(WASHINGTON) — A former police officer who stormed the Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection was found guilty Monday by a jury on all six counts.
Thomas Robertson was found guilty on charges ranging from obstruction of an official proceeding to entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a dangerous weapon. This is the second jury case for a Capitol rioter.
Monday marked day five of a trial that spanned hours of Jan. 6 video footage, first-hand accounts from Capitol and Metro police officers and an inside look at how FBI agents handled the arrest of both Robertson and former colleague and close friend Jacob Fracker, who testified against Robertson as part of his own plea agreement for storming the Capitol.
The jury deliberated for about 15 hours in a trial that focused on very specific details of Robertson’s actions — from where he stood to what he was holding.
Robertson entered the restricted area of the Capitol with the goal of obstructing the electoral vote, the jury found. He used a wooden stick to push past an officer, which was ruled it could be used as a dangerous weapon.
“Many people in this country disagreed with the outcome of the presidential election,” a U.S. attorney said during opening arguments last Tuesday. “Many people use, and continue to use, strong language to express their political views. But the defendant, he is not on trial for beliefs — he is on trial for his actions.”
Shortly after he found out about the warrant for his arrest, Robertson destroyed his phone along with Fracker’s, saying in a message, “anything that may have been problematic has been destroyed, including my phone,” prosecutors said during the trial.
That also means he could have corrupted two official proceedings, the jury found — either the Electoral College voting process or his own federal trial, or both.
Robertson’s lawyers said he was invited into the Capitol by an officer, stayed for only 10 minutes and didn’t assault anyone or cause any damage. The defense brought in two witnesses who each took the stand for less than 8 minutes.
“He entered, he retrieved, he departed,” one of Robertson’s lawyers said on day one of the trial. “That’s what this case is about.”
The U.S. attorney’s office brought in nine witnesses, who oftentimes took the stand for over an hour.
One of those witnesses was Fracker, who stormed the Capitol with Robertson. He agreed to testify as part of his plea agreement. He said during the trial he did this in part to lower his sentence.
The jury deliberated for five hours last Friday after closing arguments. Judge Christopher R. Cooper read the decision Monday.
Robertson was found guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding; obstructing officers during a civil disorder; entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a dangerous weapon; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a dangerous weapon; disorderly conduct in a capitol building and obstruction of an official proceeding.
Andy Cross/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Just as he was emerging as a top target of the House committee investigating the Capitol attack, former Trump lawyer John Eastman took a trip to Wisconsin.
Eastman, a right-wing lawyer who drafted a plan for former President Donald Trump to cling to power by falsely claiming then-Vice President Mike Pence could reject legitimate electors during the 2020 presidential election, was part of a small group of Trump allies who secured a private meeting last month to try and convince the Republican leader of the Wisconsin state Assembly to decertify President Joe Biden’s win, multiple sources familiar with the meeting told ABC.
On March 16, Eastman and others spent nearly two hours behind closed doors pressuring Republican Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to nullify the 2020 election and reclaim the electors awarded to Biden, the sources said, which legal experts say is impossible.
Eastman was subpoenaed by the congressional committee looking into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol in November. He had been bucking the panel’s request for documents, claiming attorney client privilege, until a federal judge recently ordered most of them turned over.
Eastman in the meeting urged Vos to decertify the election, sources familiar with the meeting said. According to Jefferson Davis, a Wisconsin activist pushing to reverse Biden’s victory who was also in the meeting, Trump’s former lawyer pushed Vos to start “reclaiming the electors” and move forward with “either a do over or having a new slate of electors seated that would declare someone else the winner.”
When reached for comment, Eastman said in a statement to ABC News, “By explicit request from Speaker Vos, that meeting was confidential, so I am not able to make any comment.”
Following the meeting, Vos reiterated his position that the 2020 election can’t be decertified. Vos, however, has pushed claims of widespread election fraud and was held in contempt by a judge last month for failing to turn over documents related to a Republican-led investigation he had launched himself in May 2021 into the 2020 election.
His office did not respond to multiple requests for comment from ABC News.
The Wisconsin meeting is just one instance among many in an ongoing effort by Eastman and other Trump allies who, even 15 months into President Joe Biden’s tenure, have continued to push for the results of the 2020 election to be overturned despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
In February, Eastman also joined leaders of Colorado’s election denial campaign, holding an “emergency town hall meeting” in Castle Rock. The meeting, organized by FEC United founder Joe Oltman, rallied the crowd against Secretary of State Jenna Griswold, falsely accusing her of participating in an election fraud conspiracy.
During the meeting, Eastman boasted about his involvement in election lawsuits in Texas, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin and decried the “attacks” that he and others who push election conspiracies have experienced, calling it “pure evil,” according to a video of the meeting posted by FEC United.
Eastman has said he attended a gathering of Trump supporters at the Willard Hotel on Jan. 5, 2021 and spoke before Trump at the “Save America” rally the next day. Eastman also has said publicly that he, along with other Trump allies, had a so-called “war room” set up at the hotel for several days preceding and on Jan. 6.
Trump has been watching the decertification push closely, saying in a statement last month following the Wisconsin meeting that “Speaker Vos should do the right thing and correct the Crime of the Century—immediately! It is my opinion that other states will be doing this, Wisconsin should lead the way!”
The former president has been in contact with multiple people in Wisconsin working on the effort and has received regular updates from MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, sources said, who has spread wild and baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 vote count.
