(NEW YORK) — With Americans about to celebrate a third Thanksgiving since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, infectious disease doctors say it may be safe to celebrate with slightly more relaxed rules this year.
“It’s important to just recognize we are in a very different place from two years ago. This population is getting more and more immune,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease physician at the University of California San Francisco.
“The most important thing is having balance. This is a tough time. It’s important to see our family and our loved ones if we can,” said Dr. Rupa Patel, a research associate professor at Washington University School of Medicine.
With multiple viruses circulating this fall including COVID-19, influenza and RSV, infectious disease specialists agreed that basic lessons learned during the pandemic can go a long way in preventing the spread of disease. That includes frequent hand washing, cracking a window for better circulation, staying home when sick and staying up-to-date with COVID-19 boosters and flu shots.
“What [the public] can do is balance risks and benefits. And there is no simple formula,” said Dr. Gregory Poland, director of the Mayo Clinic’s vaccine research group in Rochester, Minnesota.
When it comes to testing before family gatherings, infectious disease experts interviewed by ABC News universally agreed that anyone with cold and flu symptoms should seek a COVID-19 test. Even people without symptoms should consider testing if someone at their gathering is vulnerable to serious illness, including people who are unvaccinated, immune compromised or the elderly.
“Live life, but stay home if you feel sick,” said Dr. Whitney Minnock, director of pediatric emergency medicine at Corewell Health William Beaumont University Hospital.
Always test with symptoms
Experts were split on the need for asymptomatic testing but many agreed that it’s no longer necessary to test before every single gathering, travel or major event.
For most people in most situations, “you don’t need to test unless you have symptoms,” said Dr. Jay Varma, director of the Cornell Center for Pandemic Prevention and Response. With tests no longer free through the federal government, frequent asymptomatic testing may no longer be possible for many families.
“If you are symptomatic, test obviously,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor in the division of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “This is a communicable disease. No one, as I say, wants to be a dreaded spreader.”
People with any symptoms of any viral illness should stay home. If staying home isn’t possible, people with symptoms should wear a high-quality mask, the experts said.
“I think the right guidance is to isolate for as long as you can, until your antigen test is negative,” Varma said. “Alternatively, wearing a high-quality mask, an N95 mask, and going about daily activities, including potentially being on a plane if you have to, are a reasonable way of minimizing harm to other people.”
Consider testing around the vulnerable
Because many people can spread COVID-19 without showing any symptoms, experts said it’s a good idea to test in situations where vulnerable people might be exposed.
“If you are going to be around people who are more vulnerable … you might want to [test] so that you can prevent that from happening,” said Chin-Hong.
Added Patel: “I think the responsibility of testing is … where am I going, who is the audience and where have I been?”
Similarly, people who are members of those high-risk groups should seek COVID-19 and flu testing at the first possible symptom because treatments work best when given early.
“If you’re in a high-risk group and you develop any kind of symptoms, please be tested, both for COVID and for influenza, because we have treatments for you. We can help prevent your needing to be hospitalized,” Schaffner said.
Take other steps to reduce risk
Although COVID-19 is still serious, it is a risk that many Americans are willing to adopt to resume a semi-normal way of life, according to Varma.
That said, everyone can take concrete steps to minimize risk, including vaccinations and basic prevention tips.
“I think this is the winter that people are going to get together,” said Chin-Hong.
Dr. Amy Arrington, a medical director at Texas Children’s Hospital, said it’s “important to continue the things that we have learned work,” including new COVID-19 booster shots.
“You also have to remember that your actions affect other people,” said Anne Rimoin, Ph.D., professor of epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. “As we move further and further along out of the most acute phase of the pandemic, it doesn’t mean that risk mitigation measures aren’t worthwhile.”
Even for the vaccinated, COVID-19 infection isn’t always trivial. Many patients will go on to experience long-COVID, or lingering symptoms that can last for months after infection.
“The evidence is increasingly compelling that long COVID can present serious, long-term health consequences,” Rimoin said.
“I think there’s definitely a light at the end of the tunnel but I don’t think we’re there quite yet,” said Arrington. “I hate for us to just loosen the reins [and] go back to a totally pre-pandemic way.”
