(WASHINGTON) — After the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory panel rejected a plan on Friday to offer Pfizer COVID-19 booster shots for all Americans, White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci defended the White House’s earlier plan to begin rolling out the shots this month.
“The plan was that we have to be ready to do this as soon as the decision is made and when you have a plan, you put a date on it and you say we want to be able to get ready to roll out on the week of September the 20th,” Fauci said Sunday. “So giving that date, I don’t think was confusing. We needed a date to be able to say, let’s get ready to roll this out, pending the decision of the deliberation by the FDA and ultimately the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).”
ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz pressed Fauci on whether the White House’s premature announcement created any confusion.
“You yourself have said how important consistency and messaging can be, and you mentioned earlier President Biden talked about planning for a September 20th rollout for all Americans. I know he said ‘planning,’ I know he said it depends on the FDA, but isn’t a timeline like that just confusing to people?” Raddatz asked.
“These are the kinds of things that when you make a decision, you don’t snap your finger and it gets rolled out the next day and that’s, I think, the thing that the people in the United States need to understand,” he responded.
The panel did suggest that extra Pfizer shots should be given to those 65 and older or those at high risk of severe COVID-19. The panel also said it supports giving boosters to health care and other front-line workers, including teachers. A final decision is expected within days.
Additional vaccine doses, although not quite a booster, had already been approved by the CDC for the roughly 7 million immunocompromised Americans who didn’t have an optimal response to the first round of mRNA vaccines.
Fauci said on Sunday that in three to four weeks — as more data from Israel and the U.S. emerge — the FDA advisory panel will continue to reexamine and modify recommendations for boosters.
“The story is not over because more and more data is coming in and will be coming in,” Fauci said.
He also said data on potential booster shots from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines is only “a couple of weeks away” and that the information will be examined in the same manner as Pfizer’s data.
COVID-19 cases in the U.S. continue to soar. The country has reported more than 1.02 million cases over the last week and the U.S. recorded more than 10,000 confirmed COVID-19 related deaths in one week, according to federal data.
With many students back in the classroom in person, pediatric COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations remain at one of their highest points of the pandemic and Raddatz asked Fauci when a vaccine might be available for children.
“It will certainly be this fall,” Fauci responded. “What we’re going to almost certainly see is that sometime in the next few weeks — as we get into October — we’ll be able to see the vaccines for children get enough data to be presented for safety and immunogenicity.”
“But in the fall, you know, rather than specifically saying what week, sometime in the mid- to late-fall, we will be seeing enough data from the children from 11 down to 5 to be able to make a decision to vaccinate them,” Fauci added.
(SUNLAND PARK, N.M.) — Each year on the last Sunday of October thousands of worshipers take a pilgrimage to Mount Cristo Rey — a mountain located in Sunland Park, New Mexico, that overlooks El Paso, Texas, the border wall, the United States and Mexico.
At the mountain’s peak is a magnificent 29-foot limestone statue of Jesus Christ — a monument erected in 1934 that has become a shrine for the faithful. And for decades, thousands of believers have climbed the steep and rugged terrain to ask for a miracle.
Rebecca Escarciga Lehman is one of them.
Lehman was born and raised in California, but her parents are from El Paso. As a child, she spent her summers there and was very close to her family, particularly to her aunt Esperanza Salas Escandon or as she called her “Tia Guera.”
“She provided guidance and support in the years following my own mother’s serious illness and continued through my late teens and young adulthood. She had encouraged me to participate in the Mount Cristo Rey pilgrimage … to strengthen my faith, to pray for God’s guidance and blessings for our families,” Lehman said.
But before Lehman made arrangements to go on a pilgrimage to Mount Cristo Rey, her aunt got seriously ill.
“When I visited her in the hospital, she was not clinically awake, but I promised her that I would go to the mountain in her honor,” Lehman said.
“Lord, take care of her, you know what’s best. We want her here. But don’t let her suffer,” she said, recalling her prayers at the time. “I said I will be going to Mount Cristo Rey as she requested from here on forward.”
Tia Guera died shortly after but for the past twenty years, Lehman has been making the pilgrimage to Cristo Rey each year — only missing the trip when she was pregnant and in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of the annual event.
“I pray the rosary on my way up,” she said, adding that the climb down the mountain is a time to catch up with family members who accompany her.
For Lehman, El Paso has become her spiritual anchor and the pilgrimage is about renewing her faith and being there for family.
Her cousin Ruben Escandon, the son of Tia Guera, has been visiting Cristo Rey since he was a child and his grandparents on both sides of his family helped develop Mount Cristo Rey.
According to Escandon, the monument was inspired by Fr. Lourdes Costa, a local parish priest in El Paso’s Smeltertown, who had a vision of erecting a monument to Christ in 1933 as he looked out his back window. Initially, a wooden cross was erected, but Costa commissioned a friend, sculptor Urbici Soler, to create it.
The statue was completed by 1939 and since then, the monument and the hike trail have been maintained by volunteers – local El Pasoans whose family history is connected to the story of Cristo Rey.
“[When you climb up the mountain] you start thinking about the people that built it, the people that volunteered their hard work and labor back in the thirties and, and the people that have maintained it up until this point,” Escandon said.
Escandon’s grandparents grew up in Smeltertown, a former residential community in El Paso, where hundreds of volunteers carried supplies up the mountain to build the statue’s base and labored for years to build the road that made it possible to place the statue of Christ at the mountain’s peak.
Escandon is a third-generation volunteer and is the spokesman for the Mount Cristo Rey Restoration Committee — an organization that works to maintain and preserve the statue of Christ, which is often vandalized, as well as the trail that leads to it.