Lindell, who remains a close confidant of the former president, has participated in the Wisconsin pressure campaign with his own team of people including Douglas Frank, who was prominently featured at the My Pillow CEO’s conspiracy-filled “Cyber Symposium” last August, Army Reserve Lt. Colonel Ivan Raiklin, who has also worked closely with former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn to overturn the 2020 election and Shawn Smith, a Colorado-based activist who has called Lindell an “angel investor” in her organization devoted to “election integrity.”
While Lindell was absent from the March 16 meeting, Frank, Raiklin and Smith attended with Eastman, according to sources familiar with the meeting.
Lindell is currently facing a $1.3 billion lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems for promoting false claims about their voting machines. He traveled to Mar-a-Lago last Thursday to attend a fundraiser for Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake that featured the former president.
As Eastman continues his campaign to overturn the election, he has become of greater interest to investigators on the Jan. 6 committee, the panel has publicly indicated.
Last month, a federal judge ruled that Eastman must turn over most of the documents he has been withholding from the committee. The panel has begun receiving and reviewing the documents, according to sources.
The judge, who reviewed the documents privately, said that Trump “more likely than not” committed felony obstruction in the effort to overturn the election.
Eastman and others continue to push to decertify President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in Wisconsin despite multiple recounts, court filings and audits failing to identify any widespread fraud in the battleground state.
Reviews and audits in other states including Georgia and Arizona, have also failed to substantiate claims about widespread election fraud.
(WASHINGTON) — The Pentagon has been providing daily updates on the U.S. assessment of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Ukraine’s efforts to resist.
Here are highlights of what a senior U.S. defense official told reporters Monday on Day 47:
Russia’s new invasion commander
The U.S. assesses that Putin has appointed Gen. Alexander Dvornikov to lead the invasion effort. But the change in leadership can’t erase the logistical and operational problems that have plagued Russian forces, according to the senior U.S. defense official.
“They have high challenges to surmount, and the choice of a general doesn’t mean that they’re poised for greater success,” the official said.
Dvornikov previously led Russian forces in the south of Ukraine.
“He was the commander of the southern military district. And in the early days and weeks of the conflict, the Russians did achieve more success in the south than they achieved certainly in the north. I have no idea that was a factor in his selection,” the official said.
The official noted that Russian efforts in the south are now largely stalled, with no progress against Mariupol since last week, and no success advancing on Mykolayiv.
“If Mr. Putin’s decision to pick Dvornikov was because he had some success, it wasn’t that much,” the official said.
New commander, same ‘depravity and brutality’
The official said it is unclear how Dvornikov’s selection could affect the fighting, but said a pattern of brutality remains a constant.
“What is clear is that the Russians continue to sink to new lows of depravity and brutality, as we saw with the missile strike on the train station last week,” the official said.
The death and destruction in Mariupol is also a concern.
“We’re all bracing for when the rest of the world gets to see what happens in Mariupol, what has happened. I think we’re certainly bracing ourselves here for some for some potentially really, really horrible outcomes,” the official said.
Russians moving troops and supplies toward Donbas
Some of the Russian units that withdrew from the northern Ukraine area are starting to move east toward the Russian cities of Belgorod and Valuyki. A long convoy of Russian vehicles is beginning to head south to Donbas from that area.
“We believe that this line of vehicles that we talked about that are north of Izium came out of the Belgorod/Valuyki region, from there to the south,” the official said.
Last week, the official said the Pentagon assessed Russia would use that region to refit and resupply its battalion tactical groups (BTGs) that have been worn down by hard fighting near Kyiv and other areas of Ukraine. Some Russian units are too gutted to fight.
“At least in the grouping that we’re aware of, it’s not an insignificant number of their BTGs are combat ineffective. And what does that mean? It means a lot of things. It can mean that they don’t have the manpower that they need to effectively conduct a mission, or it could be ammunition and supply. It could be vehicles, depending on what the BTG does — not all of them are just infantry,” the official said.
The Pentagon believes the convoy is still north of Izyim and is an effort to reenforce and resupply their forces in Donbas with command and control elements, armored vehicles, and possibly helicopter and infantry support.
Artillery is also a part of the reinforcement effort.
“We’ve seen evidence that the Russians are beginning to reinforce some of their positions southwest of Donetsk. They’re doing that largely with artillery units,” the official said.
Military aid flowing to Ukraine by air and land
Eight to 10 flights per day are bringing military supplies into the region, and “near constant convoys on the ground” are flowing materiel into Ukraine, the official said.
U.S. intelligence assisting Ukraine
In addition to providing support in the form of missiles, drones and small arms, the U.S. is also giving intel to assist Ukraine in the fight.
“We are providing good intelligence to the Ukrainians to help them with their self-defense,” the official said.
No evidence Russia took out Slovakian S-300 system in Ukraine
While the Pentagon assesses airport infrastructure that was damaged by Russia with an airstrike Sunday, there is no indication that any S-300 surface-to-air systems were destroyed, as Russia has claimed.
“We have no evidence to conclude that they destroyed an S-300 system and we have no evidence to conclude that it was in fact the Slovakian one,” the official said.
Slovakia recently gave its sole S-300 battery to Ukraine.
