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(NEW YORK) — For Ebon’Nae Bradley, helping expectant parents is more than a job – it’s her mission. Bradley has been a licensed doula for more than a decade and has supported hundreds of mothers in their journeys to give birth.

“I always like to describe it as like a birth planner for your birth,” said Bradley, who is based in Dallas, of her role in the birthing process. “We sit with you and we really help you to see what the vision is for your birth. We help you find your power.”

The Mayo Clinic defines a doula as a professional labor assistant who provides both physical and emotional support during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period.

Black doulas like Bradley are helping mothers reclaim their child birthing processes by empowering them to make decisions around their own health care.

“When women reach out to me, especially Black women, the No. 1 thing, without fail, is fear. They’re afraid,” Bradley told ABC’s Janai Norman.

She said she’s seen that some doctors worry about statistical risks and sometimes will dismiss a woman’s concerns rather than listen to them.

“Doctors in general, most of them kind of tend to look at birth as something they want to manage,” said Bradley. “Birth is not by the book.”

According to a 2013 study from the Journal of Perinatal Education, mothers who are “socially disadvantaged” were two times less likely to experience a birth complication while using a doula.

Dr. Joia Crear-Perry is a retired OB-GYN and leading specialist on maternal mortality among Black mothers. She said race, gender and socio-economic status matter during childbirth.

“We know that the consequences of racism, sexism, gender oppression are causing us to die within childbirth,” said Crear-Perry. “We have never invested in people who are the most marginalized. Our health care system was created to ensure that people who have resources are able to get things.”

Non-Hispanic, Black mothers are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than their white and Hispanic counterparts, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Bradley often partners with licensed midwives like Kennasha Jones and Tereé Fruga, who are medically trained to deliver babies in most settings, including the hospital, birthing centers, or in homes.

“Midwifery care is not just about caring for her body. We’re caring for the whole woman,” said Jones. “We want to know what your mental state is. We want to know what your emotions are like.”

A 2018 study found that states with more robust midwifery services reported better maternal care and better birthing outcomes, suggesting that states that have better resources dedicated to health care have better results, according to a study published in the journal PLOS One.

The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate when compared to other industrialized nations, some of which use midwives at much higher rates than in the U.S., according to The Commonwealth Fund. The World Health Organization recommends midwifery care as an evidence based approach to reducing these deaths.

Bradley, Jones and Fruga were recently providing collaborative care for Justina Arrington, a mother of two with a third child on the way, in Arlington, Texas.

Arrington said that her first birth was a “traumatic” experience for her. Her prenatal records showed that her baby started showing signs of fetal distress and doctors said she would need an emergency cesarean section.

“It was just it was real tiresome and it was very traumatic, especially when I found out my doctor, that I had been working with the entire time, he was not going to be there,” said Arrington, who said she opted to undergo another C-section for her second pregnancy after her doctors warned she could be in labor for days.

In 2020, the CDC reported that about 1 out of every 3 deliveries in the United States were C-sections.

Arrington said that recovery from her two C-sections was painful. She said when she found out she was pregnant for a third time, she and her husband were determined to have a vaginal birth at home.

According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, planned home birth is associated with more than two times increased risk of perinatal death and three times increased risk of seizures or serious neurological dysfunction in newborns. Only 1 percent of women in the U.S. opt to give birth at home.

But advocates like the Midwives Alliance of North America say these statistics are too generalized and do not take into account the option for midwifery or a doula in the home or the outcomes for low risk pregnancies.

Arrington was at higher risk than most. Medical organizations recommend a hospital setting for vaginal birth after C-sections, instead of at home, to allow for quick access to emergency medical care if it’s needed.

Fruga says her organization tries to take as many precautions as possible to ensure a healthy delivery.

“First thing we do is we have to get the previous records from her C-sections. We have to make sure that the surgery was done in a manner that is safe for her to try an out-of-hospital birth. And once we do that, then we go about preparing her prenatal,” said Fruga, who also makes sure that the patient is close to a hospital in the event more medical care is needed.

With the help of Fruga, Bradley and Jones, after six and a half hours in labor, in a birth pool in her home, Arrington successfully gave birth to a healthy baby girl.