Added Minnock: “If we head into the holidays and everybody is scared, that is not good for mental health. I plan on being with my family this Thanksgiving. But some important precautions will be part of our celebration.”
(NEW YORK) — Already facing a challenging respiratory season, pediatricians in Ohio are now dealing with another foe: measles.
According to statistics provided to ABC News by the Columbus Public Health Department (CPHD), as of Tuesday afternoon, 19 children have contracted the virus.
Nearly half of these children were hospitalized due to severe symptoms of the infection. Almost half were under 5 years old.
The rate of children requiring hospitalization during this outbreak was nearly double what’s typically seen during measles outbreaks, Dr. Matthew Washam, pediatrician and chief of epidemiology at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, told ABC News.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told ABC News that it is deploying a team to Ohio to assist with mitigating the outbreak.
Here’s what to know about the outbreak, why these rare cases occur and how Americans can protect themselves against the virus:
Is measles serious?
Measles is a very contagious disease with the CDC saying every individual infected by the virus can spread it to up to 10 close contacts, if they are unprotected including not wearing a mask or not being vaccinated.
Complications from measles can be relatively benign, like rashes, or they can be much more severe, like viral sepsis, pneumonia, or brain swelling.
“The impression that measles is a trivial infection akin to the common cold with a rash, that is incorrect,” Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told ABC News. “Measles is a very nasty virus.”
“Before we had the measles vaccine in the United States, 400 to 500 children died of measles and its complications each and every year. So, measles can make you very, very sick,” he continued.
Am I protected from measles?
The CDC says anybody who either had measles at some point in their life or who has received two doses of the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine is protected against measles.
One dose of the measles vaccine is 93% effective at preventing infection if exposed to the virus. Two doses are 97% effective.
Schaffner said there is no reason for anyone who has been vaccinated to receive a booster dose when isolated outbreaks occur.
“If you’ve had those two doses of the measles vaccine, you’re protected essentially for life,” he said.
In 2000, measles was declared eradicated from the U.S. thanks to the highly effective vaccination campaign.
Why did this outbreak occur?
The CDC team deploying to Ohio will also assist with investigating the outbreak’s origins, given that children across 12 schools/daycares have contracted the virus so far.
The fact that these infections occurred over a two-week timespan is throwing another wrench in efforts to track down the outbreak’s origins.
Recent research from the World Health Organization described the “largest continued backslide in vaccinations in three decades” due to missed routine care during the pandemic.
In the U.S., a May study found one-third of American parents reported a child with a missed vaccination due to barriers imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, according to Kelli Newman, director in the CPHD Office of Public Affairs and Communications, “our investigation so far points to vaccine hesitancy and choosing not to be vaccinated” as the driver for the outbreak.
What is vaccine hesitancy?
Vaccine hesitancy is defined as delaying or refusing vaccination despite their widespread availability.
Accordingly, CPHD’s conclusion so far fits with a troublesome trend sweeping the United States — and beyond.
Even before the pandemic, reluctance around getting vaccines was hitting a fever pitch. Vaccine hesitancy was named one of the top 10 threats to global health by the WHO in 2019.
In the U.S., vaccine hesitancy has been further stoked by politics.
A study by the Colorado Health Institute, a non-partisan research organization, found that COVID vaccination rates across the state were strongly correlated with counties’ political beliefs.
The MMR vaccine has been especially targeted by the vaccine hesitant community. Much of the controversy around the vaccine derives from a now retracted and discredited 1998 study from The Lancet that falsely drew a connection between the shot and rates of autism.
How can we encourage vaccination?
Despite research debunking the Lancet paper, many communities continue to grapple with misinformation around the MMR vaccine.
“Misinformation and disinformation related to vaccines continues and persists,” Washam told ABC News. “These are not conversations that can be had in five or 10 minutes or in a single visit.”
In Ohio, the health department has tried to combat this misinformation by offering walk-in MMR vaccine appointments that include one-to-one counseling with health providers.
