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Saturday, March 12, 2022

‘Scum of the earth’: Drug victims face Purdue Pharma owners

By GEOFF MULVIHILL and JENNIFER PELTZ

Cheryl Juaire holds photos of her sons, both of whom died from overdoses, Sean Merrill, left, and Corey Merrill, after making a statement during a hearing in New York, Thursday, March 10, 2022. Victims of opioids and those who have lost loved ones to the addiction crisis are unleashing their emotions on members of the family they blame for fueling the deadly epidemic. Thursday's unusual hearing is being conducted virtually in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. It is giving people the chance to confront members of the Sackler family who own OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and tell them about the lasting pain that addiction and overdoses have had in their lives.

(AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

NEW YORK (AP) — Angry, defiant and sometimes tearful, more than two dozen Americans whose lives were upended by the opioid crisis finally had their long-awaited chance Thursday to confront in court some members of the family they blame for fueling it.

They were unsparing as they unleashed decades of frustration and sorrow on members of the Sackler family who own OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma over the course of a three-hour virtual hearing.

One woman played a recording from when she called 911 to get help for her overdosing son, then called one of the Sacklers the “scum of the earth.” Several displayed pictures of loved ones who died too soon because of their addictions. Many spoke about forgiveness, with some trying to find it — and others definitely not.

“I hope that every single victim’s face haunts your every waking moment and your sleeping ones, too,” said Ryan Hampton, of Las Vegas, who has been in recovery for seven years after an addiction that began with an OxyContin prescription to treat knee pain led to overdoses and periods of homelessness.

Dede Yoder poses for a picture with a photo of her son, Chris Yoder, after making a statement during a hearing in New York on March 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

“You poisoned our lives and had the audacity to blame us for dying,” he said. “I hope you hear our names in your dreams. I hope you hear the screams of the families who find their loved ones dead on the bathroom floor. I hope you hear the sirens. I hope you hear the heart monitor as it beats along with a failing pulse.”

The unusual hearing was conducted virtually in U.S. Bankruptcy Court at the suggestion of a mediator who helped broker a deal that could settle thousands of lawsuits against Purdue over the toll of opioids, generating billions for the fight against the addiction and overdose crisis and giving Sackler family members protection from lawsuits.

Appearing via audio was Richard Sackler, the former Purdue president and board chair who has said the company and family bear no responsibility for the opioid crisis; he is a son of Raymond Sackler, one of the three brothers who in the 1950s bought the company that became Purdue Pharma. Attending on video were Theresa Sackler, a British dame and wife of the late Mortimer D. Sackler, another of the brothers; and David Sackler, Richard Sackler’s son.

Theresa’s and David’s expressions remained largely neutral as people spoke on video about the pain of losing children after years of trying to get them adequate treatment, about their own journeys through addiction, and about caring for babies born into withdrawal and screaming in pain.

Under court rules, the Sacklers were not allowed to respond to the victims, who were selected by lawyers for creditors in the case. Some victims spoke from a law office in New York; others were at their homes or offices around the country.

Jannette Adams told of her late husband, Dr. Thomas Adams, who was a physician and church deacon in Mississippi and a missionary in Africa and Haiti. He became addicted to opioids after pharmaceutical representatives pitched them, she said. After a terrible decline, he died in 2015.

“I’m angry, I’m pissed, but I move on,” Adams said. “Because our society lost a person who could have made so many more contributions. ... You took so much from us, but we plan to, through our faith in God, move forward.”

Tiffinee Scott poses for a picture with a photo of her daughter, Tiarra Renee Brown-Lewis, after making a statement during a hearing in New York on March 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Kristy Nelson played for the Sacklers a tense recording of a 911 call in which she summoned police to her home the day her son Bryan died of an opioid overdose. The dispatcher asked whether his skin had gone blue; she said it was white. She said she replays the call in her mind daily.

Thursday was Richard Sackler’s 77th birthday, according to public records. Later this month, Nelson said, she and her husband will visit the cemetery on what would have been Bryan’s 34th birthday.

“I understand today’s your birthday, Richard, how will you be celebrating?” she said. “I guarantee it won’t be in the cemetery. ... You have truly benefitted from the death of children. You are scum of the earth.”

Her words echoed a 2001 email from Richard Sackler, made public during lawsuits over OxyContin, in which he referred to people with addiction as “scum of the earth.”

Jenny Scully, a nurse in New York, gave birth in 2014 while on OxyContin and other opioids prescribed years earlier when she was dealing with both breast cancer and injuries from an accident. She was told her baby would be healthy, Scully said, but the little girl has had a lifetime of physical, developmental and emotional difficulties.

“You have destroyed so many lives,” she said, pulling her daughter into view. “Take a good look at this beautiful little girl you robbed of the person she could have been.”

Kara Trainor poses for a picture with a photo of her son, Riley, 11, after making a statement during a hearing in New York on March 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

The forum was unconventional for the White Plains, New York, courtroom of Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain, who on Wednesday gave tentative approval to key elements of a plan to settle thousands of lawsuits against the company.

Other drugmakers and wholesalers and even a consulting company have also been settling lawsuits over the opioid crisis, which has been linked two more than 500,000 deaths in the U.S. over the past two decades. But Purdue’s case stands out because it was an early player with OxyContin and is privately owned.

The settlement is estimated to be worth at least $10 billion over time. It calls for the Sacklers to contribute $5.5 billion to $6 billion over 17 years to fight the opioid crisis. That’s an increase of more than $1 billion over a previous version rejected by another judge on appeal. Most of the money would be used for efforts to combat the crisis, but $750 million would go directly to victims or their survivors.

