Russia ‘will not forgive’ U.S. denial of journalist visas

MOSCOW — Russia said Sunday that the United States has denied visas to journalists who wanted to cover Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s trip to New York, and Lavrov suggested that Moscow would take strong retaliatory measures.

There was no immediate comment from the U.S. State Department about the claim of refused visas. The journalists aimed to cover Lavrov’s appearance at the United Nations to mark Russia’s chairmanship of the Security Council.

“A country that calls itself the strongest, smartest, free and fair country has chickened out and done something stupid by showing what its sworn assurances about protecting freedom of speech and access to information are really worth,” Lavrov said before leaving Moscow on Sunday.

“Be sure that we will not forget and will not forgive,” he said.

“I emphasize that we will find ways to respond to this, so that the Americans will remember for a long time not to do this,” deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said.

The dispute comes in the wake of high tensions with Washington over the arrest last month of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, whom Russia accuses of espionage. The United States has declared him to be “wrongfully detained.”

Many Western journalists stationed in Moscow left the country after Russia sent troops into Ukraine. Russia currently requires foreign journalists to renew their visas and accreditation every three months, compared to once a year before the fighting began.

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Death threats, doxxing and panic buttons: Docs who treat trans youth are under attack

Boston Children’s Hospital has received several bomb threats.

The gender clinic at Seattle Children’s Hospital has installed panic buttons and hired a full-time security guard.

Doctors who treat transgender children are receiving death threats, debating whether to buy guns, scouring the internet to see if they’ve been doxxed and trying to get their addresses removed from property records.

The impact of gender-affirming care bans — inflamed by the rhetoric on the right about “child grooming” — is rippling beyond Republican-controlled states, making it harder everywhere for transgender youth to receive care and physicians to provide it, eight doctors who provide gender-affirming care to transgender youth told POLITICO. The Human Rights Campaign and the Southern Poverty Law Center, which have been tracking attacks against doctors, report similar findings.

Even in states without bans, providers said death threats, harassment, fears of litigation and, in some cases, a lack of support from institutions have created a chilling effect that undermines their ability to provide care.

“I got an email telling me that I’m evil, I’m foolish, my work is opposing God, that I harm children, that I’m going to hell, and that I should die,” said Meredithe McNamara, an assistant professor of pediatrics who specializes in adolescent medicine at Yale University. “The threats, the harassment, the constant fear of, ‘Did I say that right? Is that OK? Should I have said that differently? Did I present my position in a public space as effectively as possible, and also did I say anything that is going to get my family targeted in some way?’”

Physicians in states where gender-affirming care remains legal said they now spend significant chunks of patient visits either batting down misinformation from parents or talking through kids’ mental health concerns related to the new laws. The bans outlawing therapies in nearly a third of the country threaten to overwhelm clinics in blue states, like Minnesota, that already have waiting lists of anywhere from several months to more than a year and have left red-state providers grappling with how to care for their young transgender patients under the bans.

“We think about this affecting kids who live in [ban] states, but it’s affecting kids everywhere and it’s affecting care everywhere,” said Angela Kade Goepferd, medical director of the Gender Health Program at Children’s Minnesota. “It affects the families in the states where care is banned, and it affects the families in the states where the care is not.”’

And the bans keep coming: North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum on Wednesday signed a law banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth. Nebraska lawmakers are poised to enact a similar ban after legislation passed a second round of debate earlier this month. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s emergency regulation requiring transgender youth and adults complete a long checklist before receiving gender-affirming care is scheduled to take effect this week. And Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte is expected to soon sign a ban after legislators adopted his proposed amendments last week over the pleas of their transgender colleague.

“I’ve sat down and met with transgender youth and adults. I understand their struggles are real, and my heart goes out to them. I firmly believe that, as with all of God’s children, Montanans who struggle with their gender identity deserve love, compassion, and respect,” Gianforte wrote in a letter to Montana’s Republican legislative leadership last week. But, he argued, it is “right and appropriate” to restrict access to hormones and surgery to adults.

Gianforte and other conservatives argue that kids aren’t mature enough to make serious, life-altering medical decisions, even with parental consent, and have expressed concerns about the long-term outcomes of such interventions.

