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(ASHEBORO, N.C.) — A one-year-old boy who was born with a congenital heart defect and underwent three open-heart surgeries in his first months of life, now has a new heart.

Easton Sinnamon, of Asheboro, North Carolina, underwent a first-of-its kind heart transplant. The baby not only received a new heart, but also, two weeks later in a separate procedure, received thymus tissue from the same donor.

With the transplanted thymus tissue comes the hope that Easton will have to take much smaller doses of the immunosuppressive drugs transplant recipients typically have to take for the rest of their lives, according to Joseph W. Turek, M.D., Ph.D., chief of pediatric cardiac surgery at Duke University Hospital, and the doctor who oversaw Easton’s transplants.

“This is a huge step in the right direction,” Turek told “Good Morning America.” I would hope that we could envision a day in the near future where we wouldn’t need to use such high doses of immunosuppression with this technique.”

Turek had to seek emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for the combined heart and thymus transplant, which took place in August.

They were able to try the procedure first in Easton, because he was born both with a congenital heart defect and a deficiency of T cells, which protect the body from infection and are developed in the thymus, an organ that sits close to the heart, according to Turek.

“It’s not very common that you’re going to find a child that has these two issues, and that’s really given us an opportunity to to look at this in a real clinical environment that that we would never have the opportunity to do otherwise,” he said. “It’s also what allowed the FDA to realize this is probably a very safe plan for Easton.”

Kaitlyn Sinnamon, Easton’s mom, said she and her husband were willing to let doctors try the procedure on their youngest child because they knew their son was in a near-death situation.

Sinnamon, also the mom of a 4-year-old daughter, said she found out at her 20-week ultrasound that Easton had a congenital heart defect, which happens in about 1% of births in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Once Easton was born, doctors discovered he also had a damaged heart valve. As a result, Easton underwent three open heart surgeries in his first five months of life, the first of which happened when he was five days old.

Sinnamon quit her job to care for Easton, who spent nearly all of his first year of life in the PICU at Duke University Hospital, about 75 minutes away from the family’s home.

“That was my job, to be at the hospital with him,” said Sinnamon. “I’d get up in the morning, take our daughter to day care, go to Duke for the day, come home, pick her up, do all the normal household things when we would get home and go to bed and do it again, every day of the week.”

Easton spent 112 days on the waiting list for a heart transplant, at times having to be taken off the list because he was so sick.

About two weeks before his transplant, Sinnamon said she and her husband had to make the call to put Easton on life support so that he could stay alive as they waited for a heart.

“He’d been listed for over 100 days … and we weren’t going to let those days that we’d been waiting and fighting be for nothing,” she said. “It was really hard there towards the end. We were scared that we were going to lose him.”

In early August, doctors told Sinnamon the news she had been waiting over three months to hear — they had found a donor heart for Easton.

In an overnight procedure done just hours later, on Aug. 6, 2021, a team of doctors and nurses led by Turek, who also flew to procure the heart and thymus from the donor, transplanted the heart into Easton.

Around two weeks later, doctors implanted thymus cells from the same donor into about 25 to 40 spots in Easton’s thigh, according to Turek.

Sinnamon said that once a new heart was beating inside Easton, his recovery was fast, adding, “With a functioning heart, he just kind of took off.”

For Turek and the transplant team, they closely watched Easton’s internal reaction to his new heart and thymus cells, and saw success.

Easton’s body, which once had “negligible T cell activity,” now has normal levels of T cells, according to Turek, who said the next step is watching to see if Easton has developed enough of a tolerance to go off some immunosuppressive drugs.

“It’s incredibly rewarding to know that something you worked on in the laboratory was able to be translated, and you can actually see tangible evidence that it’s helping someone,” said Turek, who has researched the use of thymus cells in transplants for the past five years. “Especially a child like Easton, who really wasn’t doing well for a long period of time.”

The Sinnamons’ decision to let Easton be the first to receive a heart and thymus transplant could potentially pave the way to help thousands of organ donor recipients in the future, according to Turek. The next stage of his research will be to see if this process can be replicated more broadly, including in people who have functioning T cells.

