(CHARLOTTE) — A meteorologist and a helicopter pilot for CBS Charlotte affiliate WBTV are dead after their helicopter crashed near a North Carolina interstate highway, the station confirmed.
WBTV meteorologist Jason Myers and pilot Chip Tayag were killed in the crash, which occurred midday Tuesday near Interstate 77, WBTV said.
“The WBTV family is grieving a terrible loss. Our news helicopter Sky3 crashed mid-day Tuesday with two of our colleagues on board,” the station said in a statement. “Meteorologist Jason Myers and pilot Chip Tayag lost their lives. We are working to comfort their families in this difficult time. We appreciate the outpouring of support for our staff and your continued prayers for their families.”
The two victims were pronounced dead at the scene, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Chief of Police Johnny Jennings said.
Jennings called the pilot a “hero,” as the helicopter crashed just off the interstate, missing traffic and preventing additional loss of life.
“It seems the pilot that was operating the aircraft made some diversionary moves to avoid traffic,” Jennings told reporters during a press briefing Tuesday. “That pilot is a hero in my eyes.”
The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the crash of the Robinson R44 helicopter.
Myers, a North Carolina native, grew up in the Charlotte area watching WBTV, the station said.
He started his broadcast meteorology career at KRBC in Abilene, Texas, before going on to work at ABC Richmond, Virginia, affiliate WRIC.
He was most recently the chief meteorologist for ABC Lexington, Kentucky, affiliate WTVQ before returning to the Charlotte area.
“It comes with terrible sadness to hear the news of Jason Myers’ passing,” Chris Aldridge, a general manager for WTVQ, said in a statement. “Jason was a meteorologist for our WTVQ — ABC 36 News team for six years and we enjoyed every minute of our time together.”
“At this time of Thanksgiving, please wrap your prayers and thoughts around the Myers family as we remember a man gone too soon,” he said.
Myers leaves behind his wife, Jillian, and their four children.
Tayag started working for WBTV in 2017 and had been a pilot for more than 20 years, the station said.
(NEW YORK) — Colorado Gov. Jared Polis told “The View” Tuesday that the state should take a second look at how local sheriffs are using the red flag law to protect citizens in the wake of the deadly mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs.
On the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance on Saturday, Nov. 19, gunfire erupted at Colorado Springs’ LGBTQ nightclub, Club Q. According to police and officials briefed on the investigation, suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich allegedly walked into the club with a legally purchased assault-style rifle and began shooting, leaving five people dead and 17 injured.
Aldrich was arrested and is facing five counts of murder and five counts of bias-motivated crime causing bodily injury, which is Colorado’s hate crime law.
In June 2021, prior to the LGBTQ nightclub shooting, Aldrich allegedly threatened his mother with a homemade bomb. After his mother’s neighbors evacuated the surrounding area, bomb squad and crisis negotiators persuaded him to surrender. Still, charges against Aldrich were dropped and there were no public records that indicated police or relatives attempted to trigger Colorado’s red flag law.
“The View” co-host Joy Behar pressed Polis on Colorado’s low-rate of using the red flag law and questioned why authorities never took away Aldrich’s weapons. Noting that everyone is currently focused on the shooting victims and healing, Polis said that “if there’s one law to focus on,” it’s Colorado’s red-flag law, a bill which he signed on April 12, 2019.
Polis went on to explain that while Aldrich did allegedly make a bomb threat in the past and was apprehended at the time, charges were never pressed.
“What this should trigger is law enforcement can then seek a red flag or extreme risk protection order just to remove custody of guns from somebody who might be dangerous,” he said. “That’s what we’d like to see more of.”
“This is a new law in Colorado,” he continued. “But it’s really up to local law enforcement, and in this case it really looks like we should take a second [look] at how our local sheriffs used this law to protect people when there’s these kind of threats and danger.”
During a press conference Monday, police identified patrons Thomas James and Richard Fierro – who was in the U.S. Army for 14 years – as the heroes who stopped the suspected gunman. Polis mentioned that the two patrons who attacked the gunman are still recovering and calls their act of heroism “a tremendous thing,” adding that “they were lucky to be at the right place at the right time and make the right decision, otherwise dozens more people would be in mourning.”
After speaking with the families of the five victims who were fatally shot at Club Q, Polis said that the families “are in a complete state of shock.”
