Climate solution: Downsize laundry jugs to cut emissions

By ISABELLA O'MALLEY

Emily Rodia, owner of Good Buy Supply, holds concentrated laundry soap that customers can pump into their own refillable containers at her store in Philadelphia, Tuesday, March 21, 2023. A growing number of companies are making bulky plastic jugs smaller and concentrating the detergent or soap. Rodia said folks of all ages are seeking concentrated detergents and other eco-friendly products. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Laundry detergent is looking a little different these days. A growing number of companies are making bulky plastic jugs smaller and concentrating the detergent or soap.

Without all that water, less fossil fuels are required for transport, because the products are lighter and more can be shipped in a single trip. New detergent formulas are changing to become ultra-concentrated liquids or even solid sheets roughly the size of an iPhone.

“Laundry detergent can contain up to 90% water,” said Lisa Karandat, co-founder of Good JuJu, a company that sells sustainable laundry sheets and solid shampoo and conditioner bars, among other things. “Those big heavy jugs require a lot of space to truck around the country.”

In addition to lower carbon emissions from diesel-burning delivery trucks, some companies are responding to public demand to minimize plastic pollution.

A bottle of Seventh Generation ultra concentrated laundry detergents sits on a table at a full service laundromat in Silver Lake area of Los Angeles on Wednesday, March 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

If more laundry soap were sold in concentrated bottles, it would sharply cut waste without taking away customer benefits, said John Moorhead, chief marketing officer for Seventh Generation, a company that sells non-toxic disinfectants, soap, and ultra-concentrated laundry detergent.

Reducing plastic pollution is essential to lowering carbon emissions, as nearly all plastics are made from fossil fuels.

In 2022, Seventh Generation launched a digital campaign that featured larger-than-life laundry jugs in inconvenient locations, such as the middle of shopping aisles, to highlight the products’ inconvenience and plastic use. The company also pays influencers on Instagram to advertises its ultra-concentrated detergent, dish washing liquid, and disinfectants.

Full Coverage: Climate and environment

But when products get smaller and more concentrated, how do you know it isn’t just “ shrinkflation,” an ongoing trend where companies are reducing the size of their product, but keeping the price the same?

“Concentration is distinctly different from down-ouncing, where material reductions can result in less for the consumer,” said Moorhead, who claimed his company’s concentrated solutions cost less per wash than the traditional product.

Concentrated laundry soap that customers can pump into their own refillable containers sits on a shelf at Good Buy Supply in Philadelphia, Tuesday, March 21, 2023. 

(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

While the absence of water certainly makes a concentrated strip or detergent lighter, which in turn reduces carbon dioxide emissions, determining exactly how much is challenging.

The business group the Consumer Goods Forum said Ariel, a major detergent brand, reduced energy use by 28% in Europe when it went to concentrate. A handful of companies advertise reduced environmental impact, but pressure-testing their numbers is tough. P&G, which makes popular laundry brands Tide and Gain, did not respond to requests for comment on climate benefits of concentrate or sheets, nor did consumer products giant Unilever.

Sometimes the concentrated, lower-carbon products can be more expensive, because manufacturers are also trying to source ingredients ethically or use natural ingredients.

Good JuJu laundry strips, for example, use plant enzymes that can be expensive to test and bring to market.

Emily Rodia, owner of Good Buy Supply, holds concentrated laundry soap that customers can pump into their own refillable containers at her store in Philadelphia, Tuesday, March 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

“These companies pay their employees a living wage and use high quality ingredients,” explained Emily Rodia, owner of Good Buy Supply, a sustainable general store in Philadelphia.

Hazel Thayer, an environmental activist on TikTok, hopes any price differential will change as “they can scale up and become cost-competitive with the super-plasticky brands.”

Interest is increasing.

“The increased interest in concentrated and liquid-free products is not surprising, given the innovations that continue to evolve within the cleaning products industry,” said Brian Sansoni, senior vice president of communications, outreach, and membership at the American Cleaning Institute, a trade group for cleaning products brands.

Seventh Generation recently committed to phasing out large-format liquid laundry bottles to reduce plastic waste and will no longer sell laundry products that are 90 oz and above by 2030.

Seventh Generation concentrated laundry detergent is for sale in Los Angeles on Tuesday, March 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Some companies are actively encouraging shoppers to switch away from the detergent they’ve been using for years to the concentrated alternative.

Rodia said in her store she’s seen that some consumers find the switch intimidating. Becoming an eco-conscious shopper, she said, can be a journey.

“We have a range of ‘beginner products’ and then a lot of long-term options. Our goal is to have lots of people making small changes and not perfection,” she said.

Rodia said people of all ages are seeking concentrated detergents and other eco-friendly products.

