(NEW YORK) — A French-based pharmaceutical company announced Monday that it has asked the Food and Drug Administration to sell over-the-counter birth control pills in the U.S., making it the first business to file an official application.
Perrigo’s HRA Pharma said it hopes that regulatory approval comes early next year.
“This historic application marks a groundbreaking moment in contraceptive access and reproductive equity,” Frédérique Welgryn, chief strategic operations and innovation officer at HRA Pharma, said in a statement.
“More than 60 years ago, prescription birth control pills in the U.S. empowered women to plan if and when they want to get pregnant,” Welgryn said. “Moving a safe and effective prescription birth control pill to OTC will help even more women and people access contraception without facing unnecessary barriers.”
Currently, hormone-based birth control pills require a doctor’s prescription because of health concerns such as blood clotting in some women. But most doctors say the risk is minimal for the vast majority of the population and note that pregnancy can carry its own significant health risks.
Reproductive rights advocates say an over-the-counter pill would make it easier for women without access to health care to obtain contraceptives.
“In the wake of the overturn of Roe v. Wade, we must pull out all the stops to make it easier and more affordable for everyone to secure contraception and take bold steps to protect women by ensuring that health — not politics — guides medical decisions,” said Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat.
The FDA did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 65.3% of women aged 15 to 49 use contraception, with 14% taking pills.
The move comes weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which granted people a constitutional right to an abortion for nearly 50 years.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell had said it was a relief, calling Roe v. Wade “one of the most egregious legal and moral mistakes of the 20th century.”
The fallout from Roe’s reversal has many people worried that the Supreme Court will overturn other constitutionally protected rights.
In his concurrent opinion, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas called for the court to reconsider other cases, including Griswold v. Connecticut, which gave married couples the right to use contraception.
He also asked the court to reconsider Lawrence v. Texas, which protects the right to same-sex romantic relationships; and Obergefell v. Hodges, which establishes the right to same-sex marriage.
“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is “demonstrably erroneous,” we have a duty to “correct the error” established in those precedents,” Thomas wrote.
ABC News’ Kiara Alfonseca contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Health officials are once again raising the alarm about the threat of a resurgence of COVID-19 infections across the country, as concerns grow about the new omicron subvariant, BA.5, which is now the dominant viral strain in the U.S.
The BA.5 variant, first detected in South Africa earlier this year, is currently estimated to account for more than half — 53.6% — of all new COVID-19 cases in the states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
BA.5 appears to have a growth advantage over the original omicron variant, according to the World Health Organization, and scientists are closely monitoring the increase in reported cases observed in many countries across the globe.
At this time, BA.5 does not appear to have increased in severity, but officials have previously stressed that research on the new subvariant is still in its “early days,” and much remains to be learned about it.
As BA.5 spreads, a growing proportion of U.S. counties are seeing increases in infections and related hospital admissions.
Nearly three-quarters of the U.S. population is now living in a county with a high or medium community risk level for COVID-19, as defined by the CDC, federal data shows. About one-third of those people — 31.9%– are living in a high-risk community, while 41.6% are living in a medium-risk county.
A high community level suggests there is a “high potential for health care system strain” and a “high level of severe disease,” and the CDC recommends that people wear a mask in public indoor settings, including schools. A medium-risk level suggests there is “some impact on [the] health care system,” and “more people with severe disease.” Under the CDC’s official guidance, individuals considered at “increased risk” are advised to speak with their health care provider about whether to wear a mask.
Counties on both coasts — most notably in California, Montana, New Mexico and Oregon — are moving up and entering the high-risk level. In Florida, nearly every county is currently considered high risk. Puerto Rico and California currently lead the nation in new cases per capita, followed by New York City, where officials are once again urging residents to wear high-quality masks in indoor public settings and around crowds outside, amid a renewed surge of infections in the city.