The overall settlement, which still requires actions by multiple courts to take effect, provides more than $150 million for Native American tribes and over $100 million for medical monitoring and payments for children born in opioid withdrawal.

The plan also calls for family members to give up ownership of the company so it can become a new entity, Knoa Pharma, with its profits dedicated to stemming the epidemic. In exchange, Sackler family members would get protection from lawsuits over opioids.

The family also agreed not to oppose any efforts to remove the Sackler name from cultural and educational institutions they have supported and to make public a larger cache of company documents.

Purdue Pharma starting selling OxyContin, a pioneering extended-release prescription painkiller, in 1996. At the same time, Purdue and other drug companies funded efforts to get doctors and other prescribers to think differently about opioids — suggesting they be used for some pain conditions for which the potent drugs were previously considered off limits.

Over the decades, there were waves of fatal overdoses, first associated with prescription drugs and then, as prescriptions became harder to obtain and some drugs became harder to manipulate for a quick high, from heroin. More recently, fentanyl and similar drugs have become the biggest killer.

Purdue has twice pleaded guilty to criminal charges, but no Sacklers have been charged with crimes. There are no indications any such charges are forthcoming, although seven U.S. senators last month asked the Department of Justice to consider charges.

The Sacklers have never unequivocally apologized. Last week, they released a statement saying in part, “While the families have acted lawfully in all respects, they sincerely regret that OxyContin, a prescription medicine that continues to help people suffering from chronic pain, unexpectedly became part of an opioid crisis that has brought grief and loss to far too many families and communities.”

Following the hearing, a spokesperson for Mortimer Sackler’s descendants said the family would not make a statement; a representative of Raymond Sackler’s side of the family did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The family of the other brother, Arthur, sold its share of Stamford, Connecticut-based Purdue before OxyContin was developed.

Several speakers noted the lack of an apology, and some called for prosecutors to pursue criminal investigations.

“When you created OxyContin, you created so much loss for so many people,” said Kay Scarpone, who lost her son Joseph, a former Marine, to addiction a month before his 26th birthday. “I’m outraged that you haven’t owned up to the crisis that you’ve created.”

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Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

OPIOIDS

Yale strikes Sackler name from campus amid opioid outrage

NJ to distribute $641M from settlement for opioid crisis

Ohio doctor sentenced for overprescribing painkillers, fraud

Facing Purdue owners brings pain, closure for opioid victims

SNAFU

Scathing reports find military failures in 2020 Kenya attack

By LOLITA C. BALDOR

March 10, 2022

In this photo taken Aug. 26, 2019 and released by the U.S. Air Force, a U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt., salutes the flag during a ceremony signifying the change from tactical to enduring operations at Camp Simba, Manda Bay, Kenya. U.S. officials tell The Associated Press that military investigations have found that poor leadership, inadequate training and a "culture of complacency” among U.S. forces undermined efforts to fend off a 2020 attack by militants in Kenya that killed three Americans.

(Staff Sgt. Lexie West/U.S. Air Force via AP, File )

WASHINGTON (AP) — Military investigations have found poor leadership, inadequate training and a “culture of complacency” among U.S. forces undermined efforts to fend off a 2020 attack by militants in Kenya that killed three Americans, U.S. officials familiar with the probes told The Associated Press ahead of the release of the findings, expected Thursday.

Two military reviews of the attack by al-Shabab militants are scathing in their conclusions that there were failures across the board at the Manda Bay air base, where senior military leaders said there was a “deeply rooted culture of a false sense of security.” The attack also wounded three people and destroyed six aircraft, and killed at least six insurgents.

Army Gen. Stephen Townsend, head of U.S. Africa Command, which did the first review, told the AP that while the actions of no one person caused the attack or the casualties, the reviews concluded that security, intelligence, training and command failures contributed to the losses.

And Air Force Maj. Gen. Tom Wilcox, who was part of the team that did the second review, said that “none of the negligence that we found contributed to the primary cause of the loss of life or damage. However, we did find that they potentially contributed to the outcome, to vulnerabilities on the airfield.”

Defense officials said that a number of Air Force personnel were reviewed for possible disciplinary action and, as a result, eight have received some form of administrative punishment, including written reprimands and loss of certification. The eight range from junior enlisted airmen to officers below the general ranks. A written reprimand can be career-ending for an officer. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe personnel discipline.

The Manda Bay base, in the Kenyan seaside resort, was overrun by 30 to 40 of the al-Qaida-linked insurgents on Jan. 5, 2020, marking al-Shabab’s first attack against U.S. forces in the East African country. The pre-dawn assault triggered a lengthy firefight and daylong struggle for U.S. and Kenyan forces to search and secure the base.

The initial investigation into the attack was completed a year ago by U.S. Africa Command, but last April Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a new, independent review led by Gen. Paul Funk, commander of Army Training and Doctrine Command.

The new report largely mirrors the findings in the initial probe but expands its scope. Both are sharply critical of the inadequate security, training and oversight at the base. Austin has accepted the reports and their findings.

The base at Manda Bay has been used for years by the U.S. military, but it only became a full-time airfield in 2016, with increased personnel, aircraft and operations. According to the reviews, the military there never adjusted security to account for the expanded use and was lulled by the fact the base hadn’t been attacked in 16 years.

The complacency, said the Africom review, permeated every echelon and existed for several years.

The reviews criticized leadership at all levels, from the Air Force wing and security forces to special operations commanders and U.S. Africa Command. They found there was an inadequate understanding of and focus on the threats in the region.