“A surprising number of our shoppers are in their 60s and up. They are the generation that remembers a time before plastics and are excited that this way of living is having a resurgence,” Rodia said.

Gen Z is currently learning about climate change and watching it worsen in real time, she said.

While Gen Z consumers are likely to be enthusiastic about sustainability and eco-conscious shopping, many are also aware that some companies don’t live up to their sustainability claims. Doing that knowingly is greenwashing.

“Greenwashing is rampant,” said Thayer. “Transparency is key.”

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA
Muddy clothes? ‘Cop City’ activists question police evidence

By R.J. RICO

1 of 16

A demolished bike path is shown in the South River Forest near the site of a planned police training center in DeKalb County, Ga., on March 9, 2023. Activists have been protesting the center's planned construction for more than a year, derisively calling it "Cop City." (AP Photo/R.J. Rico)

ATLANTA (AP) — When police stormed an Atlanta-area music festival two days after a rainstorm, they were looking for suspects wearing muddy clothing.

Authorities moved in on the South River Music Festival on the evening of March 5, over an hour after more than 150 masked activists attacked a construction site about three-quarters of a mile (1.2 kilometers) away, bashing equipment, torching a bulldozer and a police ATV, while throwing rocks and fireworks at retreating law enforcement officers, according to police surveillance footage.

Officials say many of the rioters trekked back to the festival ground, crossing a creek before changing out of their all-black or camouflage attire in the woods in order to blend in with the hundreds of peaceful concertgoers gathered to show their solidarity with the “Stop Cop City” movement — a decentralized campaign to halt the planned razing of an urban forest for the construction of a huge police and firefighter training center.

By the end of the night, 23 had been arrested, each facing between five and 35 years behind bars on domestic terrorism charges, even though none of the warrants accuses any of them of injuring anyone or vandalizing anything.

Civil liberties groups and defense attorneys say officials levied the disproportionate charges to scare off others from joining a movement that has only grown since January, when a 26-year-old known as Tortuguita was killed by a state trooper as authorities cleared activists from the South River Forest. Authorities said they fired in self-defense after the protester shot a trooper, but activists have questioned that narrative and called for an independent investigation.

Officials say the protesters have attacked officers, destroyed property and unleashed anarchy, causing terror in the community.

“You can’t make a criminal organization out of a political movement,” said defense attorney Eli Bennett, representing three people who were arrested at the festival. “That’s just not what we do in this country, I hope.”

Following the arrests, numerous activists told The Associated Press that they fear being detained on flimsy charges that could have huge ramifications. But they are committed to ensuring that what they refer to disparagingly as “Cop City” will never be built.

“If I am arrested with domestic terrorism charges for camping in a forest, that’s something I’m willing to go to court for,” said Sam Law, an anthropology doctoral student from Texas. “If I have to spend a few weeks in jail, that sounds like a deeply unpleasant experience, but I don’t think it’s a reason not to stand with other people of conscience doing what I feel like the historical moment calls us to do.”

Vanderbilt University law and political science research professor Samar Ali said domestic terrorism charges should be reserved for heinous crimes such as the 1996 Oklahoma City bombing, and that Georgia authorities’ use of such harsh laws only fans the flames of distrust between activists and authorities.

If the prosecutions succeed, Ali predicted, conservative states could replicate Georgia’s broad domestic terrorism statute and target left-wing movements, while liberal states could take a similar approach against white nationalists, further increasing division in the country.

“This is going to be a test case in terms of an application against environmental activists,” Ali said. “If there is a harsh sentence against environmental activists, we are likely going to see replication of this across states.”

In their arrest warrants, police allege 17 of the 23 suspects wore muddy clothing and carried shields — evidence that they were among the band of violent protesters and not mere festivalgoers. But the warrants for five of the other suspects do not list any specific details to explain why they were arrested.

One of the defendants, a Southern Poverty Law Center legal observer accused because of their muddy clothing, was released on bond a few days later. Fourteen other defendants spent at least two weeks in jail before being granted bond, while eight were denied bond Thursday.

Bennett said none of his clients had shields despite the warrants’ claims. He said it’s ridiculous to call muddy clothes evidence of wrongdoing, given that it had rained that week and there were many muddy patches around the festival site, including by the stage where festivalgoers had been moshing to punk music.

“I understand law enforcement has a big problem on their hands in identifying the actual ‘vandals’ here,” Bennett said. “But that doesn’t justify arresting people who had no involvement and were just there for a music festival that was in support of an environmental cause and an anti-militarization of the police cause.”

Atlanta police declined to comment on how many shields were recovered and where and when the arrests occurred, though jail records say all 23 were arrested at 7:45 p.m., more than two hours after Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said the violence took place.