“It’s a jewel … a spiritual beacon that draws people here from pretty much all over the country,” he said.
He regularly leads groups up the mountain, organizes the annual pilgrimage, which has drawn up to 20,000 participants, and welcomes visitors from around the country, including Lehman who makes the trip from California to El Paso to spend time with family and keep her promise to Tia Guera.
And according to Lehman, although you can see the border wall from Mount Cristo Rey, when you look up the landscape blends together and you can no longer see where Mexico begins and where the U.S ends.
“As you’re walking, you feel, you see the elevation physically … it feels like you’re lifting yourself up above the earth and the worldly issues and the problems,” Rebecca Escarciga Lehman said.
“All the garbage and stuff and the political things and everything that’s going on, and everybody being so different, you’re up here and it’s gone,” she added. “For me, each rise kind of felt like all that stuff is going further away and I’m realizing what is really at the core of importance, which is faith and family, community, no matter who you are.”
ABC News’ James Scholz contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — When Dr. Keila Rodriguez comes home, her 3-year-old daughter knows she has to wait to hug her mom.
“After the pandemic started, I would tell her, ‘You can’t hug mom right now, I have to shower and I have to change because I was around sick people all day and I don’t want to get you sick,” the Texas pediatrician told ABC News. “She knows now — I come home and she says, ‘Mom, how are you? I’m so happy to see you.’ But she’ll stay far away and she’ll say, ‘Go shower and change because I want hugs.”
Rodriguez’s hometown of McAllen, in the Rio Grande Valley, was especially hard-hit by COVID-19. Multiple people in her father’s family died from the virus, she said.
“It quickly became personal for everybody in the community,” she said. “Almost everybody knew somebody who had been very, very sick or died.”
Just as the family started to regain a sense of normalcy, the delta variant surged.
In recent weeks, record numbers of COVID-19 cases in children have been reported and pediatric intensive care units in parts of the country are reaching levels not seen before during the pandemic — just as children are heading back to the classroom.
Rodriguez, like many pediatricians across the country, is worried and overwhelmed, and trying not to get angry.
The pediatricians with children ABC News spoke to said they have fears about the current surge not only for patients but their families, especially as other communicable diseases spread. And they are using their platforms to try to get out the word about vaccination and mitigation.
“It’s such a difficult time emotionally, mentally, physically,” Rodriguez said.
Record cases in children
COVID-19 cases in children are at record levels. There were over 243,000 pediatric cases reported between Sept. 2 and Sept. 9, the second-highest figure reported during the pandemic, according to the most recent report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association. The highest number of weekly cases was reported the prior week, topping 251,000, according to the organizations. Hospitalizations have also soared.
“When you tell a parent their child is positive for COVID, you see the fear in their eyes,” Dr. David Reeves, a pediatrician for Memorial Hospital at Gulfport in Gulfport, Mississippi, told ABC News. “Luckily, most children are not that ill with it, but we’re certainly seeing more severe illness with the delta wave.”
Still, children continue to be at lower risk for getting seriously ill or dying from COVID-19, a recent U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found, noting that an increase in pediatric hospitalizations this summer has coincided with the rampant spread of the virus. The CDC said it could not determine with the available data whether the rise in hospitalizations was due to an increase in COVID-19 transmission or any greater illness caused by delta.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Associations have warned there is an urgent need to collect more data on the long-term consequences of the pandemic on children, “including ways the virus may harm the long-term physical health of infected children, as well as its emotional and mental health effects.”
‘Worse place than we were last year’
Dr. Rebekah Diamond has cared for children hospitalized with COVID-19, and then multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, since the start of the pandemic as a hospital pediatrician at Columbia University / NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in New York City. She’s also seen the impacts on children’s mental health and loss of social supports tied to the pandemic.
“There’s a lot of talk about if COVID is bad for kids, which I just think is kind of an unhelpful and kind of really frustrating question because we know COVID is bad for kids. We know the pandemic is bad for kids,” she told ABC News.
Diamond, who has a 3-year-old daughter, said she felt a “huge amount of anxiety” caring for COVID-19 patients at the beginning of the pandemic, worried she might bring the virus home or spread it to her family.
“Navigating this pandemic, as a doctor, as a parent, I haven’t met a single doctor who has said, Yeah, it’s been a breeze,” Diamond said. “I certainly haven’t met a single parent, who, especially at this point, isn’t feeling some level of just extreme fatigue or stress or burnout, or just a variety of emotions — anger, grief, anxiety, it’s all there. And I would say, I’m right there with everyone.”
As COVID-19 cases have risen across the country due to the highly transmissible delta variant, the past few weeks “have been so destablizing,” Diamond said.
“It feels like we’re in almost a worse place than we were last year with our kids,” she said.
Navigating childcare continues to be especially fraught. Diamond said it is “really breaking my heart as a parent and the pediatrician” as parents continue to navigate difficult choices during the pandemic around childcare and school.
“It feels like we can’t control everything, but the degree to which we are having this crisis right now is largely preventable,” she said. “And I just know that parents feel totally let down. I can’t blame them.”
More concerned ‘than ever’
Dr. Katherine King, a pediatric infectious disease physician scientist who works at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, Texas, has seen cases surge in her area, just as she was preparing for the new school year.
“I have to say that I’m more concerned about the situation now than I ever have been because the rates of infection in our community are higher than ever,” she told ABC News.
King said she has done “everything we can to try to limit exposures.” She pulled her 8-year-old daughter out of summer camp as COVID-19 cases were increasing in the community and masking and social distancing practices were subpar. Instead of a big party for her daughter’s birthday this summer, they had something small in their backyard.