Fortunately, despite the increasing frequency of measles outbreaks, vaccine hesitancy still remains the exception rather than the rule. CDC data shows that more than 90% of children were vaccinated against MMR by the age of two. By 17 years old, that share rises to 92%.
However, epidemiologists worry a 10% unvaccinated rate in children is the bare minimum required to stem future outbreaks. They are even more concerned about communities, like that in Ohio, where the vaccination rate is even lower.
“That 90% is not evenly distributed across the country — there are pockets of under vaccinated areas, and those are the areas that are susceptible,” Washam told ABC News. “Measles anywhere in the world is a risk for measles everywhere in the world.”
Schaffner said it is important for local public health authorities to bring trusted leaders, be they political or religious, to speak about the importance of vaccination.
“They can provide them not only information, but a sense of reassurance, a sense of comfort, letting them know that it is the appropriate thing to do for their own children’s benefit, but also for the benefit of the entire community,” Schaffner noted.
Additionally, this winter amid a so-called “tripledemic” of flu, RSV and COVID-19, experts are urging families to ensure their children are vaccinated against the flu to reduce the burden on health systems and prevent any undue harm. Vaccination rates for the flu historically hover around 60%.
“Some families say, I’m going to wait until X or Y or Z date to get the vaccine,” Washam told ABC News. “Well, this might be the year to get it a little sooner.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden is spending Thanksgiving with his family in Nantucket, Massachusetts, as is their tradition, but the talk around the dinner table this year could turn to his political future.
Biden told reporters after the midterm elections he’d be conferring with his family over the holidays, and that while it’s his intention to run again in 2024, he has yet to make a final decision.
“I’m a great respecter of fate,” he said. “And this is, ultimately, a family decision. I think everybody wants me to run, but … we’re going to have discussions about it.”
“I hope Jill and I get a little time to actually sneak away for a week around — between Christmas and Thanksgiving,” he continued. “And my guess is it would be early next year when we make that judgment.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was tight-lipped Tuesday when pressed during a briefing whether the Biden family Thanksgiving would include discussions about 2024.
“He’s going to have a private conversation with his family. I am certainly not going to lay out what that conversation could look like or potentially be,” she said.
The Bidens will be in Nantucket until Sunday, continuing their Thanksgiving tradition that dates back to 1975.
In 2020 Biden’s family decided together about his run, with his eldest granddaughter Naomi calling a family meeting to urge him to challenge then-President Donald Trump.
Biden’s predecessor has already announced that he is running for the Republican nomination. An ABC News/Washington Post poll from September found Biden and Trump to be essentially tied in a hypothetical rematch, with 48% of Americans backing Biden and 46% backing Trump.
Biden’s been boosted after a better-than-expected performance by Democrats in the midterm elections. The party avoided a complete Republican takeover of Congress, managing to keep control of the Senate and limit their losses in the House.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said after the midterms showing that she believed Biden should seek a second term.
“He has been a great president and he has a great record to run on,” she told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on This Week on Nov. 13.
Vice President Kamala Harris, asked about 2024 plans while visiting the Philippines, said Tuesday that if Biden runs again, “I will be running with him.”
“And I have no doubt about the strength that we have done over these past two years,” Harris said.
But questions are also mounting about his age. Biden recently celebrated his 80th birthday, making him the first octogenarian to serve as commander-in-chief in the nation’s history. If he were to seek reelection, and win, he would be 86 by the end of his second term.
As Biden considers his next move, Pelosi and other long-reigning Democratic leaders have announced they are stepping down from their roles. In her farewell speech on the House floor, Pelosi, 82, nodded to passing the torch to rising Democratic stars.
“For me, the hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus that I so deeply respect,” Pelosi said. “And I am grateful that so many are ready and willing to shoulder this awesome responsibility.”
Before departing for Nantucket, the Bidens rang in some of the holiday cheer in Washington with the annual pardoning of Thanksgiving turkeys and the arrival of the official White House Christmas tree.
President Biden and Jill Biden also shared a Thanksgiving meal with military members and their families at Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point in North Carolina.
