Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas talks on Oct. 20, 2022, in his office at City Hall. (Emily Curiel/Kansas City Star/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) — The Kansas City community is mourning the death of local chef Shaun Brady, whom police said was gunned down while taking out the trash in the parking lot of his restaurant.
The owner of the Brady & Fox restaurant was known for his contributions to the local Irish community and to the Kansas City Irish Festival, which is set to take place this weekend, according to a statement posted to the Kansas City Irish Festival’s Facebook page.
In the wake of the shooting Wednesday night, Mayor Quinton Lucas extended his condolences to Brady’s family and called for change in the city that he says has suffered an increase in violent crime in recent months.
“Like many, I was heartbroken to learn of the death of Shaun Brady. Having met him, I was inspired by the community he was building in Kansas City,” Lucas said in a statement Thursday. “More distress comes in knowing how he died — due to violence arising once more in our community,” Lucas added.
The shooting took place Wednesday around 5:15 p.m. at the Brady & Fox restaurant, also known as Brady’s KC, in the Brookside neighborhood of the Missouri city, the Kansas City Police Department confirmed to ABC News.
A preliminary investigation revealed that the victim was taking out trash when he “observed multiple subjects by a vehicle,” police said. An interaction between the victim and subjects occurred that led to the victim being shot, police added.
Two teenage male suspects were taken into custody within an hour of the deadly shooting and a vehicle was recovered in Midtown, according to police, who further said that the shooting is being investigated as a homicide and the suspects are being held pending further investigation.
In a separate statement posted to Facebook, Mayor Lucas said Brady’s death comes as business owners in the area have spoken out about crime in the area.
“For years now, but more acutely in recent months, business owners in Brookside and Waldo, but also along Prospect, in the Crossroads, and throughout too much of our city have expressed serious concerns about a rise in property and nuisance crimes plaguing their stores, their parking lots, and their customers,” Lucas said in the statement, in part.
Gun violence in Kansas City came into national focus in February when the city’s Super Bowl parade ended in tragedy when one person was killed and 20 injured when shots were fired during a victory gathering outside of Union Station.
Lucas, who was present at the Chiefs’ parade, then called that shooting “an incredible disappointment.”
Kansas City recorded its deadliest year on record in 2023, with the Kansas City Police Department’s daily homicide analysis showing 182 homicides. That’s 12 more than in 2022 and three more than the city’s previous all-time high, which was 179 homicides in 2020.
Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a town hall meeting at La Crosse Center in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on August 29, 2024. — Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images
(LA CROSSE, Wis.) — Former President Donald Trump introduced a new campaign platform on Thursday aimed at helping Americans with the cost of IVF.
At a town hall moderated by his supporter, one-time Democrat presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, Trump said he and his team have been exploring ways to help those wanting in vitro fertilization.
“I’ve been looking at it, and what we’re going to do is for people that are using IVF, which is fertilization … the government is going to pay for it, or we’re going to get — we’ll mandate your insurance company to pay for it, which is going to be great. We’re going to do that,” he told Gabbard.
“We want to produce babies in this country, right?” he added.
Trump first spoke about the idea of government-funded or insurance-covered fertility treatments earlier in the day during a campaign stop in the battleground state of Michigan.
When asked by NBC News if it would be the government or insurance companies paying for IVF, the network reported that Trump said it would be the latter, “under a mandate.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s camp on Thursday night walked back comments the former president made earlier in the day suggesting he did not support Florida’s now-implemented six-week ban on abortions.
“I think the six week is too short, there has to be more time and I told them I want more weeks,” Trump told NBC.
“I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks,” he added, noting that he believes abortion should be a states’ issue, something he’s said before.
Later, though, Trump Campaign National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt attempted to clarify the candidate’s remarks.
“President Trump has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida, he simply reiterated that he believes six weeks is too short,” Leavitt said in a statement.
Susan B. Anthony, Pro-Life America, President Marjorie Dannenfelser also released a statement Thursday night saying she had spoken to the president, and he told her he hasn’t “committed” to how he’ll vote on Florida’s Amendment 4. The amendment, if passed, would insert language into the state’s constitution that abortions determined medically necessary by a patient’s healthcare provider would be permitted.
“He has not committed to how he will vote on Amendment 4. President Trump has consistently opposed abortions after five months of pregnancy. Amendment 4 would allow abortion past this point. Voting for Amendment 4 completely undermines his position,” her statement read.
