(ATLANTA) — A passenger accidentally discharged a gun at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport Saturday, airport officials said, causing panic and sending travelers onto the tarmac on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.
The incident occurred around 1:30 pm local time at the security screening area, the airport said in an update on Twitter.
“There is not an active shooter,” the airport said. “There is no danger to passengers or employees.”
A passenger accidentally discharged the gun at the main checkpoint, TSA said in a statement to ABC News.
During a bag search, the X-ray identified a prohibited item, TSA said.
The transportation security officer “advised the passenger not to touch the property, and as he opened the compartment containing the prohibited item, the passenger lunged into the bag and grabbed a firearm, at which point it discharged,” TSA said. “The passenger then fled the area, running out of the airport exit.”
Three people sustained non-life-threatening injuries, likely during the airport evacuation, a TSA spokesperson said.
Atlanta Police Department was on site investigating the incident.
About two hours after the discharge, the airport was given an “all-clear” to resume normal operations, airport officials said.
The shooting caused chaos and confusion. Videos taken by travelers showed the panicked moments after the discharge, with people running out of the terminal. Other travelers could be seen huddled lying on the ground.
Travelers reported being stuck on the tarmac or in baggage claim after the incident, Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB reported.
TSA said its officers have detected more than 450 firearms at the Atlanta airport’s checkpoints so far this year.
“This incident underscores the importance of checking personal belongings for dangerous items before leaving for the airport,” TSA said in a statement. “Firearms, particularly loaded firearms, introduce an unnecessary risk at checkpoints, have no place in the passenger cabin of an airplane, and represent a very costly mistake for the passengers who attempt to board a flight with them.”
The incident occurred during what is shaping up to be the busiest travel weekend since the start of the pandemic due to Thanksgiving — at the busiest airport in the United States.
Transportation Security Administration officers screened 2,242,956 people at airport security checkpoints nationwide Friday — the “highest checkpoint volume since passenger volume tanked in early 2020 as a result of the pandemic,” TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein said.
ABC News’ Victoria Arancio and Joshua Hoyos contributed to this report.
(ATLANTA) — There was an accidental gun discharge at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport Saturday, airport officials said, causing panic and sending travelers onto the tarmac on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.
The incident occurred around 1:30 pm local time at the security screening area, the airport said in an update on Twitter.
“There is not an active shooter,” the airport said. “There is no danger to passengers or employees.”
No injuries have been reported, according to the Atlanta Police Department, which was on site investigating the incident.
About two hours after the discharge, the airport was given an “all-clear” to resume normal operations, airport officials said.
No further details on the shooting, including who discharged the gun, have been released at this time.
The shooting caused chaos and confusion. Videos taken by travelers showed the panicked moments after the discharge, with people running out of the terminal. Other travelers could be seen huddled lying on the ground.
Travelers reported being stuck on the tarmac or in baggage claim after the incident, according to Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB.
The incident occurred during what is shaping up to be the busiest travel weekend since the start of the pandemic due to Thanksgiving — at the busiest airport in the United States.
Transportation Security Administration officers screened 2,242,956 people at airport security checkpoints nationwide Friday — the “highest checkpoint volume since passenger volume tanked in early 2020 as a result of the pandemic,” TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein said.
ABC News’ Victoria Arancio and Joshua Hoyos contributed to this report.
(CHICAGO) — The story of De’Janay Stanton’s death is one that many transgender women in Chicago fear. The 24-year-old Black transgender woman was shot and killed by a romantic interest in 2018, and since then more and more stories like hers have come to light — in her city and across the U.S.
“They want to date our girls in darkness — they don’t want to be in public,” said her sister, Chimera Griffin. “She never expressed danger to me, but me, being a mom, I always knew something was gonna be bad because of society. In society, they’re so cruel.”
So far this year, the Human Rights Campaign has recorded four Black trans women being murdered in Chicago among at least 47 transgender or gender non-conforming people killed nationwide. But local activists say many more cases likely go unreported.
“We don’t have good statistics on the violence that Black trans women experience,” said Kim Fountain, chief administrative officer of the Center on Halsted, the Midwest’s largest LGBTQ social services agency. “If you don’t have those numbers, then it’s really hard to get a system to move on anything.”
Chicago has seen the most trans deaths so far in 2021, up from two in 2020.
On Trans Day of Remembrance, Nov. 20, families, activists and the trans community in Chicago are planning to reflect on the culture of fear, victimization and violence against trans people in their city — and the lack of accountability for the killers of these women.
