(WASHINGTON) — U.S. employers added a higher-than-expected 943,000 jobs last month, the Department of Labor said Friday, and the unemployment rate declined by a fraction of a percentage point to 5.4%.
A recent surge in virus cases in the U.S., propelled largely by the spread of the highly contagious delta variant, casts a shadow over the data collected in the earlier part of the month.
While the latest figures indicate the economic recovery is gaining steam, the unemployment rate still remains well above the pre-pandemic figure of 3.5% seen in February 2020.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Providence Police DepartmentProvidence Police Department
(PROVIDENCE, R.I.) — A woman has been arrested in connection to the brutal beating of another woman who was attacked by a mob of ATV riders and dirt bikers in Providence, Rhode Island, police said in a statement Thursday.
On Thursday evening, Providence Police detectives apprehended Shyanne Boisvert, 24, of North Providence, “related to the assault that occurred on Valley Street on August 3,” the police department said.
Providence Police were notified of Boisvert’s whereabouts by the Cranston Police Department, when she reported to their station regarding an unrelated matter, they said.
Boisvert was charged with one count of simple assault and one count of disorderly conduct. She will soon appear in court.
The investigation into the incident is ongoing.
On Tuesday night, a mob of about 10 ATV and dirt bike riders in Providence allegedly pulled a woman out of her car and beat her.
According to a copy of the police report obtained by ABC News, the 35-year-old victim had honked her horn at the group after they failed to move through two green lights.
As she drove away, some of them opened the driver’s side door, pulled her out of the car and began beating her on the street, the report said.
The incident was captured on a cellphone video which was obtained by Providence ABC affiliate WLNE.
It’s unclear as of now what role Boisvert played in the assault.
The incident is just the latest in a string of violent crimes that have taken place in Providence this year.
Last Friday, Providence City Council President John Igliozzi sent a letter to Gov. Dan McKee requesting that Rhode Island State Police troopers be deployed to the city to assist police in confronting the crime wave. Igliozzi also pointed out the lack of staffing in the local police department.
“As you know, the headlines regarding crime in the city of Providence over the last few weeks have been shocking — murders, drive-by shootings, stabbings, gang incidents and roving throngs of ATV and dirt bike riders terrorizing our neighborhoods,” Igliozzi wrote. “This wave of violent crime is unacceptable, and we need to act immediately to restore public safety and make our city’s residents once again feel safe walking and sitting outside in their own neighborhoods.”
(NEW YORK) — Life may be about to get tougher for the unvaccinated — and it’s not only because of their significantly increased risk of getting COVID-19 and becoming very sick.
A rising chorus of states, cities and private sector titans have implemented new vaccine requirements for their employees and patrons. It marks a new, less negotiable phase in the fight against the coronavirus, after months of cajoling and material goodies leading the vaccination campaign.
The new incentives aren’t financial. They draw motivation from immediate and tangible fears: of losing time to go get tested, losing a job, losing money or missing out on social events, as well as the ever more apparent pain of the pandemic hitting home through loss of life and loved ones. More than 97% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the country are unvaccinated, according to the White House COVID-19 Task Force.
Now, after months of vaccine rates tapering off, vaccination rates are heading back up with the recent surge of serious illness. On Thursday alone, the U.S. saw its highest vaccination numbers in over a month — 585,000 new vaccinations in a single day, the White House COVID-19 data director announced. Some of the most dramatic upticks in recent vaccinations have been in states with the highest surges in new cases and hospitalizations and some of the lowest vaccination rates.
“Watching more people dying in the ICU, kids getting sick? Yes, that motivates,” said Dr. Arthur Caplan, professor of bioethics and the founding head of New York University School of Medicine’s medical ethics division. “Free beer, fishing license, free marijuana, college tuition didn’t move many people to get vaccinated.”
Unvaccinated Americans must now weigh their own personal risk-benefit ratio: Take the vaccine or face restrictions.
“The carrots do not work much,” Caplan said. “Now, we’re seeing more pressure coming from the other side.”
That pressure is coming in the form of federal, state and local vaccine requirements.
Requirements that government employees get vaccinated or face regular testing, social distancing and masks were accompanied by a slew of major companies like Google, Facebook, Tyson Foods and Disney, which is the parent company of ABC News, now requiring the vaccine for their employees.
“I think we’ve taken significant steps to make it difficult to come back to work, or more difficult to come back to work, if you’re not vaccinated,” White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said.