“You are literally, not figuratively, the greatest fighting force, the best fighting force in the history of the world,” Biden told service members. “That’s not hyperbole — in the history of the world. It’s not a joke. And you really are an incredible group of women and men. And again, I want to thank the spouses as well, because they put up with an awful lot because of your service.”
(JERUSALEM) — Twin blasts near bus stops in Jerusalem on Wednesday morning killed at least one person and injured 15 others in what Israeli police described as a suspected “coordinated terror attack.”
“Not an easy morning,” Israel Police Commissioner R.N. Yaakov Shabtai said. “This kind of attack has not been seen for many years — two attacks in a row. The main effort of the Israel Police is currently scanning all areas — bus stops, transportation and crowd gatherings — at the same time as the manhunt to get hold of the perpetrator of the attack. We will do everything in our power together with all the other security forces to reach this cell.”
Both explosions went off near separate bus stops during rush hour — the first on the edge of Jerusalem and the second in the city’s northern Ramot neighborhood. Four of the wounded were hospitalized in serious condition, according to police.
“It is a rolling terror incident,” Jerusalem District Commander Superintendent Doron Turgeman said. “We are currently still in the stages of scanning and activity at the scene of the incident and in the wider scope. The investigation is in its infancy with all the force, both the district forces and national reinforcements.”
A manhunt for the perpetrators is underway, with hundreds of police officers and border guards working with security forces to conduct searches on the ground and in the air, according to police.
Members of the public were asked to avoid the areas of the blasts, where investigators and bomb squads remain on scene, police said.
The apparent attacks came amid heightened tensions between Israelis and Palestinians as well as an uptick in deadly violence. For the past several months, Israeli security forces have been conducting nightly raids in the occupied West Bank, prompted by a string of attacks against Israelis that have left 19 people dead.
(NEW YORK) — Elon Musk, who admitted to overpaying for Twitter, cut workers at the social media platform almost immediately. In response, some of the axed employees want their day in court.
Within days of the acquisition, Musk fired top executives and cut the company’s 7,500-person workforce in half. Soon after, he posed an ultimatum to employees asking that they commit to being, in Musk’s words, “extremely hardcore” and “work long hours of high intensity” or resign. The move sent more workers out the door.
These personnel changes provoked several lawsuits from former workers alleging that the moves violated workers’ rights because the company allegedly did not provide ample notice for laid-off workers or accommodations for disabled employees.
Musk, who also runs Tesla and SpaceX, may have exposed Twitter to serious legal liability that could wreak financial damage on the company, two labor experts told ABC News. The experts were reluctant to comment on the specifics of the cases, but said the former workers carry legitimate grievances that the courts will have to assess.
The combined lawsuits could cost Twitter “many millions of dollars,” Michael LeRoy, a professor of labor and employment relations at University Of Illinois, told ABC News.
However, the legal proceedings could take more than five years to resolve, affording the company leverage if it were to pursue settlements with former employees, LeRoy added.
Sharon Block, executive director of the labor and worklife program at Harvard University Law School and a former member of the Obama administration, said the personnel moves demonstrate “reckless disregard for workers’ wellbeing.”
Twitter has not responded to a request for comment.
In one class-action lawsuit, departed workers allege that the company failed to provide the 60-day notice of layoffs required by federal law under the WARN Act, which mandates large businesses give notice when undertaking a mass layoff, Shannon Liss-Riordan, the attorney for the workers, told ABC News.
Twitter plans to keep many, but not all, of the laid-off workers on the payroll for two months as a means of complying with the law, Liss-Riordan said. However, the company does not intend to pay full severance beyond those months as previously promised, she added.
In a separate class-action lawsuit — also overseen by Liss-Riordan — a disabled former employee is suing the company over allegations the ultimatum that workers be “extremely hardcore” forced disabled workers to resign because they could not meet the elevated standard for work performance.
Federal labor law affords companies wide latitude to terminate workers without explanation under a measure called at-will employment. But businesses face some limits on the type or execution of layoffs, including prohibitions against discrimination and requirements that employees at some firms be alerted in advance of large layoffs.
“We completely understand that business leaders and owners of companies get to make decisions about how they think the company will best operate going forward,” Liss-Riordan told ABC News. “But we do have laws in place to protect workers and laws to protect workers subject to layoffs.”
