in how abuse reports are handled. he became invested in ...

LGBTQ flagsexplained:Beyond therainbow

How many of the Prideflags do you know? Fromthe traditional rainbow torelatively new designsrepresenting groups, webreak it down. Page 6D

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Who would eat cicada cuisine?A quarter of Americans are willing to try food made with the cicadas loudly swarming across much of the nation this summer.

58%

Very/somewhat

unwillingVery/somewhat willing

3%Alreadyeaten it

Don’t know

23%

16%

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NFL: fewer second chancesafter domestic violence

USA TODAY Sports analysis finds significant shiftin how abuse reports are handled. In Sports

Dwyane Wade hosts newgame show: ‘The Cube’

The former NBA champ’s gig was “emotional” ashe became invested in the players. In Life

Sezin Koehler had the perfect tattoo in mind.She imagined blue and purple swirls rising up herarm to match the colorful tattoos adorning hershoulders. After hours of planning and research,she brought her idea to a tattoo artist.

The artist took one look at her and said no.“Your skin tone is a problem,” she remembers

the artist telling her.Koehler, 42, went to multiple artists, who said

her skin was too dark to be tattooed in color. Theysuggested black and gray, even though Koehler al-ready had blue and purple tattoos.

Each time, Koehler left the tattoo shops crying.“Artists should be able to paint on any canvas,”

said Koehler, a Sri Lankan and Lithuanian Amer-ican culture writer from southeast Florida. “And ifyou can’t, there’s the internet, books, networks ofartists that can teach you.

“If you wanted to learn, you could. So the fact isthey’re making a choice that they only want cer-

Tann Parker, left, founder of Ink the Diaspora, with artist Quiara Capellan in their studio in New York,created Ink the Diaspora in 2017 to help connect people with artists of color. ROBERT DEUTSCH/USA TODAY

Ending myths of whiteskin being ideal for ink

Many tattoo artists aren’t trained to create ondifferent skin shades. PROVIDED BY QUIARA CAPELLAN

Artists fight pervasive claims rooted in racism

See TATTOOS, Page 8A

Christine Fernando USA TODAY

Bianca Voss reeled in shock when her daughter,Roberta, told her the results of the 23andMe genetictest she took last fall. It indicated that the fertilitydoctor who had artificially inseminated Voss in 1983,enabling her to give birth to Roberta, had secretlyused his own semen.

“I am angry that I was violated in this manner,”Voss said during a late May online news conferenceto announce a federal lawsuit against the doctor,Martin D. Greenberg, whoworked in New York City dur-ing the 1980s and now lives inAventura, Florida. “Howcould I have picked such acriminal and immoral physi-cian who would do such athing to me?”

Her daughter was angry,too. Roberta Voss had tried tocontact Greenberg throughhis 23andMe account, but itwas deleted after she mes-saged him. “He knew he wascaught, and he was trying tocover it up,” she said in an in-terview with USA TODAY.

Bianca Voss is the latestamong dozens of womenwho have alleged they wereduped by fertility doctorsthey trusted to inseminatethem with sperm from anon-ymous or chosen donors.They discovered the decep-tions decades later whentheir children took popular,at-home DNA tests.

Increasingly, the parents,their children and lawmakersare fighting back. Families have sued former doctorsfor what they say were fraudulent inseminationsdecades ago. Six states have enacted laws against so-called fertility fraud, and other states are consideringsimilar statutes.

One of the lawyers representing Bianca Voss saystougher oversight is overdue for what he character-ized as the lightly regulated fertility industry.

“In the majority of states, and at the federal level,it’s the Wild West,” said attorney Adam Wolf, a share-

FertilitydoctorssecretlyfatheringFew states have laws forfraud discovered by DNAKevin McCoy USA TODAY

Cecil B. Jacobsonwas convicted inVirginia of using hisown sperm toinseminate patients.DENNIS COOK/AP

See FRAUD, Page 2A

“I’m in turmoil aboutwho I am, what thismeans, and whatkind of personwould do this.”

