AFRICA
When capitalism and Indigenous rights collide

A legal dispute involving retail giant Amazon and Indigenous South Africans has highlighted a global dilemma: Are sacred sites more important than job creation? Indigenous groups have been fighting back.

Protests such as this led to the suspension of the Amazon project in Cape Town

The River Club development was under construction on sacred land, the spiritual home to the Khoi and San ethnic groups ⁠— the earliest inhabitants of southern Africa. And it lies in the middle of one of South Africa's most important metropolitan regions.

Online retail giant Amazon's Africa headquarters was planned for the development, which lies at the confluence of the Black and Liesbeek rivers.

But, now, the cranes are at a standstill, and the High Court in Cape Town has banned work from continuing until the Indigenous peoples affected are meaningfully involved. They are protesting and demanding a definitive halt to the €260 million ($283 million) project.

"Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world with his Amazon headquarters on our sacred land!" Bradley van Sitters, a Khoisan activist, told DW.

"For him to build this African headquarters is a great shame. This river is sacred to us," van Sitters said, adding that it was where the groups went to hold ceremonies and rituals.

"We also want to bring our children here. This must be declared a world heritage site," van Sitters said.

Historical significance

The Khoisan people associate fond memories with the land at the foot of Cape Town's Table Mountain.

In the early 16th century, invading Portuguese troops were repelled by the Khoi and San peoples on that same site. Some 150 years later, the Indigenous people resisted the Dutch settlers who began their land expropriations from the river.

But the project could also be an opportunity for Cape Town. Amazon already employs thousands of people at various data processing centers in the city.

Once completed, the new complex is expected to provide jobs for at least 1,000 people ⁠— and many more would have received employment during the construction phase.

Apart from the Amazon headquarters, homes, retail stores and offices are to be constructed on the site. In a written statement, the US-based multinational e-commerce company said that the majority of the Cape's Khoi and San people support the development.

Amazon's multimillion-dollar investment would have created jobs for at least 1,000 people

Amazon's bid to honor Indigenes

To honor the heritage of the Khoi and San, the developers said they had planned a media center, a "heritage garden" and an amphitheater.

"The small group of activists opposing the River Club project have been spreading falsehoods about the current property, the redevelopment, and the impact on intangible heritage, the environment and biodiversity," Liesbeek Leisure Properties Trust said in a statement.

According to Statistics South Africa (Stats SA), South Africa's unemployment rate is 35.3%. Furthermore, the youth unemployment rate has remained stubbornly high at 65.5%.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has been seeking to woo foreign investment to create job opportunities.

But that should not happen at the expense of Indigenous peoples, said Genevieve Rose, head of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR).

"We are not saying that development is not important. Indigenous peoples would also like to have electricity. They also need jobs," Rose told DW.

"But the reality is that their land is being taken away — they're not being consulted. They are not getting information in their language. They don't get real jobs," Rose said.

"If they are relocated, it's to worse land," Rose said, "and they are worse off than before."

Call for recognition

The only thing Indigenous peoples would ask for, Rose said, is for their rights to the land where the development is taking place be recognized and that they are given proper consideration.

"Then they can participate constructively in the project and try to find a solution that works for them and that they also benefit from. But right now, that's not the case," Rose said.

Similar scenarios have happened elsewhere in Africa. For example, in the 1970s, the Kenyan government evicted hundreds of Endorois families from their land to create a wildlife sanctuary for tourists.

The Endorois filed and won a lawsuit. In 2010, the ACHPR ruled that the Kenyan government had violated the Endorois' rights to religious worship, property, culture, free disposal of natural resources, and development. It recommended recognizing property rights, returning ancestral lands to the Endorois, compensating them for their losses, and ensuring that the Endorois benefit from the game reserve employment opportunities.

But, according to the International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net), Nairobi has largely ignored the recommendations so far.

Kenya's Endorois people won a legal battle to be compensated for their land
Indigenous and corporate collaboration

"Governments, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, must first recognize that Indigenous peoples live on the land and also have traditional ownership of that land," Rose said.

"That many governments don't want to recognize these people is a problem in itself," Rose said, adding that recognition means giving them the right to the land. "You can't sell the land or get these investment projects. So they prefer not to recognize their existence or the fact that they own the land as a community."

Batwa land has also been converted into national parks and forest reserves against their will in Burundi and Uganda. And in Ethiopia, pastoralist peoples were forced off their land so foreign and national companies could lease it. Rose also sees these companies as having a role to play.

"Companies can have a really big impact and put pressure on the government that they're not going to do business unless these people are involved in the whole process," Rose said.

That includes figuring out what the land means to the people, calculating fair compensation and establishing how to offer them work in the long term, she said.

Adequate compensation

Then, cases like the one in Kenya and its Lake Turkana Wind Project (LTWP) would not arise.

In a historic ruling in 2021, the Kenyan Environment and Land Court in Meru declared the title deeds to the land on which the LTWP stands "irregular and unlawful."

Indigenous people had complained that the wind energy project did not obtain consent, did not pay adequate compensation and violated applicable land laws.

The court gave the county government one year to correct the process, or the land would revert to the community.

Mali Ole Kaunga, director of the Indigenous Movement for Peace Advancement and Conflict Transformation (IMPACT), described the ruling as a victory for the El Molo, Turkana, Samburu, and Rendille communities.

He also praised the ruling as a win for "all Kenyan communities at risk of displacement and human rights violations from large-scale land investments."

What could help an Indigenous community, Rose said, is to have its protocols in place in case a company comes onto its land.

Rose said she is confident that cooperation is possible with a fair compromise for both sides. But she stressed that, above all, recognition is critical.

Okeri Ngutjinazo and Adrian Kriesch contributed to this article

Edited by Keith Walker.

Why is Donbas so important for Russia?

The Russian army has regrouped and is concentrating its attacks on eastern Ukraine. So why exactly is Russian President Vladimir Putin interested in Luhansk and Donetsk?

"We are Russian Donbass" reads this poster but not everybody agrees with the sentiment


At the beginning of April, Russia suddenly withdrew its troops from the region around the capital Kyiv in northern Ukraine. It apparently wanted to concentrate its forces on Donbas in eastern Ukraine for a fresh offensive that began this week. Why is the region so crucial?

Special ties with Russia?

Like the Crimean peninsula, the administrative regions (oblasts) of Luhansk and Donetsk are regions where a particularly large proportion of the population speaks Russian as its mother tongue and is ethnically Russian. The situation is similar in Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, and also Odesa. But only in Crimea do ethnic Russians make up the majority of the population.