“We’re currently seeing high levels of COVID-19 in NYC. To help slow the spread, all New Yorkers should wear a high-quality mask, such as an N95, KN95 or KF94 in all public indoor settings and around crowds outside,” the New York City Health Department wrote in a tweet on Friday, after the city moved back into the high-risk level.
The average number of new cases across New York City is up by 25% in the last two weeks, according to federal data. City data also shows that an average of 15% of reported tests are now coming back positive, marking the highest seven-day positivity rate in months.
Nationally, the country is currently reporting an average of more than 100,000 new cases each day. However, health officials say that the total is likely significantly undercounted.
As previously reported, dozens of states have moved to shutter public testing sites, with more at-home COVID-19 tests now available in pharmacies and through the federal testing program. Most Americans are not reporting their results to officials, and, thus, experts said infection totals are likely significantly undercounted.
Last week, White House COVID Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha told NBC News that hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 infections are likely going undercounted.
“There’s no question in my mind we are missing the vast majority of infections right now,” Jha said. “The truth is there are probably several hundred thousand — 400,000; 500,000 infections a day happening across the country.”
The concerns over BA.5 come amid the nation’s continued push to get people vaccinated. Although the U.S. is set to roll out new bivalent vaccines in the fall, which will address omicron, millions of eligible Americans are still without their additional shots.
To date, less than half of eligible Americans — 49.5% or 108.6 million people — have received their first booster. Similarly, less than one-third — 29.5% or 42.2 million — of eligible Americans over the age of 50 have received their second booster.
Overall hospitalization numbers and death rates have yet to see a significant resurgence, though experts say metrics may also be undercounted, due to a lack of reporting from states.
As of July 5, about 34,000 patients are currently receiving care in U.S. hospitals across the country. This still marks one of the highest numbers of patients hospitalized with the virus since March.
On average, more than 5,200 virus-positive Americans are entering the hospital each day — the highest number of daily admissions since February. Hospital admissions in the Southwest and the South are up by more than 10%, respectively, in the past week.
The average number of daily COVID-19-related deaths remains just below 300 reported each day. Totals are still much lower than during prior COVID-19 surges.
However, thousands of Americans are still losing their lives every week. Over the last seven days, the U.S. has reported nearly 2,000 deaths.
(WASHINGTON) — The White House on Monday cited some of its past successes as it played down a new New York Times/Siena College poll showing President Joe Biden’s approval rating almost scraping 30% — and Democrats pushing, at this point some two years out, for a different candidate in the 2024 race.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that the administration remains focused on the issues at hand despite the latest survey, which showed only 33% of respondents approve of the job Biden is doing and 64% of Democratic voters saying they want someone else to be the party nominee in the next presidential election.
“Not to get into politics from here or get into any political analysis, [but] this is not something — there’s going to be many polls. They’re going to go up, they’re going to go down, this is not the thing that we are solely focused on,” Jean-Pierre said at Monday’s press briefing before noting Biden’s celebration of a bipartisan anti-gun violence package earlier in the day.
“We are focused on things like today, signing this bipartisan gun reform legislation, which will, again, save lives. Do we have more work to do? Absolutely. I was talking about inflation and how … that is a priority for this president, how we have seen gas prices go down by close to 30 cents per gallon the past 25-plus days,” Jean-Pierre said. “That is something that the president is going to continue to work on because we still need to give Americans relief.”
The press secretary rattled off other priorities, like maintaining job growth and pushing a bill to increase competitiveness with China, insisting that Biden will remain locked on those issues in spite of any poor polling — which, administration supporters were also quick to note, did show him winning a hypothetical rematch with Donald Trump.
“We’re not gonna pay attention to polls, it’s not what we’re going to do here. But [what] we’re going to focus on is delivering for the American people,” Jean-Pierre said.
“There is so much work to be done that the president is going to focus on and deliver as well,” she said.
Still, Jean-Pierre recognized the widespread dissatisfaction exemplified in the poll, with more than 75% of respondents saying America was headed in the wrong direction — though, given the country’s polarization, it is surely for varying and contradictory reasons.