Townsend said a vague intelligence report prior to the deadly attack referred to al-Shabab planning to attack United Nations aircraft. But that report didn’t get to the right people due to staff shortages, And, he said, those who saw it “didn’t connect the dots” — that it could be referring to the unmarked contract aircraft the U.S. has at Manda Bay.

He also noted, “We get these every day — al-Shabab is going to attack. Most of them never happen.”

The reviews also said that the various command and service units at the base didn’t communicate or coordinate well with each other or with the local Kenyan forces.

As a result, at 5:20 a.m., 20 to 30 al-Shabab militants were able to slip through a forest and fired rocket-propelled grenades onto the Magagoni Air Field at the base. In the first two minutes, the RPGs killed Army Spc. Henry Mayfield in a truck and killed two contractors, Dustin Harrison and Bruce Triplett, in an aircraft. Another soldier and a civilian contractor were wounded.

About a mile down the road, another smaller group of the militants fired on Camp Simba, a section of the adjacent Kenyan Navy base where U.S. forces are housed.

The reviews say security troops at the airfield were unprepared to respond to the attack and several never really engaged the insurgents. Instead, Marines at Camp Simba about a mile away responded first.

“Someone starts shooting, and Marines are going to go to the sound of the guns. And so they did. They mounted up, and they led the counterattack,” said Townsend, who visited Manda Bay three weeks ago.

It took about 20 minutes for the Marine special operations team to get to the airfield and begin to fight back against the militants, who had made it onto the flightline and into buildings.

As Kenyan and additional U.S. security forces responded, al-Shabab attacked again. It took until midnight for the military to search the airfield and adjacent buildings and declare the area secure. During the counterattack one Marine and one Kenyan service member were wounded.

In interviews, Townsend and Wilcox said that substantial changes and improvements have been made — some in the first hours after the attack and others that have continued and grown over the past year.

Almost immediately, Army infantry soldiers were brought in for added security, and now the protection force is more than double the size it was during the attack. Fencing and other barriers now ring the entire base, including Camp Simba. And there have been overhauls of intelligence sharing and Air Force security training.

The Air Force now trains all deploying security forces together before they depart for the country, and it requires that personnel be more experienced in force protection to get senior jobs at the bases.

In addition, the reviews recommended that one senior commander at each base be in charge of force protection for the entire facility and that the commander be able to order training for all troops there. That would include units that may report to other commands -- such as special operations forces or Space Force teams that may be housed at the base.

Russia-Ukraine war: Some pastors wonder about “end of days”

By DAVID CRARY
THE CONVERSATION

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Ukrainians cross an improvised path under a destroyed bridge while fleeing Irpin, in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted some of America’s most prominent evangelical leaders to raise a provocative question — asking if the world is now in the biblically prophesied “end of days” that might culminate with the apocalypse and the second coming of Christ.

There’s no consensus on the answer, nor on any possible timetable.

Megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, addressing his congregation at First Baptist Dallas, said many Christians are wondering, in the face of carnage in Ukraine, “Why does God permit evil like this to continue? …. Are we near Armageddon and the end of the world?”

“We are living in the last days,” Jeffress said, “We’ve been living in the last days for the last 2000 years. We don’t know, is this the end? Is this the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning?”

The curators of raptureready.com -- which shares commentary about “end of days” prophesies – suggest things could move quickly. Their “Rapture Index,” -- on which any reading above 160 means “Fasten your seatbelts” -- was raised this week to 187, close to its record high of 189 in 2016.

One of the most detailed alerts came from televangelist Pat Robertson, who came out of retirement on Feb. 28 to assert on “The 700 Club” that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “compelled by God” to invade Ukraine as a prelude to an eventual climactic battle in Israel. Robertson said verses of the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel support this scenario.

“You can say, well, Putin’s out of his mind. Yes, maybe so,” Robertson said. “But at the same time, he’s being compelled by God. He went into the Ukraine, but that wasn’t his goal. His goal was to move against Israel, ultimately.”

“It’s all there,” added Robertson, referring to Ezekiel. “And God is getting ready to do something amazing and that will be fulfilled.”

Also evoking Ezekiel – and a possible attack on Israel -- was Greg Laurie, senior pastor at a California megachurch whose books and radio programs have a wide following.

“I believe we’re living in the last days. I believe Christ could come back at any moment,” Laurie said in a video posted on YouTube.

Citing the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic, he said biblical prophesies “are being fulfilled in our lifetime.”

“We are seeing more things happen in real time, closer together, as the scriptures said they would be,” Laurie said. “So what should we do? We should look up. We should remember that God is in control.”

Predictions of an imminent “end of days” have surfaced with regularity over the centuries. Pat Robertson, for example, has inaccurately predicted apocalyptic events on previous occasions.

“One of the characteristics of apocalyptic thinking is that the most recent crisis is surely the worst — this is the one that is going to trip the end times calendar,” said Dartmouth College history professor Randall Balmer.

“Now, admittedly, there may be some evidence for that, especially with Putin mumbling about nuclear weapons,” Balmer added via email. “But I also remember the urgency of the Six Day War and George H. W. Bush’s Persian Gulf War and, of course, 9/11.”

The suggestion that God is somehow using the Russia-Ukraine war to fulfill biblical prophesies troubles some Christian scholars, such as the Rev. Rodney Kennedy, a Baptist pastor in Schenectady, New York, and author of numerous books.

“This evangelical insistence of involving the sovereignty of God in the evil of Putin borders on the absurd,” Kennedy wrote recently in Baptist News.

“Rapture believers fail to understand that if they assist in bringing about world war, there will be no Superman Jesus appearing to ‘snatch’ all true believers into the safety of the clouds,” Kennedy wrote. “The rapture is an illusion; the rupture caused by Putin is a deadly reality.”

