” she said. “The board should be ashamed of their brazen contempt of Wisconsin’s wolves and residents.”

Judge begins key hearing in Boy Scouts of America  bankruptcy case
By RANDALL CHASEtoday

FILE - In this Feb. 18, 2020, file photo, Boy Scouts of America uniforms are displayed in the retail store at the headquarters for the French Creek Council of the Boy Scouts of America in Summit Township, Pa. Attorneys recently reached a tentative agreement that could help pave the way for the Boy Scouts of America to exit bankruptcy. A Delaware judge has set a Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021 hearing on a proposed $850 million agreement between the Boy Scouts and attorneys representing about 70,000 child sex abuse claimants. (Christopher Millette/Erie Times-News via AP, File)


DOVER, Del. (AP) — An attorney for the Boy Scouts of America told a Delaware judge on Thursday that the group’s national board never adopted a resolution approving an $850 million agreement that is the linchpin of the Boy Scouts’ proposed bankruptcy plan.

Despite that acknowledgment, the Boy Scouts are asking the judge to rule that the organization properly exercised its business judgment in entering into the agreement and should be allowed to proceed with it as the foundation of a final bankruptcy plan.

The agreement involves the national Boy Scouts organization, the roughly 250 local Boy Scout councils, and law firms representing some 70,000 men who claim they were molested as youngsters by Scoutmasters and others. It also includes the official victims committee appointed by the U.S. bankruptcy trustee.

The agreement is opposed by insurers that issued policies to the Boy Scouts and local councils, other law firms representing thousands of abuse victims, and various church denominations that have sponsored local Boy Scout troops.

The Boy Scouts, based in Irving, Texas, sought bankruptcy protection in February 2020 amid an onslaught of lawsuits by men who said they were sexually abused as children. The filing was part of an attempt to reach a global resolution of abuse claims and create a compensation fund for victims.

Under the agreement presented to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Laura Selber Silverstein, the Boy Scouts have proposed contributing up to $250 million in cash and property to a fund for abuse victims. Local councils, which run day-to-day operations for Boy Scout troops, would contribute $600 million.

The national organization and councils also would transfer their rights to Boy Scout insurance policies to the victims fund. In return, they would be released from further liability for abuse claims.

If approved, the agreement could result in one of the nation’s largest settlements in a sex abuse case.

Silverstein expressed surprise Thursday when Glenn Kurtz, an attorney for the Boy Scouts, said during arguments over what board materials had been provided to the insurers that the board never approved a formal resolution approving the agreement.

“Isn’t it a little unusual that a board doesn’t actually authorize the actual agreement?” the judge asked.

Kurtz replied that the board authorized “deal terms,” but delegated the documentation to the professionals.

“I don’t know it was the world’s most formal procedure in terms of documenting the approvals, but you got a yes vote from all 72 board members on these deal terms,” Kurtz said.

Silverstein suggested that the lack of board authorization for the agreement was particularly surprising given that several members of the board are lawyers.

“We’ll see whether the debtor is able, without an authorization, to convince me that they’ve met the business judgment standard or they’re entitled to the business judgment standard and they made informed decisions,” she said.

Under Delaware’s business judgment rule, courts typically give strong deference to a corporate board’s decision-making unless there is evidence that directors shirked their duties, had conflicts or acted in bad faith.

As part of the proposed agreement, the Boy Scouts are seeking permission from Silverstein to back out of a settlement reached in April with one of their insurers, The Hartford. The Hartford agreed to pay $650 million into the victims fund in exchange for being released from any further obligations, but victims attorneys have said their clients won’t support a reorganization plan that includes it.

The hearing, which is scheduled to resume Friday, is for the judge to examine whether the settlement agreement provides a basis for the Boy Scouts to move forward with a proposed reorganization plan.

Judge rules Dominion case can proceed against Trump allies

By GARY FIELDS and MICHAEL BALSAMO

FILE - Sidney Powell, right, speaks next to former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, as members of President Donald Trump's legal team, during a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters on Nov. 19, 2020, in Washington. A federal judge cleared the way Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021, for a defamation case by Dominion Voting Systems to proceed against Trump allies Powell, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Lindell, the founder and CEO of MyPillow, who had all falsely accused the company of rigging the 2020 presidential election. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols handed down a ruling Wednesday that found there was no blanket protection on political speech. 

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge cleared the way Wednesday for a defamation case by Dominion Voting Systems to proceed against Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Lindell, allies of former President Donald Trump who had all falsely accused the company of rigging the 2020 presidential election.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols ruled that there was no blanket protection on political speech and denied an argument from two of the defendants that the federal court in Washington wasn’t the proper venue for the case.