Roberta Voss,who discovered a doctorwas her real father

FALMOUTH, England – PresidentJoe Biden and British Prime MinisterBoris Johnson sized each other up inperson Thursday for the first timesince Biden took office.

Despite Britain’s sometimes con-troversial and unpredictable leader’senthusiastic support of PresidentDonald Trump, Johnson and Biden’sfirst big moment on the global stagegot off to a mutually agreeable start –at least in public.

“It’s gorgeous. I don’t want to gohome,” Biden said as he and Johnson,joined by their wives, Jill and Carrie,stood on a deck over St. Ives Bay, amajestic stretch of beach that looksout to rugged headlands in this part ofsouthwestern England.

The Group of Seven summit, a meet-ing of the world’s wealthy industrial-ized nations, takes place here Friday toSunday. The coronavirus pandemicand climate change are among the top-ics under discussion.

Beyond the pleasantries, there wassubstance to their talks.

Biden and Johnson launched a taskforce that will make policy recommen-dations about safely reopening inter-national travel between the U.K. andthe USA.

Before the coronavirus outbreak,more than 4.5 million Americans visit-ed the U.K. every year, and more than5 million British nationals traveled tothe USA annually.

No specific timing was announcedon when the travel task force wouldbegin its work. British scientists saidthe U.K. may be starting to see a thirdwave of coronavirus infections as aresult of the Delta variant that was firstdetected in India.

Biden, Johnson talk Brexit, reopening Overseas travel, climatetopics for G-7 summit

Kim Hjelmgaard and Michael CollinsUSA TODAY

British Prime Minister Boris Johnsonand President Joe Biden have much to discuss before the G-7 summit.BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGESSee G7 SUMMIT, Page 4A

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical is the top of a listthat includes sci-fi and Mark Wahlberg. Page 5B

Our streaming guide hits the ‘Heights’ this weekend MONEY+LIFE

USA TODAY | FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 2021 | SECTION B

INDEX CLOSE CHGDow Jones Industrial Avg. 34,466.24 x 19.10S&P 500 4,239.18 x 19.63Nasdaq composite 14,020.33 x 108.58T-note, 10-year yield 1.444 y 0.046SOURCES USA TODAY RESEARCH, BLOOMBERG

Dow Jones Industrial Avg.

28,000

32,000

JUNEDEC.AP

36,000

34,466

19.10

30,000

34,000

THURSDAY MARKETS

STARBUCKS FACINGSHORTAGES OF INGREDIENTS

Snagging your favorite Starbucks treatmight be more difficult due to short-ages of such ingredients as oat milk.When you open the Starbucks app,you’ll see a message warning of theabsence of some menu options. “Dueto current supply shortages, some ofyour favorites may be temporarily outof stock,” it reads. Starbucks spokes-person Sanja Gould said confirmedshortages will vary by store or market.The oat milk option has been tempo-rarily pulled from some stores.

JOBLESS CLAIMS FALL FORSIXTH STRAIGHT WEEK

The number of Americans applying forunemployment benefits fell for thesixth straight week as the U.S. econo-my reopens rapidly. Jobless claims fellby 9,000 to 376,000 from 385,000 theweek before, the Labor Departmentreported Thursday. The number ofpeople signing up for benefits ex-ceeded 900,000 in early January andhas fallen more or less steadily eversince. Still, claims are high by historicstandards. Nearly 3.5 million peoplewere receiving state unemploymentbenefits the week of May 29, down by258,000 from the week before.

JBS CONFIRMS IT PAID $11MIN RANSOM TO HACKERS

The world’s largest meat processingcompany says it paid the equivalent of$11 million to hackers who broke intoits computer system late last month.JBS SA said on May 31 that it was thevictim of a ransomware attack, butWednesday was the first time the U.S.division confirmed that it had paid theransom. “We felt this decision had tobe made to prevent any potential riskfor our customers,” said Andre No-gueira, CEO of JBS USA. The FBI hasattributed the attack to Russian-speaking gang REvil.

