By MICHAEL POLAND <a href="https://dailymontanan.com/2022/06/01/touring-the-volcano-shaped-landscape-of-yellowstone-national-park/">Daily Montanan</a>

The road over Dunraven Pass between Tower and Canyon Junctions, in the northeast part of&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;National Park, exposes an outstanding sequence of geological history, much of which significantly predates recent&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;volcanism.

Construction work closed the road during the summers of 2020 and 
2021, but the route is now open. The occasion provides an ideal 
opportunity to rediscover some of the most diverse geology and 
outstanding vistas in all of Yellowstone&nbsp;National Park! Let’s have a look, traveling south from Tower Junction to Canyon Junction.

The geology of the eastern portion of&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;National Park, outside the boundaries on&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;Caldera,
 is dominated by the Absarokas—a volcanic range that was active from 
about 53 to 43 million years ago. In contrast to the giant&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;caldera&nbsp;now
 filled with hummocky hills of rhyolite lava flows, the Absaroka Range 
back then might have looked more like the Cascade Range does today—a 
chain of large, steep-sided stratovolcanoes that erupted lava and ash 
flows, and whose slopes failed on multiple occasions with large 
collapses that created mudflow events. The Absaroka volcanoes have a 
different rock chemistry, a different origin and evolution, and are 
distinct from the younger&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;volcanism.

Even though the volcanoes have long since eroded way—the Absaroka 
Rage today only exposes the “guts” of these long-dead eruptive 
centers—debris from their eruptions is scattered across the region. In 
fact, petrified trees near Tower Junction were preserved because they 
were encased in ancient mudflow deposits from these volcanoes. The area 
is actually one of the largest deposits of petrified trees found 
anywhere in the world!

The road from Tower Junction (near Roosevelt Lodge) to Tower Fall—a 
magnificent waterfall that formed within the Absaroka volcanic 
rocks—follows the path of the&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;River 
and provides numerous vistas into its spectacular canyon. The base of 
the canyon is made up of debris from the ancient Absaroka volcanic 
eruptions.

About halfway up the canyon walls of the&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;River,
 and easily visible across the river from the road (especially from the 
Calcite Springs overlook), are a pair of dark, horizontal layers with a 
well-defined columnar structure (formed due to slow cooling of hot 
material). These are lava flows known as the basalt of the Narrows and 
that erupted about 1.3 million years ago—roughly the same time as the 
formation of second cycle&nbsp;caldera-forming eruption, the Henrys Fork&nbsp;caldera, southwest of&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;National
 Park in eastern Idaho. The two lava flows are separated by a thick 
accumulation of gravels, including from glacial deposits, and they are 
overlain by more glacial debris. Similar flows of columnar basaltic lava
 are also present along the road. Named the Junction Butte Basalt, this 
flow erupted about 2 million years ago, after the formation of, and 
outside, the Huckleberry Ridge&nbsp;caldera—the first major&nbsp;caldera-forming eruption in the&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;region 2.1 million years ago.

A curious non-volcanic feature is also present in the same area—oil 
seeps! Deep beneath the surface in this area are sediments from an 
inland sea that are tens to hundreds of millions of years old. These 
sediments contain hydrocarbons formed from long-buried organic material.
 Perhaps aided by heat from&nbsp;Yellowstone’s 
magmatic system and fractures formed by circulating hydrothermal fluids,
 the hydrocarbons have made it to the surface as oil seeps at Calcite 
Springs and a few other areas in this part of&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;National Park.

Continuing south from Tower Fall, the road climbs through Absaroka 
volcanic rocks to Mount Washburn. Roadcuts along the route expose mud 
flow deposits that dip away from the summit of Mount Washburn, a massive
 Absaroka volcano. The dipping rock units follow the slope of the 
ancient volcano!

If you have the time, be sure to take in the view from Mount 
Washburn—either from the trailhead, the parking area off Chittenden 
Road, or from the lookout atop the peak itself. Looking east, the rugged
 Absaroka Range is laid out before you. To the southwest is the Grand 
Canyon of the&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;and&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;caldera, 631,000 years old and largely filled by lava flows and glacial debris. In the distance is&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;Lake and the southern rim of the&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;Caldera&nbsp;at the base of Mount Sheridan and Flat Mountain.

As you descend from Dunraven Pass toward Canyon Junction, keep an eye
 out for Washburn Hot Springs to the east. Within about three miles of 
Canyon Junction, you will finally leave the steep slopes of the Absaroka
 Range and its diverse forests and cross into the lodgepole pine stands 
that grow on the soils of rhyolite lava flows that erupted after the 
formation of&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;Caldera. After another mile or two, you have descended into the&nbsp;caldera&nbsp;itself, although much of its boundary is obscured by the rhyolite lava flows.

The geology of Canyon Junction is dominated by rhyolite lava flows 
that are several hundred thousand years old. Atop these flows are lake 
sediments and glacial debris, including some impressive boulders, known 
as erratics, that were transported at least tens of miles by ice that 
covered the&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;region as recently as about 15,000 years ago.

The short drive between Tower and Canyon Junctions showcases tens of 
millions of years of Earth history, from petrified trees encased in 
ancient mudflows, to relatively young glacial and lake deposits that sit
 atop thick rhyolite lava flows. If you happen to be in&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;this
 summer, be sure to take advantage of the opening of the road over 
Dunraven Pass to explore some of the most diverse geology in all of&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;National Park!

Yellowstone&nbsp;Caldera&nbsp;Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;Volcano
 Observatory. This week’s contribution is from Michael Poland, 
geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey and Scientist-in-Charge of 
the&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;Volcano Observatory.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/6/1654118184959.png" alt="View of the Yellowstone caldera from the Washburn Range. The caldera extends to the base of the Red Mountains in the upper right of the photo. The rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is in the foreground (Photo by Jacob W. Frank | National Park Service). " />
 <figcaption>View of the Yellowstone caldera from the Washburn Range. The caldera extends to the base of the Red Mountains in the upper right of the photo. The rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is in the foreground (Photo by Jacob W. Frank | National Park Service). </figcaption>
 </figure>By MICHAEL POLAND <a href="https://dailymontanan.com/2022/06/01/touring-the-volcano-shaped-landscape-of-yellowstone-national-park/">Daily Montanan</a>The road over Dunraven Pass between Tower and Canyon Junctions, in the northeast part of&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;National Park, exposes an outstanding sequence of geological history, much of which significantly predates recent&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;volcanism.Construction work closed the road during the summers of 2020 and 
2021, but the route is now open. The occasion provides an ideal 
opportunity to rediscover some of the most diverse geology and 
outstanding vistas in all of Yellowstone&nbsp;National Park! Let’s have a look, traveling south from Tower Junction to Canyon Junction.The geology of the eastern portion of&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;National Park, outside the boundaries on&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;Caldera,
 is dominated by the Absarokas—a volcanic range that was active from 
about 53 to 43 million years ago. In contrast to the giant&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;caldera&nbsp;now
 filled with hummocky hills of rhyolite lava flows, the Absaroka Range 
back then might have looked more like the Cascade Range does today—a 
chain of large, steep-sided stratovolcanoes that erupted lava and ash 
flows, and whose slopes failed on multiple occasions with large 
collapses that created mudflow events. The Absaroka volcanoes have a 
different rock chemistry, a different origin and evolution, and are 
distinct from the younger&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;volcanism.Even though the volcanoes have long since eroded way—the Absaroka 
Rage today only exposes the “guts” of these long-dead eruptive 
centers—debris from their eruptions is scattered across the region. In 
fact, petrified trees near Tower Junction were preserved because they 
were encased in ancient mudflow deposits from these volcanoes. The area 
is actually one of the largest deposits of petrified trees found 
anywhere in the world!The road from Tower Junction (near Roosevelt Lodge) to Tower Fall—a 
magnificent waterfall that formed within the Absaroka volcanic 
rocks—follows the path of the&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;River 
and provides numerous vistas into its spectacular canyon. The base of 
the canyon is made up of debris from the ancient Absaroka volcanic 
eruptions.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/6/1654118260378.jpeg" alt=" The two distinct, columnar-jointed, lava flows seen here in the Narrows of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River erupted about 1.3 million years ago at about the time of the second caldera-forming rhyolitic ash-flow eruption, which occurred west of Yellowstone National Park. Thick layers of stream-deposited gravels lie beneath and between the two lava flows visible in this photo. The cliffs eroded into pinnacles below the lower basalt are older volcanic rocks of the Absaroka volcanic field. (Photo by Yellowstone Volcano Observatory)." />
 <figcaption> The two distinct, columnar-jointed, lava flows seen here in the Narrows of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River erupted about 1.3 million years ago at about the time of the second caldera-forming rhyolitic ash-flow eruption, which occurred west of Yellowstone National Park. Thick layers of stream-deposited gravels lie beneath and between the two lava flows visible in this photo. The cliffs eroded into pinnacles below the lower basalt are older volcanic rocks of the Absaroka volcanic field. (Photo by Yellowstone Volcano Observatory).</figcaption>
 </figure>About halfway up the canyon walls of the&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;River,
 and easily visible across the river from the road (especially from the 
Calcite Springs overlook), are a pair of dark, horizontal layers with a 
well-defined columnar structure (formed due to slow cooling of hot 
material). These are lava flows known as the basalt of the Narrows and 
that erupted about 1.3 million years ago—roughly the same time as the 
formation of second cycle&nbsp;caldera-forming eruption, the Henrys Fork&nbsp;caldera, southwest of&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;National
 Park in eastern Idaho. The two lava flows are separated by a thick 
accumulation of gravels, including from glacial deposits, and they are 
overlain by more glacial debris. Similar flows of columnar basaltic lava
 are also present along the road. Named the Junction Butte Basalt, this 
flow erupted about 2 million years ago, after the formation of, and 
outside, the Huckleberry Ridge&nbsp;caldera—the first major&nbsp;caldera-forming eruption in the&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;region 2.1 million years ago.A curious non-volcanic feature is also present in the same area—oil 
seeps! Deep beneath the surface in this area are sediments from an 
inland sea that are tens to hundreds of millions of years old. These 
sediments contain hydrocarbons formed from long-buried organic material.
 Perhaps aided by heat from&nbsp;Yellowstone’s 
magmatic system and fractures formed by circulating hydrothermal fluids,
 the hydrocarbons have made it to the surface as oil seeps at Calcite 
Springs and a few other areas in this part of&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;National Park.Continuing south from Tower Fall, the road climbs through Absaroka 
volcanic rocks to Mount Washburn. Roadcuts along the route expose mud 
flow deposits that dip away from the summit of Mount Washburn, a massive
 Absaroka volcano. The dipping rock units follow the slope of the 
ancient volcano!If you have the time, be sure to take in the view from Mount 
Washburn—either from the trailhead, the parking area off Chittenden 
Road, or from the lookout atop the peak itself. Looking east, the rugged
 Absaroka Range is laid out before you. To the southwest is the Grand 
Canyon of the&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;and&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;caldera, 631,000 years old and largely filled by lava flows and glacial debris. In the distance is&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;Lake and the southern rim of the&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;Caldera&nbsp;at the base of Mount Sheridan and Flat Mountain.As you descend from Dunraven Pass toward Canyon Junction, keep an eye
 out for Washburn Hot Springs to the east. Within about three miles of 
Canyon Junction, you will finally leave the steep slopes of the Absaroka
 Range and its diverse forests and cross into the lodgepole pine stands 
that grow on the soils of rhyolite lava flows that erupted after the 
formation of&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;Caldera. After another mile or two, you have descended into the&nbsp;caldera&nbsp;itself, although much of its boundary is obscured by the rhyolite lava flows.The geology of Canyon Junction is dominated by rhyolite lava flows 
that are several hundred thousand years old. Atop these flows are lake 
sediments and glacial debris, including some impressive boulders, known 
as erratics, that were transported at least tens of miles by ice that 
covered the&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;region as recently as about 15,000 years ago.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/6/1654118290471.jpeg" alt="This huge boulder was dropped by a retreating glacier on the north rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in Yellowstone National Park — a testament to Yellowstone’s icy past. (Photo by Yellowstone Volcano Observatory)." />
 <figcaption>This huge boulder was dropped by a retreating glacier on the north rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in Yellowstone National Park — a testament to Yellowstone’s icy past. (Photo by Yellowstone Volcano Observatory).</figcaption>
 </figure>The short drive between Tower and Canyon Junctions showcases tens of 
millions of years of Earth history, from petrified trees encased in 
ancient mudflows, to relatively young glacial and lake deposits that sit
 atop thick rhyolite lava flows. If you happen to be in&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;this
 summer, be sure to take advantage of the opening of the road over 
Dunraven Pass to explore some of the most diverse geology in all of&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;National Park!Yellowstone&nbsp;Caldera&nbsp;Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;Volcano
 Observatory. This week’s contribution is from Michael Poland, 
geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey and Scientist-in-Charge of 
the&nbsp;Yellowstone&nbsp;Volcano Observatory.