“As an initial matter, there is no blanket immunity for statements that are ‘political’ in nature,” the judge wrote in the 44-page ruling.

While courts have recognized there are some hyperbolic statements in political discourse, “it is simply not the law that provably false statements cannot be actionable if made in the context of an election,” Nichols wrote.

The judge also rejected Powell and Lindell’s arguments that Dominion had failed to meet a legal burden that their statements were made with “actual malice.”

He outlined several instances where the trio made outlandish and blatantly false claims, including when Powell stated that the company was created in Venezuela to rig elections for the late leader Hugo Chavez and that it can switch votes.

In allowing the lawsuit to go forward, Nichols said Dominion had adequately proved that Powell made statements that could lead to a lawsuit “because a reasonable juror could conclude that they were either statements of fact or statements of opinion that implied or relied upon facts that are provably false.” Dominion has sought $1.3 billion in damages from the trio.


FILE - Founder and CEO of MyPillow Mike Lindell gives an interview with Right Side Broadcasting Network at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 28, 2021. A federal judge cleared the way Wednesday, Aug. 11 for a defamation case by Dominion Voting Systems to proceed against Trump allies Lindell, Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, who had all falsely accused the company of rigging the 2020 presidential election. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols handed down a ruling Wednesday that found there was no blanket protection on political speech. (Sam Thomas/Orlando Sentinel via AP, File)

The judge used similar language against Lindell, the founder and CEO of MyPillow, saying Dominion proved Lindell had “made his claims knowing that they were false or with reckless disregard for the truth.”

Powell and Giuliani, both lawyers who filed election challenges on Trump’s behalf, and Lindell, who was one of Trump’s most ardent public supporters, made various unproven claims about the voting machine company. Many of those statements came at news conferences, during election rallies and on social media and television.

There was no widespread fraud in the election, which a range of election officials across the country, including Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, have confirmed. Republican governors in Arizona and Georgia, key battleground states crucial to Biden’s victory, also vouched for the integrity of the elections in their states.

Nearly all the legal challenges from Trump and his allies were dismissed by judges, including two tossed by the Supreme Court, which includes three Trump-nominated justices.

The judge’s ruling came just a day after the vote-counting machine maker filed defamation lawsuits against right-wing broadcasters Newsmax Media Inc. and One America News Network, as well as Patrick Byrne, a prominent Trump ally and former chief executive of Overstock.com.

Guards union warns Wolf of legal action over vaccine mandate

By MARK SCOLFORO and MICHAEL RUBINKAM

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The union that represents about 10,000 guards in Pennsylvania’s state prisons told Gov. Tom Wolf Thursday it plans legal action to stop his effort to force them to get COVID-19 vaccines over the next month.

The president of the Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association sent a letter to the Democratic governor two days after Wolf ordered the guards and some other state workers to get fully vaccinated by Sept. 7 or face weekly testing.

Union president John Eckenrode told Wolf his policy announcement was “a slap in the face — and frankly, way too late because thousands of our members already have been infected, due to your inaction.”

“This is the latest episode of what has been a woefully inconsistent vaccination/testing/masking policy by this administration in our state prisons,” Eckenrode wrote, adding the union “has instructed legal counsel to challenge this latest proposed policy change.”

Wolf press secretary Lyndsay Kensinger said Thursday the initiative was designed to protect the guards, their families and the people they work among.

“The union exists to protect and support the employees it represents, so the corrections union’s opposition to this initiative to stop the spread of COVID-19 is extremely disappointing,” Kensinger said.

The Corrections Department’s website indicates about 4,800 of the prison system’s more than 12,000 staff have been infected by the coronavirus, and the union says nearly 3,700 of its members have caught COVID-19. The department says about 3,600 correctional employees are currently fully vaccinated.

Eckenrode told Wolf that the plan for testing won’t make people safer because it does not extend to inmates’ family members, contractors, vendors and volunteers.

“As for masking, our members are required to wear them, but inmates are not,” Eckenrode said, arguing that the masking policy does not make places where people congregate inside prisons safer.

Wolf announced Tuesday the vaccination policy that covers about 25,000 employees of state prisons and state health care and congregate care facilities. It applies to prisons as well as state hospitals, veterans’ homes, community health centers and homes for those with intellectual disabilities.

In other coronavirus-related developments in Pennsylvania on Thursday:

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VACCINES FOR NURSING HOME WORKERS

Nursing home workers who are not vaccinated could face more frequent testing under a new policy announced by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

The Health Department said the state’s more than 700 skilled nursing facilities must have at least 80% of staff vaccinated by Oct. 1. Those that fail to meet the target will have to regularly test unvaccinated employees for COVID-19. Nursing homes that do not adhere to the testing requirement will face regulatory action.