US considering training more Ukrainians on new weapons
A small group of Ukrainian troops in the U.S. for planned military training in the U.S. when Russia invaded their country just returned home Sunday. The Pentagon took advantage of their presence to train them on the explosive Switchblade drones the U.S. is sending to aid Ukraine. The official on Monday said the U.S. is looking into training more Ukrainians, possibly in the States.
“It kind of follows that the Ukrainians are busy right now and that they obviously will want as many hands on deck there … to fight this war. But there’s been no policy decision that I’m aware of that would prevent them from coming to the United States,” the official said.
But the Pentagon is considering several possibilities.
“As for additional training on systems like the Switchblade, we are reviewing and thinking about and considering a number of different options for how we could manage to get more Ukrainians trained on that system,” the official said. “It’s a small number of systems as you know, but it’s a new system that they’re not familiar with.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden, in conjunction with the Department of Justice, announced a new measure Monday to crack down on what law enforcement says is the growing problem of “ghost guns” and called on Congress to pass universal background checks.
“They call this rule I’m about to announce extreme. ‘Extreme,'” Biden said at the White House Rose Garden event. “But let me ask you — is it extreme to protect police officers, extreme to protect our children, extreme to keep guns out of the hands of people who couldn’t even pass a background check?”
A “ghost gun” is a firearm that comes packaged in parts, can be bought online and assembled without much of a trace — a point Biden demonstrated with props.
“It’s not hard to put together,” Biden said, showcasing its pieces. “Anyone could order it in the mail, anyone … Terrorists and domestic abusers can go from a gun kit to a gun in as little as 30 minutes. Buyers aren’t required to pass background checks because guns have no serial numbers.”
The new rule essentially expands the definition of a “firearm,” as established by the Gun Control Act, to cover “buy build shoot” kits that people can buy online or from a firearm dealer and assemble themselves. It will make these kits subject to the same federal laws that currently apply to other firearms.
The goal, officials said, is to keep untraceable guns off of the streets and out of the hands of those who are prohibited by law from possessing a firearm.
“We call them ghost guns because they can’t be traced, but make no mistake. They are real. They can shoot to kill, and they do,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. “For years criminals have sought out these unmarked guns to murder and to maim. That’s why the attorney general has signed a rule that updates our regulations to keep up with changes in technology.”
With families affected by gun violence invited to the White House Monday, Mia Tretta, a survivor of a 2019 high school shooting in Santa Clarita, California, memorialized two classmates, Dominic Blackwell and Gracie Ann Muelburger, who were killed with a ghost gun, and introduced Biden, whom she called “the strongest gun-sense commander in chief ever to hold office.”
“Starting today, weapons like the one used in Saugus High School and to ambush deputies that are here with us today are being treated like the deadly firearms they are,” Biden said. “If you commit a crime with a ghost gun, expect federal prosecution.”
“This rule is an important step, it’s going to make a difference, I promise you,” Biden added.
ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Cecilia Vega pressed the White House on this promise at the daily White House briefing.
“Can you say, this administration say there will be fewer shootings, as a result of what the president is doing today?” Vega asked press secretary Jen Psaki.
“That’s always our hope and our objective, right, is to reduce the impact of gun violence as we’ve seen, violence go up. We have seen a huge vast majority of that nearly three quarters as a result of guns and ghost guns, as you said, Cecilia, are used by simply clicking and ordering online, ordering a kit that people can make in their homes,” Psaki said.
Commercial manufacturers of those kits will now have to be licensed and include serial numbers on the kits’ frame or receivers. In addition, commercial sellers will have to be federally licensed and run background checks before selling a kit.
A senior administration official told ABC News, “At its core, this rule clarifies that anyone who wants to purchase a weapon parts kit that can be readily be converted to a fully assembled firearm must go through the same process they would have to go through to purchase a commercially made firearm in short weapon parts kits that may be readily convertible into working fully assembled firearms must be treated under federal law.”
The rule also tackles ghost guns already made and in circulation. The DOJ will require federally licensed dealers that take in any un-serialized firearms to serialize them before selling the weapon. If a licensed dealer acquires a ghost gun, the rule will require them to serialize it before re-selling it.
“This requirement will apply regardless of how the firearm was made, meaning it includes ghost guns made from individual parts, kits, or by 3D-printers,” a fact sheet of the new rule shared with ABC News reads.
“If you can put together an IKEA dresser, you can build a ghost gun,” Tretta, also a volunteer leader with Students Demand Action, told ABC News ahead of Monday’s event. “Unfortunately, it is that easy to get a weapon that has not only changed my life but has done the same thing to thousands of others. Finalizing this rule is a critical step to making sure no one else has to go through what my family has had to go through.”
The rule also updates the definition of a “frame” and “receiver” so that all using split or multi-part receivers are covered under existing gun laws and will be subject to serial numbers and background checks. It also extends the 20-year record retention requirement that all Federal Firearm Licensees must adhere to. Under the rule, FFLs must retain records for as long as the dealer is licensed.
While some gun advocacy groups are threatening to sue over the rule, Psaki said Monday the administration felt confident it would be able to continue to implement it.
Gun Owners of America has vowed to fight the rule it calls “pure gun control,” claiming it “will do far more than the White House is pretending.”
The National Rifle Association tweeted, “Biden’s gun control actions will hearten his wealthy gun control supporters. But, this action sends the wrong message to violent criminals, because this “ban” will not affect them. These violent crime sprees will continue unabated until they are arrested/prosecuted/punished.”
