(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Jul 06, 10:02 am
Blinken to urge G20 to press Russia on grain deliveries
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to appeal to G20 countries to put pressure on Russia to make it support the U.N. initiative on unblocking the sea lanes for Ukraine and allow grain exports, according to local media reports.
“G20 countries should hold Russia accountable and insist that it supports ongoing U.N. efforts to reopen the sea lanes for grain delivery,” said Ramin Toloui, assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs.
Toloui referred to a U.N. campaign aiming to expedite Ukrainian and Russian exports of harvest and fertilizer to global markets.
Around 22 million tons of grain remain blocked in Ukrainian ports due to the threat of Russian attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday.
Ukraine is in active negotiations with Turkey and the U.N. to solve the grain export stalemate, Zelenskyy added.
Blinken is also expected to once again warn China against backing Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine.
“[The upcoming G20 summit] will be another opportunity … to convey our expectations about what we would expect China to do and not to do in the context of Ukraine,” the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, Daniel Kritenbrink, said.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yuriy Zaliznyak, Max Uzol and Nataliia Kushnir
Jul 06, 8:42 am
Russia aims to seize territory far beyond the Donbas, Putin’s ally suggests
Russia’s main objective in its invasion of Ukraine is still regime change in Kyiv and the dismantling of Ukrainian sovereignty, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev suggested in a speech on Tuesday.
Patrushev said the Russian “military operation” in Ukraine will continue until Russia achieves its goals of protecting civilians from “genocide,” “denazifying” and demilitarizing Ukraine, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
The Russian official added that Ukraine must remain permanently neutral between Russia and NATO. Petrushev’s remarks nearly mirrored the goals Russian President Vladimir Putin announced at the onset of the war to justify the military invasion.
Patrushev, a close Putin ally, repeated the Russian President’s stated ambitions despite Russia’s military setbacks in Ukraine and previous hints at a reduction in war aims following those defeats, the ISW pointed out.
Patrushev’s explicit restatement of Putin’s initial objectives “strongly indicates” that Russia does not consider its recent territorial gains in the Luhansk region to be sufficient, the ISW experts said.
Russia “has significant territorial aspirations beyond the Donbas” and “is preparing for a protracted war with the intention of taking much larger portions of Ukraine,” the observers added.
Patrushev’s comments dampened hopes for a “compromise ceasefire or even peace based on limited additional Russian territorial gains,” the experts concluded.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yuriy Zaliznyak, Max Uzol and Nataliia Kushnir
Jul 06, 6:06 am
Eastern town in Donetsk could become next ‘key’ battleground
The town of Sloviansk in Donetsk Oblast will likely become the next “key” battleground in Russia’s push to seize the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Wednesday in an intelligence update.
“Russian forces from the Eastern and Western Groups of Forces are likely now around 16 km north from the town of Sloviansk,” the ministry said. “With the town also under threat from the Central and Southern Groups of Forces, there is a realistic possibility that the battle for Sloviansk will be the next key contest in the struggle for the Donbas.”
In the meantime, Russian forces likely continue to consolidate control over the town of Lysychansk and the wider Luhansk Oblast, about 45 miles east of Sloviansk.
“To the north, it has committed most of the remaining available units from the Eastern and Western Groups of Forces to the Izium axis,” the ministry added. “Over the last week, Russian forces have likely advanced up to another 5 km down the E40 main road from Izium, in the face of extremely determined Ukrainian resistance.”
Jul 05, 8:43 am
NATO completes negotiations with Sweden and Finland
NATO announced on Monday it has concluded negotiations with Sweden and Finland on their accession to the organization.
“Finland and Sweden have completed accession negotiations at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, as agreed last week by the leaders of the countries at the summit in Madrid,” a NATO press release said.
“Both countries have officially confirmed their desire and ability to fulfill their political, legal and military obligations as NATO members,” the NATO press service added.
The countries will sign their accession protocols on Tuesday. All member countries will then have to ratify the documents according to their national laws.
Finland and Sweden jointly submitted applications to join NATO on May 18, ending decades of neutrality in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
-ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Yuriy Zaliznyak, Max Uzol and Nataliia Kushnir
(HIGHLAND PARK, Ill.) — The 21-year-old man accused of opening fire at a suburban Chicago Fourth of July parade, killing seven people and injuring dozens of others, plotted another attack in Madison, Wisconsin, after the first shooting, authorities said Wednesday.
After fleeing the scene of the parade, Robert “Bobby” Crimo III “was driving around, saw a celebration in Madison,” and “contemplated another attack,” with “60 rounds on his body at that point,” authorities said at a news conference Wednesday.
But he “had not done enough planning” and decided not to do it, authorities said.
Crimo is charged with seven counts of first-degree murder in the wake of Monday morning’s mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois. More charges are expected, Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart said.