In the U.S., more than 106,000 people are currently on the transplant waiting list, and 17 people die each day waiting for an organ transplant, according to government data.

“Easton gives us all a lot of hope about what the future could be,” said Turek. “The fact that he needed a thymus and also needed a heart has really allowed us to figure out if this combination of using these two … could increase the longevity [of a donated organ] and decrease the amount of medications that are needed.”

Sinnamon said she and her family are grateful for Turek and the team at Duke University Hospital, whom she said have become “like family,” and for the family of the organ donor, whom they do not know.

“As much as this is Easton, it’s as much the donor’s child as well,” said Sinnamon. “On your happiest day, it’s another family’s worst day, so it’s kind of bittersweet when you get excited because you have to think about what the other family is going through.”

Easton was able to go home in September, where he was greeted by his big sister, Ivy, whom he met then for the first time.

“Because he was doing so poorly at times, we didn’t think we would have everybody together,” said Sinnamon. “Now that we do, it’s so nice to see him and Ivy playing and them both laughing and giggling together.”

In February, Easton celebrated his first birthday at home. He remains on a gastrostomy tube, or G-tube, for his medications and has a tracheotomy to help him breathe, the latter of which Sinnamon said should be removed soon.

“Even through all he went through, he’s one of the happiest babies I’ve ever seen,” said Sinnamon, who described Easton as “very social” and “extremely active.” “It’s funny seeing his attitude and personality come out once we made it home.”

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(NEW YORK) — A video of an Arkansas man giving his grandsons a two-armed hug for the first time has touched the hearts of many and is drawing attention to adaptive equipment that can make a big difference for people with disabilities.

Emily Sisco, an adjunct professor of occupational therapy at Arkansas State University, shared the now-viral video on Facebook on Feb. 2. The clip shows her dad, Kevin Eubanks, tearfully holding his grandsons, Cope, 9, and Rigney, 6. Eubanks’ left arm was injured following a stroke in 2014 but last month, with the help of a soft, stretchy wristband tool, he was able to link his arms into a circle shape and lift them together for a warm embrace with the boys.

Eubanks, 60, said the special moment was “overwhelming” and one he couldn’t have imagined eight years ago. “It caught me off guard and as you can tell, it was very emotional for me because the family I grew up in, we always love to hug each other with both arms and it’s what we call giving a bear hug, and that is just something that I hadn’t been able to do since my stroke,” Eubanks explained to “Good Morning America.”

He went on, “I got to hug my second one, Rigney, which was born after my stroke. The realization really hit me then that this is the first time I’ve got to hug him like that with two arms. And I just could not control it then. I just cried and cried and cried.”

It’s a significant breakthrough for Eubanks, who, at 52, suffered a stroke that temporarily rendered the left side of his body paralyzed. He said doctors told his family at the time that he might not even live. But in the years since, Eubanks has worked hard to make a strong recovery. Watching the therapists who helped her dad even inspired Sisco to pursue occupational therapy as well.

“She saw how much work they were doing with me in the facility that I was in and it just touched her heart to where she wanted to be able to help people,” Eubanks said. “And that’s when she went back to school and got her degree.”

Sisco’s Facebook post has nearly 5 million views in just over five weeks. It has also shined a spotlight on the wristband tool Eubanks used.

Initially named the “Hugger” and now called the “HugAgain,” the tool is a prototype created by Arkansas State University students Erica Dexter, Larissa Garcia, Lisa James and Casey Parsons, all students of Sisco’s in the occupational therapy assistant program. The “HugAgain” is one of several adaptive tools, including an adaptive fishing pole, card holders and a soap holder tool — all made by Sisco’s students.

In January, Sisco gave her technical skills class a case study and two weeks to create a tool that would benefit the client in the case. In the past, Sisco said she gave students a fake scenario to work with. But this time she decided, with Eubanks’ approval, to present her own father’s real-life story and post-stroke experience for the class assignment.

