Category: World

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Jan. 6 committee is shutting down, having completed a whirlwind 18-month investigation of the 2021 Capitol insurrection and having sent its work to the Justice Department along with a recommendation for prosecuting former President Donald Trump.

The committee’s time officially ends Tuesday when the new Republican-led House is sworn in. With many of the committee’s staff already departed, remaining aides have spent the last two weeks releasing many of the panel’s materials, including its 814-page final report, about 200 transcripts of witness interviews, and documents used to support its conclusions.

Lawmakers said they wanted to make their work public to underscore the seriousness of the attack and Trump’s multi-pronged effort to try to overturn the election.

“Accountability is now critical to thwart any other future scheme to overturn an election,” Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., wrote in a departing message on Monday. “We have made a series of criminal referrals, and our system of Justice is responsible for what comes next.”

Some of the committee’s work — such as videotape of hundreds of witness interviews — will not be made public immediately. The committee is sending those videos and some other committee records to the National Archives, which by law would make them available in 50 years. Members of the committee said they didn’t release that videotape now because it would have been too difficult to edit it and redact sensitive information.

Incoming Republican leaders may try to get those materials much sooner, though. A provision in a package of proposed House rules released Sunday calls for the National Archives to transfer “any records related to the committee” back to the House no later than Jan. 17.

It is unclear whether the GOP-led House could enforce the provision and what they would do with the materials.

The committee’s conclusion comes after one of the most aggressive and wide-ranging congressional investigations in recent memory. The panel formally or informally interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses, collected more than 1 million documents and held 10 well-watched hearings. The two Republicans and seven Democrats on the panel were able to conduct the investigation with little interference after House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy declined to appoint minority members, angry that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had rejected two of his suggested appointments.

In the end, the panel came to a unanimous conclusion that Trump coordinated a “conspiracy” on multiple levels, pressuring states, federal officials and lawmakers to try to overturn his defeat, and inspired a violent mob of supporters to attack the Capitol and interrupt the certification of President Joe Biden’s win. The panel recommended that the Justice Department prosecute Trump on four crimes, including aiding an insurrection.

While a so-called criminal referral has no real legal standing, it is a forceful statement by the committee and adds to political pressure already on Attorney General Merrick Garland and special counsel Jack Smith, who is conducting an investigation into Jan. 6 and Trump’s actions.

“This is the most intense investigation I’ve been involved in,” said California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who has been in the House for almost three decades and served as an aide to a member on the House Judiciary Committee in the 1970s when Congress was preparing to impeach then-President Richard Nixon. Lofgren was also in the House for former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment and served as an impeachment manager during Trump’s first impeachment three years ago.

“I have never been involved in anything as wide ranging and intense,” Lofgren said.

She said that at the beginning of the probe, she felt it would be a success if there was a renewed enthusiasm for protecting democracy. In the November midterm elections, 44% of voters said the future of democracy was their primary consideration at the polls, according to AP VoteCast, a national survey of the electorate.

Lofgren said she believes the committee made clear that Trump was responsible for the insurrection and “it was not done at the last minute.”

“I think we proved that and we sent it all to the Department of Justice,” Lofgren said. “We’ll see what they do.”

ROME (AP) — Flying back to Rome from Beirut in September 2012, I was escorted down the aisle to the first-class section of the papal plane and seated beside Pope Benedict XVI.

The pope, then 85, looked and sounded weary. He had just completed a delicate, two-day visit to Lebanon as civil war raged in neighboring Syria.

It was my 92nd such trip: The first was with Pope John Paul II, the master of papal globe-trotting, and then over the past eight years with Benedict.

Because I was planning to retire, Benedict’s trip to Beirut was to be my last, and Vatican officials thought I should share the moment with him.

What I didn’t know at the time was that it was to be his last trip, too. In a few months, he would become the first pope to resign in 600 years.

On that flight, Benedict was clearly tired, but he remained as congenial as always.

“Congratulations on your retirement,” he said in a soft voice, speaking in his German-accented Italian that often made Italians chuckle.

When I told him that I had covered the Vatican for more than 30 years, he looked surprised. He sounded wistful as he said my retirement “is much deserved.”

I have always wondered whether our encounter led him to think about any plans of his own that he had not yet revealed to the world. The retirement date that he announced later was Feb. 28 — the exact date that I had chosen to retire.

On the plane, Benedict appeared pleased with our chat and seemed to be in no rush to end it — it was his aides who motioned to me that it was time to return to my seat.

“Gracious” is always a word I associate with Benedict, who was perpetually ready to shake hands and say something appropriate for the occasion.