From January 2016 to December 2021, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said it received “approximately 45,000 reports of suspected privately made firearms recovered by law enforcement in criminal investigations — including 692 homicides or attempted homicides,” according to the DOJ.
New ATF director
Biden also announced the nomination of Steve Dettelbach as the new director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
“Steve’s record makes him ready on day one to lead this agency,” Biden said. “And by the way, in 2009, the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed him to serve as U.S. Attorney.”
Dettelbach served the Justice Department for two decades, Biden said, ticking through his accomplishments.
A senior administration official said of Biden’s nominee, “He has a proven track record of working with federal, state, and local law enforcement to fight violent crime and combat domestic violent extremism and religious violence — including through partnerships with the ATF to prosecute complex cases and take down violent criminal gangs.”
The official did not specify whether the interim ATF director, Marvin Richardson, will remain in place during the confirmation process.
Psaki couldn’t say on Monday what impact not having a confirmed leader of the bureau since 2015 was having on crime — but put the onus on Republicans to help confirm Dettelbach given concerns over the crime rate.
“He’s received bipartisan support from law enforcement leaders. He was confirmed unanimously when he was nominated to serve as a federal prosecutor. And our view is that if Republicans are about getting tough on crime as we are and keeping our communities safe, they should support a career prosecutor like Steve Dettelbach who can make the ATF more effective in getting guns off our streets and stopping criminals,” she said.
Some gun safety advocacy organizations applauded the pick.
“We applaud the Biden-Harris Administration for doubling down on its commitment to gun safety by taking action to rein in ghost guns and nominating an ATF Director who will end its culture of complicity with the gun industry,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, told ABC News. “Steve Dettelbach will be the strong leader the ATF needs to lead a top-to-bottom overhaul of the agency, and we urge the Senate to swiftly confirm him.”
Ukrainian forces fire GRAD rockets toward Russian positions in Donbas, Ukraine on April 10, 2022 – Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian troops invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Russian forces have since been met with “stiff resistance” from Ukrainians, according to U.S. officials.
In recent days, Russian forces have retreated from northern Ukraine, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. After graphic images emerged of civilians lying dead in the streets of Bucha, a town northwest of Kyiv, the United States and European countries accused Russia of committing war crimes.
Latest headlines:
-Russia appoints new general as nation reaches ‘new lows of depravity and brutality’: US
-Mariupol death toll could be over 20,000: Mayor
-Russians still attacking Mariupol, partially blocking Kharkiv: Ukraine
-Over 4.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine: UNHCR
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Ukrainian officials are focusing on clearing the mines left behind by Russian forces before they retreated the region surrounding Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced in his address Monday.
The Russian troops deliberately left mines “everywhere,” Zelenskyy said, adding that they did so “to kill or maim as many of our people as possible, even when they were forced to withdraw from our land.”
“Russian troops left behind tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of dangerous objects,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy said Ukrainian officials are also focusing on procuring more arms. The country is not getting the lethal aid it needs to end the war sooner, he said.
The president also called on the European Union to include an oil embargo in its sixth round of sanctions toward Russia, saying that unless they do, another round of sanctions will be received by Moscow “with a smile.”
ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
Apr 11, 3:45 pm
CEO of World Central Kitchen opens up about ‘catastrophic’ train station attack
Nate Mook, CEO of World Central Kitchen, opened up to ABC News Live on Monday about what he saw in the immediate aftermath of Friday’s attack on a Ukrainian train station that killed at least 57 people.
Mook said Friday was the third day he was spending near the Kramatorsk train station planning food distribution for Ukrainians trying to flee the region.
On Friday, Mook said, “We had just driven by the station, I looked down and saw 1,000 people or so on the platform. And we got about two minutes beyond the station when we heard the explosions happen.”
“We headed over there … the scene was horrific. It was catastrophic,” Mook said. “There was damage both on the platform and in front of the station where innocent civilians were waiting … there was remnants of a rocket on the ground.”
One of the areas that was really hit the hardest was actually a waiting area for seniors,” Mook said. “They had a little waiting area set up, they had chairs, they had a little tent area. And this is right where the rocket landed and why so many were killed.”
Mook added, “I think there was a little bit of shock around this idea that the train station itself, with just innocent civilians, would be targeted, because there’s no strategic value to it — it is just murder.”
Apr 11, 2:32 pm
US considering training more Ukrainians in US
A small group of Ukrainian troops who were in the U.S. for pre-planned military training when Russia invaded their country returned home Sunday, a senior U.S. defense official told reporters Monday. The Pentagon took advantage of their presence to train them on the Switchblade drones the U.S. is sending to aid Ukraine.
The official said the U.S. is looking into training more Ukrainians, possibly in the U.S.
“There’s been no policy decision that I’m aware of that would prevent them from coming to the United States,” the official said.
But the Pentagon is considering several options.
“As for additional training on systems like the Switchblade, we are reviewing and thinking about and considering a number of different options for how we could manage to get more Ukrainians trained on that system,” the official said.
ABC News’ Matt Seyler
Apr 11, 2:23 pm
Russia appoints new general as nation reaches ‘new lows of depravity and brutality’: US
Gen. Alexander Dvornikov has been appointed to lead Russia’s invasion effort, a senior U.S. defense official told reporters Monday. Dvornikov previously led Russians in the south of Ukraine, where they saw the most success.