“If Elon Musk thinks it’s best for Twitter and its shareholders to slash workers, he’s within his rights to do that,” she added. “But if he tries to violate workers’ rights, he’s got to expect pushback.”
LeRoy, of the University of Illinois, said the breakneck speed of Musk’s personnel decisions has placed his company on precarious legal ground.
“Haste makes waste,” LeRoy said. “Hasty terminations often have legal consequences.”
Still, the company could make arguments focused on exemptions in relevant law, LeRoy said. For example, the federal statute that mandates large companies provide notice ahead of mass layoffs excludes companies suffering financial hardship, he added.
“That adds some degree of ambiguity to the situation,” he said.
In addition, the legal proceedings could take many years, giving the upper hand to Twitter as it fights the lawsuits or pursues a favorable settlement, LeRoy said.
Liss-Riordan acknowledged the challenge posed by a potentially lengthy legal proceeding, but said the cases against Twitter could be resolved with relative ease.
“Cases can take a long time,” she said. “In this case, I’m hopeful perhaps we might be able to get this resolved sooner.”
“Paying laid-off workers what they’re owed should be the easiest of Musk’s current problems to address,” she added.
Since he acquired Twitter late last month, Musk has imposed major changes at the social media platform.
He revamped the company’s subscription product Twitter Blue, by allowing users to access verification through a monthly $8 fee, but halted the rollout after a rise of impersonations on the platform, including impersonations of Musk himself.
More recently, he reinstated the account of former President Donald Trump, reversing a previous announcement that said major account reinstatement decisions would await the formation of a content moderation council. Trump had been permanently suspended “due to the risk of further incitement of violence” in the wake of Jan. 6.
Musk, who acquired Twitter at the purchasing price of $44 billion, faces pressure to boost the company’s profits. Earlier this month, he said the company was losing $4 million each day.
(NEW YORK) — Luxury brand Balenciaga has issued an apology for its recent advertisements featuring children with sexualized teddy bears.
“We sincerely apologize for any offense our holiday campaign may have caused. Our plush bear bags should not have been featured with children in this campaign. We have immediately removed the campaign from all platforms,” the company wrote in a statement posted to its Instagram story on Tuesday.
The advertisements, which were originally posted earlier this week, were for the brand’s new holiday gifting campaign. The photos featured children posing with the company’s plush bear bags, which wear BDSM-inspired harnesses.
One photo featured a child standing on a bed with one of the plush bear bags, surrounded by other purses and accessories that include what appears to be a chain leash as well as a Balenciaga branded dog collar choker.
Social media users immediately called out the brand’s latest campaign on Twitter, with some also denouncing a promotional photo for a purse that included what appears to be an excerpt from the U.S. Supreme Court opinion on United States vs. Williams (2008), which upheld part of a federal child pornography law.
“We apologize for displaying unsettling documents in our campaign. We take this matter very seriously and are taking legal action against the parties responsible for creating the set and including unapproved items for our Spring 23 campaign photoshoot. We strongly condemn abuse of children in any form. We stand for children’s safety and well-being,” the company said in its statement on Tuesday.
Balenciaga’s ad campaign featured its Spring/Summer 2023 collection, which debuted this fall at Paris Fashion Week.
The Spanish luxury label made headlines last month for cutting ties with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, after he made antisemitic comments on social media and in several interviews. Ye had walked in Balenciaga’s Paris Fashion Week show just weeks earlier.
The brand left Twitter on Nov. 15, shortly after billionaire Elon Musk bought the company for $44 billion in October, but remains on Instagram.
(COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.) — The alleged gunman in a deadly shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado is scheduled to make his first court appearance virtually on Wednesday, court records show.
Five people were killed and 17 others wounded by gunfire in the mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs late Saturday night. Police are investigating the incident as a hate crime.
The suspect, 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, is 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.
Aldrich is expected to have his first court appearance on Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. local time, court records show. The hearing is to let him know the charges he’s facing and advise him on the no-bond status, Colorado’s Fourth Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen, who serves El Paso and Teller counties, told ABC News.