The Biden administration has made clear there will be no federal mandate; but its recent lean-in to vaccine requirements marks a shift in tone, going from removing barriers to getting the vaccine to making it harder to move about “normal” life for those who choose not to get it.
“There’s a bit of a hassle factor that plays into whether or not people are willing to get an exemption,” Julie Morita, executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, told ABC. “And if it’s too difficult or more challenging, people might opt just to get vaccinated.”
As the NFL season gets into gear, the league informed clubs that it would not extend the season to accommodate a COVID-19 outbreak among unvaccinated players that leads to a game cancellation, the NFL Network reported, a stark turn from the season prior, when the league flexed the schedule to avoid missed games amid outbreaks. Additionally, players on both teams would forfeit pay for the lost contest, and the team responsible for the cancellation brought on by unvaccinated players would cover the financial losses and face potential disciplinary action.
Caplan suggests framing vaccination as the more appealing choice; opting out will make life harder.
New York is the first city in the country that will require proof of at least one dose of vaccination for some of the main modes of basic leisure — dining out inside, indoor entertainment and working out at the gym. All state employees will be required to get vaccinated or get tested weekly beginning Labor Day.
Major privately run hospitals in New York will impose a similar vaccine requirement. In internal emails obtained by ABC News, New York Presbyterian and Mount Sinai both notified staff that beginning in September, workers must show proof of vaccination or undergo weekly testing. State-run, patient-facing hospital workers will have no testing option.
“Please note that compliance — either by vaccination or exemption — will be required for your continued employment,” New York Presbyterian’s hospital president and vice president said in a letter to staff. “We want all of our team members to continue working with us, but we have to balance that with the imperative to protect our patients, employees and communities.”
The move earned protest from the largest health care union in the U.S. Members of the 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East said they shouldn’t have to be vaccinated to keep their jobs — especially if it risks losing front-line health workers at a time they’re most needed. That mirrored some national unions’ concerns about protecting individual freedoms — and not forcing their workers to pay for government-enforced testing.
Experts note there’s a fine line between requirements being “part of what’s going to nudge more people to get vaccinated,” as Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told ABC’s Start Here podcast, and pushing them away.
A full federal mandate might make hesitant and unvaccinated Americans “dig in their heels” further, Morita said.
“Generally, with mandates of any kind, you want to do everything else possible before you mandate something,” she said. “But when the vaccine is free, it’s accessible, and you’re still struggling, then mandates make sense. But you really want to give people the chance to do it on their own.”
The advent of more local mandates looms on the imminent horizon as soon as the vaccine is fully FDA-approved, which could come as soon as early September, a senior White House official familiar with the FDA approval process told ABC News.
Dr. Anthony Fauci called that moment a “game-changer,” one that will possibly provide more legal cover for companies to implement vaccine imperatives.
“‘My body, my choice’ is not an ethic for a plague,” Caplan said. “The ethics of plague are, ‘my body, vaccinated’ — more choices for everybody.”
(NEW YORK) — United Airlines announced Friday that all U.S.-based employees will be required to receive a COVID-19 vaccine and upload their vaccination card to a company site by this fall.
It is the first major U.S. carrier to mandate vaccines for all employees. Delta Air Lines announced earlier this year that it is requiring all new employees to be inoculated.
United joins a growing list of companies that have mandated vaccines for employees in some capacity: Uber, DoorDash, Facebook, Google, Twitter, Walmart and many more.
The airline’s deadline for employees to upload their vaccine card is five weeks after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced it has fully approved a COVID-19 vaccine or five weeks after Sept. 20, whichever comes first.
“For those employees who are already vaccinated — and for those employees who get vaccinated and upload their records to Flying Together before September 20th — we’ll offer an additional day of pay,” United CEO Scott Kirby and United President Brett Hart wrote in a memo to employees.
The executives added, “We know some of you will disagree with this decision to require the vaccine for all United employees. But, we have no greater responsibility to you and your colleagues than to ensure your safety when you’re at work, and the facts are crystal clear: everyone is safer when everyone is vaccinated.”
United’s decision comes as fears mount about the highly-contagious delta variant.
“Over the last 16 months, Scott has sent dozens of condolences letters to the family members of United employees who have died from COVID-19,” the executives wrote. “We’re determined to do everything we can to try to keep another United family from receiving that letter.”
Last year, major U.S. airline CEOs pointed to low infection rates among their employees in an attempt to prove that air travel is safe.