Sara Anne Willette and her family plan on moving to the countryside in the South as COVID-19 continues to impact the immunocompromised community. — Courtesy of Sara Anne Willette
(NEW YORK) — Sara Anne Willette has spent more than 1,620 days in isolation since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The New Jersey resident took health precautions in public before the pandemic because of her common variable immunodeficiency, which means she doesn’t make enough antibodies to fight infections.
Simple tasks like going for a walk down the street or taking a trip to the grocery store are laden with safety hurdles and anxiety for Willette.
Stressful tasks, like moving from Iowa to New Jersey during the pandemic for her husband’s new job, are now even more taxing. The two drove overnight to avoid crowds at gas stations and rest stops, and she’s prepared to do it again. The substantial health precautions in her day-to-day life are forcing her and her family to pack up their life once more and look for a new home in the countryside.
“I’m angry that society is largely inaccessible and I have to risk my life for the bare minimum, like medical care,” Willette told ABC News in a phone call. “Why live in civilization if all of it is completely inaccessible?”
More than four years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Willette is among the immunocompromised and disabled Americans who’ve complete changed their way of living to survive.
Her anger was tinged with disappointment as she talked about how the rest of the world has gone back to normal despite the hundreds of people across the country dying from COVID-19 each week amid a summer surge of the virus.
COVID-19 has also been a debilitating event for tens of millions of people who have or are currently experiencing long COVID, which in some cases has been defined as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
With some lawmakers beginning to propose mask bans in hopes of reducing crime, it’s no longer an option for some to live life normally among the rest of society.
Willette was among the people ABC News checked back in with after previously talking to them about isolating two years after the pandemic began.
Finding a new normal
There are simple joys that Willette misses: having a garden, running, walking, letting her dogs run without a leash and drinking coffee on a porch.
She’s planning on moving to the mountains — somewhere between New Hampshire and Virginia — and gaining enough acreage to allow her and her family to embrace the activities they lost during the pandemic. However, being alone out in the countryside isn’t the goal for Willette.
Rather, she intends to build a pathogen-aware community. That means buying enough land so other disabled, immunocompromised or health-conscious able-bodied people who don’t want to get COVID-19 can join them and create a home of their own.
“We want something that feels like normal but is set up in a way that we decrease harm for everyone in the community,” Willette said. “We can’t do that in an urban area or even in a suburban area. There are too many risks.”
Her mother and mother-in-law intend to move and join Willette, her husband and her son on the property as well.
For Charis Hill, a California resident who has a systemic inflammatory disease and takes immunosuppressive medications, it’s been hard to access an in-person doctor’s appointment since many safety precautions for COVID-19 are no longer being taken in medical care facilities.
As someone with “high-level medical needs,” the lack of COVID precautions has even made seeking routine care a challenge.
“Just the fact that a medical environment that is supposed to know what a virus can do, most medical environments no longer require masking, and that’s what makes it unsafe for people like me to go, for anybody to go,” Hill told ABC over the phone.
“The impact of the delayed care, where people can’t go get routine care, that’s going to affect the whole health care system. Emergencies happen because of delayed care.”
Despite the stress and forced isolation, they find moments of joy growing their own food in their garden, and stay busy by working to reduce the local feral cat population through Trap-Neuter-Return practices.
They break their isolation monthly to meet at a park with a close-knit circle of friends who take similar safety precautions — they’re all masked, socially distanced and have tested beforehand.
“That’s really the only way for me to meet strangers and also to make new friends,” Hill said.
Mask bans would further bar immunocompromised people from public life, according to Hill.
Such bans “make it unsafe for us to exist,” Hill noted, because people may feel pressure not to wear masks when they’re sick or if immunocompromised people are worried about backlash for doing so.
With more people testing positive for COVID this summer, and with the fall and winter virus season ahead, Hill says society’s “new normal” should involve free testing, vaccines, access to at-home antiviral therapy paxlovid and flexible hybrid working options to mitigate the spread of illnesses.
“We need a new normal, and a new normal that is equitable for everyone, and that not only prioritizes high risk people, but that also reduces infection overall,” Hill said.
COVID concerns for the immunocompromised population
Immunocompromised people — about 3% of the adult population in the U.S., according to the National Institutes of Health — continue to face potentially serious medical complications or death when it comes to COVID-19. Even for those who were not previously at risk now have seen life-changing heath impacts.
“Long COVID can happen to anyone, and I have certainly seen young, healthy, vigorous athletes have prolonged, debilitating symptoms from long COVID,” Dr. Jeannina Smith, the medical director of University of Wisconsin’s Transplant Infectious Disease Program, told ABC over the phone.