The appearance will be done via video link from jail, according to the district attorney.
The district attorney’s office expects to file formal charges with the court within a few days of this first court appearance, Allen told reporters earlier this week. There may be more charges than what was initially included in the arrest warrant, he said.
“Very customary that final charges may be different than what’s in the arrest affidavit. Typically, there will be more charges than what is listed in the arrest affidavit. So don’t be surprised when you see a different list of charges when we finally file formal charges with the court,” he said.
The El Paso County District Court has sealed the arrest warrant and supporting documentation connected with Aldrich’s arrest. According to the motion by prosecutors, if the records were released, “it could jeopardize the ongoing case investigation.”
The gunman used a long rifle and was injured in the shooting, according to police. Two “heroes” — identified as Thomas James and Richard Fierro — confronted and fought with him, stopping him from shooting more people, police have said. Officers responded to the scene and detained Aldrich just after midnight and transported him to a local hospital, where he had been in custody in the days following the incident.
On Tuesday, the Colorado Springs Police Department said it had turned over custody of the suspect to the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office at the jail.
Colorado Springs police said Tuesday they do not expect to provide additional updates on the case until Monday.
Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers told ABC News that the suspect “had considerable ammo” and “was extremely well armed.” While a motive remains under investigation, Suthers said “it has the trappings of a hate crime.”
The Colorado state public defender wrote in court filings released Tuesday that Aldrich is nonbinary.
In June 2021, Aldrich was arrested in an alleged bomb threat incident after their mother alerted authorities that they were “threatening to cause harm to her with a homemade bomb, multiple weapons and ammunition,” according to a press release posted online last year by the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office. While no explosives were found in his possession, 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.
Aldrich’s 2021 arrest may not have appeared on background checks because the case does not appear to have been adjudicated, officials briefed on the investigation have told ABC News.
ABC News and other news organizations have petitioned the court in Colorado to unseal the records regarding Aldrich’s 2021 arrest.
Allen told ABC News on Tuesday that after the suspect has their first court appearance, the DA will appeal to have Aldrich’s sealed 2021 records opened next week.
(WASHINGTON) — A Washington, D.C., jury began deliberations Tuesday in the seditious conspiracy case against Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and four other associates in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Rhodes and his alleged co-conspirators are charged with disrupting the peaceful transfer of power by conspiring to oppose by force the certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory, among multiple other felonies.
Rhodes himself did not enter the U.S. Capitol that day and maintains that his group only intended to provide security and medical aid to those attending multiple pro-Trump demonstrations around the city.
Prosecutors have spent months putting on their case, documenting what they said were the conversations, messages and actions of the defendants leading up to their involvement with the events of Jan. 6, and alleged efforts to cover up their criminal activity afterward.
Rhodes, a Yale Law School graduate who founded the Oath Keepers militia in 2009, sent increasingly frantic messages to members of the group, following the 2020 election, about their need to be prepared to prevent Biden from taking office, the government said.
“We aren’t getting through this without a civil war,” Rhodes said in a Nov. 5 message shown by prosecutors.
Rhodes took the rare step of testifying on his own behalf during the trial, and told the court he continues to believe that the 2020 election was illegitimate, citing an unfounded theory that pandemic safety measures unconstitutionally affected voting.
Relying on testimony from the FBI, prosecutors allege that Rhodes worked between the election and Jan. 6 to rally his troops — many of them former law enforcement and military service members — and spent thousands of dollars on weapons and equipment as he traveled across the country toward Washington.
“It will be a bloody and desperate fight,” Rhodes wrote in a Dec. 11 message to other Oath Keepers, prosecutors said. “We are going to have a fight. That can’t be avoided.”
The charges: seditious conspiracy, obstructing government, aiding and abetting
Over dozens of hours in the D.C. federal courthouse, prosecutors have worked to reach the high bar of proving to the jury that the five defendants, Rhodes, Thomas Caldwell, Jessica Watkins, Kenneth Harrelson and Kelly Meggs, all engaged in a conspiracy to forcibly oppose the execution of laws governing the transfer of presidential power.