Touring the volcano-shaped landscape of Yellowstone National Park

KANSAS CITY (AP) –An 18-year-old was undergoing treatment for an eating disorder when she learned she was pregnant, already in the second trimester. A mom of two found out at 20 weeks that her much-wanted baby had no kidneys or bladder. A young woman was raped and couldn’t fathom continuing a pregnancy.

Abortions later in pregnancy are relatively rare, even more so now with the availability of medications to terminate early pregnancies.

Across large parts of the United States, they are also increasingly difficult to obtain.

Now, if the U.S. Supreme Court&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-abortion-draft-opinion-07439f9fc4542f1500ab78dfd34036b1">overturns</a>&nbsp;its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, women will face even more hurdles in some parts of the country, and may have to travel to another state to get an abortion.

That means more women could end up having the procedure later than they wish, and the burden falls more heavily on some groups, such as teens, poor, Black, Latino and Native American women and those who live in states where access to any abortion is limited.

“It’s not because people don’t want to have them sooner,” said Dr. Diane Horvath, an OB-GYN in Baltimore, Maryland, who has performed abortions for 16 years. “It’s because barriers and new information cause them to have to push it back to later in pregnancy.”

The Associated Press interviewed three women who had abortions later in their pregnancy. While their backgrounds and reasons for terminating their pregnancies were varied, none expressed doubt about their decision — or said they were traumatized by it — and all said they were grateful that they were able to do it.

Christina Taylor already had two kids when she became pregnant with her third. Everything was going well at the start and she was looking forward to welcoming a new baby into the family.

When she was 20 weeks pregnant, Taylor went for an ultrasound and basic anatomy scan that is normally done at this stage. For most people, this is a time to find out the baby’s sex. For some, it’s also when fetal abnormalities are detected.

“I laid down and the ultrasound tech was doing her thing and she was getting really quiet and was taking a really long time,” she recalled. “She left the room at one point, ‘I need to talk to the doctor.’”

When the tech returned, Taylor could see from the look on her face that something was wrong. When the doctor arrived, he told the couple that there was no amniotic fluid. There were also no kidneys. The baby would likely not survive the pregnancy, or if by some miracle made it to full term, he would die shortly after birth.

“I told the doctor, look, I’m not sure … I don’t buy the age of viability thing, but for my own mental health and for the health of my family I want to terminate my pregnancy as soon as possible,” Taylor recalled.

She got a second doctor’s opinion and an MRI, which not only confirmed that there were no kidneys present, but also no bladder.

Fortunately, in Colorado, abortion is legal, as it was at the time, with no gestational limits. In the U.S., nearly all abortions take place in the first trimester of pregnancy. Just over 6% of abortions were performed at 14 to 20 weeks’ gestation, the second trimester, in 2019 according to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. Less than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/abortion.htm" target="_blank">1% took place at 21 weeks or later,</a>&nbsp;in the third, based on the most recent data available.

Taylor’s story shows what getting an abortion with access to good health care, health insurance and no legal obstacles can look like.

“I had the option to wait it out and see when he passed and then, you know, you’d have a stillbirth. But I knew I couldn’t do that. Like, I couldn’t put my kids through that,” Taylor said.

On the way home from the MRI she called her insurance company and found that they covered both types of abortion procedures, dilation and evacuation, D&amp;E, and induction and dilation, or I&amp;D. She chose the latter, which essentially would mean inducing labor and going through delivery. This way, she could have the procedure in a maternity ward, with a team of midwives.

“There was a small chance that he could have been born still alive and we would have been able to hold him and say goodbye when he passed,” Taylor said.

She labored for a day and a half. Given the circumstances, she recalled it as an overall positive experience, knowing “how much worse it could have been” had they still lived in Texas, where even in 2017 the procedure would not have been legal. The state’s current ban of all abortions after 6 weeks makes no exceptions – Taylor would have had to travel out of state to receive care, or possibly wait until her baby died in her womb, putting her at increased risk of infections and even death.

Only eight states allow abortions at any time during a pregnancy. Twenty states have no specific time limits but prohibit abortions at the time of “fetal viability,” which is generally considered to be around 23 or 24 weeks but depends on a host of other factors besides gestational age.

“I still grieve to this day for the loss of my son and my husband does too,” Taylor, who has been sharing her abortion story to bring attention to experiences such as hers, said. “But you know, we accept that that’s something that happens sometimes. And especially because of the context of knowing how lucky we were to just not have laws in the way of just doing what felt right.”

“Everyone thinks you present pregnancies the same way. You miss a period, you throw up, you take a test and at five weeks, you know you’re pregnant. And that is just not how life shakes out for a lot of people,” said Erika Christensen, founder of PatientForward, a nonprofit that helps people access later abortions.

Jenn Chalifoux, now 30 and studying law at the University of Colorado in Boulder, became pregnant in 2010, when she was 18 years old and receiving inpatient care for an eating disorder in New York. Her story touches on popular myths — that women always know they are pregnant and that women in liberal states with laws that only ban rare late abortions can easily get them.

Chalifoux returned home from college in the summer before her sophomore year to receive treatment for restrictive eating. A common symptom of such eating disorders is the loss of one’s period. A common – though by no means fail-safe – sign of being pregnant is also the loss of one’s period.

“I had a medical team of doctors and psychiatrists and stuff that I was working with. And at no point did any of us think that the fact that I hadn’t gotten my period was because of a pregnancy,” Chalifoux said.

As she was starting to recover from the eating disorder, though, her period still hadn’t returned. She was on birth control, but just to rule it out, she took a home pregnancy test, which was positive. After confirming the pregnancy through a blood test, she reached out to Planned Parenthood, where she was told that it was too late for a medical abortion and she would need a surgical procedure.

“I spent probably at least two weeks thinking about the financials, going through the money that I had,” Chalifoux said. “And a week makes a difference.”

The cost of an abortion increases significantly as time goes on, from a few hundred dollars to thousands in the second trimester and even tens of thousands later on. For many women, financial barriers to abortion serve to push the procedure later, because it can take time to come up with money. Medicaid, which provides health care coverage to low-income Americans, does not pay for abortions except in the case of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger.

“It’s really hard to get an abortion in this country,” Christensen said. “And the idea that people are able to seek care by a certain date is kind of based on the myths that we get all the information we need by a certain time and that we live in equitable environments with equal access to resources and health care. Neither of those are true.”

Horvath, a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, said she’s already seeing patients from other states in her Maryland practice who have found themselves too far into the pregnancy to be able to have abortions in their state.

Realizing that she could not handle it alone, Chalifoux told her parents, who embraced her with support. By this point, weeks had passed since she learned she was pregnant and she started to experience physical symptoms of pregnancy. The experience of not having control over her body as it changed horrified her and she said she getting intrusive thoughts of performing an abortion on herself.

“I just remember feeling like I wanted to cut myself open or die. The experience of not having control over my body and feeling my body, feeling it change, noticing the changes and knowing that I was getting more pregnant every day was just … I mean, it was like horror,” she recalled.

After going for an initial appointment at a hospital to prepare for the procedure, another ultrasound revealed that she was further along than first thought. In all, Chalifoux said it took about a month from the time she learned she was pregnant until she was able to receive an abortion, a few days after she turned 19.

“It was such a long time ago that I’ve healed from a lot of it, but I’m able to recognize that where I used to think that my abortion was traumatic for me, I can realize now that it was the pregnancy that was traumatic. And that the abortion was actually very healing,” she said.

Today, Chalifoux is studying law, hoping to become a public defender or find work fighting against mass incarceration and speaks publicly about her abortion as part of her reproductive rights activism. Looking back, she says, she does not think she would have survived if she were forced to carry the pregnancy to term.

“I can remember having this fear that I would be forced to give birth,” she said. “And I can remember thinking that I would rather die.”

It was July 2020. The young woman decided to check out her friend’s stand-up comedy show in a downtown Houston comedy club. She wouldn’t know anyone in the audience, but that didn’t matter. Working in the service industry and being a social, responsible person who had lived on her own since she turned 18, she wasn’t worried. She met what seemed like “a group of really cool people.” She had some drinks with them and had a good time, she recalled. Looking back, she doesn’t recall any women being part of the group. But she trusted herself.