However, society has largely appeared to have moved on. The CDC stopped recording some COVID-19 related data and some politicians have proposed mask bans as a potential solution to crime.
“It takes us a step back for public health,” Hill said. “We have other pandemics that are coming, and it’s going to make it harder to reenact mask mandates if we need them in the future.”
For the immunocompromised, regular society could seem like a minefield, according to Dr. Cassandra M. Pierre, the medical director of Public Health Programs and the associate hospital epidemiologist at Boston Medical Center.
She noted that people at higher risk for complications “are still, unfortunately, in our hospitals today. We see that they have this forced risk of going on to develop critical COVID or potentially even die. This is still occurring. COVID is still happening.”
This is all happening despite a better understanding of disease transmission and the information needed to be better equipped to empower communities to protect their health, Pierre added.
Patients have been harassed or mocked for wearing masks in public, Dr. Jeannina Smith noted, despite international and national medical organizations emphasizing the importance of mask wearing as a mitigation tactic for illnesses. Hill has experienced this first hand.
“You can’t look at someone and know that they’re receiving immunosuppression for an organ transplant or an autoimmune condition, and they remain at risk,” Smith said.
“Even if you don’t have individual risk, any person can still spread COVID to someone who has higher risk,” she said. “In fact, much of the spread continues to be from asymptomatic person. The very idea that we would criminalize wanting to protect our fellow citizens is pretty horrific.”
The federal government has recently changed its tune amid the summer COVID spike and is preparing for the upcoming fall and winter season by approving and granting emergency use authorization for updated COVID-19 vaccines and restarting its free at-home COVID tests program.
(DALLAS) — One police officer has been shot and killed and two others wounded after a shooting in Dallas, Texas, authorities have confirmed.
Dallas police officers were called to a report of an officer in distress on the 900 block of E. Ledbetter Drive in southern Dallas, according to Kristin Lowman, Dallas Police Department’s communications director, who addressed the media early Friday morning.
When officers arrived, they found an officer shot in his marked patrol vehicle and the responding officers began to exchange gunfire with a suspect at the scene, Lowman said. Two police officers were shot in that exchange.
The suspect fled the scene and Dallas police officers pursued the individual to the 1000 block of Stemmons Freeway down I-35E in Lewisville, police said.
The suspect eventually stopped and exited their vehicle carrying a long gun when Dallas officers shot and killed the individual.
All three officers were immediately taken to local hospitals where one of them died from the injuries sustained in the shooting, officials said. The other two are currently in critical and stable conditions, respectively.
Officials did not give any possible motive for the shooting and the investigation into the incident is ongoing.
(NEW YORK) — Most Americans say they and Kamala Harris alike are prepared to accept the outcome of the 2024 presidential election as legitimate. Donald Trump, not so much.
Eighty-one percent of Americans in a new ABC News/Ipsos poll say that regardless of which candidate they support, they are prepared to accept the outcome of the election. Fewer, but still 68%, see Harris as prepared to accept the outcome. Just 29% say the same about Trump.
Nearly all of Harris’ supporters, 92%, say they personally are prepared to accept the outcome. That declines to 76% of Trump’s supporters. Instead, 21% of his supporters — which translates to 8% of all adults — are not prepared to do so.
Other, sharper political divisions inform views in this poll, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates with fieldwork by Ipsos. Just 6% of Harris’ supporters think Trump is prepared to accept the election outcome, rising to a still-mild 58% among his own supporters. Ninety-seven percent of Harris’ supporters think she is prepared to accept the outcome; among Trump’s supporters, only 44% think the same.
Trump’s election denial claims resonate with some Americans.
One in three (34%) lacks confidence that votes in the election will be counted accurately, similar to the share who said so in 2022. Sixty-five percent are very or somewhat confident in an accurate count; just half of them, 32%, are very confident.
Moreover, an identical 34% think Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election, little changed since his inauguration.
These views are strongly related: Nearly nine in 10 Americans who think Biden legitimately was elected are confident that votes will be counted accurately this year, dropping to 26% of those who think it wasn’t legitimate.
Views on election integrity also are associated with preparedness to accept the outcome. Among people who are confident that votes will be counted accurately, 92% say they are prepared to accept the outcome, versus 61% of those who lack confidence in the count. And 91% of those who think Biden was legitimately elected are prepared to accept this year’s outcome, versus 64% of those who think not.