But two weeks before the start of school, her daughter was exposed after a fully vaccinated neighbor tested positive, King said.
“I went through the whole concern and worry that she might test positive and would she be able to start school on time,” said King, noting that her daughter ultimately tested negative twice.
“I felt like I was really going through it with everyone else in terms of all the anxiety about the many exposures that are happening in the community right now and all the concerns we have about whether our kids can be in school,” she said.
The worries have only continued since school started amid a delta surge in Houston. On the second day of school, King got an email from her daughter’s school that someone in the class had been exposed to COVID-19, who ultimately tested negative. On a recent Friday, the school sent students home with a go-bag in case they weren’t able to return the following Monday.
By two weeks into the school year, King had already heard of two nearby schools needing to shift to remote due to COVID-19 cases.
“Unfortunately I think we’re in this place right now where there’s so many cases and so many contacts that it’s becoming really impractical for the schools to stay open, and particularly in the areas of town where masking has not been made a requirement,” she said.
Since the week ending Aug. 8, there have been over 126,000 COVID-19 cases in students reported from Texas public schools — including over 40,000 during the week ending Sept. 5.
“I am expecting that this school year we’re going to have more disruptions than we did last,” King said. “So as a parent, this means that we’re constantly kind of on edge.”
Using their platforms
Rodriguez, King and Diamond have been using their platforms as pediatricians to help educate and inform people during the pandemic and push back against misinformation.
Rodriguez published a children’s book last year, “When the World is Sick: A Story About Staying Safe and the Coronavirus,” about talking to children about COVID-19 and how to stay safe, and plans to write more books.
“It fills my cup, the way people say about things that fulfill them,” she said. “It just really makes me happy and fulfilled to help the community.”
Both Rodriguez and Diamond have taken to Instagram to engage with parents and their questions throughout the pandemic.
“It’s been really gratifying for me to put myself out there and show parents that as pediatricians, we really do know what you’re going through,” said Diamond, who has a forthcoming book, “Parent Like A Pediatrician.” “Not everyone’s struggles are the same, but we’ve seen you throughout this pandemic, I’ve seen parents throughout this pandemic, and I think what it does is it just makes me feel all the more protective and even angry on behalf of parents because I’ve seen that journey, not just for me, since last March.”
King has advocated for vaccination to reduce transmission and prevent prolonged illness related to COVID-19 infection. She plans to have her daughter vaccinated as soon as she is eligible.
“I was one of first to get the vaccine myself, and I hope my daughter will be one of the first children to get it when it becomes available,” King said, noting that that could come before the end of the year. “We will be eager to have her vaccinated as soon as we can. We can see the direct effects of vaccination, ZIP code by ZIP code in the United States.”
Masking mandates have become a lightning rod issue this school year. Though mask use is crucial to prevent the spread of the virus, particularly for those still too young to get the vaccine, the doctors said.
“The only thing that will traumatize kids about masks for the next few months is continuing to make it a debate conversation, when the conversation really should be — what kind of safety and support are we giving children for the next few months so that they feel safe in home, they feel safe in school, they feel that if they get COVID they will do well, that will keep the hospitals open and staffed appropriately,” Diamond said. “The things you can control are how you frame your own peace of mind and your own comfort and safety and how you model all of this to your kids.”
King urges people to “buckle down again” amid surging COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, to which she has a front-row seat.
“It’s so hard to sometimes really incorporate statistics and numbers into our lives and really feel what that means, but it’s really easy for me because I go to work every day and I can see with my own eyes what coronavirus can do to a child and the impact it can have on a family,” she said. “So it’s very clear to me how valuable it is to try to control this virus and to try to avoid it.”
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.
(LOS ANGELES) — Efforts to combat misinformation intensified on Twitter during the days leading up to Tuesday’s recall election to replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who appears to have retained his gubernatorial seat, according to an ABC News projection of the election results.
Since the 2020 presidential election, there’s been more awareness of the damaging effects of the spread of misinformation on social media with fears that increasing numbers of people are engaging with false content.
The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, which provides record management and election services, said it took to Twitter to counter misleading information and provide context to viral posts leading up to the recall election. The department said it also used Twitter to clear up confusion over casting ballots, ballot status and the color of ballot boxes.
For example: in response to a viral photo reposted on Twitter showing an election worker wearing a “Trump 2020” hat and shirt, the department clarified on Tuesday that the person was later contacted and was “no longer working at the vote center.” The photo racked up more than 34,000 likes and more than 8,000 retweets by Thursday, according to statistics on the post, with some Twitter users debating the legality of an election worker wearing political clothing.
The department’s response also garnered notable engagement on Twitter and was referenced by other users, further spreading the update that the department removed the worker.
Mike Sanchez, spokesperson for the LA County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, said the worker broke the department’s internal policy requiring nonpartisan clothing for employees, adding that the worker was released after he refused to change.
First Draft director Claire Wardle said the department’s Twitter activity was “a very good sign” that organizations are making an effort to combat misinformation, even before it goes viral.
First Draft is an organization that describes itself as working to “protect communities from harmful misinformation” through knowledge, research and training.
Wardle said the department took an approach known as “prebunking,” which includes correcting false claims, answering questions early on and providing explanations.
“All of that is helping people get a much better sense about what to trust and what not to trust,” Wardle said.
Wardle said an important part of the process is to give context to posts that may not be fake, but could still be misleading and damaging.
