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Dutch princess won’t accept payment when she turns 18

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The heir to the Dutch throne, Princess Amalia, has decided for the next few years not to accept the allowance — worth some 1.6 million euros ($1.9 million) per year — that she is entitled to receive annually once she turns 18 in December.

The princess sent a hand-written letter to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte informing him of her decision on Friday. She said she would repay the money — which will still be deposited in her account — while she is still a student.

The payment is made up of about 300,000 euros directly to the princess and 1.3 million to cover staff costs and other expenses.

The princess heard Thursday that she had passed all her high school final exams and now is planning to take a gap year before going to university.

“I find it uncomfortable as long as I can offer little in return and other students have it so much more difficult, especially in these uncertain corona times,” the princess wrote.

Rutte wrote back to congratulate Amalia on graduating high school and said he understood and appreciated her decision.

The move comes at a time of declining popularity for the House of Orange in the Netherlands.

Amalia’s parents, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima, came in for harsh criticism last year when they took the family on vacation to their holiday home in Greece amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The family cut short the trip and hurried home after a public outcry at the vacation.

In a video message issued after their return in October last year, a somber Willem-Alexander told the nation: “It hurts to have betrayed your faith in us.”

The vacation did not breach coronavirus restrictions, but came just days after the Dutch government introduced what it called a “partial lockdown” in a bid to rein in soaring infections.

Harris touts child care funding and payments to families

Vice President Kamala Harris highlighted the Biden administration’s efforts to expand child care and relieve the financial pressures of parenthood during a visit to a child care center on Friday.

Harris is discussing new guidance on $15 billion in grants to support child care programs, forthcoming payments to families from the child tax credit and a separate credit to help parents pay for care.

The outreach is part of the continued implementation of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief package to help the U.S. economy heal from the coronavirus pandemic. Administration officials said they expect that several million families will benefit from the assistance, while underscoring that the money should enable more parents to work and boost economic growth.

“We know that the pandemic did not invent these challenges, but it certainly accelerated these challenges,” Harris said Friday at CentroNía in Washington. “Childcare centers were closed. Parents have been out of work. Families’ budgets have been stretched.”

Harris spoke about a key administration priority while Biden attends the Group of Seven summit in the U.K. The Democratic administration is making a case for government aid to foster economic gains and improve people’s lives, while many Republican lawmakers say that the relief package is unleashing inflation that could hurt the economy and Americans’ well-being.

The administration is also seeking to gain support to spend trillions of dollars more on infrastructure, education, and extending parts of its relief package that provide aid to families. In a virtual meeting with small businesses on Thursday, Cecilia Rouse, the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said that help for workers would also benefit companies.

“When employees do not have to worry that they are unable to meet the needs of their loved ones, they’re more productive, more attentive and better able to maintain skills needed to succeed in the labor market,” Rouse said.

Many parents have needed to forgo work because of the pandemic, and the administration is banking on $15 billion for child care and development block grants to make it easier for people to return to jobs. That sum is on top of the $24 billion already going to states, territories and tribes to stabilize the child care sector.

One in eight child care jobs have yet to return after the pandemic closed many centers and schools, according to the administration. The aid is to be used for payments to child care providers and compensation for caregivers, both of which are designed to improve access and quality of services.

Harris also announced an outreach effort on June 21 to ensure that families receive the child tax credit. The relief package increased the size of the credit, and the IRS is scheduled to begin issuing payments on July 15.

An eligible family would receive $300 a month for a child under the age of 6 and $250 for those between the ages of 6 and 17. Experts forecast that the payments could halve child poverty.

Estimates from the IRS suggest that 39 million households accounting for nearly 9 in 10 U.S. children are already set to receive the payments. Families that have yet to file their taxes and did not sign up for the direct payments in the relief package can still register.

Key goals of the administration’s outreach are to build support for extending the payments, which would lapse after one year, and raising awareness that people can qualify for them.

The IRS on Friday will release guidance on an enhanced tax credit for child and dependent care. Families with incomes up to $125,000 could get a tax credit as much as $4,000 for one child and $8,000 for two or more children for the 2021 tax year. The credit will also be fully refundable, meaning that lower income families with no tax burden could qualify for it.

IRS officials will separately issue guidance for a paid leave tax credit, which would offset the cost to employers that offer paid sick and family leave because of events stemming from the coronavirus. The credit would go to employers with fewer than 500 workers. The employers could receive as much as $17,110 for up to 10 days of paid sick leave and as many as 12 weeks of paid family leave.

In US, Pride Month festivities muted by political setbacks

It’s Pride Month, and gay Americans should have a lot to celebrate: A new president who has pledged to advocate for LGBTQ people, an easing of a pandemic that has disrupted their communal activism, and increasing public acceptance of their basic rights, including record-high support for same-sex marriage.