While some doctors, especially those early in their careers, said the bans have inspired them to work harder and continue providing this kind of care, others who are older said they have considered quitting or retiring early — though they acknowledge doing so would make it even harder for their patients to receive care. There are an estimated 300,000 transgender youth in the U.S. and about 60 comprehensive gender clinics for children and adolescents, though care can also be provided outside of those settings, according to the Human Rights Campaign and the Williams Institute, a think tank that researches sexual orientation and gender identity law at the UCLA School of Law.

The pediatricians told POLITICO that part of their ethos is being an advocate for children, but the threats have left them worried about their personal safety, and the safety of their families, patients and hospitals. Four of the doctors interviewed were granted anonymity because of fears about threats to their safety, their clinic, their patients or their own family, or because they were not authorized to speak by their institution, in some cases because of the threats.

But some of the doctors said they feel that by staying quiet they are protecting their institution’s safety but letting down their patients.

“I know many of my colleagues feel like when we’re doing what they need us to do for our protection and our institution’s protection, many of us also feel like we’re letting the community who needs us the most down,” a blue state pediatrician said.

Those willing to speak on the record said they were doing so either because they had no family, had talked through the possible risks with their spouses and children, or because they felt protected and supported to speak publicly by their hospital or clinic.

“As our legislature also votes to advance constitutional carry, and as AR-15s are incredibly easy to get, there’s a non-zero chance somebody might kill me, and I know that. I don’t like it. At least I would die standing up for my values, but I’ve had to make peace with that,” said Alex Dworak, associate medical director of family medicine at OneWorld and assistant professor of family medicine at University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Targeting physicians is not new: The ’70s and ’80s saw a wave of attacks against abortion clinics, including 110 cases of arson, firebombing or bombing. Three people were killed inside a Colorado Planned Parenthood in 2015. And just last year, an under-construction abortion clinic in Casper, Wyo. was set on fire.

While Arkansas was the first state to enact a gender-affirming care ban in 2021 — after the legislature overrode then-Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s veto — doctors told POLITICO that the threats didn’t begin in earnest until the following year when Boston Children’s was targeted on social media and received several bomb threats over the summer and fall.

In 2023, those threats have continued as more red states approve bans as part of a broader agenda that includes preventing transgender people from participating in sports or using bathrooms in accordance with their gender identity and restricting access to drag shows.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate speech, 24 hospitals and clinics that provide gender-affirming care to transgender youth have been targeted on social media over the last year, resulting in bomb threats, death threats to medical staff and temporary suspensions of services. And the Human Rights Campaign said the attacks have steadily increased.

“We launched our gender health program at Children’s Minnesota in 2019 — the front page of our Star Tribune here in Minneapolis — and barely a peep,” Goepferd said. “We have really been, up until recently, able to provide good, high-quality care in a way that we would all want to, regardless of what speciality in pediatrics we were in.”

Every major medical association, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association, supports the use of gender-affirming care to treat transgender people with gender dysphoria, or the feelings of discomfort or distress some transgender people experience when their bodies don’t align with their gender identity. For transgender youth, that typically includes social support, mental health help, puberty blockers, hormone therapy and, very rarely, gender-affirming surgery.

Those who oppose gender-affirming care argue that kids should wait until they are adults to make the decision to take hormones or undergo surgery, and that the science around such treatments is unsettled.

“Children suffering discomfort with their sex are best served by compassionate mental health care that enables them to live comfortably in their bodies and with their true identities as male or female,” Matt Sharp, senior counsel and director of the Center for Legislative Advocacy at the conservative legal powerhouse Alliance Defending Freedom, which has helped conservative lawmakers draft trans-focused bills, said in a statement. He added that the organization will “continue to protect children from harmful, irreversible, and unnecessary medical procedures.”

The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association have released statements, published op-eds and documents in support of gender-affirming care and provided coaching and technical assistance to state-level affiliates that they say are closer to the legislative process and better suited to testifying at hearings. But several providers said they need more support.

“Right now, individual providers show up in public spaces and we feel like we get seen as lone actors, and that we don’t have the backing of large credible institutions, and that’s a really scary reality,” McNamara said. “It’s no longer like, so-and-so who speaks for the American Medical Association says this. It’s this person who you’ve never heard of is here — and it makes us much easier to target.”

Jack Resneck Jr., president of the American Medical Association, said that the association “stands in vehement opposition to governmental attempts to criminalize or otherwise impede on clinical decision-making.” Resneck added that the AMA has worked with state medical associations to oppose gender-affirming care bans since legislation first emerged in 2020 and has also been involved in legal challenges.

