Boy Scouts see a small membership uptick after rebrand to Scouting America

IRVING, Texas (AP) — A historic rebrand of the Boy Scouts of America has been followed by a small uptick in young people joining what will now be called Scouting America, a welcoming sign as the organization tries to move past scandal and bankruptcy.

The group will continue leaning into a broad message of inclusivity as it celebrates its 115th birthday Saturday, President and CEO Roger Krone said. He acknowledged some backlash to the rebrand after it was announced last year but described the overall response as a positive one that generated wider interest.

“The fact that we were going with a more kind of gender-neutral name, a lot of people kind of wanted to know more about it,” Krone said.

Although the overall gain in membership was small — about 16,000 new scouts, up less than 2% from the prior year — it is still encouraging for the organization after participation plummeted during the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization, which began allowing girls to join its scouting programs in 2018, has just over 1 million members.

Krone said Cub Scouts, the youngest scouting level, saw an increase of almost 3%.

Although the majority of scouts are still boys, over 196,000, girls participated in Scouting America’s programs last year. More than 8,000 girls have earned the rank of Eagle Scout.

The name change will officially take effect during the weekend birthday celebration, when sites across the U.S. will be illuminated in red, white and blue, including Niagara Falls and the Empire State Building. A redesigned flag with the Scouting America brand will be raised next week at the headquarters in the Dallas suburb of Irving.

The rebrand is one of several momentous events for the tradition-steeped organization, including its 2020 bankruptcy filing amid claims from tens of thousands of people — mainly men — who said they were abused as young scouts.

Also, the organization began allowing gay youth in 2013 and ended a blanket ban on gay adult leaders in 2015. It began accepting girls as Cub Scouts as of 2018 and into the flagship Boy Scout program — renamed Scouts BSA — in 2019.

The organization's $2.4 billion bankruptcy reorganization plan took effect in 2023, allowing it to keep operating while compensating sexual abuse survivors. Over 82,000 people filed abuse claims during the bankruptcy case.

To fund the survivors’ settlement trust, which has started making payouts, campgrounds and other properties have been sold, along with works of art including Norman Rockwell paintings depicting idyllic scenes featuring Boy Scouts.

Krone said the organization is working to digitize all its materials, creating a platform that will also allow for programs to be made multilingual. That, for instance, could help a parent who doesn't speak English follow along with their scout, he said.

Wally Tirado, who works closely with scouts in the Dallas area through a Scouting America leadership group, said the diversity among youth members was evident at a recent dinner honoring new Eagle Scouts. He called it a “room full of cultures" from around the world.

“It’s still the same program,” said Tirado, a district commissioner in the Circle Ten Council. “Just because we changed our name doesn’t mean we changed what we do.”

Michael Ramsey displays the Scouting America flag at the organization's headquarters in Irving, Texas, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Roger Krone, chief executive officer of Scouting America, describes the design of the organization's flag in Irving, Texas, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Roger Krone, chief executive officer of Scouting America, smiles during an interview at the organization's headquarters in Irving, Texas, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Patricia Harrison adjusts items on the counter of Scouting America headquarters in Irving, Texas, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Roger Krone, chief executive officer of Scouting America, gives an interview at the organization's headquarters in Irving, Texas, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

A bronze statue sits outside the Scouting America headquarters in Irving, Texas, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Roger Krone wears a Scouting America lapel pin during an interview in Irving, Texas, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

The entrance to Scouting America executive offices is shown in Irving, Texas, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025, (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Roger Krone, chief executive officer of Scouting America, describes the design of the organization's flag in Irving, Texas, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A series of separate meetings between American, Russian and Ukrainian interlocutors entered their third day on Tuesday as U.S. negotiators shuttled back to discussions with their Ukrainian counterparts in the Saudi capital, a continuation of talks with Kyiv officials that began Sunday over a potential ceasefire in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, a Kremlin official said Tuesday that the talks between U.S. and Russian officials in Riyadh the previous day would likely lead to further contacts between Washington and Moscow, but that no concrete plans have yet been made.