“When we asked what is one thing that you would like to return doing and he said, hug again with two arms, we just knew that we had to help him get there,” Parsons explained to “GMA.” “We were all in agreement that giving him a hug was occupational-based, it was meaningful to our client, and it was something that we could do or at least try to do.”

The team got to work brainstorming ideas, addressing questions and figuring out technical details like the type of material they wanted to use. The “HugAgain” came together quickly – all within two weeks.

“We kind of went through some options of how we could make something to lift his arm up and we just ended up simplifying it because it really is pretty simple. But it’s just something that people don’t think of,” James said.

The team has since received messages from around the world, asking for more information about the “HugAgain,” so they set up a Facebook page and decided to perfect the design and plan to sell it when it goes into production.

“If you make money off of it, then that’s just icing on the cake, but that’s really not our motivation for what we’re doing,” James said. “We really want to see more reactions like Ms. Sisco’s father, and just see how many lives that can be touched through this one small device.”

Added Dexter: “It’s a thing that a lot of people take for granted. But you know, once it’s gone, you do value that and you can value that again.”

James said the project taught her and her classmates not to overlook each person’s unique needs. “Even just the small things can be just as important or more important to an individual than what our plans are for that person,” she said. “So I think it was a good lesson to really listen to what they’re telling us and not what we think they need.”

Eubanks said at the end of the day, the HugAgain and its impact is nothing short of extraordinary.

“I want people to know: Don’t ever underestimate the effect of a touch of some kind, no matter if it’s a handshake, a hug, or just putting your arm around somebody. That personal touch sends a message to that person that you love them and that can do so much to a person’s confidence and mindset.”

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(NEW YORK) — Mother Nature is going to hit the East Coast like a lion this weekend with a winter blast that will bring torrential rain, snow, icy roads and, in some southern states, tornados.

The weather system that’s forecasted to hit on Saturday has already dumped one to two inches of snow in states such as Colorado, Kansas and Missouri.

As of Friday, more than 75 million Americans across 26 states are under alert for winter weather. Most of the East Coast states affected have issued winter storm watches or winter storm warnings.

By Friday night into Saturday morning, the storm will dump heavy snow from West Virginia to Pennsylvania before moving to upstate New York and New England. Up to a foot of snow is possible in some areas, according to the forecast.

Along the I-95 corridor, heavy rain and wind are expected Saturday morning before changing into the snow. Major cities like Washington, D.C., and New York City aren’t expected to see a lot of snow accumulation but the freezing temperatures will make the roads icy.

The forecast is also predicting dangerous weather conditions for southern states.

An enhanced threat for tornadoes and damaging winds has been issued for parts of the Florida panhandle into southern Georgia – including Tallahassee, Panama City and Albany, Georgia. The time for the greatest risk of tornadoes will likely be late Friday night into early Saturday morning.

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(AUSTIN, Texas) — A Texas judge is holding a hearing on whether to prevent state agencies from investigating gender-confirming care for transgender youth as child abuse.

District Judge Amy Clark Meachum will hear Friday from the parents of a 16-year-old transgender girl who were under investigation by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. Meachum will also hear from attorneys from the state.

According to the DFPS, there are at least nine similar investigations open as a result of the attorney general’s opinion on trans care.

The opinion written by state Attorney General Ken Paxton last month stated that “there is no doubt that these procedures are ‘abuse’ under Texas law, and thus must be halted.”

He went on: “The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) has a responsibility to act accordingly. I’ll do everything I can to protect against those who take advantage of and harm young Texans.”

The next day, Texas Governor Greg Abbott published a letter, ordering the DFPS to investigate such treatments as child abuse.

“Because the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) is responsible for protecting children from abuse, I hereby direct your agency to conduct a prompt and thorough investigation of any reported instances of these abusive procedures in the State of Texas,” Abbott said in the Feb. 22 letter.

Meachum has already blocked the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services from investigating the family of the 16-year-old girl. The family is part of a lawsuit against the state’s directive from the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal.