After the Orange Revolution of 2004, and the Maidan protests of 2013 and 2014, it was in these parts of Ukraine where the opposition to Ukraine turning more towards the West was strongest. Militant Russian separatists — presumably with support from Moscow — began fighting for control of the region while at the same time, Russia made the most of the power vacuum in Kyiv and annexed Crimea.

"These are two of the many examples where the Russians acted according to the idea that 'opportunity makes the thief,'" said Andreas Heinemann-Grüder, Eastern Europe specialist at the Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies. He doesn't think there was a large-scale plan behind this.

Eastern Ukraine is a crucial industrial region

What's the historical context?

Until the mid-19th century, Donbas was scarcely populated but it became one of the most important hubs of Russian industrialization because of its coal reserves.

"During this period, public use of Ukrainian was suppressed in the Russian Empire, and Russian established itself as the language of education," explained historian Guido Hausmann from the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg. "Many Russian peasants also flocked to the new industrial region."

Donbas was not part of Ukraine during its brief spell of independence in 1918 but it was incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic after the Russian Civil War. More and more Russians came into the region during the Soviet period. Hausmann explained that there were indeed a lot of people with ties to Russia or rather the Soviet Union. "However, the people in Donbas always also spoke Ukrainian and the majority still had a strong connection to Ukraine too," he said.

Heinemann-Grüder said that it was wrong to assume that ethnicity or mother tongue could give clues as to national identity among the Ukrainian population. "Russian was even spoken by some of the Ukrainian army battalions that fought against the separatists in 2014/15," he said.

He added that this was probably no longer the case because the use of Russian had declined everywhere: "If there has been any contribution to forming a Ukrainian nation then it has been the Russian aggressions of the past eight years," he said. "Russian bombs have united Ukraine all the more."
Is eastern Ukraine economically important?

After World War II, the industrial regions of Siberia gained more importance than Donbas for the Soviet Union as a whole. But for Ukraine, it remained the most significant industrial zone up until 2014.

It has suffered considerably though, with many mines — particularly in separatist areas — now derelict or in a very poor state. Even more industrial facilities and infrastructure have been destroyed in the past weeks.

Hausman said that the region's economic importance mattered less to Russia than to Ukraine if it wanted to be economically independent. "A crucial war aim for Russia is to make Ukraine permanently dependent on Russia — politically, culturally and economically."

Symbolic importance

War has raged in Donbas for eight years: In 2014, pro-Russian separatists proclaimed the oblasts of Luhansk and Donetsk as independent "people's republics." In 2015, after a period of open battles between the separatists and the Ukrainian army, a fragile ceasefire and a "line of contact" separating Ukrainian-controlled parts from separatist areas in the region bordering Russia were agreed as part of the Minsk II agreement."

On February 21, 2022 — three days before its invasion of Ukraine — Russia officially recognized the self-proclaimed People's Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk. "By this, the Russian government meant all of Donbas," according to Heinemann-Grüder, who explained that Russia would have to conquer the entire territory in order to implement the annexation that it prepared with this recognition. "Then it could declare a victory at home and possibly declare an end to the war."
Successful 'denazification'?

Furthermore, Ukrainian combat units with far-right, nationalist tendencies, for example the Azov Battalion that helped prevent pro-Russian separatists take Mariupol in 2014, are also fighting in the region. This has been used by the Kremlin to fuel its claims the Ukrainian government has been infiltrated by "nazis."

"If he were to win against these troops, Putin could declare that the so-called 'denazification' mission had been achieved, at least in Donbas," said Heinemann-Grüder.


Ukrainian soldiers have been fighting to keep Donbas for years

It would also be a symbolic victory if Russia were able to capture the industrial port city of Mariupol, which has come to represent Ukrainian perseverance during weeks of siege and shelling.

"The outcome of the war in Donbas will decide what remains of Ukraine," Heinemann-Grüder said. By annexing Crimea, Russia had not only conquered the former home port of Russia's once-proud Black Sea fleet but also gained a port that is ice-free all year round near its European part for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

However, for now, Crimea is still an exclave. It is only connected to the Russian mainland via a bridge over the Kerch Strait that opened in 2018. By conquering all of Donbas, Russia would gain Mariupol as another important port with links to Crimea and the Mediterranean.

Heimann-Grüder thinks that Russia might well be setting its sights on its next targets, especially the land connection along the coast with Crimea, though this would depend on the state of its army and access to supplies.

He said that there might well be new military prospects on the cards: "If Putin sees an opportunity to dissolve Ukraine as an independent state, he will take it," he said. For the Ukrainian government, the question would then be: "In order to save Kyiv, do we have to give up Donbas?"

This article has been translated from German.

Rare hepatitis virus afflicts children across EU, US and UK

Doctors are scratching their heads over a new, unknown form of hepatitis that is causing severe illness in some cases. Does the coronavirus pandemic have a role to play?



Doctors are unsure what's causing a new outbreak of an unknown hepatitis virus in young children, most under the age of five


Health officials in the European Union, the US and the UK are looking into an outbreak of unexplained cases of hepatitis in young children. Some of them have been severe, requiring liver transplants.

It's very rare to come across serious cases of hepatitis in children, said William Irving, a professor of virology at the University of Nottingham. He said in normal years, hepatitis cases in children in the UK have likely been in the single digits. Last week, 60 cases were reported across the country.

"I find this absolutely extraordinary," Irving said. "I've not come across anything like this in my clinical practice. It's worrying because we don't know what's going on."
A mysterious liver inflammation in young children

All of the reported patients are under the age of 10, and many are under the age of 5. The children aren't testing positive for the typical hepatitis viruses — A, B, C, D or E — a situation Alastair Sutcliffe, a professor of general pediatrics at the University College of London, called "very unusual."

The outbreak was first reported by UK health officials at the start of April. On April 19, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control announced additional cases in Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Ireland. It also flagged cases in the US state of Alabama.

So far, a quick survey of children hepatology centers in Germany did not detect any cases similar to those noted by the UK health authorities, said Burkhard Rodeck, secretary general of the German Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine e.V.

Hepatitis means inflammation of the liver and has many causes, Irving said. It can result from infections caused by viruses and toxins in alcohol or by problems like obesity. He said although the cause of this specific outbreak is still unclear, it's being widely believed it could be related to the adenovirus.
Adenovirus a potential cause

Doctors found that some of the children diagnosed with the mysterious illness tested positive for a specific type of adenovirus infection: adenovirus 41. Irving said adenovirus 41 hadn't been found in all the cases, and it hasn't been looked for in all the cases, but it's been observed in enough cases to potentially be more than coincidental.

Adenovirus 41 is a common infection in young children that normally causes a bit of diarrhea and vomiting, Irving said, adding that it isn't known for being associated with hepatitis.