“We understand what the American people are feeling. We understand that. We understand that inflation is hurting families when they are around the kitchen table. When they are trying to figure out, you know, how they are going to deal with gas prices at the pump, how they’re going to deal with food prices as well,” Jean-Pierre said.
The latest poll comes amid a spate of poor surveys for Biden, whose approval rating has sunk under the pressure of stubbornly high inflation, the expensive cost of gasoline and more even as the administration has touted what it says is a little-credited economic recovery, with robust employment, and other legislative breakthroughs including on guns and infrastructure.
The Times/Sienna polling — as well as the fact that Biden, at 79 years old, is already the country’s oldest-ever president — has refueled concerns from some Democrats over his viability to win reelection in two years.
But as the Times poll also showed, Biden narrowly comes out on top — 44 to 41 — in the expected matchup with former President Trump.
In a further sign that defeating Trump would be a top priority for Democratic voters, over any particular policy, 92% of Democrats in the poll said they would stick with Biden in such a contest.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Monday rejected a series of explanations by former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon as to why he failed to comply with a subpoena issued by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, reinforcing the legal challenges that Bannon is currently facing.
Bannon was charged last year with two counts of criminal contempt of Congress after defying the panel’s subpoena, and Judge Carl Nichols said in Monday’s pretrial hearing that he would not delay Bannon’s trial, which is set to begin next Monday.
“I see no reason for extending this case any further,” said Nichols.
On the eve of the Monday’s pretrial hearing, Bannon — who for months had refused to comply with the subpoena by claiming absolute “immunity” from congressional subpoenas due to his previous role within the Trump White House — suddenly offered to testify before the Jan. 6 committee, a move that prosecutors in a court filing have described as a “last-ditch effort to avoid accountability.”
The hearing also followed a revelation by the Justice Department that federal investigators interviewed former Trump attorney Justin Clark two weeks ago in connection with Bannon’s case.
Among the overarching arguments that Nichols rejected was Bannon’s claim that he defied the subpoena because former President Donald Trump had asserted executive privilege over his testimony, an argument Bannon’s lawyers said was based on DOJ Office of Legal Counsel opinions. Judge Nichols noted that the opinions referenced do not apply in Bannon’s case because they do not pertain to someone in Bannon’s position as a former White House official to a former president. Bannon has not worked in the White House since 2017.
In a blow to Bannon’s defense, Nichols ruled that Bannon cannot present to the jury evidence that he relied on those internal Justice Department opinions — or on his counsel’s advice — as the reason for declining to appear, saying those factors don’t serve as appropriate reasons for Bannon’s decision not to comply.
Nichols also rejected Bannon’s “entrapped by estoppel” defense, which argued that he was “tricked” into believing he was entitled to ignore the subpoenas due to the DOJ opinions, on the grounds that the DOJ opinions do not specifically deal with Bannon’s situation.
In addition, the judge ruled that Bannon cannot present a “public authority” defense, because Trump was no longer a federal official by the time Bannon was subpoenaed.
“The former president, in his civilian capacity, is by definition not a federal official” and “never instructed Mr. Bannon not to show up altogether,” the judge ruled.
The judge also rejected Bannon’s defense that prosecutors would need to show that he knew his conduct was unlawful, saying that prosecutors only need to prove that Bannon acted “deliberately” and “intentionally” to defy the Jan. 6 panel.
Bannon’s attorney, David Schoen, questioned the judge’s rulings.
“What’s the point in going to trial here if there are no defenses?” Schoen said before the judge.
In a win for Bannon, Nichols said he will allow his defense team to present evidence about prior subpoenas regarding whether Bannon thought the date was flexible, allowing Bannon to argue that he misunderstood the subpoena’s due date or believed in good faith that the deadline could be extended.
The judge also ruled that he would allow Bannon’s defense team to cross examine certain witnesses to introduce evidence of “political bias.”