Crimo, who appeared in court via Zoom for his first appearance Wednesday, showed no emotion as a prosecutor outlined the attack and read the victims’ names.
Prosecutors said that Crimo confessed to Monday morning’s parade massacre.
Crimo is accused of taking his legally purchased high-powered rifle and opening fire on paradegoers from a roof of a business.
A witness reported seeing an individual with a gun on a building rooftop “scanning the ground with a gun,” Assistant State’s Attorney Ben Dillon said.
On the rooftop, police discovered three empty 30-round magazines and 83 spent shell casings, prosecutors said.
Crimo told police he wore women’s clothing during the shooting and used makeup to hide his facial tattoos and blend in with the crowd, prosecutors said. Crimo was apprehended at at traffic stop in Lake Forrest, Illinois, Monday evening. A second weapon, also purchased legally by Crimo, was found in the car, police said.
Crimo was ordered held without bond. He is set to return to court for a preliminary hearing on July 28.
He did not enter a plea during the appearance and was appointed a public defender.
When the gunfire began at Monday’s parade, revelers fled in panic, leaving behind empty strollers, overturned chairs and half-eaten sandwiches.
“Bodies were horribly, horribly, horribly injured from, you know, guns and bullets that were made for war — not for parades,” witness Dr. David Baum said of some of the victims.
“The paramedics went quickly and assessed the damages — saw bodies that were blown apart and put a blanket over them quickly. And then went on to try and help other people,” Baum told ABC News. “These are injuries that nobody should have to see.”
Authorities believe the massacre had been planned for weeks.
No motive is known, police said. When asked by reporters if the gunman targeted anyone specifically, police said the “shooting appears to be completely random.”
(WASHINGTON) — Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone has reached a deal with the Jan. 6 committee to testify in a transcribed interview Friday, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The deal comes after the committee issued a subpoena to Cipollone last week after talks to have him testify publicly were not successful.
Cipollone was one of the few aides with former President Donald Trump the day of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and has significant insight into events before, leading up to and after that day.
The committee has frequently referenced Cipollone during public hearings, saying he was one of the advisers around Trump constantly telling the former president he was concerned that his actions could put him in legal jeopardy.
Cipollone was not expected to fight the subpoena, as discussions between he and the committee investigators was cordial.
Following the subpoena last week, a lawyer familiar with Cipollone’s deliberations told ABC News, “Of course a subpoena was necessary before the former White House counsel could even consider transcribed testimony before the committee. Pat Cipollone has previously provided an informal interview at the committee’s request. Now that a subpoena has been issued, it’ll be evaluated as to matters of privilege that might be appropriate.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Quintin Lamarr told ABC News that he struggled with bullying as a Black, gay teen growing up in Milwaukee. – Leslie Andrews
(NEW YORK) — Quintin Lamarr first began having thoughts of suicide when he was around 16 years old.
Now 26 and an advocate and volunteer with the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Lamarr told ABC News that about a year and a half of those suicidal thoughts culminated in a mental health crisis that led to his hospitalization. During that time, he said, he was dealing with continued grief over the death of his father along with more recent bullying he faced as a gay Black teenager growing up in Milwaukee.
He didn’t find the support he needed at school, he said, and as the only child of a single mother who was busy trying to provide for the household he ended up spending a lot of time alone.
“I just felt like I had no community. I had no love. I had no protective energy around me,” Lamarr said. “It just felt like ‘nobody wants me here.'”
His experience is shared, at least in part, by many other young Black people.
The suicide rate among Black youth has been increasing along with the number of suicide attempts and the severity of those attempts, according to the most recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, released in 2019.
That report, tracking suicide trends among students ages 14-18 over the previous 10 years, found that of the 8.9% who reported attempting suicide, Black youth were among the populations with the highest rates of reporting attempts, accounting for 11.8%. By contrast, white youth accounted for 7.9% of those reported attempts and Hispanic youth accounted for 8.9%.
The study found there was an even greater difference in reported attempts by race among female students: Black female students accounted for 15.2% of those reporting attempts, white female students made up 9.4% of that population, and Hispanic female students accounted for 11.9%.
A separate report from the American Academy of Pediatrics tracking suicidal behavior in youth from 1991 to 2017 found that Black youth experienced significant increases in suicide attempts over that period. And among Black kids ages 5-12, the suicide rate was found to be twice that of their white counterparts in 2017.
“What we’ve been seeing over time, and it’s been over a long period of time, is a significant increase in the number of Black boys dying by suicide,” said Dr. Tami D. Benton, psychiatrist-in-chief at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and president-elect of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Experts told ABC News the disproportionately rising rate has a variety of underlying causes, including lack of access to mental health care, lack of awareness around symptoms of mental illness, social stigma and medical and structural racism.