The government attempted to preempt innocent explanations for the defendant’s actions with evidence they said shows Rhodes and his associates would continue plans to disrupt government operations following Jan. 6.
“We aren’t quitting,” alleged co-conspirator Meggs wrote the night of Jan. 6 in a message presented by the government. “We’re reloading.”
Rhodes continued posting about a violent revolution and spent thousands on firearms and related equipment in the days after Jan. 6, records presented by the government showed.
If convicted on the seditious conspiracy charge, they could face a maximum of 20 years in prison, though all five members face a range of other felonies that could carry hefty prison sentences as well.
Alleged Oath Keeper co-conspirator Jessica Watkins said in testimony last week she accepted responsibility and regretted some of her actions inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, despite claiming credit for storming the building and calling it a “patriot movement” on social media after the fact.
After making her way through the crowd at the grand double doors on the Capitol building’s eastern side — which she described as similar to being at a Black Friday sale — Watkins found herself in the middle of a mob, crammed into a hallway leading further into the Capitol building. Metropolitan Police Department officer Christopher Owens, who testified earlier in the trial, was at the other end of the hallway with fellow officers physically keeping the mob from advancing.
Watkins admitted to yelling “push!” and testified that she now regrets it and didn’t realize what was happening at the front of the group.
“I take full responsibility for what happened in this hallway,” Watkins said. “I know it opens me up to criminal liability. I’m going to get charged for it — I get it.”
The officers ultimately held the line, but Watkins and others remained inside the Capitol building before she left to help carry out someone who had been hit in the face with pepper spray.
Watkins described being “excited” upon entering the capitol. Even after the incident in the hallway, she can be seen on Capitol security camera footage smoking some sort of pen-sized item. She later told the FBI that she had smoked marijuana inside the building.
“It felt like a historic moment,” Watkins said. “We were making history and I wasn’t absorbing the fact that we are not only trespassing but we’re trespassing in one of the most secure buildings in the world.”
But prosecutors circled back to the political nature of Watkins’ views, especially as they concerned the 2020 election, suggesting Biden’s victory may have been threatening to her and her alleged co-conspirators.
“The election itself wasn’t a threat,” Watkins said, adding that she was more concerned about what might happen “after the inauguration.”
Watkins said she maintained a “steady diet of InfoWars and Alex Jones” in the months before Jan. 6, watching the conspiracy theorist’s rants and interviews several hours a day, which she testified informed her world view and concerns about the government.
Watkins became concerned about a variety of conspiracy theories promoted in far-right circles around the time of the 2020 election. She testified that she became worried about the United Nations deploying to Washington, D.C., to ensure Joe Biden took office, then forcibly taking guns from Americans, mandating COVID-19 vaccinations and allowing a possible Chinese invasion from Canada.
“In hindsight I feel like I was gullible,” Watkins told the court.
Defendants contend they were there to provide security
Defense attorneys have sought to dispute the government’s arguments that the group ever engaged in plans to disrupt the Electoral college certification — arguing prosecutors are selectively quoting their messages and conversations to cast their intentions as seditious in nature.
They have also vigorously disputed the government’s narrative about the so-called “Quick Reaction Force” of heavily armed Oath Keepers members stationed at a hotel just outside the city on Jan. 6, which prosecutors have argued were in place as part of the plan to potentially use force to prevent Donald Trump’s removal from office.
Defense attorneys note that at no point has the government alleged that any of the firearms at the hotel were brought into D.C. on Jan. 6 or afterward, and that Rhodes never called them to come to the Capitol in the midst of the riot. In his own testimony, Rhodes denied having any knowledge about the specifics of the so-called Virginia QRF, even though he did acknowledge recommending members who decided to bring their firearms to keep them out of Washington.
Rhodes, in particular, has leaned heavily into his defense that he was never calling for anything unlawful in his public and private pleadings to have Trump mobilize the militia by invoking the Insurrection Act.
Attorneys for the defendants attempted to break the line prosecutors drew between the election and the Capitol siege, regardless of their clients’ far-right political views.
