(LA.) — Hurricane Ida battered Louisiana as a fierce Category 4 storm on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, bringing a new wave of devastation to the South.
Ida made landfall in Louisiana twice, first near Port Fourchon before noon local time and again two hours later in Lafourche Parish, obliterating neighborhoods and turning clear roads into rivers.
Ida appears to be less lethal than Katrina, which hit as a Category 3, claimed more than 1,800 lives and caused more than $100 billion in damage.
So far, three deaths have been attributed to Ida: a 60-year-old man in Ascension Parish died Sunday when a tree fell on a home, a motorist drowned in New Orleans, and a third person died in Jefferson Parish.
In Mississippi, two people died and at least 10 others were injured when a part of a highway near Lucedale gave out and sent vehicles plunging into a hole. Mississippi Highway Patrol Cp. Cal Robertson said the inundating rain may have caused the collapse.
The storm dumped up to 15 inches of rain in some places like Rigolets-Slidell, Louisiana, and 13 inches in New Orleans. Ida also brought powerful winds gusts of over 100 mph in some regions.
Ida also knocked out power to more than 1 million homes and businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi — including all of New Orleans — and temporarily halted the city’s 911 emergency response system.
Over 1 million customers remain without power in Louisiana, as of Tuesday morning, according to poweroutage.us, as well as 55,000 in Mississippi and 7,000 in Alabama.
Officials in Jefferson Parish, home to 400,000 residents, warned it could be 21 days before power is restored.
Communities reeling from the destruction are now stranded without water. Some 18 water system outages have impacted over 312,000 customers and 14 boil water advisories are in place impacting over 329,000 people, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a press conference Monday evening.
Heat advisories are active in parts of Louisiana, threatening communities grappling with no electricity or access to air conditioning. The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory for southern Louisiana and Mississippi from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday.
Another element Katrina didn’t have is the COVID-19 crisis. Some Louisiana hospitals pushed to the brink with an influx of coronavirus cases were forced to evacuate due to physical damage, water and electrical issues.
The Louisiana Department of Health told ABC News at least 11 hospitals had evacuations on some level and Terrebonne General Health System’s evacuation is still underway.
At least 39 medical facilities were operating on generator power, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said, Associated Press reported.
The state fire marshal office’s leading task force of about 900 individuals from 15 different states is conducting search and rescue missions with local responders. Some 5,000 National Guard members are also on the ground.
Edwards said at least 671 were rescued by Monday afternoon, with some desperate locals fleeing to their attics or roofs to wait for help.
Over 2,200 evacuees are staying in 41 shelters, Edwards said.
Jaclyn Hotard, the president of St. John the Baptist Parish, called Ida, “one of the worst natural disasters I’ve ever seen in St. John,” noting that “almost 800 people” have been rescued due to extreme flooding.
Entergy New Orleans, a major electricity company in the region, said a storm team of more than 20,000 and growing is assessing the vast damage and destruction across New Orleans and southeast Louisiana that toppled power poles and other equipment.
Over 3,600 FEMA employees have been deployed to Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas to help with meals, water and generators for power, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Monday.
Ida, now a tropical depression, is centered on the border of Missouri and Tennessee and threatens to bring deadly flash flooding to the Gulf coast overnight as it continues to move north and east. Almost 80 million in 17 states are on flash flood alert from Mississippi to Massachusetts.
(LONDON) — More than one year after stepping down from their royal roles and moving to America, Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, are “thriving,” according to Omid Scobie, co-author of Finding Freedom, a book about the Sussexes’ life together.
The couple, however, has not managed to heal the well-publicized rift between Harry and his family, particularly his father, Prince Charles, and brother, Prince William, according to Scobie.
“When we speak to sources close to the couple and also sources close to the royal family, there is this feeling that very little progress is being made,” Scobie told Good Morning America. “However, some feelings have subsided because time has done its things, so the door is very much open for those conversations to happen at some point.”
The last time Harry and William were seen together publicly was in July, when Harry traveled to the U.K. for the unveiling of a statue of their late mom, Princess Diana, on what would have been her 60th birthday.
The reportedly estranged brothers lost their mom 24 years ago Tuesday after a car crash in the Pont D’Alma Bridge in Paris. William and Harry were 15 and 12, respectively, at the time.
Describing what will need to happen for the family relationships to be repaired, Scobie added, “I think one thing was clear from both sides is that everyone feels that some accountability and ownership in each other’s roles in all of this has to be taken for people to move forward. Whether that happens, we shall see.”
Scobie, an ABC News contributor, and his co-author, Carolyn Durand, a former ABC News producer, have released a new paperback version of their book, Finding Freedom, which takes a close look at how life has changed for Harry and Meghan since they left royal life and moved to California.
“Who can forget Meghan saying, ‘It’s not enough to survive, you have to thrive,’ and I think this is that time where they’re thriving and they want to show the world how they’re doing it,” said Scobie, who describes Harry and Meghan as “very much in control” of their lives today.
“It’s not that they want to disappear or not be seen,” Scobie added, reflecting on Harry and Meghan’s desire for privacy. “It’s simply that they want to choose what they keep private and what they share with the world.”
Prince Harry and Meghan famously spilled the details of their exit from royal life last spring in a blockbuster interview with Oprah Winfrey.
The Sussexes — who spoke candidly in the interview about mental health struggles, family tensions and alleged racism they faced — were “desperate to get their story out there,” according to Scobie.
“It was the one thing they weren’t allowed to do, you know, that never complain, never explain mentality, or the mantra of the royal family, applied to them as well,” said Scobie. “So any time that they wanted to speak up, whether it’s to correct the story in the tabloids or to simply put their feelings and thoughts out there, the answer was always no.”
Once Harry and Meghan were on their own, “it was very much the time being now for them to actually speak up and try and speak to some of those moments that many of us perhaps didn’t understand over the last couple of years,” explained Scobie.
“There was this feeling that the couple had walked away from the monarchy because they just wanted more. They wanted to earn money in a different way,” he said. “But actually what we heard was a story that helped us understand why they were so unhappy within that space as well, not only dealing with racism, but having their mental health suppressed or ignored by certain quarters of the institution.”
“Those are things that are untenable for anyone, but we just didn’t know at the time it was happening [that’s what] was going on behind palace walls,” Scobie added.
In Finding Freedom, the authors say it was the courtiers who were fiercely protective of the royal institution and who mishandled Meghan and Harry, who is sixth in line to the throne.
“Those that work for the institution of the monarchy have one job, and that is to sort of uphold the values of the crown and maintain the image of the crown,” said Scobie. “The focus is always going to be on the crown, and Harry and Meghan found themselves victim to that many times over because, ultimately, they are not the crown.”
Harry and Meghan, already parents to a son, Archie, welcomed their second child, a daughter named Lilibet “Lili” Diana Mountbatten-Windsor, in June.