“They were never afforded the dignity that human beings should be afforded,” said Jae Rice of local LGBTQ activist group Brave Space Alliance. “As long as we’re not afforded that dignity while we’re living, our deaths will never be something to be dignified at all.”
Honoring trans women
Stanton’s family found out about her death over Instagram live. A video captured Stanton, dead with a gunshot wound to her head, lying next to her car on Aug. 13. Someone who found Stanton’s body posted the video, telling the community to “check on their people,” according to Stanton’s sister, Chiquita Griffin.
Her death was ruled a homicide, and Tremon T. Hill has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the killing. It’s unclear whether Hill has legal representation.
Stanton is remembered by her family through her jokes, her fashion and her widespread social circle.
“You would never catch her in a bad spirit or bad mood because she always wanted to be, like, the face of happiness,” Griffin recalled. “A lot of trans women were sad, or they had to be tough, or they had to be on their toes all the time. She was on her toes all the time, but she was happy.”
Her happiness and her vibrancy created a safe haven for people around her, her sisters added, and their house became a place for women like Stanton to feel at home.
“So many girls, their families just throw them away, and just didn’t want to bother with them because they were transitioning into who they wanted to be,” Griffin said. “So she brought them all to my house.”
The trans community in Chicago is small, Griffin continued, but the women killed this year — 28-year-old Tyianna Alexander, 24-year-old Tiara Banks, 32-year-old Disaya Monaee, and 25-year-old Briana Hamilton — were loved and known by many, including Stanton’s family.
“These girls need more help,” Griffin said. “Not to mention the girls, the young ones, the next generation. They’re afraid to come out and be accepted in society, you know?”
According to the Chicago Department of Public Health, transgender and gender non-conforming adults in the state are more likely to report psychological distress than cisgender peers.
Trans individuals also are more likely to experience discrimination, harassment, economic hardship and violence, the CDPH reports.
Intersection of gun violence and transphobia
Of the 10 women killed and reported to the HRC in Chicago since 2015, eight were killed with a gun.
Gun violence in Chicago isn’t new: This year alone, the city has racked up more than 3,000 shootings, according to Chicago Police Department data.
Rice, of Brave Space Alliance, blames hypermasculinity as a root cause for much of the gun violence, transphobia and anti-trans crimes in Chicago. Toxic masculinity, the idea that violence, aggression and having power over another is an inherent part of manhood, often leads to men committing the vast majority of gun violence.
Rice says there is a prevalence of hypermasculinity, toxic masculinity and anti-LGBTQ sentiment in communities of color, like Chicago. Stigmas against queerness and femininity among men has led to the targeting of women like Stanton.
“Their manhood is now taken into question — if you’re sleeping with or are romantically engaged with a trans woman … there are so many messages out there that are telling you trans women aren’t women, when we know that’s not the case,” Rice said.
Stanton’s is one of very few trans killings in Chicago where a suspect has been charged. No one’s been charged in connection with the other three this year.
Brave Space Alliance, Griffin and others closely affected by this violence are working to get justice for other murdered trans people, pushing for resources to be allocated to the thorough investigation of these deaths.
Fixing a broken system
Local authorities, including the mayor’s office and the CPD, have implemented strategies to address violence and discrimination against the community.
Following years of complaints about Chicago police mishandling incidents involving transgender, intersex and gender-nonconforming people, CPD took steps to implement its “Interaction with Transgender, Intersex and Gender Nonconforming Individuals” policy in 2016, revising it this year after gathering public input via an online forum created in June.
CPD did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the status of the policy.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office also has created a “Citywide Strategic Plan” to address gender-based violence and human trafficking, which she said she plans on implementing over the next two years.
The plan includes increasing capacity within city departments to address these issue, coordinating prevention and intervention efforts, and exploring alternate responses to these cases outside of the criminal justice system.
The mayor’s office did not respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
In the meantime, local organizers, like Center on Halstead and Brave Space Alliance, are taking matters into their own hands.
According to Fountain, the Center on Halstead hosts local LGBTQ family groups to discuss city concerns, offers resources and financial aid to those in need, and holds community-based anti-violence projects and trainings.
Brave Space Alliance is the first Black-led, trans-led LGBTQ+ center on the city’s South Side, and it relies on community funding and donations to hold programs for trans Chicagoans who need help.
“If we fix our systems to support Black trans women, then a significant part of our culture, of our society, will be lifted up as well,” Fountain said. “That just speaks to how much oppression and how much bias, stigma, danger and harm they have experienced.”
