SafeSport Center changes targeted in new bill aimed at sex abuse in sports

News

SafeSport Center changes targeted in new bill aimed at sex abuse in sports

2024-12-07 06:59 Last Updated At：07:01

Four members of Congress unveiled a bipartisan bill Friday that would spark changes at the U.S. Center for SafeSport, placing a time limit on resolving cases that can sometimes take years and improving communication between the center and abuse survivors.

The Safer Sports for Athletes Act looks to address some of the bigger concerns that have opened the center to criticism since it was established in 2017 to handle sex-abuse cases in Olympic sports and their grassroots cousins.

The bill has potential for a fivefold increase of an existing grant to the center, bringing it to $10 million a year. But even if the full amount were approved, it wouldn't solve all of the problems.

As before, that grant can only be used for training and education, not investigations and enforcement, which are the focus of complaints about the center, and also of the reforms the lawmakers are seeking.

“We’re hoping the combination of appropriations for other activities will free up money for investigations, as well as the streamlining,” said one of the bill's sponsors, Rep. Deborah Ross, D-North Carolina.

The center estimates the reforms in the bill could cost more than $4.5 million. It currently operates on a budget of around $21 million a year, most of which comes from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and its sports affiliates, known as national governing bodies, or NGBs.

“It's really unclear, and I don't think that some parts of the bill jibe with other parts of the bill," SafeSport CEO Ju'Riese Colon said. "We're going to need some more conversation to suss out some of this stuff. Right now, it just doesn't really add up for us.”

The center's critics, meanwhile, have long been skeptical about giving more resources to an agency they feel is missing the mark.

The bill would also mandate that investigations be concluded within 180 days after a report is made, with possibilities to extend them. Some of the most egregious complaints about the center have come from people who say it has taken years for their cases to be resolved.

The center currently receives about 155 reports a week, which comes to more than 8,000 a year. When fully staffed, it has 77 people on its response and resolution team.

“Too many other survivors have also been left waiting for years for SafeSport to investigate or have their cases closed without action,” said soccer player Mana Shim, who helped lawmakers draft the bill.

Shim's own case, involving sexual harassment and coercion by her coach, took more than two years for the center to resolve and led to investigations and reforms across American soccer.

Other reforms include a requirement for the center to provide victim advocates at no cost for those needing them — a move already underway as part of a menu of changes the center announced earlier this year — and to assign case managers who can give timely updates to victims and the accused.

“I have questions around, if the center were to hire and staff the advocates, there might be some conflict of interest with us doing this internally," Colon said.

The center was also concerned with one provision that would redefine how arbitration works and another that would change the dynamics of information sharing between the center and the USOPC and NGBs.

The other bill sponsors were Reps. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio; Don Bacon, R-Nebraska; and Kathy Castor, D-Florida. The lawmakers positioned the bill as one that will help the Denver-based center, while making clear they are not satisfied with the results so far.

“We're going to make sure the center has the resources it needs to effectively respond to thousands of reports it handles annually,” Castor said. “It has unfortunately fallen short."

Ross conceded this bill will probably get pushed to the next Congress, which convenes Jan. 3, “but we needed to set the stage as soon as possible.”

AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

Israel announces new strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen's capital and ports

2024-12-27 00:05 Last Updated At：00:10

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Houthi rebels in Yemen said Israeli airstrikes on Thursday targeted the rebel-held capital of Sanaa and the port city of Hodeida, following several days of Houthi launches setting off sirens in Israel.

The Israeli military said it attacked infrastructure used by the Houthis at the international airport in Sanaa and ports at Hodeida, Al-Salif and Ras Qantib along with power stations. It came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “the Houthis, too, will learn what Hamas and Hezbollah and Assad’s regime and others learned.”

Netanyahu monitored the new strikes along with military leaders, his government said. The Iran-backed Houthis' media outlet confirmed the strikes in a Telegram post but gave no immediate details. The U.S. military also has targeted the Houthis in Yemen in recent days. The United Nations has noted that the ports are important entryways for humanitarian aid.

Over the weekend, 16 people were wounded when a Houthi missile hit a playground in Tel Aviv. Last week, Israeli jets struck Sanaa and Hodeida, killing nine people, calling it a response to previous Houthi attacks. The Houthis also have been targeting shipping on the Red Sea corridor, calling it solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Meanwhile, an Israeli strike killed five Palestinian journalists outside a hospital in the Gaza Strip overnight, the territory's Health Ministry said. The Israeli military said that all were militants posing as reporters.

The strike hit a car outside Al-Awda Hospital in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. The journalists were working for the local news outlet Al-Quds Today, a television channel affiliated with the Islamic Jihad militant group.

Islamic Jihad is a smaller and more extreme ally of Hamas and took part in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack in southern Israel, which ignited the war. The Israeli military identified four of the men as combat propagandists and said that intelligence, including a list of Islamic Jihad operatives found by soldiers in Gaza, had confirmed that all five were affiliated with the group.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian militant groups operate political, media and charitable operations in addition to their armed wings.

Associated Press footage showed the incinerated shell of a van, with press markings visible on the back doors. Sobbing young men attended the funeral outside the hospital. The bodies were wrapped in shrouds, with blue press vests draped over them.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says that more than 130 Palestinian reporters have been killed since the start of the war. Israel hasn't allowed foreign reporters to enter Gaza except on military embeds.

Israel has banned the pan-Arab Al Jazeera network and accused six of its Gaza reporters of being militants. The Qatar-based broadcaster denies the allegations and accuses Israel of trying to silence its war coverage, which has focused heavily on civilian casualties from Israeli military operations.

Separately, Israel's military said that a 35-year-old reserve soldier was killed during fighting in central Gaza early Thursday. A total of 389 soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground operation more than a year ago.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed across the border in an attack on nearby army bases and farming communities. They killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250. About 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third believed to be dead.

Israel's air and ground offensive has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry. It says more than half the fatalities have been women and children, but doesn't say how many of the dead were fighters. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The offensive has caused widespread destruction and driven around 90% of the population of 2.3 million from their homes. Hundreds of thousands are packed into squalid tent camps along the coast, with little protection from the cold, wet winter.

Also Thursday, people mourned eight Palestinians killed by Israeli military operations in and around the city of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israeli military said that it opened fire after militants attacked soldiers, and it was aware of uninvolved civilians who were harmed in the raid.

A previous version of this story was corrected to show that the name of the local news outlet is Al-Quds Today, not the Quds News Network.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war