Fukushima residents worry nuclear plant’s wastewater release in a few weeks will be another setback

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is expected to start releasing treated radioactive wastewater into the sea within weeks. It’s unclear whether, or how, damaging that would be, but residents say they feel helpless.

BY MARI YAMAGUCHI
July 24, 2023

VIDEO

IWAKI, Japan (AP) — Beach season has started across Japan, which means seafood for holiday makers and good times for business owners. But in Fukushima, that may end soon.

Within weeks, the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is expected to start releasing treated radioactive wastewater into the sea, a highly contested plan still facing fierce protests in and outside Japan.

Residents worry that the water discharge, 12 years after the nuclear disaster, could deal another setback to Fukushima’s image and hurt their businesses and livelihoods.


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“Without a healthy ocean, I cannot make a living.” said Yukinaga Suzuki, a 70-year-old innkeeper at Usuiso beach in Iwaki about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the plant. And the government has yet to announce when the water release will begin.

While officials say the possible impact would be limited to rumors, it’s not yet clear if it will be damaging to the local economy. Residents say they feel “shikataganai” — meaning helpless.

Suzuki has requested officials hold the plan at least until the swimming season ends in mid-August.

“If you ask me what I think about the water release, I’m against it. But there is nothing I can do to stop it as the government has one-sidedly crafted the plan and will release it anyway,” he said. “Releasing the water just as people are swimming at sea is totally out of line, even if there is no harm.”

The beach, he said, will be in the path of treated water traveling south on the Oyashio current from off the coast of Fukushima Daiichi. That’s where the cold Oyashio current meets the warm, northbound Kuroshio, making it a rich fishing ground.

The government and the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, or TEPCO, have struggled to manage the massive amount of contaminated water accumulating since the 2011 nuclear disaster, and announced plans to release it to the ocean during the summer.

They say the plan is to treat the water, dilute it with more than a hundred times the seawater and then release it into the Pacific Ocean through an undersea tunnel. Doing so, they said, is safer than national and international standards require.

Suzuki is among those who are not fully convinced by the government’s awareness campaign that critics say only highlights safety. “We don’t know if it’s safe yet,” Suzuki said. “We just can’t tell until much later.”

The Usuiso area used to have more than a dozen family-run inns before the disaster. Now, Suzuki’s half-century old Suzukame, which he inherited from his parents 30 years ago, is the only one still in business after surviving the tsunami. He heads a safety committee for the area and operates its only beach house.

Suzuki says his inn guests won’t mention the water issue if they cancel their reservations and he would only have to guess. “I serve fresh local fish to my guests, and the beach house is for visitors to rest and chill out. The ocean is the source of my livelihood.”

The March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi plant’s cooling systems, causing three reactors to melt and contaminating their cooling water, which has since leaked continuously. The water is collected, filtered and stored in some 1,000 tanks, which will reach their capacity in early 2024.

The government and TEPCO say the water must be removed to make room for the plant’s decommissioning, and to prevent accidental leaks from the tanks because much of the water is still contaminated and needs retreatment.

Katsumasa Okawa, who runs a seafood business in Iwaki, says those tanks containing contaminated water bother him more than the treated water release. He wants to have them removed as soon as possible, especially after seeing “immense” tanks occupying much of the plant complex during his visit few years ago.

An accidental leak would be “an ultimate strikeout ... It will cause actual damage, not reputation,” Okawa says. “I think the treated water release is unavoidable.” It’s eerie, he adds, to have to live near the damaged plant for decades.

Fukushima’s badly hit fisheries community, tourism and the economy are still recovering. The government has allocated 80 billion yen ($573 million) to support still-feeble fisheries and seafood processing and combat potential reputation damage from the water release.

His wife evacuated to her parents’ home in Yokohama, near Tokyo with their four children, but Okawa stayed in Iwaki to work on reopening the store. In July, 2011, Okawa resumed sale of fresh fish —but none from Fukushima.

Local fishing was returning to normal operation in 2021 when the government announced the water release plan.

Fukushima’s local catch today is still about one-fifth of its pre-disaster levels due to a decline in the fishing population and smaller catch sizes.

Japanese fishing organizations strongly opposed Fukushima’s water release, as they worry about further damage to the reputation of their seafood as they struggle to recover. Groups in South Korea and China have also raised concerns, turning it a political and diplomatic issue. Hong Kong has vowed to ban the import of aquatic products from Fukushima and other Japanese prefectures if Tokyo discharges treated radioactive wastewater into the sea.

China plans to step up import restrictions and Hong Kong restaurants began switching menus to exclude Japanese seafood. Agricultural Minister Tetsuro Nomura acknowledged some fishery exports from Japan have been suspended at Chinese customs, and that Japan was urging Beijing to honor science.

“Our plan is scientific and safe, and it is most important to firmly convey that and gain understanding,” TEPCO official Tomohiko Mayuzumi told The Associated Press during its plant visit. Still, people have concerns and so a final decision on the timing of the release will be a “a political decision by the government,” he said.

Japan sought support from the International Atomic Energy Agency for transparency and credibility. IAEA’s final report, released this month and handed directly to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, concluded that the method meets international standards and its environmental and health impacts would be negligible. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said radioactivity in the water would be almost undetectable and there is no cross-border impact.

Scientists generally agree that environmental impact from the treated water would be negligible, but some call for more attention on dozens of low-dose radionuclides that remain in the water, saying data on their long-term effect on the environment and marine life is insufficient.

Radioactivity of the treated water is so low that once it hits the ocean it will quickly disperse and become almost undetectable, which makes pre-release sampling of the water important for data analysis, said University of Tokyo environmental chemistry professor Katsumi Shozugawa.

He said the release can be safely carried out and trusted “only if TEPCO strictly follows the procedures as planned.” Diligent sampling of the water, transparency and broader cross-checks — not just limited to IAEA and two labs commissioned by TEPCO and the government — is key to gaining trust, Shozugawa said.

Japanese officials characterize the treated water as a tritium issue, but it also contains dozens of other radionuclides that leaked from the damaged fuel. Though they are filtered to legally releasable levels and their environmental impact deemed minimal, they still require close scrutiny, experts say.

TEPCO and government officials say tritium is the only radionuclide inseparable from water and is being diluted to contain only a fraction of the national discharge cap, while experts say heavy dilution is needed to also sufficiently lower concentration of other radionuclides.

“If you ask their impact on the environment, honestly, we can only say we don’t know,” Shozugawa, referring to dozens of radionuclides whose leakage is not anticipated at normal reactors, he says. “But it is true that the lower the concentration, the smaller the environmental impact,” and the plan is presumably safe, he said.

The treated water is a less challenging task at the plant compared to the deadly radioactive melted debris that remain in the reactors, or the continuous, tiny leaks of radioactivity to the outside.