There could be something unusual about this specific adenovirus, Irving said. Or it could be interacting with something else that's causing hepatitis. Or it could be a brand new infectious agent, or a toxin, or some kind of environmental factor, or a combination of all these possibilities, he said.
What about COVID-19?

Whether it's related to COVID-19 is also up in the air, Irving said. It's possible some of these children had COVID, which impacted their immune system, making it harder to fight typical childhood viruses.

There are ample testing results available for the 13 cases found in Scotland. Of those 13, three tested positive for COVID infection, five tested negative and two had gotten the virus in the past three months. Only 11 of the 13 cases got tested for the adenovirus with five of them returning positive.

If COVID-19 infection is not the root of the problem, the pandemic's effect on children's health could be a part of it, Irving said.

"You've got a cohort of children who have been largely shielded, the very young children. So they've not been exposed to the range of virus infections that they would normally have been exposed to," Irving said.

"We have seen this winter much higher levels of a whole range of virus infections in children, including adenoviruses," he said. "Maybe there's something about the fact that they've sort of had two years of relative sterility where they're not being exposed and all of a sudden, they've got a whole pile of infections, including adenoviruses that they're not dealing with in the normal way."
Rise in hepatitis cases no need to panic

Sutcliffe said one thing is clear: The hepatitis isn't being caused by COVID-19 vaccines, because the children who have gotten the illness weren't vaccinated.

He cautioned parents to stay calm.

"My understanding is quite a lot of [the children with hepatitis] have gotten better, which is the usual. If we narrow it down to a risk of liver failure, the risk is very small. And so I think let's not exaggerate," he said.

Irving said he expected to see many more cases reported in the coming weeks as health authorities become aware of and start tracking the outbreak. The fact the UK caught it first is likely due to the country's rigorous reporting systems, he said.

"I don't understand Alabama," Irving said. "I mean, why you would have nine cases in one state and no cases from the other 49 states. It doesn't make any sense. I think that's got to be a function of surveillance. I think if it's occurring in Alabama, it is occurring elsewhere. It's just they don't know about it."

WHO: COVID-19 cases continue to fall globally while increasing In United States


A customer buys food in a half-empty grocery store, in Shanghai, China, on March 25 during a COVID-19 lockdown. The World Health Organization said, though, cases are now declining around the globe. Photo by Alex Plavevski/EPA-EFE


April 21 (UPI) -- Weekly confirmed cases of COVID-19 around the globe dropped 21.7% as of April 11, the World Health Organization revealed on its weekly tracker as cases continued to drop internationally.

The WHO reported 5.76 million confirmed coronavirus cases around the world, a decrease from 7.36 million for the week concluding April 4. It marked the fourth straight week global cases have fallen

Weekly confirmed cases reached an all-time high of 23.29 million for the week ending Jan. 17 during the peak of a surge of the more contagious Omicron variant of COVID-19.

Deaths from COVID-19 have also fallen, with 17,963 reported the week ending April 11, down 17% from 22,103 the week before and a weekly high of 76,479 from the Omicron surge reported on Feb. 7. Global deaths had reached 101,917 the week of Jan. 18, 2021.

While cases dropped around the world, confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States increased nearly 24% to 245,594 for the week ending April 11 from 198,085 the week before. Weekly confirmed cases in the United States had dropped to 193,417 on March 21.

Cases in the United States had reached a record 5.61 million in one week on Jan. 10 during the rise of the Omicron variant. The dramatic increase forced some localities to return to pandemic restrictions until the recent drop in cases.

The federal government is appealing a court ruling this week that struck down a mask requirement for commercial flights in the United States.

Protesters march against COVID-19 vaccine mandates in Washington

Protesters make their way to the Lincoln Memorial during a demonstration against COVID-19 vaccine mandates on the National Mall in Washington on Sunday. 

Photo by Jemal Countess/UPI | License Photo

Biden's drug control strategy urges more 'harm reduction,' fewer barriers to treatment

A member of the U.S. Coast Guard guards almost 30,000 pounds of cocaine offloaded at Naval Base San Diego. President Biden's drug control policy Thursday gives emphasis for targeting traffickers' finances and disrupting trafficking paths into the U.S.

 File Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Connie Terrell/U.S. Coast Guard



April 21 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden on Thursday unveiled his first national drug control strategy, which emphasizes a need to bring down overdose deaths and gives special importance to preventative efforts amid a record number of drug-related deaths in the United States.

The White House and drug czar Dr. Rahul Gupta announced the strategy, which will be sent to Congress for legislative development.

Among other things, the proposal illustrates a "comprehensive path forward to address addiction and the overdose epidemic."

Biden's plan underscores the need for prevention education and treatment and prioritizes "harm reduction" for untreated addicts.

"The [plan] is the first-ever to champion harm reduction to meet people where they are and engage them in care and services," the White House said in a statement.

"It also calls for actions that will expand access to evidence-based treatments that have been shown to reduce overdose risk and mortality. Finally, it emphasizes the need to develop stronger data collection and analysis systems to better deploy public health interventions."

Biden's strategy comes at a time when opioid deaths and other overdoses are reaching record highs nationwide. The White House noted that close to 110,000 people have died in the United States over the past year due to overdoses.

A U.S. Coast Guard cutter offloads a shipment of cocaine in San Diego, Calif. 

File Photo by Sondra-Kay Kneen/U.S. Coast Guard/UPI

A study last week reported that overdose deaths for American teenagers aged 14-18 has more than doubled since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. A different study said that only about a quarter of Americans who need medication to treat their abuse actually get it.

"It instructs federal agencies to prioritize actions that will save lives, get people the care they need, go after drug traffickers' profits and make better use of data to guide all these efforts," the White House said of the strategy.

The plan notes that less than 7% of people who need help for substance use disorders actually get it, partly because there are so many barriers to treatment. It underscores that access to naloxone, a drug that counteracts the effects of opiate narcotics, and syringe service programs are often restricted or underfunded at the community level.

Biden's plan calls for states to change or eliminate barriers to treatment and support harm reduction.

"Some states still have legal barriers that limit access to naloxone, and even in states where those barriers don't exist, naloxone does not always make it to those most at-risk of an overdose," the White House said.

The American Medical Association and other experts have previously recommended that naloxone be available over the counter to make it easier to obtain, thereby saving more lives.

Biden's plan also would target the finances of transnational crime organizations that smuggle drugs into the United States by calling for a $300 million budget increase for both U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

"The strategy prioritizes a targeted response to drug traffickers and transnational criminal organizations by hitting them where it hurts the most: their wallets," the White House said in its announcement Thursday.