“In the early days and weeks of the conflict, the Russians did achieve more success in the south than they achieved certainly in the north. I have no idea that was a factor in his selection,” the official said.
But the official noted that Russian efforts in the south are now largely stalled, with no progress against Mariupol since last week and no success advancing on Mykolayiv.
The official said it is unclear how Dvornikov’s selection could affect the fighting but said a pattern of brutality remains constant.
“What is clear is that the Russians continued to sink to new lows of depravity and brutality, as we saw with the missile strike on the train station last week,” the official said.
The official said some of the Russian troops that withdrew from northern Ukraine are starting to move east toward the Russian cities of Belgorod and Valuyki.
“We believe that this line of vehicles that we talked about that are north of Izium came out of the Belgorod/Valuyki region, from there to the south,” the official said.
(JASPER, Texas) — A local school district in Texas has announced plans to reduce students’ school weeks from the traditional five days to four days for the upcoming 2022-2023 school year.
The Jasper Independent School District cited teacher shortage and retention when it announced the change in a Facebook post last month and said it had conducted surveys with parents, teachers and staffers before the change was voted on by its board of trustees.
The change to a four-day school week was motivated, in part, by burnout among current teachers and difficulty recruiting new teachers, according to John Seybold, superintendent of the Jasper Independent School District.
“Teacher burnout has been an issue for a long time, but since COVID, it has seemed to expand, and it’s becoming more and more of an issue,” Seybold told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “The four-day week kind of makes it a little more manageable for them because there’s so much pressure placed on our teachers.”
He continued, “As a school district, ultimately the best thing we can do for kids is put the best possible teacher in front of them every day.”
The school district in Jasper, Texas, a city about 134 miles northeast of Houston near the eastern Texas and western Louisiana border, also plans to give teachers and school staff members a financial incentive if they stay in their positions.
Teachers would get a $3,000 stipend while staff members, such as librarians, would receive $1,500 if they remain with Jasper ISD. The funds allocated would come from the public school district’s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) grants, a federal grant program under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.
According to Seybold, the school district is now down to just one teacher vacancy. Prior to the changes, he said, open high school science positions “had been unfulfilled for two years.”
“Where we used to post a job and get no applications, now we’re getting multiple applications for every position. So it’s kind of worked so far,” Seybold said.
During the past two years of the coronavirus pandemic, school districts across the country have reported not only a shortage of teachers but also of substitute teachers and school support staff, such as bus drivers.
According to a study conducted last year by the American Federation of Teachers with the Rand Corporation, one in four teachers were thinking about quitting their job by the end of the school year. Teachers were also more likely to report experiencing regular job-related stress and symptoms of depression than the general population, according to the study.
Jasper’s school district serves over 2,230 students in pre-K through 12th grade, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education, which also showed there were 175 teachers and 196 full-time staffers in the district.
All students in Jasper’s public school system would be subject to the four-day school week.
Jasper ISD isn’t the only district to have changed students’ school weeks. Other Texas school districts that have adopted four-day school weeks include Devers ISD and Athens ISD, which promotes its “four-day instructional week” on its district homepage.
Other states — including Oregon, Montana, Colorado and Oklahoma — have also implemented four-day school weeks with mixed results.
According to one study from researchers at Oregon State and Montana State University, which examined 2005-2019 test scores from over 341,000 Oregon high schoolers, students’ math test scores appeared to decline on average after switching to a four-day school week in a non-rural district.
In other states, such as California and New Jersey, school districts have prioritized different changes, like starting school later in the day, in a push to address the growing mental health crisis among students.
The conditions of a four-day school week also vary based on a school’s district and state mandates. Some districts have added more time to each of their four days or included more days in the academic calendar.
In Jasper, the next academic year would kick off on Aug. 10 and run through June 1, 2023, but the four-day schedule wouldn’t begin until the week of Oct. 3, according to an academic calendar posted on the district’s website. From October through the end of April, students would report to school only from Mondays through Thursdays, and teachers would use Fridays as professional development days.
“The kids are going to school virtually the same amount of time,” said Seybold. “They’re still getting their required minutes.”
Two of the downsides to a four-day school week are an increased risk of food insecurity among students and that parents and caregivers could find it harder to secure child care with an extended weekend, according to a 2021 study and research compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures respectively.
Seybold said the Jasper ISD is working with a local YMCA to secure additional programming for kids and with a food bank to make sure kids who qualify have food to cover long weekends.
Ukrainian forces fire GRAD rockets toward Russian positions in Donbas, Ukraine on April 10, 2022 – Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian troops invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Russian forces have since been met with “stiff resistance” from Ukrainians, according to U.S. officials.
In recent days, Russian forces have retreated from northern Ukraine, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. After graphic images emerged of civilians lying dead in the streets of Bucha, a town northwest of Kyiv, the United States and European countries accused Russia of committing war crimes.
Latest headlines:
-Russia appoints new general as nation reaches ‘new lows of depravity and brutality’: US
-Mariupol death toll could be over 20,000: Mayor
-Russians still attacking Mariupol, partially blocking Kharkiv: Ukraine
-Over 4.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine: UNHCR
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Ukrainian officials are focusing on clearing the mines left behind by Russian forces before they retreated the region surrounding Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced in his address Monday.
The Russian troops deliberately left mines “everywhere,” Zelenskyy said, adding that they did so “to kill or maim as many of our people as possible, even when they were forced to withdraw from our land.”