Currently, only one in eight Pennsylvania nursing homes are meeting the 80% target.

“This is embarrassing, and quite frankly very frightening to residents and their loved ones,” Keara Klinepeter, a Health Department official, said at a news conference in Mechanicsburg.

Statewide, nearly 60% of nursing home staff are vaccinated, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 83% percent of residents have gotten the shot.

Klinepeter said in a written statement that the vaccination policy will help prevent outbreaks “by stopping COVID-19 from entering a nursing home in the first place.”

COVID-19 swept through the state’s long-term care facilities, especially early in the pandemic, killing more than 13,400 residents — nearly half the statewide toll.

Nursing home operators appeared to be split over the new policy.

An industry group, the Pennsylvania Health Care Association, pushed back Thursday on what it called “yet another mandate” from the Wolf administration. The group recently came out against the state’s proposal to require long-term care facilities to boost staffing, and it took the state to court last year over more than $150 million in federal coronavirus funding.

“Instead of proposing solutions to increase vaccine acceptance rates in long-term care, the Department of Health, today, threatened providers and issued a punitive mandate on nursing homes,” said Zach Shamberg, the group’s president and CEO. “Working with providers — not punishing them — will produce better outcomes.”

Another trade group, LeadingAge PA — which has also challenged the Wolf administration over staffing and COVID-19 funding — said in a news release distributed by the state that it supports the new vaccination policy. The national LeadingAge organization has recommended that nursing homes make vaccination a condition of employment.

Also Thursday, the Health Department announced a dashboard that shows COVID-19 vaccination rates by facility.

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VAXXED AND MASKED AT MADE IN AMERICA

Jay-Z’s Made in America festival in Philadelphia says attendees will have to provide proof of full vaccination or proof of a negative COVID-19 test at entry.

The negative test must be obtained within 48 hours of attendance, show organizers said on their website. And all attendees, regardless of vaccination status, will be required to wear face coverings in the wake of the city’s new mask mandate for outdoor, unseated events of 1,000 or more people.

“The safety and health of festival attendees and staff are always our first priority,” show organizers said.

Justin Bieber and Lil Baby, Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat and others are headlining the two-day event over Labor Day weekend.

Last year’s festival was canceled because of the coronavirus. This year’s festival, held on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, is celebrating its 10th anniversary.

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Rubinkam reported from northeastern Pennsylvania.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic.

Fires charring range set up ranchers for hardship in US West
By MATTHEW BROWN and CHRISTOPHER WEBER

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Firefighters watch a hillside burn on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, Wednesday, Aug 11, 2021, near Lame Deer, Mont. The Richard Spring fire was threatening hundreds of homes as it burned across the reservation. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)

LAME DEER, Mont. (AP) — Wildfires tearing through Montana and elsewhere in the U.S. West are devouring vast rangeland areas that cattle ranchers depend upon, setting the stage for a potential shortage of pasture as the hot, dry summer grinds on.

On the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, firefighters and local authorities scrambled to save hundreds of homes in the path of a fire that started Sunday and exploded across more than 260 square miles (673 square kilometers) in just a few days, triggering evacuation orders for thousands of people.

Some ranchers stayed behind to help fight it. Yet as flames charred mile after mile of rangeland and forest, they could do little to protect cattle pastures that are crucial to economic survival for families on the remote reservation.

As the fire raged across rugged hills and narrow ravines, tribal member Darlene Small helped her grandson move about 100 head of cattle to a new pasture, only to relocate them twice more as the flames from the Richard Spring fire bore down, she said Thursday. An extreme drought that’s blanketing the West has made matters worse by stunting vegetation untouched by fire.

“They’ve got to have pasture where there’s water. If there’s no water, there’s no good pasture,” Small said. Particularly hard hit were some ranchers already depending on surplus grass after a fire burned them off their normal pasture last year, she said.

Meanwhile, California’s Dixie Fire — which started July 13 and is the largest wildfire burning in the nation — threatened a dozen small communities in the northern Sierra Nevada even though its southern end was mostly corralled by fire lines.

The fire has burned 790 square miles (2,000 square kilometers), destroyed about 550 homes and nearly obliterated the town of Greenville last week. It was 30% contained.

The Montana blaze was primed over the last several days by swirling winds and hot temperatures. It has spread in multiple directions, torching trees and sending off embers that propelled the flames across the dry landscape.