(WASHINGTON) — Al Schmidt had a front-row seat to history when a batch of votes in Philadelphia tipped the state of Pennsylvania, and the 2020 presidential election, toward Joe Biden.
As Philadelphia’s Republican city commissioner, Schmidt had been holed up for days in the convention center, making sure every vote, mail-in or in-person, was counted.
“For us, it’s really never about who wins and who loses,” Schmidt told ABC News. “It’s really about counting, counting the votes.”
He defended the vote count and integrity of the election — only to find himself a target of former President Donald Trump. Four days after the race was called, Trump tweeted at Schmidt saying, without evidence, that he had refused to look at “a mountain of corruption and dishonesty.”
Schmidt said that’s when the threats against his life and his family started to ramp up.
“They became a lot more specific, a lot more graphic, largely targeted at my family, my kids,” he said. “Mentioning my children by name, my address, pictures of my house. Like the people who sent them had clearly done their homework.”
Schmidt is among a long list of state and local election officials facing increasing threats, fueling what some say is an unprecedented exodus.
A recent survey by the Brennan Center for Justice found 1 in 3 election officials nationwide feels unsafe at work. Nearly 1 in 5 called threats to their lives a job-related concern.
“There is, I’m sure, no election official in the country that when they ran for the job … ever contemplated death threats, let alone death threats to their children as being part of that job description,” Schmidt said.
In Pennsylvania, nearly half of county election directors have resigned since 2019, according to Lisa Schaefer of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania. She said many others cite personal and violent threats.
“These are people who are getting called and yelled at constantly by their friends and their neighbors for things that are often out of their control,” Schaefer said.
It’s not just local election officials in swing states getting targeted.
Democrat Roxanna Moritz resigned in the wake of the 2020 election as the auditor and commissioner of elections in Scott County, Iowa, after more than a decade on the job. She cited a culture of bullying toward election officials, who often work long hours with little pay, because “we care about our democracy.”
“The personal attacks on each and every one of us has made of us aware this maybe isn’t where we want to be,” Moritz told ABC News.
Election experts warn about the loss of institutional knowledge in this wave of resignations from roles that are historically above the political fray.
Another concern, according to Elizabeth Howard of the Brennan Center for Justice, is who will replace the officials who resign.
“We’ve seen, for instance, some candidates for secretary of state, which is generally the chief election official in the state, who have come out and said that they basically believe in the ‘Big Lie,'” that Trump was cheated out of an election win, Howard said.
ABC News has previously reported on new state laws that shift election administration to highly partisan bodies, as part of a broader effort to shift power away from officials who refuted the “Big Lie.” Some of these changes to election laws appear to be in direct retaliation of officials who defended the integrity of the 2020 results.
In Maricopa County, Arizona, Bill Gates is a Republican on the board of supervisors overseeing elections. His county has become a hotbed of election misinformation despite several recounts and audits confirming President Joe Biden’s win.
“I have to plead with these folks to listen to me to the truth that I’m telling them, because they’ve been told lies for a year now, and they believe it,” he told ABC News.
More than a year after the election, Gates said he’s still targeted daily online, and called a traitor who should be jailed.
“There have been evenings where we have literally spent the night at an Airbnb because of threats,” he told ABC News. “There are nights where we have slept with sheriff’s deputies outside of the house because of these threats.”
Gates and Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt both said fighting election misinformation is proving to be a critical test of American democracy.
“I think there is an additional obligation on Republicans like myself to speak the truth about the 2020 election and to stand up in the face of all of these lies, regardless of what the consequences are for any of us,” Schmidt said. “With our democracy on the line, pretty much anything, it’s worth it.”
(NEW YORK) — Millions more vaccinated adults across the U.S. became eligible for a COVID-19 booster shot on Friday. And yet, the vast majority of vaccinated Americans were already eligible — many just didn’t know it.
According to an October survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4 in 10 vaccinated adults were unsure if they qualified for a booster. So far, just 32 million Americans have received a booster, or around 18% of the more than 182 million adults who are fully vaccinated.
In announcing the latest recommendations, public health experts at the Food and Drug Administration and the CDC expressed hope that they would cut through the confusion, simplifying the decision for Americans who are wondering: Do I need a booster shot?
Here’s what the experts say.
Should you get a booster?
The question has been hotly debated for months but a larger pro-booster consensus has formed over the last week.
Why? A number of reasons, including rising cases in more than half of U.S. states right before a busy holiday travel season and lower temperatures pushing people indoors.