On the weekend before the recall election, the department said it fielded numerous questions after an “equipment issue” reportedly caused some voters to have trouble casting their ballots.
Throughout the weekend, the department posted on Twitter that voters who encountered the issue were given provisional ballots and that the equipment was replaced. The department’s repeated reinforcement of accurate information may have helped resolve confusion on the issue, it says, preventing it from spiraling into full-fledged falsehoods.
Conservative radio host Larry Elder, the frontrunner to replace Newsom if recalled, made unsubstantiated claims of possible voter fraud during the recall election, saying there could be “shenanigans” similar to some unsubstantiated claims of a rigged 2020 presidential election.
The country clerk, in real-time on social media, addressed concerns or questions pertaining to the recall election, arguably helping to ward off their evolving into a misinformation wildfire spreading through the internet. The department said in one instance, it answered a Twitter user’s question about the equipment issue within five minutes. Other responses came several hours later or the next day.
Sanchez, in addition to being a spokesperson, led the team that monitored social media platforms during the recall election. He said while the majority of posts were general voting inquiries, the team took action when it identified misleading and inaccurate information.
“We provide resources and try to quell those who are aiming to mislead or misguide and — or in some cases interfere — with the election and the information that goes along with obviously educating voters,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez said the department has been actively monitoring and engaging with social media for years, including during the 2020 presidential election. Last year, the department was countering misinformation about ballots, he said, and even calming fears about fire alarms.
“These [social media platforms] are very powerful tools. Our voters are on them. We should be on them as well and leverage their ability to reach masses,” Sanchez said.
Twitter has made strong statements against election misinformation on its platform and has implemented a labeling policy. “However, the volume and speed at which misinformation has the potential to spread online means that this alone is not enough. Twitter said in January that it was piloting a new approach to addressing misinformation on the platform, alongside its labeling policy, to “broaden the range of voices” involved in the process.”
Wardle pointed to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection as a catalyst that may have influenced organizations to focus more on battling political misinformation. Wardle said the 2020 election and events that followed were an example of “the harm that can be done if you leave misinformation to flourish.”
“It’s a really critical time now to try and rebuild trust in the electoral system,” Wardle said.
While there is a spotlight on election misinformation this year, policing online misinformation is not a new strategy.
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency launched its rumor control page ahead of last year’s presidential election, with the goal to help voters “distinguish between rumors and facts on election security issues.”
Public figures in key battleground states also used Twitter to dispel falsehoods during the presidential election.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel warned voters in 2020 about misinformation related to robocalls and voters with outstanding warrants. The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office utilized an election task force last year, which also highlighted misleading information.
(NEW YORK) — After spending more than a year behind bars, the man who inspired the acclaimed 2004 film “Hotel Rwanda” is due to learn his fate.
A Rwandan judge is set to deliver a verdict on Monday in the closely watched trial of former hotelier Paul Rusesabagina and 20 co-defendants, who are accused of terrorism-related offenses. A decision in the high-profile case was expected a month ago but was postponed, with no reason given for the delay.
Rusesabagina, who was tried on 13 charges including murder and financing terrorism, could face 25 years to life in prison if convicted. He has maintained his innocence, while his family and attorneys have condemned the trial as a “sham.”
“We are happy that the charade of the trial is ending,” the Rusesabagina family told ABC News in a statement ahead of the verdict. “We assume they will finish the sham by finding him guilty on Monday. We have told the world over and over that there is no fair trial process in Rwanda, and the past months have shown that. There is no independent judiciary, and there will be no justice for our father. All we can do now is make this clear to everyone — a dictator will be jailing a humanitarian.”
Rusesabagina, a 67-year-old married father of six, was the manager of the Hotel des Mille Collines in Kigali during the Rwandan genocide of 1994, when divisions between the East African nation’s two main ethnic groups came to a head. The Rwandan government, controlled by extremist members of the Hutu ethnic majority, launched a systemic campaign with its allied Hutu militias to wipe out the Tutsi ethnic minority, slaughtering more than 800,000 people over the course of 100 days, mostly Tutsis and the moderate Hutus who tried to protect them, according to estimates from the United Nations.
More than 1,200 people took shelter in the Hotel des Mille Collines during what is often described as the darkest chapter of Rwanda’s history. Rusesabagina, who is of both Hutu and Tutsi descent, said he used his job and connections with the Hutu elite to protect the hotel’s guests from massacre. The events were later immortalized in “Hotel Rwanda,” with American actor Don Cheadle’s portrayal of Rusesabagina earning an Academy Award nomination for best actor in 2005.
After the movie’s release, Rusesabagina rose to fame and was lauded as a hero. He also became a prominent and outspoken critic of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who has been in office for the last two decades.
Rusesabagina, who fled Rwanda with his family in 1996 and is now a Belgian citizen and permanent U.S. resident, traveled to Dubai on Aug. 27, 2020, to meet up with a Burundi-born pastor who Rusesabagina alleges had invited him to speak at churches in Burundi about his experience during the Rwandan genocide. Later that night, the pair hopped on a private jet that Rusesabagina believed would take them to Burundi’s capital, according to Rusesabagina’s international legal team.
Rusesabagina did not know that the pastor was working as an informant for the Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) and had tricked him into boarding a chartered flight to Kigali.
Rwandan prosecutors allege that Rusesabagina wanted to go to Burundi to coordinate with rebel groups based there and in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The charges that Rusesabagina faces stem from his leadership of an exiled opposition coalition called the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change, known by its French acronym MRCD. In 2018, there were a series of deadly attacks on villages in southern Rwanda, near the country’s border with Burundi, and Rwandan authorities inculpated the National Liberation Front, or FLN, which is the armed wing of the MRCD. In a video statement released later that year, Rusesabagina pledged his “unreserved support” for the FLN, declared the Rwandan government to be “the enemy of the Rwandan people” and called for “any means possible to bring about change.”