“Just to be able to find a team that was willing to take me on, that was willing to give me all the information that I needed, it’s a big relief and it’s just a big feeling of like, ‘Wow, I did it,’” said Arrington. “Just knowing that I was able to have her naturally it just feels different, you know?”

Often doula care can become pricey. Only six states currently provide Medicaid reimbursement for doula services and several more states have recently passed legislation or are considering adding doula coverage to Medicaid programs, according to the National Health Law Program.

But licensed midwifery care is often more covered by insurers. ABC News reached out to three of some of the largest insurance carriers here in the U.S: United Healthcare, Cigna and Aetna. All offer some coverage for certified midwifery care.

Crear-Perry said the investment is worth it.

“We’re all deserving of justice and joy. So if we invested in health as a right, we would have nobody in this country that doesn’t have access to whatever kind of birth that they want,” said Crear-Perry.

In the meantime, Bradley said her practice has been compelled to offer alternative payment methods like scholarships to help extend access to care. While some of her colleagues, she said, will get creative with how they’re compensated.

“Another thing that some doulas do is barter. So you have moms who are incredibly talented and resourceful. They may be photographers; they may be hairstylists. And it’s like, ‘Well, okay, I’ll braid your hair for a few months in exchange for my doula care,’” said Bradley.

Bradley says she is seeing more and more women who are informed and empowered to speak up and seek help.

“We’re here on the ground doing the work, helping,” she said. “What we see is healthy birth outcomes. We see healthy mamas, healthy babies and all because they had doula support, midwifery care and just love.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro entered a plea of not guilty Friday to two charges stemming from his failure to comply with subpoenas from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta set a tentative trial date for November 17.

Navarro was represented by his new defense attorneys, John Irving and John Rowley, who were retained by Navarro as counsel on Thursday. Navarro was previously pro se and representing himself.

Mehta rejected the defense’s request to delay the trial date until early 2023 to accommodate Navarro’s new book on former President Donald Trump, and his planned publicity tours.

“The latter part of the year is going to be … a time where [Navarro’s] going to be on the road a lot and trying to promote that book, which is important to him in terms of income and whatnot,” Irving said. “So it’s not a trivial thing.”

“No, I’m not suggesting it is,” Mehta replied. “On the other hand … I’ve got also the public interest [to take] into account in terms of moving this case forward.”

A federal prosecutor said during the arraignment that “delaying this trial to early next year, potentially April, would be clearly unwarranted given the facts and issues in this case,” and argued that a book tour does not justify such a delay.

The House voted in April to hold Navarro in contempt over his refusal to cooperate with the Jan. 6 probe.

Earlier this month, Navarro failed to comply with a federal grand jury subpoena calling for him to appear at U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

Navarro was indicted on June 3 on charges of contempt of Congress. The Justice Department previously returned a similar indictment against former White House strategist Steve Bannon after the House voted to hold him in contempt last year.

According to court documents, Navarro dropped a civil lawsuit he had filed last month against the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., and other parties, after he had received a grand jury subpoena related to the House’s contempt referral. However Rowley, speaking to reporters following Friday’s hearing, said his team might review the lawsuit and refile it after additional consideration.

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(NEW YORK) — Last week, several thousand migrants reportedly walked through southern Mexico on the way to the United States in the largest migrant caravan of the year. Officials said they have disbanded the group in the past few days, but many may still be traveling in smaller groups.

In the past, many migrants would hope to get to the United States and claim asylum. In the last couple of years, however, multiple policies have tightened the border. These include the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols or MPP, which forces people seeking asylum to return to Mexico while awaiting their court dates.

Further, during the pandemic, Title 42 imposed travel restrictions and those seeking asylum were turned away at the border.

In May, there were nearly 240,000 unauthorized southern border crossings, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection – which is a two-decade high and a 30% increase from the same time last year.

In a response to the influx of illegal crossings, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star last year he said combat crime along the Texas-Mexico border and capture more immigrants trying to enter the United States. The law enforcement operation is to use “available resources to enforce all applicable federal and state laws to prevent the criminal activity along the border.”

According to an April 2022 Texas state report, Operation Lone Star touted more than 13,600 criminal arrests and more than 11,000 felony charges as well as over 3,700 weapons seizures.