More broadly, experts said, Black children and teenagers deal with some of the same mental health stressors as other young people — including anxiety and depression — and see some of the same challenges in getting caregivers to recognize what is really going on.
“A lot of people are just now learning that the unfortunate reality for a lot of Black youth is that they are dying,” said Dr. Christine Crawford, associate medical director for NAMI. “And a lot of that has to do with the fact that mental health conditions are often underdiagnosed or are not adequately treated for the conditions that they have.”
Dr. Jeffery Greene, an adolescent medicine specialist at Seattle Children’s Hospital, said that while lack of access to care is a contributor, the growing Black youth suicide rate is “multifactorial.”
“Of course, just the stigma of being labeled as someone with depression or anxiety limits the ability to get patients in to see their provider,” Greene said. “The racial injustices in this country over the last few years becoming so overt has also contributed. And, honestly, my personal feeling is in talking to teenagers, it seems like there’s a feeling of lack of hope for the future.”
Racism plays a role
Crawford said the utilization of mental health services among Black youth is lower than among other groups. There are several reasons for this, Crawford said, including “clinician bias and racism,” which can get in the way of diagnosis and become a barrier to treatment.
Structural and systemic racism also play a role, Crawford explained, as Black youth are more likely to attend schools and live in communities that are under-resourced and unable to provide mental health support.
“We need to acknowledge the fact that racism does lead to some of this and contributes to some of the bias. But that’s a hard thing to talk about — a hard thing for people to accept,” Crawford said. “But once people acknowledge the fact that it has an impact on what it is we’re seeing in mental health with children, especially Black children, that’s the only way that we’re able to strive for change.”
“We have to recognize the problem in order to adequately solve it and address it,” she said.
Racism in daily life also presents complications, with a study from the CDC released earlier this year showing that reports of experiencing racism were higher among students with poor mental health.
“We do know that the trauma that is experienced by racism can certainly result in mental health symptoms,” Crawford said. “We do see that people who have experienced various forms of racism, such as microaggressions, such as discrimination, are more likely to experience pretty significant psychological distress.”
Lamarr, the advocate, said that the bullying he faced as a boy — not just for his race but his sexuality — contributed to his own struggles.
“I’ve always had insecurities about things, just because growing up — being dark-skinned, being flamboyant, living in my truth, being part of the LGBT community, you always are criticized,” Lamarr said. “There was always a sense that I was holding back or I wasn’t always fully myself.”
Importance of historical context
In addition to social factors influencing mental health struggles for Black youth, Crawford said, it is possible that their symptoms are dismissed by health care providers.
“There’s often a tendency, especially for some white clinicians, to automatically assume that a child is presenting a certain way because they’re Black and because they’ve experienced a lot of trauma. But all of that can be true and they can also be experiencing symptoms of depression,” Crawford said. “We need to make sure that we’re taking both things into account — some of the external environmental societal factors that may be exacerbating mood symptoms — and we also need to know that there are treatments that exist to provide support for depression.”
Crawford cites a history in psychiatry of dismissing Black people’s mental illness symptoms.
“We do know that depression was a condition that was not diagnosed in Black people because the field didn’t think that Black people’s minds were sophisticated enough to experience an abstract condition such as depression,” she said.
It’s important, Crawford said, “to appreciate this historical context and how we’re continuing to see the ramifications of all of that in the present day.”
Depression can look different in kids
Age as well as race is a factor in mental health — indeed, the two can intersect. Symptoms of depression can present differently in children, including Black youth, than they do in adults.
Benton, the president-elect of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, explained that most frequently Black children are diagnosed with “externalizing disorders,” which are characterized by “acting-out behavior.”
“The assumption is not that Black youth can be depressed or suicidal. It’s that they tend to act out more than acting on themselves,” Benton said. “And that’s just not true.”
Sometimes depression in children is not recognized by parents because of differing presentation, Crawford explained, and there can be a misconception that depression stems solely from external problems and stressors.
“I try to remind my families, my caregivers, that depression — major depressive disorder — is a medical condition,” Crawford said. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be because something bad happened to you, and therefore you are depressed and therefore you are very sad and crying in the corner.”
She said for some people, and especially kids, they feel depressed because “it’s a biological condition.”
Crawford said that depression for this group may look more like irritability than sadness. Children with depression may also demonstrate quick mood fluctuation. Refusal to attend school, lack of interest in typical activities and excessive sleeping are other warning signs.
“These are symptoms of depression that can look different in kids [and] that are often misinterpreted as being something else by their caregiver,” Crawford said.
The pandemic effect
Since 2020, as America’s children have been feeling the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting social isolation and disruptions, mental health has been even more of a concern for health care providers and experts.