Several companies, including Ikea, Google, Apple, Meta, Johnson & Johnson, PayPal, Capital One and Electronic Arts have spoken out against the bill in a full-page ad in the Dallas Morning News.

“The recent attempt to criminalize a parent for helping their transgender child access medically necessary, age-appropriate healthcare in the state of Texas goes against the values of our companies,” a signed letter from the companies stated.

Cathryn Oakley, HRC’s state legislative director and senior counsel, said that misinformation is at the center of recent anti-LGBTQ efforts, including the Texas directive.

She told ABC News that she believes fear-mongering has painted a picture of trans youth that is “completely not true.”

She said that for many young children, transitioning means using a name and pronoun that feels right for them and presenting themselves in a way that feels right for them.

She says that when puberty hits is when medical intervention might begin through puberty blockers, which temporarily pause puberty while children and families assess their gender journey. “No one is performing surgery on kids. There’s no amputation happening,” she said.

“They’re literally putting trans kids lives on the line,” she said, referring to mental health conditions that trans youth face in the wake of discrimination.

“It’s incumbent on us to really educate folks about what it means to be a trans kid because I think the only reason people are buying into that kind of rhetoric is because even people who are fair-minded have questions about what it means to be a trans youth,” she said.

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(NEW YORK) — On March 26, 1997, an anonymous caller directed police to a mansion outside San Diego where authorities soon discovered the largest mass suicide on U.S. soil.

The 39 victims found within the home were all members of a strange and secretive cult called Heaven’s Gate, which had a goal to transcend to “higher beings” by spaceship.

Watch the full story on “20/20” TONIGHT at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.

The anonymous caller was Rio DiAngelo, a surviving member who left the group after three years and was to stay behind and tell the world about the group’s story.

“I was always looking for answers, looking for purpose in my life,” said DiAngelo. “I loved these people … it meant everything to me.”DiAngelo first spoke to ABC News’ Diane Sawyer in 1997.

“We lived like we were living in a monastery. We were all celibate individuals, looking forward to self advancement,” said DiAngelo.

Heaven’s Gate began in the early 1970s by co-founders Marshall Herff Applewhite and Bonnie Lou Nettles. Applewhite was the son of a Presbyterian preacher and became a talented stage actor and singer. He struggled with his sexuality and had a complicated relationship with his father.

At a moment in his life when he was depressed, hearing voices in his head and having apocalyptic visions, he met Nettles. She was a nurse and mother of four children. She had already believed in UFOs and astrology prior to meeting Applewhite.

According to former friends and colleagues, she said the voices in his head may be spirits from above telling him he one day could be a divine teacher.

Applewhite and Nettles told their followers that the human body was a “vehicle” to carry their soul and that the savior had returned in the human form of Applewhite, who was called “Do.”

They set out to start their own religion and seek out followers. They told people interested that, if they joined them, they could learn how to be pure enough to be invited to heaven too.

Over the course of several years, Applewhite and Nettles required their followers to adhere to increasingly more strange and severe rules, including severing all contact with family and friends and encouraging adopting an asexual appearance. In later years, some members of the group underwent castration.

Now nearly 25 years later, DiAngelo reflected on where his life is now. He says he still feels the presence of Applewhite and Nettles.

“Mostly, it’s just feeling. I don’t get words, but mostly it’s just feeling,” said DiAngelo.

DiAngelo said he made the choice to move on.

“I tried to get a job and people would not hire me because they thought I was part of some crazy thing. And so it’s really a matter of choice for me to get along with my career, my life, just so people would not look at me,” said DiAngelo. “It’s not about me, you know?”

DeAngelo, now a retired art director, said he’s reunited with his mother and is focusing on spending more time with his granddaughter.

“I’m a regular guy. I’m tryin’ to be more of myself,” said DeAngelo. “And a better person in every way I can.”

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support. Call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) for help.

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(NEW YORK) — March marks two years since the coronavirus pandemic upended life across the globe.

Although the nationwide quarantine was initially meant to last only 14 days, in the hope of slowing down the spread of the virus, two weeks eventually turned into a two-year ordeal, lasting far longer than health experts had initially predicted.