“Russian troops left behind tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of dangerous objects,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy said Ukrainian officials are also focusing on procuring more arms. The country is not getting the lethal aid it needs to end the war sooner, he said.
The president also called on the European Union to include an oil embargo in its sixth round of sanctions toward Russia, saying that unless they do, another round of sanctions will be received by Moscow “with a smile.”
ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
Apr 11, 3:45 pm
CEO of World Central Kitchen opens up about ‘catastrophic’ train station attack
Nate Mook, CEO of World Central Kitchen, opened up to ABC News Live on Monday about what he saw in the immediate aftermath of Friday’s attack on a Ukrainian train station that killed at least 57 people.
Mook said Friday was the third day he was spending near the Kramatorsk train station planning food distribution for Ukrainians trying to flee the region.
On Friday, Mook said, “We had just driven by the station, I looked down and saw 1,000 people or so on the platform. And we got about two minutes beyond the station when we heard the explosions happen.”
“We headed over there … the scene was horrific. It was catastrophic,” Mook said. “There was damage both on the platform and in front of the station where innocent civilians were waiting … there was remnants of a rocket on the ground.”
One of the areas that was really hit the hardest was actually a waiting area for seniors,” Mook said. “They had a little waiting area set up, they had chairs, they had a little tent area. And this is right where the rocket landed and why so many were killed.”
Mook added, “I think there was a little bit of shock around this idea that the train station itself, with just innocent civilians, would be targeted, because there’s no strategic value to it — it is just murder.”
Apr 11, 2:32 pm
US considering training more Ukrainians in US
A small group of Ukrainian troops who were in the U.S. for pre-planned military training when Russia invaded their country returned home Sunday, a senior U.S. defense official told reporters Monday. The Pentagon took advantage of their presence to train them on the Switchblade drones the U.S. is sending to aid Ukraine.
The official said the U.S. is looking into training more Ukrainians, possibly in the U.S.
“There’s been no policy decision that I’m aware of that would prevent them from coming to the United States,” the official said.
But the Pentagon is considering several options.
“As for additional training on systems like the Switchblade, we are reviewing and thinking about and considering a number of different options for how we could manage to get more Ukrainians trained on that system,” the official said.
ABC News’ Matt Seyler
Apr 11, 2:23 pm
Russia appoints new general as nation reaches ‘new lows of depravity and brutality’: US
Gen. Alexander Dvornikov has been appointed to lead Russia’s invasion effort, a senior U.S. defense official told reporters Monday. Dvornikov previously led Russians in the south of Ukraine, where they saw the most success.
“In the early days and weeks of the conflict, the Russians did achieve more success in the south than they achieved certainly in the north. I have no idea that was a factor in his selection,” the official said.
But the official noted that Russian efforts in the south are now largely stalled, with no progress against Mariupol since last week and no success advancing on Mykolayiv.
The official said it is unclear how Dvornikov’s selection could affect the fighting but said a pattern of brutality remains constant.
“What is clear is that the Russians continued to sink to new lows of depravity and brutality, as we saw with the missile strike on the train station last week,” the official said.
The official said some of the Russian troops that withdrew from northern Ukraine are starting to move east toward the Russian cities of Belgorod and Valuyki.
“We believe that this line of vehicles that we talked about that are north of Izium came out of the Belgorod/Valuyki region, from there to the south,” the official said.
(NEW YORK) — Awoman who attacked a Black teen at a luxury New York City hotel after falsely accusing him of stealing her cellphone has pleaded guilty to hate crime charges.
Miya Ponsetto, 23, was charged with child endangerment, attempted assault, attempted robbery and grand larceny after she wrongly accused and physically attacked the 14-year-old son of Grammy-winning trumpet player Keyon Harrold on Dec. 26, 2020, at the hotel where Harrold and his family were staying.
In a video recorded by Harrold, a woman later identified by authorities as Ponsetto could be seen yelling at the teen and lunging at him. Harrold’s son could also be heard denying that he stole the phone as numerous witnesses attempted to intervene.
Ponsetto’s cellphone was later found by an Uber driver, national civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the Harrold family, announced after the incident.
Ponsetto was arrested on Jan. 7, 2021, in her hometown of Piru, California, after fleeing from Ventura County Sheriff’s Department deputies as they tried to make a traffic stop on a fugitive warrant for her arrest, officials said. The next day, she agreed to be extradited to New York.
On Monday, she pleaded guilty to unlawful imprisonment as a hate crime.
Ponsetto apologized for her actions in an interview with “CBS This Morning” that aired in January 2021.
“I don’t feel that that is who I am as a person. I don’t feel like this one mistake does define me,” she said during the interview, which was filmed shortly before her arrest. “But I do sincerely from the bottom of my heart apologize that if I made the son feel as if I assaulted him or if I hurt his feelings or the father’s feelings.”
Ponsetto’s former attorney, Sharen Ghatan, said in a statement to ABC News in January 2021 that she was “extremely concerned” about Ponsetto’s mental state.
“It is clear that she is emotionally unwell,” Ghatan said.
Ponsetto was previously arrested in California three times in 2020. In February 2020, she was arrested for public intoxication after getting into a fight outside a hotel, charging documents show.
In May 2021, she was charged with driving under the influence after someone called police when they saw her get into a car leaving a grocery store while apparently intoxicated. Police found open containers of alcohol and marijuana in her car when they pulled her over, according to charging documents.