The family of four lives near Santa Barbara, California, where Harry and Meghan have continued to grow their production company and charitable organization, Archewell.
“One thing that was said to me very early on when the couple met was this is a couple that want to change the world in whatever way they can, they just need to figure out how,” said Scobie. “And I think what we’re seeing right now is them having figured it out.”
“The Sussexes are clearly in a new chapter. I feel like we’ve told as much as this story as we can, and they’re clearly in control of their narrative,” he added. “Now I think that when and if we hear more of their journey towards healing these family relations and the issues that they’ve faced, it’s going to be from them themselves.”
(New York) — This year, 17 children have already died after being left in hot cars. Since 1990, more than a thousand children have lost their lives. But a new technology on the market is aiming to prevent these tragedies.
The potentially life-saving innovation is an alarm in the 2022 Genesis GV70 that, according to the manufacturer, sounds as quickly as 10 seconds. Hidden inside the roof above the back seat is a radar that Genesis says can detect a child even if the only movement is a soft breath.
Dr. Emily Thomas, an automotive safety engineer with Consumer Reports, showed ABC News how the child detection system works with her own 4-year-old son, Micah.
“You want something that is more fine-tuned and able to detect even those small motions that we’re making just by being a human, by breathing and our chest moving,” Thomas said.
She instructed her son Micah to stay as still as he could in his car seat, started the car as if driving away and then turned it off as if she’s reached her destination. She then got out of the vehicle, closed the door and locked it.
Even with Micah staying still and wearing a mask, the alarm went off in 20 seconds.
The system will also send the driver a notification on their phone if they have the Genesis app downloaded.
But it doesn’t come without drawbacks.
“The biggest shortcoming is that the system only works once the vehicle has been locked,” Thomas said.
Other manufacturers like GM and Ford have also unveiled occupant alert systems, but the rear door has to be opened at some point during the trip to activate it.
The infrastructure bill before Congress would make hot car alert systems mandatory in all new cars.
“That is really what is needed to put an end to these terrible and unthinkable tragedies,” Janette Fennell, founder and president of KidsandCars.Org, told ABC News. “Cars can now be made with a technology that’s only $10 to $20 and it will save lives.”
Thomas explained that even if you don’t have a new car that has these systems, that there are things you can do now as a parent or caregiver to prevent these deaths.
“If I could tell parents and caregivers three things that they could do right now, even without this kind of technology, it would be first, create a routine where every single car ride, even if your child’s not with you, you check the backseat,” she said.
She recommends placing an object of yours in the back seat such as a phone, wallet or jacket — anything that you will need at the end of your trip.
“If you create that routine, you’re teaching your brain to always check the back, regardless of whether your child is there or not,” Thomas said.
Secondly, she says to create a visual reminder in the front seat when your child’s with you by putting a toy or a pacifier near you.
“We might think that we don’t need that,” she explained. “But our brains work very efficiently and at the base level, it recognizes routine. It puts us into muscle memory mode. And we just do the thing that we’re going to be doing and we always do. So changes in routine are often the cases where these situations happen.”
Her last tip is to always keep your vehicle locked at home and your keys out of reach.
“This helps to prevent that gained access scenario,” Thomas said. “And even if you don’t have kids, be a good neighbor, keep your vehicles locked and your keys out of reach. The kids in your neighborhood can get trapped inside your car.”
Major General Chris Donahue, commander of the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division, XVIII Airborne Corps, boards a C-17 cargo plane at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. Maj. Gen. Donahue is the final American service member to depart Afghanistan, Aug. 30, 2021. – U.S. Central Command
(KABUL, Afghanistan) — Chaos enveloped Kabul after Afghanistan’s government collapsed and the Taliban seized control. Now with the U.S. military withdrawal complete, America’s 20-year campaign ends as it began: under Taliban rule.
Officials said the terror group ISIS-K carried out what the Pentagon called a “complex attack” outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Thursday, killing at least 13 American service members and wounding 20, among scores of Afghan casualties.
When President Joe Biden sat down with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos for an exclusive one-on-one interview at the White House, the president’s first interview since the withdrawal from Afghanistan, he warned of the threat of attacks on the ground and said he did not see a way to withdraw from Afghanistan without “chaos ensuing.”
Here are the latest developments. All times Eastern.
Aug 31, 11:57 am
Harris presides over Senate passage of bill assisting Americans fleeing Afghanistan
Vice President Kamala Harris gaveled in a pro forma session of the Senate on Tuesday morning, to enable the passage of a bill that will help with the repatriation of Americans coming from Afghanistan, according to a White House aide.
The bill provides emergency, temporary assistance for Americans returning from Afghanistan. It was passed without any objection at roughly 10:30 a.m. and will now head to the president’s desk since it originated in and already passed the House.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday there is still a “small number of Americans — under 200, and likely closer to 100 — who remain in Afghanistan and want to leave.”
Aug 31, 10:18 am
Taliban spokesperson congratulates nation on ‘freedom,’ American defeat
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told Taliban soldiers at a press conference hours after the last U.S. soldiers left the airport in Kabul that they had secured victory for the whole of the Afghan nation.
“Due to the sincerity, perseverance, and patience of our elders, we gained our freedom. I congratulate all of you and our nation on this freedom, and I hope that Afghanistan will never be occupied and that it will be free, prosperous, and the home of Afghans, and that there will be an Islamic government,” he said, according to a translation of his remarks from Reuters.
Mujahid said the Taliban wanted to sustain good relations with the rest of the world, that Afghanistan was not a country for occupying forces, and that Americans were defeated and could not achieve their goals.
“The nation has suffered a lot, and they have been repressed because of the occupation, have seen problems for 20 years, and can no longer tolerate misbehavior. Therefore, I call on all our militaries to treat the people well because the people have the right to peace, to unite, and we are the servants of the nation, not to dominate the people,” he said.
Aug 31, 10:04 am
Biden to defend Afghanistan withdrawal in speech to nation
President Biden is expected to defend his decision on Afghanistan when he speaks at 2:45 p.m. from the White House — a day after the last U.S. troops left in accordance with his self-imposed deadline but also while other Americans who wanted to leave were left behind to deal with an uncertain fate.
In an exclusive interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan offered more defense for the administration’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal, perhaps foreshadowing Biden’s remarks this afternoon.
Though Stephanopoulos pressed him for details on the plan to evacuate the remaining Americans, which Secretary of State Antony Blinken said is “under 200,” Sullivan repeated they will use “every available diplomatic means with the economic leverage that we have,” but he did attempt to take credit for the successful evacuations — and even pinned some of the blame on the remaining Americans who weren’t able to make it out.
“We do believe that there is an important dimension of humanitarian assistance that should go directly to the people of Afghanistan.”
“We got out between 5,500 and 6,000 people — Americans from Afghanistan — we got out 97 or 98% of those on the ground and the small number who remain, we contacted repeatedly over the course of two weeks to come to the airport to come to a rally point. 5,500 or more did that,” Sullivan said.