“Two years ago, I, like many other people, thought that restrictions would be over in two months. If someone told me we would still be wearing masks after two years — and effective vaccines — I probably would have done things a little differently,” David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News.

“Part of what has made this so exhausting is that we’ve thought, time and again, that the end of the pandemic was just a month or two away. But we’ve finally come to realize that a ‘pandemic end date’ just isn’t coming anytime soon,” Dowdy added.

Although studies now demonstrate that the virus had already commenced its rapid spread across the country in late 2019, many Americans were still completely unaware of what the “novel coronavirus” was, and of the looming health crisis — one that would underscore the lack of national and global preparedness to deal with such a pandemic.

It was only when positive cases reached U.S. soil that most Americans began to take notice of the growing crisis.

Former President Donald Trump was quick to try to quell concerns, repeatedly telling the public that the situation was under control.

“It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear,” Trump predicted in late February 2020. “The coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.”

However, the spread of the virus would soon soar to unprecedented levels, in a rapid escalation that led states and cities to shut down, and families to retreat to their homes.

Now, despite the creation of vaccinations and treatments, there have been nearly 965,000 American lives confirmed lost to the virus.

Early predictions from the Trump Administration in late March of 2020 estimated between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans could lose their lives, though the president told reporters at a White House briefing that he believed the death toll would be “substantially below” 100,000.

Many experts believe that the current COVID-19 death totals are undercounted due to inconsistent reporting by states and localities, and also by the exclusion of records of excess deaths — a measure of how many lives have been lost beyond what would be expected if the pandemic had not occurred.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since Feb. 1, 2020, there have been more than one million excess deaths.

March 1, 2020: New York confirms its first COVID-19 case

New York was hit hard in the early weeks of the pandemic. On March 1, 2020, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the state’s first confirmed case of COVID-19. New York City would, in a matter of weeks, become the nation’s viral epicenter, with COVID-19-positive patients soon overwhelming hospitals, and city morgues, leaving the Big Apple at a standstill, shuttering businesses and creating a mass exodus from the city’s boroughs to surrounding suburbs.

“This is a different beast that we’re dealing with. It is going to be weeks, and weeks, and weeks, weeks and weeks. This is going to be a long day, and it’s going to be a hard day, and it’s going to be an ugly day, and it’s going to be a sad day,” Cuomo warned the public during one of his press conferences that March.

March 6, 2020: Trump proclaims ‘anybody’ can get a COVID-19 test

In the days that followed, there would be a growing demand for COVID-19 tests, across the country, as more Americans began to exhibit symptoms.

However, despite a March 6, 2020, proclamation by Trump that “anybody that wants a test can get a test,” the demand for COVID-19 testing would soon outpace the supply.

It would take seven months before the U.S. would ramp up testing enough to test one million Americans a day.

“Though two years of a pandemic has yielded significant scientific achievements in vaccines, therapeutics and testing, it has also unearthed huge deficits in public health infrastructure and our health care systems’ ability to deliver high quality equitable care. We were never properly prepared and even after 24 months we consistently underestimate this virus,” John Brownstein, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, said Wednesday.

At the time, there were still no antiviral treatments or vaccines available to support health care workers as they faced an onslaught of patients in need.

March 9, 2020: Stock market circuit breaker sends shock waves across the country

By March 9, there were more warning signs that the virus would soon wreak havoc on the country, when an automatic circuit breaker safety mechanism was activated to stop stock prices from free falling.

Markets fell rapidly within minutes of the stock market opening, forcing a temporary halt to trading. The 15-minute pause was triggered after the S&P 500 plunged by more than 7%.

“The only way to avoid a recession would be a quick and very aggressive fiscal policy response by the Trump administration,” Moody’s Investor Services chief economist Mark Zandi told ABC News’ Rebecca Jarvis at the time. “But this seems unlikely as the administration continues to significantly downplay the severity of the crisis.”