Mark Del Monte, the American Academy of Pediatrics’ chief executive officer and executive vice president, called gender-affirming care “vital to the health and wellbeing of our gender-diverse patients.”

Doctors in blue states also said they are happy to see legislatures enact so-called shield laws protecting access to gender-affirming care — as California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico and Washington have done — but some worry those policies will not hold up in court.

These doctors said they’re also worried about whether they will have the capacity to provide care to out-of-state patients given that most have waitlists that are several months long.

“It makes me worried about how we can adequately meet the needs of patients and families both here in Washington who have been on our waiting list for many months, but also so many patients and families that are uprooting their lives to be able to continue care,” said Gina Sequeira, co-director of Seattle Children’s Gender Clinic.

Broadly, the doctors worry about the future practice of gender-affirming care. They say that not only is the chilling effect from the bans stymieing research and collaboration, but also they fear that it will dissuade future doctors from going into an already small field and prevent doctors from receiving training.

“I am hopeful that I can be a quiet country doc and not have this be a part of my life. That is my hope, that this is not forever,” a red state pediatrician said. “But it’s hard to see that. It’s hard to see that future.”

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Baltics blast China diplomat for questioning independence of ex-Soviet states

Lu Shaye, China’s ambassador to France, said that former Soviet countries have no "effective status" in international law.

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U.S. evacuating diplomats in Sudan amid fierce fighting

WASHINGTON — U.S. troops are carrying out a precarious evacuation of American embassy staffers in the African nation of Sudan, shuttering the U.S. embassy there as fighting rages for a ninth day, according to a senior Biden administration official.

U.S. troops that airlifted embassy staff out of Khartoum have safely left Sudanese airspace, a second American official confirmed.

President Joe Biden ordered American troops to evacuate embassy personnel after receiving a recommendation earlier Saturday from his national security team with no end in sight to the fighting, according to the official who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the mission.

The evacuation order was believed to apply to about 70 Americans. U.S. forces were flying them from a landing zone at the embassy to an unspecified location.

The State Department has suspended operations at the embassy due to the dire security situation. It was not clear when the embassy might resume functioning.

According to the World Health Organization, fighting has killed more than 400 people since erupting April 15 between two factions whose leaders are vying for control over the country. The violence has included an unprovoked attack on an American diplomatic convoy and numerous incidents in which foreign diplomats and aid workers were killed, injured or assaulted.

The White House has said it has no plans for a government-coordinated evacuation of American citizens trapped in Sudan. An estimated 16,000 private U.S. citizens are registered with the embassy as being in Sudan. The State Department has cautioned that that figure probably is inaccurate because there is no requirement for Americans to register nor is there a requirement to notify the embassy when they leave.

The embassy issued an alert earlier Saturday cautioning that “due to the uncertain security situation in Khartoum and closure of the airport, it is not currently safe to undertake a U.S. government-coordinated evacuation of private U.S. citizens.” The U.S. evacuation planning got underway in earnest on Monday after the embassy convoy was attacked in Khartoum.

The Pentagon confirmed on Friday that U.S. troops were being moved to Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti ahead of a possible evacuation. Saudi Arabia announced the successful repatriation of some of its citizens on Saturday, sharing footage of Saudi nationals and other foreigners welcomed with chocolate and flowers as they stepped off an apparent evacuation ship at the Saudi port of Jeddah.

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Pence: If I decide to run, you'll know soon

Former Vice President Mike Pence said that he would expect to announce his 2024 presidential decision “well before” late June.

"I think if we have an announcement to make, it'll be well before late June,” the Indiana Republican told Robert Costa in an interview that will air Sunday morning on CBS’ “Face the Nation."

Pence stopped short of confirming that he’s “leaning in” toward a presidential campaign, but told Costa, “Well, I'm here in Iowa, Robert.”

It’s not Pence’s first time in Iowa, home to the season-opening 2024 GOP caucuses, in recent months. He traveled there at the beginning of March for a foreign policy forum.

He’s also made recent appearances in New Hampshire, the first primary state, and he’s taken other steps that indicate he's preparing for a run, like building out his political staff.

Pence’s implying that he might be planning to make a bid for president is not new: He said late November that he was giving “prayerful consideration” to a run.

Pence told Costa there was a clear rationale behind his timing.

“Anyone that would be serious about seeking the Republican nomination would need to be in this contest by June,” Pence said during the CBS interview.