Shozugawa, who has been regularly measuring radioactivity of groundwater samples, fish and plants near Fukushima Daiichi plant since the disaster, says his 12 years of sampling work shows small amounts of radioactivity from the Fukushima Daiichi has continuously leaked into groundwater and the port at the plant. He says its potential impact on the ecosystem also requires closer attention than the controlled release of the treated water.

TEPCO denies new leaks from the reactors and attributes high cesium in fish sometimes caught inside the port to sediment contamination from initial leaks and a rainwater drainage.

A local fisheries cooperative executive Takayuki Yanai told a recent online event that forcing the water release without public support only triggers reputational damage and hurts Fukushima fisheries. “We don’t need additional burden to our recovery.”

“Public understanding is lacking because of distrust to the government and TEPCO,” he said. “The sense of safety only comes from trust.”

For clergy abuse survivors, Sinead O’Connor’s protest that offended so many was brave and prophetic


Irish singer Sinead O’Connor stands alone while the crowd boos her at Bob Dylan’s 30th anniversary celebration in New York on Oct. 16, 1992, 13 days after she ripped a photo of Pope John Paul II during an appearance on “Saturday Night Live,” left, and Pope John Paul II appears in his popemobil in Prague on April 21, 1990. More than 30 years later, her Saturday Night Live performance is remembered by some as an offensive act of desecration. But for others — including survivors of clergy sex abuse — O’Connor’s protest was prophetic, forecasting the global denomination’s public reckoning that was still to come.

 Cassettes and CDs by Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor are flattened by a pavement roller on New York City’s Avenue of the Americas, Oct. 21, 1992. The recordings, donated by unhappy record fans, were collected by the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations, which planned to deliver the crushed remains to the singer. In 1992, O’Connor destroyed a photo of Pope John Paul II on U.S. national television. The pushback was swift, turning the late Irish singer-songwriter’s protest of sex abuse in the Catholic Church into a career-altering flashpoint. 

(AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

BY HOLLY MEYER
 July 27, 2023

In 1992, Sinéad O’Connor destroyed a photo of Pope John Paul II on U.S. national television. The pushback was swift, turning the late Irish singer-songwriter’s protest of sex abuse in the Catholic Church into a career-altering flashpoint.

More than 30 years later, her “Saturday Night Live” performance and its stark collision of popular culture and religious statement is remembered by some as an offensive act of desecration. But for others — including survivors of clergy sex abuse — O’Connor’s protest was prophetic, forecasting the global denomination’s public reckoning that was, at that point, yet to come. O’Connor, 56, died Wednesday.

The SNL moment stunned David Clohessy, a key early member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. In his 30s at the time, he had only recently recalled the repressed memories of the abuse he suffered. He found O’Connor’s act deeply moving. It was something he and other survivors never thought possible.

That night O’Connor, head shaved and looking straight into the camera, stood alone singing Bob Marley’s song “War” a capella. She finished the final lines, “We know we will win/ We have confidence in the victory/of good over evil,” and then moved an off-screen photo of Pope John Paul II in front of the camera.

Then O’Connor ripped it to pieces. She called out, “Fight the real enemy,” before she threw the scraps to the ground. Clohessy remembers it well.

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“We were all just deeply convinced that we would go to our graves without ever seeing any public acknowledgment of the horror and without any kind of validation whatsoever,” Clohessy said. “That’s what made her words so very powerful.”

THE RIPPLES IT CAUSED

Reaction at the time was fierce from many corners. Later that month she was booed at an all-star tribute to Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden. One group destroyed more than 200 of her albums, cassettes and CDs with a steamroller lumbering down New York’s Sixth Avenue.

The SNL performance also appalled Thomas Plante, a Catholic psychology professor at California’s Santa Clara University, and his wife who is Jewish. Plante was well aware of the issue since he was researching, evaluating and treating clerical sex offenders at the time.

“It is understandable that people would want to make strong statements about their issues with the Catholic Church, but tearing up a picture of the Pope on live TV was way over the top,” Plante said in an email. “Many people feel free to ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’ when it comes to criticism of the Catholic Church.”

He also noted the prevalence of anti-Catholic hate, especially following the Boston Globe’s 2002 report revealing widespread abuse and cover-up by the church. Plante said the clergy abuse crisis was horrible, but people often fail to recognize that it is a problem of the 20th century and earlier — cases are extremely rare in this century, he said.

“Much progress has been made and current policies and procedures are actually working,” he said.

The quarter-century legacy of John Paul II — then pope, now a saint — has been badly tarnished by evidence he turned a blind eye to abuse even when the Vatican had copiously well-documented cases and even when bishops in the U.S., facing mounting legal liability, begged the Vatican for fast-track ways to defrock abusers in the 1980s.

Vatican officials have long excused John Paul’s attitude by arguing that he had seen first-hand how priests in his native Poland were intentionally discredited with false accusations by Communist authorities, and thus believed any accusations against clerics were mere “calumnies” intended to harm the church.

O’Connor was found unresponsive Wednesday at her home in southeast London. Saddened by her passing, Brenna Moore, a theology professor at Fordham University in New York and a big fan of O’Connor, described her as “a kind of prophetic truth-teller.”

Society, especially in the English-speaking world, is used to men taking on this role, Moore said, but when a woman does it, she’s accused of being crazy and angry. Moore, referencing O’Connor’s memoir, said the singer was more than a rebel with a shaved head.


“She sort of stands in a long line of artists and poets who have a kind of rebellious punk ability to speak truth to power in a very performative way,” Moore said. “She was a profoundly spiritual person, a profound seeker of transcendence and the truth.”

FOR SOME, THE ACT WAS COURAGEOUS AND EVEN WISE

Jamie Manson, president of Catholics for Choice, was a teen living on Long Island with her traditional Catholic Italian family in 1992; she recalled just how horrified they were by O’Connor’s protest. But for Manson, who was feeling a call to the priesthood at the time, looked at it more with curiosity.

Manson called O’Connor a visionary, especially given that neither the Irish or U.S. Catholic hierarchy had yet publicly reckoned with the pervasiveness of clergy sex abuse.

“Not many people that we would call prophetic are willing to risk everything, and she was. … And she lost almost everything as a result,” Manson said. “It is very, very scary to challenge the church in a very public way. And it takes enormous bravery and a willingness to be able to let go of everything.”

Clohessy also depicted the 1992 protest as courageous: “I think young people can’t know — and older people to some extent have forgotten — just how extraordinarily powerful the Catholic hierarchy was in those days.”

Invoking the famous Martin Luther King Jr. quote, Clohessy said that “the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice. She’s proof of that. And it bends so slowly — and it bends backwards along the way.”