“These were people who were just out being who they are in a part of the state, a part of the country where it isn’t always easy,” he continued. “This is a somewhat conservative area. This was a refuge, this Club Q the largest LGBT club in Colorado Springs.”
Polis said that he told the owners of Club Q that he wants to be there to show solidarity.
“There’s never gonna be any motive that makes sense to any of us. It’s an act of evil,” he said of the mass shooting. “People should talk about our love and respect for one another rather than ever trying to set one group of people against another as unfortunately some do.”
“It will take time to heal and to come back from that, but we’re strong,” Polis said. “I’m committed to working with Colorado Springs and the LGBT+ community to make sure that we can heal in a good way.”
Since January 2019, Polis has been serving as Colorado’s governor, making him the first openly gay man to win a U.S. gubernatorial election. As the first openly gay man to govern a U.S. state and Colorado’s first Jewish governor, co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin asked him how it feels to be a part of groups being targeted.
Polis explained that while he usually tries to ignore hateful rhetoric directed towards him or his communities, not everything can be overlooked.
“Sometimes we need to speak out more when people cross the line, and I think that’s a lesson I’m going to take from this, just to be more outspoken,” he said.
“You can have your opinions, left, right, conservative, liberal, you know, whatever they are is fine. But there’s a line to cross when you denigrate people just based on who they love or their faith or their race, and that’s never okay,” Polis continued. “We need the to be very clear in saying that.”
(ATLANTA) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday seemed poised to grant a Justice Department request to rescind the appointment of a special master in the investigation into the handling of classified material seized in August from former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
In a hearing Tuesday afternoon, a three-judge panel from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals questioned an assertion from Trump’s attorney that “this is an extraordinary case” that warranted intervention from an outside arbiter to review all the materials seized in the August search.
“Other than the fact that this involves a former president, everything else about this is indistinguishable from any pre-indictment search warrant,” Judge Andrew Brasher said.
The attorney for Trump, Jim Trusty, insisted Trump was looking for no special treatment but asked the court to consider “a political rival has been subjected to a search warrant where thousands of personal materials have been taken.”
Arguing for the Justice Department, Sopan Joshi of the Solicitor General’s office called the appointment of a special master by a district court judge an “extraordinary judicial intrusion into a core executive branch function.”
The judges pressed Joshi and Trusty as to whether there was any similar case where a judge has exercised such jurisdiction to intervene in an ongoing criminal investigation prior to indictment with any showing of “callous disregard” for the rights of the potential defendant.
Neither could name such a case, but Trusty suggested that by having the process play out they could perhaps find evidence that Trump’s rights were violated.
Trusty also sought to take issue with how agents conducted the search, noting that in addition to presidential records and documents with classification markings they also seized items like “golf shirts and pictures of Celine Dion” which he said should have no relevance to their criminal investigation.
But Chief Judge Bill Pryor noted it wasn’t unusual for such personal items to be swept up in a court-authorized search.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily the fault of the government. If, if someone has intermingled classified documents in all kinds of other personal property,” Pryor said.
DOJ is urging the appeals court to overturn special master Raymond Dearie’s appointment and have the roughly 13,000 documents returned to investigators examining whether Trump unlawfully retained highly sensitive documents involving national defense information after leaving the presidency, and potentially obstructed justice in resisting the government’s efforts to retrieve them.
The appeals court previously granted a request from DOJ to stay portions of a ruling by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that had blocked the government from using roughly 100 documents with classification markings recovered from Mar-a-Lago in its investigation and demanded they be handed over to special master Dearie.
The Justice Department then moved for an expedited appeal to end Dearie’s review in its entirety, saying its inability to access the non-classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago was also significantly hampering its ongoing criminal investigation.
It was the first in-person meeting between top department officials and Trump’s legal team since Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith last Friday, which Garland said was warranted in part because of Trump’s announcement he would again run for president in 2024.
Smith has been tasked with overseeing the continuing criminal investigation of classified records seized from Trump’s estate in August as well as the separate probe into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his election loss to President Joe Biden.
In a filing Monday afternoon, the Justice Department formally notified the court of Smith’s appointment and stated he had reviewed the filings in DOJ’s case and that he “approves all of the arguments that have been presented in the briefs and will be discussed at the oral argument.”