“Everything kind of happened really fast,” said the woman, 31, whom the AP is not identifying because she is the victim of sexual assault. “I’m pretty sure, pretty sure someone slipped something in one of my drinks. I ended up waking up the next morning in a rundown motel room somewhere in southwest Houston.”

She had nothing on her except her clothes and shoes. Her phone, wallet and underwear were missing. It was about 10:30 a.m. and the motel’s management was banging on her door. Instead of offering help, she recalled, they yelled at her and kicked her out. The woman, who is Black, thinks they might have thought she was a prostitute. She walked along the side of the highway until she found a gas station where she could call a family member to pick her up.

Time went on, and she didn’t tell anyone what happened except one close friend. She started dating someone.

In late October, early November of that year, she, took a home pregnancy test. She was on birth control, but she figured maybe it had failed. She was pregnant.

After an initial appointment with a doctor who gave her an incorrect gestational age, she followed up at a women’s clinic, where she learned that she was actually further along. She did the math, and traced back the start of her pregnancy to the time she was raped back in July.

“And that was just something that I was not … I would not have been able to live with,” she said.

The young woman said it took her more than a week to absorb the shock of learning that she became pregnant from a sexual assault. More time passed as she searched for an abortion provider, encountering crisis pregnancy centers that tried to steer her away from terminating the pregnancy. One of the centers, she said, was calling her daily at one point. The woman said she felt harassed.

There was also the cost. According to medical bills the woman provided to the AP, the cost of her procedure increased by $2,500 between the time she was examined in Austin before her abortion and the time she arrived in New Mexico for the procedure. PatientForward helped cover her costs.

She was in her third trimester by the time she got on an airplane, alone, to fly to New Mexico and terminate her pregnancy at 27 weeks of gestation. She hasn’t told her family what happened, or any other friends, still coping with feelings of shame and guilt from both the rape and the abortion. She does not know who raped her.

“I have no idea who did it. No idea,” she said. “I never went back and pursued it.”

By BARBARA ORTUTAYKANSAS CITY (AP) –An 18-year-old was undergoing treatment for an eating disorder when she learned she was pregnant, already in the second trimester. A mom of two found out at 20 weeks that her much-wanted baby had no kidneys or bladder. A young woman was raped and couldn’t fathom continuing a pregnancy.Abortions later in pregnancy are relatively rare, even more so now with the availability of medications to terminate early pregnancies.Across large parts of the United States, they are also increasingly difficult to obtain.Now, if the U.S. Supreme Court&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-abortion-draft-opinion-07439f9fc4542f1500ab78dfd34036b1">overturns</a>&nbsp;its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, women will face even more hurdles in some parts of the country, and may have to travel to another state to get an abortion.That means more women could end up having the procedure later than they wish, and the burden falls more heavily on some groups, such as teens, poor, Black, Latino and Native American women and those who live in states where access to any abortion is limited.“It’s not because people don’t want to have them sooner,” said Dr. Diane Horvath, an OB-GYN in Baltimore, Maryland, who has performed abortions for 16 years. “It’s because barriers and new information cause them to have to push it back to later in pregnancy.”The Associated Press interviewed three women who had abortions later in their pregnancy. While their backgrounds and reasons for terminating their pregnancies were varied, none expressed doubt about their decision — or said they were traumatized by it — and all said they were grateful that they were able to do it.___WANTED BABY, MISSING ORGANSChristina Taylor already had two kids when she became pregnant with her third. Everything was going well at the start and she was looking forward to welcoming a new baby into the family.When she was 20 weeks pregnant, Taylor went for an ultrasound and basic anatomy scan that is normally done at this stage. For most people, this is a time to find out the baby’s sex. For some, it’s also when fetal abnormalities are detected.“I laid down and the ultrasound tech was doing her thing and she was getting really quiet and was taking a really long time,” she recalled. “She left the room at one point, ‘I need to talk to the doctor.’”When the tech returned, Taylor could see from the look on her face that something was wrong. When the doctor arrived, he told the couple that there was no amniotic fluid. There were also no kidneys. The baby would likely not survive the pregnancy, or if by some miracle made it to full term, he would die shortly after birth.“I told the doctor, look, I’m not sure … I don’t buy the age of viability thing, but for my own mental health and for the health of my family I want to terminate my pregnancy as soon as possible,” Taylor recalled.She got a second doctor’s opinion and an MRI, which not only confirmed that there were no kidneys present, but also no bladder.Fortunately, in Colorado, abortion is legal, as it was at the time, with no gestational limits. In the U.S., nearly all abortions take place in the first trimester of pregnancy. Just over 6% of abortions were performed at 14 to 20 weeks’ gestation, the second trimester, in 2019 according to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. Less than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/abortion.htm" target="_blank">1% took place at 21 weeks or later,</a>&nbsp;in the third, based on the most recent data available.Taylor’s story shows what getting an abortion with access to good health care, health insurance and no legal obstacles can look like.“I had the option to wait it out and see when he passed and then, you know, you’d have a stillbirth. But I knew I couldn’t do that. Like, I couldn’t put my kids through that,” Taylor said.On the way home from the MRI she called her insurance company and found that they covered both types of abortion procedures, dilation and evacuation, D&amp;E, and induction and dilation, or I&amp;D. She chose the latter, which essentially would mean inducing labor and going through delivery. This way, she could have the procedure in a maternity ward, with a team of midwives.“There was a small chance that he could have been born still alive and we would have been able to hold him and say goodbye when he passed,” Taylor said.She labored for a day and a half. Given the circumstances, she recalled it as an overall positive experience, knowing “how much worse it could have been” had they still lived in Texas, where even in 2017 the procedure would not have been legal. The state’s current ban of all abortions after 6 weeks makes no exceptions – Taylor would have had to travel out of state to receive care, or possibly wait until her baby died in her womb, putting her at increased risk of infections and even death.Only eight states allow abortions at any time during a pregnancy. Twenty states have no specific time limits but prohibit abortions at the time of “fetal viability,” which is generally considered to be around 23 or 24 weeks but depends on a host of other factors besides gestational age.“I still grieve to this day for the loss of my son and my husband does too,” Taylor, who has been sharing her abortion story to bring attention to experiences such as hers, said. “But you know, we accept that that’s something that happens sometimes. And especially because of the context of knowing how lucky we were to just not have laws in the way of just doing what felt right.”___‘I WAS FEELING SUICIDAL’“Everyone thinks you present pregnancies the same way. You miss a period, you throw up, you take a test and at five weeks, you know you’re pregnant. And that is just not how life shakes out for a lot of people,” said Erika Christensen, founder of PatientForward, a nonprofit that helps people access later abortions.Jenn Chalifoux, now 30 and studying law at the University of Colorado in Boulder, became pregnant in 2010, when she was 18 years old and receiving inpatient care for an eating disorder in New York. Her story touches on popular myths — that women always know they are pregnant and that women in liberal states with laws that only ban rare late abortions can easily get them.Chalifoux returned home from college in the summer before her sophomore year to receive treatment for restrictive eating. A common symptom of such eating disorders is the loss of one’s period. A common – though by no means fail-safe – sign of being pregnant is also the loss of one’s period.“I had a medical team of doctors and psychiatrists and stuff that I was working with. And at no point did any of us think that the fact that I hadn’t gotten my period was because of a pregnancy,” Chalifoux said.As she was starting to recover from the eating disorder, though, her period still hadn’t returned. She was on birth control, but just to rule it out, she took a home pregnancy test, which was positive. After confirming the pregnancy through a blood test, she reached out to Planned Parenthood, where she was told that it was too late for a medical abortion and she would need a surgical procedure.“I spent probably at least two weeks thinking about the financials, going through the money that I had,” Chalifoux said. “And a week makes a difference.”The cost of an abortion increases significantly as time goes on, from a few hundred dollars to thousands in the second trimester and even tens of thousands later on. For many women, financial barriers to abortion serve to push the procedure later, because it can take time to come up with money. Medicaid, which provides health care coverage to low-income Americans, does not pay for abortions except in the case of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger.“It’s really hard to get an abortion in this country,” Christensen said. “And the idea that people are able to seek care by a certain date is kind of based on the myths that we get all the information we need by a certain time and that we live in equitable environments with equal access to resources and health care. Neither of those are true.”Horvath, a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, said she’s already seeing patients from other states in her Maryland practice who have found themselves too far into the pregnancy to be able to have abortions in their state.Realizing that she could not handle it alone, Chalifoux told her parents, who embraced her with support. By this point, weeks had passed since she learned she was pregnant and she started to experience physical symptoms of pregnancy. The experience of not having control over her body as it changed horrified her and she said she getting intrusive thoughts of performing an abortion on herself.“I just remember feeling like I wanted to cut myself open or die. The experience of not having control over my body and feeling my body, feeling it change, noticing the changes and knowing that I was getting more pregnant every day was just … I mean, it was like horror,” she recalled.After going for an initial appointment at a hospital to prepare for the procedure, another ultrasound revealed that she was further along than first thought. In all, Chalifoux said it took about a month from the time she learned she was pregnant until she was able to receive an abortion, a few days after she turned 19.“It was such a long time ago that I’ve healed from a lot of it, but I’m able to recognize that where I used to think that my abortion was traumatic for me, I can realize now that it was the pregnancy that was traumatic. And that the abortion was actually very healing,” she said.Today, Chalifoux is studying law, hoping to become a public defender or find work fighting against mass incarceration and speaks publicly about her abortion as part of her reproductive rights activism. Looking back, she says, she does not think she would have survived if she were forced to carry the pregnancy to term.“I can remember having this fear that I would be forced to give birth,” she said. “And I can remember thinking that I would rather die.”___RAPE AND A DOCTOR’S MISCALCULATIONIt was July 2020. The young woman decided to check out her friend’s stand-up comedy show in a downtown Houston comedy club. She wouldn’t know anyone in the audience, but that didn’t matter. Working in the service industry and being a social, responsible person who had lived on her own since she turned 18, she wasn’t worried. She met what seemed like “a group of really cool people.” She had some drinks with them and had a good time, she recalled. Looking back, she doesn’t recall any women being part of the group. But she trusted herself.“Everything kind of happened really fast,” said the woman, 31, whom the AP is not identifying because she is the victim of sexual assault. “I’m pretty sure, pretty sure someone slipped something in one of my drinks. I ended up waking up the next morning in a rundown motel room somewhere in southwest Houston.”She had nothing on her except her clothes and shoes. Her phone, wallet and underwear were missing. It was about 10:30 a.m. and the motel’s management was banging on her door. Instead of offering help, she recalled, they yelled at her and kicked her out. The woman, who is Black, thinks they might have thought she was a prostitute. She walked along the side of the highway until she found a gas station where she could call a family member to pick her up.Time went on, and she didn’t tell anyone what happened except one close friend. She started dating someone.In late October, early November of that year, she, took a home pregnancy test. She was on birth control, but she figured maybe it had failed. She was pregnant.After an initial appointment with a doctor who gave her an incorrect gestational age, she followed up at a women’s clinic, where she learned that she was actually further along. She did the math, and traced back the start of her pregnancy to the time she was raped back in July.“And that was just something that I was not … I would not have been able to live with,” she said.The young woman said it took her more than a week to absorb the shock of learning that she became pregnant from a sexual assault. More time passed as she searched for an abortion provider, encountering crisis pregnancy centers that tried to steer her away from terminating the pregnancy. One of the centers, she said, was calling her daily at one point. The woman said she felt harassed.There was also the cost. According to medical bills the woman provided to the AP, the cost of her procedure increased by $2,500 between the time she was examined in Austin before her abortion and the time she arrived in New Mexico for the procedure. PatientForward helped cover her costs.She was in her third trimester by the time she got on an airplane, alone, to fly to New Mexico and terminate her pregnancy at 27 weeks of gestation. She hasn’t told her family what happened, or any other friends, still coping with feelings of shame and guilt from both the rape and the abortion. She does not know who raped her.“I have no idea who did it. No idea,” she said. “I never went back and pursued it.”___