Attorney Jeff Anderson, who has represented victims of Catholic clergy sex abuse in numerous cases across the U.S., connected with O’Connor around the time of her SNL appearance. In a statement, Anderson called her wise and ahead of her time.

“Sinéad saw predator priests not as a ‘couple bad apples’ but as signs and proof of a deeply corrupt and almost untouchable clerical system,” Anderson said. “It took tremendous courage for her to be one of those early, lonely voices for the voiceless.”

Michael McDonnell, interim executive director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said O’Connor “wore the anguish of victims of clergy abuse and it seems as though she knew in 1992 the horrors that hadn’t yet been revealed.

“Ultimately,” he said, “she relieved the pain for tens of thousands of victims with rebellion.”
___

Associated Press correspondent Nicole Winfield contributed from Rome. AP religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. Follow AP’s Holly Meyer at http://twitter.com/HollyAMeyer

Sinéad O’Connor, Who Told the Truth about the Catholic Church, Walks On

BY NEELY BARDWELL 

 

JULY 26, 2023

Sinéad O’Connor, Irish singer-songwriter who was known for her iconic shaved head and outspokenness both on and off-stage, died on Wednesday, July 26, at age 56. 

Born in Dublin on December 8, 1966, to parents John, an engineer, and mother, Johanna, a dressmaker, her biggest hit was a rendition of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” but what she was most known for was her appearance on Saturday Night Live in 1992. On the show, she ended an acapella performance of Bob Marley’s “War” by ripping a photo of Pope John Paul II into pieces as a stance against sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. “Fight the real enemy,” she said. 

Sexual abuse committed by clergy of the Catholic Church was pervasive for centuries against children around the world, including in Ireland. Native American children sent to Indian Boarding Schools that were operated by Catholic Churches suffered as well, separated from their families and tribes. 

After tearing up the photo during the live performance, she was met with widespread criticism that resulted in her being booed at a Bob Dylan tribute concert at Madison Square Garden. NBC had to apologize (and never invited her back), and her album “Am I Not Your Girl?” only made it to No. 27 on the charts. Her next album “Universal Mother,” released in 1994, never broke from No. 36 on the charts.

The act of tearing up the Pope’s image was considered extremely controversial at the time, and many thought her career was over. 

“I’m not sorry I did it. It was brilliant,” O’Connor told the New York Times in an interview in 2021. “But it was very traumatising. It was open season on treating me like a crazy bitch.”

In 2021 she published a memoir, Rememberings, detailing her troubled childhood, her experience with the music industry, and her struggles with mental health. Earlier this year, she received the inaugural award for Classic Irish Album at the RTÉ Choice Music Prize awards, established to highlight Irish music of excellence. She dedicated it to Ireland’s refugee community. “You’re very welcome in Ireland,” she said. “I love you very much and I wish you happiness.”

Prior to the singer’s death, Belfast filmmaker Kathryn Ferguson had been working on a documentary film about O’Connor titled “Nothing Compares,” which is set to be released this Saturday.

Native people and the Irish have long been allies. During Ireland’s Great Famine, the Choctaws collected $170—the equivalent of $4,400 in today’s dollars—and sent it across the Atlantic Ocean to help feed the starving people in Ireland.

Black Residents are at a loss after newspaper that bound community together shuts in declining coal county

Months after Missy Nester ended The Welch News’ 100-year run, she can barely stand to walk through the office doors of the newspaper her mother taught her to read with growing up in West Virginia’s southern coalfields. It’s still too painful. 

BY LEAH WILLINGHAM

July 26, 2023


WELCH, W.Va. (AP) — Months after Missy Nester ended The Welch News’ 100-year run, she can barely stand to walk through the office doors of the newspaper her mother taught her to read with growing up in West Virginia’s southern coalfields. It’s still too painful.

The Welch News owner and publisher’s desk is covered with unpaid bills and her own paychecks — a year’s worth — she never cashed. Phones that used to ring through the day have gone silent. Tables covered with typewriters, awards and a century’s worth of other long-abandoned artifacts are reminders that her beloved paper has become an artifact, too.

Wiping away tears, Nester said she wishes people understood why she fought so hard to protect the last remaining news outlet in her community, and why it feels like the people left behind by the journalism industry are often those who need it most.

“Our people here have nothing,” said Nester, 57. “Like, can any of y’all hear us out here screaming?”

In March, the McDowell County weekly became another one of the thousands of U.S. newspapers that have shuttered since 2005, a crisis Nester called “terrifying for democracy” and one that disproportionately impacts rural Americans like her.

Residents suddenly have no way of knowing what’s going on at public meetings, which are not televised, nor are minutes or recordings posted online. Even basic tasks, like finding out about church happenings, have become challenging. The paper printed pages of religious events and directories every week and that hasn’t been replaced.

Local crises, like the desperately needed upgrade of water and sewer systems, are going unreported. And there is no one to keep disinformation in check, like when the newspaper published a series of stories that dispelled the rumors of election tampering at local precincts during last year’s May primaries.

“It was like a heartbeat, like a thread that ran through the community,” said World War II veteran Howard Wade, a retired professor specializing in Black history.

A coal truck drives past the welcome sign in Welch, W.Va. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)–

Sitting on a rocking chair in pajama pants in his ranch house at the base of lush, green hills, Wade said he hasn’t read any news since the paper stopped printing. He’s worried about the county history the newspaper chronicled throughout his life. At 97, he was born three years after it opened its doors in 1923.

The decline of American newspapers is well-documented. The people most impacted tend to be older, low-income and less likely to have graduated high school or college than people living in well-covered communities.

For McDowell residents, the news was still a shock. Many said they didn’t realize how much they depended on the paper until it was gone.

Sarah Hall, the first Black prosecutor elected in McDowell County in the 1980s, said it’s tragic when any community loses its newspaper. But for communities like hers, it’s detrimental.

Missy Nester owner of the The Welch News walks around the now closed office on Wednesday in Welch, W.Va. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)–



The 535-square-mile (1,385-square-kilometer) county is dominated by rugged mountain terrain, where residents live miles apart in hollers connected by winding roads and no interstate access, leaving people isolated. Cell and internet service is inconsistent — or nonexistent — and there are no locally-based radio or television stations.

“We’re in a unique situation because our community is unique,” she said. “We have no other substantial way of communicating.”

It bothers Hall not to know about decisions county commissioners are making with taxpayer money and she misses the legal notices the paper published informing residents about developments like utility rate increases. With the school year set to start, she’s worried families won’t know about a ministry program in early August providing free school supplies.

For Nester and her staff of three, the grief of closing the paper has felt impossible to confront after years of sacrifices, both financial and personal. Nester took out a loan and scraped together all the money she could in 2018 to save it, the crumbling building with a caving roof, cracked walls and a 1966 Goss printing press in the basement.

The Welch News team felt buoyed as protectors of democracy in a place where people sometimes feel forgotten or overlooked by the rest of the country.