Ever since City Council approved the $90 million training center in 2021, the movement has brought together a whole host of leftists, including environmentalists and police abolitionists. They say officers at the 85-acre (34-hectare) center would be trained to become more militarized and quell dissent, all while hundreds of trees are cut down, damaging the climate and flood mitigation in a poor, majority-Black neighborhood.

Officials counter that the state-of-the-art campus would replace substandard offerings and boost police morale beset by hiring and retention struggles following violent protests against racial injustice after George Floyd’s death in 2020.

Georgia’s domestic terrorism law originally applied only to crimes that were “intended or reasonably likely to injure or kill not less than ten individuals.” But state lawmakers broadened the law in 2017, removing the 10-victim threshold and adding attempts to “disable or destroy critical infrastructure” with the intent to “alter, change, or coerce the policy of the government.”

For more than five years, the statute was rarely employed. That changed in December, when six self-described “forest defenders” were removed from the training center site. Since then, 35 other alleged members of the movement have been jailed on the charge, including seven who were arrested during the clearing operation when authorities killed Tortuguita, whose given name was Manuel Paez Terán.

Four days after the festival, dozens of activists remained in the nearby woods. Some were cleaning up trashed campsites, while others prepared lunch. The activists insisted they had the moral high ground and would not back down to “heavy-handed” police tactics.

Some conceded that facing a domestic terrorism charge could have huge personal implications.

Kira, an Atlanta-based technical writer who has served as a medic during “Stop Cop City” demonstrations, said she does not engage in violence, and that a domestic terrorism charge could ruin her career, even if it is later dropped. She left the festival after she heard that officers were on their way.

“My instincts told me, ‘OK, it’s time to get out,’” Kira said. “I’m middle-aged. I have a good job. I would take an arrest if I feel that it’s justified but I’m not going to get arrested out of collateral damage.”

Ashley Dixon, a local organizer with Showing Up for Racial Justice, said she and her friends didn’t realize the vandalism was going on and that she was shocked to see an officer holding a weapon running toward her.

“The officer tased someone right in front of me,” Dixon said. “I heard him yelling something, but I don’t know what he was yelling because I was in fight-or-flight mode. I was in fear for my life and I just kept running.”

But fear of being charged won’t stop her activism.

“If anything, it makes me want to fight harder because it just seems that much more important,” Dixon said. “If they’re already using this level of violence against protesters now, imagine what they will do if they have this militarized police training center.”

R.J. Rico is a U.S. editor and housing reporter

rjrico62rrico@ap.org

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M

Coinbase tumbles after SEC warns of securities violations

The Coinbase app icon is seen on a smartphone, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023, in Marple Township, Pa. Coinbase’s stock is tumbling before the market open on Thursday, March 23, after the cryptocurrency trading platform received a warning from the Securities and Exchange Commission that it could possibly face securities charges. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Shares of Coinbase tumbled 15% Thursday after the cryptocurrency trading platform received a warning from the Securities and Exchange Commission that it could face securities charges.

The cryptocurrency trading platform said in an SEC filing late Wednesday that it had received a Wells Notice from the agency, which indicates that regulators believe laws protecting investors were violated.

Among the practices being targeted by the SEC is “staking,” which is “Coinbase Earn” by the company.

Users of trading platforms can stake their cryptocurrency, essentially locking up some of their assets, in exchange for payment later, much like earning interest rates in a savings account. Those assets are used by platforms like Coinbase Global Inc. to guarantee other transactions taking place on the blockchain.

The SEC says Coinbase and other platforms must register as a securities platform to offer such services, and only after it is approved by the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance.

A Wells Notice for Coinbase is another warning shot from SEC Chair Gary Gensler who is attempting to establish the agency’s oversight of crypto firms when they wander into areas typically associated with banking.



Kraken, a rival crypto exchange platform, agreed to settle in February for $30 million and to stop offering staking as a service.

Analysts that follow crypto and Coinbase said there is a significant threat for the company.

“We continue to see regulatory risk as meaningful for Coinbase given substantial (high quality) earnings growth potential from services like staking that are at risk of regulatory elimination,” wrote analysts with JP Morgan on Thursday.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong lashed out at the SEC late Wednesday and the company has been critical of regulations related to staking, calling them vague.

“Going forward the legal process will provide an open and public forum before an unbiased body where we will be able to make clear for all to see that the SEC simply has not been fair, reasonable, or even demonstrated a seriousness of purpose when it comes to its engagement on digital assets,” Armstrong tweeted.

In a blog post, Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal said that the SEC matter was a “disappointing development.”

“Rest assured, Coinbase products and services continue to operate as usual,” Grewal said.

In January New York announced a $100 million settlement with Coinbase over what state officials called significant failures in the cryptocurrency trading platform’s systems for spotting potential criminal activity.