Last week, officials said Smith was preparing to make his return to the U.S. from the Netherlands where he was serving as a chief prosecutor of war crimes at the Hague.
In a filing last week, officials from the department accused Trump and his legal team of engaging in “gamesmanship” in their fight to retain the roughly 13,000 documents in Dearie’s possession by asserting that when he ordered the packing of materials in the White House that were then transported to Mar-a-Lago, they were in effect automatically designated as his own “personal” records.
But at the same time, his attorneys said if Dearie rejected that argument for certain documents, they should have the opportunity to claim they are covered by executive privilege and should be shielded from the government.
They argued Trump’s legal team has put forward a “sweeping and baseless theory” to support their claims over the documents under a reading of the Presidential Records Act, saying Trump “appears to be claiming that he can unilaterally ‘deem’ otherwise Presidential records to be personal records by fiat.”
And even if Trump were correct in his claims, DOJ says, it would amount to a “red herring” regarding their right to access the documents as part of their ongoing criminal investigation.
“Documents commingled or collectively stored with the classified materials located at Plaintiff’s premises were lawfully seized by the FBI in accordance with the terms of the court-authorized search warrant because of their relevance to the government’s ongoing investigation,” top DOJ counterintelligence official Jay Bratt said. “That relevance exists irrespective of whether they were personal papers or government records. In the absence of a valid and substantiated claim of privilege, all such documents must now be made available to the investigative team.”
(PORTLAND, Ore.) — An Oregon family is overjoyed after welcoming twins born from embryos that were frozen 30 years ago.
“They’ve been a joy to have to us and to their siblings,” dad Philip Ridgeway told Knoxville, Tennessee, ABC affiliate WATE of his new twins, Lydia and Timothy, who now make the Ridgeways a family of six.
The 30-year-old embryos have broken the record for the longest-frozen embryos to ever result in a successful live birth, according to research staff at the University of Tennessee Preston Medical Library. The embryos, which were donated by an anonymous married couple using in vitro fertilization, had originally been frozen in April 1992.
They were successfully thawed, transferred and then delivered, with assistance from the National Embryo Donation Center and Dr. John Gordon, a medical director at Southeastern Fertility in Knoxville, who was the couple’s doctor.
Lydia and Timothy were born on Oct. 31.
“We wanted to be able to go in and find embryos that had been overlooked for reasons beyond their control, that have been waiting so long for a mom and a dad,” Rachel Ridgeway, the twins’ mom, said.
Gordon told WATE, “They specifically requested the embryos that had been waiting the longest. They actually felt called to specifically say, ‘We want the embryos that everybody else has taken a pass on.'”
Scientists have estimated that there are five frozen embryos for every IVF-related live birth in the U.S. According to Gordon, there are more than 1.4 million frozen embryos waiting to be thawed and transferred.
“We just want them to always know that they were chosen, that they are loved,” Rachel Ridgeway added.
(FORT PIERCE, Fla.) — Attorneys for former President Donald Trump on Tuesday asked a federal district judge in Florida to demand the Justice Department hand over an unredacted version of an affidavit used to justify the August search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
In their request to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who has repeatedly given deference to Trump’s attorneys in their arguments for the seized documents to be handed over to a special master, they argue Trump has a right to the full affidavit in order to assess whether his constitutional rights have been violated.
The filing repeatedly accuses the Justice Department and FBI as responsible for leaking details on what motivated their decision to conduct the extraordinary search, and also faults Attorney General Merrick Garland for his comments at a news conference in which he said the department would be moving for the unsealing of the search warrant given to Trump’s attorneys at the time of the raid.
The Justice Department has previously stated its objection to unsealing further portions of the affidavit, citing a need to protect the safety of witnesses who have cooperated or may provide future cooperation with their investigation — as well as protecting other investigative methods they have undertaken.
They further argue that DOJ’s concerns about Trump disclosing details from the affidavit if it is handed over aren’t warranted because a protective order prevents them from disclosing its details to any outside parties.
It’s unclear when Judge Cannon might respond to their motion — but the timing is notable given DOJ and Trump’s attorneys are set to appear Tuesday afternoon to argue before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on a motion from DOJ to have Cannon’s appointment of special master Raymond Dearie dismissed entirely.
If the federal appeals court panel grants DOJ’s request, it would also effectively eliminate Cannon’s involvement in matters involving the Mar-a-Lago search, including deciding on this 11th-hour request from Trump’s legal team.