However, Nichols granted a motion from the House committee to quash 16 trial subpoenas that Bannon’s attorneys had sent to 12 members of Congress and four staffers, and he rejected the defense’s assertion that the Jan 6. Committee is not “properly composed,” saying “the entire House has on multiple occasions ratified that the committee is validly constituted.”
Following the hearing, Schoen suggested to reporters that he might appeal Nichols’ rulings.
“That’s why they have a court of appeals,” said Schoen when asked how he felt about the judge’s decisions.
In their filing overnight, prosecutors said the timing of Bannon’s sudden offer to testify suggests that “the only thing that has really changed since he refused to comply with the subpoena in October 2021 is that he is finally about to face the consequences of his decision to default.”
(NEW YORK) — A new report found a “statistically significant” excess of cancer cases among people of all ages living within a Long Island school district compared to similar areas of the state.
The report, from the New York State Department of Health, looked at cancer cases over 20 years within the Northport-East Northport School District in Suffolk County — about 45 miles from Manhattan.
Researchers say the investigation is still in its early stages and does not mean people living in these areas need to immediately get cancer screenings.
Looking at data from the New York State Cancer Registry, researchers conducted an analysis comparing the number of cancer cases found with the number of cases that would be expected to be found.
Within the entire district, the report identified 4,593 total cancer cases, a 3% excess than the 4,454 cases that would be expected. Specifically, the DOH found “significant excesses in numbers of cases of pancreatic cancer, malignant melanoma of the skin, uterine (corpus) cancer and prostate cancer.”
“Cancer clusters are certainly an area of intrigue because we want to be able to identify if there are certain hotspots for cancer,” Dr. Arif Kamal, chief patient officer of the American Cancer Society, told ABC News.
Kamal said the interesting aspect of this case is that “if you look at the particular cancers that are represented, there’s not a single factor that tied them all together,” indicating a “mixture of explanations.”
When looking specifically at the Northport Middle School District, researchers detected 2,655 total cases of cancer, a 7% excess than the 2,486 cases expected, with “significantly greater than expected numbers of cases of malignant melanoma and prostate cancer.” However, the report found that the East Northport Middle School area did not have a significantly different total number of cancer cases from the number expected.
The department said it initiated the investigation in 2019 after members of the community shared a concerning number of graduates in the Northport High School class of 2016 who had been diagnosed with leukemia. Officials found around five graduates were diagnosed with leukemia, which was “statistically unusual” and much higher than the two cases that would be expected.
The DOH said it does not believe the study should cause alarm and that the higher number of leukemia cases may be “due to chance.”
Kamal said the higher number of leukemia cases is “concerning, but it’s a little early to make conclusions about what it means.”
“Leukemia can be a canary in a coal mine because a lot of environmental exposures can lead to it, but it needs to be followed over time to really understand,” he said. “If after five to 10 years those rates increase, you really should be worried.”
The district has battled concerns about toxic chemicals on school grounds for years and, in September 2020, parents filed a class action lawsuit against the district citing negligence. In the lawsuit, they allege the district “knew or should have known about the presence” of the presence of “contaminants” on its campus including benzene, mold, chlordane, mercury, lead, carbon monoxide and petroleum products.
Tara Mackey, the lead plaintiff, told ABC News her daughter attended Northport Middle School from 2015 to 2018. The lawsuit claims that in 2017, the district notified parents about a chemical spill beneath classrooms in the school’s K-wing.
“My daughter was in seventh grade when they told us about the chemicals they found under the K-wing,” she said. “She was suffering from migraines. Some days it would be so bad she would come home, and she would vomit.”
Mackey said she took her daughter to the pediatrician to be tested, and when the pediatrician called her back, she was shocked by the blood test results.
“My seventh-grade daughter had carbon monoxide levels equal to a two-, three-pack-a-day smoker,” Mackey said.
Mackey’s daughter just graduated high school in North Carolina, and although she currently does not suffer from migraines, she did develop asthma while attending Northport Middle School.