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Per gallon of regular unleaded.

Yesterday Avg. ........................ $3.073Wednesday Avg. .................... $3.067Week Ago Avg. ....................... $3.042Month Ago Avg. ..................... $2.967Year Ago Avg. .......................... $2.071

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Frequent flyer Jay Groh rarely calls airlinesfor help.

The Atlanta sales executive books his travelonline or on airline mobile apps with little trou-ble.

Until the coronavirus pandemic. Like travel-ers around the globe, Groh had to cancel tripsplanned for 2020 and ended up with travelcredits.

When he tried to redeem a Delta Air Linescredit online to book a flight for his wife’s 40thbirthday trip to California this fall, he kept get-ting error messages. So he called Delta. Twice.

The first time he called in late May, the waitwas more than two hours. He got in the virtualqueue for a callback but missed it during a workmeeting.

Groh called Delta again a week and a half lat-er – on a Tuesday around lunchtime. The quot-ed wait time: seven hours and 40 minutes.

He eventually got booking help from a Deltarepresentative on Twitter, but the delays costhim: The ticket price went up $200 from his ini-tial online search.

“If the website had worked, I would havebooked on the website and locked in the $500price for the ticket,” he said.

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Airlines overwhelmed withcalls as travel rebounds

Dawn GilbertsonUSA TODAY

See AIRLINES, Page 2B

Since the last time millions ofAmerican workers chatted around wa-ter coolers, the nation has gonethrough a pandemic, protests power-ing a social justice movement, an elec-tion, an insurrection and two presi-dential impeachments.

And now many people are returningto the office, where these polarizingtopics might come up in face-to-faceconversations for the first time.

But how will we talk to each other ina productive and respectful way? Willwe avoid it altogether? And could ourdeep divisions undermine the successof the companies we work for?

Americans are increasingly avoid-ing conversations with people whoaren’t like them, even in the work-place, where their economic livelihooddepends on effective collaboration, re-search shows.

And that’s how some people want it.“I was hoping for more unity after

things open up,” says Brandon Bentz,38, of Wichita, Kansas. “It’s like, let’s alltry to start fresh.”

But after the Donald Trump era and

the divisive debate over masks turnedAmericans against each other, hedoesn’t want to talk about politics atwork.

“My personal philosophy is I justdon’t think there’s a place for it in mostworkplaces,” says Bentz, who sells tor-tillas to grocery retailers.

He’s not alone. And employers are in-creasingly concerned about the impactof political debates in the workplace.

More than 4 in 10 human resourceprofessionals are discouraging employ-ees from discussing politics at work, ac-cording to an October survey by the So-ciety for Human Resource Manage-ment.

But some workers are recoiling atthose restrictions.

One-third of employees at a softwareproductivity company called Basecampsaid they would resign after their CEO,Jason Fried, announced in April that

Can we still talk politics nowthat we’re back at the office?Nathan BomeyUSA TODAY

Brandon Bentz, of Wichita, Kansas,sells tortillas to retailers. He wants toavoid talking about politics at work. “Iwas hoping for more unity after thingsopen up.” PROVIDED BY BRANDON BENTZ

See POLITICS, Page 2B

2B ❚ FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 2021 ❚ USA TODAY MONEY

workers would no longer be allowed toengage in “societal and political discus-sions” on an internal messaging service.

“It’s become too much,” he said in ablog post. “It’s a major distraction. Itsaps our energy, and redirects our dialogtowards dark places. It’s not healthy, ithasn’t served us well.”

Fried later apologized after employ-ees apparently revolted, saying the de-velopments were “terrible” and al-though the policy changes, which in-cluded other elements, “felt simple, rea-sonable, and principled,” the situation“blew things up internally in ways wenever anticipated.”

“We have a lot to learn and reflect on,and we will. The new policies stand, butwe have some refining and clarifying todo,” he wrote.

Fried declined an interview requestfor this story.

Tension when we go back to work

The Basecamp episode reflects howmuch tension awaits employers andemployees when they begin seeing eachother in person for the first time as re-mote work arrangements come to anend.