The FDA and CDC made the updated recommendation on Friday. It expanded booster access to all adults who were vaccinated with Moderna or Pfizer over six months ago, and while the recommendation was stronger for everyone over 50 to go get a boost, it applies to everyone 18 to 49.
For Johnson & Johnson recipients, the recommendation already applied to everyone over 18, anytime two months after their shot.
For experts who have long been loud proponents for booster shots, it was a long time coming.
“Enough is enough. Let’s get moving on here,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the White House and a leader at the National Institutes of Health, said at an event Wednesday, before the FDA and CDC made the final call.
“There’s no doubt that immunity wanes. It wanes in everyone. It’s more dangerous in the elderly, but it’s across all age groups,” Fauci said, citing data from Israel and the U.K., where more people were vaccinated sooner and began to first document waning immunity.
Others, like Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, called the decline “both predicted and predictable.”
“And the way you fix it is you give that third immunization,” he said.
Both Hotez and Fauci believe the vaccines should be used not just to prevent hospitalizations and death, but also infection — particularly because of the risk of long-COVID, a concerning side effect of the disease that is rare in vaccinated people but can include long-term fatigue, brain fog and shortness of breath.
“When I got my third immunization, why was I so eager to do it? Well, of course I didn’t want to go to the hospital or ICU, but also I didn’t want to get COVID,” Hotez said.
“I didn’t want to get gray matter brain degeneration and cognitive decline and have a brain scan that looks like somebody 20 years older.”
But for those still on the fence about the personal choice, Dr. Anna Durbin, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, laid out risk scenarios to consider.
“It really comes down to your comfort level and just what’s going to make you as a person feel safer,” Durbin said.
If you’re traveling overseas or live in areas of high transmission, if you’re elderly or have underlying conditions or are frequently out in the community for work, those are all reasons to get a booster, Durbin said.
For young, healthy people who don’t feel at risk, Durbin said to keep an eye on rising cases in your area. Consider getting a booster to help tamp down transmission, but also to protect yourself ahead of a surge, Durbin said.
“If we’re gonna see a new wave, it’s going to be over the winter months most likely. And if you get boosted now, that’s going to provide you really good protection through that period of time,” Durbin said.
That said, don’t panic if you can’t book an appointment right away — particularly as demand surges with the new recommendation, experts say.
“I would not view it as an emergency that people need to line up on the day of approval and get their boosters necessarily that weekend,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
It’s still far more important for unvaccinated people to get vaccinated, Barouch said, particularly ahead of the holidays.
“The most important thing is for everybody who will be celebrating to be vaccinated, if they’re eligible to be vaccinated. Now, additional boosts may be useful. But the most important thing is that people be vaccinated primarily,” he said.
Why has it been so confusing?
To put it simply: “The reason why there is some confusion is because it has been confusing,” Barouch said.
“Guidelines are changing,” Barouch said. “And in some cases, the guidelines are changing for good reasons: They’re changing because what we’re seeing is a changing pandemic.”
Last week, a patchwork of booster guidance emerged as governors in over a dozen states called for all adults to get a booster before the federal agencies weighed in, acting to combat spiking cases and overwhelmed hospitals.
Hotez commended the states for making the “medically correct” decision and being “more nimble” than the original decision from the CDC and FDA, but acknowledged the schism it created in the public health guidance.
“Not as elegant as you’d like — to have the states be out front by a week or so, but you know, when you’re in the middle of a pandemic, sometimes things don’t go smoothly as you’d like,” Hotez said.
Some, like Hotez, have always believed boosters would be necessary, even before data started to trickle in on waning immunity, and think confusion could’ve been avoided if the public was always told to expect a booster.
“It should have been messaged to the American people from the beginning that, by the way, don’t be surprised when the call comes out to get a third immunization,” he said.
Still, there’s a fine line to walk in urging booster shots for those vaccinated six months ago while also encouraging the most impactful group, unvaccinated people, to get their primary vaccinations. The vaccines continue to protect well against hospitalization and death for many months.
“We can give all the booster doses we want and until we get people vaccinated, or they all get infected, we’re going to continue to see transmission of COVID,” Durbin said.
(NEW YORK) — Leticia works at a bakery helping to prepare the pastries that hungry New Yorkers order with their coffee in the morning. At first glance, she’s like any other person in the city. But in 2017, she fled Guatemala with her son Yovany and made her way toward the border in Texas.
“At the moment we crossed, we were happy. We thought our lives were saved, that all the danger was behind us,” she said in Spanish in an interview with ABC News’ Zachary Kiesch. “We couldn’t imagine that a greater pain, a stronger pain, was ahead of us.”