Limits on early abortion drive more women to get them later

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis added fuel to rumors about the future of his pontificate by announcing he would visit the central Italian city of L’Aquila in August for a feast initiated by Pope Celestine V, one of the few pontiffs who resigned before Pope Benedict XVI stepped down in 2013.

Italian and Catholic media have been rife with unsourced speculation that the 85-year-old Francis might be planning to follow in Benedict’s footsteps, given his increased mobility problems that have forced him to use a wheelchair for the last month.

Those rumors gained steam last week when Francis announced a consistory to create 21 new cardinals scheduled for Aug. 27. Sixteen of those cardinals are under age 80 and eligible to vote in a conclave to elect Francis’ successor.

Once they are added to the ranks of princes of the church, Francis will have stacked the College of Cardinals with 83 of the 132 voting-age cardinals. While there is no guarantee how the cardinals might vote, the chances that they will tap a successor who shares Francis’ pastoral priorities become ever greater.

In announcing the Aug. 27 consistory, Francis also announced he would host two days of talks the following week to brief the cardinals about his recent apostolic constitution reforming the Vatican bureaucracy. That document, which goes into effect Sunday, allows women to head Vatican offices, imposes term limits on priestly Vatican employees and positions the Holy See as an institution at the service of local churches, rather than vice versa.

Francis was elected pope in 2013 on a mandate to reform the Roman Curia. Now that the nine-year project has been rolled out and at least partially implemented, Francis’ main task as pope has in some ways been accomplished.

All of which made Saturday’s otherwise routine announcement of a pastoral visit to L’Aquila carry more speculative weight than it might otherwise have.

Notable was the timing: The Vatican and the rest of Italy are usually on holiday in August to mid-September, with all but essential business closed. Calling a major consistory in late August to create new cardinals, gathering churchmen for two days of talks on implementing his reform and making a symbolically significant pastoral visit suggests Francis might have out-of-the-ordinary business in mind.

“With today’s news that @Pontifex will go to L’Aquila in the very middle of the August consistory, it all got even more intriguing,” tweeted Vatican commentator Robert Mickens, linking to an essay he had published in La Croix International about the rumors swirling around the future of the pontificate.

The basilica in L’Aquila hosts the tomb of Celestine V, a hermit pope who resigned after five months in 1294, overwhelmed by the job. In 2009, Benedict visited L’Aquila, which had been devastated by a recent earthquake and prayed at Celestine’s tomb, leaving his pallium stole on it.

No one at the time appreciated the significance of the gesture. But four years later, the 85-year-old Benedict would follow in Celestine’s footsteps and resign, saying he no longer had the strength of body and mind to carry on the rigors of the papacy.

The Vatican announced Saturday Francis would visit L’Aquila to celebrate Mass on Aug. 28 and open the “Holy Door” at the basilica hosting Celestine’s tomb. The timing coincides with the L’Aquila church’s celebration of the Feast of Forgiveness, which was created by Celestine in a papal bull.

No pope has travelled to L’Aquila since to close out the annual feast, which celebrates the sacrament of forgiveness so dear to Francis, noted the current archbishop of L’Aquila, Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi.

“We hope that all people, especially those harmed by conflicts and internal divisions, might (come) and find the path of solidarity and peace,” he said in a statement announcing the visit.

Francis has praised Benedict’s decision to retire as “opening the door” for future popes to do the same, and he had originally predicted a short papacy for himself of two to five years.

Nine years later, Francis has shown no signs he wants to step down, and he has major projects still on the horizon.

In addition to upcoming trips this year to Congo, South Sudan, Canada and Kazakhstan, in 2023 he has scheduled a major meeting of the world’s bishops to debate the increasing decentralization of the Catholic Church, as well as the continued implementation of his reforms.

But Francis has been hobbled by the strained ligaments in his right knee that have made walking painful and difficult. He has told friends he doesn’t want to undergo surgery, reportedly because of his reaction to anesthesia last July when he had 33 centimeters (13 inches) of his large intestine removed.

This week, one of his closest advisers and friends, Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, said talk of a papal resignation or the end of Francis’ pontificate was unfounded.

“I think these are optical illusions, cerebral illusions,” Maradiaga told Religion Digital, a Spanish-language Catholic site.

Christopher Bellitto, a church historian at Kean University in Union, New Jersey, noted that most Vatican watchers expect Francis will eventually resign, but not before Benedict dies. The 95-year-old retired pope is physically frail but still alert and receiving occasional visitors in his home in the Vatican gardens.

“He’s not going to have two former popes floating around,” Bellitto said in an email. Referring to Francis’ planned visit to L’Aquila, he suggested not reading too much into it, noting that Benedict’s gesture in 2009 was missed by most everyone.

“I don’t recall a lot of stories at the time saying that Benedict’s visit in 2009 made us think he was going to resign,” he said, suggesting that Francis’ pastoral visit to l’Aquila might be just that: a pastoral visit.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/10/1603292366279.png" alt="Pope Francis was elected pope in 2013 on a mandate to reform the Roman Curia. Now that the nine-year project has been rolled out and at least partially implemented, Francis’ main task as pope has in some ways been accomplished- photo courtesy CSPAN" />
 <figcaption>Pope Francis was elected pope in 2013 on a mandate to reform the Roman Curia. Now that the nine-year project has been rolled out and at least partially implemented, Francis’ main task as pope has in some ways been accomplished- photo courtesy CSPAN</figcaption>
 </figure>ROME (AP) — Pope Francis added fuel to rumors about the future of his pontificate by announcing he would visit the central Italian city of L’Aquila in August for a feast initiated by Pope Celestine V, one of the few pontiffs who resigned before Pope Benedict XVI stepped down in 2013.Italian and Catholic media have been rife with unsourced speculation that the 85-year-old Francis might be planning to follow in Benedict’s footsteps, given his increased mobility problems that have forced him to use a wheelchair for the last month.Those rumors gained steam last week when Francis announced a consistory to create 21 new cardinals scheduled for Aug. 27. Sixteen of those cardinals are under age 80 and eligible to vote in a conclave to elect Francis’ successor.Once they are added to the ranks of princes of the church, Francis will have stacked the College of Cardinals with 83 of the 132 voting-age cardinals. While there is no guarantee how the cardinals might vote, the chances that they will tap a successor who shares Francis’ pastoral priorities become ever greater.In announcing the Aug. 27 consistory, Francis also announced he would host two days of talks the following week to brief the cardinals about his recent apostolic constitution reforming the Vatican bureaucracy. That document, which goes into effect Sunday, allows women to head Vatican offices, imposes term limits on priestly Vatican employees and positions the Holy See as an institution at the service of local churches, rather than vice versa.Francis was elected pope in 2013 on a mandate to reform the Roman Curia. Now that the nine-year project has been rolled out and at least partially implemented, Francis’ main task as pope has in some ways been accomplished.All of which made Saturday’s otherwise routine announcement of a pastoral visit to L’Aquila carry more speculative weight than it might otherwise have.Notable was the timing: The Vatican and the rest of Italy are usually on holiday in August to mid-September, with all but essential business closed. Calling a major consistory in late August to create new cardinals, gathering churchmen for two days of talks on implementing his reform and making a symbolically significant pastoral visit suggests Francis might have out-of-the-ordinary business in mind.“With today’s news that @Pontifex will go to L’Aquila in the very middle of the August consistory, it all got even more intriguing,” tweeted Vatican commentator Robert Mickens, linking to an essay he had published in La Croix International about the rumors swirling around the future of the pontificate.The basilica in L’Aquila hosts the tomb of Celestine V, a hermit pope who resigned after five months in 1294, overwhelmed by the job. In 2009, Benedict visited L’Aquila, which had been devastated by a recent earthquake and prayed at Celestine’s tomb, leaving his pallium stole on it.No one at the time appreciated the significance of the gesture. But four years later, the 85-year-old Benedict would follow in Celestine’s footsteps and resign, saying he no longer had the strength of body and mind to carry on the rigors of the papacy.The Vatican announced Saturday Francis would visit L’Aquila to celebrate Mass on Aug. 28 and open the “Holy Door” at the basilica hosting Celestine’s tomb. The timing coincides with the L’Aquila church’s celebration of the Feast of Forgiveness, which was created by Celestine in a papal bull.No pope has travelled to L’Aquila since to close out the annual feast, which celebrates the sacrament of forgiveness so dear to Francis, noted the current archbishop of L’Aquila, Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi.“We hope that all people, especially those harmed by conflicts and internal divisions, might (come) and find the path of solidarity and peace,” he said in a statement announcing the visit.Francis has praised Benedict’s decision to retire as “opening the door” for future popes to do the same, and he had originally predicted a short papacy for himself of two to five years.Nine years later, Francis has shown no signs he wants to step down, and he has major projects still on the horizon.In addition to upcoming trips this year to Congo, South Sudan, Canada and Kazakhstan, in 2023 he has scheduled a major meeting of the world’s bishops to debate the increasing decentralization of the Catholic Church, as well as the continued implementation of his reforms.But Francis has been hobbled by the strained ligaments in his right knee that have made walking painful and difficult. He has told friends he doesn’t want to undergo surgery, reportedly because of his reaction to anesthesia last July when he had 33 centimeters (13 inches) of his large intestine removed.This week, one of his closest advisers and friends, Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, said talk of a papal resignation or the end of Francis’ pontificate was unfounded.“I think these are optical illusions, cerebral illusions,” Maradiaga told Religion Digital, a Spanish-language Catholic site.Christopher Bellitto, a church historian at Kean University in Union, New Jersey, noted that most Vatican watchers expect Francis will eventually resign, but not before Benedict dies. The 95-year-old retired pope is physically frail but still alert and receiving occasional visitors in his home in the Vatican gardens.“He’s not going to have two former popes floating around,” Bellitto said in an email. Referring to Francis’ planned visit to L’Aquila, he suggested not reading too much into it, noting that Benedict’s gesture in 2009 was missed by most everyone.“I don’t recall a lot of stories at the time saying that Benedict’s visit in 2009 made us think he was going to resign,” he said, suggesting that Francis’ pastoral visit to l’Aquila might be just that: a pastoral visit.