While casual conversations aboutpolarizing issues may not be natural onlive-video meetings such as Zoom,they’re standard around the office,where the debate over issues such asmasks and the election could quicklybecome heated.

In 2020, 44% of human resource pro-fessionals reported intensified politicalvolatility among their workers, up from26% in 2016, according to a survey bythe Society for Human Resource Man-agement, a trade association. They fearthat it could begin hurting productivity.

“Toxic polarization stifles creativityand the free exchange of ideas betweenpeople with different worldviews, mak-ing it harder to collaborate everywhere,including at work,” says Andrew Ha-nauer, CEO of the One America Move-ment, a nonprofit that fights polariza-tion.

The potential collision of opinions re-quires employers to thoughtfully trainworkers on how to have healthy conver-sations in the workplace, says StevenDinkin, president of the San Diego-based National Conflict Resolution Cen-ter.

“Coming back into the workplace,seeing colleagues and trying to reestab-lish a team atmosphere is going to be ab-solutely critical,” Dinkin says. “If youdon’t address some challenging issues,then it’s going to be really hard for peo-

ple to work together.”That’s why the National Conflict Res-

olution Center recently partnered withthe University of California, San Diegoto establish the Applied Research Cen-ter for Civility, which will devise solu-tions for healthy discourse based on ac-ademic research and real-life conflictresolution practices, says co-chair Eliz-abeth Simmons.

In many cases, healthy discoursestarts with listening, she says.

Start with listening

When you “actually listen to one an-other and learn from another’s point ofview, even when you don’t agree, it’s theopposite of silencing,” says Simmons,who also serves as executive vice-chan-cellor of UC, San Diego. “It enables youto hear many points of view in the sameroom without exploding into anger.”

Learning how to talk to each other isthe premise of an event this weekendcalled America Talks, which is beingsponsored by more than 350 organiza-tions through the #ListenFirst Coalitionand promoted by Gannett’s USA TODAYNetwork. More than 5,000 Americanshave signed up to have conversationsabout difficult topics with people whoaren’t like them during America Talks,kicking off the 2021 National Week ofConversation, when more than 100 or-ganizations plan to hold similar eventsto catalyze discussions on hard issues.(You can sign up for free through Fridaynight to participate in America Talks atamericatalks.us.)

Engaging in healthy discourse comesdown to “listening with curiosity, speak-

ing from your own experience and con-necting with respect,” says Pearce God-win, CEO of the Listen First Project.

The opposite is when conversations“occur with vitriol and animosity andjudgment and in a way that takes usfrom the democratic, pluralistic virtueof disagreement into that space of dis-like and even dehumanization,” Godwinsays. “That’s what the ‘toxic’ in ‘toxicpolarization’ means – that I don’t justdisagree with you, that I dislike, de-spise, even detest you.”

Learning how to have difficult con-versations in the workplace is especiallycrucial because it’s virtually impossiblefor employers to prevent workers fromdiscussing divisive issues, says Dinkin,president of the National Conflict Reso-lution Center. “People are going to havethe conversation even if the managerwants to avoid it,” he says.

George Floyd discussions

For example, after the murder ofGeorge Floyd sparked outrage and a so-cial justice movement, the NationalConflict Resolution Center brought inexperts from the outside to hold a mod-erated discussion on the topic among itsown employees.

“We had an opportunity for everyoneto express their feelings about theGeorge Floyd tragedy, and then webroke up into small groups and peoplecontinued to have those conversationsand then we came back together,” Din-kin says. “If outside facilitators arebrought in, then it’s done in a controlledenvironment and there are certainground rules to handle some of those

challenging topics.”Employers should take steps to en-

sure that workers know they value di-versity in all respects, including opin-ions, says Johnny C. Taylor Jr., CEO ofthe Society for Human Resource Man-agement.

Their philosophy should be that “youwill be confronted in work with opin-ions that you don’t agree with. And as apart of our culture, we embrace diversi-ty,” said Taylor, who writes an advicecolumn for USA TODAY.

