World News | NYC to Add 100,000 Child Care Slots to Aid Working Parents
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. New York City will ease the burden on working parents by providing 100,000 child care slots for youngsters who will only be in their physical schoolrooms two or three days a week under the city's hybrid back-to-school plan, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday.
New York, Jul 16 (AP) New York City will ease the burden on working parents by providing 100,000 child care slots for youngsters who will only be in their physical schoolrooms two or three days a week under the city's hybrid back-to-school plan, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday.
De Blasio said that for parents who need to report to their workplaces, “the child care will make all the difference in the world. And here's where the can-do spirit of this city comes in.”
The Democratic mayor announced earlier this month that under coronavirus-safety protocols, most of the city's 1.1 million public school students will be in their physical classrooms only part of the week when school starts in September. Students will learn remotely the rest of the time under the plan, which is subject to approval by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
The plan offers a contrast to districts like Los Angeles and San Diego that have announced that no students will be in classrooms when school starts.
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De Blasio said City Hall staffers are looking at sites like libraries and community centers to house the new child care programs. He said organizations that already provide after-school care under contract to the city will be asked if they can expand their services.
Details, including the programme's cost to the city, were not provided. (AP) PMS PMS 07162251 NNNNal, issued in a half-dozen languages, appears aimed in part at depriving bishops and religious superiors of their frequent excuses not to carry out preliminary investigations into accused priests.
The manual states, for example, that anonymous allegations should not be dismissed outright, as they often are, and that even hearsay and social media posts can constitute the basis on which to launch a preliminary probe.
In addition, the manual says bishops should not ignore allegations just because they fall outside the church's statute of limitations, since the Vatican can at any time decide to waive the time limit.
The only justification for dismissing an allegation outright, the manual says, is if the bishop determines the “manifest impossibility of proceeding,” such as if the the priest wasn't physically present when the alleged crimes took place.
The manual also makes clear that the type of crimes that fall under sexual abuse is “quite broad” and includes not only sexual relations but any physical contact for sexual gratification, including actions bishops frequently dismiss as mere “boundary violations."
The manual lists exhibitionism, masturbation, pornography production and “conversations and/or propositions of a sexual nature” that can occur through a variety of means of communication as crimes that must be investigated.
And it warns that bishops can themselves be prosecuted canonically for negligence if they fail to take allegations seriously and investigate them.
The manual was published by the Vatican office that investigates priestly sex crimes, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and was issued in Italian, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish, with a German edition expected.
Its origins lie in Pope Francis' 2019 sex abuse summit, in which the presidents of all the world's bishops conferences came to the Vatican for a four-day tutorial on abuse.
Francis summoned them after he himself botched a notorious case of abuse and cover-up in Chile, and after he realised that many bishops around the world still didn't understand or take seriously the depth of the abuse problem in the church.
On the first day of the summit, Francis issued 21 points of reflection going forward, with the first point a recommendation that the Vatican issue a handbook to help bishops investigate and prosecute sex crimes. While the Vatican has issued a variety of abuse-related documents over the years, the new manual provides a point-by-point instruction on how to conduct investigations, from start to finish.
The No. 2 at the Vatican office responsible, Monsignor Giacomo Morandi, acknowledged that no new norms are being promulgated. “The real novelty, however, is that for the first time the procedure is described in an organized way – from the first report of a possible crime to the definitive conclusion of the cause,” he told Vatican Media.
The Vatican has long refused to flat-out require bishops to report abuse allegations to police, arguing that such a universal law could lead to unjust treatment of priests in countries where Catholics are a persecuted minority.
Survivors and advocates have long blasted the position, arguing that the Vatican could make a universal reporting mandate with certain exceptions if needed.
Anne Barrett Doyle, co-founder of BishopAccountability, an online resource center about abuse, said the manual's non-binding recommendation that bishops should report abuse was “incrementally better" than the Vatican's past position.
But she stressed: “We're past the point of 'should.' There is nothing stopping the pope from ordering bishops and religious superiors (to report) all allegations to civil authorities," with exceptions where it's not safe.
And she insisted that real progress would come when the Vatican institutes a true “zero tolerance" policy, permanently removing from public ministry any cleric who abuses and any bishop who enables him.
“That will be progress. That will be the reform that is needed," she said. (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)