ORLANDO, Fla. — 

With billions in federal aid and seats in Congress at stake, some states are dragging their feet in carrying out one of the Census Bureau’s chief recommendations for making sure everyone is counted during the 2020 census.

Five states — Florida, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Texas — have not set up “complete count committees” that would create public awareness campaigns to encourage people to fill out the questionnaires.

In some of those states, politicians argued that a statewide body would be unnecessary, since local committees, cities and nonprofit organizations are already working to publicize the census. In others, state leaders didn’t see any urgency to act.

The once-a-decade count of the U.S. population starts in January in a remote area of Alaska. The rest of the nation takes part starting in the spring.

“We are encouraging others to join in,” Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham said this month. “The clock is ticking, and the time to join is now.”

Six states — Iowa, Maine, Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin — only got on board in the past several weeks.

Officials say the committees can separate census winners from losers.

“Complete count committees are extremely effective,” said Albert Fontenot, an associate director at the Census Bureau. “It’s in the states’ interests in that they get a funding flow and congressional seats.”

Of the holdout states, all but Louisiana have Republican governors.

In Texas, a measure to create a committee died in the GOP-dominated Legislature earlier this year even though the second most populous state has the most to gain from the census — up to three congressional seats.

Some Texas lawmakers were worried about losing their seats during redistricting if population surges favoring Democrats were found in urban and suburban areas, said Luis Figueroa, legislative and policy director at the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin.

Also, at the time, the Trump administration was pushing to add a citizenship question to the form, and some lawmakers didn’t want to take a stand on the issue by promoting the census, he said. The U.S. Supreme Court later blocked the question.

Twenty-six state governments are appropriating nearly $350 million to reach people and get them to respond to the census. The amounts range from California’s record $187 million to Montana’s $100,000, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. New York City is committing $40 million.

States led by Democrats have spent more per capita. Of the 11 states spending at least $1 per resident, all but North Dakota have Democratic governors, according to an Associated Press analysis.

California, which stands to lose a seat in Congress, is spending $4.73 per person, using the money to target certain ethnic communities, provide educational materials to schools and identify community leaders who can personally encourage participation in the most populous state.

Spending on outreach offers a great return on investment, said Ditas Katague, director of the California Complete Count-Census 2020 Office.

“You have to look at how many programs will suffer and how much money we will lose,” Katague said.

In 2000, when California spent $24 million, 76 percent of residents returned the questionnaires by mail, outstripping the national average. In 2010, in the aftermath of the recession and budget cuts, California spent only $2 million, and the mail response rate dropped to 73 percent, below the national average.

In Florida, the third most populous state, bills establishing a statewide committee died in the GOP-controlled Legislature. With an influx from such places as Puerto Rico and Venezuela, Florida has gained about 2.5 million people since 2010 and could pick up two more congressional seats.

A spokeswoman for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he is still reviewing what action should be taken to help get a full head count. “The governor takes the census seriously,” spokeswoman Helen Ferre said.

In Nebraska, Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts vetoed a bill to create a complete count committee, saying that local committees are already doing the work and that the legislation would have given a University of Nebraska program authority to create the panel without guidance from the state.

The number of congressional seats for Nebraska is expected to remain unchanged.

Still, “ultimately I think this will be a loss for Nebraska, especially in terms of receiving federal funds,” said state Sen. Matt Hansen, a Democrat from Lincoln who sponsored the legislation. “Specifically, I am concerned children, racial and ethnic minority populations, homeless persons, and those who live in rural and isolated areas will be undercounted.”

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WASHINGTON — 

Negotiations on a package of spending bills to fund the federal government have produced a key breakthrough, though considerably more work is needed to wrap up the long-delayed measures.

Top lawmakers of the House and Senate Appropriations committees on Saturday confirmed agreement on allocations for each of the 12 spending bills, a step that allows negotiations on the $1.4-trillion budget bundle to begin in earnest to try to pass the measures by a Dec. 20 deadline.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), and Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), announced the agreement through aides.

The measures would fill in the details on this summer’s hard-won budget and debt deal. The pact is sought by a broad spectrum of GOP defense hawks, Democrats pressing to maintain recent gains in domestic programs, and a dwindling cadre of Washington pragmatists eager to demonstrate that they can make divided government work in an increasingly toxic atmosphere.

The talks come as the Democratic-controlled House is driving toward impeaching President Trump, whose demands for billions of dollars more for additional wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border have slowed the process.

Trump has appeared to have little interest in the often-arcane appropriations process, other than to obtain wall funding and to boast about record Pentagon funding. The annual spending bills are, however, a top priority for top lawmakers like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who have wrestled over appropriations for decades.

Trump has been limited in success in winning wall funding from Congress, where there is relatively little enthusiasm for the project among his GOP allies and strong opposition from most Democrats. Congress provided $1.4 billion in wall funding last year.

The president has won considerably more money through transfers from Pentagon accounts by exploiting budget rules. He is seeking $8.6 billion, including $5 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, but would win far less under the tentative accord.

Lawmakers passed a stopgap measure this week to fund the government through Dec. 20. Saturday’s pact opens the door to a final agreement by that date, though the spending bundling is probably more likely to spill over into next year.