Rusesabagina has acknowledged that the MRCD had an armed wing but denied his involvement. The 20 other defendants in the trial are accused of being FLN organizers and fighters.
Rusesabagina’s whereabouts were unknown for several days until Rwandan authorities paraded him in handcuffs during a press conference at the RIB’s headquarters in Kigali on Aug. 31, 2020. Rusesabagina alleges he was bound and blindfolded by RIB agents who took him from the plane to an undisclosed location where he was gagged and tortured before being jailed, according to an affidavit that includes a memorialization of a conversation between Rusesabagina and one of his Rwandan lawyers. The RIB has denied the claims.
Since then, Rusesabagina has been held at a prison in Rwanda’s capital, including more than eight months in solitary confinement, according to his international legal team. The U.N.’s Nelson Mandela Rules state that keeping someone in solitary confinement for more than 15 consecutive days is torture.
Rusesabagina’s family and legal representatives have accused Rwandan authorities of kidnapping him and bringing him to the country illegally. The Rwandan government has admitted to paying for the plane that took Rusesabagina to Kigali, but Kagame said there was no wrongdoing because he was “brought here on the basis of what he believed and wanted to do.”
Rusesabagina’s trial in his home country has captured worldwide attention since it began in February, with his family and attorneys calling on the international community to intervene. They said his privileged documents are routinely confiscated in prison and he has been denied access to his international legal team, including his lead counsel, Kate Gibson, who has previously represented Rwandan accused before the U.N. International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda.
“Paul Rusesabagina’s inevitable conviction is the end of a script that was written even before he was kidnapped in August 2020,” Gibson told ABC News in a statement ahead of Monday’s verdict. “The only thing that has been surprising in watching this horror show unfold over the last year, has been the brazenness and openness with which the Rwandan authorities have been willing to systematically violate all of the fair trial rights to which Paul was entitled.”
“The Rwandans had every opportunity to showcase their judicial system and put on the fairest of fair trials,” she added. “They did the opposite.”
Rusesabagina’s family and lawyers have also expressed concern about his health and treatment behind bars. They said he is a cancer survivor who suffers from hypertension and cardiovascular disease, and that he has been denied his prescribed medication.
“If the international community does not step in,” the family said, “he will probably be in jail for the rest of his life.”
(CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.) — After three days in space, the first all-civilian flight into Earth’s orbit splashed down successfully Saturday night.
The Dragon capsule returned to Earth just after 7 p.m. ET.
The capsule was traveling at 17,500 mph when it deorbited, slowed down to around 350 mph when the parachute deployed at 18,000 feet and slowed to 119 mph before it hit the ocean.
It splashed down in its preferred location in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Cape Canaveral. They had been prepared to pivot to the Gulf of Mexico, if needed.
SpaceX’s Inspiration4 mission made history as the farthest any civilian has traveled from Earth — 367 miles above it — even farther than the International Space Station.
There is always risk launching into space and coming home. While the crew has been trained by SpaceX, they are not professional astronauts.
Saturday’s splashdown was the third SpaceX Dragon-crewed capsule to splash down from orbit, but the first with no professional astronaut on board.
Billionaire Jared Isaacman, 38, an experienced pilot, is commanding the mission. He founded a payment process company called Shift4 Payments and purchased all four seats on the flight for an estimated $220 million.
Isaacman wanted this mission to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Before the launch he personally donated $100 million to help end child cancer.
He reserved one seat for 29-year-old St. Jude ambassador Hayley Arceneaux. Arceneaux was treated at St. Jude as a child and returned to work there as a physician assistant. She is now the youngest American to go to space as well as the first pediatric cancer survivor.
Dr. Sian Proctor, 51, the third occupant, made history as well as the fourth African American woman astronaut to travel into space.
Rounding out the crew was Chris Sembroski, 41, an Iraq war veteran and engineer with Lockheed Martin.
They all spoke with children currently being treated at St. Jude live from space on Friday.
“What kind of sleeping bag do you have?” one child asked Arceneaux.
“So if you’ve ever been camping, we pretty much have those same kind of sleeping bags,” she said. “We were in our sleeping bags on top of our chairs, but we were floating on top of the chair and we had a seat belt around our sleeping bag. So we didn’t fly away when we were sleeping.”
“Can you take pictures in space?” another child asked Proctor.
“We absolutely can take pictures in space,” she responded. “And we’ve been taking a lot of those pictures and video so we can capture this moment and share it with everybody when we come home.”
Since liftoff, the mission has raised an additional $500,000 for the research hospital.
The crew has also been busy conducting experiments including using a portable ultrasound to measure their corneas and optic nerves for indications on intracranial pressure.
“We’ve also been taking several swabs of different parts of our body to evaluate the microbiome and how that changes in these three days in space,” Arceanaux said.
ABC News’ Gio Benitez and Gina Sunseri contributed to this report.
(AUSTIN, Texas) — Before 1973, fatal “back-alley” and “coat-hanger” procedures in places where abortion was illegal became emblematic of the impact of abortion bans.
But in modern times, those images have become obsolete with the use of medication abortion, advocates say.
This has become especially relevant in light of Texas’ new abortion law that bans the procedure as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, making it inaccessible for many across the state.