March 11, 2020: WHO declares COVID-19 a ‘pandemic’

The World Health Organization’s announcement on March 11, 202 that it had shifted its characterization of the virus to “pandemic,” marked a turning point in the pandemic.

That same day, Trump announced the U.S. was restricting travel by foreign nationals who had traveled to 26 specific European countries.

And on that night, the NBA announced it would suspend its season due to a COVID-19 outbreak, following a mid-game suspension of play between the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder, while actors Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, on a shoot in Australia, announced, from isolation, that they had been diagnosed with coronavirus.

March 12, 2020 and the months that followed: A national and global shutdown

Starting March 12, 2020, Broadway theaters went dark for more than a year, after New York Gov. Cuomo announced that no gatherings of more than 500 people would be allowed, excepting schools, hospitals, mass transit, and nursing homes.

The National Hockey League suspended its season, and President Trump declared a national emergency in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

In the weeks and months that followed, millions of Americans would contract the virus, and hundreds of thousands would die.

“While many would like to declare this pandemic over at the two-year mark, we are still far from an acceptable state with over a thousand dying a day from this virus. Sheer exhaustion with public health mandates is not a reason to declare victory,” Brownstein said Wednesday.

Health experts stress that the virus will not go away overnight, and it will likely take years for the globe to fully recover from the pandemic.

“It’s going to take us a long time to recover mentally and emotionally from this pandemic,” Dowdy said. “As time goes on, those ‘near normal’ times will become the norm, and waves of disease and death the exception. We just may have a few more waves to ride before we get there.”

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(NEW YORK) — Alabama became the latest state to remove permit requirements to carry a concealed gun in public, as multiple states debate similar measures this session.

Known as “permitless carry” or “constitutional carry” legislation, the bills have been roundly criticized by police and gun control advocates, who argue that removing permits poses a safety risk to citizens and officers. Proponents, meanwhile, claim that the permitting process is too onerous and that the laws ensure Second Amendment rights.

At hearings across the country in recent weeks, law enforcement officials have testified against these bills, which have proliferated in Republican states during the primary season.

“Police weighing in against permitless carry matters,” Shannon Watts, founder of Everytown subsidiary Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense, told ABC News. “But I guess the question is at end of the day, those Republicans who are worried about being primaried, are they going to put public safety over their hopes for the primary election?”

Last year, six states — Arkansas, Iowa, Montana, Tennessee, Texas and Utah — enacted permitless carry measures, according to the Pew Research Center.

When Alabama’s law goes into effect next year, it will be one of 22 states where it is legal to carry a concealed gun without a permit, based on data compiled by Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun violence prevention organization.

Two other states — Indiana and Ohio — have recently passed similar bills, which await their respective governor’s signature or veto, while at least four others — Georgia, Nebraska, South Carolina and Wisconsin — are considering it.

In Ohio, Hamilton County Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey was one of more than 80 opponents to testify in December before a state Senate public safety committee against SB 215, which allows people 21 and older who are legally allowed to own a gun to conceal it without a permit. It also removes a requirement to tell officers about the firearm unless they ask.

“To allow people to carry concealed with no background check, no documentation of who they are and no training is dangerous,” McGuffey told ABC News. “I am not against the Second Amendment — the right to bear arms. What I’m asking people to do is consider that there must be some failsafe placed into the system.”

To get a concealed carry permit in Ohio requires a fee of at least $67, a background check and eight hours of training that covers safety features and public safety. The training is especially key, McGuffey said.

“I have 900 officers,” she said. “Our deputies are well-vetted for their backgrounds, their personalities, their integrity, their ability to follow rules and follow the law, and I would not hand one of them a gun with no training.”

Background checks are another important piece, McGuffey said. In 2021, Ohio issued 202,920 new or renewal concealed carry permits, denied 2,668 applicants who failed to meet state requirements and revoked another 420 licenses “for causes including felony convictions and mental incompetence,” according to a state attorney general’s report. McGuffey said she signed 93 revocations last year for people who were convicted of menacing, domestic violence, assault and other violent actions.