But there are limits, he says. Whilehealthy discussions about polarizing is-sues are worth pursuing, employers alsohave a vested interest in keeping work-ers focused on their jobs, Taylor says.

“That means we will see managers bedemoted if they can’t manage these sit-uations,” he says. “We will see employ-ees be terminated if they cannot operatein this environment.”

Taylor acknowledges that someworkers demand to be allowed to voicetheir opinions on contentious topics,while others want the opposite.

While many Basecamp workers quitover the company’s new no-politics pol-icy, Taylor speculates that some poten-tial employees might be attracted towork there because of it.

A no-politics workplace?

Bentz, the Kansas worker, says that’sthe type of atmosphere he’s looking for.In fact, it’s exactly what he had for morethan a decade when he worked forsomeone who never said anything polit-ical.

“My former boss, a great guy, wouldgive you the shirt off his back,” Bentzsays. “He could be a hardcore Trumpsupporter, he could be a hardcore liber-al. I have no clue.”

Bentz says when you’re trying towork, build a team and accomplishgoals, talking politics doesn’t have aplace.

But many advocates for bridge-building between people say it’s notpossible to remove politics from theworkplace.

“Understand that these conversa-tions are going to happen around the lit-eral or proverbial water cooler,” saysGodwin of the Listen First Project. “it’snot productive or even plausible to wishthem away.”

Rather, bosses should establish a cul-ture of inclusion that includes respectfor different perspectives, he said.

“Especially in cases where they maynot personally agree or personally holdthat perspective,” he says. “Create anenvironment where that kind of posturetoward our co-workers is rewarded, isexpected, and an environment in whichdemeaning co-workers because of theiralternate perspectives is not tolerated.”

PoliticsContinued from Page 1B

Mandy Bailey and Theresa Russell talk during a workshop organized by FloridaToday's Civility Brevard project through the nonprofit Braver Angels, which isteaching Americans of different backgrounds how to have productiveconversations. The event took place at the Unitarian Universalist Church ofBrevard in West Melbourne, Fla. CRAIG BAILEY/USA TODAY NETWORK

Travelers returning to the skies thissummer after COVID-19 lockdowns canadd long wait times to reach airlines tothe lengthy list of frustrations as travelrebounds more quickly than even air-line executives poised for the pent-updemand had expected. One traveler saidon Twitter that she accidentally fellasleep on hold with an unnamed airlineand was still on hold when she woke up.

USA TODAY called the customer ser-vice lines of the largest U.S. airlines onWednesday, June 2, in the afternoonand found waits as long as eight hoursand 31 minutes at Delta. The airline wasso swamped, it didn’t even offer a call-back option.

American quoted a wait of two hoursand 28 minutes to three hours and 23minutes but offered the unique optionof scheduling a call anytime in the nextweek.

JetBlue had a wait of 75 minutes.Calls to Hawaiian Airlines and bud-

get carrier Allegiant resulted in repeatedbusy signals.

At the other end of the spectrum, thespot check found waits of 20 minutes orless at United and Southwest. I reachedsomeone immediately at budget carrierFrontier, which doesn’t have a toll-freeline. Spirit Airlines did not quote a time,so I hung up after 20 minutes on hold.

Airlines warn travelers

Airlines concede heir call centers areoverwhelmed, and many posted alertsabout the situation on their websites.Some went back to advice from early inthe pandemic, when phone lines wereflooded with travelers trying to canceltrips: Don’t call unless you are travelingsoon.

A red banner at the top of HawaiianAirlines’ website says, “Our contact cen-ter is experiencing extended wait times.Guests without an immediate need for

assistance should contact us later. Weappreciate your patience and under-standing.”

On Allegiant’s website, the first itemunder travel alerts is about high call vol-ume. On JetBlue’s website, the seconditem under travel alerts is about longer-than-usual wait times, under the head-line “Skip the (phone) line.”

Why is it taking so long?