In the Netflix drama “The Two Popes,” Benedict, as played by Anthony Hopkins, is depicted as uncompromising in his belief that the survival of the Roman Catholic Church can only be ensured by a return to its core principles.

Yet in his own way, Benedict was a revolutionary.

He was one to stand his ground and not back down, whatever outside pressures he came under. But he also seemed almost oblivious to the storms he would create.

When the inevitable questions arose about his past in Nazi Germany, he could point out he had covered that territory in several interviews done years before becoming pope: his mandatory membership in the Hitler Youth as a teenager; being drafted into the military near the end of the war; his desertion and surrender to the Americans.

He thus avoided controversies faced by others who were less honest about their histories. That certainly smoothed the way for his papal visits to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, to Israel and to synagogues in Rome and New York.

It was fascinating to hear him chat in German with Rabbi Arthur Schneirer, the Vienna-born rabbi, during a stop at New York’s Park East Synagogue. They sounded like two old friends.

In one of the major crises of his papacy, a speech aimed at promoting tolerance among religions ended up provoking anger — and even some violence — in the Islamic community.

In a 2006 speech at Regensburg University in Germany, where he once served as a professor of theology, Benedict quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who called Islam “evil and inhumane, such as his (the Prophet Muhammad’s) command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

The remarks drew swift condemnation in the Muslim world, but Benedict appeared surprised that what he saw as a scholarly discourse could create such rancor.

He said he “deeply regretted” that some took offense, but that he needed to insist that religion can never be a motivation for violence.

Years later, his former spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Benedict knew exactly what he meant with his remark.

When Benedict made his first trip to Africa, a French reporter asked in a news conference aboard the flight to Cameroon in 2009 whether condoms could play a role in fighting HIV.

“On the contrary, it (condom use) increases the problem,” he said.

Journalists and others on the plane were baffled by the response, which contradicted the views of health workers and many of his own priests battling the disease on the continent.

He backtracked a bit a year later, saying that condom use could be a first step toward a more moral behavior to prevent the spread of HIV.

It was the kind of clarification that was a sign of the lingering confusion and Vatican infighting that marked Benedict’s papacy.

In the years after his resignation, Benedict turned increasingly fragile and remained out of public view in a monastery inside the walls of Vatican City. He mainly devoted himself to prayer.

But his contributions to the church, which included opening the way for Pope Francis, were not forgotten by his Argentine successor. In 2021, when Benedict was 94, Francis issued a public thank you to the German on the 70th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood.

“To you Benedict, dear father and brother, goes our affection, our gratitude and our closeness,” Francis said.

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Victor L. Simpson covered the Vatican for The Associated Press from his arrival as a correspondent in Rome in 1972 to his retirement as Italy bureau chief in 2013. During that period, he covered the final months of Pope Paul VI, the 33-day tenure of Pope John Paul I, and the papacies of St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, including 92 of their trips abroad.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at https://apnews.com/hub/pope-benedict-xvi

Forty-seven. That’s how many days of child care Kathryn Anne Edwards’ 3-year-old son has missed in the past year.

RSV, COVID-19 and two bouts of the dreaded preschool scourge of hand, foot and mouth disease struck one after another. The illnesses were so disruptive that the labor economist quit her full-time job at the Rand Corp., a think tank. She switched last month to independent contract work to give her more flexibility to care for her son and 4-month-old daughter.

In the first and even second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, multi-week quarantines and isolations were common for many Americans, especially children. But nine weeks of missed child care, nearly three years in?

“The rest of the world has moved on from the crisis that I’m still in,” said Edwards, who studies women’s issues. “That’s sometimes how it feels like to me.”

This fall and winter have upended life for working parents of little children, who thought the worst of the pandemic was behind them. The arrival of vaccines for younger children and the end of quarantines for COVID exposure were supposed to bring relief.

Instead, families were treated to what some called a “tripledemic.” Flu, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus cases collided, stressing children’s hospitals and threatening the already imperiled child care system. Even parents of babies with less serious cases of COVID-19 have run into 10-day isolation rules that have taxed the patience of employers.

A record-high 104,000 people missed work in October because of child care problems, surpassing even early pandemic levels, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows. Child care-related absences fell to 59,000 in November, but numbers still surpass typical pre-pandemic levels.

The instability has hurt many working parents’ finances. Most of those who missed work in October because of child care problems didn’t get paid, according to an analysis from the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.

Now, doctors are bracing for the number of sick children to rise after families gathered for the holidays.

“I think we’re going to have to be ready to do it all over again,” said Dr. Eric Biondi, director of pediatric hospital medicine at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Maryland.

Illnesses among teachers and children have strained a child care system that’s already short-staffed.