In response to criticism from many Republicans lawmakers like Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, Sullivan contended that only the president, as commander in chief, knows what it is to make these hard decisions.
“Those criticizing are not the ones who have to sit in the Situation Room and make the hard calls about the threats that we face and the objectives we’re trying to obtain and President Biden made that hard call and it is a call he believes will ultimately serve the interests of our people, all of our citizens and our country,” he said.
He also insisted aid will not be given to the Taliban unless they adhere to international obligations.
“It will be about whether they follow through on their commitments, their commitments to safe passage for Americans and Afghan allies. Their commitment to not allow Afghanistan to be a base from which terrorists can attack the United States or any other country,” Sullivan said.
Aug 30, 9:19 pm
Taliban wield American-supplied equipment, uniforms after withdrawal
Moments after the last U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan, Taliban fighters entered the Kabul airport, wielding American-supplied weapons, equipment and even uniforms.
Aug 30, 8:59 pm
Military releases image of last soldier out of Afghanistan
U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue, of the 82nd Airborne Division, was the last American service member to depart Afghanistan, according to Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command.
“On the last plane out was General Chris Donahue, the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division and my ground commander, and he was accompanied by our — our charge d’affaires, Ambassador Ross Wilson, so they came out together,” McKenzie said at the Pentagon briefing. “So the state and defense team came out on the last aircraft and were in fact the last people to step on the ground.”
Aug 30, 8:04 pm
US engaging Taliban, but not recognizing it
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. will continue to engage the Taliban going forward — engagement that will be “driven by one thing only — our vital national interest.”
“The Taliban seeks international legitimacy and support. Our message is any legitimacy and any support will have to be earned,” he said. “The Taliban can do that by meeting commitments and obligations on freedom of travel; respecting the basic rights of the Afghan people, including women and minorities; upholding its commitments on counter-terrorism; not carrying out reprisal violence against those who choose to stay in Afghanistan; and forming an inclusive government that can meet the needs and reflect the aspirations of the Afghan people.”
But the Taliban have already violated many of those — denying freedom of travel to some, violating their commitments on counter-terrorism, carrying out reprisal violence and more.
Aug 30, 7:37 pm
Commitment to Afghans who worked with US ‘has no deadline’: Blinken
For Afghans who worked alongside the U.S. who wanted to leave but weren’t able to get out, the U.S. would continue to try to help them, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in remarks Monday evening.
“Our commitment to them has no deadline,” he said.
To that end, he thanked Qatar and Turkey for trying to make the Kabul airport operational soon, allowing safe passage to these people.
“This would enable a small number of daily charter flights, which is a key for anyone who wants to depart from Afghanistan moving forward,” Blinken said. “We’re also working to identify ways to support Americans, legal permanent residents and Afghans who have worked with us to depart via land routes.”
But he tempered expectations.
“We have no illusion that any of this will be easy,” Blinken said. “Or rapid. This will be an entirely different phase from the evacuation that just concluded. It will take time to work through a new set of challenges.”
Aug 30, 5:01 pm
Number of Americans left in Afghanistan in the ‘low 100s’
There are still Americans left in Afghanistan that the United States is trying to get out of the country, Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, said.
“I believe our Department of State is going to work very hard to allow any American citizens that are left, and we think the citizens that were not brought outnumber in the low — very low 100s,” McKenzie said. “I believe that we’re going to be able to get those people out.”
There were no evacuees left at the airport when the last U.S. flight left, he said.
McKenzie also said the U.S. would also “negotiate very hard, and very aggressively, to get our other Afghan partners out.”
Aug 30, 4:35 pm
All US troops have departed Afghanistan: Pentagon
All U.S. troops have departed Afghanistan, according to the Department of Defense, concluding America’s military ground presence there and its longest war.
Gen. Frank McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command, made the announcement from the headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base, in Tampa, Florida, after being introduced in the Pentagon Briefing Room by press secretary John Kirby.
Acknowledging that the withdrawal has been completed, McKenzie said the last U.S. military plane has cleared Afghan airspace.
He said that the U.S. military’s 20-year mission in Afghanistan is over.
(NEW YORK) — Ida is barreling through Louisiana after making landfall in the state as a powerful Category 4 hurricane on Sunday afternoon.
It was one of the strongest hurricanes on record — by both wind speed and pressure — to roar ashore in Louisiana.
Ida, now a tropical storm, is hitting on the 16-year anniversary of Katrina, a Category 3 hurricane that ravaged the Gulf Coast. Hurricane Katrina unleashed a series of events, taking the lives of more than 1,800 people and leaving more than $100 billion worth of damage in its wake.
Here are the latest developments. All times Eastern:
Aug 30, 10:13 pm
Almost 800 rescued in St. John the Baptist Parish
Officials with St. John the Baptist Parish held a press conference Monday night, saying, “almost 800 people” have been rescued after extreme flooding due to Hurricane Ida.
“This is one of the worst natural disasters I’ve ever seen in St. John,” Parish President Jaclyn Hotard said.
Remarkably, Hotard said there have been no reported fatalities in the parish from the storm.
“All of the missions were successful,” Hotard said. “Every call that came in for someone to be rescued out of their home, they have been rescued out of their home.”
The hard-hit town of Laplace is in St John the Baptist Parish.
Aug 30, 8:55 pm
Tulane cancels in-person learning until October, sets up Houston hub for students
Tulane University announced Monday night that it would cancel all in-person classes until Oct. 6.
The campus is closed and all classes will be canceled until Sept. 13, the university tweeted. The semester began last week.
The school is establishing a hub in Houston to provide food and lodging at Tulane’s expense for students until they can get flights home.
“Beginning tomorrow at 10AM, we will evacuate all remaining students (undergraduate & graduate; in-residence & off-campus) to Houston via bus,” the school tweeted.
Emergency funds will also be available for students, according to Tulane.
Aug 30, 8:18 pm
3rd storm-related death confirmed
Deano Bonano, a councilman for District 2 in Jefferson Parish, told ABC News that there has been one confirmed fatality in his parish from Hurricane Ida.
Details about the death and the identity of the victim weren’t immediately available.
Aug 30, 8:08 pm
20,000 workers out assessing damage, restoring power
An anticipated storm team of more than 20,000 and growing has begun assessing Ida’s damage and restoring power, according to Louisiana’s utility companies.
Damage assessment could take several days, since many areas are currently inaccessible either by roadways, officials at Entergy Louisiana said Monday afternoon.
While 90% of customers will be restored sooner, customers in the hardest-hit areas should plan for the possibility of experiencing extended power outages, according to Entergy.
“This will be a marathon, not a sprint,” Deanna Rodriguez, Entergy New Orleans’ president and CEO said in a statement.