Despite widespread opposition from law enforcement and citizens, the bill passed the state legislature last week.

“Responsible gun owners should not be punished for lawfully practicing their constitutional rights,” state Sen. Terry Johnson, the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement.

Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has until March 15 to sign or veto SB 215 before it becomes law. He has not publicly indicated what he plans to do, though in a statement to Columbus, Ohio, ABC affiliate WSYX-TV, his spokesperson said the governor “has long supported the Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms.”

In Indiana, a constitutional carry bill is before Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb’s desk, after passing the state legislature Tuesday. Under HB 1296, anyone at least 18 years old who can legally carry a handgun would no longer need a permit to do so in the state.

Among those speaking out against the bill included the head of the Indiana State Police, local sheriffs and county prosecutors.

“What we have done now is we’ve taken away the one tool that police officers had out on the street to be able to act quickly and efficiently for not only their personal safety but for the safety of our communities,” Patrick Flannelly, vice president of the Indiana Association of Chiefs of Police, told Indianapolis ABC affiliate WRTV.

The opposition from state police and prosecutor associations swayed Republican state Sen. Kyle Walker, a lifetime National Rifle Association member who has a concealed carry permit, to vote no to the bill, he said.

The governor must sign or veto the bill within seven days, otherwise it becomes law. He has not publicly indicated what he plans to do.

“The governor will review every piece of legislation that comes across his desk and make the best determination for all Hoosiers,” Holcomb’s press secretary, Erin Murphy, told ABC News in a statement.

Alabama became the first state to sign a permitless carry bill into law this year on Thursday. HB 272 removes the requirement to obtain a permit to carry a concealed pistol.

“Unlike states who are doing everything in their power to make it harder for law abiding citizens, Alabama is reaffirming our commitment to defending our Second Amendment rights,” Republican Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement. “I have always stood up for the rights of law abiding gunowners, and I am proud to do that again today.”

Among those who had spoken out against the bill were the Alabama Sheriffs Association, the Alabama Association of School Resource Officers and multiple local law enforcement agencies.

Opponents of permitless carry laws point to research from the National Bureau of Economic Research, which found that states that have passed permitless carry legislation have seen increases in gun violence. The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence has also found that states with stronger gun laws have lower gun-death rates.

As Ohio’s bill sits on the governor’s desk, McGuffey continues to push for its veto.

“My sense is the citizens of Hamilton County are depending on our elected officials to use common sense when they are legislating bills that can potentially create violence, that can potentially put a gun in the hands of someone who absolutely should never have a weapon,” she said.

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(WASHINGTON) — Masks will continue to be required on planes, trains and buses for at least another month, the Transportation Security Administration announced Thursday. The agency said the federal mask mandate for transportation would be extended through April 18.

During the extension, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will work with government agencies to “help inform a revised policy framework for when, and under what circumstances, masks should be required in the public transportation corridor,” according to a TSA press release.

Airlines for America (A4A), the group that lobbies on behalf of all major U.S. airlines, said in a statement that its members would support the extension, but it urged the Biden administration to find a path forward for lifting mask and testing requirements.

This is the shortest extension of the travel mask mandate since it was first enacted under President Biden. Previously, the extensions had lasted for 90 days.

A coalition of Republican Senators called on the president to end federal Covid-19 travel restrictions Thursday. The group, led by Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said, “It is time for the federal government to recognize this reality, follow the science, and reduce or eliminate these restrictions immediately.”

ABC News’ Sam Sweeney contributed to this report.

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(CHICAGO) — Former Empire actor Jussie Smollett will get one last chance to publicly admit to fabricating a 2019 hate-crime attack on himself before learning whether a judge sentences him to prison.

Smollett, 39, is scheduled to appear Thursday afternoon in Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago to hear his fate after a jury convicted him in December on five of six felony counts of disorderly conduct stemming from him filing a false police report and lying to police, who spent more than $130,000 investigating his allegations.

During his trial, the actor testified in his own defense, maintaining his story that two masked men wearing hats bearing former President Donald Trump’s “MAGA” motto assaulted him on a street and put a noose around his neck.