“This is the worst year I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” said Shaunna Baillargeon, owner of Muddy Puddles Early Learning Program in Uxbridge, Massachusetts. She faces “a constant battle of staff and children being sick with a different virus every day,” with no backups if a teacher calls in sick.

At the Washington, D.C., day care where Jana Williams teaches, illness has caused classroom shutdowns almost weekly since October. Her 19-month-old daughter is also enrolled there, coming down with the same viruses.

“It’s stressful,” she said before Christmas, when she was home with her sick toddler. “You want to stay home and care for your child. But then it’s like, you have to get to work.”

During the early months of the pandemic, women in the prime of their careers left the labor market at a rate far exceeding men. They were more likely to work in the service-oriented fields that were decimated, and they often were caring for children, Edwards said.

Women have since returned to the workforce, particularly women of color, said economist Diane Swonk of professional services firm KPMG.

But the participation of prime-age working women in the U.S. lags most industrialized nations, Swonk said. Advocates have long blamed the country’s lack of universal preschool and paid family leave.

Finding child care and heading back to work has proved far from simple. At the pandemic’s height, more than one-third of day care jobs were lost, Edwards said. Staffing hasn’t fully recovered. As of November, the country had 8% fewer child care workers than before the pandemic, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows.

The strong labor market has driven up the cost to hire new workers. That means child care spots are pricey and hard to find. Even centers with openings may close when staff or kids are sick.

That babies and toddlers are prone to illnesses adds to the challenge. In the wake of COVID, day cares are more anxious about accepting a snotty toddler.

Isolation guidelines have hit parents of babies especially hard. While older preschoolers who have COVID-19 may return with masks after five days, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends children under 2 stay home for 10 days, or until they test negative twice, 48 hours apart.

One issue is masks aren’t recommended for the under-2 crowd. Their smaller airways mean wearing them can increase the risk of suffocation, according to Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Ohio.

Not all centers are adhering to the CDC’s guidance. But many are following it to the letter, or even going further.

When Chicago educator Tamisha Holifield and her daughter had COVID-19 in May, the toddler had to miss 15 days of child care. Bouts of colds have followed, in what Holifield described as a “constant whirlwind” of sickness that has been stressful both financially and emotionally.

“It’s a major inconvenience. But I’m a single parent, so I don’t have a choice. If I drop the ball, the game is over,” Holifield said.

Disruption from illness can have ripple effects on young kids. Unduly stressed parents can become a stress on the baby, which can in turn cause sleep, gastrointestinal or socialization problems, said Dr. Sherri Alderman, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician.

The situation has also strained employers. Brad Lukas, chief nursing officer at Corewell Health Beaumont Grosse Pointe Hospital in Michigan, has seen eight or nine nurses calling out per shift, some because of sick children.

“We’re seeing a lot of people reduce their hours,” Lukas said. His own wife cut back nursing shifts so she can mostly stay home with their young children.

The continued chaos for young families is isolating, especially when other Americans’ lives are back to normal, said Lauren Hipp, early learning chief at MomsRising, an advocacy organization.

“I feel pretty angry about it,” said Hipp, whose own 2-, 6- and 8-year-old children have been wracked with illnesses, including RSV. “To feel like society has passed you by is a really difficult and lonely feeling.”

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AP Medical Writer Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report. Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri, and Savage from Chicago.

Savage is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. AP is solely responsible for all content.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — In Mississippi, where elected officials have a long history of praising self-sufficiency and condemning federal antipoverty programs, a welfare scandal has exposed how millions of dollars were diverted to the rich and powerful — including pro athletes — instead of helping some of the neediest people in the nation.

The misuse of welfare money rankles Nsombi Lambright-Haynes, executive director of One Voice, a nonprofit that works to help economically vulnerable communities in Mississippi.

“It’s shameful and disgusting, especially when we’ve been a state where we hear discussion every year about poor people not needing resources and poor people being lazy and just needing to get up to work,” she said.

The state has ranked among the poorest in the U.S. for decades, but only a fraction of its federal welfare money has been going toward direct aid to families. Instead, the Mississippi Department of Human Services allowed well-connected people to fritter away tens of millions of welfare dollars from 2016 to 2019, according to the state auditor and state and federal prosecutors.

Former Human Services Director John Davis has pleaded guilty to charges tied to welfare misspending in one of the state’s largest public corruption cases.

The scandal has ensnared high-profile figures, including retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre, who is one of more than three dozen defendants in a civil lawsuit that the current Human Services director filed to try to recover some of the welfare money wasted while Davis was in charge.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families money helped fund pet projects of the wealthy, including $5 million for a volleyball arena that Favre supported at his alma mater, the University of Southern Mississippi, Mississippi Auditor Shad White said. Favre’s daughter played volleyball at the school starting in 2017.