“At United, but also at our large competitors, our flight attendants have lower COVID infection rates than the general population, which is one of multiple data points that speaks to the safety on board airplanes,” Kirby said during a Politico event in September.
At the time, the largest flight attendant union in the U.S. that represents United flight attendants among other airlines — the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO — said they saw a little over 1,000 flight attendants across the industry contract the novel coronavirus. That represented less than 1% of the roughly 120,000 flight attendants that were employed at the end of last year, and was lower than the reported general infection rate of 2%.
(NEW YORK) — Some major cruise lines will now require pre-boarding testing and masks to be worn in certain indoor areas — even for vaccinated guests.
“We have seen a number of ships report some isolated cases of COVID,” said Cruise Critic Editor-in-Chief Colleen McDaniel. “And what we’ve seen is these have been mostly among vaccinated passengers, and certainly the delta variant seems to be having an effect on that.”
Despite at least 95% of guests and crew being vaccinated, Carnival Vista, which departed out of Galveston, Texas, reported a “small number of positive cases” this week — prompting the cruise line to change their policy.
The positive cases are in isolation, but the new mask-wearing rule will begin immediately on the Vista.
Carnival’s policy will go into effect after Aug. 7 through Oct. 31 for other sailings.
“These new requirements are being implemented to protect our guests and crew while on board, and to continue to provide confidence to our homeports and destinations that we are doing our part to support their efforts to protect public health and safety,” Carnival Cruise Line President Christine Duffy said in a statement. “We expect these requirements will be temporary and appreciate the cooperation of our guests.”
Holland America and Princess Cruises, which are both owned by Carnival Corporation, announced the same new cruising requirements.
In addition to masking, all fully vaccinated guests will be required to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken within three days of their embarkation.
“I think the requirements are going to continue to shift based on how we’re seeing the delta variant affect our day-to-day lives, both at home and also as we travel,” McDaniel said. “I think this is going to stick while we figure out how the delta variant is going to affect us, day to day.”
But some experts don’t believe the new rules will deter future passengers.
“What we have found is that cruise passengers want to cruise and that they want to cruise safely,” Cruise Critic Managing Editor Chris Faust told ABC News. “So no matter what they’re doing, they’re going to be following the cruise line protocols in order so that they can stay safe and feel like they’re having a great vacation.”
Dr. Anne Rimoin, an epidemiology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, recommended people determine what their risk threshold is before deciding to take a cruise in light of the growing number of cases.
“You have to think very carefully,” she said. “Do you have someone in your household, who isn’t vaccinated, that is at risk? Do I have small children that could become infected if I get infected?”
She said to keep in mind how contagious the delta variant is, and that it is easier to get COVID now than it has ever been.
“Vaccinated or not, you have to think about your risk, you have to think about where you are, who you’re around and mask accordingly,” she explained.
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 615,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and over 4.2 million people have died worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 58.4% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC last week, citing new science on the transmissibility of the delta variant, changed its mask guidance to now recommend everyone in areas with substantial or high levels of transmission — vaccinated or not — wear a face covering in public, indoor settings.
Here’s how the news is developing Friday. All times Eastern:
Aug 06, 7:42 am
United to require all US employees be vaccinated by September
All U.S.-based United employees will be required to get vaccinated for COVID-19 by September and must upload their vaccination card to the company website, the airline announced Friday. The move is the strongest vaccination requirement a U.S. airline has taken so far.
“For those employees who are already vaccinated — and for those employees who get vaccinated and upload their records to Flying Together before September 20th — we’ll offer an additional day of pay,” Scott Kirby and Brett Hart, the CEO and president of United, wrote in a memo to employees.
Employees will have until five weeks after Sept. 20 or five weeks after the Food and Drug Administration fully authorizes a COVID-19 vaccine to upload their cards. All three vaccines in the U.S. are currently being used under emergency use authorization.
Aug 06, 4:31 am
Tokyo sees 4,515 new positive cases
There are 4,515 new positive coronavirus cases in Tokyo as of Friday, according to the city’s COVID-19 information website.
It’s a 152.7% increase since last Friday.
Of the new cases, 141 are severe and four have turned fatal.
Aug 06, 1:53 am
There are now 387 positive cases at the Tokyo Olympics
As of Friday, there are 387 positive COVID-19 cases at the Tokyo Olympics, according to the Tokyo 2020 coronavirus positive case list.