Groups
There are wide gaps by partisanship in confidence in the vote count, with half of Republicans (51%) lacking confidence it will be accurate. Ninety percent of Democrats express confidence in the count, dropping to 64% of independents and just 48% of Republicans.
In a similar pattern, 96% of Democrats think Biden was legitimately elected; 66% of independents and just 30% of Republicans agree.
That said, partisan divisions in personal preparedness to accept the outcome this year are much milder. About eight in 10 Republicans (78%) and independents (81%) alike say they’ll accept it, as do 89% of Democrats.
Ideology is another factor: At least eight in 10 people who are liberal, moderate or somewhat conservative are prepared to accept the outcome, dropping to 64% among those who identify themselves as very conservative.
Just 38% of very conservatives are confident that votes will be counted accurately this year, rising to 50% of somewhat conservatives, 68% of moderates and 89% of liberals. And only 21% of very conservatives think Biden legitimately won in 2020; this doubles to 42% of somewhat conservatives, then jumps to 70% of moderates and 92% of liberals.
METHODOLOGY – This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted online via the probability-based Ipsos KnowledgePanel® Aug. 23-27, 2024, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 2,496 adults. Partisan divisions are 29-29-30%, Democrats-Republicans-independents. Results have a margin of sampling error of 2 percentage points, including the design effect, for the full sample. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls.
The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, with sampling and data collection by Ipsos. See details on ABC News survey methodology here.
(TEMPE, Ariz.) — Police in Tempe, Arizona, are investigating after a Wells Fargo employee was found dead in her cubicle four days after she last scanned into the building.
The Tempe Police Department responded to the office on Aug. 20 after being notified by building security.
Police identified the worker as Denise Prudhomme, 60.
Her cause of death has not yet been determined.
“The preliminary investigation did not show any obvious signs of foul play,” police said.
Prudhomme scanned into the building the morning of Friday, Aug. 16, police said. Her body was found on Aug. 20 in her third-floor cubicle, and she was pronounced dead at 4:55 p.m., according to the authorities.
A spokesperson for Wells Fargo said Prudhomme’s cubicle was in an underpopulated part of the building and that colleagues were informed of her death after her family was notified.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of our colleague, Denise Prudhomme,” a spokesperson said. “Our thoughts are with her family and loved ones, and we are in contact to ensure they are well supported during this difficult time.”
The Wells Fargo spokesperson said counselors would be made available to support employees affected by the incident.
“We are committed to the safety and wellness of our workforce,” the spokesperson added.
(KENT, Wash.) — DNA evidence from a discarded cigarette has helped investigators finally solve the murder of a 33-year-old woman in Washington state after 44 years.
Kenneth Kundert was arrested in Arkansas on a nationwide murder warrant out of Washington, police said. He is expected to be charged with first-degree murder, according to a spokesperson for the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
His bail is set at $3 million and he is awaiting extradition, according to police.
On Feb. 23, 1980, after 10 p.m. Dorothy “Dottie” Maria Silzer left work at a pizza place to head home. That was the last time she was seen alive, according to police.
She was reported missing by her co-workers three days later after she failed to show up for work two days in a row, which was “hugely unusual” for her, Kent, Washington, Police Chief Rafael Padilla said at a press conference.
Police performed a welfare check at her condo, where she was found murdered, Padilla said.
Evidence, including DNA, was collected from the scene and preserved.
“It was their extensive and exhaustive work to collect and preserve that evidence that made the eventual identification of Dottie’s murderer possible,” Padilla said.
The Kent County medical examiner later determined the cause of death was asphyxia by means of cervical compression. There was also blunt-force trauma to her head, according to Padilla.
Crime lab investigators determined that DNA evidence collected at the scene of the crime belonged to an unknown man.
In 1996, additional DNA evidence from the case was examined, but investigators still came up empty.
Over the years, DNA from persons of interest were submitted to compare, but none were a match, Padilla said. The case dragged on unsolved for so long that many of the officers who worked on it had retired and a couple of them had even died, he added.
Finally, a breakthrough came in 2022, when the rapidly advancing field of genetic genealogy, in which DNA is submitted to public databases to find familial connections, identified 11 potential suspects.
Investigators said they then began to collect DNA samples to eliminate suspects from the group.
Two of the suspects identified were Kurt and Kenneth Kundert, brothers who lived in Arkansas, police said. Investigators discovered the brothers were both in custody on unrelated charges stemming from an assault.
Kurt Kundert agreed to provide police with a DNA sample voluntarily, but Kenneth Kundert did not, police said. Kurt Kundert’s DNA did not match the sample.