“I’m seeing that the symptom presentation [of anxiety and depression] is certainly more severe. I’m seeing that there’s a 31% increase in emergency room visits for our youth,” Crawford said. “And that often is reflective of the fact that these kids are presenting in a state of crisis, and having thoughts of suicide is certainly a mental health-related emergency.”
As for access to care, Crawford said, “We’re all booked. The waitlist to see a psychiatrist is incredibly long. The same thing is true for our therapists or social workers.”
She said the growing demand for services has been encouraging because more people are reaching out for care. “But it’s also quite concerning, because there’s certainly not enough of us to meet this growing demand. There’s only 8,300 child psychiatrists in the entire country. And that’s not enough to meet this demand that has been just kind of amplified by the pandemic.”
Decreasing the stigma — and recognizing warning signs
Greene, the Seattle Children’s doctor, said he hopes efforts to decrease the stigma around mental health will enable more young people to access care and receive a diagnosis, if one needs to be made. An increase in identification of mental illness would also help, he says.
Lamarr’s own struggles as a teen resulted in his mom calling the police and having him admitted to a hospital.
Such a crisis can be any situation where a person’s behavior may cause them to harm themselves or others, according to NAMI. It may also present as someone being unable to care for themselves.
Warning signs can include the inability to perform daily tasks (like bathing or brushing teeth) as well as mood swings, isolation and abusive behavior to oneself and others, according to NAMI.
After Lamarr’s hospitalization, he told ABC News, things began turning around.
He spent three days in the hospital before starting outpatient treatment and an anger management class, and he eventually transferred to a new school program.
“I was 16 at the time and I remember thinking ‘I need to get out of here. I need to start over, start fresh, try again,'” he said.
Learning how to talk about his feelings during treatment was key, he said.
“It turns out sometimes all you need is just the outlet to let off steam or to just open up, or to just be honest or be candid or vent,” Lamarr said. “Sometimes when we have so much pent-up frustration or we have so much pent-up anger or we have so much grief or so much pent-up emotion, that we really don’t get to release. … We always are constantly trying to be strong — we break.”
“And that’s all it was for me to be honest,” he said. “It was just so much just pent up, so much going on, so much that I never really truly dealt with. I never knew how to deal with grief.”
Protective factors for Black youth
In addition to decreasing stigma and increasing access to care, Benton said there are protective factors for Black children that can help maintain mental health. Strong positive ethnic identity is one, she said.
There’s a lot of research to support that as a protective factor, Benton said, “If you’re Black, and you feel good about yourself, and you feel you identify your Blackness as a positive thing, it’s protective of all kinds of things.”
Other protective factors, she said, include support from families and communities, community engagement, strong school connectedness and focus on academics.
She also said that among Black youth, “church was a big factor. So people who were engaged in a church community and had that sense of connectedness tended to do better.”
Mental health as public health
In terms of creating better mental health outcomes among Black youth, Benton said it’s about prevention and many of the determinants of future challenges are social.
“The reality is poverty, violence, poor schools, the absence of adequate mental health resources for people who need it — all of those factors contribute to what we’re seeing with kids right now,” Benton said.
The impact on young children, she said, primarily among minority groups and those who are growing up economically disadvantaged, is “disproportionate.”
“It will not likely be the case that we will decide we’re going to redistribute everybody’s wealth and nobody’s going to be poor anymore,” Benton said. “I don’t think that’s the solution — though that could be helpful.”
The major issue, Benton said, is making sure kids have access to adequate nutrition, a place to sleep without fear, regular pediatric healthcare, social-emotional learning in schools and engagement with nature.
“We all know that those environmental factors actually change the way that people feel and the way they think, and it contributes to emotional health. So I think addressing many of those social factors is really the key,” Benton said. “And you don’t need to do that at a psychiatrist or psychologist’s office. You can do that at home, at the Y, on a sports team — the people that are most effective in prevention are people at schools and people in the community.”
“More of a public health approach is what we need around mental health,” she added.
As for Lamarr, “It’s been a journey to get to the point where I really feel like I deserve to be here,” he said. “I’m here for a reason. I have a story to tell. I’ve made it out of the darkness. And now I can be a help, really, to other people.”
If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 [TALK] for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
(HIGHLAND PARK, Ill.) — Vice President Kamala Harris made a previously unscheduled trip on Tuesday night to Highland Park, Illinois — the site of a deadly mass shooting during a Fourth of July parade the previous day.
There, she expressed her grief at what the community had just endured and reiterated the federal government’s support, not long after she again urged for more widespread government action to address gun violence.
Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff spent about 30 minutes in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park after she spoke earlier Tuesday at the National Education Association’s annual meeting.
Addressing teachers in Chicago, she elicited loud cheers when she said: “We need to end this horror. We need to stop this violence. And we must protect our communities from the terror of gun violence. You know I’ve said it before, enough is enough.”