Airlines blame the long wait times ona surge in calls and fewer customer ser-vice agents to help them. Airlinesrushed to match employee levels withsharply lower travel demand last year,offering voluntary leaves and early re-tirement packages in droves.

At American Airlines, 25% of its res-ervation center staff accepted such of-fers, according to Julie Rath, vice presi-dent of customer experience and reser-vations.

Staffing levels weren’t an issue untiltravel started to rebound.

Rath said American started to noticean increase in calls in April as COVID-19vaccination rates increased and peoplestarted thinking about traveling again.A spike began in May as summer travelseason loomed. “The volume came backreally rapidly,” she said.

The calls coming in are more compli-cated, given a slew of COVID-19 travelrestrictions, questions about testing,confusion over travel credits, amongother issues coming up as people navi-gate the return to travel, Rath said. “Thecalls do take a bit longer,” she said.

American and other airlines have de-tailed information on COVID-19 require-ments and travel restrictions on theirwebsites, as well as step-by-step in-structions on booking a ticket with trav-el credits. But many travelers, especiallyinfrequent flyers and those taking inter-national trips for the first time, prefer totalk to a representative, Rath said.

‘Laser-focused’ on fixing this

American anticipated an uptick in

bookings and in March recalled employ-ees who were on temporary leaves,some as long as a year, Rath said.

It hasn’t been enough, especiallywhen bad weather in a major hubprompts a flood of calls to rescheduleflights and compounds the wait times.

American reached out to recent retir-ees, including those who acceptedearly-out offers, to come back for thesummer, and is on an “aggressive” hir-ing binge for its four U.S. call centersand home-based agents, Rath said.

“We’re laser-focused on fixing (thestaffing shortage),” Rath said. “We wanteveryone to get through rapidly andmake sure that we’re always here for ourcustomers.”

Delta is adding temporary summerhelp at its call centers and hiring 1,300employees to handle calls, spokesmanMorgan Durrant said.

“Wait times are not what we want forour customers when they need to con-tact us, so we apologize to our custom-ers for the inconvenience,” he said.

Budget carrier Allegiant increasedstaffing at its call centers, spokeswom-an Hilarie Grey said.

Alaska Airlines enlisted a senior vicepresident to apologize to customers.

“We’re excited to see our guests plan-ning travel again, but that means morecalls and longer-than-normal waittimes,” Sangita Woerner, senior vice

president of marketing and guest expe-rience, says in a recording. “We knowyour time is valuable, and we sincerelyapologize for the wait.”

Tips for travelers

h Get basic information about travelrestrictions, requirements and how toredeem those travel credits from the air-line’s website.

h Before calling, try to book or changeyour trip online or the airline’s mobileapp.

h Check for options to chat with theairline online, via text or on the mobileapp. Many airlines added these ser-vices. JetBlue offers support via livechat or Apple Business Chat.

h When it’s offered, join the virtualqueue and note the projected time, soyou’re available to answer. Americaneven allows customers to schedule acallback a week in the future, so it canspread out the volume of calls and staff.

h Call during off-peak hours. Ameri-can said volume is lowest overnight andearly in the morning.

h Reach out to airlines on socialmedia, especially Twitter. They cansolve problems via direct message.

Tom Loebig, a freelance media con-sultant from State College, Pennsylva-nia, turned to Twitter after multiplewaits on hold with United Airlines.

He had booked a last-minute busi-ness trip to Houston and forgot he had acredit to use that would cover most ofthe ticket price.

Loebig wanted to talk to someone atUnited about canceling that ticket andreissuing it with the credit. He tried on-line chat but found the replies to be“blank, unemotional kind of responses.”He called the airline a few times, eachtime trying to bypass several steps bysaying “agent, agent, agent” and was al-ways put on hold. He asked for a call-back but didn’t receive one.

He turned to Twitter last week. Anagent canceled the first ticket and lethim rebook using the credit as a “good-will gesture.”

AirlinesContinued from Page 1B

Airlines warn travelers about longwaits to reach a customer servicerepresentative. GETTY IMAGES