The fire crept within about a mile (3.2 kilometers) of the eastern edge of the evacuated town of Lame Deer Wednesday night, Northern Cheyenne Tribe spokesperson Angel Becker said. It passed over a highway where officials had hoped to stop it, putting the southern portion of the reservation at increased risk, officials said.

As it closed in on the east side of town and a second fire ignited to the west, tribal officials late Wednesday urged residents who did not heed an earlier evacuation order to flee. Buses moved people to a school about 15 miles (24 kilometers) away and to a shelter set up on the nearby Crow Indian Reservation.

A tree goes up in flames as a wildfire burns on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, Wednesday, Aug 11, 2021, near Lame Deer, Mont. The Richard Spring fire was threatening hundreds of homes as it burned across the reservation. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)

Lame Deer, a town of about 2,000 people, is home to the tribal headquarters and several subdivisions.

“We had some people who refused, but the majority of our elders and women and children definitely left with that last push,” Becker said.

With 40-foot (12-meter) flames visible from parts of Lame Deer, firefighters worked into early Thursday morning to keep the fire from destroying houses. None were reported lost, but officials continued assessing the damage. More than a dozen sheds and other outbuildings were lost, they said.

As smoke choked the air, rancher Jimmy Peppers sat on his horse east of town, watching an orange glow intensify over the site of his house as the night wore on.

“I didn’t think it would cross the highway, so I didn’t even move my farm equipment,” said Peppers, who spent the afternoon herding his cattle onto a neighbor’s pasture closer to town.

Also ordered to leave were about 600 people in and around Ashland, a small town just outside the reservation. It remained under an evacuation order, but officials said the danger appeared to have eased for now.

Around the perimeter of Lame Deer, crews were building fire breaks and conducting intentional burns — or “burnouts” — in hopes of lessening the amount of fuel available on the ground, fire spokesperson Jeni Garcin said. Officials were cognizant of the need to protect pastureland, she said.

“We fully recognize the value of grass around here,” Garcin said. “There’s enough lost in this fire that we will be very strategic about how we do any of these burnouts.”

Extreme drought conditions have left trees, grass and brush bone-dry throughout many Western states, making them ripe for ignition.

At the same time, California and some other states face flows of monsoonal moisture that were too high to bring real rain but could create thunderstorms that bring the risk of dry lightning and erratic winds.

In Northern California, a number of wildfires and the threat of more prompted three national forests to close down the Trinity Alps Wilderness Area, a 780-square mile (2,000-square kilometer) area of granite peaks, lakes and trails, into November.

Climate change has made the region warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists. The more than 100 large wildfires in the American West come as parts of Europe are also burning.

New research indicates wildfire smoke may be part of a vicious cycle making clouds rain less, which makes it hotter and plants drier and easier to catch fire.

Scientists flew a research plane into smoky skies six times in the U.S. West in 2018 and found five times the water droplets, but they were half the size, according to a study in Wednesday’s Geophysical Research Letters. The smaller droplets aren’t big enough to fall as rain, said study lead author Cynthia Twohy, a cloud physicist at NorthWest Research Associates.

This is not the main cause for the lack of rain, but “it could be a factor,” Twohy said. “The clouds are being affected. We saw that pretty clearly.”

The study has worrisome implications that drought and fire can cause more drought and fire.

The main cause of the drought — a huge factor in worsening wildfires — is natural weather changes with some possible climate change, said Park Williams a hydrology and fire scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who wasn’t part of the research.

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Weber reported from Los Angeles.

More than 9,000 anti-Asian incidents since pandemic began

By TERRY TANG

FILE - In this March 31, 2021, file photo, Jen Ho Lee, a 76-year-old South Korean immigrant, poses in her apartment in Los Angeles with a sign from a recent rally against anti-Asian hate crimes she attended. A new report released Thursday Aug. 12 has found the frequency of anti-Asian incidents, from taunts to outright assaults, reported in the United States so far this year seems poised to surpass last year despite months of political and social activism. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)


The frequency of anti-Asian incidents — from taunts to outright assaults — reported in the United States so far this year seems poised to surpass last year despite months of political and social activism, according to a new report released Thursday.

Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition that became the authority on gathering data on racially motivated attacks related to the pandemic, received 9,081 incident reports between March 19, 2020, and this June. Of those, 4,548 occurred last year, and 4,533 this year. Since the coronavirus was first reported in China, people of Asian and Pacific Islander descent have been treated as scapegoats solely based on their race.

Lawmakers, activists and community groups have pushed back against the wave of attacks. There have been countless social media campaigns, bystander training sessions and public rallies. In May, President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, expediting Justice Department reviews of anti-Asian hate crimes and making available federal grants. Those supporters should not feel discouraged because the data hasn’t shifted much, Stop AAPI Hate leaders said.