Ponsetto was arrested a third time in October 2020 after she allegedly got into a physical altercation with her mother after leaving her car abandoned at a nearby intersection and then tackled a responding officer to the ground. She was charged with DUI, driving with a suspended license and resisting arrest, and her blood alcohol limit was 0.14, almost twice the legal limit, police said.
In a statement Monday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg described Ponsetto’s behavior at the New York hotel as “outrageous.”
“As a Black man, I have personally experienced racial profiling countless times in my life, and I sympathize with the young man victimized in this incident,” Bragg said. “This plea ensures appropriate accountability for Ms. Ponsetto by addressing underlying causes for her behavior and ensuring this conduct does not reoccur.”
Currently, Ponsetto faces up to four years in prison but can plead down to a misdemeanor after abiding by the terms of her probation in a separate case in California for the next two years.
ABC News could not immediately reach an attorney for Ponsetto for comment.
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso and Marlene Lenthang contributed to this report.
(PHILADELPHIA) — Philadelphia has become the first major U.S. city to reinstate its indoor mask mandate, following an increase in COVID-19 infections, in recent weeks.
Beginning April 18, masks will be required in all indoor public spaces, including schools, child care settings, businesses, restaurants and government buildings.
“I sincerely wish we didn’t have to do this again. I wish this pandemic was over just as much as any of you, but I am very worried about our vulnerable neighbors and loved ones. My hope that our actions today will slow the spread of COVID and help us avoid seeing our ERs, once again, gets so crowded, that people can’t get timely care when they need it,” Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole said during a press conference on Monday.
The city will implement a one-week “education period” to ensure that all residents are made aware of the change in protocols. For now, however, there is no vaccine or testing requirement for establishments that serve food or beverages.
Over the last week, new cases per capita have increased by more than 50%, and daily case rates have risen past 100, according to city data. However, overall, COVID-19 related hospitalizations remain low.
“We hope that by having folks masks up whenever they’re in public indoor spaces, we can get ahead of the wave and keep it from reaching a peak like we saw in January with the omicron variant. If we could do that we can literally save the lives of vulnerable Philadelphians,” Bettigole said.
Bettigole said that at this time, there is no reason to “panic or to avoid activities.” She stressed that the city remains open, but wearing masks will allow those activities to continue, while keeping all residents safe.
“If we start to see a different pattern than that of previous waves of the virus, we’ll review our metrics to see if there are opportunities to be less restrictive,” Bettigole added.
Several colleges and universities have also moved to reinstate masking requirements, given the increasing number of students and staff testing positive on-campus.
On Sunday, Columbia University in New York City announced it would require masks again in classrooms — a policy that is expected to last through the end of the semester.
“Continued caution in certain situations remains extremely important, particularly in indoor social settings when the vaccination status of attendees is unknown or uncertain,” Donna Lynne, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, said in a statement.
Between Apr. 4 and Apr. 10, 133 students have tested positive — the highest weekly total since mid-January, according to university data.
Last week, Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., temporarily reinstated an indoor mask requirement for its main and medical campuses, after seeing a “significant increase” in COVID-19 cases on-campus.
“This increase is partly due to the impact of the BA.2 Omicron subvariant. BA.2 is now the dominant strain in the United States, including in DC and on our campuses,” school officials wrote in a statement last week. “These circumstances present a challenge, but we have learned to adjust our mitigation measures to respond to changing conditions throughout the pandemic. Another adjustment is needed now to curb transmission on campus.”
In recent weeks, a flurry of positive COVID-19 infections has disrupted life in Washington, D.C., as many top officials and politicians have tested positive for the virus.
American University, Johns Hopkins University, Rice University, have all also issued similar masking requirements.
However, school officials reported that there have been no known cases of serious illness.
(NEW YORK) — During the past two years of the coronavirus pandemic, during which federal student loan payments were put on pause, Marquita Prinzing, of Renton, Washington, said she went through a divorce and bought a home on her own.
Those are two things Prinzing, a mom of two who works full-time, said would have been difficult or impossible to do had she had to pay hundreds of dollars of student loan payments each month to pay down her approximately $100,000 remaining debt.
Now, as Prinzing looks to her future, she said she feels like her life is on hold as she waits to learn whether her loan will be forgiven or whether she’ll have to continue to repay her loans starting in the fall, when the current pause is scheduled to end.
“It means I can’t really think of a different or bigger future,” Prinzing, 38, a first-generation college graduate, told Good Morning America. “It means I am where I’m at, stable right now, because I have to deal with the loan payments and all of what’s going to come back.”
Ameshia Cross, 34, of Washington, D.C., said she, too, is living in flux during the payment pause as her family’s primary provider.
A first-generation college student who adopted her siblings after their mother died, Cross said she has the thought of payments resuming on her six-figure student debt looming over her as she tries to make decisions like whether to move her grandmother to a better care facility or how to care for her brother, who has a developmental disability.
“That this process has been kind of a stopgap measure and not knowing when it might end completely is a very scary place to be,” Cross, assistant director of communications for The Education Trust, a nonprofit focused on student equity, told GMA. “Because you don’t control the family issues or the family situation or the economic situation you’re born into, you do the best with what you have.”
The Education Trust released a report earlier this month, “How Black Women Experience Debt”, that found Black women receive little help when it comes to repaying their student loans. According to the report, 12 years after starting college, Black women owe 13% more than they borrowed, while white men, on average, have paid off 44% of their debt.