Reflecting on the “19 babies and their two teachers” killed in an elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in May, Harris told the NEA educators that the shooting was “the most recent reminder” of “the risks that our children and our educators face every day.”
“Teachers should not have to practice barricading a classroom,” she said. “Teachers should not have to know how to treat a gunshot wound. And teachers should not be told that lives would have been saved if only you had a gun.”
She called on federal lawmakers to ban assault-style rifles, saying, “Congress needs to have the courage to act and renew the assault weapons ban.”
“An assault weapon is designed to kill a lot of human beings quickly,” Harris said. “There is no reason that we have weapons of war on the streets of America.”
Nonetheless, there is little prospect of legislators taking up such restrictions: Congress just passed a modest, bipartisan package intended to reduce gun violence, and Republicans say more laws violate the Second Amendment.
In Highland Park later Tuesday, Harris met with local politicians and law enforcement near the scene of the shooting that killed seven and injured dozens more. (A suspect has since been taken into custody and charged with seven counts of first-degree murder on Tuesday.)
The vice president embraced Mayor Nancy Rotering and told her, “I’m sorry,” upon arriving in Highland Park. Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Illinois, and state Sen. Julie Morrison joined Harris. Her office said she was invited to Highland Park on Tuesday during a morning call with Rotering.
Harris took some time to shake hands and meet with individual law enforcement members, including Highland Park police officers.
She visited the town near the scene of Monday’s mass shooting. According to the press pool, bikes, strollers, toys and lawn chairs were still visible in the area — detritus from those who fled the attack.
In brief remarks, Harris offered the country’s condolences and resources on behalf of the administration, saying, “We’ll continue to put all the resources that the mayor and the chief and others need in terms of the federal assistance, so the FBI, the [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] are here.”
“From President Joe Biden and our country, we are so sorry for what you have all experienced … This should never have happened. We talked about it being ‘senseless.’ It is. It is absolutely senseless,” Harris said. “I want for you that you hold each other tight as a community, that you know that you have a whole nation who cares deeply about you and stands with you.”
As the vice president spoke, about 100 local residents had gathered nearby, according to the press pool.
“This is an incredibly tight community. I know that,” she said, “and this person will be brought to justice. But it’s not going to undo what happened.”
Harris also said the administration’s focus had not strayed from guns. The White House will “deal with what we need to deal with” in terms of who has access to assault weapons.
But her attention was on the local community.
“We’ve got to take this stuff seriously — as seriously as you are, because you have been forced to have to take it seriously,” she said. “The whole nation should understand and have a level of empathy, to understand that this can happen anywhere, in any peace-loving community. And we should stand together and speak out about why it’s got to stop.”
ABC News’ Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.
Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE
(TRENTON, N.J.) — New Jersey Gov. Philip Murphy signed new gun legislation into law on Tuesday, making it harder for residents in the state to get a handgun license and high-capacity rifles.
The new laws come a day after a gunman opened fire at a July 4 parade in Highland Park, Illinois, that left seven people dead and over 30 injured.
“In the wake of horrific mass shootings in Highland Park, Illinois, Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, it is necessary that we take action in order to protect our communities. I am proud to sign these bills today and thank my legislative partners for sending them to my desk,” Murphy said at the signing.
The guns safety package has seven bills that include requiring gun owners who move to New Jersey from out of state to register their firearms within 60 days with local law enforcement; lets the state’s attorney general bring a “cause of action for certain public nuisance violations arising from sale or marketing of firearms;” bans .50 caliber rifles and places restrictions on ghost guns.
The law also now requires those looking to become gun owners to pass a safety course to get a firearms purchaser’s ID and the state now has the power to track all ammunition sales in the state through a registry.
The new laws go into effect nearly two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a New York law that restricted the concealed carrying of handguns in public to people who have “proper cause.”
Murphy criticized the court’s decision, calling it “deeply flawed,” according to ABC News Philadelphia station WPVI.
The Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs Executive President Scott Bach condemned the new laws, saying it ignored “criminals and those with dangerous behavioral issues,” according to ABC News New York station WABC.
Gun control organization Brady praised the governor for signing the bills and urged other states to “pass sensible legislation.”
“Gov. Murphy has strongly and consistently called for common-sense gun violence prevention reforms. Today, the legislature has delivered these needed policies and they will become law,” Brady said in a statement.
(NEW YORK) — More than 40 years after he shot President Ronald Reagan and three others, John Hinckley Jr. said he’s filled with remorse over his actions, but he’s ready to move forward with his life.
Hinckley, 67, spoke with “Nightline” co-anchor Juju Chang two weeks after he was released from federal supervision, and apologized to the families of his victims.