“An abortion road trip is a thing of the past,” said Elisa Wells, co-founder and co-director of Plan C, an abortion research and pro-abortion rights advocacy group. “We have safe and effective medical technology in the form of abortion pills and online access to care that can deliver it directly to your doorstep. This is the 21st century and everybody deserves the same access to care that we have through mainstream medical channels.”
In a medication abortion, patients take two pills: mifepristone, which stops the production of progesterone, and misoprostol, which causes the abortion. Without progesterone, uterine lining breaks down and a pregnancy is prevented from continuing, according to Planned Parenthood.
The regimen is approved by the FDA to end pregnancies up to 10 weeks.
Mifepristone is only supplied to health care providers who meet certain qualifications and is recommended by the FDA to be taken by or under the supervision of a certified prescriber to ensure safe use.
But, advocates say, people still seek abortions when governments restrict access to the procedures, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights research organization.
With no other options for a legal abortion, some feel forced into unsupervised or illegal tactics to obtain one — which could include obtaining medication through methods like utilizing a telehealth appointment with a provider in a state where it is legal, having pills mailed via international organizations on the internet, or crossing the border to Mexico, where misoprostol is sold in pharmacies as an ulcer medication.
Safety concerns
Medication abortion with both mifepristone and misoprostol is effective more than 95% of the time, according to the Guttmacher Institute. A 2013 study of 47,283 subjects found 0.3% were hospitalized for complications, such as vaginal bleeding, pelvic pain or infection.
In medical settings where it is legal, doctors say it is safe for patients to take the pills and have an abortion at home. For example, some Planned Parenthood locations have begun offering at-home services via telehealth where that is legal.
A recent study by Ushma Upadhyay, an associate professor at the University of California San Francisco, found evidence that medication abortion care administered online via telehealth providers is feasible and safe.
Still, there are some medical concerns about obtaining pills to self-manage an abortion outside of doctors’ guidance. International pills haven’t been checked by U.S. authorities for quality, and people who acquire misoprostol on their own may not know the right dosages without the guidance of a clinician.
Misoprostol, which is sold across the border without mifepristone, is 85% successful in inducing abortion in the first trimester on its own, according to the International Women’s Health Coalition. A 2019 research article in the Obstetrics & Gynecology journal found that misoprostol alone is an effective, safe option for people seeking an abortion in their first trimester.
Overall, however, advocates say the risk level is low.
“It (may not be) legally safe, but it is medically safe. And I think that accessing these medications in an unregulated way may be the only recourse for many people, the only way to have reproductive autonomy,” Upadhyay told ABC News.
Legal questions
While studies indicate medical concerns are relatively limited, there are legal questions about accessing medication abortion.
International providers who operate on the internet, for example, often skirt around local legislation restricting abortion access.
Thirty-four states only allow physicians to help patients obtain medication abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Nineteen states require physicians be physically present with the patient, which essentially bans the use of telemedicine to prescribe the medication.
Meanwhile, the new Texas law, which the Supreme Court allowed to go into effect but is being legally challenged, authorizes private citizens to bring civil suits against anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion — but not the patient themself.
With that, it’s unclear how lawsuits against online providers would fare in Texas — but the law implies that doctors from out of state, online providers or people who drive others to get an abortion may be at risk if a fetal heartbeat had been detected and known at the time of the abortion.
“If an individual were to get an abortion, that individual would not be penalized, but everyone who was involved in that patient’s care would be at risk of getting sued by someone who’s part of the anti-abortion movement,” said Dr. Meera Shah, the chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic.
Restricted access
Self-managed abortion has been pushed into the spotlight by the Texas law, which is the most restrictive abortion ban to go into effect in decades.
“This is driving patients into a panic,” said Shah. “Our health centers in Texas are getting inundated with phone calls from patients, trying to figure out where they can get care or how they can get care.”
Before the Texas ban directly restricted access to abortion, other states had made it difficult for abortion clinics to remain open, forcing anyone in search of an in-clinic procedure or an in-person physician consultation to travel long distances for an available provider.
Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), a research group at the University of California, San Francisco’s Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health found that there are at least 27 “abortion deserts” in the country — cities with populations of over 100,000 where residents must travel more than 100 miles to reach a clinic.
ANSIRH has also found that denying people an abortion can cause economic hardship and insecurity. People denied an abortion are more likely to stay with a violent or abusive partner and are more likely to raise the child alone.
“What’s so important is to focus on people who are the most underserved: those are the people who won’t know about Aid Access, won’t be able to travel, low income populations and immigrant populations, people with limited English proficiency,” Upadhyay said.
“These are the people that are going to end up having to carry to term because they just have no other choice,” she added.
(ORLANDO, Fla.) — After three days in space, the first all-civilian flight to Earth’s orbit is set to splashdown tonight.
The Dragon capsule is expected to return to Earth just after 7 p.m. ET Saturday evening.
It will be traveling at 17,500 miles per hour when it deorbits; will slow down to around 350 mph when the parachute deploys at 18,000 feet; will and stay at around 119 mph before it hits the ocean.
SpaceX’s preferred splashdown location is in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Cape Canaveral, but they are prepared to pivot to the Gulf of Mexico, if needed.
SpaceX’s Inspiration 4 mission has already made history as the farthest any civilian has traveled from Earth — 367 miles above it — even farther than the International Space Station.
There is always risk launching into space and coming home. While the crew has been trained by SpaceX, they are not professional astronauts.
Saturday’s splashdown will be the third SpaceX Dragon-crewed capsule to splashdown from orbit, but the first with no professional astronaut on board.
Billionaire Jared Isaacman, 38, an experienced pilot, is commanding the mission. He founded a payment process company called Shift4 Payments and purchased all four seats on the flight for an estimated $220 million.