“Texans demand and deserve an aggressive, comprehensive border security strategy that will protect our communities from the dangerous consequences related to illegal immigration,” said Abbott in a statement. “Until President Biden enforces the immigration laws passed by Congress, Texas will step up and use its own strategies to secure the border and negotiate with Mexico to seek solutions that will keep Texans safe.”

ABC News correspondent Mireya Villareal spoke to ABC News’ “Start Here” podcast about Operation Lone Star.

“[Abbott] decided to put National Guardsmen, Texas Guardsmen on the border, along with the increase of DPS troopers he already had patrolling the area who are helping local law enforcement,” said Villareal. “So we’re talking about roughly 10,000 soldiers that are now along the border with Operation Lone Star, but there is a lot of confusion about really what their duties are, what sort of arresting power they really have, and really what laws they are enforcing down there.”

Due to the way state laws are enforced by Operation Lone Star, immigration advocates said that migrants are being arrested on state trespassing charges and are treated like criminals before they’ve even been given the chance to seek asylum through federal policy, according to Villareal.

“The migrants that are coming across from Mexico believe the people they are running into are actual federal agents enforcing immigration policy,” said Villareal. “So they stop because they think they are turning themselves in and they will be given the ability to ask for asylum. However, that is not what happens when they run into either guardsmen or DPS troopers inevitably.”

She said this is why the state detention centers are overcrowded.

“The detention centers that are being used by the state of Texas are prisons that are meant for everyday criminals. And so the frustration we’re seeing and the reason why immigration advocates are being really loud about Operation Lone Star is because you are treating them like they are criminals,” said Villareal. “You have a migrant that has come to the U.S. begging for help, wanting to ask for asylum and being told they cannot.” Villareal calls it a “loophole” of a situation.

“This is where there is that very fuzzy line between what the state’s rights are and what laws they can enforce and what federal rights are and what laws they can enforce, what powers they have,” said Villareal. “I think that’s what immigration advocates are trying to fight here in trying to figure out is, does the state of Texas truly have the right to do this?”

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(NEW YORK) — When Houston natives Kelley Dixon Tealer and her mother Alva Marie Jenkins embarked on the journey to discover their ancestral roots, they had no idea they would soon realize a dream that was more than 150 years in the making.

The quest to discover one’s family lineage can sometimes be difficult for some Black people throughout the African Diaspora due to the historical complications brought about by slavery. Finding records can be a daunting task.

Tealer says she spent most of her life not knowing the full extent of her family’s history, but the passing of an elder loved one inspired her to start a search through Ancestry, a Utah-based genealogy company that says it has helped millions of people discover their roots.

“I wanted to stay close to my grandparents and when they both transitioned, I just wanted to keep that piece of history. I wanted to dig more,” Tealer told “Good Morning America.”

It was then that Tealer connected with Dr. Nicka Sewell-Smith, an Ancestry genealogist who discovered through the Freedmen’s Bureau records that Jenkins and Tealer were second and third-generation granddaughters of Hawkins Wilson, a man who was born into slavery in Virginia, and separated from his family when he was sold as a boy.

The lost letters of Hawkins Wilson:

The Freedmen’s Bureau records are a collection of records compiled by Congress following the Civil War to “help formerly enslaved people make the transition from slavery to freedom and citizenship,” according to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

After the war ended in 1865, the Freedmen’s Bureau was tasked with trying to reconnect families who were separated during slavery and transitioning formerly enslaved people into the workforce.

Twenty-four years after being separated from his family, Wilson, living as a free man in Galveston, Texas, sent letters to the Freedman’s Bureau seeking assistance to find his siblings.

“Dear sir, I am anxious to learn about my sisters, from whom I have been separated for many years,” Wilson wrote to the Freedman’s Bureau chief in a letter delivered to the agency on May 11, 1867.

“I have never heard from them since I left Virginia twenty-four years ago. I am in hopes that they are still living and I am anxious to hear how they are getting on,” the letter read.

Wilson sent several letters for his family to the bureau, hoping to reconnect, but they were ultimately sent to the wrong county and never made it to his relatives.

National Archive records show that Hawkins wrote to his sister Jane, hoping to hear back.