Russell Moore, public theologian at the evangelical magazine Christianity Today, said it’s wrong to try to connect world events to end-times prophecy, noting that Jesus himself said his second coming would be unexpected and unconnected with “wars and rumors of wars.”

“It’s not consistent with the Bible and it’s harmful to the witness of the church,” said Moore, noting that the world has outlived many episodes of end-times speculation.

Moore said most Christians he’s talked with are more concerned about Ukraine’s well-being.

“I’m surprised at how little I am finding the idea that these events are direct biblical prophecy,” he said. “I’m just not seeing that in the pews.”

That’s a change from the recent past, he noted, when many evangelicals tried to interpret world events as a road map to the apocalypse – driving sales for hugely successful authors Tim LaHaye (“Left Behind”) and Hal Lindsey (“The Late Great Planet Earth”).

“It’s very rare for me to find someone under the age of 50” preoccupied with such views today, Moore said.

Jeffress said members of his congregation in Dallas are “very troubled by the atrocities being committed against the Ukrainian people and think we should push back forcefully against Putin’s aggression.”

“However, they are not headed toward their bunkers and preparing for Armageddon — yet,” Jeffress said via email. “Most of our members understand that while the Bible prophesies the end of the world and return of Christ one day, no one has a clue when that day will be.”

Laurie, in a written reply to questions from The Associated Press, said his congregation at Harvest Christian Fellowship “isn’t fixated on the ‘end times.’”

“My message for Christians during this time and really all people in general is don’t panic, but pray,” Laurie advised. “Live every day like it may be your last.”

The war in Ukraine has heightened anxieties for some members of Mercy Hill Chapel, said Oleh Zhakunets, lead pastor of the small Southern Baptist church that holds services in Ukrainian and English in Parma, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb.

Several members have close relatives in Ukraine – some in more dangerous zones in eastern Ukraine and others who are welcoming refugees in the west, he said.

“It’s a bag of mixed feelings,” said Zhakunets, citing their worries for loved ones and their hope that God is in control.

Congregation members believe in biblical passages detailing signs of Jesus’ return, he said, but they don’t see Russia’s invasion as fulfilling a specific prophecy.

“A lot of that is just guesswork,” Zhakunets said. “We have hope that he’s coming, but in terms of specifics, we’re not going to give that kind of what we see as a false hope.”

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Associated Press reporters Peter Smith, Holly Meyer and Deepa Bharath contributed to this report.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Red Cross official asks world not to ‘shift’ away from Yemen

By JON GAMBRELL

People gather at the site of a Saudi-led airstrike near Yemen's Defense Ministry complex in Sanaa, Yemen, Saturday, Nov. 11, 2017. The world must not lose sight of the plight of those living through the yearslong war in Yemen, Katharina Ritz, the International Committee of the Red Cross’ head of delegation in Yemen said Friday, March 11, 2022, urging continued aid for the Middle East's poorest nation as the war in Ukraine grabs the world's attention. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The world must not lose sight of the plight of those living through the yearslong war in Yemen, a Red Cross official said Friday, urging continued aid for the Middle East’s poorest nation as the war in Ukraine grabs the world’s attention.

Katharina Ritz, the International Committee of the Red Cross’ head of delegation in Yemen, also said discussions continue over possible future prisoner swaps between the Houthi rebels and a Saudi-led coalition fighting on behalf of the country’s exile government.

However, a major swap hasn’t happened in several years as the war intensified around several front lines, including the energy-rich city of Marib.

“I think our duty is to respond equally to the needs and do our best,” Ritz told The Associated Press. “I think it’s not about is it Ukraine or not? Now it’s Ukraine and Yemen and Syria and Iraq and Congo and so on. ... We have to add Ukraine on all the crises, but we shouldn’t shift.”

The Iranian-backed Houthis seized Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in September 2014. A Saudi-led coalition entered the war in March 2015 to back the country’s expelled government.

In the time since, Yemen has become one of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. More than 150,000 people have been killed in the warfare, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. Those include both fighters and civilians; the most recent figure for the civilian death toll in Yemen’s conflict stands at 14,500.

Also, Saudi airstrikes have killed hundreds of civilians and targeted the country’s infrastructure. The Houthis have used child soldiers and indiscriminately laid landmines across the country.

Meanwhile, the splintered nation has faced the coronavirus pandemic and still sees African migrants hoping to cross Yemen and reach neighboring oil-rich Saudi Arabia.

The country also has been on the brink of famine for years, a crisis that may be exacerbated by Russia’s war on Ukraine. Yemen imports some 40% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine.

“Now obviously, we have the wheat supply, which will have an impact on the the food supply for Yemen,” Ritz said. “The coping mechanism in the country is very limited, and I think that is going to be a major struggle.”

Meanwhile, the Red Cross continues to have access to prisoners held by militias, the Houthi-controlled government in Sanaa and that of the Yemeni government in Aden, Ritz said. In 2020, the warring sides engineered a mass prisoner exchange, but there hasn’t been one of a similar size since. A 2018 agreement in Stockholm saw the sides agree to swap over 15,000 prisoners.

“The dialogue between the parties is ongoing. The negotiation has never stopped,” Ritz said. “I think it is an important part also to keep the parties on the table engaged.”

The Houthis meanwhile have seized nearly a dozen former Yemeni employees of the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa. Asked about their case, Ritz said prisoners’ families would need to come forward to the Red Cross for its assistance. She declined to say whether the families had.