TOKYO — 

The Vatican’s Caritas Internationalis charity says it learned in 2017 of pedophilia concerns involving its Central African Republic director, but left it for his superiors to investigate and he remained in place and in ministry until this year.

CNN revealed the scandal over the Rev. Luk Delft this week, reporting that the Belgian Salesian priest was appointed to lead the Vatican’s main charity in the poverty-stricken country despite a 2012 criminal conviction in Belgium for child sexual abuse and possession of child pornography.

CNN identified two new alleged victims in Central African Republic since he was posted there.

Michel Roy, former secretary-general of Caritas Internationalis from 2011-2019, said in a statement Saturday that he didn’t know about the criminal conviction until this year.

But he said he had been informed in 2017 by a therapist that Delft shouldn’t be in contact with children.

“I informed Caritas CAR about the therapist’s letter and asked them to ensure that the issue was followed up with his order,” Roy said in a statement. “I was told that the issue had been resolved.”

Bangui Archbishop Cardinal Dieudonne Nzapalainga was in charge of Caritas Central African Republic at the time, and Delft was its country director. Roy relayed the concerns in the therapist’s letter to Nzapalainga, who relayed them to the Salesians.

The letter contained information from a therapist who reported that a patient had “concerns” but not evidence of pedophilia involving Delft, and said he shouldn’t be allowed to be around children given his past, said Andrew Azzopardi, the head of safeguarding and integrity for Caritas Internationalis.

Azzopardi said the Salesians in 2017 informed Nzapalainga about the 2012 conviction, but he was left in his position, and in ministry, until the new Caritas Internationalis secretary-general was appointed this year. A new complaints committee reviewed the case, and Caritas Internationalis told Nzapalainga he should be removed, and he was soon thereafter.

“A person with this background should have never entered the Caritas family let alone be a director,” Azzopardi said. “Not enough was done in 2017.”

CNN identified two alleged victims of Delft in Central African Republic, which would mean he had continued to abuse after he was sent to the country by the Salesians. He was appointed country director in 2015 by Nzapalainga. It wasn’t clear what, if any, information the Salesians provided him about Delft’s background at the time.

Roy said he had told Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, president of Caritas Internationalis and the archbishop of Manila, what he planned to do with the therapist’s letter in 2017. But Roy said he didn’t update Tagle, “who considered then that the issue was resolved.”

Caritas Internationalis is a confederation and doesn’t have the authority to appoint or fire staff at its autonomous national organizations, which are headed by national bishops’ conferences.

In 2017, its policies were to inform those responsible for Delft’s employment — in this case the Bangui archbishop and head of the Central African Republic bishops conference — and ensure the allegations were investigated.

New safeguarding policies were approved in 2018 at Caritas Internationalis, including the creation of a complaints committee and the appointment of Azzopardi as a safeguarding officer this year.

Azzopardi said a canonical investigation has been launched against Delft, as well as a criminal investigation.

NAGASAKI, Japan  — 

Pope Francis demanded world leaders renounce atomic weapons and the Cold War-era doctrine of deterrence, saying Sunday the stockpiling of nuclear arms decreases security, wastes money and threatens humanity.

Francis criticized the demise of arms control treaties while visiting Nagasaki, the site of the second of the two U.S. atomic bombings of Japan in 1945.

After laying a wreath of flowers and praying at the foot of the memorial to the victims, Francis said the place stands as a stark reminder “of the pain and horror that we human beings are capable of inflicting upon one another.”

“Convinced as I am that a world without nuclear weapons is possible and necessary, I ask political leaders not to forget that these weapons cannot protect us from current threats to national and international security,” he said.

The mood was somber and silent, darkened by the downpour that drenched the terraced fields and rice paddies of Nagasaki and the thousands of Japanese who came out in plastic raincoats to witness the second pope to pay his respects to victims of the bomb.

Francis visited Nagasaki — and later Hiroshima — at the start of his three-day trip to Japan aimed at emphasizing his call for a global ban on atomic weapons. Nagasaki was the perfect place to begin his visit, the birthplace of Christianity in Japan and ground zero of the bomb.

The Holy See was among the first countries to sign and ratify the new United Nations nuclear prohibition treaty, and Francis himself has gone further than any pope before him in saying not only the use but also the mere possession of atomic weapons is “to be condemned.”

Although Francis didn’t repeat his 2017 condemnation Sunday, he made a similar point.

“One of the deepest longings of the human heart is for security, peace and stability,” he said. “The possession of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction is not the answer to this desire; indeed they seem always to thwart it.”

The first U.S. atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, killing 140,000 people. The second one was dropped three days later on Nagasaki and killed an additional 74,000 by the end of the same year. Many of the survivors have suffered the lasting effect of radiation exposure and developed various forms of cancer.

Under the 1957 government law to support A-bomb survivors, or “hibakusha,” more than 370,000 people were recognized as eligible for government support, including medical and welfare assistance, depending on how far they were from ground zero.