(ALBANY, N.Y.) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed two bills into law Tuesday that will expand hate crime education and training in the state, saying there is a “rising tide of hate” across the country and violence prevention is the state’s “highest priority.”
The first bill will require people convicted of hate crimes to undergo training on hate crime prevention and education as part of their sentence. The training is currently optional but not a requirement. The court or local agencies must authorize the programs, training sessions or counseling sessions.
The second bill launches a statewide campaign run by New York’s Division of Human Rights that will promote acceptance, inclusion, tolerance and understanding of the diversity of New Yorkers. In addition, public and private organizations will work to develop educational materials to be published online, on social media and on other platforms to reach the public, according to the bill.
“It’s heartbreaking to know that there are acts of violence and hatred that exist throughout our country and within our own city, in our own state,” Hochul said at a press conference Tuesday.
Last week, two men were arrested in connection with an alleged threat to attack synagogues in New York City. Hochul thanked the early warning system and law enforcement officials for their apprehension, but warned that these kinds of attacks are on the rise.
“Domestic violence extremism is the greatest threat to homeland security,” Hochul said.
“This hatred, this violence, will not be tolerated; not now, not ever,” Hochul said.
The two bills are a part of Hochul’s efforts to fight and prevent hate crimes. They are supported by $245 million in federal funding to support homeland security preparedness, counter terrorism and emergency preparedness in the state, and $96 million in state and federal funding, to safeguard nonprofit, community-based organizations at risk of hate crimes and attacks.
Hochul announced $9 million in Homeland Security grants last month for bomb squads, tactical teams, infrastructure protection, local government and cybersecurity and will redirect $10 million in state funds to support county governments. In addition, Hochul encouraged community-based organizations to apply for funding for the $50 million set aside to strengthen safety measures and protect against hate crimes.
“Why not New York? Why shouldn’t we be the place that teaches the rest of the nation, how you can do things differently?” Hochul said.
A gunman opened fire last May in a Tops supermarket store in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 Black people. A grand jury in New York returned a 25-count indictment charging the 18-year-old gunman with carrying out a “domestic act of terrorism motivated by hate.”
After the Buffalo shooting, Hochul established a domestic terrorism unit within New York’s intelligence center that focuses on social media. Hochul called on New Yorkers to take action and report warning signs when they see them.
“I’d much rather be in the business of preventing crimes and preventing acts of hatred and trying to solve them afterward,” Hochul said.
(COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.) — The man suspected of opening fire at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado’s second-largest city over the weekend was previously arrested in an alleged bomb threat incident last year, ABC News has learned. But authorities said it’s unclear whether the state’s red flag law could have prevented the mass shooting.
According to a press release posted online last year by the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to a report of a bomb threat on Rubicon Drive in the Lorson Ranch neighborhood of Colorado Springs, just south of the city’s airport, on the afternoon of June 18, 2021. A woman had called, saying “her son was threatening to cause harm to her with a homemade bomb, multiple weapons, and ammunition,” the sheriff’s office said. She was not at home at the time and was not sure where her son was.
Deputies were deployed to the woman’s home and realized that the suspect — identified as then-21-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich — was actually at another residence on Pilgrimage Road, about a mile away. They contacted Aldrich by telephone and he “refused to comply with orders to surrender,” the sheriff’s office said.
A tactical support unit was called in and approximately 10 homes in the immediate surrounding area were evacuated, while an emergency notification was sent to cellphones of residents within a quarter-mile radius, according to the sheriff’s office.
A crisis negotiations unit ultimately was able to get Aldrich to comply with orders. He walked out the front door of the home and was taken into custody that evening, officials said. The regional explosives unit then cleared both residences and did not find any explosive devices, the sheriff’s office said.
Aldrich was booked into the El Paso County Jail on two counts of felony menacing and three counts of first-degree kidnapping, according to the sheriff’s office. Colorado Springs ABC affiliate KRDO reported on the incident at the time.
Aldrich, now 22, allegedly began shooting a long gun as soon as he entered Club Q in Colorado Springs late Saturday night. At least five people were killed and 17 others were wounded by the gunshots, according to the Colorado Springs Police Department.