Brittani Williams, a senior policy analyst in higher education at The Education Trust and a co-author of the report, is a mother of three who said she currently owes tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, a number that will continue to grow as she is pursuing her doctorate degree.
“There is great anxiety around how will we repay these student loans back, majorly because I am a parenting student,” Williams, 32, of Washington, D.C., told GMA. “While maybe a non-parenting student may have ‘discretionary income,’ I don’t necessarily see that … so sometimes it comes down to what bills are going to be paid.”
On April 6th, President Joe Biden announced another extension in the pause in federal student loan payments — until Aug. 31 — marking the sixth extension to the program in the two years of the pandemic. It comes less than a month before payments were scheduled to restart on May 1, potentially affecting millions of borrowers who have not been making payments.
Bank surprises single mom by paying off $150K in student loans
“If loan payments were to resume on schedule in May, analysis of recent data from the Federal Reserve suggests that millions of student loan borrowers would face significant economic hardship, and delinquencies and defaults could threaten Americans’ financial stability,” said Biden, who faced pressure from top congressional Democrats to extend the pause or cancel student loan debt altogether, a position that has divided the party.
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, progressive icons Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and many others in their party have been calling on Biden to use executive authority to cancel $50,000 in student debt for all borrowers, though House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said the president lacks the authority to cancel this debt. Biden pledged to approve $10,000 in student loan forgiveness for every federal borrower during his campaign, but he has yet to do so, expanding parts of existing loan forgiveness programs instead.
Why Black women are so impacted by student debt
As the political debate over student loans continues and the pause remains extended, it is Black women like Prinzing, Williams and Cross who remain disproportionately impacted, data shows.
In the United States, women hold nearly two-thirds of all outstanding loans, according to an analysis by the American Association of University Women.
And Black women are the most likely of any gender group to have student loans, with around one in four Black women having student debt, according to the Census Bureau.
According to the Association of University Women’s analysis, Black women have the highest average total of student debt, at $41,466 for undergraduate and $75,085 for graduate school one year after graduating.
Why Black women are so impacted by student debt is attributable to several factors, including the change decades ago when financing for college began to fall more on individual families, according to Laura Hamilton, professor of sociology at University of California, Merced, and co-author of a report on student debt cancellation.
“When you think about shifting the burden of financing higher education to families, black families in the U.S. have historically had less access to wealth and income, so they haven’t been as able to finance their students’ education because of structural racism and historical discrimination,” Hamilton told “GMA.” “And now Black women are really leading the way in attending college, but they’re doing it without having as much family support because of those structural barriers.”
Many Black women are also first-general college students, which means they may have less knowledge of applying for financial aid and less knowledge of the ins and outs of repayment, experts said. That is what happened to Prinzing, who said she accumulated the majority of loans while getting her master’s degree in education.
“I’m a first-generation college graduate, so I had no idea about college. I had no idea about applying for anything,” Prinzing said. “I had no idea after graduating what consolidation was. I had no idea about loan forgiveness. I had no idea how to navigate the system to work in my favor.”
Once Black women graduate college, they face both a gender and racial wage gap that sees them typically being paid 63 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men, according to the National Women’s Law Center, a policy-focused organization that fights for gender justice.
As a result of the wage gap, Black women, on average, lose $2,009 each month, $24,110 annually, and $964,400 over the course of a 40-year career, according to the law center.
“Black women are borrowing more because they lack family wealth and they are paid less to do the same jobs at the same educational level as white men and other people other genders and races,” said Victoria Jackson, co-author of the report with Williams and assistant director of higher education policy at The Education Trust. “Those things are coming together to create this crisis for Black women.”
Williams and Jackson said they applaud the Biden administration for extending the payment pause, and would like to see him continue to extend it through the end of the year. Ideally they said they would like to see student loans forgiven, which would give an advantage to Black women, who are so disproportionately impacted.
“If federal policymakers don’t figure out a way to end this, this student debt crisis, I’m afraid we’re going to end up right back in the same situation that we were in right before we received the pause,” Williams said.
According to Hamilton’s research, released by the Roosevelt Institute, a left-leaning think tank, forgiving student loans could, “play a critical role in addressing the racial wealth gap and building the Black middle class.”
“The people who would really benefit are upwardly mobile, Black and Latinx people who are in the 50th to 98th income percentiles,” Hamilton said. “These are folks that are seriously striving, facing lots of barriers, attempting to be secure, but are being really held back by these enormous debts.”
Jamie Walker-Sallis, of Davenport, Iowa, made her final student loan payment this year, at age 50. She said the burden of student loans loomed over her entire adult life, impacting decisions she had to make, like not pursuing a doctorate degree for a fear of more loans to not having a choice to stay home while her two children were young.
Walker-Sallis said her nearly $100,000 remaining debt was forgiven after the Biden administration expanded eligibility guidance during the pandemic for a student loan forgiveness program for public service workers. She said student loan debt was not even “really a conversation” when she started college over three decades ago.
“It’s first and foremost now because it’s such a hindrance and it can change your trajectory,” Walker-Sallis said. “I hear kids saying now they don’t want to go to college because they don’t want student loan debt.”
“No one wants this burden,” she continued. “It is a true burden.”
ABC News’ Trish Turner, Molly Nagle and Rebecca Gelpi contributed to this report.