Under the terms of the settlement, the San Francisco company agreed to pay a $50 million penalty to New York state and will invest another $50 million in its compliance program. An independent monitor installed by the state will work with Coinbase for a year to oversee compliance.

That same month, Coinbase announced that it was cutting approximately 20% of its workforce, or about 950 jobs, in a second round of layoffs in less than a year. Coinbase announced the elimination of 1,100 jobs in June, or approximately 18% of its global workforce, in a first round of cuts.

Coinbase was founded in 2012 and has no headquarters. It went public in April 2021 by listing its stock directly and skipping the traditional process of hiring underwriters.

Cryptocurrency has been on a tear this year after plunging severely in 2022. Bitcoin climbed another 3% Thursday to $27,700 and is now up 68% for the year in an era of mass layoffs in the tech sector and widespread anxiety about stability in the U.S. banking sector.

What made Beethoven sick? DNA from his hair offers clues

By MADDIE BURAKOFF

This photo provided by researchers in March 2023, shows the Stumpff Lock, from composer Ludwig van Beethoven, in a laboratory at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany. Hundreds of years after Beethoven's death, researchers have pulled DNA from strands of his hair — and found clues about what killed him, according to a study published Wednesday March 22, 2023. 

(Anthi Tiliakou via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly 200 years after Ludwig van Beethoven’s death, researchers pulled DNA from strands of his hair, searching for clues about the health problems and hearing loss that plagued him.

They weren’t able to crack the case of the German composer’s deafness or severe stomach ailments. But they did find a genetic risk for liver disease, plus a liver-damaging hepatitis B infection in the last months of his life.

These factors, along with his chronic drinking, were probably enough to cause the liver failure that is widely believed to have killed him, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Current Biology.

This Sunday marks the 196th anniversary of Beethoven’s death in Vienna on March 26, 1827, at the age of 56. The composer himself wrote that he wanted doctors to study his health problems after he died.

“With Beethoven in particular, it is the case that illnesses sometimes very much limited his creative work,” said study author Axel Schmidt, a geneticist at University Hospital Bonn in Germany. “And for physicians, it has always been a mystery what was really behind it.”

Since his death, scientists have long tried to piece together Beethoven’s medical history and have offered a variety of possible explanations for his many maladies.

Now, with advances in ancient DNA technology, researchers have been able to pull genetic clues from locks of Beethoven’s hair that had been snipped off and preserved as keepsakes. They focused on five locks that are “almost certainly authentic,” coming from the same European male, according to the study.

They also looked at three other historical locks, but weren’t able to confirm those were actually Beethoven’s. Previous tests on one of those locks suggested Beethoven had lead poisoning, but researchers concluded that sample was actually from a woman.

After cleaning Beethoven’s hair one strand at a time, scientists dissolved the pieces into a solution and fished out chunks of DNA, said study author Tristan James Alexander Begg, a biological anthropologist at the University of Cambridge.

Getting genes out was a challenge, since DNA in hair gets chopped up into tiny fragments, explained author Johannes Krause, a paleogeneticist at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

But eventually, after using up almost 10 feet (3 meters) of Beethoven’s hair, they were able to piece together a genome that they could “quiz” for signs of genetic disease, Krause said.

While researchers didn’t find any clear genetic signs of what caused Beethoven’s gastrointestinal issues, they found that celiac disease and lactose intolerance were unlikely causes. In the future, the genome may offer more clues as we learn more about how genes influence health, Begg said.

The research also led to a surprising discovery: When they tested DNA from living members of the extended Beethoven family, scientists found a discrepancy in the Y chromosomes that get passed down on the father’s side. The Y chromosomes from the five men matched each other — but they didn’t match the composer’s.

This suggests there was an “extra-pair paternity event” somewhere in the generations before Beethoven was born, Begg said. In other words, a child born from an extramarital relationship in the composer’s family tree.

The key question of what caused Beethoven’s hearing loss is still unanswered, said Ohio State University’s Dr. Avraham Z. Cooper, who was not involved in the study. And it may be a difficult one to figure out, because genetics can only show us half of the “nature and nurture” equation that makes up our health.

But he added that the mystery is part of what makes Beethoven so captivating: “I think the fact that we can’t know is OK,” Cooper said.

 

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AP journalist Daniel Niemann contributed to this report from Bonn, Germany.

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

2023, ABOUT TIME

1st Black editor named to lead Atlanta Journal-Constitution

By RUSS BYNUM

Leroy Chapman Jr., the new editor of The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, is shown in this undated photo. The newspaper named Chapman its new top editor Thursday, March 29, 2023, making him the first Black editor to lead the Journal-Constitution in its 155-year history. (Tyson Horne/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday named Leroy Chapman Jr. as its new editor-in-chief, making him the first Black editor to lead the newspaper in its 155-year history.