“When you encourage hate, it’s not like a genie in a bottle where you can pull it out and push it back in whenever you want,” said Manjusha Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and executive director of the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council. “There’s too much perpetuating these belief systems to make them go away.”

Several factors contributed to the data, from an increase in incidents to a greater desire to report, according to Kulkarni. As the economy opened up more in the past few months, it meant more public interactions and opportunities to attack, she said. Also, a bump in reporting typically occurs after a high-profile incident like the March 16 Atlanta-area spa shootings that left six Asian women dead.

“There, too, is where we saw some that were incidents that had taken place weeks or months before, but they just were either not aware of our reporting center or didn’t take the time to report,” Kulkarni said.

The reports aggregated by Stop AAPI Hate are from the victims themselves or someone reporting on their behalf, like an adult child. Overall, the report found verbal harassment and shunning — interactions that don’t qualify legally as hate crimes — make up the two largest shares of total incidents. Physical assaults made up the third. But their percentage of the incidents this year increased from last year — 16.6% compared to 10.8%.

More than 63% of the incidents were submitted by women. Roughly 31% took place on public streets, and 30% at businesses.

Many Asian Americans and others blame former President Donald Trump for ratcheting up the danger by talking about the virus in racially charged terms. While Biden has demonstrated allyship, there is concern that a U.S. investigation into the origins of COVID-19 could lead to more hostility and treatment of Asian Americans as enemy foreigners.

“We understand that other nation-states are competitors to the United States, and a number of them do have authoritarian regimes,” Kulkarni said. “But the ways in which we talk about the people and the ways in which blame is assigned somehow looks different for communities of color than it does for, say, the Russian government or the German government.”

Many of the headline-making attacks over the past year and a half have been against elderly Asian people on both coasts. In most of those cases, a senior was beaten, kicked, shoved or even stabbed out of nowhere. Several such incidents have been caught on video.

A U.S. Census survey released earlier this month found Asian American households were twice as likely as white households to admit they didn’t have enough food throughout the pandemic because they were afraid to go out — not due to affordability or transportation issues. In contrast, other racial groups’ households said they were experiencing food insecurity because of the pandemic. Asian American respondents didn’t say specifically if it was fear of racial attacks that kept them at home.

Anni Chung, president and CEO of San Francisco-based Self-Help for the Elderly, says the seniors they help were hit by a “second virus that is a hate virus.” The nonprofit provides food and programs to more than 40,000 older adults in the Bay Area, most of them Asian. The organization went from transporting a pre-pandemic load of 400 meals daily to over 5,000 per day. Last year, they gave out 963,000 meals overall compared with 436,000 typically.

“Sometimes when we talk to seniors, they say this hatred drove them to be stuck in their house even worse than the pandemic,” Chung said.

For them, the fear is more than a headline but something in their own backyard.

“One of our clients was on the bus. Right before the man got off the bus, he just punched her,” Chung said. “She said no one — not the bus driver and a number of Chinese on the bus — went to her care.”

Giving into that fear means seniors have missed important things like doctor’s appointments or exercise routines at the park. So, in June, with some funding from the city, Self-Help for the Elderly expanded a volunteer escort service to accompany seniors on errands or outings around Chinatown and other neighborhoods. It had more than 200 requests that month.

The onslaught of verbal and physical assaults has drawn more skepticism than sympathy from some. Peter Yu, a Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Colorado who is also Chinese American, came under fire last month for characterizing anti-Asian hate crimes as exaggerated.

“I would welcome him to look at the data and see there has been a significant increase,” Kulkarni said. “This may be a situation when people refuse to see racism or misogyny. I think they’re just really refusing to see reality and how unfortunately, in the U.S, we have allowed those forces to prevent people from living their lives.”

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Tang reported from Phoenix and is a member of The Associated Press’ Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ttangAP

NY let childhood sex abuse victims sue; 9,000 went to court

By MICHAEL HILL

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FILE — In this Oct. 1, 2020 file photo, a man walks by the offices of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, on New York's Long Island. In New York on Saturday, Aug. 14, 2021, the window closes for filing of civil lawsuits in order to allow victims of childhood sexual abuse to sue churches, hospitals, schools, camps, scout groups and other institutions and people they hold responsible for enabling pedophiles or turning a blind eye to wrongdoing. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File )


ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — For two years, New York temporarily set aside its usual time limit on civil lawsuits in order to allow victims of childhood sexual abuse to sue churches, hospitals, schools, camps, scout groups and other institutions and people they hold responsible for enabling pedophiles or turning a blind eye to wrongdoing.