(TAMPA, Fla.) — When it came to announcing that all U.S. troops had left Afghanistan, concluding America’s military ground presence there — and after 20 years the end to America’s longest war — word came not from President Joe Biden, who set the deadline, but from the top general overseeing the rushed and dangerous evacuation.
Gen. Frank McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command, spoke to reporters from his headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base, in Tampa, Florida.
“I’m here to announce the completion of our withdrawal from Afghanistan and the end of the military mission to evacuate American citizens, third-country nationals and vulnerable Afghans,” he said, appearing on a television screen in the Pentagon Briefing Room.
To mark the moment for history, McKenzie noted the exact time the last U.S. military plane had cleared the skies over the land where the U.S. had spent so much time, money, and most of all, American blood.
“The last C-17 lifted off from Kabul airport this afternoon at 3:29 p.m. East Coast Time and the last manned aircraft is now clearing airspace above Afghanistan,” he said, which would have one minute before midnight in Kabul.
“Tonight’s withdrawal signifies both the end of the military component of the evacuation, but also the end of the nearly 20-year mission that began in Afghanistan shortly after Sept. 11 2001. It’s a mission that brought Osama Bin Laden to justice, along with many was Al Qaeda co-conspirators, and it was not — it was not a cheap mission,” he said.
The cost, in American lives, he said, was 2,461 U.S. service members killed and more than 20,000 wounded, including the 13 service members killed and at least 20 wounded in Thursday’s ISIS-K suicide bomber attack outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.
“No words from me could possibly capture the full measure of sacrifices and accomplishments of those who served, nor the emotions they’re feeling at this moment. But I will say that I’m proud that both my son and I have been a part of it,” McKenzie said.
And while the military prides itself on leaving no one behind, McKenzie said Americans in “the very low hundreds,” who had wanted to leave, couldn’t get to the airport.
“There is a lot of heartbreak associated with this departure,” McKenzie said. “We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out. But I think if we stayed another ten days, we would not get everybody out that wanted to get out. It’s a tough situation,” McKenzie said.
He said that in the five final flights that took off, no Americans made it on board. The U.S. had continued to reach out to Americans still there, he said, and the military was “prepared to bring them on,” but none made it.
“While the military evacuation is complete, the diplomatic mission to ensure additional U.S. citizens and Afghans who want to leave continues,” he said.
It’s unclear what the evacuation picture will look like now that the U.S. military is gone. McKenzie repeated the U.S. is working with international partners to pressure the Taliban to ensure safe passage for those who want to leave, but the Taliban have also said at recent press conferences that they do not want Afghans to take their talents out of the country.
Biden, who has long opposed the war in Afghanistan, stuck to his decision to withdraw troops by the end of the month as the U.S. approaches 20 years since the Sept. 11 attacks, despite pressure from lawmakers and other allied nations to extend the mission.
The president did not speak on Monday, instead releasing a written statement following McKenzie’s remarks thanking commanders and service members for completing the withdrawal on schedule and “with no further loss of American lives” and praising the evacuation effort as “the largest airlift in US history.”
He said he would address the American people on Tuesday on his decision not to extend the U.S. military’s presence.
“For now, I will report that it was the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs and of all of our commanders on the ground to end our airlift mission as planned,” he said in the statement, although military leaders had lobbied Biden earlier this year to leave a residual U.S. force in Afghanistan to support the Afghan army and government.
He closed by listing the names of the 13 service members in last week’s attack “who lost their lives last week to save tens of thousands.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in remarks Monday following a virtual meeting with allied nations on Afghanistan, announced the U.S. Embassy in Kabul was moved to Doha, Qatar.
“A new chapter of America’s engagement with Afghanistan has begun — one in which we’ll lead with diplomacy. The military mission has ended, new diplomatic mission has begun,” he said.
Blinken said that the exit of U.S. diplomats was the “prudent” step to take because of the security threat.
Ambassador John Bass — the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan who returned to Kabul to oversee the evacuation operation — will lead an ongoing effort to get Americans, Afghans and other foreigners out of Afghanistan in the weeks to come, Blinken announced.
“We will continue our relentless efforts to help Americans, foreign nationals and Afghans leave Afghanistan if they choose,” Blinken said.
Overall, Blinken said he believes there is still a “small number of Americans — under 200, and likely closer to 100 — who remain in Afghanistan and want to leave.”
Even for those who have said they want to stay, Blinken said, the U.S. would still work to get them out if they changed their minds.
He also pledged to the Afghans who worked alongside the U.S., who wanted to leave but were unable to get out, the U.S. would continue to try to help them.
“Our commitment to them has no deadline,” he said.
He did temper expectations.
“We have no illusion that any of this will be easy,” Blinken said. “Or rapid. This will be an entirely different phase from the evacuation that just concluded. It will take time to work through a new set of challenges.”
Following the Pentagon’s announcement, GOP lawmakers blasted Biden for withdrawing troops despite not having all Americans evacuated with Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., calling the evacuation a “national disgrace” and a “direct result of President Biden’s cowardice and incompetence.”
Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also said in a statement that Biden “will forever be remembered for leaving American citizens and U.S. legal permanent residents behind and in harm’s way in Afghanistan.”
The end of the war
In the final days, as the U.S. was set to withdraw forces, the Taliban seized and overtook the presidential palace in Kabul on Aug. 15 after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled his home country for the United Arab Emirates, leading to the collapse of the Afghan government.
The Pentagon sent in 6,000 troops, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul was evacuated and chaos has since enveloped the capital city, bringing the 20-year war to a grim end.
Since Aug. 14, U.S. military aircraft have evacuated more than 79,000 civilians from Hamid Karzai International Airport, including 6,000 Americans and more than 73,500 third-country nationals and Afghan civilians, including Special Immigrant Visa holders, consular staff, at-risk Afghans and their families, McKenzie said on Monday.
In total, U.S. and coalition aircraft combined to evacuate more than 123,000 civilians.
ISIS-K, an affiliate of the Islamic State in Afghanistan and a sworn enemy of both the U.S. and the Taliban, claimed responsibility for attacks on American forces amid heightened fears fighters will force Afghanistan to break out into another civil war.
Over the weekend, the U.S. struck two ISIS-K targets in Afghanistan, including a person it said was involved in planning future attacks.
An Afghan health official reported that in one of those strikes, just hours before the U.S. would end its longest war, at least six Afghan civilians were also killed, including four children.
(NEW YORK) — From popular sayings like mommy juice, wine down, rose all day and happy hour to T-shirts that read “Mama needs wine,” the marketing of alcohol towards women in America is omnipresent.
And while women have historically consumed less alcohol than men, that trend is changing, increasingly to the detriment of women’s health, data shows.
The increases in alcohol consumption, binge drinking, and alcohol-related health issues are largely driven by women in their 30s and 40s. Over the past 20 years, as alcohol consumption among women has increased, the rates of death involving alcohol increased 85% among women, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).