Another $2.1 million of TANF money went toward an attempt to develop a concussion drug by a company in which Favre was an investor, White said. Favre has asked a judge to dismiss him from the lawsuit, with his attorney arguing that the Department of Human Services — not Favre — is responsible for “grossly improper and unlawful handling of welfare funds.” Favre is not facing criminal charges.

Some of the money that was intended to help low-income families was spent on luxury travel for Davis and on people close to him, drug rehab for a former pro wrestler and boot camp-style gym classes for public officials.

In contrast, some welfare recipients say they found little relief but plenty of bureaucratic headaches from collecting modest monthly TANF payments.

“What may seem like an easy handout program is not,” said Brandy Nichols, a single mother of four children age 8 and younger.

Mississippi requires TANF recipients to prove they are actively looking for employment and Nichols, of Jackson, said the job search is time-consuming.

“It’s work, and sometimes work takes away my ability to find a true, stable job,” she said.

TANF is for families that have at least one child younger than 18. To qualify in Mississippi, the household income must be at or below 185% of the federal poverty level. The current upper income limit for a family of three is $680 a month.

The Associated Press researched poverty statistics for 1982 through 2021, which show Mississippi was the poorest state for 19 of those 40 years and among the five poorest for 38 years. In 2021, the U.S. poverty rate was 11.6% and Mississippi’s was the highest in the nation, 17.4%.

Federal statistics show a dramatic decrease in the number of Mississippi residents receiving individual TANF aid starting in 2012, the first year Republican Phil Bryant was governor, and continuing into the term of current Republican Gov. Tate Reeves. Bryant chose Davis to lead the Department of Human Services.

During the 2012 budget year, 24,180 Mississippians received TANF. By the 2021 budget year, that was down to 2,880 in a state with nearly 3 million residents.

Robert G. “Bob” Anderson, the current Mississippi Department of Human Services executive director, told Democratic state lawmakers in October that about 90% of people who apply for TANF in Mississippi don’t receive it, either because their applications are denied or because they abandon their applications.

Those who do qualify get the lowest payments in the country, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

April Jackson, a single mother with children ranging in age from a few months to 13 years old, said she received about $190 a month in TANF when she was pregnant with her third child.

Eleven years ago, the monthly payment “bought diapers and stuff like that.” But she said that after she started receiving child support from the father of her oldest son, Human Services ended her TANF benefits because she was suddenly over the income limit for the aid.

“It messed me up real bad,” said Jackson, who lives on a tight budget. “I wasn’t able to pay my part of the bills. I couldn’t buy my kids clothes for school or the shoes they needed.”

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said that in 2020, New Hampshire had the highest TANF payment in the country, $862 a month for a single parent and one child. Mississippi’s monthly payment for a family of two was $146.

In 2021, Mississippi increased its TANF payments by $90 per month, per family — the state’s first increase since 1999 — at Anderson’s recommendation. The increase cost $2.8 million, and Republican Sen. Joey Fillingane said during a Senate debate that it was all paid by federal money, not state money.

“We’re not talking about a lot of money,” Fillingane said. “These are the poorest of the poor in our state.”

“Of course, those are all our dollars,” replied Sen. Melanie Sojourner, one of 18 legislators — all Republicans — who voted against the increase.

The federal government sends Mississippi about $86.5 million a year for TANF and allows states wide leeway in spending. Records show Mississippi does not always spend its entire allotment, sometimes carrying millions of dollars from year to year.

During Mississippi’s 2016 budget year, the Department of Human Services sent $17.3 million in direct aid to recipients, about half of the state’s TANF spending. During the next three years under Davis, the department decreased the amount of TANF money going to individuals.

By the 2019 budget year, Human Services was spending $9.6 million on direct aid, 16% of the TANF money. About $27.6 million, 46% of the money, was going to the Mississippi Community Education Center. The organization — run by Nancy New and one of her sons, Zachary New, who have pleaded guilty to state charges in the welfare misspending case — said it was fighting poverty by working on parenting skills, school dropout prevention, job readiness and other programs.

For Nichols — who spoke to Democratic state lawmakers about her experience on TANF — maintaining steady employment has been difficult at times because some of her children have health problems and she has to care for them.

She has worked as a cashier, waitress, housekeeper and certified nurse assistant. But when she has been unable to find a job quickly, she has had to work volunteer hours in a state Department of Human Services office as a condition for keeping TANF payments.

“That’s not career development,” she said. “That’s called being stuck in limbo.”

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Follow Emily Wagster Pettus on Twitter at http://twitter.com/EWagsterPettus.