Sprawling across the Cumberland Mountains of Appalachia, McDowell County was once seen as a symbol of American progress: the self-proclaimed “Heart of the Nation’s Coal Bin” was the world’s largest coal producer and attracted thousands of European immigrants and Black families fleeing the Jim Crow South looking for work and a better life.

In 1950, nearly 100,000 people lived in McDowell, and a fourth of that population was Black, unconventional in the predominately white state. The county earned the moniker the “Free State of McDowell” because of the lack of segregation and unprecedented Black representation in government.

Today, 80% of the 17,850 remaining residents are white, still making it one of West Virginia’s most diverse counties. It’s also the poorest, with some of the lowest graduation and life expectancy rates in the nation. A third of all McDowell County residents live in poverty. The per capita income is $15,474.

Over the years, the county lost big box stores, schools, thousands of jobs and people. But it still had its newspaper — one that tracked government spending, published elections, spelling bee and basketball game results and spreads with color photos and biographies of every member of the graduating class.

Now, because many older residents don’t use the internet, they are missing crucial information the newspaper would have reported on. A pandemic-era meal service for seniors was cut, and there was no easy way to inform residents. People who relied on the obituaries have struggled keeping up with loved ones’ deaths.

“Now when people die, a lot of people don’t even realize they’re dead,” said Deputy Magistrate Court Clerk Virginia Dickerson, 79, while on a break outside her office, watching coal trucks lumber by.

Dickerson, who delivered the paper when she was growing up, said losing the paper was like “losing a family member.”

“Anything that happen usually in the community and anywhere in McDowell County, it would be in that paper. Without no paper, you can’t find out nothing,” she said.

Paulina Breeden, who works behind the counter at the sole gas station in the neighboring community of Maybeury, said people still come in and ask about the paper. She’s the one who has to inform them it’s closed. They’re often incredulous.

“They say, ‘Oh, really? Are you serious?’ I mean, they were shocked,” she said.

Breeden said she trusted the information she read in The Welch News: “You hear a lot, and I know maybe in there it’s not the actual truth,” she said of rumors around town. “Let’s just read the newspaper.”

The political and socioeconomic implications of the newspaper’s closure are widespread, but not always immediately visible. Although the county is now without a local news source, residents are no strangers to news coverage — often by national outlets that focus on the poverty rate, opioid use, infrastructure woes and the declining coal industry.

The paper was a vital platform for residents to tell their story from their perspective — a lifeline for a community that’s often been misrepresented and misunderstood.

Shawn Jenkins, a pharmacy owner who works down the street from The Welch News, said he feels national coverage of McDowell County — and West Virginia in general — is overly “political, unfair and often negative.” But he never felt that way about the local newspaper.

“I never saw anything that really raised my hackles. I thought they were pretty much center line, which is the exception these days,” he said, adding that he advertised in the paper. “I wanted them to survive.”

Before Nester took over in 2018, the paper ran summaries of local government meetings written up by a county employee. That changed when 32-year-old Derek Tyson, the paper’s single reporter and editor, began covering meetings. The attention seemed to bother some local officials, who would call late at night to grumble about stories. The city of Welch declined to comment on the newspaper’s closure.

Without the paper and its journalist asking questions, residents are going to find it harder to stay informed about things that matter locally, Nester said.

“I think that’s unfair to the people that live in the community,” she said.

One of the major stories the paper was following for years is the work of the McDowell Public Service District, which focuses on upgrading systems in coal communities with aging infrastructure. For decades, some people in the county relied on mountain streams polluted with mine runoff because of disintegrating — or completely absent — systems. Others, like those in the majority-Black community of Keystone, lived under a boil water advisory for 10 years — a nearly unheard-of length of time — until the district replaced the water lines under two years ago.

Now, long-awaited federal support is expected to go out to communities with the passage of the historic bipartisan infrastructure act. But the paper won’t be there to cover it.

The void created by the disappearance of The Welch News is being filled by cable news and social media, something that deeply concerns Tyson. Much of what he sees circulating locally on Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets is unverified.

The newspaper used to act as a counter to that misinformation. During last year’s May primary, rumors ran rampant on Facebook about election tampering after some residents arrived at long-time precincts on voting day to find their names missing from the poll books.

Tyson wrote multiple stories digging into the claims and clarifying that the confusion was caused by an issue with the West Virginia Secretary of State’s voter database. Although people were forced to vote in different locations or to cast provisional ballots, all votes were counted.

During one meeting among local officials discussing the issue, a county commissioner said he believed the lack of daily news sources in the county contributed to the misinformation’s spread. He credited The Welch News for its work.

When Nester was raising her three children as a single mother in the 1990s and 2000s, the county’s older residents would stop by her house on surprise visits with meals and cash they’d tape to her front door. Many of the people who read the newspaper are aging, she said.

During her time at the newspaper, delivery drivers would drop off bread and milk with The Welch News at some houses, along with other essentials.

“I saw keeping the paper going as a way to repay them — or to try to — for everything they did to take care of me,” she said.
___

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Free food fridges take off in parts of Europe in eco-friendly bid to fight waste


William, left, employee at association Eco-Citoyen, and Larry, volunteer at association Eco-Citoyen, refill with food a public refrigerator of project Free Go of the association Eco-Citoyen where people can give and take food that might otherwise perish, in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, July 28, 2023. 



A couple talk food in a public refrigerator of project Free Go of the association Eco-Citoyen where people can give and take food that might otherwise perish, in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, July 28, 2023.

William, employee at association Eco-Citoyen, refills with food a public refrigerator of project Free Go of the association Eco-Citoyen where people can give and take food that might otherwise perish, in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, July 28, 2023. 

A woman takes food in a public refrigerator of project Free Go of the association Eco-Citoyen where people can give and take food that might otherwise perish, in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, July 28, 2023. 

PHOTOS Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP

BY JAMEY KEATEN

July 28, 2023

GENEVA (AP) — That head of lettuce you forgot to make a salad with starting to wilt? Did you buy too much bread before heading out for a holiday?

In an effort to help eco-conscious consumers, a Geneva nonprofit is ramping up its rollout of street-side, free-access public refrigerators that restaurateurs, at-home cooks and others can use to give away food that’s about to go bad. It’s part of a bigger effort by communities in Switzerland and other European countries to do their part for the environment while helping to cut down on food waste.

The nonprofit Free-Go — whose name riffs off the word “frigo,” a colloquial French word for refrigerator — has rolled out refrigerators and pantry shelves in Geneva where passersby can grab fruit, vegetables, bread, croissants and other perishables to take home for free.

The program costs about $40,000 to run each year and enjoys the support from both charity groups and the city government. It launched a year ago with a single fridge outside a community center in western Geneva and it now has four fridges, strategically placed around town. A fifth one is planned before year’s end.