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NAACP sues Mississippi over ‘separate and unequal policing’

JACKSON, Miss. — The NAACP warns that “separate and unequal policing” will return to Mississippi’s majority-Black capital under a state-run police department, and the civil rights organization is suing the governor and other officials over it.

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves says violent crime in Jackson has made it necessary to expand where the Capitol Police can patrol and to authorize some appointed rather than elected judges.

But the NAACP said in its lawsuit filed late Friday that these are serious violations of the principle of self-government because they take control of the police and some courts out of the hands of residents.

“In certain areas of Jackson, a citizen can be arrested by a police department led by a State-appointed official, be charged by a State-appointed prosecutor, be tried before a State-appointed judge, and be sentenced to imprisonment in a State penitentiary regardless of the severity of the act,” the lawsuit says.

Derrick Johnson, the national president of the NAACP, is himself a resident of Jackson. At a community meeting earlier this month, he said the policing law would treat Black people as “second-class citizens.”

The legislation was passed by a majority-white and Republican-controlled state House and Senate. Jackson is governed by Democrats and about 83% of residents are Black, the largest percentage of any major U.S. city.

The governor said this week that the Jackson Police Department is severely understaffed and he believes the state-run Capitol Police can provide stability. The city of 150,000 residents has had more than 100 homicides in each of the past three years.

“We’re working to address it,” Reeves said in a statement Friday. “And when we do, we’re met with overwhelming false cries of racism and mainstream media who falsely call our actions ‘Jim Crow.’”

According to one of the bills Reeves signed into law Friday, Capitol Police will have “concurrent” jurisdiction with Jackson Police Department in the city. The expanded jurisdiction for the Capitol Police would begin July 1.

Another law will create a temporary court within a Capitol Complex Improvement District covering a portion of Jackson. The court will have the same power as municipal courts, which handle misdemeanor cases, traffic violations and initial appearances for some criminal charges. The new law says people convicted in the Capitol Complex Improvement District Court may be put in a state prison rather than in a city or county jail.

The judge of the new court is not required to live in Jackson and will be appointed by the Mississippi Supreme Court chief justice. The current chief justice is a conservative white man.

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Faith lifted Pittsburgh Jews in long wait for massacre trial

PITTSBURGH — Three Jewish congregations, resolute in their defiance of the hatred that tried to destroy them, are still waiting for justice.

But united in their horror and grief, they haven’t been standing still as the criminal case for the massacre that changed everything has crawled through the federal court system.

Four and a half years ago, a gunman invaded the Tree of Life synagogue on a Sabbath morning and killed 11 worshippers from the three congregations that shared the building — Dor Hadash, New Light and Tree of Life. The shooting, in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood at the heart of Jewish Pittsburgh, was the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.

On Monday, jury selection is scheduled to begin in the long-delayed trial of the suspect, accused of dozens of charges including hate crimes resulting in death.

The three congregations are wary of what’s to come. Some members may be called to testify, and they’re bracing for graphic evidence and testimony that could revive the traumas of the attack on Oct. 27, 2018 — often referred to around here as simply 10/27.

The tension can be felt in private conversations and encounters — the griefs, the anxieties, the feelings of being in a media fishbowl.

But each in their own ways, members are finding renewed purpose in honoring those lost in the attack, in the bold practice of their faith, in activism on issues like gun violence and immigration, in taking a stand against antisemitism and other forms of bigotry.

“We don’t want to be silenced as Jews,” said Rich Weinberg, chair of the social action committee for Dor Hadash. “We want to be active as Jews with an understanding of Jewish values. ... We are going to still be here. We will not be intimidated.”

That was evident even in subtle details of a Passover service held earlier this month in New Light’s chapel, joined by some members of Dor Hadash.

Some offering Yizkor, or remembrance, prayers were doing so in honor of slain loved ones. One prayer was read in memory of the “Kedoshim of Pittsburgh, murdered al kiddush Hashem” — holy martyrs, killed while sanctifying God’s name. The prayer, modeled on prayers for Jewish martyrs of medieval Europe, has been woven into the ritual fabric of Jewish Pittsburgh.

One of those leading Passover prayers was Carol Black, who survived the attack that claimed the life of her brother, Richard Gottfried, and two other New Light members, Melvin Wax and Daniel Stein. They had led much of New Light’s ritual worship.