“I’m truly sorry. I really am,” he told “Nightline.” “I’m not sure they can forgive me, and I probably wouldn’t even blame them.”
While some of those close to Reagan are reluctant to accept Hinckley’s olive branch, he said he’s committed to proving to the world that he’s a changed and better man. And he supports laws that would prohibit others with mental health issues from getting access to guns.
On March 30, 1981, Hinckley, then 25, shot Reagan, police officer Thomas Delahanty, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and press secretary James Brady outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., where Regan had just delivered a speech to the AFL-CIO.
All four men survived. Reagan, however, was hospitalized for 12 days; Brady, who was shot in the head, was left with brain damage and was confined to a wheelchair after the incident; Delahanty developed permanent nerve damage to his left arm. McCarthy was also hospitalized and was the first victim to be discharged.
Brady, who went on to become a staunch gun control advocate as the co-founder of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, died in 2014.
Although the medical examiner ruled the death was a homicide and the cause of death to be a gunshot wound and its health consequences, Hinckley wasn’t charged in Brady’s death.
Hinckley was arrested shortly after the shooting and charged with the attempted assassination. He told investigators that he opened fire on the president to impress actress Jodie Foster. He told Nightline that he had no ill will against Reagan and called him ” a good, nice man,” who he thought “was a good president.”
Hinckley told “Nightline” that he was severely depressed, estranged from his family and in full despair when he plotted to shoot the president.
“It was in ways like a suicide attempt just saying, this is it. This is the end of my life,” he said.
Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity a year later in a jury trial and ordered to be confined at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., under psychiatric care. In 2016, he was allowed to leave the hospital into the care of his mother and with heavy restrictions, including a prohibition on him owning a gun or contacting any of his victims, their families or Foster.
In September 2021, a federal judge OK’d Hinckley’s unconditional release, which went into effect on June 15.
Although he’s barred from speaking with his victims, Hinckley told ABC News that he’s been remorseful for years and felt sad that his actions led to Brady’s years of pain. He shared that he prays every night that the Brady family has a good life.
“If I could take it back, I surely would,” he said.
Hinckley’s complete freedom from oversight is a study in rehabilitation, and comes at the intersection of the ongoing discussions over how the country is addressing mental health issues and the rise in gun violence.
Hinckley said he’s in favor of background checks and waiting periods to obtain a gun, especially with regard to people who are suffering, which were policies that were ushered by the Brady law.
“I think there are too many guns in America,” he said.
President Reagan publicly forgave Hinckley for the assassination attempt, but at least one member of Reagan’s family has not forgiven him.
Patti Davis, Reagan’s daughter, published an op-ed in the Washington Post in September, after the judge made the order to release Hinckley, and said she feared that he would contact her.
“I understand struggling for forgiveness, but it’s like peering out from between the prison bars. I don’t believe that John Hinckley feels remorse. Narcissists rarely do,” she wrote.
Danny Spriggs, a Secret Service agent on Reagan’s detail when the shooting happened, told ABC News that he also doesn’t accept Hinckley’s apology.
“I don’t think that sufficient accountability has been rendered in this particular case,” he said. “I wish him well. The bottom line is those words are easy said [and] now it depends on his actions.”
Hinckley contended that he’s not the same man he was in 1981. He told “Nightline” that in his 41 years of therapy he has “worked hard to overcome [his] illness,” and is confident he will stay on track. His medical team at St. Elizabeth’s, and the judge who released him, seem to agree.
Hinckley has voluntarily been taking his anti-anxiety medication and an anti-psychotic medication, continues to get therapy, and says he has a sound support system with his siblings.
“I just have a great mindset now that I don’t have the depression that I had. I don’t have the isolation that I had. And I just really feel good about things now,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — As more infectious COVID-19 variants become dominant in the U.S., there are renewed signs that COVID-19 cases may be back on the rise across parts of the country.
The national resurgence comes as the number of children testing positive for the virus also sees an increase again.
New infections among children had been on the decline since May, however, for the first time in nearly two months, there has been an uptick in the weekly total of pediatric COVID-19 cases.
Last week, nearly 76,000 children tested positive for the virus, up from the 63,000 pediatric cases reported the week prior, according to a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.
Overall, totals remain significantly lower than during other parts of the pandemic. However, the organizations said that child cases are still “far higher” than one year ago, when just 12,100 cases were reported.
Many Americans, who are taking at-home tests, are also not submitting their results, and thus, experts said daily case totals are likely significantly higher than the numbers that are officially reported.
Approximately 13.8 million children have tested positive for the virus, since the onset of the pandemic. Approximately 5.9 million reported cases have been added so far this year. Children represent about a fifth of all reported cases on record.
COVID-19 related hospitalizations among children are also on the rise, with admission levels also reaching their highest point since February, federal data shows.