That window closes Saturday, after more than 9,000 lawsuits were filed, a deluge whose impact may be felt for many years.

Four of the state’s Roman Catholic dioceses have filed for bankruptcy partly as a result of litigation unleashed by the state’s Child Victims Act. Thousands of new allegations against priests, teachers, scout leaders and other authorities have intensified the already harsh light on institutions entrusted with caring for children.

And survivors of abuse have been given an outlet for their trauma and a chance at accountability once thought long lost.

“This has, ironically, been a very healing experience for me on a personal level,” said Carol DuPre, 74, who sued the Roman Catholic diocese in Rochester, saying she was molested by a priest as a teen in the early 1960s as she counted offerings and typed up bulletins after church services.

She put the events “in a storehouse in her mind,” but it still haunted her for decades. When the chance came to file a suit, it was an easy decision.

“The idea of confronting it, talking about it and dealing with it is internally setting me free.”

New York is among a number of states that have in recent years established windows allowing people to sue over childhood abuse no matter how long ago it took place. Similar windows were opened in New Jersey and California.

Ordinarily, courts put deadlines on suing because of the difficulty in holding a fair trial over incidents that happened many years ago. Witnesses die or move away. Records are lost. Memories fade. But lawmakers believed that, despite those hurdles, victims deserved an opportunity for justice and might feel emboldened now to speak up about things they’ve kept to themselves for many years.

New York’s one-year window was originally supposed to end Aug. 14, 2020, but it was extended twice amid concerns that the coronavirus pandemic and resulting court disruptions were keeping survivors from coming forward.

Barring another extension, electronic filings will be accepted until midnight Saturday, according to a state courts spokesperson.

The tsunami of litigation surprised even some of the lawyers who work regularly with alleged abuse victims.

“We thought maybe we get one hundred cases or a couple hundred cases and here we are,” said attorney James Marsh, whose firm has filed about 800 cases. “We woefully miscalculated the interest there.”

Plaintiffs’ lawyers said potential clients were still coming forward as the deadline neared, some gaining the strength after seeing stories of others filing suits. Attorney Jeff Anderson said some survivors wait until the last minute because of the difficulty of coming forward.

And some will not have gained the strength to come forward before the window closes, said attorney Mitchell Garabedian.

“A court deadline that’s been publicized encourages many victims and survivors to come forward,” Garabedian said. “But to other victims and survivors, it’s meaningless.”

Some have struggled over whether to publicly expose old wounds.

“It was not an easy decision,” said Donna Ashton, a 56-year-old Rochester-area woman who filed a lawsuit in June claiming she was abused as a teen by the musical director at a Baptist church. “You have to unearth and relive the trauma that you had when you were a young person.”

She married the man at age 19 after what the lawsuit said was manipulation, grooming and abuse. The church has disputed the allegations.

“I had children with him and I had to make sure that that was OK with them and that they were OK with me coming forward with this,” she said.

Thousands of the cases filed in New York involve religious institutions, according to court data.

Experts caution it’s too early to estimate liability for church-related entities in the state. Though Anderson, who calls New York the “main battleground,” expects it to be in the billions of dollars.

The Diocese of Rockville Centre on Long Island cited the “severe” financial burden from litigation when it became the largest diocese in the United States to declare bankruptcy last October. Half of New York’s eight Roman Catholic dioceses have filed for bankruptcy, starting with the Diocese of Rochester in 2019.

“Whatever financial pain the Church suffers as a result of this crisis pales in comparison to the life-altering suffering of survivors,” Dennis Poust, executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference, said in an email.

Poust said bishops are focused now on resolving the civil claims in a way that satisfies those who have been harmed while preserving the church’s charitable, educational and sacramental ministries.

The bankruptcies allow dioceses to consolidate victims’ lawsuits and negotiate with the claimants as a single class.

For instance, the Boy Scouts of America sought bankruptcy protection in February 2020 and last month reached an $850 million agreement with attorneys representing tens of thousands of victims of child sex abuse.

Attorneys see the closing window as the start of another intense phase as individual cases are considered and bankruptcies proceed. The cut-off for new Child Victims Act filings could lead to resolutions because defendants will now know how many claims they are dealing with.

“It’s still early in the process because the window hasn’t closed yet,” Anderson said. “And once it does, we’ll see more progress.”