Once they crossed, she and her son were detained by Border Patrol agents and quickly separated as they tried to submit an asylum claim. Leticia, whose last name is being withheld for privacy, was deported and Yovany was placed in foster care. They did not see each other for over two years.
They were among the first migrant families subjected to a pilot program for what later became the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy.
Leticia and Yovany could be one of the families qualifying for compensation if the Biden administration decides to make settlement payments to migrants who were separated from their children by the Trump administration.
Now reunited in the United States, mother and son continue to live in fear of being separated again while their asylum case is pending.
“It was a pain that I still carry with me. It’s still hurting me,” Yovany said in Spanish. “I continue living with that fear that I will be separated from her again.”
The potential settlement payments, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, are part of an ongoing federal lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union seeking damages for separated families. Earlier this month, President Joe Biden dismissed reports that payments of up to $450,000 were being discussed, but expressed his support for some kind of compensation.
“If, in fact, because of the outrageous behavior of the last administration, you coming across the border, whether it was legally or illegally, and you lost your child — you lost your child — it’s gone. You deserve compensation no matter what the circumstance,” Biden said. “What that will be, I have no idea. I have no idea.”
In 2019, a federal judge ruled that Leticia’s deportation had been unlawful because she did not voluntarily accept deportation and sign away her parental rights. Immigration officials did not provide her an interpreter or explain that they were separating her from Yovany.
“It was totally in English. I didn’t know what I was signing,” Leticia said. “Even today I still don’t know what it is I signed.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this week, with support for the reported settlements appearing to fall along party lines.
ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said the reports about settlements have been politicized and that there is no time frame on when a decision will be made in regards to the amount of money families would receive and who would be eligible.
“This is not about whether we all agree on macro-immigration policy. This is whether the United States is going to make little children pawns in this political fight,” Gelernt said. “These families, according to all of the medical experts, have suffered severe trauma — literally being pulled away.”
Leticia said she draws strength from her Indigenous roots, but her courage and faith were tested during those long months when she didn’t know where her son was located. Despite the close bond they continue to share, she said there was some initial distrust when they were finally reunited.
“When I saw him, I noticed there was a feeling of ‘Why would you leave me?'” she told ABC News. “He didn’t tell me with his words but as a mother, I knew.”
Fear of abandonment, depression and anxiety are just a few of the challenges families like Leticia’s face when they’re finally reunited.
“Money is not everything in the world,” Leticia said of the possible payments. “It won’t return our happiness, it won’t return our health. But it can help start to remediate the trauma and the pain they caused us when they violated our human rights.”
The Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project has been helping support her and Yovany while they wait for their asylum case to be heard.
“Reunification is truly only the first step that the government must take for these families. After they reunify, these families have to navigate a complex immigration system that is stacked against them in every way,” said Leidy Pérez-Davis, policy director at the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project.
The Biden administration’s reunification task force has found that more than 3,900 children were separated under by the “zero-tolerance” policy. Gelernt estimated that there are still over 1,000 families that have yet to be reunited and at least 270 that have not even been located.
“I hope this serves as an example for future governments to never repeat the same damage and trauma they’ve caused,” said Leticia.
(LONDON) — The UK approved a new HIV treatment that requires an injection every other month, rather than the current routine of taking pills every day.
The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence estimated that around 13,000 people will now be eligible for cabotegravir with rilpivirine, the injectable medication.
There were around 103,000 people living with HIV in the UK in 2018, according to the British government’s statistics.
“It is an exciting and progressive step in the fight against HIV,” Dr. Todd Ellerin, director of infectious diseases at South Shore Health and ABC News contributor said. Ellerin is also on the speakers bureau of ViiV Healthcare which helped develop the injectable HIV treatment.
Besides the new revolutionary injection method, the current treatment for HIV is lifelong antiretroviral tablets that are taken each day. The medication suppresses the virus in the blood to undetectable levels, thereby preventing AIDS from occurring and eliminating transmission.
The injections block the same enzymes as the pills do, as Ellerin explained, but allow the medication to stay in the body much longer permitting monthly or bimonthly re-dosing, so patients don’t need to take pills every day.
The shot called Cabenuva (a combination of cabotegravir and rilpivirine) was already approved by the FDA in January, though with a more frequent dosage of once a month.
“[The] thing I like about injectables is less is more,” Ellerin said. “The medication approved in the UK will be once every two months, which makes it easier for the patients to come to the office rather than coming every month,” he added.