“There was no hoax,” Smollett testified.

Judge James Linn is allowing news cameras into Thursday’s hearing, in which Smollett is expected to be granted an opportunity to speak.

Several supporters of Smollett, including civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson and actor Samuel L. Jackson, have written Linn letters vouching for Smollett’s character and asking him for leniency, according to ABC Chicago station WLS-TV.

“Jussie has a long track record of being a deeply engaged and contributing citizen,” the Rev. Jackson wrote in his letter to Linn. “Jussie has already suffered.”

Samuel L. Jackson and his wife, actress LaTanya Jackson, sent a letter to Linn asking him to “please find an alternative to incarceration.”

The maximum sentence Smollett faces is three years in prison. But Linn could consider Smollett’s lack of criminal history and sentence him to probation.

The judge could also order Smollett to pay a fine, restitution, or both.

Smollett’s lawyers have said they plan to appeal the conviction and that Smollett is “100% confident” he will win.

The openly gay actor told police that on Jan. 29, 2019, he was walking on a street near his Chicago apartment around 2 a.m. when he was set upon by two men. The attackers allegedly shouted racist and homophobic slurs before hitting him, pouring “an unknown chemical substance” and wrapping a rope around his neck.

Chicago police said Smollett’s story of being the victim of an attack began to unravel when investigators tracked down two men, brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, who they said were seen in a security video near where Smollett claimed he was assaulted and around the same time it supposedly occurred.

The Osundairo brothers testified during Smollett’s trial that the actor paid them $3,500 to help him orchestrate and stage the crime.

In a stunning move, Cook County District Attorney Kim Foxx’s office initially dropped all charges against Smollett in March 2019 despite acknowledging Smollett fabricated the street attack on himself in a bizarre attempt to get a pay raise.

Prior to the decision to drop the charges, Foxx recused herself from the Smollett probe after it surfaced that she had been in touch with Smollett’s family. She left the decision on the disposition of the case to Joe Magats, the first assistant state attorney in Cook County.

As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Smollett forfeited 10% of a $100,000 bond and preemptively completed community service prior to the charges being dropped.

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(NEW YORK) — A tentative $83 million settlement has been reached in a punitive class action lawsuit brought by victims affected by the Surfside building that partially collapsed in South Florida last June, court filings show.

The lawsuit was filed against several groups and individuals, including companies that developed and maintained the property, the company responsible for the construction of the building, and engineers and inspectors of the building.

Ninety-eight people were killed in the collapse when the South Tower suffered a “catastrophic failure,” according to court documents.

While 55 condominium units were immediately destroyed, the remainder of the building, which had 136 units, had to be demolished, documents show.

The agreement provides for an $83 million Common Fund to be paid to unit owners as compensations for condominiums and contents; in exchange, unit owners will be relieved from any liability for injury and wrongful death claims, according to court documents.

Each unit owner will be paid a proportionate share of the funds based on their ownership share of the condominium, court documents show.

Once the agreement is finalized and can no longer be appealed, the victims will receive $50 million out of the first $100 million that is recovered from groups responsible for the building. The remaining $33 million of the settlement will be paid out of the money that’s first recovered after that $100 million, according to the court filing.

“All other funds recovered will inure solely for the benefit of the wrongful death claimants,” according to a court filing.

Morabito Consultants, one of the defendants in the lawsuit, said in a statement that it “denies that it is, in any way, liable for the collapse or the resulting damages.”

“But we also firmly believe that the families who have suffered from this tragedy deserve compensation so that they may focus on healing,” it added.

In a statement Tuesday to NBC 6, Becker & Poliakoff, which represents the condo association, said it “continues to deny that it is in any way responsible for the collapse… (and) this settlement is not a finding of fault against Becker…. We are pleased this matter was quickly resolved and sincerely hope the insurance settlement will bring some relief to those impacted by this terrible tragedy.”

The court will hold a final approval hearing for the agreement on March 30. Any objections to the agreement must be submitted to the court by March 23.

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