This is an increase of 29 positive cases since Thursday.
All of the cases are either Tokyo 2020 contractors, Games-concerned personnel or media.
“Of the 726 U.S. Olympic delegates in Japan on Aug. 5, no COVID tests were confirmed positive based on daily results,” the International Olympic Committee tweeted.
Aug 05, 8:53 pm
Hawaii issues vaccine rules for state, county employees
Hawaii Gov. David Ige announced Thursday that all state and county employees must show proof of COVID-19 vaccination by Aug. 16 — or be subject to weekly testing.
Those who don’t comply “could be subject to termination,” Ige said.
It is unclear how many state and county workers are already vaccinated.
The mandate comes as the number of cases and hospitalizations in the state are “trending up dramatically,” Ige said.
Maryland and Virginia announced similar measures earlier Thursday.
Aug 05, 4:12 pm
Delta ‘sweeping over Mississippi like a tsunami’: Official
Mississippi is facing “a phenomenal increase in daily reported cases of COVID, and this is entirely attributable to the delta variant, which is sweeping over Mississippi like a tsunami,” state health officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said Thursday.
Dobbs said 97% of new cases are among the unvaccinated, and that 89% of hospitalizations and 85% of deaths are unvaccinated.
Dobbs pleaded with the public to get vaccinated, stressing that the unvaccinated population is driving the current surge, but that vulnerable, vaccinated people are suffering the fallout.
“There is going to be some collateral damage, unfortunately, even folks who’ve done everything they can to protect themselves,” Dobbs said.
“The minority of folks who are vaccinated and hospitalized are overrepresented by the older and those with weaker immune system, so we’re seeing a pretty dramatic spillover effect from the transmission in the community to more vulnerable parts of our population,” he said.
Aug 05, 3:51 pm
New state employee vaccination rules issued in Virginia, Maryland
In Virginia, all 120,000 state employees must be vaccinated by Sept. 1, Gov. Ralph Northam announced Thursday.
About 72% of employees are already vaccinated.
Anyone who chooses not to be vaccinated must get tested weekly, he said.
In Maryland, state employees at 48 state facilities must be vaccinated by Sept. 1, “or adhere to strict face covering requirements and submit to regular, ongoing COVID-19 testing,” Gov. Larry Hogan said.
The 48 facilities on the list include the Department of Health, Department of Juvenile Services, Department of Public Safety and Corrections and Department of Veterans Affairs.
Aug 05, 2:28 pm
Only 2 states not experiencing high or substantial community transmission
Nearly every state in the country is now experiencing case and hospitalization increases. Only two states — Vermont and Maine — are not reporting high or substantial community transmission, according to federal data.
The U.S. is now experiencing its steepest increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations since the winter. More than 61,000 patients are now hospitalized across the country with COVID-19, according to federal data. About one month ago, 12,000 patients were in U.S. hospitals.
(PORTSMOUTH, Va.) — Police are on the hunt for several suspects after a 15-year-old boy was fatally shot in Virginia earlier this week, authorities said.
The Portsmouth Police Department released surveillance videos that capture the deadly shooting, which occurred Monday on Chowan Drive in Portsmouth, near Norfolk.
One video “depicts several suspects getting out of a black 4-door vehicle, shooting at the victim, and returning to the vehicle,” the department said Wednesday.
Police also shared a still of the car believed to be involved in the shooting.
Another surveillance video captured a barrage of shots that police say were fired at the victim.
Dozens of evidence markers were visible on the street at the crime scene following the shooting.
The 15-year-old victim was taken to a local hospital, where he later died of his injuries, according to Norfolk ABC affiliate WVEC.
Police did not share any further details on the shooting.
The boy is the fifth child under the age of 16 to be fatally shot in Portsmouth this year, according to WVEC.
Anyone with information is asked to call 757-393-8536.
(PROVIDENCE, R.I.) — Police are investigating after a mob of ATV and dirt bike riders allegedly pulled a woman out of her car and beat her in a late-night attack in Providence, Rhode Island — the latest incident in what officials are saying is a spate of “out of control” violence.
The incident happened Tuesday night, officials from the mayor’s office said. Around 11:30 p.m., the 35-year-old victim had honked her horn at a group of ATV and dirt bike riders after they failed to move through two green lights, according to ABC Providence affiliate WLNE.
As she drove away, the group surrounded her car and several riders opened the driver’s side door, dragged her onto the street and began assaulting her, according to WLNE.