Police said “two heroes” confronted Aldrich and fought with him, stopping him from shooting more people. Officers responded to the scene and detained Aldrich just after midnight, less than six minutes after the first 911 call came in, according to police.
Aldrich was injured in the alleged incident and remains hospitalized. As of Monday, he was being held without bond on 10 “arrest only” charges — five counts of first-degree murder and five counts of committing a bias-motivated crime causing bodily injury, according to online court records for Colorado’s El Paso County. Colorado’s Fourth Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen, who serves El Paso and Teller counties, told reporters Monday that those charges “are only preliminary” and subject to change once formal charges are filed.
The court has sealed the arrest warrant and supporting documentation connected with Aldrich’s latest arrest. According to the motion by prosecutors, if the records were “released, it could jeopardize the ongoing case investigation.”
Law enforcement officers briefed on the investigation confirmed to ABC News that Aldrich was previously arrested in an alleged bomb threat incident in June 2021, after the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office was alerted that he was in possession of a homemade bomb.
Officials briefed on the investigation told ABC News the gun Aldrich allegedly used in Saturday’s shooting was a legally purchased assault-style rifle and that his 2021 arrest may not have appeared on background checks because the case does not appear to have been adjudicated.
Homeowner from 2021 bomb threat incident speaks out
Colorado Springs resident Leslie Bowman told ABC News that she was renting a room to Aldrich’s mother, Laura Voepel, at the time of the bomb threat incident in June 2021. Bowman’s home on Pilgrimage Road was where the police standoff with Aldrich and his ultimate arrest took place, she said.
Authorities initially went to Voepel’s mother’s house on Rubicon Drive before responding to Bowman’s residence on Pilgrimage Road, according to Bowman.
“[Aldrich] apparently had an altercation with his grandparents and threatened them with a weapon,” Bowman told ABC News via telephone on Sunday. “He left their house, which was less than five minutes from my house, …and came over to my house and Laura let him in. And I know that he brought in a gun.”
Bowman said Aldrich livestreamed a “shocking” video via his mother’s Facebook account from inside Bowman’s home while authorities were outside, showing himself with a gun as well as a helmet and vest that resembled body armor. Security cameras at Bowman’s home also captured Aldrich entering the residence that day and surrendering to authorities hours later. ABC News has obtained the since-deleted Facebook Live video as well as the aforementioned footage from Bowman’s Ring doorbell camera.
“I was told at the time that there were explosives involved. But I’ve also since been told that maybe there wasn’t,” she told ABC News. “I didn’t get any follow up from the police or the DA or anyone about the case after the incident to testify or anything else. I just didn’t get any follow-ups and so I had very little information on what they did actually find.”
Voepel lived there for a total of roughly 15 months and moved out two days after the incident, according to Bowman.
Last month, on Oct. 18, deputies from the El Paso County Sheriff showed up at Bowman’s home seeking to conduct a wellness check on Voepel, according to Bowman, who said she hasn’t heard from Voepel or Aldrich since the alleged bomb threat incident last year.
After reading a local news report, Bowman said she learned that the case against Aldrich was dropped in court at some previous date and the records were sealed.
“I just thought it was really strange,” she told ABC News. “But again, I was like, well, I haven’t heard from these people in over a year, nobody was hurt and [I’m] just going to move on with my life.”
On Sunday morning, when Aldrich was identified as the suspect in the nightclub shooting, Bowman said she was “shocked and horrified.”
“It made me very upset and angry that this person who did what he did last year, obviously had violent intentions, was let go and now five people are dead,” she told ABC News. “I think there’s a lot of questions that need to be answered.”
Bowman said the only other incident involving Aldrich being aggressive toward her happened at her home one night when she returned from a long road trip and Voepel complained to her about a problem with the bathroom.
“I was like: ‘Well, you know, it’s late, I’m exhausted. I’ll have to deal with this tomorrow.’ And she and I kind of got into it a little bit,” Bowman recalled. “Andy got in my face and, because I was standing at her bedroom door, he told me to get out and slammed the door in my face.”
“I just kind of chalked it up to, you know, teenage guy, you know, trying to be aggressive and protect his mom kind of thing,” she added. “I just let it go and there weren’t really any problems with him after that. You know, just that one kind of display of aggression and everything else was fine up until the bomb threat situation.”