And this spring, amid the coronavirus pandemic, doctors across the country warned of anecdotal evidence showing increases in the number of hospitalizations and deaths caused by alcohol-related liver disease over the past year, particularly among young women.
Women have increased their consumption of alcohol during the coronavirus pandemic, data shows.
The increase in drinking among women comes as research shows that even one alcoholic drink per day can contribute to an increased risk of breast cancer for women. Women are also, research shows, at greater risk than men for health risks like alcohol-related cardiovascular diseases, liver disease and alcohol use disorder.
While the impacts of marketing and societal pressures have combined to make alcohol a common topic among women, talking honestly about how much they may be drinking and how it is affecting their bodies is still taboo, according to Dr. Jennifer Ashton, ABC News chief medical correspondent and a board-certified OBGYN.
“This is something that is really, really ripe with questions, emotions, myths, misconceptions, and unfortunately, stigma and taboo,” said Ashton. “There is a taboo about alcohol for women that is oftentimes not spoken about at all, or if it is spoken about, it’s whispered about.”
“Alcohol is, in fact, a type of drug, and yet, it is socially acceptable in our country, in our society, in our culture,” she added. “That can set up a potentially precarious situation, or relationship, for anyone.”
Here are six things women should know and talk about with their friends when it comes to alcohol, according to Ashton.
1. Serving size matters.
For women, a moderate alcohol intake per week is defined as seven servings of alcohol or less, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
One serving of alcohol is defined as five ounces for wine and just one-and-a-half ounces for hard alcohol, far less than what is typically served in bars, restaurants and at home.
“You can do this experiment for yourself at home with water or wine, but let’s start with water,” explained Ashton. “You can take water, pour it into your wine glass to the amount that you think that you would serve yourself.”
“If you were having a glass of rose, for example, and then pour that water into a measuring cup, chances are it is going to be significantly more than five ounces. It might even be twice that amount,” she said. “So what you think is one drink, i.e., one serving, could actually be one-and-a-half or even two servings.”
Ashton continued, “It doesn’t matter whether it is one [alcoholic drink] a day or all on the weekends or spread out over a couple of days. If you’re drinking let’s say a margarita that’s made with three ounces of tequila, because it’s served in a giant, supersize, pretty glass, your seven drinks might actually be 21 drinks, 21 servings, and that qualifies as heavy alcohol consumption for a woman.”
For women, even eight or more drinks qualify as heavy alcohol consumption.
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism shares this graphic on how much alcohol a drink contains.
Ashton said that participating in Dry January — not consuming any alcohol for the month of January — for several years herself has taught her to keep a “mental tally” of the servings of alcohol she has per week.
“Now I kind of keep a mental tally of my servings per week so that I’m under that seven number that’s recommended, or acceptable, in the medical literature for alcohol consumption for women,” she said. “I just am aware of it very much like I would be aware of spending habits or my cardio exercise.”
2. Drinking alcohol can cause cancer.
Drinking alcohol is listed by the Department of Health and Human Services as a known human carcinogen.
“That means it’s known to be a contributing agent in the formation or development of various types of cancers,” said Ashton, noting that those cancers include cancer of the esophagus, liver cancer, colon cancer and breast cancer.
Women who consume about one alcoholic drink per day have a 5 to 9% higher chance of developing breast cancer than women who do not drink at all, and that risk increases for every additional drink a woman has per day, according to NIAAA.
3. Alcohol affects women differently than men.
Men can drink double the servings of alcohol each week and still stay within the moderate alcohol intake limits because their bodies metabolize alcohol differently than women, according to Ashton.
“Generally, women are smaller, the body fat distribution in a woman is different and their metabolism is different,” Ashton said. “So in general, two drinks for a woman could give you the blood alcohol level equivalent of one drink for a man.”
“That’s [why] it’s important to take a gender-specific approach to this issue and not lump men and women together,” she said.
4. The health effects of alcohol are worse than a hangover.
While women may talk or joke about the hangovers they have after drinking too much alcohol, what often goes unsaid, or even unknown, is what alcohol is doing inside their bodies.
“When you look at the possible effects of excessive alcohol consumption or heavy alcohol consumption for women, it ranges from head to toe,” said Ashton, citing health consequences including brain atrophy, cognitive issues, weight gain, negative effects on the heart and cardiovascular system, increased risk of alcoholic liver disease and fatty liver, increased risk of cancers and increased risks of accidents based on alcohol intoxication.
And just as women metabolize alcohol differently than men, they also face more serious health consequences, research shows.
Women are more susceptible to alcohol-related heart disease than men; alcohol misuse produces brain damage more quickly in women than in men; women may be more susceptible than men to alcohol-related blackouts, or gaps in memory; and women who regularly misuse alcohol are more likely than men who drink the same amount to develop alcoholic hepatitis, a potentially deadly condition, according to the NIAAA.
“We have to remember that almost anything, if done to excess, has the potential to be bad for us,” said Ashton.
5. Not all women may safely consume alcohol.
For women especially, there are times in their lives when it is not medically safe to consume alcohol.
Women who should completely avoid alcohol are those who are under age 21, the legal drinking age, those who are pregnant and those taking medications that can interact negatively with alcohol.
When it comes to pregnancy, research has proven that any amount of alcohol intake at any point in pregnancy can be harmful, according to the CDC. Still, CDC data shows that as many as one in nine women report drinking while pregnant.
Doctors advise against drinking while pregnant because alcohol in the mom’s blood passes through the umbilical cord to the baby and can cause everything from miscarriage and stillbirth and can increase the risk of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders which can cause physical, cognitive, and behavioral problems in children, according to the CDC.
Drinking during pregnancy is also associated with an increased risk of premature, or early, birth.
6. There are flags women can look for to know when drinking is too much.
“At this point, it’s pretty well known that it was a strategic marketing campaign on the part of the alcohol industry to target women, in particular moms, to make alcohol consumption cooler, more hip, more current,” said Ashton. “In terms of the medical, physical, psychological and societal implications of that, I think it’s really up to women that we have to be able to look in the mirror and ask ourselves, ‘Why am I reaching for this glass? Why am I reaching for this drink?'”
As a physician, Ashton said a red flag for her would be if a woman is answering that question all the time, “I feel so tense. I feel so stressed. I need it to help calm me down.”
Another “glaring red flag” for Ashton is if women find themselves drinking alone, looking to drink in more covert or hidden or cryptic environments or in situations where they’re hiding it from people.
For both of those red flag cases, Ashton suggests seeking medical help.
A “pink flag” for Ashton as a physician is if a woman answered the question of why she reached for an alcoholic drink by saying, “‘Because I feel like I deserve it. Because it’s been a tough year-and-a-half. Because it’s just the low-hanging fruit for me, and it’s better than doing something else.”
“That may be a time to say, ‘Is there something else going on emotionally, psychologically, in your environment, behaviorally, that could be targeted so that there are less potentially negative behaviors involved,” she said.