The three days of meetings — which did not include direct Russian-Ukrainian negotiations — are part of an attempt to hammer out details on a partial pause in the 3-year-old war in Ukraine. It has been a struggle to reach even a limited, 30-day ceasefire — which Moscow and Kyiv agreed to in principle last week -- with both sides continuing to attack each other with drones and missiles.

Russia and Ukraine have also taken differing interpretations of what a possible partial ceasefire would look like, and disagreed over what kinds of targets would be included in a pause — even after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with the leaders of both countries to advance a deal.

Yet despite the numerous sticking points — the White House has said a partial ceasefire would include ending attacks on “energy and infrastructure,” while the Kremlin declared that the agreement referred more narrowly to “energy infrastructure” — attempts to secure safe commercial shipping in the Black Sea appeared to garner support in principle from both parties, though no specific agreements have been announced.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday told the country’s state-run Channel One TV station that the Russian and U.S. delegations in Riyadh had discussed “primarily issues of safe shipping in the Black Sea” — a major shipping corridor on which both Russia and Ukraine have ports and coastline.

Lavrov also said that Moscow is up for resuming — “in some form, acceptable to everyone” — a 2022 deal that allowed Ukraine to ship grain through the Black Sea to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where hunger was a growing threat and high food prices had pushed more people into poverty.

The landmark Black Sea Grain initiative was brokered by the U.N. and Turkey in the summer of 2022; Moscow halted it in July 2023 until its demands to get Russian food and fertilizer to the world were met.

Serhii Leshchenko, advisor to the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office, told the Associated Press on Tuesday that U.S-Ukrainian talks in Riyadh on Sunday had included “the security of shipping and infrastructure, including safety for the (Ukrainian) ports of Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Kherson.”

Leshchenko added that the Ukrainian delegation would brief Zelenskyy following renewed talks on Tuesday with the U.S. delegation, adding: “Ukraine is ready to support initiatives that will make diplomacy a means of pressure to compel Russia to end the war.”

On Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the the outcome of the U.S-Russia talks in Riyadh “has been reported in the capitals” and was currently being “analyzed” by Moscow and Washington, but that the Kremlin has no plans to release further details of what was discussed to the public.

“We’re talking about technical negotiations, negotiations with immersion in details," Peskov said, adding that while there are currently no plans for Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to speak, such a conversation could be quickly organized if the need arises.

“There is an understanding that the contacts will continue, but there is nothing concrete at the moment,” Peskov said. He added that that there are no plans to hold a three-way meeting between Russia, the U.S. and Ukraine.

Senior Russian lawmaker Grigory Karasin, who took part in the Russia-U.S. talks in Riyadh on Monday, told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti that the conversation was “very interesting, difficult, but quite constructive.”

“We were at it all day from morning until late at night,” Karasin was quoted by the agency as saying on Tuesday.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that Ukraine had "continued deliberate drone strikes against Russia’s civilian energy facilities.”

One Ukrainian drone attack on Monday knocked down a high-voltage power line linking the Rostov nuclear power plant with the city of Tikhoretsk in the southern Krasnodar region, the ministry said, adding that another drone strike had occurred on the Svatovo gas distribution station in the Russia-occupied Ukrainian region of Luhansk.

"Zelenskyy confirms his inability to observe agreements and makes it impossible for outside guarantors of any potential agreements to control him,” the ministry said.

In Ukraine, the number of people injured Monday in a Russian missile strike on the center of the city of Sumy rose to 101 people including 23 children, according to the Sumy regional administration.

The strike on Sumy, across the border from Russia’s Kursk region which was partially occupied by Ukraine since August, hit residential buildings and a school, which had to be evacuated due to the attack.

Meanwhile, Russian forces launched one ballistic missile and 139 long-range strike and decoy drones into Ukraine overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force. Those attacks affected seven regions of Ukraine and injured multiple people.

Associated Press writer Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, a paramedic evacuates an elderly resident whose house was hit by Russian attack in Sumy, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire following a Russian attack in Sumy, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, a psychologist works with residents of houses which were hit by a Russian attack in Sumy, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire following a Russian attack in Sumy, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)