Late last month, all children, six months and older, became eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine — a welcome development in the fight against the pandemic that many parents had been eagerly awaiting.
Although it is still unknown how many children between the ages of six months and four years old have been vaccinated, data shows that the vaccine rollout in older children continues to lag.
Over 25 million children, over the age of five, who have been eligible for a shot since November, are still unvaccinated.
“It is critical that we protect our children and teens from the complications of severe COVID-19 disease,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement last month. “Vaccinating this age group can provide greater confidence to families that their children and adolescents participating in childcare, school, and other activities will have less risk for serious COVID-19 illness.”
Despite continued encouragement from scientists and federal health officials, overall, less than half of children ages 5 to 17 — about 44.4% that age group — have been fully vaccinated.
An even small proportion — 38.6% — of children over 5, who are eligible for a booster, have received their supplemental shot.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association noted in their report that there is an “urgent” need to collect more age-specific data to assess the severity of illness related to new variants as well as potential longer-term effects.
“It is important to recognize there are immediate effects of the pandemic on children’s health, but importantly we need to identify and address the long-lasting impacts on the physical, mental, and social well-being of this generation of children and youth,” the organizations said.
(WASHINGTON) — Democrats are working to ensure their incumbents and midterm candidates maintain message discipline around a simple pitch to the public on abortion while the party looks to use the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade to help persuade and motivate voters come November.
Lawmakers and contenders across the country have thus far echoed the same stance: The choice to have an abortion should be made between a person and a doctor. In doing so, Democrats have avoided taking the bait on Republican attacks accusing them of supporting abortions in the second and third trimesters — procedures that are rare but that polls show voters approve of significantly less than abortions earlier on in pregnancies, when access is broadly supported.
“I think we’re certainly going to see the other side try to lead us in that direction, and so I think it has the potential where it can certainly create a lot of gray area. And right now, we’re in a position where I think the people of Arizona are seeing this in pretty black-and-white terms, and they’re more in favor with us than they are with them,” Arizona state Sen. Martin Quezada, who is running for treasurer in a state where all abortions could soon be banned, told ABC News.
Despite that discipline, Democrats are still grappling with various debates on the best strategy around ensuring abortion access — and President Joe Biden has faced calls from others in the party to be more vocal and more detailed with his own plan.
But so long as Democrats stay away from debates over abortions in the second and third trimesters, party strategists who spoke with ABC News argued, the issue will remain politically advantageous in a cycle still largely characterized by voters’ concerns over high inflation, which have helped sharply weaken Biden’s approval ratings.
For their part, Republicans and their conservative allies have repeatedly tried to knock Democrats into more treacherous rhetorical territory — something that Quezada, in Arizona, acknowledged. “I certainly expect they will start to try to dilute that messaging and try to get us lost in that gray area. That potential to lose some support is there,” he said.
Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee in Georgia’s gubernatorial race, was pressed repeatedly on Fox News Sunday last month over whether she supported abortions up to nine months. Republican Senate candidates have also cast their opponents as radicals on abortion. And the Republican National Committee has been looking to frame all Democrats as dodgy on the restrictions they would support.
“What’s radical and out of touch is Joe Biden and Democrat politicians refusing to name a single limit they would seek on abortion,” said RNC spokesperson Nathan Brand.
Still, Democrats have not budged.
During her Fox News interview, Abrams said that abortion was “a medical decision … that should be a choice made between a doctor and a woman and in consultation with her family.” She later told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she would support legislation enshrining the right to an abortion “until a physician determines the fetus is viable outside of the body.”
And in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has been pushing for passage of legislation that would enshrine Roe, the 1973 Supreme Court decision first protecting abortion access, into law — while staying away from language about trimesters.
The need for that caution is borne out in polling.
According to a 2021 survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 61 percent of adults said abortion in the first trimester should be legal in all or most cases. But in the second trimester, 65 percent said abortions should be illegal in all or most cases; and 80 percent said the procedure should be illegal in all or most cases in the final trimester.
Such discipline, strategists said, allows Democrats to instead highlight unpopular stances from Republicans like foregoing exceptions in abortion bans for rape and incest.
On top of that, the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have each briefed campaigns on messaging to highlight Republican stances on abortion, according to aides.
“I think it’s paramount that Democrats are disciplined here. I think that this is an incredibly powerful issue and incredibly powerful contrast with Republicans,” said Molly Murphy, a Democratic pollster advising several midterm campaigns. “Voters are deeply troubled when they learn that Republicans support making abortion illegal without exceptions for things like rape and incest and the life of a woman.”
To be sure, Democrats still face internal divisions over precisely how to tackle abortion rights.
Party members are debating backing allowances for abortions on federal lands, pushing an expansion of the Supreme Court and enacting a legislative filibuster carveout for abortion to eliminate the Senate’s 60-vote threshold on the issue.