The good news for women is that help is available, and it starts by talking about their drinking, be it with a doctor, with a friend, with a loved one or with a mental health professional, according to Ashton.
“I can’t encourage women enough to speak up and seek help,” she said. “It takes massive courage. It can be incredibly scary. But the health consequences will sneak up on someone who is consuming too much alcohol.”
Describing the dangers of waiting too long to get help for drinking, Ashton continued, “Ultimately, it’s like a marble rolling off the edge of a table. Once it gets to that edge, it’s much harder to stop it.”
If you or someone close to you needs help for a substance use disorder, call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) or visit FindTreatment.gov, SAMHSA’s Behavioral Health Treatment Services Locator.
Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department on Monday alerted several federal judges that an outspoken attorney representing at least 17 alleged rioters charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection is reportedly hospitalized and possibly incapacitated after testing positive for COVID-19, leaving the bulk of his cases effectively at a “standstill” and his clients “without counsel.”
The California-based attorney, John Pierce, currently represents more defendants charged in the riot than any other defense lawyer — including multiple alleged members of the Proud Boys group and a number of individuals accused of assaulting law enforcement officers.
Pierce, whose firm has previously represented former President Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s former campaign adviser George Papadapoulos, had been fundraising for his efforts defending accused rioters through a new organization he set up.
But in a filing made Monday in multiple Jan. 6 cases in which Pierce is involved, the Justice Department said that Pierce has been unresponsive to the government for a week, and that phone numbers for his practice have been disconnected.
In recent weeks, an associate at Pierce’s law firm, Ryan Marshall, has appeared in Pierce’s place during multiple hearings, where he offered conflicting reports about the status of Pierce’s health.
Marshall told a judge during an Aug. 25 hearing that Pierce was on a ventilator suffering from COVID-19 and was nonresponsive, a statement later contradicted by another colleague of Pierce’s who said he was hospitalized but had not contracted COVID-19. The next day Marshall told that same judge that he had not had any direct contact with Pierce, but that one of Pierce’s friends had told him Pierce was sick with COVID-19 while another one said he was not.
With Pierce’s condition unclear, some of his clients have begun to worry. Paul Rae, an alleged Proud Boy from Florida who has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts related to the riot, told ABC News on Monday he was “a bit concerned” about the situation after he learned of the government’s filing from the news. Pierce’s associate, however, subsequently reassured him on Monday evening that Pierce was not on a ventilator and was on the mend, Rae said.
“Unless I’m being lied to, I’m hearing ‘Don’t be concerned,'” Rae told ABC News. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
Prosecutors in Monday’s filing took issue with Marshall stepping in for Pierce, noting that Marshall is not a licensed attorney and is currently facing felony criminal fraud charges in a state court in Pennsylvania. Prosecutors told the judge they would no longer be corresponding with Marshall.
Earlier this month, one of Pierce’s clients had removed Pierce from his case. Ryan Samsel, who is charged with assaulting an officer on Jan. 6, directly called the judges’ chambers in July, according to his case docket, to say that he was removing Pierce. A person familiar with the call said Samsel expressed that he had been unable to get in contact with Pierce regarding his case.
ABC News repeatedly tried to reach Pierce, with no response. The office number listed on his website is disconnected, and a message on the cellphone number listed on his website says the number no longer belongs to him.
Pierce, 49, is a civil litigator from California with a degree from Harvard Law and partnerships at three white-shoe law firms on his resume. He first came to national prominence last summer after signing on to represent Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager accused of homicide during a violent night of protests following the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
“[Rittenhouse] did nothing wrong. He defended himself, which is a fundamental right of all Americans given by God and protected by law,” Pierce wrote in an August 2020 press release trumpeting his hiring by the Rittenhouse family. “Kyle now has the best legal representation in the country.”
Although Pierce appeared to have little known criminal trial experience, he helped galvanize public support for Rittenhouse, a high-school senior who quickly became a cause célèbre among conservatives, by heralding Rittenhouse as a modern-day militiaman at the start of a “Second American Revolution against Tyranny.”
“Kyle Rittenhouse will go down in American history alongside that brave unknown patriot who fired ‘The Shot Heard Round the World’ on Lexington Green on April 19, 1775,” Pierce proclaimed last summer in a since-deleted tweet.
Pierce has also espoused conspiratorial views related to the Jan. 6 riot, according to two emails obtained by ABC News. “THIS WHOLE THING WAS A … SET UP,” Pierce wrote in an email that was sent to a Listserv of D.C. lawyers representing Jan. 6 defendants and obtained by ABC News. “AND WE NEED TO WORK TOGETHER TO PROVE IT.”
Prior to his reported health issues, Pierce pushed conspiracy theories surrounding the insurrection on his Twitter account, where he also espoused anti-vaccination conspiracy theories.
Pierce’s emergence in the politically charged Rittenhouse case came just a few months after his previous law firm, Pierce Bainbridge, faced accusations of financial misconduct.
Pierce boasted to The American Lawyer in 2018 that the firm was “the fastest-growing law firm in the history of the world.”
“We’re looking for Navy Seal, Army Ranger types — really aggressive litigators who want to be on a great platform and litigate great cases,” Pierce told the publication of his efforts to challenge the dominance of the traditional titans of business litigation.
But after three years, nearly all of the firm’s roughly 70 attorneys had left as several lawsuits against Pierce and his firm brought accusations of financial misconduct and debts exceeding $60 million, according to court records.
Over the past two years, at least ten lawsuits have been filed against Pierce and his former firm, according to records from courts in Massachusetts, Texas, Arkansas, California and New York. The plaintiffs included a digital marketing company, legal support vendors, lenders, and a former law partner.
Last year, Pierce signed a “confession of judgment” in a New York court, acknowledging a debt of nearly $4 million to a merchant lender on a high-interest loan against his law firm’s assets and personally guaranteed by Pierce.
Pierce’s early representation of Rittenhouse earned him guest spots on conservative media outlets, which Pierce used to raise money for Rittenhouse’s legal defense and the teen’s $2 million bail. He assailed the charges against his client as a politically motivated rush to judgment.
“I think we’ve reached a watershed moment here in America,” Pierce told Breitbart Radio last year. “If this is not self-defense under these circumstances for Kyle Rittenhouse, then no one can defend themselves, and no one can defend this country.”
Last December, after Pierce filed a notice of appearance in Rittenhouse’s criminal case in Wisconsin, Kenosha County prosecutor Thomas Binger took the highly unusual step of advocating against Pierce’s request for admission to the criminal case, a procedural measure required of out-of-state lawyers that would typically be granted without objection.
In his seven-page filing, Binger cited numerous public statements by Pierce that Binger claimed could “materially prejudic[e]” the case, along with reports of the collapse of Pierce’s law firm earlier this year “under a cloud of debt,” and several lawsuits alleging Pierce defaulted on hundreds of thousands of dollars in business and personal loans.