Pope Francis fuels new speculation on his future

By SCOTT CARLSON North Platte Post

OMAHA-Police in Omaha are investigating a shooting that left one person dead and three others injured.

Police said on Friday at around 11:37 p.m., officers responded to a shooting at 2931 T St.

Officers located four victims at the scene, one of them, Pierre Hightower, 31, was deceased. The others, Paris Hightower, 30, Kavey Ranson, 32, and Ryan Prince, 19, were all transported to the University of Nebraska Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.

Anyone with information is encouraged to contact Omaha police.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/2/1645976360677.jpg" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>By SCOTT CARLSON North Platte PostOMAHA-Police in Omaha are investigating a shooting that left one person dead and three others injured.Police said on Friday at around 11:37 p.m., officers responded to a shooting at 2931 T St.Officers located four victims at the scene, one of them, Pierre Hightower, 31, was deceased. The others, Paris Hightower, 30, Kavey Ranson, 32, and Ryan Prince, 19, were all transported to the University of Nebraska Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.Police said no arrests have been made.Anyone with information is encouraged to contact Omaha police.

Omaha police investigate shooting that left 1 dead, 3 injured

HALL COUNTY, Neb.-A Grand Island man is facing numerous charges stemming from a fatal crash last month.

The Hall County Sheriff's office said, on May 16, deputies responded to a two-vehicle crash in the area of Highway 30 and Burwick Rd.

Authorities said a red Nissan Altima had collided with an Indian Challenger motorcycle.

The driver of the motorcycle, Kent Redwine, was pronounced dead shortly after the collision.

Deputies said during questioning, the owner of the Altima, Grace Williamson, told deputies she had been the driver of the vehicle at the time of the collision.

However, authorities said an investigation by the Hall County Accident Reconstruction Team determined that Williamson had been a passenger in the vehicle, and Michael Mostek had been the driver. Authorities said two juveniles were in the back seat of the Altima.

On Friday, Mostek was arrested in Grand Island on suspicion of motor vehicle homicide, two counts of child abuse, reckless driving, false reporting, and no seat belt.

Williamson has been referred to the Hall County Attorney's Office for false reporting, according to authorities.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/6/1654429362082.png" alt="Mostek" />
 <figcaption>Mostek</figcaption>
 </figure>By SCOTT CARLSON North Platte PostHALL COUNTY, Neb.-A Grand Island man is facing numerous charges stemming from a fatal crash last month.The Hall County Sheriff's office said, on May 16, deputies responded to a two-vehicle crash in the area of Highway 30 and Burwick Rd.Authorities said a red Nissan Altima had collided with an Indian Challenger motorcycle.The driver of the motorcycle, Kent Redwine, was pronounced dead shortly after the collision.Deputies said during questioning, the owner of the Altima, Grace Williamson, told deputies she had been the driver of the vehicle at the time of the collision.However, authorities said an investigation by the Hall County Accident Reconstruction Team determined that Williamson had been a passenger in the vehicle, and Michael Mostek had been the driver. Authorities said two juveniles were in the back seat of the Altima.On Friday, Mostek was arrested in Grand Island on suspicion of motor vehicle homicide, two counts of child abuse, reckless driving, false reporting, and no seat belt.Williamson has been referred to the Hall County Attorney's Office for false reporting, according to authorities.Redwine, of Wood River, was 51.

Driver charged in Hall County crash that killed motorcyclist

KANSAS CITY (AP) —After a gunman&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-school-shooting-shootings-texas-education-a5b21cface8837e830ed2f9bb4bbcf3c">killed 19 children and two teachers</a>&nbsp;at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, several pastors around the country challenged their conservative counterparts with this question: Are you pro-life if you are pro-gun?

One of those faith leaders is the Rev. Steven Marsh, senior pastor of Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods, California. That’s where a gunman, who officials say was&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/politics-shootings-california-taiwan-20908a30b4ac69014ba834d532a6f6de">fueled by hate against Taiwan</a>, opened fire on May 15 at a luncheon organized by members of the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church, killing one and injuring five others.

“I’ve heard people tell me I’m not Christian because I’m pro-choice,” Marsh said. “I ask those people: How can you be pro-life and not support getting rid of assault rifles? You can’t pick and choose where you want to be pro-life.”

Marsh’s emotional statement is a vignette in the larger narrative of a nation divided on how – or if – guns should be regulated. The faith community is not monolithic on this issue.

People of faith who are tired of years of failed gun control efforts and grieving the latest mass shooting victims are pointing out what they say is hypocrisy – conservative Christians pushing to abolish abortion and grant unfettered access to guns. Those who disagree contend the real problem is sin and soft targets. It’s not guns, but the “evil” in people and abortions that kill, they say.

These entrenched, partisan divisions in the U.S. on abortion and gun rights are stark after high-profile massacres in New York, California, Texas and elsewhere as the country awaits a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/abortion-us-supreme-court-travel-religion-5fd27e980cf771d70fb12aa4c0d71691">U.S. Supreme Court ruling</a>&nbsp;that could overturn the constitutional right to abortion.

According to 2017 Pew Research Center data analyzed for Christianity Today, 41% of white evangelicals own a gun compared to 30% of Americans overall – the highest share of any religious group. The survey also shows 74% of all gun owners in the U.S. agree that their right to gun ownership is essential to their sense of freedom. Most states also allow firearms in places of worship.

Christian author and activist Shane Claiborne disputes the notion that the U.S. has a sin problem, but not a gun problem; he says it has both. Claiborne recently went to Uvalde to support victims, and to Houston to pray and protest at the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-school-shooting-nra-convention-212dfd1b57474f1ab208d4a72521a010">National Rifle Association’s convention</a>&nbsp;held days after the massacre.

He passed out tracts asserting “We can’t be pro-life and ignore gun violence” and asking “Will we choose the gun or the cross?” Claiborne said he was among those asked to leave the NRA’s Sunday prayer breakfast after disrupting the program to call for prayer for the Uvalde victims.

Claiborne wants to see laws change, including policies that would raise the age of gun ownership, limit magazine capacity, ban assault-style weapons and mandate training. He said laws can’t make people love each other, but they can make it more difficult to take a life.

“We want to make it harder for folks to kill other people, and we’re making it really easy right now,” Claiborne said.

Conservative pastors have said mass shootings and other social harms are the result of an overall degradation in moral values and disregard for human life.

Pastor Tim Lee, an evangelist and a former U.S. Marine who lost both legs during the Vietnam War, was one of the featured speakers at the NRA prayer breakfast that Claiborne and others were asked to leave.

After the Uvalde shooting, Lee posted on his Facebook page: “This is so heartbreaking. I have said it so many times – When kids hear adults say that it’s OK to kill babies (abortion) then all respect for human lives is gone.”

The gun debate is deeply personal for the Rev. Chineta Goodjoin. Her best friend, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, was one of nine people shot and killed by Dylann Roof in June 2015 as they sat in prayer at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Goodjoin, who leads New Hope Presbyterian Church in Anaheim, California, said people of faith must rise up in “righteous anger” to demand common-sense gun regulation. When massacres occur in community spaces like churches, schools and supermarkets, it tests an entire community’s resiliency, she said.

“How can you teach in schools when people are traumatized by gun violence?” she said. “When a church is no longer a safe space, do I work to enhance security or enhance people’s faith? The impact is like an epidemic that touches every fiber of our being.”

But others, like the Rev. Russ Tenhoff, say it is simply not possible to “legislate safety.”

“There are plenty of laws, but people who are lawless don’t obey them,” said Tenhoff, lead pastor of Mountainside Community Fellowship in Kingwood, West Virginia. “Murders are going to happen even without firearms. We’re never going to be able to prevent gun violence.”

As a firearms safety officer who trains adults and children, Tenhoff says the solution is to “harden the schools,” which have become soft targets.

“We need to put one-way locks on schools, have metal detectors and an armed officer in every school,” he said.

For a Catholic pastor in Newtown, Connecticut, who a decade ago experienced the grief that now envelops Uvalde, the lack of political will to enact gun legislation is unfathomable.

Monsignor Robert Weiss, who leads the St. Rose of Lima parish, presided over the funeral of eight victims who were murdered in Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012. He held an evening Mass in his church the day after the Texas shooting.

“I guess I was a fool to think Sandy Hook was going to change the world,” he said in a video recording of the service.

Weiss also questioned the consequences of individualism in America.

“Is that what our forefathers intended for us?” he asked. “To live in a country where unborn babies are aborted, where children are murdered in school where they should be safe, where you can’t even go to a grocery store or to a church or to a library and feel like you’ll be OK?”

Pastor Mike McBride, who leads The Way Christian Center in Berkeley, California, said those on different sides of the gun issue must find common concerns to unite around and work on solutions together.

McBride says many who are pro-gun are also worried about accidental gun deaths, intimate partner violence and suicides.

“Those shared concerns can be addressed with targeted strategies that don’t keep us bogged down in the Second Amendment fight,” he said.

McBride suggests having listening campaigns across church groups and neighborhoods — a “peace infrastructure” to combat violence.

Marsh, the Laguna Woods pastor, says the shooting in his church and other recent massacres have inspired him to have “more serious conversations about this issue” in his community. He would like to see diverse faith communities organize marches in local seats of government to push legislators to act.

“Enough is enough,” he said. “We need to stop using Christianity as a veneer to deny reality.”