“Rich and Dan and Mel were our religious heart,” said Stephen Cohen, co-president of New Light. “And we had some very big shoes to fill.”

Members such as Black and Bruce Hyde have stepped into them. Hyde said when he once read a passage that had been read by Stein, he felt his presence: “He was up there with me.”

Cohen said the congregation had three priorities after the attack: to memorialize those lost, to continue their ritual life and to further religious education. New Light, like Tree of Life, is part of the moderate Conservative denomination of Judaism.

The congregation dedicated a monument honoring its three martyrs — shaped with images of Torah scrolls and prayer shawls — at its cemetery, where it also created a chapel adorned with stained glass windows and other mementos honoring the victims.

New Light Co-President Barbara Caplan said her dream for the congregation is “that we have many more years of Friday night services, Saturday morning services, holidays together, where we just go on being the family that we are.”

Cohen said the congregation has been overwhelmed by support from Christian, Sikh and other communities and wanted to build on those relationships. It has held Bible studies with local Black churches, and members visited the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, drawing solace from a congregation that lost nine members to a racist gunman in 2015. “I’ve never been part of a group hug of a hundred people,” Cohen recalled.

All three of the modest-sized congregations have been meeting in nearby synagogues since the attack closed the Tree of Life building.

Rabbi Jeffrey Myers had been leading Tree of Life Congregation for just over a year when he survived 10/27. He carries the scarred memories of the gunshots that killed seven members: Joyce Fienberg, Rose Mallinger, Cecil and David Rosenthal, Bernice and Sylvan Simon and Irving Younger. Andrea Wedner, Mallinger’s daughter, was wounded in the attack.

Myers continues to speak forcefully against the bigotry behind it.

His mission is “primarily to help my congregation community heal,” Myers said. “But beyond it is to speak up, to be a voice, to say, ‘No, this isn’t okay. It’s not acceptable. It never was. And it can never be.’”

He’d like to think the trial will expose the dangers of rising bigotry, but “it takes a concerted effort to be able to … walk a mile in someone else’s shoes,” he said. But it affects more than Jews. ”Someone who is an antisemite is most likely also the possessor of a long laundry list of personal grievances and other groups that that person does not like.”

Members are each recovering in their own ways, congregation president Alan Hausman said.

Each week when he makes announcements, Hausman said he includes this one: “It’s OK not to be OK, and we will get through this together.”

On Sunday, the day before jury selection, the Tree of Life Congregation is having a closure ceremony for its historic building. The congregation and a partner organization plan a major overhaul of the site, which will combine worship space with a memorial and antisemitism education, including about the Holocaust.

“We’re not really leaving, we will be back,” said Hausman.

“Hopefully we’ll be once again a happy, grounded, 160-year-old congregation,” added member Audrey Glickman, a survivor. “Back to being a solid group of people who come together regularly and do our thing.”

Dor Hadash, founded 60 years ago, is Pittsburgh’s only congregation in the progressive Reconstructionist movement of Judaism. Many members are drawn to its interlocking focuses on worship, study and social activism.

It was that activism that appears to have drawn the shooting suspect — who fulminated online against HIAS, a Jewish refugee resettlement agency — to the address where Dor Hadash met. The congregation was listed on HIAS’ website as a participant in a National Refugee Shabbat, which wove concern for migrants into Sabbath worship.

On 10/27, members Jerry Rabinowitz and Dan Leger were gathering for a Torah study when they heard the gunshots and ran to help. Rabinowitz was killed, and Leger seriously wounded.

But the attack has only emboldened Dor Hadash members.

They were soon organizing what became a separate group, Squirrel Hill Stands Against Gun Violence, advocating for gun safety legislation. And they redoubled their support for immigrants, refugees and their helpers such as HIAS. The congregation has sponsored a refugee family originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And they have taken a strong stand against rising antisemitism and white supremacy.

“I think advocacy has been a huge part of our healing,” said Dana Kellerman, communications chair for Dor Hadash. Advocacy “isn’t just about making myself feel better,” she added. “It is about trying to move the needle so that this doesn’t happen to somebody else.”

The congregation has been growing since the attack, said its president, Jo Recht. The historically lay-led congregation has hired its first staff rabbi, Amy Bardack. Her formal installation is this Sunday — a date that wasn’t specifically chosen in advance of the trial but that provides a welcome occasion of celebration.

“There are a lot of people who are seeking some way to help so that the world is a more compassionate place,” Recht said.

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