Instead, the mood is somewhat bleak. Congress has so far failed to extend federal civil rights protections to LGBTQ people. Pandemic-related concerns are still disrupting the usual exuberant Pride festivals. And a wave of anti-transgender legislation in Republican-governed states has been disheartening

“The same week I’m seeing all the ‘Happy Pride’ announcements, I received multiple calls from friends about trans kids having to navigate entering psychiatric hospitals because they were suicidal and self-harming,” said M. Dru Levasseur, a transgender attorney who is director of diversity, equity and inclusion for the National LGBT Bar Association.

“I’m doing crisis management,” he added. “These untold stories about what life is like for trans kids are contrasting with ‘Happy Pride, everybody.’ ”

On June 1, the start of Pride Month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill making his state the eighth this year to ban transgender girls from competing in girls’ sports at public schools. Arkansas, one of those eight states, also has enacted a law banning gender-confirming medical treatments, like hormones and puberty blockers, that greatly reduce the risk of suicide in trans youth.

“Our opponents have been absolutely shameless in their attacks on transgender people,” said Kevin Jennings, CEO of the LGBTQ-rights group Lambda Legal.

“We know that trans young people are most marginalized and vulnerable students in our schools — being bullied, harassed, mistreated,” Jennings said. “We’re watching state legislators piling on to the bullying.”

The trans community already faces a disproportionate level of violence. At least 28 trans and gender nonconforming people have been killed so far this year in the U.S. — on track to surpass the previous one-year high of 44 such killings in 2020.

Activists’ concerns extend beyond transgender issues. For many, the top political priority is passage of the Equality Act, which would extend federal civil rights protections to LGBTQ people. It was approved by the Democratic-controlled U.S. House and is backed by President Joe Biden, but probably needs at least 10 Republican votes to prevail in the closely divided Senate – and thus far has no GOP co-sponsors.

Tyler Deaton, who advises a conservative group called the American Unity Fund that supports LGBTQ rights, believes enough Republican votes can be found if language is drafted to ensure the Equality Act doesn’t infringe on religious freedom.

“Senators are having those conversations now,” he said, mentioning Republicans such as Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Rob Portman of Ohio who have supported some LGBTQ-friendly legislation in the past.

Amid the disappointment, Pride festivities are proceeding, but many have been subject to downsizing, postponement and – in some cases — controversy.

The Pride parades in San Francisco and Los Angeles have been canceled for a second year in a row, due to uncertainty about COVID-19 restrictions. Organizers are offering smaller in-person events this month.

Philadelphia has scrapped its large-scale parade; there are plans for a festival instead on Sept. 4. Chicago’s parade has been rescheduled for Oct. 3.

In New York, most events for NYC Pride will take place virtually, as they did last year, though some in-person activities are planned.

NYC Pride organizers incurred some criticism last month after banning police and other law enforcement personnel from marching in uniform in the annual parade until at least 2025 and asking that on-duty officers keep a block away from the celebration. The Gay Officers Action League said it was disheartened by the decision.

Some recent developments have encouraged the LGBTQ community – the overturning of a Trump administration ban on transgender people joining the military; the ground-breaking appointments of Pete Buttigieg, who is gay, as transportation secretary, and Dr. Rachel Levine, who is transgender, as assistant secretary of health.

And this week, Gallup reported that 70% of Americans now support same-sex marriage, the highest number since Gallup began polling on the topic in 1996, when support was at 27%.

But to many activists, these developments are offset by setbacks to transgender rights.

Amy Allen, mother of a 14-year-old transgender boy in the suburbs of Nashville, said her family is dismayed by the multiple anti-trans bills winning approval in Tennessee – including one exposing public schools to lawsuits if they let transgender students use multi-person bathrooms or locker rooms that don’t reflect their sex at birth.

’We’ve done a pretty good job within our family of really supporting him,” Allen said of her son, Adam. “ Then to have this new layer of the legislation — having to think how that could directly affect his day-to-day life just adds more anxiety.”

It’s worrisome enough, Allen said, that she and her husband – who have roots in the Northeast – are considering relocating there if Adam’s situation worsens.

Activists have expressed dismay at the lack of corporate backlash to the new anti-transgender laws.

A particular disappointment for activists is the NCAA, which – despite calls for it to take punitive action – located some of this year’s regional softball and baseball tournament games in states that enacted bans on transgender girls’ sports participation.

It’s a sharp contrast to the NCAA’s stance five years ago, when it refused to hold championship events in North Carolina for several months after its legislature passed a bill restricting transgender people’s use of bathrooms in public facilities.

“The NCAA should be ashamed of themselves for violating their own policy by choosing to hold championships in states that are not healthy, safe, or free from discrimination for their athletes,” said Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign.

Among the transgender Americans with mixed feelings about Pride Month is Randi Robertson, who rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel during 22 years in the Air Force and now combines work as an airline pilot instructor with transgender-rights advocacy.