Some Afghans blame neighboring Pakistan for Taliban gains

By KATHY GANNON

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FILE - In this Nov. 19, 2020 file photo, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, right, and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan stand before a joint news conference at the Presidential Palace in Kabul, Afghanistan. As the Taliban swiftly capture territory in Afghanistan, many Afghans blame Pakistan for the insurgents’ success, pointing to their use of Pakistani territory in multiple ways. Pressure is mounting on Islamabad, which initially brought the Taliban to the negotiating table, to get them to stop the onslaught and go back to talks. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — When Wahab disappeared from his home in Afghanistan to sign on for jihad, it was in neighboring Pakistan that he got his training.

The 20-year-old was recruited by childhood friends and was taken to a militant outpost in Parachinar, on Pakistan’s rugged mountainous border with Afghanistan. There, he underwent training, preparing to fight alongside the Afghan Taliban, a relative told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals from militants and government security agents.

As the Taliban swiftly capture territory in Afghanistan, many Afghans blame Pakistan for the insurgents’ success, pointing to their use of Pakistani territory in multiple ways. Pressure is mounting on Islamabad, which initially brought the Taliban to the negotiating table, to get them to stop the onslaught and go back to talks.

While analysts say Pakistan’s leverage is often overstated, it does permit the Taliban leadership on its territory and its wounded warriors receive treatment in Pakistani hospitals. Their children are in school in Pakistan and some among them own property. Some among Pakistan’s politicians have rebranded the insurgents as “the new, civilized Taliban.”



Ismail Khan, a powerful U.S.-allied warlord, who is trying to defend his territory of Herat in western Afghanistan from a Taliban onslaught, told local media recently the war raging in his homeland was the fault of Pakistan.

“I can say openly to Afghans that this war, it isn’t between Taliban and the Afghan Government. It is Pakistan’s war against the Afghan nation,” he said. “The Taliban are their resource and are working as a servant.”

Pakistan has tried unsuccessfully to convince Afghans they don’t want a Taliban government back in Afghanistan. They say the days of Pakistan seeing Afghanistan as a client state, to provide so-called “strategic depth” against its hostile neighbor India, is a thing of the past.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has told every public and private forum that Pakistan wants peace in Afghanistan, has no favorites in the battle and is deeply opposed to a military takeover by the Taliban.

The country’s powerful army chief has twice walked out of meetings with the Taliban, frustrated at their intransigence and infuriated by what he sees as the Taliban’s determination to return to full power in Afghanistan, according to senior security officials familiar with the meetings. The officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they had no authority to discuss the meetings.

Still, Afghans are unconvinced. Even the international community is skeptical. The United Nations last week rebuffed Pakistan’s request to address a special meeting on Afghanistan to again give its side.

The criticism is fueled by images of slain Taliban fighters being buried in Pakistan at funerals attended by hundreds, waving the group’s flags. Last year, Prime Minister Khan called Osama bin Laden a martyr in a speech to Parliament, seen as a nod to militants.

When the Taliban were battling Afghan security forces in an assault on the Afghan border town Spin Boldak, wounded insurgents were treated at Pakistani hospitals in Chaman. The Taliban took the town and still hold it.

A doctor in Chaman told the AP he treated dozens of wounded Taliban. Several were transferred to hospitals in the Pakistani city of Quetta for further treatment, he said. Quetta is also where several in the Taliban leadership reportedly live, as well as in the Arabian Sea port city of Karachi. The doctor spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

In thousands of madrassas, or religious schools, around Pakistan, some students are inspired to jihad in Afghanistan, according to analysts as well as Pakistani and international rights groups.

Their recruitment largely goes on unhindered, interrupted occasionally when a local news story reports bodies of fighters returning from Afghanistan. Last month, Pakistani authorities sealed the Darul-Aloom-Ahya-ul Islam madrassa outside Peshawar after the body of the cleric’s nephew returned home to a hero’s burial. The madrassa had operated freely for decades, even as the cleric admitted he sent his students to fight in Afghanistan.

One of Wahab’s cousins, Salman, went from a madrassa in Pakistan to join the Pakistani Taliban several years ago. Wahab was inspired to join the militants by propaganda videos purporting to show atrocities against Muslims by foreign troops. He ran away from his home in Afghanistan’s border regions earlier this year, but his family was able to track him down in Pakistan and bring him home before he became a fighter, his relative said.

In mosques and on the streets in Pakistan’s northwest Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province, militants preach jihad and raise money, the relative said, though they are less aggressive in recruiting because of Pakistani military operations in the area in recent years.

Still, Amir Rana, executive director of the independent Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies, said that unless Pakistani authorities adopt a “zero tolerance” for jihadis, the country will forever face international criticism and suspicion. “Justifying it has to stop,” he said.