“Dear Sister Jane, your little brother Hawkins is trying to find out where you are and where his poor old mother is. Let me know and I will come to you,” he wrote. “I should never forget the bag of biscuits you made for me the last night I spent with you. Your advice to me to meet you in heaven has never passed from my mind. And I have endeavored to live as near to my God so that if he saw fit not to suffer us to meet on earth, we might indeed meet in heaven.”

Wilson also detailed his life in Galveston as a free working man, a husband, and a Christian.

”I’m writing to you tonight, my dear sister, with my bible in my hand, praying almighty God to bless you, and preserve you and me to meet again,” he wrote.

An Emotional Reunion:

It is unknown if Wilson was ever able to reunite his family, but Sewell-Smith was able to use the names mentioned in his letters, in addition to other historical records and Freedman’s Bureau documents, to connect Tealer and Jenkins, his descendants.

“What the Freedman’s Bureau does is it helps us scale the wall or in essence, blow the wall up because it really peers into a very specific period right after enslavement, where these individuals were walking into their economy, their lives, how they wanted to be referred to in terms of their names, and who they wanted to work for,” Sewell-Smith told “Good Morning America.” “And Hawkins was just enough of a cookie crumb for us to be able to connect him back to the ancestors and the family that he had been ripped apart from.”

Wilson’s words are the focal point in a new documentary by Ancestry titled “A Dream Delivered: The Lost Letters of Hawkins Wilson,” in which Tealer and Jenkins embark on the journey of reconnecting with other Wilson’s descendants.

“Now is the time. This is the time for his story to be shared,” Jenkins told “Good Morning America.”

Tealer and Jenkins were able to find and meet their sixth cousins, Valerie Gray Holmes and Linda Epps Parks, the descendants of Wilson’s Uncle Jim.

Epps Parker said she was overcome with emotion when the relatives met for the first time during the documentary’s filming, in April 2021.

“I felt like I had known Kelley and her mom all my life. I felt connected to them. It just was genuine,” she told “Good Morning America.”

Tealer told ABC News correspondent Kenneth Moton that she thinks of Wilson’s sister Jane often and hopes to one day find Jane’s descendants.

She told Moton, tearfully, that if she had the chance, she would tell Jane, “I found your brother, Hawkins. Can I read you his letters? Tell me about your journey. What have you been doing in these past 24 years?”

More than 150 years after Wilson sent his letters, Epps Parker said her ancestor finally achieved his dream to reunite his family.

“You can rest because your letter has been delivered,” Epps Parker said, addressing Wilson. “We are taking the baton and passing it on to other family members.”

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(LOS ANGELES) — Authorities say they believe a man accused of holding a woman captive at his California home and torturing her for several months may have other victims.

Peter Anthony McGuire, 59, was arrested Saturday after a woman reportedly told deputies he had been holding her against her will at his Chino Hills residence.

The Chino Hills Police Department released a photograph of McGuire on Thursday “as it is believed there may be additional victims of criminal acts committed by McGuire.”

Soon after moving into the house, the victim “was not allowed to leave,” San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Mara Rodriguez told ABC Los Angeles station KABC.

“She was held there against her will by him and at that point was subjected to multiple assaults,” Rodriguez said.

The victim managed to escape the home on the evening of June 9 and fled to nearby Alterra Park, where a bystander called 911 to get aid for her, authorities said.

She claimed that McGuire held her against her will for six months and raped, tortured and disfigured her, authorities said.

“The victim had visible injuries consistent with the allegations made,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement.

Deputies executed a search warrant at the residence and recovered evidence, authorities said. McGuire was arrested on Saturday after allegedly fleeing to a home in Placentia, in neighboring Orange County. He surrendered after temporarily barricading himself inside, the sheriff’s department said.

The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office filed 10 felony charges against McGuire, including kidnapping, false imprisonment by violence, torture, mayhem, assault with a deadly weapon and forcible rape.

On the charge of mayhem, the criminal complaint stated that the suspect “did unlawfully and maliciously deprive Jane/John Doe of a member of the body and did disable, disfigure and render it useless and did cut and disable the tongue, and put out an eye and slit the nose, ear and lip of said person.”

McGuire pleaded not guilty to all charges earlier this week and is being held without bail. He is due back in court next month, KABC reported.