"It also includes efforts to strengthen domestic law enforcement cooperation to disrupt the trafficking of illicit drugs within the United States and increase collaboration with international partners to disrupt the supply chain of illicit substances."

"Everyone who wants treatment should be able to get it," Gupta told reporters on Wednesday.

In congressional testimony last month, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said his department plans to allocate more than $10 billion for discretionary funding for programs that address opioid addiction and overdose-related activities.

Also, money from Biden's proposed 2023 budget would go toward removing the word "abuse" from the official names of federal agencies to remove harmful stigmas and stereotypes.

For example, it would change the National Institute on Drug Abuse to the National Institute on Drugs and Addiction. The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism would be rebranded as the National Institute on Alcohol Effects and Alcohol-Associated Disorders.

Fewest Americans collecting jobless aid since 1970

By MATT OTT

A "now hiring" sign is posted in Garnet Valley, Pa., Monday, May 10, 2021. Applications for unemployment benefits inched down last week, Thursday, April 21, 2022, as the total number of Americans collecting aid fell to its lowest level in more than 50 years.

 (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Applications for unemployment benefits inched down last week as the total number of Americans collecting aid fell to its lowest level in more than 50 years.

Jobless claims fell by 2,000 to 184,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week average of claims, which levels out week-to-week volatility, rose by 4,500 to 177,250.

About 1.42 million Americans were collecting traditional unemployment benefits in the week of April 9, the fewest since February 21, 1970.

Two years after the coronavirus pandemic plunged the economy into a brief but devastating recession, American workers are enjoying extraordinary job security. Weekly applications for unemployment aid, which broadly track with layoffs, have remained consistently below the pre-pandemic level of 225,000.

Last year, employers added a record 6.7 million jobs, and they’ve added an average of 560,000 more each month so far in 2022. The unemployment rate, which soared to 14.7% in April 2020 in the depths of the COVID-19 recession, is now just 3.6%, barely above the lowest point in 50 years. And there is a record proportion of 1.7 job openings for every unemployed American.

The U.S. job market and overall economy has shown remarkable resiliency despite ongoing supply chain breakdowns, the economic consequences of Russia’s war against Ukraine and the highest consumer inflation in 40 years.

Tensions over race, religion in France’s presidential race

By ARNO PEDRAM

 Women wait in line before voting for the first round of the presidential election at a polling station Sunday, April 10, 2022 in the Malpasse northern district of Marseille, southern France. French voters head to polls on Sunday in a runoff vote between centrist incumbent Emmanuel Macron and nationalist rival Marine Le Pen, wrapping up a campaign that experts have seen as unusually dominated by discriminatory discourse and proposals targeting immigration and Islam. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole, File)


PARIS (AP) — From attacks on “wokeism” to crackdowns on mosques, France’s presidential campaign has been especially challenging for voters of immigrant heritage and religious minorities, as discourse painting them as “the other” has gained ground across a swath of French society.

French voters head to polls on Sunday in a runoff vote between centrist incumbent Emmanuel Macron and nationalist rival Marine Le Pen, wrapping up a campaign that experts have seen as unusually dominated by discriminatory discourse and proposals targeting immigration and Islam.

With Le Pen proposing to ban Muslim headscarves in public, women like 19-year-old student Naila Ouazarf are in a bind.

“I want a president who accepts me as a person,” said Ouazarf, clad in a beige robe and matching head covering. She said she would defy the promised law should Le Pen become president and pay a fine, if necessary.

Macron attacked Le Pen on the headscarf issue during their presidential debate Wednesday, warning it could stoke “civil war.”

In the first-round vote, far-right candidates Le Pen and Eric Zemmour together collected nearly a third of votes. An elementary school teacher in the ethnically diverse Paris suburb of Saint-Denis on Thursday described pupils who are “scared to death” because of the campaign.

Le Pen’s National Rally party, formerly called the National Front, has a history of ties with neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers and militias that opposed Algeria’s war for independence from colonial France. Le Pen has distanced herself from that past and softened her public image.

But a top priority of her election program is to prioritize French citizens over immigrants for welfare benefits, a move that critics see as institutionalizing discrimination. Le Pen also wants to ban Muslim women from wearing headscaves in public, to toughen asylum rules and to sharply curtail immigration.

She has gained ground among voters since 2017, when she lost badly to Macron. This time around, Le Pen has put a greater emphasis on policies to help the working poor.

Saint-Denis student Yanis Benahmed, 20, said he was unconvinced by the candidate’s attempt to broader her appeal.

“We live in this city, and we know exactly how things are, the kind of people you have here,” he said. Le Pen “wants to ‘clean’ everything. With everything she’s said and her family history, we know exactly what her plan is. And Zemmour didn’t make it any better.”

The rabble-rousing Zemmour, who placed fourth in the first-round vote, boosted Le Pen’s popularity by making her seem softer. He has multiple convictions for inciting racial or religious hatred in France.

Zemmour also has promoted the baseless “great replacement” conspiracy theory, used as justification by the white supremacists who committed massacres in New Zealand’s Christchurch and in El Paso, Texas, and attacked a California synagogue.

“Eric Zemmour’s presence placed the issue (of Islam and immigration) on the side of aggressive and violent stigmatization,” Cecile Alduy, a Stanford semiologist who has studied Zemmour’s language, told The Associated Press. “Meanwhile, there is a decline in humanist values: words such as equality, human rights, fight against discrimination, or gender are qualified as politically correct or ‘wokeism’ by a large swath of media, public intellectuals, and ministers of the current government.”

For some experts and anti-racist groups in France, Macron, too, is at fault for the current climate. His administration has adopted legislation and language that echoes some far-right mottos in hopes of eating into Le Pen’s support.

Racial profiling and police brutality targeting people of color, which activists in France have long decried, have also remained a concern. During Macron’s presidency, France saw repeated protests against police violence after George Floyd, a Black American, died at the hands of police in the U.S.

Also under Macron’s watch, France passed a law against terrorism that enshrined in common law a state of emergency imposed after the deadly 2015 attacks on the Bataclan theater, Paris cafes and Charlie Hebdo newspaper.

The law extended the government’s right to search people, conduct surveillance, control movement and shut down some schools and religious sites in the name of fighting extremism.

Human rights watchdogs warned the law was discriminatory. “In some cases, Muslims may have been targeted because of their religious practice, considered to be ‘radical,’ by authorities, without substantiating why they constituted a threat for public order or security,” Amnesty International said.

In 2021, the government passed another law targeting what Macron labeled “separatism” by Muslim radicals. The measure extended the state’s oversight of associations and religious sites. The government’s own watchdog argued that the law’s scope was too broad.