Motive ‘has the trappings of a hate crime,’ mayor says
Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers told ABC News that the suspect “had considerable ammo” and “was extremely well armed” when he allegedly walked in to Club Q. While a motive remains under investigation, Suthers said “it has the trappings of a hate crime.”
“But we’re going to have to see what the investigation shows in terms of, you know, social media and things like that to make a clear determination exactly what the motive was,” the mayor said in an interview on Monday.
Club Q co-owner Nic Grzecka told ABC News that Aldrich was a stranger to their long-established venue.
“He’s never spent money on a credit card or ID ever scanned in our business that we know of,” Grzecka said in an interview on Sunday. “I think this was a community of target for him.”
Authorities decline to discuss suspect’s criminal history
Although the suspect may not have been known at the LGBTQ nightspot, which has been serving the Colorado Springs community for two decades, Aldrich was clearly known to local law enforcement. However, Colorado has very strict privacy laws when it comes to cases that were dismissed. Once dismissed, cases are sealed and authorities are prohibited from mentioning their existence, which apparently is why officials initially had not been forthcoming about Aldrich’s prior arrest.
ABC News and other news organizations have petitioned the court in Colorado to unseal the records regarding Aldrich’s 2021 arrest.
During a press conference on Sunday morning, police declined to say whether Aldrich is the same person arrested in last year’s bomb threat incident.
Colorado’s state court system announced via Twitter on Sunday that “there are no public records available under the name Anderson Lee Aldrich related to this weekend’s shooting in Colorado Springs, or any other matter in Colorado.” A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office in Colorado Springs has not responded to questions from ABC News, other than referring to the state court system’s tweet.
When given details of Aldrich’s previous arrest, El Paso County Sheriff Bill Elder told ABC News that he did not recall and had no information about the June 2021 incident.
“I have 900 employees, so, you know 550 sworn [deputies] — it’s the largest county in Colorado,” Elder said via telephone on Sunday. “I wouldn’t have any clue.”
Elder also told ABC News that he doesn’t know whether more enforcement of Colorado’s red flag law in El Paso County would have made a difference in the shooting at Club Q. The state’s red flag law, which went into effect in 2020, allows relatives, household members and law enforcement to ask a judge to order the seizure of a gun owner’s weapons if that owner is believed to be a risk to themselves or others.
“I don’t know anything specific about the shooter, so I don’t know if it would have mattered or not,” Elder said.
When asked whether Aldrich should have been allowed to possess weapons following his arrest in June 2021, the Colorado Springs mayor told ABC News that state law “prevents law enforcement at this point in time from commenting on any prior criminal activity.”
“But I think the district attorney will go to court today and we’ll be able to comment on any prior interaction with the police fairly quickly, hopefully in the next couple of days,” Suthers said in Monday’s interview.
ABC News’ Matt Gutman, Jenna Harrison, Julia Jacobo, Aaron Katersky, Jennifer Leong, Lisette Rodriguez, Kevin Shalvey, Jennifer Watts and Robert Zepeda contributed to this report.
David Barnes (left) is seen at the wedding of his friend Chris Schiller (right). Schiller told ABC News that the day before Barnes was taken into custody in Moscow, the two spoke to each other on the phone. – Courtesy Chris Schiller
(MOSCOW) — A Texas father being held in Russia on accusations that were not substantiated by law enforcement in his home state of Texas is now facing trial before a Moscow judge.
Ten months ago, Russian police took David Barnes into custody and alleged that between 2014 and 2018 he committed child abuse in suburban Houston. His trial began on Nov. 16.
“Their trials seem to be like a circus,” said Margaret Aaron, Barnes’ younger sister. “I’m praying to God for a miracle.”
Barnes flew to Moscow in late 2021 to attempt to argue in Russian family court for visitation rights or custody over his two sons, like he had been granted by a judge in Texas, his family and friends say.
“He was the type of dad that you would never see the kids just sitting in front of a computer or a tablet,” Barnes’ friend Chris Schiller said. “His kids were his world.”
‘Chances are thin’
Svetlana Koptyaeva, Barnes’ Russian ex-wife, had allegedly taken the boys out of the United States in 2019, prompting Texas authorities to charge her with felony interference with child custody.
Instead of obtaining rights to see his children in Moscow, Barnes was arrested and has been held in Moscow’s Detention Center 5, where Trevor Reed was also detained. Aaron said her brother is being held in a 12-person cell.