Isaacman wanted this mission to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Before the launch he personally donated $100 million to help end child cancer.
He reserved one seat for 29-year-old St. Jude ambassador Hayley Arceneaux. Arceneaux was treated at St. Jude as a child and returned to work there as a physician’s assistant. She is now the youngest American to go to space as well as the first pediatric cancer survivor.
Dr. Sian Proctor, 51, the third occupant, made history as well as the fourth African American woman astronaut to travel into space.
Rounding out the crew is Chris Sembroski, 41, an Iraq war veteran and engineer with Lockheed Martin.
They all spoke with children currently being treated at St. Jude live from space on Friday.
“What kind of sleeping bag do you have?,” one child asked Arceneaux.
“So if you’ve ever been camping, we pretty much have those same kind of sleeping bags,” she said. “We were in our sleeping bags on top of our chairs, but we were floating on top of the chair and we had a seat belt around our sleeping bag. So we didn’t fly away when we were sleeping.”
“Can you take pictures in space?,” another child asked Proctor.
“We absolutely can take pictures in space,” she responded. “And we’ve been taking a lot of those pictures and video so we can capture this moment and share it with everybody when we come home.”
Since liftoff, the mission has raised an additional $500,000 for the research hospital.
The crew has also been busy conducting experiments including using a portable ultrasound to measure their corneas and optic nerves for indications on intracranial pressure.
“We’ve also been taking several swabs of different parts of our body to evaluate the microbiome and how that changes in these three days in space,” Arceanaux said.
ABC News’ Gio Benitez and Gina Sunseri contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — From the Olympics to practically every major league sport, 2021 has been a year where top Latino athletes have led their franchises to huge victories, winning world titles and gold medals.
When they’re not competing, some Latino athletes have also worked to advocate for their communities, And through it all, on and off the field, they’ve represented their heritage with pride.
“As a Latino, the minute life starts making sense for you, you know that things are not going to be that easy,” said three-time Major League Baseball World Series champion and 10-time All-Star David “Big Papi” Ortiz. “In the Latin culture, hard work and motivation and getting to know that you have to fight to get things is a part of our culture. I was never the guy that had anything handed to me. And I think that comes along hand-in-hand with being Latino.”
Like Ortiz, who was born and raised in the Dominican Republic, many MLB players come from several Caribbean and Latin American countries, such as Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Mexico, and Cuba — making baseball their pathway to the American Dream. In fact, since the 2016 season, every team at the major league level has been required to have a Spanish-speaking translator on its staff. To date, close to 2,000 players of Latin American descent have made it to the major leagues making up 25% the league’s talent.
“Latinos, we are hard-working people. We are people that come here with a mentality of putting our family in a better situation,” said Ortiz. “I come from the very bottom, and I know what my people are all about. And whenever I see Spanish people doing well, representing, [it] is something that definitely makes me very proud.”
That same pride Ortiz has with representing his heritage is mirrored by Olympian Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, who chose to represent Puerto Rico during the 2021 Olympic Games.
Born and raised in South Carolina to an African American father and Puerto Rican mother, the hurdler made what became a controversial decision to compete in the Olympics for Puerto Rico instead of the U.S. Her decision caused some to criticize her on social media, and some former Olympians suggested Camacho-Quinn was unqualified to compete for the island. She ended up winning a gold medal in the 100-meter hurdle.
“I just felt like a lot of it was racism, and I wanted to say things, but I’m realizing I’m in the limelight right now, and I can’t say certain things,” said Camacho-Quinn. “But I was like, ‘You know what, this doesn’t change the fact that Puerto Ricans were really with me.’”
Her hyphenated last name speaks to her identity. Along with her hair and skin tone, Camacho-Quinn identifies as an Afro-Latina, a descendant of Latin America with African roots. It’s an identity reflected in her physical features, which she says she’s not only proud of but honored to have. She encouraged other people from “mixed” backgrounds to be just as proud.
“Who you are is who you are, and nobody can change that — literally nobody,” she said. “You have a right to represent both sides because that’s exactly who you are and what you are made of. Don’t be afraid.”
Camacho-Quinn is only the second Olympian representing Puerto Rico to bring back a gold medal. After winning in Tokyo, she and her family did a victory lap around Puerto Rico. Not only did its residents accept her as one of their own, but they celebrated her win with a parade — something the island had not been able to do since the tragedy of Hurricane Maria. Her victory brought not only happiness but a sense of togetherness despite the criticism she received.
“It’s still hitting me. Like, that’s something that cannot be taken away,” she said. “That right there is making history. It means a lot.”
Just like Camacho-Quinn, boxing world champion Canelo Álvarez understands not only his power in the ring but the importance of his voice outside the ring against injustice, especially for Latinos.
“I’m in the position to have the power to speak for the rest; to tell people not to treat Latino or Mexicans differently, and I’m proving that,” he said in Spanish.
Unlike Ortiz and Camacho-Quinn, Álvarez describes himself as light-skinned and is often mistaken for being European rather than Mexican. He said that as a kid, he was bullied for his red hair, earning him the nickname “Canelo,” which means cinnamon in Spanish. Whether Latinos come from the islands of the Caribbean or the lands of Central and South America, many of them still share one thing in common: their language.
“I’m 100% Mexican. Even if I don’t look like one, I’m 100% Mexican and I’m proud of being one — being able to represent my country,” he said. “No matter if you’re light- or dark-skinned, or another color, having money or not, we’re all the same.”
Álvarez said that like any great athlete, they each experience their share of hurdles when it comes to the difficulties that life sometimes brings.