Cellphone video obtained by WLNE showed the woman on her knees in the street while an assailant repeatedly punched her.
Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza said the woman was “shaken and injured” in the “awful incident.”
The ATV and dirt bike riders reportedly fled.
The victim hurt her head and knees but did not need to be hospitalized, according to the Providence Journal. The paper reported that the driver’s friend and the friend’s 8-year-old daughter were in the car at the time of the attack.
ABC News has reached out to the Providence Police Department for updates on the incident.
The assault is the latest in a string of violence that has plagued the capital city, including a drive-by shooting Sunday that fatally killed a 24-year-old woman, leading to calls for stronger enforcement.
On Friday, Providence City Council President John Igliozzi sent a letter to Gov. Dan McKee requesting that Rhode Island State Police troopers be deployed to the city to assist police in confronting the crime wave.
“As you know, the headlines regarding crime in the city of Providence over the last few weeks have been shocking — murders, drive-by shootings, stabbings, gang incidents and roving throngs of ATV and dirt bike riders terrorizing our neighborhoods,” Igliozzi wrote.
“This wave of violent crime is unacceptable, and we need to act immediately to restore public safety and make our city’s residents once again feel safe walking and sitting outside in their own neighborhoods,” the letter continued, which pointed to a lack of staffing in the police department as an issue.
“The gun violence, the physical attacks and reckless behavior of individuals in our city have resulted in grief, loss and fear in our community,” he said in a statement. “It is time for the city to take decisive action to put a stop to this senseless violence and better serve the people trying to make a home in the city of Providence.”
A meeting will be scheduled for early next week, Igliozzi said.
Providence officials have also been working for years to address people illegally riding ATVs on city streets, especially during the summer.
“We will continue to dedicate all our available resources to getting these illegal ATVs off our streets and to bring those responsible to justice,” Elorza said in a statement.
Police have seized and destroyed over 200 bikes since 2017, according to the mayor’s office.
“[We] will continue to pull over and arrest people who are using these bikes illegally,” the mayor said.
(WASHINGTON) — Nearly seven months to the day a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol, President Joe Biden on Thursday signed a bill awarding Congress’ highest honor — the Congressional Gold Medal — to law enforcement officers he said defended democracy on Jan. 6.
“We cannot allow history to be rewritten. We cannot allow the heroism of these officers to be forgotten. We have to understand what happened — the honest and unvarnished truth. We have to face it,” Biden said in remarks in the White House Rose Garden, speaking to lawmakers, law enforcement officers and their families.
Biden said the Jan. 6 assault presented a dark test of “whether our democracy could survive, whether it could overcome lies and overcome the fury of a few who were seeking to thwart the will of the many.”
“While the attack on our values and our votes shocked and saddened the nation, democracy did survive,” Biden said firmly. “Truth defeated lies. We did overcome. That’s because of the women and men of the U.S. Capitol Police, Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and other law enforcement officials we honor today.”
Police officers fielded greetings from some of the lawmakers they protected, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Rule Committee Chair Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and other senators who co-sponsored the bill, for the afternoon ceremony.
Also present was the mother of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who lobbied Congress to pass legislation for a bipartisan select commission to investigate the attack, which Senate Republicans ultimately blocked. Biden offered his condolences to Sicknick’s family and families of other fallen officers in his remarks, including the children of fallen Capitol Police officer Billy Evans who was killed in a separate attack on the Capitol in April.
“I offer you, not only our condolences but recognize your courage. The courage of your children. And you have our most profound gratitude,” Biden said.
The bipartisan legislation authorizes the creation of four medals — one for the Capitol Police, one for the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, DC, one for display by the Smithsonian to acknowledge other agencies that helped defend the building and a fourth at the Capitol.
Biden said the medals would serve as a reminder of the truth of the attack.
“My fellow Americans, we must all do our part to protect and to preserve our democracy. It requires people of goodwill and courage to stand up to the hate, the lies, the extremism that led to this vicious attack,” he said. “It requires all of us working together — Democrats Republicans, Independents, on behalf of the common good to restore decency, honor and respect for our system of government.”
Vice President Kamala Harris, speaking ahead of Biden, recalled returning to the Senate chamber around 8 p.m. after the riot and witnessing American democracy persevere.
“We gathered in the Senate chamber, in the same chamber where the New Deal was struck and the Great Society was forged, in the same chamber where the Interstate Highway System was started and voting rights were won. And in that chamber, just before 1 a.m., as officers stood guard, the final vote was tallied,” she said.