Chapman, 52, has worked in journalism for nearly three decades and has spent the past 12 years at the Journal-Constitution, serving as its managing editor since 2021. Publisher Andrew Morse said he’s proud that the newspaper found the best person for the job within its own ranks.

“There’s truly nobody better suited to lead this newsroom,” Morse said in an interview, adding: “He has the respect of the newsroom, he is an innovative thinker, and he has the highest journalistic standard that you could image.”

Chapman will take charge of a news staff that serves more than 125,000 print and digital subscribers as well as about 6 million unique online monthly visitors, according to figures provided by the newspaper. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is owned by Cox Enterprises, a privately held company.

The newspaper traces its history to 1868, when the Atlanta Constitution published its first edition three years after the Civil War ended. One of its most storied editors, Ralph McGill, wrote columns in the 1940s and 1950s that openly criticized racial inequality, eliciting fury and threats from segregationists.

Morse, who became the newspaper’s publisher in January, said it’s significant that the Journal-Constitution will have a Black editor-in-chief in a city known for its diversity. Black people make up 48% of Atlanta’s population, more than any other racial group. And its sprawling metropolitan area has the second-highest number of Black-owned businesses in America, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

A native of Greenville, South Carolina, Chapman grew up just one generation removed from the segregated South his father and grandfathers knew. His family tree, he said, can be traced “back to colonial America where we were on census reports as property.”

“To now lead a newsroom, which is an important organization in an important American city, and being able to write the first draft of history is an extraordinary moment for my family,” Chapman said. “When I got into newspapers back in 1994 with my first reporting job, I don’t think even my wild imagination would say I’d be sitting in this seat someday.”

Chapman arrived at the Journal-Constitution in 2011 as a front-page story editor and worked his way up to managing editor, the No. 2 newsroom leader, over the next decade. He takes the helm at a challenging time for a newspaper industry that has been steadily shrinking, with regional and local newspapers struggling to find robust online audiences to compensate for advertisers shifting from print to digital.

Morse credited Chapman with playing a critical role at the Journal-Constitution in guiding news coverage on major stories such as an investigation into a critical affordable housing shortage in Atlanta and attempts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. In his new job, Chapman will oversee teams responsible for expanded digital offerings such as emailed newsletters and a true-crime podcast, Breakdown, that’s now in its ninth season.

Before coming to Atlanta, Chapman worked in South Carolina as a government editor at The State newspaper in Columbia and as a columnist and editorial writer at The Greenville News.

He succeeds Kevin Riley, who plans to retire later this year. Riley will remain at the newspaper during a transition period as editor-at-large.

NOT THE EQUALITY ANYONE WANTS

Autism now more common among Black, Hispanic kids in US

 Blake Johnson, of Frackville, Pa., catches bubbles during the Stand Out and Shine: Autism Awareness Festival in Mar Lin, Pa., on Saturday, April 30, 2022. For the first time, autism is being diagnosed more frequently in Black and Hispanic children than in white kids in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday, March 23, 2023. 

(Jacqueline Dormer/Republican-Herald via AP, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — For the first time, autism is being diagnosed more frequently in Black and Hispanic children than in white kids in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

Among all U.S. 8-year-olds, 1 in 36 had autism in 2020, the CDC estimated. That’s up from 1 in 44 two years earlier.

But the rate rose faster for children of color than for white kids. The new estimates suggest that about 3% of Black, Hispanic and Asian or Pacific Islander children have an autism diagnosis, compared with about 2% of white kids.

That’s a contrast to the past, when autism was most commonly diagnosed in white kids — usually in middle- or upper-income families with the means to go to autism specialists. As recently as 2010, white kids were deemed 30% more likely to be diagnosed with autism than Black children and 50% more likely than Hispanic children.

Experts attributed the change to improved screening and autism services for all kids, and to increased awareness and advocacy for Black and Hispanic families.

The increase is from “this rush to catch up,” said David Mandell, a University of Pennsylvania psychiatry professor.

Still, it’s not clear that Black and Hispanic children with autism are being helped as much as their white counterparts. A study published in January found that found Black and Hispanic kids had less access to autism services than white children during the 2017-2018 academic year.

Autism is a developmental disability caused by differences in the brain. There are many possible symptoms, many of which overlap with other diagnoses. They can include delays in language and learning, social and emotional withdrawal, and an unusual need for routine. Scientists believe genetics can play a factor, but there is no known biological reason why it would be more common in one racial or ethnic group than another.

For decades, the diagnosis was given only to kids with severe problems communicating or socializing and those with unusual, repetitive behaviors. But around 30 years ago, the term became shorthand for a group of milder, related conditions known as ″autism spectrum disorders.”