When the district was contacted by ABC News, Syntax Communication Group — which represents the district — replied, “The Northport-East Northport School District does not comment on active litigation and will not be providing comment.”
(WASHINGTON) — The first full-color image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has been released.
The images, the full set of which will be released Tuesday morning, will be the deepest and highest resolution ever taken of the universe, according to NASA.
The telescope will help scientists study the formation of the universe’s earliest galaxies, how they compare to today’s galaxies, how our solar system developed and if there is life on other planets.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
President Joe Biden unveiled the first full-color image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope.
The image, revealed during a press event held at the White House Monday and also attended by Vice President Kamala Harris, shows multiple galaxies.
It is the highest-resolution image of the universe ever captured, officials said.
“Today is a historic day,” said Biden. “It’s a new window into the history of our universe and today we’re going to get a first glimpse of the light to shine through that window.”
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the light seen on the image has been traveling for over 13 billion years.
Jul 11, 4:46 pm
NASA says all of the telescope’s instruments are ‘ready’
NASA announced Monday all four of the James Webb Space Telescope’s scientific instruments are ready to start being used.
The space agency said there are 17 modes, or ways, to operate the instruments. All have been examined and are “ready to begin full scientific operations.”
The last step was was checking the the telescope’s NIRCam, which block starlight so scientists can detect other nearby structures, such as exoplanets.
Jul 11, 4:00 pm
Test image from telescope offers preview
A test image taken by the James Webb Telescope offers a preview of what’s to come ahead of the release of the first full-color images.
NASA shared the photo last week taken by one of the telescope’s instruments, the Fine Guidance Sensor, or FGS, to demonstrate how strong, clear and sharp Webb’s images will be.
According to the space agency, the “false-color mosaic” is made up of 72 exposures taken over a 32-hour period.
NASA noted that the primary focus of the FGS is not even to capture images but to make sure the telescope is pointing precisely at its target.
Jul 11, 3:30 pm
What to know about the Webb telescope
The James Webb Space Telescope was jointly developed by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
Development began in 1996 but ran into several delays before it was completed in 2016 at a final cost of $10 billion.
The telescope was launched on Christmas Day and is orbiting 1 million miles from Earth.
It used infrared radiation to detect objects that are invisible to the human eye.
The four goals of the telescope are to study how the first stars and galaxies formed right after the Big Bang, comparing the galaxies from the past to those of today, how planetary systems formed and if there is any sign of life on other planets.
(NEW YORK) — The wildfire that is threatening an iconic grove of sequoia trees in Yosemite National Park could now affect human health hundreds of miles in the opposite direction.
An air quality advisory has been issued for California’s Bay Area, specifically the North Bay and East Bay regions, as the Washburn Fire continues to grow on the southern portion of Yosemite National Park.
The fire, which sparked Thursday near the Washburn Trail in Yosemite’s Mariposa Grove, had expanded to more than 2,700 acres by Monday — inching dangerously close to sequoia trees that have been in the region for thousands of years. More than 2,000 of the acres burned are located in the national park, according to Yosemite Fire and Aviation Management.
In the regions surrounding the San Francisco Bay about 200 miles west of the fire, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District is warning residents of pollutant levels that are expected to be in the moderate range.
Satellite images show significant amounts of smoke wafting over Northern California’s Pacific coast.
Despite the significant smog, air quality is not expected to worsen beyond federal health standards, according to the agency.
The fire is expected to continue “moderately” over the next 12 hours, but fire activity will increase and “actively” spread through the week due to warming temperatures and subsequent drying, according to Yosemite Fire.
The management of the fire is progressing at a relatively slow pace as firefighters set off backfires to clear the fuel that compiled in the region over a large tree mortality event between 2013 and 2015.
Since the fire is slow-moving and not affecting human safety, firefighters are able to take the time to clear the fuel, which consists of both standing trees and dead leaves and brush that have fallen to the ground, fire experts told ABC News.
About 360 firefighters are battling the Washburn Fire, according to Yosemite Fire.