Marine Delevaux, the project’s director, says the deposited food is generally snapped up within an hour after delivery. For health and regulatory reasons, no frozen foods, open food containers, prepared meals or alcohol are allowed in the fridges.

Free-Go is also experimenting with scheduled pickups at apartment buildings to make it easier for residents to participate in the program. It has also set up a “hotline” that restaurateurs can use to call for retrieval of unused food.

“Generally, when the food collected from shops and restaurants arrives in the morning, people are already waiting to help themselves,” Delevaux said, adding that the first Geneva fridge helped save some 3.2 tons of food from going to waste last year. Of the food donated, only about 3% had to be thrown away because nobody wanted it.

Free-Go says contributors of food from the private sector — such as restaurants or food vendors — must make a commitment to ensure the donated food is safe to eat. Swiss law says food past the “recommended use-by date” can be consumed for up to a year afterwards, Delevaux said.

The Swiss government estimates that nearly one-third of all food products destined for consumption is wasted or thrown away needlessly — amounting to about 330 kilograms (about 730 pounds) of food waste per inhabitant each year. Of that, about 100 kilograms (about 220 pounds) are attributed to waste by households.

Free-Go says about 1 billion tons of food go to waste every year around the world — using up energy and other resources in the farming and transportation process.

“Wasting food is not only an ethical and economic issue but it also depletes the environment of limited natural resources,” the EU’s Commission says.

Similar food-sharing campaigns are in place in the capital, Bern, and in western Neuchatel, after the idea was imported from Germany.

According to Foodsharing.de, a community group in Germany that started more than a decade ago, more than a half-million people in Germany, Switzerland and Austria have made “the food-sharing initiative an international movement” and have helped save 83 million tons of food from going to waste.

Because the food is free, and the donations can vary, it’s uncertain what will turn up in the fridges — and some recipients might end up being disappointed.

Outside a community-center in a working-class area of Geneva on Friday, Shala Moradi, a 65-year-old housewife from Iran who has lived in Geneva for a decade, said she had been looking for some bread — and there was none. Yet, she says she appreciates the initiative.

“It’s very good. I can take strawberries, cherries, things like that,” she said. “The free (part): I like that too.”

Fresh off depositing some tomatoes from her vegetable garden, Severine Cuendet, a 54-year-old teacher, said “we have too much” and applauded the initiative “because this neighborhood has a lot of need.”

“And it happens to all of us to buy too much,” she added with a smile.
___

Geir Moulson and Kirsten Grieshaber contributed from Berlin.

The UFO congressional hearing was ‘insulting’ to US employees, a top Pentagon official says


Ryan Graves, Americans for Safe Aerospace Executive Director, from left, U.S. Air Force (Ret.) Maj. David Grusch, and U.S. Navy (Ret.) Cmdr. David Fravor, testify before a House Oversight and Accountability subcommittee hearing on UFOs, Wednesday, July 26, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

U.S. Air Force (Ret.) Maj. David Grusch, testifies before a House Oversight and Accountability subcommittee hearing on UFOs, Wednesday, July 26, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

Ryan Graves, Americans for Safe Aerospace Executive Director, left, and U.S. Air Force (Ret.) Maj. David Grusch, arrive to testify before a House Oversight and Accountability subcommittee hearing on UFOs, Wednesday, July 26, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

Ryan Graves, Americans for Safe Aerospace Executive Director, from left, U.S. Air Force (Ret.) Maj. David Grusch, and U.S. Navy (Ret.) Cmdr. David Fravor, are sworn in during a House Oversight and Accountability subcommittee hearing on UFOs, Wednesday, July 26, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

BY NOMAAN MERCHANT AND TARA COPP

 July 28, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — A top Pentagon official has attacked this week’s widely watched congressional hearing on UFOs, calling the claims “insulting” to employees who are investigating sightings and accusing a key witness of not cooperating with the official U.S. government investigation.

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick’s letter, published on his personal LinkedIn page and circulated Friday across social media, criticizes much of the testimony from a retired Air Force intelligence officer that energized believers in extraterrestrial life and produced headlines around the world.

Retired Air Force Maj. David Grusch testified Wednesday that the U.S. has concealed what he called a “multi-decade” program to collect and reverse-engineer “UAPs,” or unidentified aerial phenomena, the official government term for UFOs

Part of what the U.S. has recovered, Grusch testified, were non-human “biologics,” which he said he had not seen but had learned about from “people with direct knowledge of the program.”

A career intelligence officer, Kirkpatrick was named a year ago to lead the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, which was intended to centralize investigations into UAPs. The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies have been pushed by Congress in recent years to better investigate reports of devices flying at unusual speeds or trajectories as a national security concern.

Kirkpatrick wrote the letter Thursday and the Defense Department confirmed Friday that he posted it in a personal capacity. Kirkpatrick declined to comment on the letter Friday.

He writes in part, “I cannot let yesterday’s hearing pass without sharing how insulting it was to the officers of the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community who chose to join AARO, many with not unreasonable anxieties about the career risks this would entail.”

“They are truth-seekers, as am I,” Kirkpatrick said. “But you certainly would not get that impression from yesterday’s hearing.”

In a separate statement, Pentagon spokeswoman Sue Gough denied other allegations made by Grusch before a House Oversight subcommittee.

The Pentagon “has no information that any individual has been harmed or killed as a result of providing information” about UFO objects, Gough said. Nor has the Pentagon discovered “any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.”

Kirkpatrick wrote, “AARO has yet to find any credible evidence to support the allegations of any reverse engineering program for non-human technology.”

He had briefed reporters in December that the Pentagon was investigating “several hundreds” of new reports following a push to have pilots and others come forward with any sightings.

Kirkpatrick wrote in his letter that allegations of “retaliation, to include physical assault and hints of murder, are extraordinarily serious, which is why law enforcement is a critical member of the AARO team, specifically to address and take swift action should anyone come forward with such claims.”

“Yet, contrary to assertions made in the hearing, the central source of those allegations has refused to speak with AARO,” Kirkpatrick said. He did not explicitly name Grusch, who alleged he faced retaliation and declined to answer when a congressman asked him if anyone had been murdered to hide information about UFOs.

Messages left at a phone number and email address for Grusch were not returned Friday.

Black Belt Eagle Scout’s latest record inspired by return home to Swinomish tribe’s ancestral lands


 Black Belt Eagle Scout performs during the Pitchfork Music Festival at Union Park in Chicago, Saturday, July 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Michael Casey, File)

Black Belt Eagle Scout, second right, performs during the Pitchfork Music Festival at Union Park in Chicago on Saturday, July 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Michael Casey)

Black Belt Eagle Scout performs during the Pitchfork Music Festival at Union Park in Chicago on Saturday, July 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Michael Casey)

BY MICHAEL CASEY
July 29, 2023Share

CHICAGO (AP) — The beginning of the pandemic was devasting for the leader of the indie rock band Black Belt Eagle Scout, Katherine Paul. All her tours, including one headlining across North America, were canceled and she feared her ascending music career might be over.