By DEEPA BHARATH and HOLLY MEYERKANSAS CITY (AP) —After a gunman&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-school-shooting-shootings-texas-education-a5b21cface8837e830ed2f9bb4bbcf3c">killed 19 children and two teachers</a>&nbsp;at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, several pastors around the country challenged their conservative counterparts with this question: Are you pro-life if you are pro-gun?One of those faith leaders is the Rev. Steven Marsh, senior pastor of Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods, California. That’s where a gunman, who officials say was&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/politics-shootings-california-taiwan-20908a30b4ac69014ba834d532a6f6de">fueled by hate against Taiwan</a>, opened fire on May 15 at a luncheon organized by members of the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church, killing one and injuring five others.“I’ve heard people tell me I’m not Christian because I’m pro-choice,” Marsh said. “I ask those people: How can you be pro-life and not support getting rid of assault rifles? You can’t pick and choose where you want to be pro-life.”Marsh’s emotional statement is a vignette in the larger narrative of a nation divided on how – or if – guns should be regulated. The faith community is not monolithic on this issue.People of faith who are tired of years of failed gun control efforts and grieving the latest mass shooting victims are pointing out what they say is hypocrisy – conservative Christians pushing to abolish abortion and grant unfettered access to guns. Those who disagree contend the real problem is sin and soft targets. It’s not guns, but the “evil” in people and abortions that kill, they say.These entrenched, partisan divisions in the U.S. on abortion and gun rights are stark after high-profile massacres in New York, California, Texas and elsewhere as the country awaits a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/abortion-us-supreme-court-travel-religion-5fd27e980cf771d70fb12aa4c0d71691">U.S. Supreme Court ruling</a>&nbsp;that could overturn the constitutional right to abortion.According to 2017 Pew Research Center data analyzed for Christianity Today, 41% of white evangelicals own a gun compared to 30% of Americans overall – the highest share of any religious group. The survey also shows 74% of all gun owners in the U.S. agree that their right to gun ownership is essential to their sense of freedom. Most states also allow firearms in places of worship.Christian author and activist Shane Claiborne disputes the notion that the U.S. has a sin problem, but not a gun problem; he says it has both. Claiborne recently went to Uvalde to support victims, and to Houston to pray and protest at the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-school-shooting-nra-convention-212dfd1b57474f1ab208d4a72521a010">National Rifle Association’s convention</a>&nbsp;held days after the massacre.He passed out tracts asserting “We can’t be pro-life and ignore gun violence” and asking “Will we choose the gun or the cross?” Claiborne said he was among those asked to leave the NRA’s Sunday prayer breakfast after disrupting the program to call for prayer for the Uvalde victims.Claiborne wants to see laws change, including policies that would raise the age of gun ownership, limit magazine capacity, ban assault-style weapons and mandate training. He said laws can’t make people love each other, but they can make it more difficult to take a life.“We want to make it harder for folks to kill other people, and we’re making it really easy right now,” Claiborne said.Conservative pastors have said mass shootings and other social harms are the result of an overall degradation in moral values and disregard for human life.Pastor Tim Lee, an evangelist and a former U.S. Marine who lost both legs during the Vietnam War, was one of the featured speakers at the NRA prayer breakfast that Claiborne and others were asked to leave.After the Uvalde shooting, Lee posted on his Facebook page: “This is so heartbreaking. I have said it so many times – When kids hear adults say that it’s OK to kill babies (abortion) then all respect for human lives is gone.”The gun debate is deeply personal for the Rev. Chineta Goodjoin. Her best friend, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, was one of nine people shot and killed by Dylann Roof in June 2015 as they sat in prayer at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.Goodjoin, who leads New Hope Presbyterian Church in Anaheim, California, said people of faith must rise up in “righteous anger” to demand common-sense gun regulation. When massacres occur in community spaces like churches, schools and supermarkets, it tests an entire community’s resiliency, she said.“How can you teach in schools when people are traumatized by gun violence?” she said. “When a church is no longer a safe space, do I work to enhance security or enhance people’s faith? The impact is like an epidemic that touches every fiber of our being.”But others, like the Rev. Russ Tenhoff, say it is simply not possible to “legislate safety.”“There are plenty of laws, but people who are lawless don’t obey them,” said Tenhoff, lead pastor of Mountainside Community Fellowship in Kingwood, West Virginia. “Murders are going to happen even without firearms. We’re never going to be able to prevent gun violence.”As a firearms safety officer who trains adults and children, Tenhoff says the solution is to “harden the schools,” which have become soft targets.“We need to put one-way locks on schools, have metal detectors and an armed officer in every school,” he said.For a Catholic pastor in Newtown, Connecticut, who a decade ago experienced the grief that now envelops Uvalde, the lack of political will to enact gun legislation is unfathomable.Monsignor Robert Weiss, who leads the St. Rose of Lima parish, presided over the funeral of eight victims who were murdered in Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012. He held an evening Mass in his church the day after the Texas shooting.“I guess I was a fool to think Sandy Hook was going to change the world,” he said in a video recording of the service.Weiss also questioned the consequences of individualism in America.“Is that what our forefathers intended for us?” he asked. “To live in a country where unborn babies are aborted, where children are murdered in school where they should be safe, where you can’t even go to a grocery store or to a church or to a library and feel like you’ll be OK?”Pastor Mike McBride, who leads The Way Christian Center in Berkeley, California, said those on different sides of the gun issue must find common concerns to unite around and work on solutions together.McBride says many who are pro-gun are also worried about accidental gun deaths, intimate partner violence and suicides.“Those shared concerns can be addressed with targeted strategies that don’t keep us bogged down in the Second Amendment fight,” he said.McBride suggests having listening campaigns across church groups and neighborhoods — a “peace infrastructure” to combat violence.Marsh, the Laguna Woods pastor, says the shooting in his church and other recent massacres have inspired him to have “more serious conversations about this issue” in his community. He would like to see diverse faith communities organize marches in local seats of government to push legislators to act.“Enough is enough,” he said. “We need to stop using Christianity as a veneer to deny reality.”___

Shootings expose divisions on gun issue in faith communities

KANSAS CITY —A judge on this week, sentenced 47-year-old Damon Kerr to 24 years in prison for the November 2018, fatal shooting of Donna McKeown, according to Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker.

A jury found Kerr guilty of those charges in a trial that concluded in early March.

According to court records, Kansas City police responded on Nov. 25, 2018, to the 3400 block of East 54th Street on a reported shooting. Officers found McKeown in the front seat of a Dodge Avenger. She had been shot in the neck. She was later declared deceased at the &nbsp;hospital. The victim was mother of three children of the defendant, who initially denied shooting the victim.&nbsp;

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/3/1646402801603.png" alt="Kerr-photo Jackson County" />
 <figcaption>Kerr-photo Jackson County</figcaption>
 </figure>KANSAS CITY —A judge on this week, sentenced 47-year-old Damon Kerr to 24 years in prison for the November 2018, fatal shooting of Donna McKeown, according to Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker.A jury found Kerr guilty of those charges in a trial that concluded in early March.According to court records, Kansas City police responded on Nov. 25, 2018, to the 3400 block of East 54th Street on a reported shooting. Officers found McKeown in the front seat of a Dodge Avenger. She had been shot in the neck. She was later declared deceased at the &nbsp;hospital. The victim was mother of three children of the defendant, who initially denied shooting the victim.&nbsp;

KC man sentenced for fatal shooting of his children's mother

WASHINGTON (AP) — Abbott Nutrition has restarted production at the Michigan baby formula factory that has been closed for months due to contamination, the company said Saturday, taking a step toward easing a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/baby-formula-shortage-what-to-know-735cef06e68ed9c5a46233bdfcf0573d">nationwide supply shortage</a>&nbsp;expected to persist into the summer.

The February shutdown of the largest formula factory in the country led to the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-business-health-d3e32ba9e2381f77c299391e762abe21">supply problems</a>&nbsp;that have forced some parents to seek formula from food banks, friends and doctor’s offices.

Abbott said it initially will prioritize production of its EleCare specialty formulas for infants with severe food allergies and digestive problems who have few other options for nutrition. The company said it will take about three weeks before new formula from the plant begins showing up on store shelves.

“We will ramp production as quickly as we can while meeting all requirements,” Abbott said in a statement.

The plant’s reopening is one of several federal actions that are expected to improve supplies in the weeks ahead. President Joe Biden’s administration has eased&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-health-government-and-politics-53857b4ba1006a8bf85caad251517f4c">import rules</a>&nbsp;for foreign manufacturers,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-health-indianapolis-00f39fd46778ecdd543c22f3630d79ba">airlifted</a>&nbsp;formula from Europe and invoked federal&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-health-government-and-politics-45fec7e9bc83e67a4b4ac27655243820">emergency rules</a>&nbsp;to prioritize U.S. production.

Abbott closed the Sturgis, Michigan,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/science-health-government-and-politics-1e54ff345ab2a4be93f2e24d991e4450">factory</a>&nbsp;in February after the Food and Drug Administration began investigating four bacterial infections among infants who consumed powdered formula from the plant. Two of the babies died. The company continues to state that its products have not been directly linked to the infections, which involved different bacterial strains.

FDA inspectors eventually uncovered a host of violations at the plant, including bacterial contamination, a leaky roof and lax safety protocols. The FDA has faced intense scrutiny for taking months to close the plant and then negotiate its reopening. Agency leaders recently told Congress they had to enter a legally binding agreement with Abbott to assure all the problems were fixed.