There are no blood or biologic tests for it. It’s diagnosed by making judgments about a child’s behavior.

To estimate how common autism is, the CDC checks health and school records in 11 states and focuses on 8-year-olds, because most cases are diagnosed by that age. Other researchers have their own estimates, but experts say the CDC’s estimate is the most rigorous and is considered the gold standard.

The overall autism rate has been rising for decades and it remains far more common among boys than girls. But the latest study also found, for the first time, that more than 1% of 8-year-old girls had been diagnosed with it.

A second CDC report issued Thursday looked at how common autism was in 4-year-olds. That research is important because diagnoses are increasingly happening at younger ages, said Kelly Shaw, who oversees the CDC autism tracking project.

Black children with autism have historically been diagnosed at later ages than their white peers, said Rose Donohue, a psychiatrist at Washington University. But the study of 4-year-olds likewise found that autism was less common in white kids in 2020 than it was among Black, Hispanic and Asian and Pacific Islander children.

The 4-year-olds, however, were less likely to have been evaluated for autism than kids in the past. That was likely due to interruptions in child care and medical services during that first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Shaw said.

___

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

WHY DO I FIND THAT HARD TO BELIEVE
Ethics agency to better protect gymnasts for LA Olympics

By GRAHAM DUNBAR

Signage showing the new USA Gymnastics logo is displayed during the 2022 U.S. Gymnastics Championships, Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, in Tampa, Fla. The sport of gymnastics' international investigations agency was created in 2019 to help protect athletes after the American sexual abuse scandal. The Gymnastics Ethics Foundation has now published its strategy to set new standards in safeguarding before the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. The “Gymnasts 2028” details goals for its work to protect athletes from harassment and abuse, investigate complaints, prosecute disciplinary cases and monitor national federations. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson, File)

GENEVA (AP) — Created to help protect athletes after the USA Gymnastics sexual abuse scandal, the sport’s international investigations agency has set new safeguarding standards with a view to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

The Gymnastics Ethics Foundation published a “Gymnasts 2028” strategy Thursday to better protect athletes from harassment and abuse, investigate complaints, prosecute disciplinary cases and monitor national federations.

“The idea is to really put gymnasts at the center of our thinking throughout everything we do,” Alex McLin, the independent foundation’s director, told The Associated Press in an interview.

The GEF was created and funded by the sport’s governing body, the International Gymnastics Federation, in the fallout from the scandal of long-time U.S. team doctor Larry Nassar, who is now in prison.

Since 2019, the foundation has worked to address systemic issues it describes as “the inherent power imbalances between gymnasts, coaches, judges, and administrators, a culture of control, tolerance of harmful and unethical behaviors, the vulnerabilities of young gymnasts.”

“We realized early on that the sort of issues we were facing would likely take a decade to address,” said McLin, an American who is an expert on sports governance.

That made 2028, when Los Angeles will host the Olympics “a good benchmark for us to organize ourselves,” he said.

A generation of leaders have left USA Gymnastics since Nassar’s abuse of hundreds of athletes emerged in 2016, and a new management structure of women’s teams was put in place.

“US Gymnastics has gone through an incredible transition where it’s a completely different organization from what it used to be,” McLin said. “That shift is not happening with the same speed everywhere but that momentum is certainly there.”

Since 2020, claims of bullying and abusive cultures were made by gymnasts in countries including Australia, Britain, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

“A large majority of what we do relates to cases of maltreatment,” said McLin, whose organization has handled at least 135 cases in its first four years.

Two cases not connected to abuse but related to unethical conduct led to bans for a pair of prominent officials well-connected in Olympic circles: Russian rhythmic gymnastics coach Irina Viner and Australian sports executive Kitty Chiller.

“We are conscious that these are not decisions that could be taken necessarily by the (International Gymnastics Federation) previously in the former setup because of the political considerations,” McLin acknowledged.

Viner’s two-year ban for criticizing judges in Tokyo will exclude her from next year’s Paris Olympics, even if Russian athletes are allowed back into competition.

Her strict, critical coaching style was starkly shown in a documentary, “Over The Limit,” made ahead of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. The film followed the preparations of eventual gold medalist Margarita Mamun.

“There is a level of awareness that simply wasn’t there before and that can only be good,” McLin said, praising such programs and investigative reporting into a bullying culture in gymnastics. “What we need is better prevention, but that starts with awareness.”

Seeking to be more sensitive handling complaints by young athletes, the GEF wants to manage cases in a less adversarial way. McLin also wants to ensure the investigators picked for specific cases, plus the disciplinary and appeal judges, have the skills to be aware of trauma suffered by athletes.

“We need to be respectful of all of those who have suffered and for whom, even in 2028, watching the Olympics I am sure will be triggering to some,” McLin said. “That is something we can never lose sight of.”