The victim was being treated at a hospital for her injuries, prosecutors said earlier this week.

Neighbors in Chino Hills said the suspect hardly talked to anyone.

“Honestly, it’s very frightening, it is very frightening to know that somebody like that lived three doors away,” Connie Ray told KABC.

Authorities are now urging others who are a victim of the suspect or have information about the case to contact the sheriff’s department or their local law enforcement agency if they are outside of San Bernardino County.

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(NEW YORK) — Airlines are scrambling to recover after cancelling more than 2,800 flights since Thursday as severe weather pushed through the Northeast.

The majority of the cancellations and delays happened Thursday as storms passed through. The disruptions then bled into Friday as carriers worked to recover from the travel mess.

Airports that experienced the most cancellations were the New York City area airports, Charlotte Douglas International Airport and Boston Logan International Airport, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware.

Airline executives met with Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg Thursday to discuss how to prevent widespread cancellations and delays ahead of the July 4 holiday.

Buttigieg pressed airlines over their ability to reliably operate holiday flight schedules and asked them to improve customer experience, a source familiar with the meeting told ABC News.

The secretary also said the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) would continue to keep air traffic smooth and on schedule after criticism from some industry groups that FAA ground stops and delays caused by weather and staffing issues resulted in many delays over Memorial Day Weekend.

The FAA says it is working to hire more air traffic controllers for its facilities as it has had to reduce air traffic in some of the busiest airspace due daily staffing shortages.

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(UVALDE, Texas) — Members of the Texas House committee investigating the Uvalde school shooting visited Robb Elementary School on Friday, according to the committee’s chair.

The school’s superintendent, Hall Harrell, arranged for the committee to go into the school, Rep. Dustin Burrows, the committee chair, said.

Last month, 19 students and two teachers were killed after a gunman walked in through an unlocked door and opened fire in the school. This was the deadliest shooting in Texas public school history.
Uvalde police have come under intense scrutiny as the narrative of what happened on the day of the shooting has shifted. It was later revealed that the shooter was in the school for 77 minutes before officers shot and killed him.

The three-person committee is meeting with teachers and several Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police officers behind closed doors.

In public remarks, Burrows said he met with a family member of one of the victims and discussed why the sessions were happening behind closed doors.

“Before this committee is willing to announce what we believe is to be factual, accurate information, we want to hear from all sides and all different viewpoints and get together before the three of us put our signatures and names on something … that is truthful and accurate,” Burrows said.

“I’m not telling you this is the perfect way to go about doing it, by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s the way we know that we feel works and we believe in it,” he added.

Burrows said the committee is continuing to have dialogue with the Uvalde police department and said he hopes the committee will get to interview officers who were on the scene.

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(VESTAVIA HILLS, Ala.) — An 84-year-old man and a 75-year-old woman were shot dead at a small church group meeting in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, Thursday night, authorities said.

The suspect — a 71-year-old man who occasionally attended Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church — is in custody, Vestavia Hills Police said at a news conference Friday.

The gunman also wounded an 84-year-old woman, police said.

The suspect was at the church event when he took out a handgun and opened fire, police said. A motive is not clear, police said.

An event attendee subdued the suspect until police arrived, which authorities said helped save lives.

The suspect acted alone, police said.

Vestavia Hills Mayor Ashley Curry said the community, located about 7 miles outside of Birmingham, is “close-knit, resilient” and “loving.”

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(CHICAGO) — Chicago authorities have released new information in the unsolved disappearance of postal worker Kierra Coles, including footage of a “person of interest” in Coles’ car, who police say gave “varying accounts of the last time he saw her.”

Coles vanished without a trace on Oct. 2, 2018. The 26-year-old was about three months pregnant and was eager to meet her first child, according to her mother, Karen Phillips.

Her case remains a “high-risk missing person investigation with potential foul play suspected,” Chicago police told ABC News on Thursday.

A video produced by police and published by the department on Tuesday sheds new light on the mystery.

The video revealed surveillance footage of Coles entering her home on Oct. 2, 2018.

“A man, who detectives identified as a person of interest, also arrived and entered the residence,” Lt. William Svilar said in the video. “Kierra and the man later got into her car and drove off — with Kierra in the driver’s seat.”