“For many, taking daily pills is not easy. Sometimes they forget, some may have other issues with taking pills, but the injection is suitable for those who prefer a more intermittent method,” he added.
However, there are challenges to this method. One, is the logistics of the injection, as the jabs must be administered at the health care provider’s office for now, Ellerin said.
“The biggest challenge is the logistic hurdle for giving these [shots] in the office, especially in the pandemic,” said Ellerin.
Also, if patients don’t show up for their injection, that increases the risk of viral replication rebound, Ellerin said. With pills, you can remember to take them the next day and have a stock of them at home.
Both in Britain and the United States, cabotegravir and rilpivirine can be prescribed and used after an initial oral (tablet) lead-in period.
“This is why people who are newly diagnosed with HIV can’t start their treatment with injection,” Ellerin said.
There are hopes that by the first quarter of 2022, the FDA also approves the bimonthly injection, and with that more patients might choose this method over pills, especially if the COVID-19 situation eases, according to Ellerin.
“As of now, this is not a preventive method. It is just for maintenance treatment. There are also injections for prevention down the way. But that is another story,” Ellerin said.
Ellerin also said that the reason the injections are available at clinics only is that this is the way it was studied in clinical trials and that these are buttocks injections that are difficult to self-administer at home.
(PORTLAND, Ore.) — Demonstrations sprang up nationwide in protest of the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict Friday night, after a Wisconsin jury found the 18-year-old not guilty for the killing of two men and the wounding of another during political unrest in Kenosha last summer.
The verdict sparked outrage among those who feared an acquittal would embolden vigilantism, and anger in the families of the men shot who were seeking accountability and justice. Others, including pro-gun conservatives, have hailed Rittenhouse as a hero who was protecting private property from rioters.
In Kenosha, protesters gathered outside the courthouse, reacting in anger and frustration to the verdict. Outside a local church, pastors led residents in a prayer vigil Friday night, with some toting signs that said “Heal Kenosha.”
“Profoundly disappointed, sad, angry, crying, grieving and also looking to the future. Like OK, we’ve got work to do,” Rev. Monica Cummings, of Bradford Community Church, told Reuters of the mood that night. “And at the top of the list is healing. Our community can now begin the long process of healing and looking at how we want to be as a community together.”
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers had activated some 500 National Guard members to be on standby to support public safety efforts if needed, though there were no major clashes reported in the wake of the verdict.
In Portland, Oregon, the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office declared a riot “after a violent, destructive group began to breach the gate into the Multnomah County Detention Center,” the Portland Police Bureau said in a statement.
About two dozen people had gathered in front of the gate around 9 p.m. local time, with some allegedly heard saying, “Burn it down,” according to the sheriff’s office.
The rear window of a Portland Police vehicle was shattered, as well as the windows on a local business, during the incident, according to police.
Police issued five citations and 17 warnings, and one person was arrested for a warrant, authorities said.
Meanwhile, in New York City, hundreds of demonstrators marched across the Brooklyn Bridge and gathered outside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, holding signs with photos of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, the two men Rittenhouse killed.
Nearly 100 people took to the streets of Oakland, California, shouting “Revolution nothing else” while marching in response to the verdict, ABC San Francisco station KGO reported.
Demonstrators also gathered in Chicago to denounce the acquittal.
Rittenhouse pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety, first-degree reckless homicide and first-degree intentional homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide.
During his testimony, Rittenhouse said he shot Rosenbaum, Huber and Gaige Grosskreutz, who survived, in self-defense.
“I didn’t intend to kill them. I intended to stop the people who were attacking me,” Rittenhouse repeatedly said, at one point breaking down and sobbing on the witness stand.
Rittenhouse feels “a huge sense of relief,” his attorney, Mark Richards, told reporters Friday, adding, “He wishes none of this ever happened.”
The ruling in the closely watched trial prompted a response from President Joe Biden, who said in a statement, “While the verdict in Kenosha will leave many Americans feeling angry and concerned, myself included, we must acknowledge that the jury has spoken.”
(WASHINGTON) — It was a question that plagued Joe Biden’s presidential campaign: Could a 77-year-old man — who at age 78 would be the oldest person ever to assume the presidency — handle the rigors of the job?
Candidate Biden acknowledged it was legitimate for Americans to question his fitness for office.
“The only thing I can say is watch. Watch! Check my energy level, determine whether I know what I’m talking about,” he told voters during the 2020 campaign.
Now, on Friday, nearly a year into his term, Biden has gotten his first physical as president at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
It came the day before he turns 79.
After about five hours inside, Biden walked out giving two thumbs up.