Abdourahmane Ridouane has seen this firsthand. In February, two police officers handed him a notice of closure for the mosque he manages in the southwestern town of Pessac in Bordeaux wine country.

Authorities argued the mosque’s criticism of “state Islamophobia” allegedly encouraged and justified Muslim rebellion and terrorism. The authorities also criticized anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian posts on the mosque’s social media page.

Ridouane challenged the action and won on appeal. The appeals court found the closure was a “grave and manifest illegal infringement on religious liberty.” The state took the case to France’s highest court, which is expected to rule in the case soon.

“I felt deeply saddened by a process I deemed unworthy of a democratic state,” Ridouane told the AP.

Islam is France’s No. 2 religion, though there are no hard data on the races and religions of voters because of France’s doctrine of colorblindness, which sees all citizens as universally French and encourages assimilation. Critics say the principle allows authorities to ignore deep-seated discrimination, both on the French mainland and in overseas French territories where most voters aren’t white.

France has also seen the rise of criticism of “Islamo-leftism” and “wokeism,” and Macron’s government has commissioned a study into its presence in French universities. Yet race or colonial studies research departments don’t exist in French universities, because they are seen as contrary to French universalism.

“The election comes in this climate, the increasing right-wing and conservative discourse, a retreat into a white, universalist, colorblind discourse blind to all discriminations and systemic racism in French society,” said Nacira Guénif, an anthropology and sociology professor at Paris VIII University who focuses on race and gender.

On the left, meanwhile, “denial prevails,” Guénif said, because many left-wing French voters are “profoundly uncomfortable with the question of race because they think that talking about race makes you racist.”

The criticism of so-called “wokeism,” championed in particular by Zemmour’s campaign, is reminiscent of attacks on critical race theory in the U.S. Critical race theory is an academic framework that analyzes American history through the lens of racism. It centers on the idea that racism is systemic in U.S. institutions, which maintain the dominance of white people.

Despite concerns over some of the policies adopted in France under Macron, Ridouane, the Pessac mosque director, has no doubt for whom he will - and for whom he won’t - cast his vote for president on Sunday.

“If Le Pen manages to take the levers of power, it will be the worst thing we will have ever seen,” he said.

___

Elaine Ganley in Paris and Sylvie Corbet and Alex Turnbull in Saint-Denis contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the French election at https://apnews.com/hub/french-election-2022

Love thy enemy: Critics key for Macron in France’s election

By JOHN LEICESTER

A demonstrator holds a banner that reads: 'Neither Macron nor Le Pen', during a protest in Paris, April 16, 2022. Disgruntled left-wing voters whose candidates were knocked out in the first round of France's election are the wild cards in the winner-takes-all runoff on Sunday April 24, 2022. How they vote — or don’t vote — will in large part determine whether incumbent Emmanuel Macron gets a second five-year term or cedes the presidential Elysee Palace to far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen. 

(AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)


PARIS (AP) — As France elects a president, Paris-based artist Vincent Aïtzegagh is going to ground, escaping to a bucolic village to avoid what for him — and millions of other left-wing French voters — is a painful, even impossible, electoral choice. For the first time in his life, the 65-year-old has decided to not vote at all in the decisive ballot this Sunday.

“I am fleeing,” he says. “Because it stinks.”

Disgruntled voters like Aïtzegagh whose favored candidates were knocked out in the election’s first round on April 10 are the wild cards in the winner-takes-all runoff. How they vote — or don’t vote — on Sunday will in large part determine whether incumbent Emmanuel Macron gets a second five-year term or cedes the presidential Elysee Palace to far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen, a seemingly unlikely but not impossible outcome that would be seismic for France and Europe as they deal with the fallout of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

With the stakes high, never has the decision been so difficult for leftist voters who view both Macron and Le Pen as anathema — a choice that some describe as “between the plague and cholera.”

“It’s horrible, enough to make one cry. I have spent sleepless nights in tears not knowing what to do,” says Clek Desentredeux, a disabled and queer artist and live-streamer who voted for hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon in round one.

With 7.7 million votes, Melenchon finished just 420,000 votes shy of the runoff, in third place behind Le Pen. Le Pen and Macron have since expended much time and energy trawling for support in Melenchon’s now orphaned and disappointed reservoir of voters. It is an uphill battle for them both.

Generally speaking, many leftist voters resent Macron for having dynamited France’s political landscape with his get-things-done middle-way method of governance, siphoning ideas, supporters, government ministers and political oxygen away from mainstream parties on both the left and right.

His pragmatism is too vanilla and opportunistic for many leftist voters hungry for a sharper and more ideological political divide. More specifically, many describe the 44-year-old former banker as friend to the rich and oppressor of the poor. Some also blame him for Le Pen’s rise, saying that in trying to undercut support in France for the extreme right, Macron swerved too far right-ward himself.

Macron’s saving grace, however, is also Le Pen. After years of drum-banging about immigration and Islam’s influence in the country with the largest Muslim population in Western Europe, the 53-year-old is reviled by many on the left as a racist xenophobe, too dangerous for France’s stated principles of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” to ever vote for. In conceding defeat in round one, Melenchon said his backers “must not give a single vote to Madame Le Pen” — repeating the exhortation four times.

But he stopped short of asking his electors to shift their votes to Macron, instead leaving them to wrestle alone with what Melenchon described as a choice between “two evils.”

Some will deliberately spoil their ballots, even putting toilet paper in the voting envelope instead of a candidate’s name to show how dimly they view the options. Some won’t vote. Some will cast ballots with no name.

They include 22-year-old Emma Faroy in Paris.

“I’m going to vote because some women died for my right to do so,” she said. “But I’m going to cast a blank ballot because I don’t want to choose between either of them.”

Others will, almost literally, hold their noses and vote for Macron to keep out Le Pen. Some will back Le Pen, in a poke at the president. Multiple polls indicate that Macron, who won round one, is now building a significant runoff lead, larger than the polling margin of error. Melenchon voters from round one appear to be shifting in greater numbers behind him than Le Pen. But the outcome remains uncertain because many have yet to choose.


Demonstrators hold a banner that reads: "Against Le Pen", during a protest against the far-right in Paris, April 16, 2022. Disgruntled left-wing voters whose candidates were knocked out in the first round of France's election are the wild cards in the winner-takes-all runoff on Sunday April 24, 2022. How they vote — or don’t vote — will in large part determine whether incumbent Emmanuel Macron gets a second five-year term or cedes the presidential Elysee Palace to far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen.

 (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)

“I’ll decide at the last moment,” said retired power worker Pierre Gineste. Having voted Melenchon in round one, round two for him is the dilemma of a ballot for Macron, a blank ballot or not voting. He said he won’t vote Le Pen.