In response to AP’s request for comment, a senior security official acknowledged that sympathies for extremists exist in conservative Pakistan. He said it began with a U.S.-backed program to motivate Afghans to fight the Soviets in the 1980s, which glorified jihad and portrayed the occupying troops as “godless communists.” He said Pakistan is firm it doesn’t want a Taliban-only government in Kabul, saying it would fan extremism.

Two security officials denied that jihadi groups in the border region receive any official help. They said a nearly completed fence being built by Pakistan along the long border with Afghanistan will stop the smuggling of fighters across. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment.

Pakistan has its own concerns, accusing Afghanistan of harboring militants opposed to the Islamabad government. Pakistani security officials say their country’s rival India is allowed by Kabul’s intelligence agency to stage covert attacks against Pakistan using militants in Afghanistan. In the last six months, they say more than 200 Pakistani military personnel have been killed by insurgents crossing the border,

The border, known as the Durand Line, speaks to the deeply troubled relationship between the two neighbors. To this day, Afghan leaders do not recognize the Durand Line and claim some Pakistani areas dominated by ethnic Pashtuns as Afghan territory, Pashtuns on both sides of the border share tribal links, and Afghan Pashtuns form the backbone of the Taliban.

Analysts say Islamabad has fueled extremist sentiment and worked with militants when it was in its interests. It was during the long fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan that Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency developed deep ties with many of the most radical of Afghans, including the notorious Haqqani group, arguably the strongest faction among the Afghan Taliban.

“Islamabad does wield extensive leverage over the Taliban,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the Washington-based Wilson Center. “But the Taliban, which is fighting a war it believes it’s winning, has the luxury of resisting Pakistani entreaties to ease violence and commit to talks.”

“For the Taliban, the calculus is simple: Why quit when you’re ahead?”

Australia chides China over journalist’s yearlong detention

By ROD McGUIRK

FILE - In this Aug. 12, 2020, file photo, Cheng Lei, a Chinese-born Australian journalist for CGTN, the English-language channel of China Central Television, attends a public event in Beijing. The Australian government says Friday, Aug. 13, 2021, it remains seriously concerned about the welfare of Chinese-born Australian journalist Cheng Lei on the first anniversary of her detention in China. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The Australian government said Friday that it remained seriously concerned about the welfare of a Chinese-born Australian journalist a year after she was first detained in China.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne used the first anniversary of Cheng Lei’s detention on Aug. 13 to tell China that Australia expected “basic standards of justice, procedural fairness and humane treatment to be met, in accordance with international norms.”

“The Australian government remains seriously concerned about Ms. Cheng’s detention and welfare and has regularly raised these issues at senior levels,” Payne said in a statement.

“We are particularly concerned that one year into her detention, there remains a lack of transparency about the reasons for Ms. Cheng’s detention,” she added.

In February, China formally arrested the 46-year-old journalist for CGTN, the English-language channel of China Central Television, on suspicion of illegally supplying state secrets overseas.

The allegations, which could result a penalty of life in prison or even death, are highly unusual for an employee of a media outlet tightly controlled by China’s ruling Communist Party.

Cheng’s two children, aged 10 and 12, live with their grandmother in the Australian city of Melbourne.

The National Press Clubs of the United States and Australia as well as the reporter’s former CGTN colleagues and friends have recently written open letters calling for her immediate release.

“Cheng Lei’s yearlong detention is an assault on journalism and on human rights. Cheng is a single mother of two. Her children have been living with their grandmother in Australia without knowing if they will ever be reunited with their mother,” a U.S. National Press Club statement said.

“China has tried to make Cheng disappear, but the world has not forgotten about her or the several dozen other reporters unjustly jailed in China,” the statement added.

Worsening bilateral relations since Australia called for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic are suspected by many to be the cause of Cheng’s arrest.

A month before Cheng was detained, Australia warned its citizens of a risk of arbitrary detention in China. China dismissed the warning as disinformation.

Before the last two journalists working for Australian media in China left the country in September, they were questioned by Chinese authorities about Cheng.

Australian Broadcasting Corp. reporter Bill Birtles and The Australian Financial Review’s Michael Smith were told they were “persons of interest” in an investigation into Cheng.

Australia has criticized China for charging Chinese Australian spy novelist Yang Hengjun with espionage. He has been detained since January 2019.

Australian Karm Gilespie was sentenced to death in China last year, seven years after he was arrested and charged with attempting to board an international flight with more than 7.5 kilograms (16.5 pounds) of methamphetamine. Some observers suspect that such a severe sentence so long after the crime was related to the bilateral rift.

Cheng was an anchor for CGTN’s BizAsia program. She was born in China and worked in finance in Australia before returning to China and starting a career in journalism with CCTV in Beijing in 2003.