The Red Cross also saw its name invoked by Saudi Arabia after a coalition airstrike in January struck a Houthi prison in the city of Saada, killing at least 87 people. Saudi Brig. Gen. Turki al-Malki alleged at the time that the Houthis hadn’t reported the site as needing protection from airstrikes to the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

“The responsibility remains with the parties of the conflict, Ritz said. “No matter what ICRC says or does not say or does or does not do, the responsibility remains.”

However, Ritz said the Red Cross worked with the Saudi-led coalition, the Houthis and other militias in the war to stress the importance of protecting civilians and civilian infrastructure in the country.

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Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

Human trafficking case sparks government response in China
By HUIZHONG WU

March 9, 2022

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Delegates leave after the opening ceremony for the National People's Congress held at the Great Hall of the People on March 5, 2022, in Beijing. Sustained, palpable anger in China over the case of a mother-of-eight found chained inside a shed has prompted an unusually strong government response to human trafficking at the annual session of China's rubber-stamp legislature. (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Sustained, palpable anger in China over the case of a mother of eight found chained inside a shed has prompted an unusually strong government response to human trafficking at the annual session of China’s rubber-stamp legislature.

The issue even merited a brief mention by China’s premier Li Keqiang in his annual report on government performance delivered Saturday. That marked part of a direct attempt by a government not often given to responding to public pressure to address the widespread outrage.

Local governments have announced crackdowns on the practice of trafficking vulnerable women in the vast country, while the Public Security Ministry is pursuing a nationwide anti-trafficking campaign aimed at solving a backlog of cases, to be carried out by all levels. On Tuesday, China’s top prosecutor, Zhang Jun, announced his department would “strictly enforce” laws against abduction and trafficking.

The woman found on the outskirts of the eastern city of Xuzhou had been trafficked multiple times and had eight children by the man who ultimately purchased her.

State media reported that at least half a dozen proposed legal reforms on the issue were brought by members of the National People’s Congress and its consultative body, which are holding their annual sessions this week in Beijing.

A proposal from delegate Jiang Shengnan would raise criminal penalties in trafficking cases so that the buyer would face the same penalties as the seller, according to state newspaper Beijing Youth Daily.

“Appropriately increasing the penalty and increasing the criminal penalty for buying will play a certain deterrent effect,” Jiang was quoted as saying by the paper.

Activists have welcomed the response, though some question whether the focus on heavy criminal penalties is the best approach to take.

“I personally think all of these proposals are positive, and they are meaningful,” said Feng Yuan, co-founder of Beijing Equality, a group that focuses on gender-based violence.

“But I think they are missing some important angles,” Feng said, because the proposals she saw have been too focused on the buyers’ criminal penalties.

Under current Chinese criminal law, those who traffic women or children can be sentenced to between five and 10 years in prison, and even a death sentence. Purchasers can be sentenced to no more than three years.

Jiang’s proposal also included the prospect of a follow-up mechanism after victims are rescued from trafficking. Others called on local governments to correctly identify trafficking victims who may have been registered under false names, create a nationwide alert system for kidnapping and trafficking, and increase criminal penalties.

Authorities did not respond to a request to interview NPC delegates, including Jiang. A similar request for members of the advisory body the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference was declined.

NPC delegates do not directly draft legislation, although their proposals are passed on to the appropriate ministries. The body’s Standing Committee, aided by legal experts, actually writes the laws.

The chained woman’s plight ignited a public demand to ensure a crackdown on trafficking. According to Zhang’s 2022 report, the number of people charged annually with trafficking women and children declined from 14,458 in 2000 to just 1,135 people last year. However it’s unclear if the decline in the number charged is due to less trafficking or due to looser enforcement.

A desire to quiet and divert public anger while China was hosting the Winter Olympics last month may have been a factor in the government’s response.

“They don’t want this case to suck up all the air,” said Dali Yang, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. “So there’s clearly an interest in, ideally, resolving it in a way that it would disappear.”

Yang said proposals to address the issue appeared to be politically “within the realm of acceptability.”

Feng, the women’s rights activist, urged the government to look at reform beyond criminal penalties. More urgent issues include verifying a victim’s identity, helping them live independently after rescue and providing resources for mental health and physical recovery, she said.

Among activists’ concerns is whether those rescued will be able to register for public services such as health insurance because they had been given new names and household registrations in the places to which they had been trafficked.

“I hope these points can also attract attention,” Feng said.

China’s Cabinet addressed some of those issues in an April 2021 document, including verifying marriage registrations and increasing anti-trafficking education in remote areas. New measures seek to give these initiatives a boost.

Trafficking is fed in part by a large gender imbalance resulting from China’s former one-child policy.

“The logic of constructing a family as being the most important thing in a way overrides concern about where someone came from,” said Johanna Ransmeier, a professor at the University of Chicago who studied the history of human trafficking in China.

Ultimately, such underlying attitudes need to change for a solution to be found, Ransmeier said.

“It’s distressing that this remedy is purely about punishment, and not about social change,” she said.

MLB LOCKOUT OVER, CBA AGREED TO

Test for MLB players will be how deal looks to them in ’26
By RONALD BLUM

Chicago White Sox minor league outfielder Duke Ellis prepares for batting practice during a minor league baseball spring training workout Thursday, March 10, 2022, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

NEW YORK (AP) — Now comes the test: Will baseball players be happy with their new collective bargaining agreement in 2026?

They clearly were unhappy with the just-expired five-year contract, which saw payrolls drop to their lowest level since 2015.

The agreement reached Thursday raises the competitive-balance tax threshold by $34 million over five years, up from a $21 million hike over the 2017-21 deal and an $11 million rise from 2011-16.