Over the summer, Rep. Kevin Brady attributed Barnes’ detention to “political purposes.” U.S. officials have not announced whether they have classified Barnes’ detention as wrongful, as they have in the cases of detainees Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan.
The trial for Barnes is occurring on nonconsecutive days. Proceedings were previously scheduled to begin in September and October, but according to his family, they were postponed each time after reports of a transportation issue.
“I am focusing my energies on winning my case,” Barnes wrote to relatives. “Even though the chances are thin, I think we could and should win.”
‘It tore him apart’
Russian prosecutors are accusing Barnes of abusing his two sons years ago in Texas’ Montgomery and Harris counties, court documents show.
Similar allegations were previously reported by Koptyaeva, his ex-wife, to Texas authorities during their divorce proceedings — but the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services closed a 2018 investigation after finding insufficient evidence to verify the claims against Barnes.
Prosecutors in the counties that are now at the center of the Russian trial also did not find cause to file charges against him.
“There are still no charges in Montgomery County related to David Barnes,” Kelly Blackburn of the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office told ABC News on Friday.
A 2017 settlement signed by Barnes and Koptyaeva said in part that while not waiving legal reporting requirements, Koptyaeva was “to refrain from making statements, either written or oral, to any third party, alleging that … [Barnes] … molested his minor child and/or engaged in improper sexual contact with his minor child.”
Less than two years following the settlement, records show Barnes called police to ask for welfare checks on the two boys, but they were nowhere to be found. Interpol considers the children to have disappeared on March 26, 2019, the same date Koptyaeva allegedly left the U.S. with them.
“It tore him apart,” Schiller said. “I think his faith in God kept him grounded.”
In a September email to ABC News, Koptyaeva continued maintaining that the children were abused by her ex-husband.
“We left everything, our friends, the boys’ school, our house, my job, everything,” Koptyaeva said in part. “We were running away just to protect the boys. Do you really think that a person would take two kids and go into [the] unknown, without [a] job, without any source of income, into nothing just to hurt someone?”
Koptyaeva remains wanted in Texas on a felony interference with child custody warrant, Blackburn confirmed.
‘I may not ever see my brother again’
Russian judicial filings list that Barnes is due back in court Dec. 15.
“We are monitoring Mr. Barnes’ case closely, and we remain in regular communication with Mr. Barnes and his family and legal team,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson told ABC News. “We have visited Mr. Barnes four times since his arrest in January 2022. Our last visit to Mr. Barnes in detention was on August 18, 2022.”
Testimony has yet to begin in his trial, but Barnes’ siblings are concerned that should he be convicted, he could end up in a Mordovia penal colony like the ones where Griner, Whelan and Reed were sent.
“He’s probably better off where he is now than being shipped off to a labor camp,” his older sister Carol Barnes said. “I may not ever see my brother again.”
ABC News’ Tanya Stukalova contributed research to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, briefed reporters from the White House on Tuesday for the last time before leaving the government at the end of the year.
Introducing Fauci at the podium “one more time,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre praised him as a reliable “source of information and facts” throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Under seven Republican and Democratic presidents, Dr. Fauci has always led with the science and our country is stronger and healthier because of his leadership,” Jean-Pierre said.
Fauci pressed the idea that Americans should get up-to-date on their COVID and flu shots ahead of winter, making a final pitch in a long effort to explain to Americans the safety and efficacy of the COVID vaccines.
“My message — and my final message, maybe the final message I give you from this podium — is that please for your own safety, for that of your family, get your updated COVID-19 shot as soon as you’re eligible to protect yourself, your family and your community,” he said.
As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Fauci has been a near-constant presence at White House briefings throughout the two years of the COVID pandemic.
In 2020, he served as a scientific check to then-President Donald Trump’s musings on the virus.
He stayed on after the election of President Joe Biden, who elevated Fauci into a top personal adviser on the pandemic.
On Tuesday, he joined Biden’s other top adviser — Dr. Ashish Jha — to discuss the need for Americans to get the bivalent COVID shot.
“Bottom line is that we’re doing everything we can in the next six weeks to help families get their updated COVID shots by the end of the year because it’s the best protection for this winter,” Jha said.
Fauci is scheduled to retire from the government next month after more than five decades of service.
Asked by ABC News’ Karen Travers how he wants people to remember his service in government, Fauci said he’d leave it to others to judge but that he “gave it all I got for decades.”