“I’m doing great!” Biden told ABC News Correspondent Karen Travers, when asked how he was feeling. “I’ve had a great physical and a great House of Representatives vote. Good day,” Biden said, referring to House Democrats passing his “Build Back Better” plan earlier in the day.
Shortly before he arrived, the White House revealed that for some of the exam he would be under anesthesia and would briefly transfer power to Vice President Kamala Harris.
“This morning, the President will travel to Walter Reed Medical Center for a routine physical. While he is there, the President will undergo a routine colonoscopy,” press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.
“As was the case when President George W. Bush had the same procedure in 2002 and 2007, and following the process set out in the Constitution, President Biden will transfer power to the Vice President for the brief period of time when he is under anesthesia. The Vice President will work from her office in the West Wing during this time,” she said.
Around noon, the White House said it sent letters at 10:10 a.m. to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Patrick Leahy, president pro tempore of the Senate, to inform them Biden was going under sedation. The House speaker is second in line to the presidency after the vice president and the president pro tempore of the Senate is third in line under the 25th Amendment dictating the order of presidential succession.
Psaki tweeted that Biden had spoken with Harris and chief of staff Ron Klain at approximately 11:35 a.m., saying “@POTUS was in good spirits and at that time resumed his duties.”
Letter to the Speaker of the House on the Temporary Transfer of the Powers and Duties of President of the U… by ABC News Politics on Scribd
Late Friday afternoon, the White House put out a promised detailed medical summary.
Biden is a ‘healthy, vigorous 78-year-old man,” who is “fit for duty” and “fully executes all of his responsibilities without exemptions or accommodations,” the president’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor wrote.
While Biden got a mostly clean bill of health, O’Connor — who has been Biden’s doctor since 2009 — noted two specific observations: his frequent throat clearing, and a stiffened gate, compared to last year.
“The president has exhibited increasing frequency and severity of “throat clearing” and coughing during speaking engagements,” O’Connor wrote. “He has exhibited such symptoms for as long as I have known him, but they certainly seem more frequent and more pronounced over the last few months.”
O’Connor noted that Biden being president and the increased attention could be playing into the perception of the symptoms, but required further investigation. Ultimately though, O’Connor said that his initial assessment that “gastroesophageal reflux” was to blame for the cough still stands.
Of his stiffened gate, O’Connor said Biden acknowledges that he is stiff in the morning, though it improves over time. O’Connor said that after a battery of tests, general “wear and tear” of the spine was partly to blame– though no specific treatment was needed.
A new finding for Biden was a “mild peripheral neuropathy in both feet.”
“He did not demonstrative any motor weakness, but a subtle difference in heat/cold perception and great toe proprioception could be elicited,” O’Connor wrote, noting this, along with the wear and tear could contribute to the stiffened gate, and “Physical Therapy and exercise prescription will continue to focus on general flexibility and proprioceptive maintenance maneuvers.”
Biden’s regular screening colonoscopy found a 3mm benign-looking polyp was identified in the in ascending colon, and was removed without difficulty, the report said.
To date, the most recent physical and medical report was one his campaign released in December 2019: a three-page summary that declared Biden “a healthy, vigorous, 77-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.”
At the time, Biden was said to be under treatment for four different conditions: non-valvular atrial fibrillation — a type of irregular heart rhythm, hyperlipidemia — higher concentrations of fats or lipids in the blood, gastroesophageal reflux and seasonal allergies.
The most notable health incidents in Biden’s past were the two cranial aneurysms he suffered in 1988.
Since winning the presidency, Biden suffered a fractured foot after falling while chasing his dog Major at his Wilmington, Delaware, home last Thanksgiving. He had to wear a walking boot for the injury, and was said to be “healing as expected,” according to scans from a follow-up appointment in December.
Biden named O’Connor as his White House physician shortly after taking office.
O’Connor has served as Biden’s primary care physician and was appointed physician to the then-vice president in 2009. Biden chose him for the new role due to their long history and personal relationship, according to a White House official.
Questions about fitness for office are far from exclusive to Biden — President Donald Trump, who was the oldest president elected before Biden, also faced questions about his mental and physical fitness.
Trump faced particular scrutiny for the first physical of his administration in January 2018, which his then-White House physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, said went “exceptionally well.”
He came under fire for his effusively rosy outlook on Trump’s health while briefing reporters afterward.
In other recent administrations, physicals have generally been conducted within a president’s first year in office.
President George W. Bush got a physical in August 2001, and was found to be “fit for duty” with “every reasonable expectation that he will remain fit for duty for the duration of his Presidency.”