She got a day job at a nonprofit and returned to the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community’s homelands in Western Washington. But as Paul, or KP to her friends, spent time in the cedar forests and walked along the Skagit River, she turned to her guitar to deal with the isolation and stress. Those snippets, recorded on her phone, provided the foundation for what would become songs on her powerful, grunge-soaked new record “The Land, The Water, The Sky.”

“I feel like if the pandemic hadn’t happened, I probably wouldn’t have made this record,” said KP, who writes the songs, sings and plays guitar in the band that was the only Native American artist at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago this month.

“I spent a lot of time outside. I spent a lot more time than normal going on hikes, being part of the land,” she continued. “It’s not like I never do that stuff but it brought me back to a place where this is who I am.”

The new record, which came out in February, helped launch what has probably been the most successful year so far for Black Belt Eagle Scout. The band toured Europe and will go to Australia later this year. Two of her songs, “Soft Stud” from an earlier record and “Salmon Stinta” from her latest, appear this season on the television series “Reservation Dogs.”

Reservation Dogs Music Supervisor Tiffany Anders said she was introduced to the band’s music by the show’s creator, Sterlin Harjo, when they started working on the second season.

“It’s always been important for us on this show to include Native American artists, but beyond representation, Black Belt Eagle Scout’s music is beautiful and emotional, and fits these characters, their world and landscape — and the vibe of the show,’” she said in a statement.

Then there was Pitchfork, a three-day festival that is a significant milestone for indie musicians. The festival is held every year in Chicago’s Union Park and this year’s headliners included Bon Iver, Big Thief and The Smile, which has members of Radiohead.

She admitted stepping on that stage last weekend was nerve-wracking given her high hopes for the show, a feeling compounded by concerns that storms could scuttle their performance. But as she launched into the blistering set of mostly new songs in front of thousands of eager fans, KP found solace in her guitar. She launched several long jams that were punctuated by her twirling her jet-black hair around to the point it obscured her face.

“It was totally a moment,” she said with a laugh.

“I kind of cried after we played because it felt so meaningful,” she added. “Like, I’ve always wanted to play this music festival. I remember trying to play one of the years before the pandemic when I was touring and it didn’t happen. This year, I was just so stoked to play.”

Reaching Pitchfork has been a long journey for the 34-year-old artist, who is a member of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and left her home on the reservation in LaConner, Washington, when she was 17 to attend Lewis & Clark College in Oregon and play rock music.

Growing up on the reservation off the Washington coast on islands in the Salish Sea, she drummed and sang cultural songs. As a teenager, she discovered local Pacific Northwest bands like Mount Eerie and the sounds of the Riot Grrrl movement and played one of her first gigs at a small bar called Department of Safety. She moved to Portland, Oregon, due to its outsized role in the indie scene that featured bands like Sleater-Kinney and quickly immersed herself in the music scene playing drums and guitar.

She joined an all-female outfit whom she met at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls in Portland. She went on to play a lot of small, basement shows with bands like Genders — whose wolf tattoo she still has on her left arm.

But she wanted to write her own songs and formed Black Belt Eagle Scout in 2013. Her early music was defined by her ethereal singing about love, friendship and healing — often only accompanied by minimal guitar strumming. But she did rock out on songs like “Soft Stud,” which featured searing solos.

“She is a really an authentic musician and she carries a lot of power on stage with her presence and sound,” Claire Glass, who plays guitar in the band and first saw KP seven years ago.

KP has said her Native American identify has always been present on her records. But her latest music paints a more vivid picture of life on the Swinomish reservation. There are references to chinook salmon, which are traditionally fished, and a powwow dance.

“I started thinking of feeling grateful for the life that I have been given; this place that I’m from; how much the land, the water, the sky means to me — being surrounded by it,” KP said of writing the song ”Don’t Give Up.” “It has so much more meaning because the land, that’s where my people are from.”

Her songs aren’t meant to directly confront issues like the crisis of missing and murdered Native American women or tribes’ forced relocation. It’s not the way she writes songs. Instead, she envisions them connecting with people, drawing more Native Americans to indie rock shows in places like Minneapolis, which has a vibrant Native American community, and inspiring young Native Americans to connect with her after shows.

“Isn’t me like being here existing with my music good enough? Can’t I just be who I am?” she asked, adding she doesn’t need to speak out from stage about these issues because being Native often means she is already wrestling with them. A judge, for example, ruled in March that BNSF Railway intentionally violated the terms of an easement agreement with the tribe by running 100-car trains carrying crude oil over the reservation.

“As a Native person, you know someone who is missing. Your tribe is trying to get your land back. Those are topics that are part of your every day life,” she said. ”I care about those things deeply but there are certain ways in which my music is, maybe not as direct, but it can be healing.”

KP also doesn’t want to be seen just as a rock musician or as a Native artist. “I am a musician who happens to be Native, but I am also a Native musician ... I think I am always both,” she said.

Her latest record aims to show that.

“I kind of had in the back of mind, just kept thinking what would Built to Spill do,” KP said of the guitar-heavy, indie-rock band from the Pacific Northwest. “I’ve gone on tour with them and seen their three guitars at one point playing together and how they overlap and all these other things.”

It’s also a more collaborative effort with more musicians playing on the record— a departure for KP, who is accustomed to doing everything herself. A cellist who played with Nirvana, Lori Goldston, is featured on several songs, as are two violinists, as well as a saxophone and mellotron player.

Takiaya Reed, a first-time producer who is also in a doom metal band, described the experience of working on the record as “beautiful and amazing” and said the two bonded over their love of punk. Reid also brought her classical training and love of “heavier sounds” to the studio.

“We approached it fearlessly. It was wonderful to be expansive in terms of sonic possibilities,” she said.

KP also wanted to find a place for her parents, whom she had grown especially close to during the pandemic, to play on the record. She chose the song “Spaces,” which she described as having a “healing vibe.” Her dad, who is one of the main singers at the tribe’s cultural events, embraced the idea of lending his powerful powwow chant to the song. Her mom sang harmonies.

KP said: “It meant the world to me to have my parents sing because it felt like it was full circle in who I am.”

RETURN OF BROWN BAG PORN LAWS

Judge blocks Arkansas law allowing librarians to be criminally charged over ‘harmful’ materials


 Nate Coulter, executive director of the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS), looks at a book in the main branch of the public library in downtown Little Rock, Ark., on May 23, 2023. Arkansas is temporarily blocked from enforcing a law that would have allowed criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing “harmful” materials to minors, a federal judge ruled Saturday, July 29. (AP Photo/Katie Adkins, File)

 July 29, 2023

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas is temporarily blocked from enforcing a law that would have allowed criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing “harmful” materials to minors, a federal judge ruled Saturday.