The choice is so difficult and divisive that friendships and families are being tested. Aïtzegagh voted for the green party candidate in round one; his daughter chose Melenchon. She then told her dad that she might vote Le Pen in the runoff because she cannot stomach Macron. Aïtzegagh said he responded by warning: “If you vote Le Pen, I will repudiate you.”

In 2002, when Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, stunned France by advancing to the runoff, Aïtzegagh was among the 82% of voters who came together behind conservative Jacques Chirac, in a powerful rejection of the extreme right.

In 2017, Aïtzegagh voted for Macron in the run-off — once again solely to be a barrage against a Le Pen, this time Marine. Macron won handily — 66% to 34% — but in the knowledge that many of his votes were simply ballots against her. The same will be true on Sunday.

In a first for him and with “sadness and disgust,” Aïtzegagh will abstain, because Macron’s first term has been “five years of cholera, five years of crap, five years of destruction” and Le Pen isn’t an option for him.

“I don’t want to be a barrage any more,” he said. “I have had enough.”

Desentredeux, who uses the gender-neutral pronoun they, agonized long and hard over their choice — and then decided that Le Pen’s presence again in the runoff left them with no choice at all.

This is the first presidential election that Desentredeux has been old enough to vote in and it will end with a reluctant vote for Macron.

“Macron winning would be a catastrophe, but Le Pen getting through would be criminal,” Desentredeux said. “I don’t want to do it but I feel obliged.”

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Associated Press journalist Alex Turnbull contributed.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the French election at https://apnews.com/hub/french-election-2022

UK lawmakers OK probe into PM Boris Johnson’s alleged lies

By JILL LAWLESS

yesterday

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, center, poses with Sadhus, or Hindu holy men, in front of the Swaminarayan Akshardham temple, in Gandhinagar, part of his two-day trip to India, Thursday, April 21, 2022. (Ben Stansall/Pool Photo via AP)


LONDON (AP) — British lawmakers on Thursday ordered a parliamentary investigation into Prime Minister Boris Johnson for allegedly lying about whether he broke coronavirus restrictions by attending illegal gatherings during the pandemic.

The move, approved by cries of “aye” and without a formal vote in the House of Commons, means Parliament’s Committee of Privileges will investigate whether Johnson knowingly misled Parliament — historically a resigning offense if proven.

The probe piles more pressure on a Conservative prime minister whose grip on power has been shaken by claims he flouted the pandemic rules he imposed on the country, then repeatedly failed to own up to it.

The move was instigated by the opposition Labour Party and passed after the government abandoned efforts to get Conservative lawmakers to block it. Johnson’s Conservatives have a substantial majority in Parliament, but many lawmakers are uneasy with the prime minister’s behavior.

Labour leader Keir Starmer said the move sought to uphold “the simple principle that honesty, integrity and telling the truth matter in our politics.”

“It is a British principle ... guiding members from every political party in this House,” Starmer said. “But it is a principle under attack.”

Johnson was not present for the decision on a scandal that has rocked his leadership of the country and the Conservative Party. He was more than 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) away in India, insisting he wanted to “get on with the job” of leading the country.

Johnson was fined 50 pounds ($66) by police last week for attending his own birthday party in his office in June 2020, when people in Britain were barred from meeting up with friends and family, or even visiting dying relatives. Johnson is the first British prime minister ever found to have broken the law while in office.

He has apologized, but denied he knowingly broke the rules. Johnson’s shifting defense — initially saying there were no illegal gatherings, then claiming it “did not occur to me” that the birthday event was a party — has drawn derision and outrage from opponents, who have called for him to quit.

“The truth is simple and it’s this – he lied to avoid getting caught, and once he got caught, he lied again,” Scottish National Party lawmaker Ian Blackford said in the House of Commons.

Usually lawmakers are forbidden from accusing one another of lying, but Blackford was not reprimanded by the Speaker.

A growing number of Conservatives are uncomfortable about defending a leader who broke rules he imposed on the country. A few have called openly for Johnson to go, and the number is rising. Others are waiting to see whether public anger translates into Conservative losses at local elections on May 5.

“It is utterly depressing to be asked to defend the indefensible,” said Conservative legislator William Wragg. “Each time part of us withers.”

Lawmaker Steve Baker, until now a prominent supporter, said that Johnson “should be long gone” for violating the “letter and spirit” of the rules.”

“I’ll certainly vote for this motion,” he said. “But really, the prime minister should just know the gig’s up.”

The Committee of Privileges probe will not start until twin police and civil-service investigations into “partygate” have concluded.

Senior civil servant Sue Gray is investigating 16 events, including “bring your own booze” office parties and “wine time Fridays” in Johnson’s 10 Downing St. office and other government buildings. Police are probing a dozen of the events and so far have handed out at least 50 fines, including ones to Johnson, his wife Carrie and Treasury chief Rishi Sunak. Johnson is believed to have attended about six of the gatherings and could face more police fines.

Johnson and his allies argue that it would be reckless for the country to change leaders now amid the war in Ukraine and a cost-of-living squeeze sparked by soaring prices for energy and food.

As he flew to India for a two-day visit focused on boosting economic ties, Johnson again denied knowingly misleading Parliament and insisted he would lead the Conservatives into the next national election, due by 2024.

“I have absolutely nothing, frankly, to hide,” Johnson told Sky News during his visit to the western Indian state of Gujarat. “I want to get on with the job that I was elected to do.”

Bird flu drives free-range hens indoors to protect poultry

By DAVID PITT

 In this Oct. 21, 2015, file photo, cage-free chickens walk in a fenced pasture at an organic farm near Waukon, Iowa. Some farmers are wondering if it's OK that eggs sold as free-range come from chickens being kept inside. It's a question that arises lately as farmers try to be open about their product while also protecting chickens from a highly infectious bird flu that has killed roughly 28 million poultry across the country. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)


DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Is it OK for free-range chickens to not range freely?

That’s a question free-range egg producers have been pondering lately as they try to be open about their product while also protecting chickens from a highly infectious bird flu that has killed roughly 28 million poultry across the country.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends that chickens be moved indoors to protect against the disease, but while some are keeping their hens inside, not everyone agrees.

John Brunnquell, the CEO of Indiana-based Egg Innovations, which contracts with more than 50 farms in five states to produce free-range and pasture-raised eggs, said any of his chickens in states with bird flu cases will stay in “confinement mode” until the risk passes.

“We will keep them confined at least until early June,” Brunnquell said. “If we go four weeks with no more commercial breakouts then we’ll look to get the girls back out.”

Bird flu cases have been identified in commercial chicken and turkey farms or in backyard flocks in 29 states, according to the USDA. Spread of the disease is largely blamed on the droppings of infected migrating wild birds.