Investigators said they were able to determine Kenneth Kundert had ties to Washington and worked in the state in 1987. The brothers also lived in an apartment complex about 1,200 feet away from where the murder took place, authorities said.
In March, police were able to obtain a discarded cigarette belonging to Kenneth Kundert and it was compared to the DNA sample found at the crime scene and came back a match.
On Aug. 20, police found and arrested Kenneth Kundert in Arkansas. He is now at a Van Buren correctional facility awaiting extradition.
Silzer was originally from North Dakota where she graduated from high school before working at a school district in the state. She later moved to Washington and lived in the Seattle area for about 12 years, police said.
She had just purchased a condo in Kent, Washington, just before she was killed. Silzer was a training supervisor at Boeing and worked at a pizza place on weekends, according to police.
(NEW YORK) — Health officials are warning Americans about a rare insect-borne virus that has infected several travelers.
As of Aug. 16, there have been 21 cases of Oropouche virus disease, sometimes called “sloth fever,” detected among U.S. travelers returning from Cuba, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The CDC said it wants clinicians and public health offices to be aware of the virus and to test for suspected cases, and for travelers to protect themselves from insect bites.
Here’s what you need to know about the virus:
What is ‘sloth fever’?
Oropouche virus is an arthropod-borne virus, meaning a type of virus spread to people by the bite of infected arthropods, a group of insects.
The virus is mainly spread to humans by infected culicoides prariensis, a species of biting midges, although it can be transmitted by certain mosquito species, according to the CDC.
It is sometimes called “sloth fever” because scientists investigating the virus first found it in a three-toed sloth and the virus naturally live in sloths, non-human primates and birds.
“I think that really stems from the role of sloths as hosts in that natural transmission cycle,” Dr. Chantal Vogels, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health, told ABC News. “But there’s other animals involved as well.”
Oropouche virus is endemic to the Amazon basin — including Bolivia, Colombia and Peru — and was first discovered in a human in 1955 in a febrile forest worker in a village in Trinidad and Tobago.
“The concern is that now it is spreading to Cuba and possibly elsewhere in the Caribbean, with imported cases in the U.S.,” Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told ABC News. “There is a possibility that it could gain a foothold in the southern U.S. especially in Gulf Coast states.”
What are the symptoms?
The incubation period of Oropouche virus disease is three to 10 days and matches symptoms of similar diseases including dengue, Zika and chikungunya.
Common symptoms include fever, headache, chills, muscle aches and joint pain, typically lasting about two to seven days and then disappearing.
Patients may experience other symptoms including nausea, vomiting, rash, sensitivity to light, dizziness and pain behind the eyes.
“This virus is an interesting one in that about a week later, 50% or more of people will have a recurrence of the symptoms,” Dr. Michael Angarone, an infectious diseases specialist at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, told ABC News. “So, the symptoms will recur and, again, be present for around five days to seven days and then go away. So, I think that’s a very interesting aspect of this virus.”
How is it treated?
To be diagnosed with Oropouche virus disease, a health care provider will have to order laboratory tests.
There are no vaccines to prevent or medicines to treat Oropouche virus disease. Treatment mainly involves treating the symptoms including getting rest, preventing dehydration, and taking over-the-counter pain medicine, such as acetaminophen, according to the CDC.
The CDC advises against taking aspirin or other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs until dengue can be ruled out to lower the risk of bleeding.
How do I prevent the virus?
The best prevention method is to prevent bites from midges or mosquitoes. The CDC recommends using insect repellent, having tight-fitting screens on windows and doors, wearing long-sleeve shirts and pants and using a fan when outdoors.
Currently there is no evidence of local transmission in the U.S; the only cases have been travel-related.
“Here in the U.S., I think travelers should be alert,” Vogels said. “If they travel to areas where there is ongoing transmission, they should be aware of potential symptoms upon return.”
There have also been recent reports of possible vertical transmission, which is when a pregnant person passes the infection to their baby in utero. The infection may result in adverse pregnancy outcomes, including fetal deaths and congenital malformations.
“This has been demonstrated in South America, but also in, I think, a few of the cases that are being looked at now from Cuba,” Angarone said. “There have been descriptions of fetal demise, so [miscarriage] or premature labor and congenital abnormalities, they have not been confirmed to be caused by the virus or the infection, and that’s what’s being looked into.”
The experts recommend that travelers — especially those who are older or immunocompromised — exercise further precautions when traveling to prevent infection.