President Barack Obama received his first physical in office just over a year into his presidency, in February 2010. He also was found to be in “excellent health,” although doctors told hi to stop smoking.
At her news briefing Friday, Psaki declined to detail any actions Harris took during her 85 minutes as “acting president,” but observed the moment’s historic nature.
“I will leave that to her team to characterize. I know that other people have been talking about this and a woman myself, I will note that the president, when he selected her to be his running mate, obviously knew he was making history that was long overdue in our view,” she said.
“Part of that was selecting someone who would serve by your side as your partner, but also … step in if there was a reason to,” Psaki said.
ABC News’ John Parkinson contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A group of seven women are suing Yale University, claiming they underwent invasive and painful procedures for in-vitro fertilization and received saline instead of fentanyl, an opioid painkiller.
According to the complaint, the women received saline after a nurse at the Yale University Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Clinic stole fentanyl for her personal use last year and replaced it with saline.
As a result, the women underwent a fertility procedure — oocyte retrieval — without pain management, according to the complaint, which described the process as “excruciating.”
“Oocyte egg retrieval is an extremely invasive procedure,” the law firm representing the women said in a statement. “Doctors and nurses explained to these patients that this surgery would require a dose of fentanyl to alleviate pain. However, each was then unknowingly treated with saline instead.”
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in state court in Waterbury, Connecticut, by the women and their spouses, accuses Yale University of failing to follow protocols and thereby allowing the fentanyl to be tampered with.
The complaint also alleges there were “hundreds” of incidents in which saline was substituted for fentanyl.
“Yale University takes no responsibility for the hundreds of fentanyl substitution events that took place at the REI Clinic; it blames the single nurse who was able to steal the fentanyl, unabated, for more than twenty weeks,” the complaint said.
“But for years, Yale University recognized the lurking danger of opioid diversion and the catastrophic injuries posed by healthcare worker opioid substitution,” according to the lawsuit.
The nurse, Donna Monticone, pleaded guilty in March to one count of tampering with a consumer product and surrendered her nursing license. She was sentenced in May to four weekends in prison, three months of home confinement and three years of supervised release.
A Yale University spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit.
In March, following Monticone’s guilty plea, a Yale spokesperson issued a statement stating patients had been informed and that “changes are underway.”
“Yale has informed patients that there is no reason to believe that the nurse’s action harmed their health or the outcome of their treatment. The Fertility Center routinely uses a combination of pain medications during procedures and modifies the medications if there are signs of discomfort,” the spokesperson said in March, according to the New Haven Register. “Changes are underway in procedures, recordkeeping, and physical storage that will prevent this type of activity from happening again.”
The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, also alleges that the women’s concerns and reports of “torturous pain” were dismissed.
“Yale University providers were alerted to the problem with its supply of fentanyl, the sole analgesic administered to women during oocyte retrievals, through patients’ intraoperative screams and postoperative reports of torturous pain, but, upon information and belief, Yale University never investigated these reports,” the complaint said. “Instead, pain was minimized as ‘normal’ for the invasive procedure, or attributed to the unavailability of an anesthesiologist on Saturdays and Sundays.”
The allegation of pain being dismissed is one that may ring true for many women, according to Dr. Jessica Shepherd, a board-certified gynecologist and chief medical officer of Verywell Health, an online medical resource.
Shepherd is not affiliated with Yale University and has no involvement with or direct knowledge of the case.
“Usually the key complaint is feeling dismissed, that patients haven’t been heard,” she said of her own personal experience with female patients who have sought her care. “It’s one thing to be able to express what you’re feeling, but even after that, what are the actions that are taken in order to reach some joint resolution of decreasing discomfort, addressing the situation, finding alternatives.”
Research through the years has also shown that women’s pain is often interpreted differently than men’s by medical providers.
A study published in April in the Journal of Pain, for instance, found that when the same level of pain was expressed by female and male patients, female patients’ pain was viewed as less intense than men’s. The study also found that female patients were prescribed more psychotherapy for for their pain, while male patients were prescribed more pain medication.
In another study, women were found to have had to wait nearly 15 minutes longer to receive pain medication in an emergency room setting than men.
“It’s a subjective symptom so it’s hard to put objectivity to it, like you would say, blood pressure, or pulse,” Shepherd said of pain. “And I think there are stereotypes about pain sensitivity and endurance of pain, so from a female perspective, it may be looked at not being able to endure as much pain, but that’s not really how pain should be monitored or evaluated.”