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More AP coverage of the Paris Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M PRO-SPORT

UEFA to investigate Barcelona for its referee payments

By GRAHAM DUNBAR

Barcelona's head coach Xavi Hernandez reacts during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Real Madrid at Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, March 19, 2023.

 (AP Photo/Joan Mateu)

GENEVA (AP) — Barcelona is facing a new legal threat from UEFA, including a possible Champions League ban, because of its payments of millions of dollars to a company linked to a Spanish refereeing official.

The European soccer body asked Thursday for an investigation into the matter, which is already being pursued by prosecutors in Spain.

Champions League regulations in effect since 2007 allow for clubs to be removed from European competitions if they were involved in fixing matches. Further disciplinary sanctions can follow.

UEFA said Thursday it asked disciplinary inspectors to “conduct an investigation regarding a potential violation of UEFA’s legal framework by FC Barcelona in connection with the so-called ‘Caso Negreira.’”

Court documents show Barcelona paid 7.3 million euros ($7.7 million) from 2001-18 to the company of José María Enríquez Negreira, the former vice president of Spanish soccer’s refereeing committee.

Prosecutors in Spain have formally accused Barcelona of corruption in sports, fraudulent management and falsification of business documents. An investigating judge will decide if this will lead to charges.

No evidence has yet been published that referees or individual games were actually influenced.

Latest Vinícius racist abuse prompts 8th complaint of season

Barcelona has consistently denied any wrongdoing or conflict of interest, saying it paid for technical reports on referees but never tried to influence their decisions in games.

Any proof of manipulated games in the past 16 years could see UEFA exclude Barcelona from its competitions for one year and prosecute a disciplinary case.

Barcelona has a 12-point lead in the Spanish league and is almost certain to qualify for next season’s Champions League — an entry that would pay tens of millions of dollars to a club that posted record losses last year.

The burden of proof for UEFA is stated in regulations for the Champions League and other club competitions.

“If, on the basis of all the factual circumstances and information available to UEFA, UEFA concludes to its comfortable satisfaction that a club has been directly and/or indirectly involved, (since April 27, 2007), in any activity aimed at arranging or influencing the outcome of a match at national or international level, UEFA will declare such club ineligible to participate in the competition,” the rules state.

In previous cases of suspected match-fixing, clubs including Fenerbahce, Metalist Kharkiv and Skenderbeu were banned from UEFA competitions in decisions that were upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Fenerbahce was withdrawn from the 2011-12 Champions League by the Turkish soccer federation, seeming to be under pressure from UEFA, after being implicated in manipulating games to help secure the previous season’s league domestic title. The club was later banned for two more seasons.

Former Albanian champion Skenderbeu is serving a 10-year ban after a UEFA investigation into match-fixing for betting scams, including Champions League qualifying games and Europa League group games in 2015.

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Bones kept by former eugenics institute buried in Berlin

By GEIR MOULSON2

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Caskets containing bones found on the grounds of the Freie Universitat, Free University are lowered into the ground for burial, at the Waldfriedhof in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, March 23, 2023. Thousands of bone fragments found in the grounds of a Berlin university where an institute for anthropology and eugenics was once located, which may include the remains of victims of Nazi crimes, were buried on Thursday. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

BERLIN (AP) — Thousands of bone fragments, which may include the remains of victims of Nazi crimes, were buried Thursday after they were found on a Berlin university campus where an institute for anthropology and eugenics was once located.

Some 16,000 fragments were found on the campus of the Free University in excavations that started in 2015 after human and animal bones were discovered during restoration work. The site was once home to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics, which operated from 1927 until 1945.

The university said that the recovered fragments are from “victims of crime contexts” that could include colonial-era events and Nazi crimes. Researchers determined that the bones belonged to people of all age groups, male and female.

But the university said that, following non-invasive examinations of the fragments and historical research. it wasn’t possible to identify individual victims or to link the finds to specific colonized regions or to “clear Nazi contexts.”

Organizations representing groups that may have been among those the bones belonged to — including Jews, Sinti, Roma and people with physical and mental disabilities killed by the Nazis, as well as the Herero people of Namibia, many of whom were killed in a colonial-era massacre — agreed that further research shouldn’t be carried out. They said the bones should be buried “without religious appropriation or eurocentric symbolism,” the university said.

The public burial with about 230 guests took place Thursday at the Waldfriedhof cemetery in the Berlin suburb of Dahlem, near the site where the remains were found. Five simple caskets were lowered into the ground by pallbearers.

“The inhuman practice of research racism foresaw no burial for the remains and threw them in pits,” said Daniel Botmann, a representative of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, German news agency dpa reported. “Today we are taking numerous lives whose voices and biographies were extinguished to their last resting place.”