The fuel, however, is posing a significant safety threat to firefighters on the ground, the experts said. The spread may also slow once the fire reaches some of the recent fire scars, according to Yosemite Fire.
The Mariposa Grove, one of the most popular destinations in Yosemite National Park and home to more than 500 mature giant sequoia trees, remains closed, as does the Highway 41 entrance into Yosemite National Park. Sequoias, native to the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California, are adaptive to fire, but intense fire amplified by the dry fuel could kill them, according to experts.
No reports of damage to any of the named trees in the grove have been released, and some tree trunks have been wrapped in fire-resistant foil as protection, a method used in September when the KNP Complex Fire threatened trees in Sequoia National Park’s Giant Forest.
Sprinklers have also been set up around several trees, including the Grizzly Giant, the most famous giant sequoia at Yosemite, which stands at 209 feet. Fire officials hope the steady stream of water, combined with prescribed burns, will be enough to protect the trees from a fatal encounter with the wildfire.
Wildfires sparked by lightning have killed about 20% of the 75,000 large sequoias in the West in recent years, The Associated Press reported. Protections for the Mariposa Grove began as early as 1864, when President Abraham Lincoln signed legislation to conserve the grove, marking the first time the U.S. federal government set aside a natural wonder so that future generations could enjoy it.
That initiative later became the model for the National Park system.
ABC News’ Jenna Harrison contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — An Ohio man who accused Joe Biden, other Democrats, and the mainstream media of “treason” is set to testify in a public hearing Tuesday before the House committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol last year, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The hearing is expected to focus on the rise of radical extremism in the United States, and the source said one of the key witnesses will be Stephen Ayres of Warren, Ohio, who recently pleaded admitted to illegally entering the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
A former spokesman for the Oath Keepers militia group, Jason Van Tatenhove, will also be testifying Tuesday, the source said.
In court documents filed last month, Ayres acknowledged that the day before the riot, he drove to Washington, D.C., to protest Congress’ certification of the 2020 presidential election results.
On Facebook, Ayres had spotlighted then-President Donald Trump’s call for supporters to descend on Washington on Jan. 6, which Trump said will “be wild” in a Tweet he posted on Dec. 19, 2020.
During Tuesday’s hearing, the committee hopes to explore the impact that Tweet had on Trump’s supporters, committee aides said. The hearing is expected to also include clips from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone’s deposition with congressional investigators last week, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Two days before he left for the nation’s capital, Ayres posted a message on Facebook saying, “Mainstream media, social media, Democrat party, FISA courts, Chief Justice John Roberts, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, etc….all have committed TREASON against a sitting U.S. president!!! All are now put on notice by ‘We The People!'”
In the week before that, Ayres said in social media posts that it was “time for us to start standing up to tyranny!” and he warned that “If the [deep state] robs president Trump!!! Civil War will ensue!” according to the FBI.
Ayres joined the mob outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, then entered the building that afternoon, court documents say.
Last month, he pleaded guilty to one federal charge of disorderly conduct inside a restricted building. His sentencing is scheduled for September.
An attorney representing Ayres declined to comment when contacted by ABC News.
(AUSTIN, Texas) — A chorus of Texas state leaders on Monday called on law enforcement officials to release surveillance video from inside Robb Elementary School during the May 24 mass shooting, including Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who is running for reelection.
“That video needs to be released, as well as the audio,” Abbott told Austin ABC affiliate KVUE in an interview Monday afternoon. “The Texans need to know. But, frankly, the people of Uvalde, they deserve to get to know exactly what happened. And I urge that it happen very quickly.”
The deluge of support from top politicians capped a day of finger-pointing and about-faces from state leaders. At a hearing in Austin on Monday morning, a key Texas state legislator suggested that an agreement between law enforcement and local officials to disclose a portion of the footage had been struck — only for one of the parties to the supposed agreement to quickly rebuff that claim.