In the form of a hurdle, a curveball or a knockout, challenges come from every angle in life regardless of one’s race or identity. But one thing we all have in common is the will to not give up.
“Yes, life is not easy, right? It’s not easy for anyone,” Álvarez said. “But you have to keep going. You have to keep fighting because, in the end, the one who fights — who stands up — is the one who makes history.”
(WASHINGTON) — The “Justice for J6” rally was billed as a protest for defendants being detained in connection with the January insurrection at the Capitol.
At least 610 individuals have been federally charged for their involvement in the Jan. 6 riot at the United States Capitol, according to the Department of Justice. Most of the roughly 60 who remain behind bars are suspects prosecutors and judges have identified as posing a credible and ongoing threat to the public’s safety.
Many of the same far-right groups and individuals who promoted the original Jan. 6 rally-turned insurrection this time warned supporters to avoid the demonstration at all costs. Former President Donald Trump has called it a “setup” but also released a statement supporting those charged.
With the House and Senate both out, no lawmakers were at the Capitol on Saturday. But preventative security measures were taken, including the reinstallation of temporary fencing around the Capitol complex.
Latest developments:
Man with knife arrested, Capitol Police say
Rally organizer lays out ‘ground rules’
Counterprotesters arrive ahead of rally
US Capitol Police swear in law enforcement partners ahead of rally
Capitol Police prepared in case of violence but hopeful for peaceful event
Here is how the news is developing today. All times Eastern. Check back for updates.
Sep 18, 2:05 pm
Rally concludes without any known major incidents
The “Justice for J6” rally wrapped up Saturday afternoon after about an hour of speeches, without any major known incidents.
Authorities had warned of possible threats of violence at the event, and Capitol Police officers could be seen in riot gear standing on the perimeter of the crowd as people gathered in front of the U.S. Capitol.
Metropolitan Police Department Chief Robert Contee also said in a video message Saturday that the department had security “covered” for the event and was ensuring that people could “peacefully express their First Amendment rights.”
Capitol Police said they arrested a man for a weapons violation shortly before the rally kicked off. He allegedly had a knife. Additional details were not immediately available.
No other arrests have been reported at this time.
The Capitol Police Civil Disturbance Unit also responded to a group of protestors and counterprotestors near the Capitol and “separated the groups without incident,” police said.
Sep 18, 1:34 pm
Man with knife arrested, Capitol Police say
Right before the rally kicked off, Capitol Police say they arrested a man with a knife for a weapons violation.
The arrest happened at 12:40 p.m., authorities said. No other details were immediately provided.
Knives are one of over a dozen prohibited items and activities on Capitol Grounds, along with firearms, mace, ammunition and other items.
In the days leading up to the rally, DC Police posted signage in the area of the rally that stated: “All firearms prohibited within 1000 feet of this sign.”
Sep 18, 1:11 pm
Rally organizer lays out ‘ground rules’
Rally organizer Matt Braynard laid out “some ground rules” at the start of the protest, urging the crowd to be respectful of law enforcement.
“There are uniformed officers here who I demand that you respect, you are kind to, you’re respectful to and you’re obedient to,” he said. “They’re here to keep us safe.”
He condemned the violence of the insurrection while calling for transparency in the investigation of the Jan. 6 riot.
“Anybody who engaged in that kind of violence or property destruction that day deserves to be tried with a speedy trial,” he said.
“This is about the many people who were there that day who have not been charged with violence, not been accused of assaulting a police officer or destroying property and the disparate treatment they received,” he continued.
At least 610 people have been federally charged in connection with the insurrection. About 60 remain behind bars, most of whom are suspects prosecutors and judges have identified as posing a credible threat to public safety based on either their alleged violent assaults against police or role in planning the riot.
-ABC News’ Alexander Mallin
Sep 18, 11:45 am
Counterprotesters arrive ahead of rally
Counterprotesters could be seen gathering near the Capitol ahead of Saturday’s rally, toting signs and flags.
One man had a hand-painted sign with the word “Loser” on it, which he told the Associated Press referred to former President Donald Trump.
A woman could also be seen carrying Black Lives Matter flags.
It is unclear how many protesters and counterprotesters will show up for the event, though organizers have secured a permit for 700 attendees.
Sep 18, 10:54 am
US Capitol Police swear in law enforcement partners ahead of rally
Hours before the rally is set to take place, U.S. Capitol Police swore in local, state and federal law enforcement partners Saturday morning, giving the officers jurisdiction in the areas surrounding the Capitol.
Capitol Police said Friday they are working with over 27 agencies from around the region to secure the event.
Officers from Fairfax County, Virginia, to Montgomery County, Maryland, are supposed to be on hand to help Capitol Police.
-ABC News’ Luke Barr
Sep 18, 10:12 am
Capitol Police prepared in case of violence but hopeful for peaceful event
U.S. Capitol Police are prepared for potential violence at the “Justice for J6” rally, though are hopeful Saturday’s event “remains peaceful,” U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Tom Manger said.
“There have been some threats of violence associated” with the rally, Manger told reporters at a press briefing Friday. “We have a strong plan in place to ensure that it remains peaceful and that if violence does occur, that we can stop it as quickly as possible.”
Capitol Police leadership has been working over the last eight months “to ensure that we don’t have a repeat of January 6,” Manger added.
Manger told ABC News’ Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott he is most concerned about violent conflicts between protesters and counterprotesters.
Fencing started going up around the Capitol complex earlier this week as part of an “enhanced security posture” to shield the Capitol from any violence, authorities said.