At about 10:43 p.m. that night, Coles was spotted on surveillance video making ATM withdrawals — the last known images of her, according to Svilar.

“Less than an hour later, [Coles’] vehicle was seen arriving and parking in another area of the city,” Svilar said. “The person of interest exits the passenger side of the vehicle, but nobody exits the driver’s side.”

The next day, on Oct. 3, “The person of interest is seen parking Kierra’s vehicle near her residence before entering the building and exiting with unknown items,” Svilar said.

The person of interest “then drives away in his personal vehicle that was parked on the block overnight,” Svilar said.

Svilar said in the video, “When officers questioned the person of interest after Kierra was reported missing, he gave varying accounts of the last time he saw her.”

Police won’t identify their person of interest. But Phillips told ABC News that Coles’ boyfriend lied to her about when he last texted the 26-year-old. The boyfriend could not be reached by ABC News for comment.

Phillips said she always knew the ATM and car surveillance footage existed, but hadn’t seen it until now.

“Just seeing her walking, in person, was heartbreaking,” Phillips said Thursday.

Police said this video showing newly made public footage from Coles’ case is part of a “series launched last month to tell the stories of homicide victims in hopes of solving their cases.” The department said “each episode focuses on a different case, with the goal of generating tips that could possibly lead to a break in the case, and in turn, an arrest.”

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service said it’s also still investigating Coles’ disappearance.

“We continue to urge the public to contact the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s hotline at (877) 876-2455, if they have any information related to her disappearance,” a spokesperson said.

For Phillips, the daily pain of not knowing what happened to her daughter is unbearable.

“Not even my worst enemy would I wish this type of pain on,” she said.

Phillips urges anyone with information to come forward.

“I just hope somebody just has a heart and calls in, or gives a tip. Anything they may know, even if they don’t think it’s important enough — any small thing could lead to breaking this whole case,” she said.

Phillips vowed, “I’m not gonna let up until my daughter is found.”

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(UVALDE, Texas) — The principal of the Texas elementary school that was the site of one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history was among the witnesses who appeared before state lawmakers Thursday when they held the first hearing in a special investigation into the massacre.

The state committee is investigating the circumstances surrounding last month’s shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.

Police officers, lawyers and a few community members joined state lawmakers at the Uvalde City Hall building on Thursday for the first day of hearings.

In her first public comments following the shooting, Robb Elementary principal Mandy Gutierrez told San Antonio ABC affiliate KSAT she didn’t have much to say at this time.

“It was just an information session. They’re going to compile a report. And when that comes out, I may have more comment at that time,” she told the station outside city hall Thursday evening.

Gutierrez met with President Joe Biden when he traveled to Uvalde in the days after the shooting.

When asked how she was personally doing following Thursday’s hearing, she said, “I’m just concerned for [the] families and my kids.”

Nineteen children and two teachers were killed after a gunman entered the building through an unlocked door and opened fire in a classroom, the deadliest shooting at a public school in Texas history and the second-deadliest nationwide.

After 77 minutes, a tactical unit breached the classroom door and killed the gunman. Law enforcement has come under intense scrutiny for failing to act faster.

The probe will be an “objective and nonpartisan examination” of what happened, Texas state Rep. Dustin Burrows, chairman of the committee investigating the shooting, has said.

“I would say that the most respectful thing I think we can do is to try to get some of those lingering questions answered, for the people in this city,” Burrows said Thursday.

Former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman emphasized the committee’s commitment to their task “to gather the facts…to know the truth about the story.” These facts, she said, “cannot be ignored, enhanced, or diminished.”

Guzman continued that it is her “hope and prayer” that the committee “will produce the information the legislature needs to protect our children.”

Following public remarks, the executive session began, where witnesses were interviewed in private.

Witnesses testifying Thursday included Gutierrez and Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District superintendent Hal Harrell, among other school staff. The hearings are scheduled to continue on Friday, Monday and Tuesday.

Law enforcement officials are also expected to testify, Burrows said last week.

The committee might produce a preliminary report for the public ahead of completing its full investigation, he said.

ABC News’ Laura Romero, Gina Sunseri and Emily Shapiro contributed to this report.

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