The farms Brunnquell contracts with are in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Wisconsin, all of which have had at least once case of bird flu.

But some, like Mike Badger, the executive director of the American Pastured Poultry Producers Association, are taking a different approach.

Badger, whose Pennsylvania-based nonprofit group has about 1,000 members across the country, believes birds kept outdoors are at less risk of infection than chickens and turkeys raised amid thousands of others in large, enclosed barns.

“We put them outside and they get in touch with the environment so I think they have a better immune system to be able to fight off threats as they happen,” Badger said.

Research has not clearly proven significant immune system differences in chickens housed outdoors versus indoors. And Badger speculates that lower density of animals, air movement and less sharing of equipment and staff in pasture-raised operations may contribute to a lack of virus infections.

He said the decision whether to bring hens inside to wait out the annual migration of wild waterfowl is a farm-to-farm decision “based on the comfort level with the risk acceptance.”

Commercial outdoor flocks make up only a small percentage of U.S. egg production. About 6 million hens, or 2% of national flock, are free-range and about 4.2 million hens, or 1.3% of U.S. egg production, are from pasture-raised chickens.

Chickens are categorized as free-range or pasture-raised primarily by the amount of time they spend outdoors and space they are provided.

Free-range chickens typically must have at least 21.8 square feet (2 square meters) of roaming space outdoors and remain out until temperatures drop below around 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 1 Celsius), according to the American Humane Association, which certifies egg operations. Pasture-raised chickens typically must have 108 square feet (10 square meters) outdoors each and remain outside most of the year except during inclement weather.

The certifying organizations have protocols for high-risk situations and allow for temporary housing indoors — a time period not specifically defined — once a farm documents an outbreak near an outdoor flock. Certification agencies monitor farms to ensure they don’t use bird flu as an excuse to keep birds inside too long.

Brunnquell said none of his farms had infections during the last big outbreak in 2015, and he hasn’t had any cases this year.

Farmers in Europe have been dealing with the bird virus longer than those in the U.S., with cases reported as early as last December.

The United Kingdom has ordered free-range hens to be housed inside to protect them from the avian flu, and that has forced changes to how those eggs are labeled in stores. Free-range packaging is still used but must be marked with an added label of “barn eggs,” according to a communications representative for the British Free Range Egg Producers Association. Each egg also is stamped with a No. 2 that denotes “barn” rather than No. 1 for “free-range.”

For U.S. consumers, it means the free-range eggs they buy at a premium price could come from a chicken being temporarily kept inside. But producers say they think people who pay more for pasture-raised or free-range eggs have animal-welfare concerns and don’t want the chickens to be endangered the virus.

Brunnquell also noted that the certification agencies monitor farms to ensure they don’t use bird flu as an excuse to keep birds inside too long.

Eggs of all kinds have grown costlier recently thanks to bird flu concerns and a national spike in food costs.

Last week, prices for conventional eggs increased by 40 cents per dozen to $1.47 while cage-free egg prices rose 3 cents to $2.40 per dozen, according to the USDA. Organic eggs, which are from chickens required to have access to the outdoors, were selling for a national average of $4.39 a dozen last week, up from $3.65 the week before.

The price of eggs used by bakeries and other food products soared to a record high on April 8.

So-called breaker eggs, which will later be broken by processors and sold in containers weighing up to 50 pounds, peaked at $2.51 per pound, said Karyn Rispoli, egg market reporter for Urner Barry, a New Jersey-based food commodity market research and analytics firm. Many of the egg layers that have died from bird flu were on farms contracted to provide breaker eggs used as food product ingredients, Rispoli said.

Bird flu likely will remain a problem for at least several more weeks as migrating waterfowl will remain on the move in the Mississippi Flyway until June. In the past, warmer weather and the end of migration brought an end to bird flu cases, allowing turkey and chicken farmers to begin the monthslong process of replenishing flocks and resuming production.

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Associated Press writer Courtney Bonnell contributed to this report from London.

EXPLAINER: What medical treatments do transgender youth get?

By LINDSEY TANNER

Barbara Dale, from Atlanta, mother of a transgender child, waves sign reading "Love Knows No Gender" at Gay Pride Transgender March at Piedmont Park in the city's Midtown District in Atlanta, Ga, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2019. Transgender medical treatment for children and teens is increasingly under attack in many states, labeled child abuse and subject to criminalizing bans. But it has been available in the United States for more than a decade and is endorsed by major medical associations. (AP Photo/Robin Rayne, File)


Transgender medical treatment for children and teens is increasingly under attack in many states, labeled child abuse and subject to criminalizing bans. But it has been available in the United States for more than a decade and is endorsed by major medical associations.

Many clinics use treatment plans pioneered in Amsterdam 30 years ago, according to a recent review in the British Psych Bulletin. Since 2005, the number of youth referred to gender clinics has increased as much as tenfold in the U.S., U.K, Canada and Finland, the review said.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, a professional and educational organization, and the Endocrine Society, which represents specialists who treat hormone conditions, both have guidelines for such treatment. Here’s a look at what’s typically involved.

PUBERTY BLOCKERS

Children who persistently question the sex they were designated at birth are often referred to specialty clinics providing gender-confirming care. Such care typically begins with a psychological evaluation to determine whether the children have “gender dysphoria,″ or distress caused when gender identity doesn’t match a person’s assigned sex.

Children who meet clinical guidelines are first offered medication that temporarily blocks puberty. This treatment is designed for youngsters diagnosed with gender dysphoria who have been counseled with their families and are mature enough to understand what the regimen entails.

The medication isn’t started until youngsters show early signs of puberty — enlargement of breasts or testicles. This typically occurs around age 8 to 13 for girls and a year or two later for boys.

The drugs, known as GnRH agonists, block the brain from releasing key hormones involved in sexual maturation. They have been used for decades to treat precocious puberty, an uncommon medical condition that causes puberty to begin abnormally early.

The drugs can be given as injections every few months or as arm implants lasting up to year or two. Their effects are reversible — puberty and sexual development resume as soon as the drugs are stopped.

Some kids stay on them for several years. One possible side effect: They may cause a decrease in bone density that reverses when the drugs are stopped.

HORMONES

After puberty blockers, kids can either go through puberty while still identifying as the opposite sex or begin treatment to make their bodies more closely match their gender identity.

For those choosing the second option, guidelines say the next step is taking manufactured versions of estrogen or testosterone — hormones that prompt sexual development in puberty. Estrogen comes in skin patches and pills. Testosterone treatment usually involves weekly injections.