U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks issued a preliminary injunction against the law, which also would have created a new process to challenge library materials and request that they be relocated to areas not accessible by kids. The measure, signed by Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders earlier this year, was set to take effect Aug. 1.

A coalition that included the Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock had challenged the law, saying fear of prosecution under the measure could prompt libraries and booksellers to no longer carry titles that could be challenged.

The judge also rejected a motion by the defendants, which include prosecuting attorneys for the state, seeking to dismiss the case.

The ACLU of Arkansas, which represents some of the plaintiffs, applauded the court’s ruling, saying that the absence of a preliminary injunction would have jeopardized First Amendment rights.

“The question we had to ask was — do Arkansans still legally have access to reading materials? Luckily, the judicial system has once again defended our highly valued liberties,” Holly Dickson, the executive director of the ACLU in Arkansas, said in a statement.

The lawsuit comes as lawmakers in an increasing number of conservative states are pushing for measures making it easier to ban or restrict access to books. The number of attempts to ban or restrict books across the U.S. last year was the highest in the 20 years the American Library Association has been tracking such efforts.

Laws restricting access to certain materials or making it easier to challenge them have been enacted in several other states, including Iowa, Indiana and Texas.

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said in an email Saturday that his office would be “reviewing the judge’s opinion and will continue to vigorously defend the law.”

The executive director of Central Arkansas Library System, Nate Coulter, said the judge’s 49-page decision recognized the law as censorship, a violation of the Constitution and wrongly maligning librarians.

“As folks in southwest Arkansas say, this order is stout as horseradish!” he said in an email.

“I’m relieved that for now the dark cloud that was hanging over CALS’ librarians has lifted,” he added.

Cheryl Davis, general counsel for the Authors Guild, said the organization is “thrilled” about the decision. She said enforcing this law “is likely to limit the free speech rights of older minors, who are capable of reading and processing more complex reading materials than young children can.”

The Arkansas lawsuit names the state’s 28 local prosecutors as defendants, along with Crawford County in west Arkansas. A separate lawsuit is challenging the Crawford County library’s decision to move children’s books that included LGBTQ+ themes to a separate portion of the library.

The plaintiffs challenging Arkansas’ restrictions also include the Fayetteville and Eureka Springs Carnegie public libraries, the American Booksellers Association and the Association of American Publishers.

Official tells AP that Saudi Arabia will host a Ukrainian-organized peace summit in August


People hold signs as they gather outside the Russian Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, July 29, 2023, to mark one-year anniversary of the attack on a prison building in Olenivka, eastern Ukraine, that killed dozens of Ukrainian military prisoners. 

(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

BY AAMER MADHANI AND JON GAMBRELL
Updated, July 29, 2023

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia will host a Ukrainian-organized peace summit in early August seeking to find a way to start negotiations over Russia’s war on the country, an official said Saturday night. The kingdom and Kyiv did not immediately acknowledge the planned talks.

The summit will be held in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as no authorization had been given to publicly discuss the summit.

Those taking part in the summit will include Ukraine, as well as Brazil, India, South Africa and several other countries, the official said. A high-level official from U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration also is expected to attend, the official said. Planning for the event is being overseen by Kyiv and Russia is not invited, the official said.

Details regarding the summit, however, remain in flux and the official did not offer dates for the talks. The Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the summit, said the talks would take place Aug. 5 and 6 with some 30 countries attending, citing “diplomats involved in the discussion.”

Saudi officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press, nor did Ukraine’s Embassy in Riyadh. News of the summit comes after U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan visited the kingdom on Thursday.

The official who spoke to the AP said the summit would be the next step after talks that took place in Copenhagen in June.

Saudi Arabia’s hosting of the talks come as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in May attended an Arab League summit in Jeddah to press those nations to back Kyiv. Arab nations largely have remained neutral since Russia launched the war on Ukraine in February 2022, in part over their military and economic ties to Moscow.

Saudi Arabia also has maintained a close relationship with Russia as part of the OPEC+ group. The organization’s oil production cuts, even as Moscow’s war on Ukraine boosted energy prices, have angered Biden and American lawmakers.

But hosting such talks also help raise the profile of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has sought to reach a détente with Iran and push for a peace in the kingdom’s yearslong war in Yemen. However, ties also remain strained between Riyadh and the West over the 2018 killing and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, which U.S. intelligence agencies assess that Prince Mohammed ordered.
___

Madhani reported from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

LGBTQ+ community proud and visible at Women’s World Cup


United States’ Megan Rapinoe looks over the pitch before the Women’s World Cup Group E soccer match between the United States and Vietnam in Auckland, New Zealand, Saturday, July 22, 2023.According to a count being kept by Outsports, a website that covers the LGBTQ sports community, there are at least 95 out members of the LGBTQ community competing in this year’s tournament. 

BY MAX RALPH
, July 29, 2023

AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand striker Hannah Wilkinson has helped create two milestones at the Women’s World Cup.

With her 48th-minute goal in the tournament opener against Norway, she led the co-host Football Ferns to their first win in six trips to the Women’s World Cup. She’s also one of at least 95 out members of the LGBTQ+ community competing in this year’s tournament, according to a count being kept by Outsports, a website that covers the LGBTQ+ sports.

The Ferns were greeted with a fan-made sign at their next match in Wellington: “Gay for soccer, gay for Wilkie,” it read.

The 95 out participants make up roughly 13% of the 736 total players at the Women’s World Cup, more than doubling the 40 players and coaches Outsports counted in 2019.

The 2023 tournament also is hosting the first openly trans and non-binary player in either a men’s or Women’s World Cup, Quinn of Canada.

“Last World Cup was so big, especially with the visibility of the U.S. women’s national team winning and (Megan Rapinoe) fighting with (Donald) Trump. So I think that was a huge year for LGBTQ+ visibility,” said Lindsey Freeman, a professor of sociology and anthropology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.

“It’s just the ad hoc, fun culture of women’s soccer that you’re seeing in this World Cup,” said Freeman, who is in New Zealand conducting research on the topic.

Jim Buzinski, co-founder of Outsports, agreed. “In the Western world, it’s such a non-issue that it really just doesn’t get talked about,” he said. “And I think that’s in a good way.”

VISIBILITY

Prior to the start of the tournament, FIFA designated eight socially conscious armbands team captains could wear throughout the Women’s World Cup. The decision came after “One Love” armbands were denied to men’s teams in Qatar in 2022.