“I think that the MLBPA historically has wanted a market-based system. Over multiple negotiations that has been a primary objective of theirs,” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said after Thursday’s deal ended a 99-day lockout.

“Markets produce market results. And I think that the changes that were made in this agreement moved dramatically in their direction on topics like the CBT threshold, and I think you’ll probably see a little different market results as a result of the changes.”

Young star players were the biggest beneficiary of the deal.

Shohei Ohtani earned $545,000 in 2018, when he was voted AL Rookie of the Year. Had the new agreement been in place then, he would have earned an additional $750,000.

Cody Bellinger was at $605,000 in 2019, when he won NL MVP. Under the new deal, he would have gotten an extra $2.5 million.

The minimum salary goes up from $570,500 to $700,000, a 22.7% rise that is the largest in a single season since 2003.

The union also hopes the deal boosts the middle: The median salary was $1.15 million at the start of last season, according to calculations by The Associated Press, down 30% from the $1.65 million record high at the start of 2015.

“The deal pushes the game forward,” Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole, a member of the union’s executive subcommittee, said in an telephone interview with the AP. “It addresses a lot of the things that the players in the game should be focused on: the competitive integrity aspect of it.”

Veteran players in leadership hoped to get more. The union’s executive subcommittee voted 8-0 against the deal: Zack Britton, Jason Castro, Cole, Francisco Lindor, Andrew Miller, James Paxton, Max Scherzer and Marcus Semien. Five of the eight are represented by agent Scott Boras, and Castro, at $3.5 million, is the only one of the eight who earned under $12 million last year.

Team player representatives voted 26-4 in favor, leaving the overall player executive committee vote 26-12 to approve.

“You call it a division, I call it a healthy dialogue and conversation,” union head Tony Clark said at a news conference Friday,

Clark and Manfred notably did not have a joint news conference. Clark chose to wait a day for his.

“I spoke to Tony after their ratification vote. I told him that I thought we had a great opportunity for the game in front of us,” Manfred said. “One of the things that I’m supposed to do is promote a good relationship with our players. I’ve tried to do that. I think that I have not been successful in that. I think that it begins with small steps.”

Clark said Manfred called him on Thursday to congratulate him on the union’s ratification vote.

“There’s a lot of work to do moving forward with respect to where our game is at and where we need to head,” Clark said.

___

Play ball! MLB players reach deal, salvage 162-game season
By RONALD BLUM

1 of 10

Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred holds a news conference after baseball players and owners voted to approve a new labor agreement, Thursday March 10, 2022, in New York. “I am genuinely thrilled to say Major League Baseball is back and we're going to play 162 games,” Manfred said. “I want to start by apologizing to our fans. I know the last few months have been difficult.”

(AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

NEW YORK (AP) — Major League Baseball’s players and owners ended their most bitter money fight in a quarter-century Thursday when the players’ association accepted management’s offer to salvage a 162-game season that will start April 7.

The work stoppage ended at 7 p.m. sharp, closing an acrimonious 99-day lockout that delayed spring training and threatened to cancel regular-season games for the first time since 1995.

Training camps in Florida and Arizona will open Friday, with players mandated to report by Sunday. Opening day was pushed back just over a week from its March 31 date, but all that might be forgetten when the Yankees’ Aaron Judge digs in against the rival Red Sox, or Shohei Ohtani eschews the new universal designated hitter and plays both ways for the Angels

“I do want to start by apologizing to our fans,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said, his voice quavering at times, later adding: “I hope that the players will see the effort we made to address their concerns in this agreement as an olive branch in terms of building a better relationship.”

A frenzy of free-agency action was expected. A freeze on roster transactions was dissolved Thursday night, spurring a wave of speculation about new homes for Carlos Correa, Freddie Freeman and more than 100 other free agents who had been kept in lockout limbo.

The deal brings major changes that include expansion of the DH to the National League, increasing the postseason from 10 teams to 12, advertisements on uniforms, a balanced schedule that reduces intradivision play starting in 2023 and measures aimed to incentivize competition and decrease rebuilding, such as an amateur draft lottery. Most of the labor fight, of course, centered on the game’s core economics.

The players’ executive board approved the five-year contract at about 3 p.m. in a 26-12 vote. Owners ratified the deal 30-0 just three hours later, and just like that, baseball’s ninth work stoppage ended.

Not that all is resolved. Union head Tony Clark did not appear alongside Manfred and scheduled a separate news conference for Friday, a visible sign of the sport’s factions.

“Our union endured the second-longest work stoppage in its history to achieve significant progress in key areas that will improve not just current players’ rights and benefits, but those of generations to come,” Clark said in a statement.

Manfred pledged “maybe to more regularly get to the bottom of player concerns so that they don’t build up.”

“I spoke to Tony after their ratification vote. I told him that I thought we had a great opportunity for the game in front of us.” Manfred said. “One of the things that I’m supposed to do is promote a good relationship with our players. I’ve tried to do that. I think that I have not been successful in that. I think that it begins with small steps.”

Players’ pictures that had been scrubbed from the league’s website were restored. Teams tweeted videos and statements celebrating the lockout’s end and sharing info about tickets for the new opening day.

The 184 games canceled by Manfred were instead postponed, and the regular season was extended by three days to Oct. 5. Approximately three games per team will be made up as part of doubleheaders.

With pitchers Max Scherzer and Andrew Miller taking prominent roles as union spokesmen, players let three management deadlines pass — Manfred called them “the art of collective bargaining” — before accepting an agreement before the fourth.

While the union’s executive subcommittee voted 8-0 against the deal — all earned $3.5 million or more last year — player representatives were in favor by 26-4.