Rep. Dustin Burrows, the chairman of a special Texas House panel investigating the Robb Elementary shooting, announced Monday morning that the Texas Department of Public Safety and the mayor of Uvalde had reached a deal to disclose surveillance video showing officers gathered in the hallway outside of the classroom containing the 21-year-old gunman.
But within hours of Burrows’ comment, the Texas Department of Public Safety gave ABC News a July 8 letter it sent to the chairman informing him that the law enforcement agency could not unilaterally grant his request for the tapes, citing instruction from the Uvalde-area district attorney, Christina Busbee.
“[Busbee] has objected to releasing the video and has instructed us not to do so,” according to the letter, which was signed by DPS Deputy Director Freeman Martin. “As the individual with authority to consider whether any criminal prosecution should result from the events in Uvalde, we are guided by her professional judgment regarding the potential impact of releasing the video.”
After Monday’s hearing concluded, Burrows clarified his earlier comments, telling ABC News, “We’re still working on getting the video released, but no agreements.” He later tweeted, “It is my intention to show the hallway video to the people of Uvalde, regardless of any agreement. I will not release it to the public until the people of Uvalde have seen it for themselves.”
Busbee did not respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
This latest round of confusion is certain to exacerbate frustration within the Uvalde community. More than six weeks after the shooting, which ended the lives of 19 students and two teachers, several questions remain about the 77 minutes that elapsed between the time the shooter entered the school, and the moment law enforcement officers breached the classroom and killed him.
Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw characterized the police response as “an abject failure” during testimony before a Texas Senate panel last month, raising the stakes for officials to release video footage.
On Sunday, families of the victims gathered in Uvalde’s town square to voice their frustrations with state and local leaders over their handling of the shooting and subsequent investigations. The event was called The Unheard Voices March & Rally, as a reflection of the sentiment shared by many residents of the small West Texas town.
The public back-and-forth over whether and what investigative evidence to publicly share from inside the school has become a source of conflict between some family members of the victims and officials who claimed to represent their interests. Busbee has said that releasing footage could hinder her ongoing probe into whether the shooting warrants any criminal charges.
Over the weekend, Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin accused Busbee of misleading family members about McLaughlin’s support for releasing certain footage showing the police response during the rampage.
On Friday, McLaughlin affirmed his support for the release of “all videos,” including “the entire 77-minute hallway video … up the moment of the breach.” But less than 24 hours later, he issued a follow-up statement clarifying that he only sought the release of video showing the police response — not any children or any images from the classroom.
In the course of his about-face, McLaughlin claimed that Busbee had been “advising” families of the victims that he supported releasing videos showing deceased children, and accused her of “not telling the truth.”
McLaughlin later told ABC News that video from the hallway inside of Robb would “contradict misconceptions that Uvalde police were the only ones inside with weapons,” and releasing the tape would “provide transparency to everyone.”
On Monday, Rep. Burrows said he would “continue to put pressure on the situation and consider all options in making sure that video gets out for the public to view,” but did not commit to a timeline for a public release.
“I can tell people all day long what it is I saw, the committee can tell people all day long what we saw, but it’s very different to see it for yourself,” Burrows said. “And we think that’s very important.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden was briefly interrupted by a parent whose son was killed in a mass school shooting as he hosted hundreds impacted by gun violence on the White House South Lawn Monday to tout the first major bipartisan gun legislation to pass through Congress in nearly 30 years.
Before he spoke, Dr. Roy Guerrero, a Uvalde pediatrician who treated the victims of the Robb Elementary School mass shooting, and Garnell Whitfield, Jr., son of the oldest Buffalo massacre victim Ruth Whitfield, first offered brief remarks to introduce Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“The dried white roses and the sun-bleached teddy bears have been taken away and stored. What remains is a hollow feeling in our gut,” Guerrero said.
“It’s been tough being a pediatrician in a community where children do not want to return to school, and parents don’t want to send them there with the fear of a future attack,” he added. “I spend half my days convincing kids that no one is coming for them and that they are safe knowing that they’re safe — but how do I say that knowing that the very weapons used in the attack are still freely available? Let this only be the start of the movement towards the banning of assault weapons.”