Abbott’s February recall of several leading brands, including Similac, squeezed supplies that&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/baby-formula-shortage-what-to-know-735cef06e68ed9c5a46233bdfcf0573d">had already been strained</a>&nbsp;by supply chain disruptions and stockpiling during COVID-19 shutdowns.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/3/1648164055231.png" alt="“We will ramp production as quickly as we can while meeting all requirements,” Abbott said in a statement-photo FDA" />
 <figcaption>“We will ramp production as quickly as we can while meeting all requirements,” Abbott said in a statement-photo FDA</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) — Abbott Nutrition has restarted production at the Michigan baby formula factory that has been closed for months due to contamination, the company said Saturday, taking a step toward easing a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/baby-formula-shortage-what-to-know-735cef06e68ed9c5a46233bdfcf0573d">nationwide supply shortage</a>&nbsp;expected to persist into the summer.The February shutdown of the largest formula factory in the country led to the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-business-health-d3e32ba9e2381f77c299391e762abe21">supply problems</a>&nbsp;that have forced some parents to seek formula from food banks, friends and doctor’s offices.Abbott said it initially will prioritize production of its EleCare specialty formulas for infants with severe food allergies and digestive problems who have few other options for nutrition. The company said it will take about three weeks before new formula from the plant begins showing up on store shelves.“We will ramp production as quickly as we can while meeting all requirements,” Abbott said in a statement.The plant’s reopening is one of several federal actions that are expected to improve supplies in the weeks ahead. President Joe Biden’s administration has eased&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-health-government-and-politics-53857b4ba1006a8bf85caad251517f4c">import rules</a>&nbsp;for foreign manufacturers,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-health-indianapolis-00f39fd46778ecdd543c22f3630d79ba">airlifted</a>&nbsp;formula from Europe and invoked federal&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-health-government-and-politics-45fec7e9bc83e67a4b4ac27655243820">emergency rules</a>&nbsp;to prioritize U.S. production.Abbott closed the Sturgis, Michigan,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/science-health-government-and-politics-1e54ff345ab2a4be93f2e24d991e4450">factory</a>&nbsp;in February after the Food and Drug Administration began investigating four bacterial infections among infants who consumed powdered formula from the plant. Two of the babies died. The company continues to state that its products have not been directly linked to the infections, which involved different bacterial strains.FDA inspectors eventually uncovered a host of violations at the plant, including bacterial contamination, a leaky roof and lax safety protocols. The FDA has faced intense scrutiny for taking months to close the plant and then negotiate its reopening. Agency leaders recently told Congress they had to enter a legally binding agreement with Abbott to assure all the problems were fixed.Abbott’s February recall of several leading brands, including Similac, squeezed supplies that&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/baby-formula-shortage-what-to-know-735cef06e68ed9c5a46233bdfcf0573d">had already been strained</a>&nbsp;by supply chain disruptions and stockpiling during COVID-19 shutdowns.

Abbott restarts baby formula plant linked to contamination

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mary Jane Riva, CEO of the Pizza Factory, has a cautionary message for her customers this summer: Prepare to wait longer for your Hawaiian pie or calzone.

The Pizza Factory’s 100 West Coast locations are desperately short of workers. With about 12 employees per store, they’re barely half-staffed — just when many more Americans are venturing out to restaurant chains like hers.

“The days of 15-minute orders,” Riva said, “may not be happening anymore.”

Talk to other employers in America’s vast hospitality sector — hotels, restaurants, public pools, ice cream parlors, pick-your-own strawberry farms — and you’ll hear a similar lament. They can’t fill many of their summer jobs because the number of open positions far exceeds the number of people willing and able to fill them — even at increased wages.

Some help may be coming: School’s out for summer, cutting loose millions of high school and college students for the next three months. Riva, for one, is hoping to field more job applications from students seeking summertime spending money.

Teens are in an unusually commanding position — at least those among them who want a job. Researchers at Drexel University’s Center for Labor Markets and Policy predicted in a report last month that an average of 33% of youths ages 16 to 19 will be employed each month from June through August this year, the highest such rate since 34% in the summer of 2007.

Among them is Samuel Castillo, a 19-year-old four-year veteran of Miami’s Summer Jobs Connect program who’s already built an impressive resume. In one former job with the program, he worked in a legislative office, registering constituent complaints. His first summer, he saved $900 to buy parts to build his own computer.

Now, he’s studying computer engineering technology in college and working in the Jobs Connect program again this summer, earning $15 an hour teaching other students how to manage money.

“The goal for working is to pay my bills,” he said. “School costs money. Books cost money.’’

Likewise, Lara Beckius, a junior at Connecticut College, said she went from being stressed out about finding a summer job to being stressed out about choosing among multiple offers. In the end, Beckius settled on an internship at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay, Maine.

After several offers arrived within a week, she frantically sought advice from others and searched on Google for a courteous way to turn down job offers.

“It was a little crazy,” said Beckius, a 19-year-old from Avon, Connecticut. “It went from, ‘Am I going to have something this summer?’ to having four opportunities and, ‘Which one am I going to take?’ ”

This year, for the first time in a couple of years, employers might get more help from overseas. After restricting immigration as a COVID-19 precaution, the government is beginning to loosen up: The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has raised the limit on H-2B temporary work permits — used for seasonal work — by 35,000 visas.

Cape Resorts, which operates several boutique hotels, cottages and restaurants in Cape May and elsewhere in New Jersey and New York, will employ about 120 international students this summer on J-1 visas, work permits that also serve as a kind of cultural exchange program. The company employs about 950 staffers.

“Finding staff that are eager to fill hospitality roles remains a challenge,” said Cindy D’Aoust, a company executive. “But it is great to see the return of our international students as well as returning college students for the summer season.”

Still, today’s level of teen employment isn’t close to what it used to be. In August 1978, 50% of America’s teenagers were working. Around 2000, teenage employment went into a decade-long slide. In June 2010, during the agonizingly slow recovery from the 2007-2009 Great Recession, teenage employment bottomed at 25% before slowly rising again as the economy recovered.

It was more than economic doldrums that kept teens away from work. Longer-term economic forces and changing personal choices contributed, too. The U.S. economy now offers fewer low-skill, entry-level jobs — ready-made for teens — than in the 1970s and 1980s. Many such jobs that do remain, from supermarket clerk to fast-food burger flipper, are increasingly likely to be taken by older workers, many of them immigrants.

And many teens from affluent families, eyeing admission to top universities, have chosen to forgo summer jobs for summer school or volunteer work that bear mention on college applications. Others now spend their summers playing sports.

But COVID and its economic damage changed everything. At first, the economy collapsed as businesses locked down and consumers hunkered down at home. Soon, vast federal aid and ultra-low interest rates ignited an unexpectedly fast recovery. Businesses scrambled to recall employees they had laid off and to find new ones to keep up with resurgent customer orders.

The U.S. unemployment rate has dropped to 3.6%, just above a half-century low. This week, the government reported that employers posted 11.4 job openings in April, down from a record 11.9 million in March but still extraordinarily high. On average, there are now roughly two jobs available for every unemployed American.

Suddenly, teenagers are in much greater demand. And the pay available to them — $15 or $16 an hour for entry-level work — is drawing some back into the job market. Teenage employment has already topped pre-pandemic levels even though the overall job market still hasn’t.

With desperate employers jacking up hourly wages, many teens can take jobs that pay better than the usual seasonal openings at summer camps, RV parks, and resorts, said Julia Pollak, an economist at ZipRecruiter.

“We have this big gap in the market now,” she said. “There are no takers for jobs that are typically given to teens for pocket money.”

It’s become a serious headache for Melissa Mroczek, who owns Nomad Wax Co., which makes soy candles and scented products in Omaha, Nebraska. Mroczek has been struggling to fill a position for a paid marketing intern. A few candidates showed interest. Two got to the hiring stage — and then disappeared, even though Mroczek is offering above minimum wage pay, plus school credits and a flexible schedule.

Never in her four years of running Nomad Candle, and 15 years before that as a hiring manager for a national financial services firm, has Mroczek had so much difficulty hiring.

“We still haven’t filled it, and at this point we may not be able to,” she said. “So we may look to find a high school student or try to move this to the fall semester instead and work directly with a professor to offer course credit.”

For teens who do want to work and have their choice of jobs, economists and other analysts welcome the reversal in fortune. Summertime jobs give young people experience and make it more likely they will work later in life, the Drexel researchers say — good news for a U.S. labor force that is losing the vast baby boom generation to retirement. Entry-level jobs also give teens the opportunity to learn how to handle money and to mingle with colleagues and customers from diverse economic and cultural backgrounds.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mary Jane Riva, CEO of the Pizza Factory, has a cautionary message for her customers this summer: Prepare to wait longer for your Hawaiian pie or calzone.The Pizza Factory’s 100 West Coast locations are desperately short of workers. With about 12 employees per store, they’re barely half-staffed — just when many more Americans are venturing out to restaurant chains like hers.“The days of 15-minute orders,” Riva said, “may not be happening anymore.”Talk to other employers in America’s vast hospitality sector — hotels, restaurants, public pools, ice cream parlors, pick-your-own strawberry farms — and you’ll hear a similar lament. They can’t fill many of their summer jobs because the number of open positions far exceeds the number of people willing and able to fill them — even at increased wages.Some help may be coming: School’s out for summer, cutting loose millions of high school and college students for the next three months. Riva, for one, is hoping to field more job applications from students seeking summertime spending money.Teens are in an unusually commanding position — at least those among them who want a job. Researchers at Drexel University’s Center for Labor Markets and Policy predicted in a report last month that an average of 33% of youths ages 16 to 19 will be employed each month from June through August this year, the highest such rate since 34% in the summer of 2007.Among them is Samuel Castillo, a 19-year-old four-year veteran of Miami’s Summer Jobs Connect program who’s already built an impressive resume. In one former job with the program, he worked in a legislative office, registering constituent complaints. His first summer, he saved $900 to buy parts to build his own computer.Now, he’s studying computer engineering technology in college and working in the Jobs Connect program again this summer, earning $15 an hour teaching other students how to manage money.“The goal for working is to pay my bills,” he said. “School costs money. Books cost money.’’Likewise, Lara Beckius, a junior at Connecticut College, said she went from being stressed out about finding a summer job to being stressed out about choosing among multiple offers. In the end, Beckius settled on an internship at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay, Maine.After several offers arrived within a week, she frantically sought advice from others and searched on Google for a courteous way to turn down job offers.“It was a little crazy,” said Beckius, a 19-year-old from Avon, Connecticut. “It went from, ‘Am I going to have something this summer?’ to having four opportunities and, ‘Which one am I going to take?’ ”This year, for the first time in a couple of years, employers might get more help from overseas. After restricting immigration as a COVID-19 precaution, the government is beginning to loosen up: The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has raised the limit on H-2B temporary work permits — used for seasonal work — by 35,000 visas.Cape Resorts, which operates several boutique hotels, cottages and restaurants in Cape May and elsewhere in New Jersey and New York, will employ about 120 international students this summer on J-1 visas, work permits that also serve as a kind of cultural exchange program. The company employs about 950 staffers.“Finding staff that are eager to fill hospitality roles remains a challenge,” said Cindy D’Aoust, a company executive. “But it is great to see the return of our international students as well as returning college students for the summer season.”Still, today’s level of teen employment isn’t close to what it used to be. In August 1978, 50% of America’s teenagers were working. Around 2000, teenage employment went into a decade-long slide. In June 2010, during the agonizingly slow recovery from the 2007-2009 Great Recession, teenage employment bottomed at 25% before slowly rising again as the economy recovered.It was more than economic doldrums that kept teens away from work. Longer-term economic forces and changing personal choices contributed, too. The U.S. economy now offers fewer low-skill, entry-level jobs — ready-made for teens — than in the 1970s and 1980s. Many such jobs that do remain, from supermarket clerk to fast-food burger flipper, are increasingly likely to be taken by older workers, many of them immigrants.And many teens from affluent families, eyeing admission to top universities, have chosen to forgo summer jobs for summer school or volunteer work that bear mention on college applications. Others now spend their summers playing sports.But COVID and its economic damage changed everything. At first, the economy collapsed as businesses locked down and consumers hunkered down at home. Soon, vast federal aid and ultra-low interest rates ignited an unexpectedly fast recovery. Businesses scrambled to recall employees they had laid off and to find new ones to keep up with resurgent customer orders.The U.S. unemployment rate has dropped to 3.6%, just above a half-century low. This week, the government reported that employers posted 11.4 job openings in April, down from a record 11.9 million in March but still extraordinarily high. On average, there are now roughly two jobs available for every unemployed American.Suddenly, teenagers are in much greater demand. And the pay available to them — $15 or $16 an hour for entry-level work — is drawing some back into the job market. Teenage employment has already topped pre-pandemic levels even though the overall job market still hasn’t.With desperate employers jacking up hourly wages, many teens can take jobs that pay better than the usual seasonal openings at summer camps, RV parks, and resorts, said Julia Pollak, an economist at ZipRecruiter.“We have this big gap in the market now,” she said. “There are no takers for jobs that are typically given to teens for pocket money.”It’s become a serious headache for Melissa Mroczek, who owns Nomad Wax Co., which makes soy candles and scented products in Omaha, Nebraska. Mroczek has been struggling to fill a position for a paid marketing intern. A few candidates showed interest. Two got to the hiring stage — and then disappeared, even though Mroczek is offering above minimum wage pay, plus school credits and a flexible schedule.Never in her four years of running Nomad Candle, and 15 years before that as a hiring manager for a national financial services firm, has Mroczek had so much difficulty hiring.“We still haven’t filled it, and at this point we may not be able to,” she said. “So we may look to find a high school student or try to move this to the fall semester instead and work directly with a professor to offer course credit.”For teens who do want to work and have their choice of jobs, economists and other analysts welcome the reversal in fortune. Summertime jobs give young people experience and make it more likely they will work later in life, the Drexel researchers say — good news for a U.S. labor force that is losing the vast baby boom generation to retirement. Entry-level jobs also give teens the opportunity to learn how to handle money and to mingle with colleagues and customers from diverse economic and cultural backgrounds.