“Time and economic leverage. No agreement comes together before those two things play out,” Manfred said. “I think we made an agreement when it was possible to make an agreement.”

After narrowing the economic gap this week, MLB made another offer Thursday afternoon, saying this was the absolute, final, last moment to preserve full salary and service time.

“The deal pushes the game forward,” Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole, a member of the union’s executive subcommittee, said in an telephone interview with the AP. “It addresses a lot of the things that the players in the game should be focused on: the competitive integrity aspect of it.”

The union especially wanted to boost pay of young players and enourage teams not to delay their debuts in order to push back free agency.

Under the new postseason format, two division winners from each league receive first-round byes and the remaining four teams play in a best-of-three wild card round.

The deal allows teams to have advertising on uniforms and helmets for the first time and established a fast-track MLB-dominated rules committee that could recommend a pitch clock and limits on defensive shifts starting in 2023. Tiebreaker games for playoff berths have been eliminated, replaced by mathematical formulas.

The luxury tax threshold rises from $210 million last year to $230 million this season, the largest yearly increase since that restraint began in 2003. The threshold rises to $244 million by 2026, a loosening for the biggest spenders such as the Yankees, Mets, Dodgers and Red Sox. The 3% annual growth is well over the 2.1% during the expired contract and the 1.2% in the 2011 deal.

Tax rates remain unchanged at the initial threshold, second and third thresholds. A new fourth threshold, aimed at billionaire New York Mets owner Steve Cohen, starts $80 million above the first and has rates of 80% for the first offender, 90%, for the second and 110% for the third.

The minimum salary rises from $570,500 to $700,000 this year, a 22.7% rise that is the highest since 2003, with $20,000 annual increases each season.

A new $50 million bonus pool was established for players not yet eligible for arbitration, a way to boost salaries for young stars.

While the sides preserved a full regular season, the cost was rancor that cast both owners and players as money obsessed. Spring training was disrupted for the third straight year following two exhibition seasons altered by the coronavirus pandemic.

“People can go to the ballpark. That will help,” Cole said. “Maybe some people will go to the ballpark to tell us know how they feel negatively. That’s their right to do as well. I will say that nobody wants it to go this way. And some of the hurdles we’ve had to jump through over the last few weeks have not necessarily been ill will but just due process.

“It’s just a very democratic process and some of these sorts of things take some time. But I think everybody is tremendously excited to get back and tremendous excited to get back in front of the fans.”

___

More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Rattlesnake roundups take 2 paths, drawing praise and scorn

By JEFF MARTIN

-Sweetwater Jaycees clean and skinned rattlesnakes during 57th Sweetwater Jaycees World Largest Rattlesnake Round-up at the Nolan County Coliseum in Sweetwater Texas, March 14, 2015. Animal rights activists praised an annual rattlesnake roundup in south Georgia that recently changed the format of this month’s event to celebrate living snakes without skinning and butchering them. But no such changes are occurring at a huge rattlesnake roundup beginning this weekend, Saturday March 12, 2022 in Texas, a festival that the activists say is barbaric.(Courtney Sacco/Odessa American via AP, File)

WOODSTOCK, Ga. (AP) — An annual rattlesnake roundup in south Georgia recently changed the format of this month’s event to celebrate living snakes without skinning and butchering them, earning plaudits from animal rights activists.

But no such changes are occurring at a huge rattlesnake roundup beginning this weekend in Texas, a festival that the activists say is barbaric. The two events are a marked contrast in how rattlesnakes are handled. They also show the huge divide in how they are seen by some, with the Georgia festival heralded by animal advocates and the Texas roundup shamed.

“A few rattlesnake roundups still persist,” the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement full of scorn for the Texas festival, which is “notorious for openly killing and skinning western diamondback rattlesnakes by the hundreds in front of crowds.”

Plans for the “World’s Largest Rattlesnake Roundup” this weekend in the Texas town of Sweetwater are full-scale ahead, with snakes set to be skinned and others “milked” of their venom. There’s even a pageant for local young women, Miss Snake Charmer. The town of 11,000 is expected to swell to around 30,000 during the festival that runs Friday through Sunday, said Dennis Cumbie, one of the organizers.

“It’s the biggest event in this town every year,” Cumbie said. “It’s very much part of our culture.”

The same is true in the south Alabama town of Opp, where an annual rattlesnake festival that has drawn thousands for nearly six decades opens March 25. While organizers say the snake hunters who bring in big rattlers get rid of nuisance reptiles, opponents say Eastern diamondback snakes are declining in population.

Sweetwater has held its rattlesnake roundup for more than six decades, “and what we have figured out over 64 years is that we’re not damaging the population of the snakes whatsoever,” Cumbie said. Rather, organizers liken snake hunting to how other hunters keep deer numbers in check.

In Georgia, organizers say the more humane format they launched for the first time last weekend was a success. Exact attendance figures are unknown because many people such as children are admitted free, but “I’ve heard anywhere from 7,000 to 15,000,” said longtime volunteer Jeffrey Cox, who has been helping to organize the Whigham Rattlesnake Roundup for the past four decades.

“Everybody was nervous about it and didn’t know how it would go,” Cox said.

Then came perfect weather for the one-day Georgia show, “and there were no complaints whatsoever,” he said. “We probably had more actual snakes there this year, even though it was a different format than what we’ve had.”

In Texas, the Sweetwater roundup is intertwined with the town’s culture and draws visitors from all over the world. It began 64 years ago to keep snakes from overtaking the town and attacking livestock, pets and people, organizers say.