Whitfield read the names of the victims in the Buffalo shooting, which took the life of his 86-year-old mother, and while he praised Biden and Harris for their work to mitigate gun violence said, “We know that this is only the first step.”
Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law last month, but the signing was overshadowed since it came one day after the Supreme Court released its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Monday provided the president a new opportunity to take a victory lap — but it also came one week after another mass shooting at a July Fourth parade in Highland Park, Illinois, left seven dead and dozens wounded.
About one week to the hour of the Highland Park shooting, Biden took the podium on the South Lawn, wearing a ribbon on his lapel to honor gun violence victims.
Not long after he started speaking, Manuel Oliver, whose 17-year-old son Joaquin was killed in the Parkland mass shooting, interrupted Biden’s remarks in an apparent protest. Oliver has publicly criticized the legislation.
“We have to do more than that!” Oliver shouted. “I’ve been trying to tell you this for years!”
Biden said, “Let him talk,” before continuing with his prepared remarks as Oliver was escorted away by a staffer.
Later, speaking to reporters, Oliver defended his decision to interrupt Biden — taking issue with the White House making this bipartisan achievement into a “celebration” — and pointing to the community of Uvalde still mourning the loss of the 19 children and two teachers who were killed.
“The word celebration has been used in the wrong way. We were invited to Uvalde this week. Mothers are still crying in Uvalde,” he said. “And meanwhile, we, some way, by being here, clapping and standing ovation, these types of bills, which by the way I welcome, because it will save some lives, while we do that, other people are just getting shot. We cannot accept that.”
Biden named the leaders of the bipartisan Senate negotiations which crafted the legislation, including Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, Chrisy Murphy, and Thom Tillis, and joked that he hoped he doesn’t get Republican John Cornyn of Texas “in trouble” for praising him, too. Biden and Cornyn shook hands after his remarks.
President Biden said none of the actions he’s calling for infringe on Second Amendment rights, even repeating his support for the Second Amendment, but that “we can’t just stand by” when guns are the “number one killer of children in the United States.”
“Guns are the number one killer of children in the United States of America … And over the last two decades more high school children have died from gunshots and on-duty police officers on active duty military combined,” Biden said. “We can’t let it happen any longer.”
“With rights come responsibilities. Yes, there’s a right to bear arms. But we also have a right to live freely, without fear for our lives in a grocery store, in a classroom, in a playground, and a house of worship, in a store, at a workplace, a nightclub, a festival, in our neighborhoods, in our streets,” he added. “The right to bear arms is not an absolute right that dominates all others.”
Gun violence survivors and family members of victims of recent mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, attended, as well as survivors and family members from the Columbine, Sandy Hook and Parkland mass shootings, among others. But some gun safety advocates lament that it doesn’t go far enough.
Ahead of Monday’s event, Biden asked Americans in a tweet to text him their stories of how gun violence has impacted their communities, looking to tout how the new law will help stop similar violence.
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act includes $13 billion in new spending for mental health programs and for securing schools. It also makes background checks stricter for gun buyers under 21, helps to close the so-called boyfriend loophole to restrict domestic violence offenders from purchasing guns, and incentivizes red flag laws to remove firearms from people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.
But it doesn’t go as far as many wanted, including Biden, lacking measures such as universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
As the president marked progress on gun reform Monday, he also called on Congress to act further.
He called for legislation that would ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, strengthen background checks and enact safe storage laws.
“We’re living in a country awash in weapons of war. Weapons that were designed to hunt are not being used; the weapons designed that they’re purchasing are designed as weapons of war, to take out an enemy,” he said. “What is the rationale for these weapons outside war zones?”
The president’s ask for more congressional action comes as the Senate returns from its July Fourth recess Monday. Notably, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was not at Biden’s event because he is isolated with COVID-19.
ABC News’ Justin Gomez and Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