She is relieved that the Biden administration, unlike its predecessor, pledges support for expanded LGBTQ rights, yet she says activists should be combative rather than complacent.

“The fundamentalist, evangelical right has chosen expressly to attack the smallest, most vulnerable part of the LBGT community (transgender people),” she said. “The broader narrative is we’re actually winning. Now is not the time to give up — now is the time to double down and keep the pressure on.”

Imani Rupert-Gordon, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, also voiced a nuanced view of Pride Month.

“Pride is a time when we get to celebrate who we are,” she said. “It’s also a time when we recognize we still have a lot more to do.”

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AP videojournalist Emily Leshner contributed to this report.

Summer camps return but with fewer campers and counselors

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Overnight summer camps will be allowed in all 50 states this season, but COVID-19 rules and a pandemic labor crunch mean that many fewer young campers will attend, and those who do will have to observe coronavirus precautions for the second consecutive year.

The Southeast is the first region to kick off camps this month, with other parts of the country to follow in July.

“Camp might look a little different, but camp is going to look a lot better in 2021 than it did in 2020, when it didn’t happen,” said Matt Norman of Atlanta, who is getting ready to send his 12-year-old daughter to camp.

Even though most camps will be open, reduced capacity necessitated by COVID-19 restrictions and the labor shortage will keep numbers well below a normal threshold of about 26 million summer campers, said Tom Rosenberg of the American Camp Association.

Across the country, many camps face competition for counselors in a tight job market. Traditional recruitment tactics like job fairs on college campuses have been canceled.

“It’s been hard to get people to work,” said Josh Nelson, at Glorieta Adventure Camp, a facility in pine-covered foothills outside Santa Fe, New Mexico.

A group of Glorieta camp staffers started their orientation by rolling up their sleeves and getting vaccinated in an area between the mess hall and the water slides. But many campers are too young to get the shots because the vaccines have not been approved for children under 12.

That means this year’s camp experience will still involve many of the same prevention practices that were adopted at the small number of camps that operated last year. Those measures include grouping kids in cohorts, mandating masks, emphasizing social distancing — and lots of hand washing. Some states, like Vermont, are offering free virus testing for campers.

At an all-girls camp called Fernwood in Maine, about 200 of the 300 counselors and campers will be vaccinated by the time the six-week term starts.

“Going into it, it’s a much better scenario for us. Because instead of being worried about 300 people, we’re worried about 100 people,” Fernwood Director Fritz Seving said.

Norman plans to send daughter Jane Ellen to Camp Illahee in Brevard, North Carolina, and he’s glad the camp is encouraging vaccinations.

Jane Ellen agreed and said the focus on vaccines is a good idea.

“If most people are vaccinated, the more people can go,” she said.

Back at Glorieta, staff arrived in May from Oklahoma, Texas and a college town in Mexico called Puebla, where an in-person recruiting fair took place. They have been training on safety protocols, including virus protection, zip lining and life guarding.

The camp is running at one-third capacity — 1,100 out of 3,000 slots are filled — and staff will be grouped in pods. Kids are expected to wear masks, even outdoors, except when the are eating meals or in their sleeping dorm.

More than 90% of the staff agreed to be vaccinated, but there was no mandate for vaccinations.

Even with those limitations, the outlook is much better than last year, when camp was canceled and 80% of the staff was laid off by March, Nelson said. Federal Paycheck Protection Program loans helped but didn’t alleviate all of the financial pain, he said.

Rosenberg said camp is more important than ever in terms of providing normalcy for kids who have dealt with remote learning, canceled events and boredom at home, not to mention health worries.

“Kids have been traumatized. They’ve had some real academic losses. We still haven’t talked enough about the social and emotional learning losses,” he said.

Camp will let them “practice engaging peer to peer” and offer a chance to “to try new activities, take positive risks and be out in nature, and sort of regain some of the humanity they’ve lost over the past year.”

Last year, about 19.5 million kids missed out on camp, but most of the overnight camps that opened operated successfully. There were a few notable outbreaks. More than 250 people were infected at a camp in Georgia, and more than 80 infected at a camp in Missouri.

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Sharp reported from Portland, Maine. Associated Press Writer Patrick Whittle in Portland also contributed to this report. Attanasio is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues. Follow him on Twitter.

The Latest: Honolulu eases restrictions as vaccinations rise

HONOLULU—Honolulu is loosening some restrictions on social activity now that more than half its population has been vaccinated against COVID-19.

The new rules allow outdoor social gatherings of up to 25 people and indoor gatherings of up to 10.

Karaoke bars and nightclubs may operate at 50% capacity if all attendees are tested for the disease or show proof they have been fully vaccinated.

The city will allow gatherings of 25 indoors and 75 outdoors once 60% of the population has been vaccinated. All limits will be lifted when the vaccination rate tops 70%.

Honolulu reported 25 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, down 25% from two weeks earlier.

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