Karen Hunt grew up in Sweetwater, and recalls fellow Texans asking her about her hometown. “Yes, we’re the rattlesnake town,” they would say. Now, as director of the Sweetwater and Nolan County Chamber of Commerce, Hunt fields calls from people in England, Germany and other parts of the world inquiring about the festival and making plans to visit.

“This does put us on the map,” she said. “What it does for our community is give us a sense of place.”

Hunters gather the snakes — there’s a contest for those capturing the largest ones — and they’re brought to the Nolan County Coliseum, where multiple parts of the snakes are harvested, Cumbie said. He’s the chairman of the milking pit, where venom is extracted and then used to develop various drugs for a range of illnesses. The snakes’ skins will eventually show up on cowboy boots, belts and other western wear. Rattles are used for souvenirs, as are the heads, Cumbie said.

“There’s literally no waste,” he said. “We also butcher about 1,000 pounds of them each year that we actually cook on the spot.”

WE HAVE ANNUAL RATTLESNAKE RUNS IN MEDICINE HAT NOBODY THERE HAS THOUGHT OF DOING THIS, LETS BE THANKFUL AND NOT ENCOURAGE IT

Indigenous people in Bolivian Amazon have low rates of dementia
By HealthDay News

Sunset in the Bolivian Amazon at the Yacuma River. A new study found that only about 1% of older Tsimane and Moseten people have dementia, compared with 11% of people 65 and older in the United States. Photo by Elias Bizannes/Wikimedia Commons

Two groups of indigenous people in the Bolivian Amazon have some of the world's lowest dementia rates, and that may offer insight on how to prevent Alzheimer's disease, a new study suggests.

Researchers found only about 1% of older Tsimane and Moseten people have dementia, compared with 11% of people 65 and older in the United States.

Among those 60 and older, there were only five cases of dementia among 435 Tsimane people and just one case among 169 Moseten people, according to the study.

"Something about the pre-industrial subsistence lifestyle appears to protect older Tsimane and Moseten from dementia," study author Margaret Gatz, a professor of psychology, gerontology and preventive medicine at the University of Southern California, said in a school news release.

The 17,000 Tsimane people are physically active throughout their lives as they fish, hunt and farm with hand tools and gather food from the forest, the researchers explained.

The 3,000 Moseten people live in rural villages and have a subsistence agricultural lifestyle. They live closer to towns than the Tsimane and have schools, access to clean water and medical services, and are more likely to be literate.

About 8% of the Tsimane people and 10% of the Moseten people had mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which typically involves early stage memory loss or decline of other cognitive ability, such as language or spatial perception

These rates are more comparable to MCI rates in wealthy nations like the United States, the researchers noted.

They also compared their findings to a previous review of 15 studies of indigenous populations in Australia, North America, Guam and Brazil that found dementia rates ranging from 0.5% to 20% among older adults.

High rates of dementia among some indigenous populations in other parts of the world may be due to more contact with and adoption of the lifestyles of non-indigenous people. This could raise the odds for dementia risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, alcohol abuse, obesity and heart disease.

These risk factors are extremely low among the Tsimane and Moseten populations, according to the researchers.

Worldwide, the number of people with dementia is expected to triple, to more than 152 million by 2050.

"We're in a race for solutions to the growing prevalence of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias," said study co-author Hillard Kaplan, a professor of health economics and anthropology at Chapman University in Orange, Calif. Kaplan has studied the Tsimane for two decades.

"Looking at these diverse populations augments and accelerates our understanding of these diseases and generates new insights," Kaplan said.

The study was published Wednesday in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association.

Houseplants may remove common air pollutant

By HealthDay News

In a poorly ventilated small office with high levels of air pollution, five houseplants would reduce NO2 levels by around 20%, the study found.

Photo by sodamtree/Pixabay

Want to breathe better air indoors? Go green.

Houseplants can make your home or office air cleaner, according to British researchers.

In lab tests, they found that three common houseplants -- peace lily (Spathiphyllum wallisii), corn plant (Dracaena fragrans), and ZZ plant or fern arum (Zamioculcas zamiifolia) -- could reduce levels of a common air pollutant called nitrogen dioxide (NO2) by as much as 20%.

"The plants we chose were all very different from each other, yet they all showed strikingly similar abilities to remove NO2 from the atmosphere," said lead author Christian Pfrang, of the University of Birmingham.

The plants aren't costly and are easy to maintain, the researchers noted.

For the study, a single plant of each variety was put into a test chamber containing levels of NO2 comparable to those in an office next to a busy road. Over an hour, all three species removed about half of the NO2 in the chamber.

Researchers then calculated what those results might mean for a small office and a medium-sized office with different levels of ventilation.

In a poorly ventilated small office with high levels of air pollution, five houseplants would reduce NO2 levels by around 20%, the study found. In a larger space, the reduction would smaller -- 3.5%, but could be increased by adding more plants, according to the findings.

It's not clear how the plants remove NO2 from the air, researchers said.

In earlier studies, they noted that indoor plants' ability to take up carbon dioxide (CO2) is "strongly dependent on environmental factors such as night time or daytime, or soil water content."

But Pfrang said that how the plants remove different gases appears to differ.

"We don't think the plants are using the same process as they do for CO2 uptake, in which the gas is absorbed through stomata -- tiny holes -- in the leaves," he said in a university news release.

"There was no indication, even during longer experiments, that our plants released the NO2 back into the atmosphere, so there is likely a biological process taking place also involving the soil the plant grows in -- but we don't yet know what that is," Pfrang said.

The study was recently published in Air Quality Atmosphere & Health.

More information

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has an interactive tour detailing ways to protect your indoor air quality.

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