The White House has said it is currently not considering allowing abortion clinics to operate on federal lands over legal liabilities for workers, sparking frustration among progressives. And while Biden on Thursday said he supports a filibuster carveout for abortion — new ground for the president — there are currently not enough Democratic votes in the 50-50 Senate to change the upper chamber’s rules.
Yet some pollsters said the minutiae of legislating on abortion will not resonate with voters as much as the overall issue.
“Ultimately the filibuster is process and not message. Democrats can talk about Republicans prioritizing making abortion illegal without exception and stay away from process, not because the filibuster carveout is bad … but because voters don’t care about process,” Murphy said.
And for Democrats running in conservative districts and states, operatives say they must be allowed to buck the overall party messaging and, if it aligns with their local voters, have the freedom to vocalize opposition to second- and third-trimester abortions.
“How they frame that I think should be reflected upon, one, their personal experience, but also the makeup of the district. We don’t win races in a collection. We win them race by race, individual by individual,” said Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright. “And I think with every messaging point, it has to be done that way. Anything to the contrary could be a threat to the majority we do have”
On the flip side, Republicans have already dealt with some high-profile lapses in their discipline on the issue.
Yesli Vega, the GOP nominee in a swing House district in Virginia, sparked controversy last month when she agreed with an assessment that it was harder to get pregnant as a result of rape “because it’s not something that’s happening organically.”
Vega later said, “As a mother of two children, yes I’m fully aware of how women get pregnant.”
And when asked late last month if a 12-year-old girl who was raped by a family member should carry a pregnancy to term, Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn replied “that is my belief. I believe life begins at conception.”
Such comments harken back to past campaign controversies like Missouri Republican Todd Akin, who lost a winnable Senate race in 2012 after he said victims of what he dubbed “legitimate rape” rarely got pregnant. Akin went on to apologize, saying in a video at the time, “Rape is an evil act. I used the wrong words in the wrong way.”
Now, some conservatives acknowledge history could repeat.
“If we see two or three other candidates or incumbents, especially, using that kind of rhetoric, it’s going to cause headaches for Republicans. No doubt about it,” said Doug Heye, a former top RNC official.
Operatives from both parties said that issues like inflation and wages will likely steer the midterm cycle, with a polling memo from the Republican State Leadership Committee showing that just 8 percent of voters think abortion is a top issue, versus 37 percent who answered with the high cost of living.
But in such a contested cycle, in which the Senate could be decided by any one race, campaign stumbles on an issue where the electorate’s views do not match their base have Republicans concerned.
When asked if a serious misstep on abortion could ultimately cost future control of the Senate, Heye replied, “Potentially so.”
(LONDON) — Preparations are underway in South Africa’s coastal town of East London for Wednesday’s mass funeral service of 21 teenagers who died under mysterious circumstances at a bar last week.
The results of the toxicology report are not yet available, but it is widely believed that they died after inhaling toxic gas or fumes while partying in the Enyobeni Tavern in Scenery Park in the early hours on June 26.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will attend the service Wednesday.
The 12 girls and nine boys mysteriously died during and after a party organized at the Scenery Park venue. The mass service will take place on a sports field in Scenery Park, after which families will be able to bury their loved ones at separate cemeteries.
Ramaphosa wrote in his weekly letter to the public earlier this week that the country needs to have a “frank conversation” about alcohol consumption, saying increased social acceptability of young people drinking alcohol has become a serious problem in a country where the majority of the drinking population is already classified by the World Health Organization as binge drinkers.
The Eastern Cape Liquor Board has opened a criminal case against the tavern owner, Siyakhangela Ndevu, and wife, Vuyokazi, for allegedly selling alcohol to underage children.
Brig. Tembinkosi Kinana, a spokesperson for the South African Police Service, said the circumstances surrounding the incident are still under investigation.
“The investigation into the Scenery Park incident is still ongoing. There are no new developments at this stage. At an appropriate time and once the results are out, a formal statement will be issued. It has not yet been determined as to when the results will be out,” Kinana told ABC News.
No arrests have been made and no suspects have been named in connection with the investigation, according to police.
The Daily Dispatch, a South African newspaper published in East London, reported that the teens were attending a party at the Enyobeni Tavern to celebrate the end of June school exams. Their bodies were reportedly found strewn across tables, chairs and the dance floor with no visible signs of injuries.
A 22-year-old Scenery Park resident, Sibongile Mtsewu, told ABC News he was at the Enyobeni Tavern when the deadly incident unfolded. He said he was ordering drinks at the crowded club when suddenly the doors were closed and some type of chemical agent was released into the air.
“There was no way out,” Mtsewu previously told ABC News in an interview shortly after the incident. “There was no chance to breathe.”
ABC News’ Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.