Those who are pregnant and are considering travel to countries with an Oropouche virus Level 2 Travel Health Notice, reconsider nonessential travel, the CDC says.
(MOSCOW, Idaho) — The suspect in the murder of four University of Idaho students, Bryan Kohberger, returned to court Thursday as the judge weighs whether to change the venue for his trial.
Kohberger’s lawyers hope to move the trial to a different county, arguing the local jury pool in Latah County, which encompasses the college town of Moscow, was tainted by pretrial publicity.
Defense lawyers surveyed Latah County residents and said their results found that the “pressure to convict” Kohberger was shown to be “so severe” the venue couldn’t possibly be impartial.
The defense said one respondent answered they would “burn the courthouse down” if he were not convicted. The same survey, according to the defense, found “much less emotional” responses from people living closer to Boise, where Kohberger’s lawyers suggested the trial be moved.
“The traumatized town of Moscow is understandably filled with deeply held prejudgment opinions of guilt,” defense attorney Elisa Massoth said in a filing this month.
The prosecution has said the case has national and international interest, and that the case has been covered plenty in Boise, so a change of venue would not solve any problem.
Prosecutors argued in a filing this month that the defense “failed to establish that a fair and impartial trial cannot be held in Latah County.”
Victim Kaylee Goncalves’ family wants the trial to stay in Latah County.
To Kaylee Goncalves’ mom, Kristi Goncalves, all Latah County citizens are victims.
She recalled seeing a huge crowd of people, some crying, at the University of Idaho’s healing garden, which opened to the public last week.
The local residents “deserve to have a hand in part of the healing and part of the justice,” she told ABC News Thursday.
“Anybody can find 12 people that can go into that courtroom without their mind made up. It’s America,” added Kaylee Goncalves’ dad, Steve Goncalves.
Moscow Mayor Art Bettge said in a statement last week that, if the case stayed in Latah County, “I firmly believe people would be able to set aside any personal feelings they have … set aside any information they may have read or heard … and make a determination of guilty or not guilty based on the evidence presented in the courtroom and deliberate according to the instructions provided to them.”
The trial is scheduled to start on June 2, 2025, and run until Aug. 29, 2025. Judge John Judge said in June that if the venue changes, the trial date would still hold.
Kohberger is accused of stabbing four University of Idaho students to death in an off-campus house in the early hours of Nov. 13, 2022. Ethan Chapin, 20; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20, and Goncalves, 21, were all brutally murdered during the break-in.
Kohberger, who was a criminology Ph.D. student at nearby Washington State University at the time of the crime, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary.
A not guilty plea was entered on Kohberger’s behalf. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.
ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik and Julie Scott contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — In her first in-depth interview since becoming the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris told CNN, when asked about her changing policy positions, that her “values have not changed.”
‘My values have not changed’
In a video clip that aired on CNN Thursday afternoon, anchor and chief political correspondent Dana Bash asked Harris about her shifting positions on climate change and other matters.
“How should voters look at some of the changes that you’ve made? Is it because you have more experience now and you’ve learned more about the information? Is it because you were running for president in a Democratic primary? And should they feel comfortable and confident that what you’re saying now is going to be your policy moving forward?” Bash asked.
“Dana, I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed,” Harris answered. “You mentioned the Green New Deal. I have always believed – and I have worked on it – that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time.
“We did that with the Inflation Reduction Act. We have set goals for the United States of America, and by extension the globe, around when we should meet certain standards for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as an example,” Harris continued.
“That value has not changed. My value around what we need to do to secure our border: that value has not changed. I spent two terms as the attorney general of California prosecuting transnational criminal organizations violations of American laws regarding the passage, illegal passage, of guns, drugs, and human beings across our border. My values have not changed,” she said.
Harris says she is open to naming Republican to Cabinet
Harris told Bash she would name a Republican to her Cabinet, in another clip released later Thursday afternoon. However, she said she did not have a particular person in mind.
“I’ve got 68 days to go with this election, so I’m not putting the cart before the horse,” she said. “I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion. I think it’s important to have people at the table when some of the most important decisions are being made that have different views, different experiences. And I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my Cabinet who was a Republican.”
‘Next question, please,’ Harris brushes off Trump’s race comments
Harris was asked to respond to former President Donald Trump’s comments at the National Association of Black Journalists convention where he appeared to question Harris’ race.
“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now, she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” Trump said at the time.
When asked about the comments by Bash, Harris responded, “Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please.”
The CNN interview will air Thursday night at 9 p.m. ET.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