Pierce’s “personal financial difficulties raise significant ethical concerns,” Binger wrote in the filing, contending that Pierce could “personally benefit” from his close ties to the “#FightBack Foundation,” a Texas organization co-founded by Pierce and lawyer Lin Wood. The organization raised money for Rittenhouse’s defense until last fall, when Pierce posted $2 million raised by the foundation to bail the teenager out of jail.
Though Pierce stepped down from the foundation board in September, Binger noted in his court filing that Pierce continued to urge his 32,500 Twitter followers to send donations for Rittenhouse.
“This creates a potential conflict of interest for Attorney Pierce,” Binger alleged in the court filing. “Given his own substantial personal debts, his involvement with an unregulated and opaque ‘slush fund’ provides ample opportunity for self-dealing and fraud. Money that should be held in trust for the defendant may instead be used to repay Attorney Pierce’s numerous creditors.”
In the wake of the opposition from the prosecutor, Pierce withdrew his application to represent Rittenhouse in the criminal case, without responding to the allegations raised in the prosecutor’s filing.
“So that it does not take Kyle’s supporters by surprise, effective immediately I am taking over all civil matters for Kyle including his future defamation claims,” Pierce wrote on Twitter after filing his notice of withdrawal. “I will also be orchestrating all fundraising for defense costs.”
A Wisconsin-based criminal defense attorney, Mark Richards, took over Rittenhouse’s criminal case, which is scheduled for trial in November.
Pierce was ultimately let go in February by Rittenhouse, whose family has since replaced Pierce with Robert Barnes, another California lawyer, to handle possible civil litigation after Rittenhouse’s trial concludes. Prior to joining the case, Barnes had publicly criticized virtually every move Pierce had made, including a failed attempt to challenge Rittenhouse’s extradition from Illinois to face the charges in Wisconsin.
“He created the narrative of this second American Revolution against tyranny, and that the Constitution allows for a 17-year-old to serve in a militia,” Barnes told ABC News. “Those things all seem to be things that came out of Pierce’s head rather than being based on any kind of conversations or consultation with the client. Kyle has nothing to do with militias.”
“Throughout the entire representation, John Pierce’s behavior elevated the interest of John Pierce over his client. And once that became crystal clear that he would just continue to do so, Kyle and his mom made the choice that they made to get rid of him,” Barnes said, adding that Pierce was “utterly unqualified for any role” in Rittenhouse’s defense.
Rittenhouse’s mother, Wendy, told ABC News earlier this year that Pierce seemed fixated on the potential for the family to shop their story and to reap a windfall from civil lawsuits.
“He would say, ‘You’re going to have a lawsuit. You’re going to be a millionaire. You’re not going to have to work anymore,'” she said. “‘And Kyle’s going to have books. He’s going to have movie deals of his life. He’s going to be a billionaire.'”
“All he did was talk about money, money, money, money,” she said. “To me, I don’t care about that. I care about Kyle’s freedom.”
Pierce’s termination from the case was made public in a Feb. 4 statement from the family-approved fundraising account, “FreeKyleUSA.” A few hours later, Pierce responded with a summation of his own performance in the high-profile case.
“John Pierce freed Kyle. John Pierce fought with every fiber of his being for Kyle,” he wrote in a tweet. “John Pierce wants nothing but for Kyle to be acquitted and live a healthy, happy life. John Pierce is ferociously loyal to all of his clients, including all former clients. Mission accomplished.”
(NEW YORK) — Jury selection for the trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes begins Tuesday in San Jose, California, following Holmes’s allegations of abuse against her former boyfriend and Theranos COO, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, that came out over the weekend.
Holmes is charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud stemming from a “multi-million-dollar scheme to defraud investors, and a separate scheme to defraud doctors and patients,” according to the Northern District of California United States Attorney’s Office.
The pair were originally charged together, but the trials were severed in January 2020 for a reason that was undisclosed until newly unsealed court documents revealed that Holmes alleged just seeing Balwani could trigger “debilitating PTSD symptoms.” Her team has also signaled that Holmes will likely be testifying at the trial, which would be hindered if Balwani were present.
One filing states that Holmes and Balwani “had an abusive intimate-partner relationship” and that Balwani had “psychological” and “emotional” control over Holmes, creating a pattern of “abuse and coercive control.”
The documents detail evidence that Holmes plans to introduce, including claims that Balwani controlled “what she ate, how she dressed, how much money she could spend, who she could interact with.” They allege Balwani “monitored her calls, text messages and emails and was physically violent — throwing hard, sharp objects at her, restricting her sleep and monitoring her movements.”
“The defense made this argument that Elizabeth has suffered so greatly at the hands of Balwani … and that therefore she couldn’t even maintain her composure physically at the trial. That’s a pretty devastating allegation to me,” criminal defense attorney Caroline Polisi told ABC News’ Rebecca Jarvis on “The Dropout: Elizabeth Holmes on Trial.”
ABC News reached out to Balwani and his counsel, but requests for comment were not returned.
Back in December of 2019, Holmes’s team shared that they intended to introduce expert evidence from clinical psychologist Dr. Mindy Mechanic, who specializes in the psychological consequences of violence against women. Her testimony will concern the alleged abuse Holmes claims to have suffered at the hands of Balwani. Court documents show that Mechanic evaluated Holmes for 14 hours and interviewed her parents and brother.
Balwani’s lawyer Jeffrey Coopersmith has called Holmes’s allegations “salacious and inflammatory.” He said the claims are “deeply offensive to Mr. Balwani, devastating personally to him.” Balwani denies all allegations of abuse.
One former Theranos employee told ABC News he finds the allegations hard to believe given what he witnessed at the company. “Did I see any of the alleged abuse toward Elizabeth? No. In fact he seemed to defer to her in public,” said Kevin Hunter. “And remember, when push came to shove, she fired him.”
Hunter, a lab consultant who worked with Walgreens to vet Theranos technology, also said it seemed clear to him that Holmes was in charge.
“Sunny [Balwani] was a distant second … she came up with the plans and the strategies and he helped execute them. He was the bad guy, but she ran the meetings. He rarely participated unless it had something to do with IT. … It was clearly the Elizabeth show. There’s no question about it,” Hunter told Jarvis on “The Dropout: Elizabeth Holmes on Trial.”
Legal experts say that the prosecution will be able to introduce evidence of Holmes’s behavior before Balwani joined the company and after leaving Theranos.
“They are really going to have to make an effort not to be perceived as victim blaming,” Polisi said, adding that the prosecution needs to acknowledge the alleged abuse inflicted on Holmes, “while simultaneously really maintaining their argument that it did not negate her state of mind, that she still knew that she was misleading investors.”
Holmes’s defense team fought to keep the documents sealed until after a jury was selected because of the anticipated media coverage, but the judge presiding over the case, United States District Judge Edward Davila, ultimately ruled it appropriate to unseal ahead of jury selection.