“In a world where millions of children and families live in inhumane conditions, the money that is squandered and the fortunes made through the manufacture, upgrading, maintenance and sale of ever more destructive weapons, are an affront crying out to heaven,” Francis said.

He lamented the “climate of distrust” that is eating away at nonproliferation efforts and the arms control framework, a reference to a series of violated treaties and the demise this year of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a landmark Cold War-era arms control agreement. The U.S. formally withdrew from the treaty in August after accusing Russia of developing a missile system prohibited under it.

Gerard Powers, director of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute, said Francis didn’t break any new ground on the morality of deterrence in his Sunday remarks, after he shifted the church’s position in 2017.

“Instead, the pope reinforces the church’s long-standing efforts to delegitimize the nuclear status quo and convince the world that nuclear disarmament is not only a moral imperative but should be a policy goal,” he said in an email.

Starting in 1982, St. John Paul II had held that nuclear deterrence could be morally acceptable in the interim “so long as it is used as a step toward mutual, verifiable nuclear disarmament.” But the Holy See has come to realize in recent years that the policy was becoming a permanent condition and not leading to disarmament. By condemning nuclear deterrence, Francis pleased liberals and agitated conservatives, perhaps informing his more nuanced remarks Sunday.

Japanese who came out to see Francis were grateful, regardless.

“I think he is a person who can deliver the message of peace without inhibition,” said Negoro Fumiyo, a 62-year-old Christian from Osaka.

Fumiyo waited for hours in the rain for Francis’ Mass, celebrated in Nagasaki’s baseball stadium before a crowd of some 35,000 — and the remains of a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary rescued from a cathedral destroyed in the 1945 atomic bomb.

The statue, which was remarkably well preserved despite the blast, was featured on the altar.

Francis’ visit to Nagasaki also gave him the chance to honor Christian missionaries and martyrs centuries after St. Francis Xavier first brought Christianity to the archipelago in 1549.

He laid a second wreath of flowers at the memorial of 26 Nagasaki martyrs, who were crucified in 1597 at the start of the two-century wave of persecution of Christians by Japanese rulers.

The example of the missionaries and martyrs, and the so-called Hidden Christians who kept their faith alive underground for generations, helped inspire a young priest named Jorge Mario Bergolio to be a missionary in Japan.

“May we never forget their heroic sacrifice!” Francis said in remarks at the memorial.

Shingo Fukaura, from the Goto Islands off Nagasaki, where the Hidden Christians survived during the time of persecution, traveled to Nagasaki bearing gifts he hoped to give the pope at Mass.

“I also brought this branch of the camelia tree, which has been on my island since the time when we, Christians, were hiding our faith,” he said. “I am hoping he could give his blessing to this tree … and I could take it back to the islands to make it a symbol of peace.”

Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

Red Bull values the outstanding talent of Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz, and has every intention in keeping him in its stable of bulls.

Sainz was linked last year to a move to Renault, a prospect which Red Bull quickly put an end to. The Spanish driver aspires to racing with a top team next season, feeling a bit frustrated to remain with an outfit he appreciates but which hinders his ambitions.

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But Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner says that Sainz won’t be released any time soon.

“Carlos has a contract with Red Bull, who brought him into F1 and he’s there for the investment they made,” Horner told Spanish broadcaster Movistar.

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“So at the moment we do not intend to release any of our drivers. Carlos is developing and the Toro Rosso is a good car that should give him good opportunities.

“He’s still very young but we value him a lot and that’s why we don’t want to get rid of him,” he added.

While on the subject of Red Bull’s drivers, Horner rubbished rumors linking Daniel Ricciardo to Ferrari for 2018, a team which also has its eye on Sainz.

“There are always rumours in Italy,” the Brit insisted.

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ISIL fighters have advanced into the Kurdish Syrian city of Kobane (`Ayn al-`Arab), with fighting in the streets as Kurds resist, according to the pan-Arab daily, al-Hayat [Life]. Kobane, a city ordinarily of about 50,000, is the third biggest town in the Kurdish part of Syria (the far northeast). ISIL has taken dozens of nearby Kurdish villages, provoking an exodus of perhaps 300,000 refugees, with about 180,000 going to Turkey. Turkey now has over a million Syrian refugees.

Iran is complaining about the West hanging the Kurds out to dry.

Meanwhile, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan warned a Kurdish audience that Kobane could soon fall.

Erdogan says he is seeking authorization for a ground operation at Kobane. Erdogan doesn’t typically seek authorization for his actions, however, so that this is his story is suspicious and many Kurds think he does not want to intervene lest he inadvertently help the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas and their allies. Turkey fought a three-decade dirty war against the PKK from the 1970s to the 1990s, and the organization revived a bit after Washington overthrew Saddam Hussein and so allowed 5,000 of them to take refuge in Iraq (which borders eastern Turkey). Most Turkish Kurds are not separatists, but a small fringe is and Ankara fears any development that might strengthen the fringe and lead to a breakup of Turkey.

On Tuesday, thousands of Kurds demonstrated in cities all over Turkey against Erdogan’s lack of action, with some clashing with police. Ten Kurds were killed and dozens injured. For its part, Turkey called for more coalition airstrikes on ISIL.