“As those officers continued, even at that late hour, to secure our Capitol, they secured our democracy. So, let us never forget that. And let us always remember their courage,” she added.
The Senate voted unanimously on Tuesday to pass the legislation without a recorded vote, a rarity in a polarized Washington. The House passed the bill back in June with 21 Republicans voting against it.
“I am still stunned by what happened in the House, where 21 members of the Republican caucus voted against this legislation,” Schumer said Tuesday. “The Senate is different.”
The event falls in the grim shadow of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department announcing this week that two officers who responded to the Jan. 6 riot died by suicide in July.
It also comes as the House select committee investigates the Capitol attack, holding its first hearing in which lawmakers heard dramatic, emotional accounts from officers who defended the building. They all detailed fearing for their lives the day as the Capitol building devolved into “a medieval battle,” as one officer described it.
Some 140 police officers suffered injuries during the attack and 15 were hospitalized.
In the months since, law enforcement suicide experts say the families of those who responded to the incident say they’ve behaved differently. Karen Solomon, who runs Blue H.E.L.P, a nonprofit that works on reducing the stigma of mental health issues in law enforcement, told ABC News, “We are still ignoring the needs of some of the victims of this event — the police officers.”
Metropolitan Police Department officers Michael Fanone, also present on Thursday and seen sharing a hug with Pelosi, is among the voices who have flatly rejected any attempts to rewrite history and downplay the attack as something the country should move on from.
“The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful,” he said, slamming his fist on a congressional witness table last month. “I feel like I went to hell and back to protect them and the people in this room, but too many are now telling me that hell doesn’t exist or that hell actually wasn’t that bad.”
(SAN JOSE, Calif.) — Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and her partner Billy Evans welcomed their first child, William Holmes Evans, on July 10, in Redwood City, California, according to birth records obtained by ABC News.
The birth comes as Holmes is awaiting criminal trial for 12 counts of fraud, beginning Aug. 31 in San Jose, California. If convicted, Holmes could face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 for each count of fraud. She has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The charges stem from allegations that Holmes, a Stanford dropout who became a media darling, engaged in a multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud investors about her blood-testing company, and a separate scheme to defraud doctors and patients, according to the indictment.
During a pretrial hearing in June, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila stated there would be a quiet room for Holmes to tend to the newborn during breaks in the trial.
Holmes, 37, first informed the court of her pregnancy in March 2021, according to court filings. The news delayed the trial, previously scheduled for July 13, for a fourth time. The date had been moved three times due to the pandemic.
During a Zoom hearing following the filing, the prosecution voiced their frustration, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Leach saying it was “frustrating and disappointing to learn about this now.”
“Right or wrong, that is going to have a bearing on the jury’s perception of her,” Caroline Polisi, a federal white-collar criminal defense attorney, told ABC News’ Rebecca Jarvis in “The Dropout: Elizabeth Holmes on Trial” podcast. “Those types of things actually play a really large role in trials, even though they’re not supposed to.”
“Not only is that going to help her in her trial, but it will really help her in the event that she is convicted,” Polisi added. “The fact that she is a young, new mother is going to play into any potential sentence.”
However, defense attorney Jose Baez, famous for defending Casey Anthony, thinks it could backfire.
“I really think that could backfire because once a juror feels that one side is trying to manipulate them over another, they’re not going to like it,” he said.
Polisi and Baez, who are not associated with the trial, are among the top legal experts who will be appearing in “The Dropout: Elizabeth Holmes on Trial,” an upcoming series of new episodes to ABC News’ No. 1 hit podcast, “The Dropout.” Each week, the podcast will take listeners inside the courtroom and track the trial with real-time reporting on the most important developments.
The new episodes will feature conversations between Jarvis and Holmes’ former colleagues and acquaintances, Theranos patients, top legal experts and others who will provide insight into the trial and Holmes.
The podcast will also bring listeners up to speed on the twists and turns since Holmes was first charged.
“The Dropout: Elizabeth Holmes on Trial” debuts with two episodes on Aug. 31 and is available for free on major listening platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, TuneIn, Audacy and the ABC News app.
New episodes post Tuesdays throughout the trial with bonus episodes as news warrants. It is written by Rebecca Jarvis, Victoria Thompson and Taylor Dunn. Jarvis and Dunn are producers, and Thompson is executive producer.