Guidelines recommend starting these when kids are mature enough to make informed medical decisions. That is typically around age 16, and parents’ consent is typically required, said Dr. Gina Sequiera, co-director of Seattle Children’s Hospital’s Gender Clinic.

Many transgender patients take the hormones for life, though some changes persist if medication is stopped.

In girls transitioning to boys, testosterone generally leads to permanent voice-lowering, facial hair and protrusion of the Adam’s apple, said Dr. Stephanie Roberts, a specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital’s Gender Management Service. For boys transitioning to girls, estrogen-induced breast development is typically permanent, Roberts said.

Research on long-term hormone use in transgender adults has found potential health risks including blood clots and cholesterol changes.

SURGERY

Gender-altering surgery in teens is less common than hormone treatment, but many centers hesitate to give exact numbers.

Guidelines say such surgery generally should be reserved for those aged 18 and older. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health says breast removal surgery is OK for those under 18 who have been on testosterone for at least a year. The Endocrine Society says there isn’t enough evidence to recommend a specific age limit for that operation.

OUTCOMES

Studies have found some children and teens resort to self-mutilation to try to change their anatomy. And research has shown that transgender youth and adults are prone to stress, depression and suicidal behavior when forced to live as the sex they were assigned at birth.

Opponents of youth transgender medical treatment say there’s no solid proof of purported benefits and cite widely discredited research claiming that most untreated kids outgrow their transgender identities by their teen years or later. One study often mentioned by opponents included many kids who were mistakenly identified as having gender dysphoria and lacked outcome data for many others.

Doctors say accurately diagnosed kids whose transgender identity persists into puberty typically don’t outgrow it. And guidelines say treatment shouldn’t start before puberty begins.

Many studies show the treatment can improve kids’ well-being, including reducing depression and suicidal behavior. The most robust kind of study — a trial in which some distressed kids would be given treatment and others not — cannot be done ethically. Longer term studies on treatment outcomes are underway.

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Follow AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner at @LindseyTanner.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content

LGBTQ leader is key in blocking Kansas ban on trans athletes

By JOHN HANNA

1 of 4

Tom Witt, executive director of the LGBTQ-rights group Equality Kansas, follows a legislative committee meeting at the Statehouse Monday, March 7, 2022 in Topeka, Kan. For 18 years, Witt has used a variety of tactics to stymie conservative lawmakers' proposals, including a bill this year to ban transgender athletes from girls' and women's sports in schools and colleges. (AP Photo/John Hanna)


TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — As state lawmakers moved to ban transgender kids from girls’ sports, Kansas’ most visible LGBTQ-rights lobbyist recently said during an interview in a Statehouse corridor that conservatives don’t mind if kindergartners “have their genitals inspected.”

The politically needling comment was bold enough to make Tom Witt’s point, and loud enough for a lobbyist supporter of the ban to hear as she walked by. It was also classic Witt: Boisterous. Engaged. And well-targeted.

Witt is a key reason Kansas is unlikely to join a growing number of states this year with a ban, despite Republican supermajorities in its Legislature. With lawmakers returning Monday from a spring break, supporters don’t yet have the two-thirds majorities to override Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of their bill. They didn’t last year, either.

Witt, 60, is executive director of Equality Kansas and a Democratic consultant. During 18 years at the Statehouse, he’s spotlighted conservatives’ bills so that unwanted publicity prompts Republican leaders to disavow them or discourages GOP-led committees from even holding hearings. Others describe him as relentless in pursuing just enough “no” votes when it counts, and was influential enough in the state Democratic Party to help push it to the left.

He’s even let his health slide. In 2017, he ignored growing fatigue to successfully lobby against requiring transgender students to use facilities associated with their genders assigned at birth — then had a heart attack and bypass surgery.

As for this year’s bill, he said unnamed Republicans told him they “really hate” it before voting for it anyway. He said he’s bitter that they might have considered the political cost of voting no.

“This is life and death for some kids,” he said. “This is not trivial. This is not politics.”

Witt plans to retire from activism, lobbying and consulting by year’s end, having mentored younger, self-described progressive lobbyists.

Democratic state Rep. Stephanie Byers, the state’s first elected transgender lawmaker and a retired Wichita band director, credits Witt with connecting her to national groups and making media interviews easier to navigate during her 2020 campaign. Kari Rinker, a friend and American Heart Association lobbyist, said he taught her how to fundraise and work with a nonprofit board.

But Witt is sometimes profane and often pugnacious, even with friends. As for lawmakers, he said, party doesn’t matter: “If they vote against LGBT rights, I’m going to go after them.”

Brittany Jones, the conservative lobbyist who was walking by Witt’s recent hallway interview, begins her recollection of their Statehouse introduction in 2019 with, “I believe he’s made in the image of God just like I am.”

“As soon as he found out who I worked for, he dropped my hand, walked away and wouldn’t speak to me,” said Jones, policy director for the conservative group Kansas Family Voice. Witt doesn’t dispute that.

As Witt fights to keep Kansas from following at least 15 other states in banning transgender athletes from female school and college sports, some Kansas lawmakers are conflicted.

State Sen. David Haley, a Kansas City Democrat, voted no earlier this month but said “reasonable” constituents see the bill as common sense. He was the deciding vote last year against a veto override, giving a speech weighing both sides before voting no — as Witt sat in the main visitors’ gallery, visibly on edge.

“You know, it’s kind of like he’s a Marine Corps drill sergeant when he is committed to the advocacy for his ideology,” Haley said. “It’s like, ‘Everybody line up. This is the way it’s going to go.’”

The Kansas measures have applied to K-12 students, and a few lawmakers cite that as a problem. Witt said elementary schools would be forced to physically inspect children as young as 5 to settle disputes over transgender kids competing against other girls.

The bill’s text doesn’t says exactly how disputes would be resolved, and Haley called Witt’s argument “a little bit beyond belief.” State Rep. Barbara Wasinger, a Republican from western Kansas, said Witt’s argument is diverting attention from what she sees as the real issues, fair competition and scholarship opportunities for young women.

But Witt sees this year’s proposals triggering bullying and suicides. He pointed out a scar on his left cheek and said it’s from being attacked and cut with a knife in a high school bathroom in the 1970s.

“In some respects, not a damn thing has changed,” he said. “In the 70s, the things that trans people are being called today are what gays and lesbians were called then. The panic about bathrooms? We had the bathroom panic in the 70s.”

He also recalled how his activism began ahead of a 2005 statewide vote in favor of banning same-sex marriage in Kansas. A computer software writer and IT troubleshooter, he was living in Wichita with his future husband and their daughter.

“All I ever wanted in my life was a family,” Witt said. “And it felt like those people were coming after it.”

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Follow John Hanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apjdhanna