The armbands being used this year include anti-discriminatory sayings and multiple colors, but the rainbow version Germany wanted to use is not allowed. None of the available options explicitly mention LGBTQ+ rights.

The decision has led many players to express their support in more creative ways across Australia and New Zealand.

New Zealand midfielder Ali Riley was interviewed on the official Women’s World Cup broadcast after her team’s upset of Norway. Her painted fingernails, left hand in the colors of the pride flag and right hand as the trans flag, were clearly visible as she held her head and fought back tears.

“She’s such an advocate and she’s definitely someone who uses her platform in such a positive way. We are all so proud of her and the way she represents the LGBTQ+ community,” teammate CJ Bott said. “Good on her. We’re all backing her, and we all back the community as well.”

The Philippines, making its Women’s World Cup debut, took home its own historic win over New Zealand 1-0 thanks to the foot of Sarina Bolden. Bolden’s Instagram bio reads, “i just wanna have fun n b gay.”

Irish star Katie McCabe wowed fans with a goal directly from a corner kick. She’s also made tabloid news for her relationships with other players.

Thembi Kgatlana, who has scored in the tournament for South Africa, has a patch of her hair dyed rainbow colors.

“My personality is very big for me, and my hair has become a part of my personality,” Kgatlana said. “And I did this rainbow because I want to represent all the people that are part of the LGBTQ and cannot talk while in countries where they’re oppressed.”

FAN EXPERIENCE

Kristen Pariseau and her wife started a U.S. women’s national team supporters group on Facebook ahead of traveling to this year’s Women’s World Cup. Aside from some hateful users she blocked, it’s been “super LGBT friendly.”

She and her wife did not go to Qatar for the 2022 men’s World Cup to avoid referencing each other as friends and receiving questions on their sexuality. In New Zealand, she said she’s met many same-sex couples at games and while traveling around the country.

“Everywhere you turn, it’s like, ‘Oh, my wife, my girlfriend.’ It’s been so welcoming and open,” Pariseau said. “In a way, it is kind of cool to be where there’s a lot of other people like you.”

Kelsie Bozart took her own pride flag armband to the United States’ second match in Wellington, along with a pride scarf.

“If you look back a couple years, I feel like it just wasn’t really talked about or there just wasn’t much of a presence,” Bozart said. “But moving forward I feel like, especially for the U.S., they’ve done an amazing job of just incorporating pride and LGBTQ.”

NOT UNIVERSAL

Though this year’s tournament has highlighted vast gains for the LGBTQ+ community in women’s soccer, advocates feel there is still work to be done.

According to Buzinski and Outsports, there were at least 186 LGBTQ+ athletes at the Tokyo Olympics. Women outnumbered men by a 9:1 ratio. There also were no confirmed out players at the 2022 men’s World Cup.

“I think women’s sports have always been open,” Denmark striker Pernille Harder said, adding that there are many role models for women who want to come out.

Freeman said it would be good to see men feel the same level of comfort.

“What can happen in the women’s game, I would love to spill over to the men’s game,” she said. “Because obviously, there’s way more queer players in the men’s game and it’s just not safe for them to come out.

“If you want to say that you’re in an inclusive space, you really have to be an inclusive space,” Freeman added. “And I think that that includes also holding the World Cup in places where it’s fine to be a queer person.”
___

Max Ralph is a student in John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State.
___

Contributing reporters included Joe Lister in Wellington and Rafaela Pontes in Auckland, students in the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State, and Clay Witt in Sydney, Australia, a student at the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.
___

AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-womens-world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

AP Photos/Rafaela Pontes

A United States fan holds a flag that combines the Pride flag and the United States flag during the Women’s World Cup Group E soccer match between the United States and Vietnam in Auckland, New Zealand, Saturday, July 22, 2023.

A United States fan waves pride flags before the Women’s World Cup Group E soccer match between the United States and the Netherlands in Wellington, New Zealand, Thursday, July 27, 2023.

United States’ Megan Rapinoe gets familiar with the field before the Women’s World Cup Group E soccer match between the United States and Vietnam in Auckland, New Zealand, Saturday, July 22, 2023. 
A United States fan wearing a pride flag holds a sign during the Women’s World Cup Group E soccer match between the United States and the Netherlands in Wellington, New Zealand, Thursday, July 27, 2023.

A United States fan holds a rainbow sign during the Women’s World Cup Group E soccer match between the United States and the Netherlands in Wellington, New Zealand, Thursday, July 27, 2023. 

United States’ Megan Rapinoe prepares for a corner kick during the Women’s World Cup Group E soccer match between the United States and Vietnam in Auckland, New Zealand, Saturday, July 22, 2023. 

ABRAHAMIC FUNDMENTALISM

Hezbollah chief in new attack on same-sex relations

By AFP
Published July 29, 2023

Hassan Nasrallah, who heads the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, has called for the killing of gay people - Copyright AFP ANWAR AMRO

The leader of Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement on Saturday stepped up his attacks against the region’s long-marginalised LGBTQ community.

“We are not making up battles, nor are we making up dangers. This is a real danger that is imminent and has begun,” Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech for the annual Ashura commemoration, among the most important in Shiite Islam.

Last week, Nasrallah had said gay people, “even if they do it once… are to be killed”.

In his latest comments Nasrallah said that, “In Lebanon, this danger started with some educational institutions, and NGOs,” which he accused of “promoting” same-sex relations to children. He called on the ministry of education to intervene.

Many Western governments consider Hezbollah to be a “terrorist” organisation.

It is the only side not to have disarmed following Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, and it is a powerful player in the politics of Lebanon, whose economy has collapsed since 2019.

Religiously diverse Lebanon is one of the Middle East’s more liberal countries, and the LGBTQ community has long been visible and outspoken, defying arbitrary crackdowns on its bars, nightclubs and community centres.

But it has continued to face systematic social, economic and legal discrimination — which an expert has warned could only be worsened by Nasrallah’s rhetoric.

“Hate speech functions as a tool of diversion, wielded by Nasrallah and political elites to divert public attention from profound economic disparities and governance failures,” Hussein Cheaito, an economist who focuses on queer political economy, wrote on Twitter, which is being rebranded as “X”.

“This calculated tactic perpetuates their grip on power,” he said, while adding to “a vicious cycle of discrimination, fear, and exclusion, entwined with Lebanon’s socio-economic fabric.”

Lebanon’s LGBTQ community in 2018 scored a success when a court ruled that same-sex conduct is not unlawful, but since then it has seen more setbacks than victories.

Last summer, the community was targeted by a crackdown that saw activists harassed and Pride gatherings cancelled after the interior ministry instructed security forces to clamp down on events “promoting sexual perversion”.

The ministry argued that LGBTQ events violate customs, traditions and “principles of religion” in Lebanon, where political power is split along faith lines between Shiite and Sunni Muslim, Christian, Druze and other groups.