“I think what I’ve accomplished in my 54 years at the NIH and my 38 years as the director of NIAID, although COVID is really really very important, it is a fragment of the total 40 years that I’ve been doing it,” Fauci said.
“I’ll let other people judge the value or not of my accomplishments,” he continued, “but what I would like people to remember about what I’ve done is that every day for all of those years I’ve given it everything that I have and I’ve never left anything on the field.”
He spoke about his decision to retire in an interview with ABC Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl for This Week in October.
Fauci said Tuesday he would’ve never imagined at the onset of the pandemic that the nation would see “a three-year saga of suffering and death and a million Americans losing their lives.”
Asked about the contradictory statements released by the Trump administration in the early days of the crisis, Fauci said they were “dealing with a moving target.”
“When you are dealing with things like reporting and discussing with the press, making recommendations, making guidelines, you have to make it on the basis of the information that you have at that time,” he said. “But what is happening is we are not dealing with a static situation. We are dealing with a dynamic situation.”
Going forward, he said, public officials have to do a better job of underscoring the evolving nature of such outbreaks.
Fauci also discussed the most difficult aspect of navigating the COVID-19 pandemic, lamenting the politicization surrounding vaccines and other mitigation efforts.
“When I see people in this country, because of the divisiveness in our country, not getting vaccinated for reasons that have nothing to do with public health but have to do because of divisiveness and ideological differences, as a physician, it pains me,” Fauci said, “because I don’t want to see anybody get infected. I don’t want to see anybody get hospitalized. I don’t want to see anybody die from COVID. Whether you are a far-right Republican or far-left Democrat doesn’t make a difference to me.”
It is possible Fauci will be called to testify before Congress despite leaving government.
Republicans, who took control of the House in the midterm elections, have signaled they want to investigate his role in overseeing the government’s response to COVID.
Fauci has said that, amid all the attacks on him, he and his family have faced death threats.
Fauci on Tuesday said he would cooperate fully with any oversight hearings conducted by the new Congress.
“I have no trouble testifying, we can defend and explain and stand by everything that we’ve said, so I have nothing to hide,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — Americans may be feeling the pinch at grocery store checkouts, but the largest chain in the country has shared some positive news ahead of the holiday season.
“Our turkey costs are up about 20%, but we decided early on to not pass that cost increase through to try to help somebody stretch their budget,” Kroger Chairman and CEO Rodney McMullen told Good Morning America.
The announcement comes at a crucial time for last-minute Thanksgiving shoppers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said in its latest National Retail Report on turkey that there is currently “a wide variant in prices throughout most regions” but that “fresh and frozen weighted average whole turkey prices increase when compared to the previous ad cycle.”
“However, many lucrative values abound for both fresh and frozen turkeys helping to lure the customer through [grocery store] doors,” the agency noted.
With inflation impacting grocery bills for many people, some have turned to other Thanksgiving main dishes, including roasted chicken, to save a few dollars. But while McMullen said the price of “chicken and some of those items” was “starting to come down,” the latest USDA Agricultural Marketing Service report shows that, overall, whole chicken prices “are trending at least steady for all sizes.”
The best deal for a non-turkey poultry option, according to the USDA National Retail Report on chicken, are bulk packs of thighs and drums.
McMullen noted that other meats like beef and pork were still affected by high price tags. “Beef is still inflationary, pork is still a little bit inflationary,” he said.
He added, however, that “some of the produce items are starting to come down just a little bit.”
With inflation currently at 7.7%, prices on goods have continually crept upward in the food category, which rose 10.9% overall in the last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index report. Food at home costs, meanwhile, have risen 12.4% since last year.
“The biggest thing we’re seeing is people continue to eat and cook at home. One of the things during COVID, people learned to cook at home and they found they enjoy it, they love eating as a family,” McMullen said. “It also helps stretch the budget because it’s significantly cheaper for somebody to cook a meal at home versus going out to a restaurant.”
When looking for savings opportunities at Kroger, McMullen encouraged people to shop the grocery chain’s “private label” products which are generic store-brand offshoots of mainstream consumer packaged goods.
As for the end-of-year outlook, McMullen added, “Our hope and expectation, as we get early into next year, is that we’ll see [inflation] continue to decrease a little bit.”