The head of the Free University, Günter Ziegler, said that “a specification of the victims by groups would ultimately only reproduce the racist methods and ideologies of the past.”

“That also means that we can no longer assign any name or face to the victims,” he added. “But we can remember them.”

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Here are the countries that have bans on TikTok

By KELVIN CHAN

The TikTok logo is seen on a cellphone on Oct. 14, 2022, in Boston. China’s government said Thursday, March 23, 2023, it would oppose possible U.S. plans to force TikTok’s Chinese owner to sell the short-video service as a security risk and warned such a move would hurt investor confidence in the United States.

(AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)

LONDON (AP) — A growing number of countries in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific have banned the popular video-sharing app TikTok from government devices as privacy and cybersecurity concerns increase. A handful have prohibited the app altogether.

The company’s CEO faced a grilling Thursday from U.S. lawmakers. TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese technology company Bytedance, has long maintained that it does not share data with the Chinese government.

The company points to a project its carrying out to store U.S. user data in the U.S., which it says will put it out China’s reach. It also disputes accusations it collects more user data than other social media companies, and insists that it is run independently by its own management.

But many governments remain cautious about the platform and its ties to China. Here are the places that have implemented partial or total bans on TikTok:

AFGHANISTAN

Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership banned TikTok and the game PUBG in 2022 on the grounds of protecting young people from “being misled.”

BELGIUM

Belgium temporarily banned TikTok from devices owned or paid for by the federal government, citing worries about cybersecurity, privacy and misinformation. Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said the six-month ban was based on warnings from the state security service and its cybersecurity center.

CANADA

Canada announced government-issued devices must not use TikTok, saying that it presents an “unacceptable” risk to privacy and security. Employees will also be blocked from downloading the application in the future.

DENMARK

Denmark’s Defense Ministry banned its employees from having TikTok on their work phones, ordering staffers who have installed it to remove the app from devices as soon as possible. The ministry said the reasons for the ban included both “weighty security considerations” as well as “very limited work-related need to use the app.”

EUROPEAN UNION

The European Parliament, European Commission and the EU Council, the 27-member bloc’s three main institutions, have imposed bans on TikTok on staff devices. Under the European Parliament’s ban, which took effect Monday, lawmakers and staff were also advised to remove the TikTok app from their personal devices.

INDIA

India imposed a nationwide ban on TikTok and dozens of other Chinese apps, including the messaging app WeChat, in 2020 over privacy and security concerns. The ban came shortly after a clash between Indian and Chinese troops at a disputed Himalayan border killed 20 Indian soldiers and injured dozens.

The companies were given a chance to respond to questions on privacy and security requirements but the ban was made permanent in January 2021.

NEW ZEALAND

Lawmakers in New Zealand and staff at the nation’s Parliament will be prohibited from having the TikTok app on their work phones, following advice from government cybersecurity experts. Under the ban, which takes effect at the end of March, the app will be removed from all devices with access to the parliamentary network, although officials can make special arrangements for anybody who needs TikTok to perform their democratic duties.

NORWAY

The Norwegian parliament on Thursday banned Tiktok on work devices, after the country’s Justice Ministry warned the app shouldn’t be installed on phones issued to government employees. The Parliament’s speaker said TikTok shouldn’t be on devices that have access to the assembly’s systems and should be removed as quickly as possible. The country’s capital Oslo and second largest city Bergen also urged municipal employees to remove TikTok from their work phones.

PAKISTAN

Pakistani authorities have temporarily banned TikTok at least four times since October 2020, citing concerns that app promotes immoral content.

TAIWAN

In December 2022, Taiwan imposed a public sector ban on TikTok after the FBI warned that TikTok posed a national security risk. Government devices, including mobile phones, tablets and desktop computers, are not allowed to use Chinese-made software, which include apps like TikTok, its Chinese equivalent Douyin, or Xiaohongshu, a Chinese lifestyle content app.

UNITED KINGDOM

British authorities in mid-March banned TikTok from mobile phones used by government ministers and civil servants with immediate effect. Officials said the ban was a “precautionary move” on security grounds, and doesn’t apply to personal devices. The British Parliament followed that up Thursday by announcing a ban on TikTok from all official devices and the “wider parliamentary network.” The semi-autonomous Scottish government also said Thursday it was banning TikTok from official devices, effective immediately.

UNITED STATES

The U.S. at the start of March gave government agencies 30 days to delete TikTok from federal devices and systems over data security concerns. The ban applies only to government devices, though some U.S. lawmakers are advocating an outright ban. China lashed out at the U.S. for banning TikTok, describing the ban as an abuse of state power and suppressing firms from other countries. More than half of the 50 U.S. states also have banned the app from official devices, as have Congress and the U.S. armed forces.

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