Red-hot summer job market awaits US teens as employers sweat

By ERIC THOMAS <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2022/06/03/screaming-on-the-sidelines-confessions-of-a-semi-reformed-sports-dad-in-kansas/">Courtesy Kansas Reflector</a>

Any parent who has a child playing sports has a story like this.

This weekend we were watching the 
closing minutes of a soccer game before my son was taking the field with
 his team. The game was between teams of 18-year-olds in a tournament, 
and clearly something contentious had happened earlier.

The coaches were jawing at the 
referee. The players seemed more focused on pushing each other around 
than winning the ball or scoring goals. It was tense, but also lazy, 
soccer. My wife and I watched the feisty grind to pass time.

As a loose ball skittered into a 
dangerous area, a defender lost track of the forward he was marking. 
Once he relocated him, it was too late to do anything but foul him. The 
defender brought his opponent down in a dangerous rugby tackle, 
maliciously hooking the forward’s legs as they rolled on the ground. The
 forward sprung up from the tackle, prepared for a fight. And he got 
it.&nbsp;

The goalkeeper rushed forward and blindsided him with a shove.&nbsp;

What followed was a predictable 
shower of yellow cards and red cards, eventually sending off three 
players. That’s where the drama should have ended. As someone who didn’t
 care a bit about which team won, I judged that the referee had done his
 job. Tempers subsided.

But then, the dad from the sidelines piped up.

“That’s just terrible,” he said to the referee. “How can you do that to my son? You are just terrible!”

The ref spun on his heels and asked, rhetorically he hoped, “Do you want to leave too?”

“You should be parking cars!” the dad shouted. “You are awful. You should be parking cars!”

If I printed here the number of times
 the dad mentioned the referee’s acumen with storing automobiles, you 
wouldn’t believe it. It was his furious public mantra. Over and over, 
louder and louder, with “parking cars!”

A field marshal arrived. More 
shouting, plus an escort to the parking lot (fittingly) for the dad. 
After five minutes, the game resumed.

This story is just this weekend’s 
installment from our experience watching parent madness in youth soccer.
 We’ve seen parents ejected. Parents mouthing at opposing 12-year-olds 
while they are playing. One parent glowered over a referee as he stalked
 after him, saying, “I’m gonna kick your a**.”

Years ago, while photographing a 
football game, I saw a referee call off the rest of the game after a 
parent stormed onto the field on the opening kickoff! Just one play was 
the entirety of a game. Thanks to one parent.

I write these words with full 
understanding of how unreasonable I have been. My family even has a meme
 of something I once said to a teenage ref — during a soccer game for 
10-year-olds — after his call led to a goal.&nbsp;

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/6/1654266244855.png" alt="A foul? Not a foul? Youth sports games can turn parents into abusive maniacs rather than supportive fans, writes our columnist. (Eric Thomas)" />
 <figcaption>A foul? Not a foul? Youth sports games can turn parents into abusive maniacs rather than supportive fans, writes our columnist. (Eric Thomas)</figcaption>
 </figure>By ERIC THOMAS <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2022/06/03/screaming-on-the-sidelines-confessions-of-a-semi-reformed-sports-dad-in-kansas/">Courtesy Kansas Reflector</a>Any parent who has a child playing sports has a story like this.This weekend we were watching the 
closing minutes of a soccer game before my son was taking the field with
 his team. The game was between teams of 18-year-olds in a tournament, 
and clearly something contentious had happened earlier.The coaches were jawing at the 
referee. The players seemed more focused on pushing each other around 
than winning the ball or scoring goals. It was tense, but also lazy, 
soccer. My wife and I watched the feisty grind to pass time.But then chaos broke out.As a loose ball skittered into a 
dangerous area, a defender lost track of the forward he was marking. 
Once he relocated him, it was too late to do anything but foul him. The 
defender brought his opponent down in a dangerous rugby tackle, 
maliciously hooking the forward’s legs as they rolled on the ground. The
 forward sprung up from the tackle, prepared for a fight. And he got 
it.&nbsp;The goalkeeper rushed forward and blindsided him with a shove.&nbsp;What followed was a predictable 
shower of yellow cards and red cards, eventually sending off three 
players. That’s where the drama should have ended. As someone who didn’t
 care a bit about which team won, I judged that the referee had done his
 job. Tempers subsided.But then, the dad from the sidelines piped up.“That’s just terrible,” he said to the referee. “How can you do that to my son? You are just terrible!”The ref spun on his heels and asked, rhetorically he hoped, “Do you want to leave too?”“You should be parking cars!” the dad shouted. “You are awful. You should be parking cars!”If I printed here the number of times
 the dad mentioned the referee’s acumen with storing automobiles, you 
wouldn’t believe it. It was his furious public mantra. Over and over, 
louder and louder, with “parking cars!”A field marshal arrived. More 
shouting, plus an escort to the parking lot (fittingly) for the dad. 
After five minutes, the game resumed.This story is just this weekend’s 
installment from our experience watching parent madness in youth soccer.
 We’ve seen parents ejected. Parents mouthing at opposing 12-year-olds 
while they are playing. One parent glowered over a referee as he stalked
 after him, saying, “I’m gonna kick your a**.”Years ago, while photographing a 
football game, I saw a referee call off the rest of the game after a 
parent stormed onto the field on the opening kickoff! Just one play was 
the entirety of a game. Thanks to one parent.I write these words with full 
understanding of how unreasonable I have been. My family even has a meme
 of something I once said to a teenage ref — during a soccer game for 
10-year-olds — after his call led to a goal.&nbsp;I screamed, “That’s on you, sir!” with a toxic blend of accusation and mocking respect.I have found it difficult to be the 
good sports parent that I hope to be. We want our kids to win. We want 
them to compete fairly. And we get particularly livid when we feel 
missed calls put them at risk of injury. There are reasons behind the 
madness festering in the folding chair on the sidelines.But it’s madness still.This year, I made a promise to my 
son. I would stop coaching him from the sidelines. We pay a coach who is
 far more talented than me for that. I would also stop screaming at the 
refs.At the outset of my promise, I kept 
score using a note on my phone. Each game that I avoided coaching my kid
 or the ref earned me a tally. It helped me see that I was making 
progress.And it worked — mostly. I made it 
through a season with dozens of games without coaching my boy. My wife 
only occasionally has to reach over with a calming hand on my forearm to
 remind me of my silliness toward officials.The irony is that my son is now 
reffing games. What would I think if I saw a dad yelling at my son that 
he is awful or that he had ruined a family’s weekend by failing to raise
 an offside flag?Sports leagues <a target="_blank" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/12/06/youth-sports-referees-quitting-shortage-sports-officials-quit/">struggle to fill officiating slots</a>.
 We have an insatiable appetite for youth sports that requires hundreds 
of referees for games every weekend: Baseball, soccer, basketball and 
volleyball run essentially year-round. Yet our ferocity towards 
officials <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/21/sports/referee-shortage-youth-sports.html">repels so many potential young refs</a>. One <a target="_blank" href="https://www.facebook.com/youreoffside">social media account</a> documents the nationwide problems of parents who yell during youth sports.As I work to be more reasonable, I 
have realized the biggest reward for being a sane parent comes on the 
ride home after the game. You might think “venting” toward the ref about
 a missed offsides call or a questionable foul would have left me 
feeling relieved.But the truth is, time after time, I 
felt ashamed. My focus was on how I embarrassed myself, wishing I could 
take it back, rather than on the truly incredible thing: My son was 
playing soccer — a far more elegant brand of soccer than any soccer I 
ever played — with a gaggle of friends he loves and a coach he admires.That is my goal these days: to shut 
up with my negativity on the sidelines so that after the game I can 
return home with a light heart, and do an incredible job of parking my 
car.<a target="_blank" href="https://journalism.ku.edu/eric-thomas">Eric Thomas</a>&nbsp;directs the Kansas Scholastic Press Association and teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the University of Kansas.