Approximately 200 potential jurors have filled out jury questionnaires from both the prosecution and the defense prior to selection. Both sides must agree on 12 jurors and five alternates.
Davila heavily edited the questionnaire originally proposed by the defense, cutting it nearly in half from 45 pages to 28 pages, according to court filings. Many of Davila’s changes were related to the specificity with which the defense was asking potential jurors about their media habits, court filings said.
For example, the defense originally presented potential jurors with a list of 46 different periodicals and magazines, which the judge removed.
“Rather than give them a list, I’ve taken and asked them to take the affirmative duty to inform us, what do you read? What do you watch? What do you listen to?” Davila explained in a pre-trial hearing in June.
Despite initial fears from Holmes’ defense team regarding the ability to find unbiased jurors due to the extensive media coverage of Holmes, more than half of the prospective jurors who have filled out questionnaires said they have never heard of Holmes, according to the government during a pre-trial hearing.
Potential jurors will be ushered in 50 at a time, and voir dire or jury examination will be held in three separate sessions.
“Jury selection really is one of the most, if not the most, important parts of the trial, because it only takes one juror to get that hung jury or get a not guilty verdict,” Polisi said.
“They [the defense] don’t want to let anybody in who may harbor feelings of resentment or ill will toward Elizabeth Holmes just based on reporting that they’ve read,” she said. “Their ideal person, perhaps is somebody who either A. doesn’t know much about this story, which is going to be hard to find, or B, actually feels some sense of fondness towards Elizabeth Holmes or has something in common.”
Many potential jurors have already been dismissed because of the amount of information they’ve consumed about Holmes. Her rise and fall captivated the country. She was the Stanford dropout who claimed to have created revolutionary blood testing technology that was poised to change the future of health care. Her company, Theranos, was once valued at nearly $10 billion, which, at the time, made her the youngest self-made female billionaire. She graced the covers of magazines, spoke at conferences and appeared on most major news outlets. But Holmes faced a massive fall from grace when insiders within the company exposed that the technology didn’t work.
It’s been more than three years since Holmes was charged with multiple counts of fraud, which could send her to prison for decades if convicted. Throughout it all, she has maintained her innocence and seemingly has been living life to the fullest.
She is married to hotel heir William “Billy” Evans, and the pair welcomed their first child, William Holmes Evans, on July 10. The announcement of her pregnancy during a pretrial hearing in March delayed her trial, which was previously delayed due to the pandemic, for the fourth time.
But now, 1,266 days since being charged, Holmes is going to trial.
Holmes and her counsel did not respond to ABC News’ repeated requests for comment.
Major General Chris Donahue, commander of the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division, XVIII Airborne Corps, boards a C-17 cargo plane at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. Maj. Gen. Donahue is the final American service member to depart Afghanistan, Aug. 30, 2021. – U.S. Central Command
(KABUL, Afghanistan) — Chaos enveloped Kabul after Afghanistan’s government collapsed and the Taliban seized control. Now with the U.S. military withdrawal complete, America’s 20-year campaign ends as it began: under Taliban rule.
Officials said the terror group ISIS-K carried out what the Pentagon called a “complex attack” outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Thursday, killing at least 13 American service members and wounding 20, among scores of Afghan casualties.
When President Joe Biden sat down with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos for an exclusive one-on-one interview at the White House, the president’s first interview since the withdrawal from Afghanistan, he warned of the threat of attacks on the ground and said he did not see a way to withdraw from Afghanistan without “chaos ensuing.”
Here are the latest developments. All times Eastern.
Aug 30, 9:19 pm
Taliban wield American-supplied equipment, uniforms after withdrawal
Moments after the last U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan, Taliban fighters entered the Kabul airport, wielding American-supplied weapons, equipment and even uniforms.
Aug 30, 8:59 pm
Military releases image of last soldier out of Afghanistan
U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue, of the 82nd Airborne Division, was the last American service member to depart Afghanistan, according to Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command.
“On the last plane out was General Chris Donahue, the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division and my ground commander, and he was accompanied by our — our charge d’affaires, Ambassador Ross Wilson, so they came out together,” McKenzie said at the Pentagon briefing. “So the state and defense team came out on the last aircraft and were in fact the last people to step on the ground.”
Aug 30, 8:04 pm
US engaging Taliban, but not recognizing it
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. will continue to engage the Taliban going forward — engagement that will be “driven by one thing only — our vital national interest.”
“The Taliban seeks international legitimacy and support. Our message is any legitimacy and any support will have to be earned,” he said. “The Taliban can do that by meeting commitments and obligations on freedom of travel; respecting the basic rights of the Afghan people, including women and minorities; upholding its commitments on counter-terrorism; not carrying out reprisal violence against those who choose to stay in Afghanistan; and forming an inclusive government that can meet the needs and reflect the aspirations of the Afghan people.”
But the Taliban have already violated many of those — denying freedom of travel to some, violating their commitments on counter-terrorism, carrying out reprisal violence and more.
Aug 30, 7:37 pm
Commitment to Afghans who worked with US ‘has no deadline’: Blinken
For Afghans who worked alongside the U.S. who wanted to leave but weren’t able to get out, the U.S. would continue to try to help them, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in remarks Monday evening.
“Our commitment to them has no deadline,” he said.
To that end, he thanked Qatar and Turkey for trying to make the Kabul airport operational soon, allowing safe passage to these people.
“This would enable a small number of daily charter flights, which is a key for anyone who wants to depart from Afghanistan moving forward,” Blinken said. “We’re also working to identify ways to support Americans, legal permanent residents and Afghans who have worked with us to depart via land routes.”
But he tempered expectations.
“We have no illusion that any of this will be easy,” Blinken said. “Or rapid. This will be an entirely different phase from the evacuation that just concluded. It will take time to work through a new set of challenges.”
Aug 30, 5:01 pm
Number of Americans left in Afghanistan in the ‘low 100s’
There are still Americans left in Afghanistan that the United States is trying to get out of the country, Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, said.
“I believe our Department of State is going to work very hard to allow any American citizens that are left, and we think the citizens that were not brought outnumber in the low — very low 100s,” McKenzie said. “I believe that we’re going to be able to get those people out.”
There were no evacuees left at the airport when the last U.S. flight left, he said.
McKenzie also said the U.S. would also “negotiate very hard, and very aggressively, to get our other Afghan partners out.”
Aug 30, 4:35 pm
All US troops have departed Afghanistan: Pentagon
All U.S. troops have departed Afghanistan, according to the Department of Defense, concluding America’s military ground presence there and its longest war.
Gen. Frank McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command, made the announcement from the headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base, in Tampa, Florida, after being introduced in the Pentagon Briefing Room by press secretary John Kirby.
Acknowledging that the withdrawal has been completed, McKenzie said the last U.S. military plane has cleared Afghan airspace.
He said that the U.S. military’s 20-year mission in Afghanistan is over.