“Yes, things were said,” Stewart Rhodes’ attorney, James Bright, said. “It was heated rhetoric. Horribly heated rhetoric. Bombast. Inappropriate.”
But Bright contended none of this talk amounted to any sort of Jan. 6 plan to stop official government proceedings.
Kelly Meggs attorney, Stanley Woodward, similarly sought to undermine the idea that a coordinated effort took place between the defendants on Jan. 6 while arguing that any coordination that was done involved providing security to VIPs who were speaking at events that day.
“We don’t take lightly the events of Jan. 6, but we do take issue with the government’s characterization of what happened that day,” Woodward said.
Both Bright and Woodward condemned the violence and destruction that happened in and around the Capitol on Jan. 6, while maintaining it was not at the fault of their clients.
Woodward showed security camera footage from inside the Capitol of Meggs and other Oath Keepers entering double doors on the eastern side of the building after they had been forced open by rioters. Video from outside shows the Oath Keepers advancing through the crowd, but not making it all the way to the front before entering the building.
During his closing arguments, Harrelson defense attorney Brad Geyer focused on the government’s video evidence where rioters on the Capitol’s eastern steps were singing the national anthem while officers were being attacked with chemical spray and the defendants were further behind, walking up the steps through the massive crowd.
“If the video doesn’t fit you must acquit,” Geyer said repeatedly during closing arguments, channeling a famous refrain from the O.J.Simpson murder trial.
Geyer drew the jury’s attention to part of the crowd that was in front of the Oath Keepers and the rioters who broke open the doors before Harrelson and the others made it up to that level. Upon entering, Harrelson spent about 20 minutes in the building before leaving.
“They want you to turn this man’s life upside down for 17 minutes,” Geyer said. “The absurdity boggles the mind.”
What is seditious conspiracy?
Prosecutors provided a specific roadmap for the jury to reach its judgments, breaking down the meaning of seditious conspiracy in plain terms: an agreement to oppose the government by force. There does not need to be a specific start or end date and all the defendants did not need to join the conspiracy at the same time, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn Rakoczy said last week.
The rarely-used seditious conspiracy statute was signed into law following the Civil War with the aim of prosecuting Southerners who might still have wanted to fight against the government.
The Justice Department hasn’t brought seditious conspiracy charges since 2010, when prosecutors indicted several Michigan residents and members of the Hutaree militia with conspiring to oppose by force the authority of the U.S. government. But the defendants were all acquitted after a judge determined that prosecutors had hinged too much of their case on statements that were First Amendment protected speech.
The last successful seditious conspiracy conviction was in 1995, when a jury found an Egyptian cleric and his followers guilty in a plot to bomb the United Nations, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and a building housing an FBI office.
The Oath Keepers now on trial are not charged with seeking to overthrow the U.S. government — instead prosecutors argue their conduct falls within the portion of the seditious conspiracy statute related to conspiring to oppose the government’s authority and forcibly blocking the execution of laws.
(CHESAPEAKE, Va.) — Seven people have died, including the shooter, after a shooting at the Walmart on Sam’s Circle in Chesapeake, Virginia, Tuesday night, police said.
A law enforcement source told ABC News that “preliminary info is it was an employee, possible manager, went in break room and shot other employees, and himself.”
Police could not confirm if the shooting was contained to one part of the store and said it’s “very fluid, very new right now.”
“It’s sad, we’re a couple days before the Thanksgiving holiday,” Kosinski said.
“We’re only a few hours into the response, so we don’t have all the answers yet,” the city of Chesapeake tweeted. “Chesapeake Police continue their investigation into the active shooter event at Walmart on Sam’s Circle. We do know there are multiple fatalities plus injuries and the shooter is confirmed dead.”
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is en route to the scene, ABC News can report.
“Our first responders are well-trained and prepared to respond. Our communications team is set up and will be releasing additional information as it’s confirmed,” Chesapeake Deputy Director of Public Communications Elizabeth Vaughn said in a statement.
Law enforcement sources tell ABC News authorities are investigating whether this was a case of working violence.
Chesapeake mayor Rick West issued a statement following the shooting, calling it a “senseless act of violence.”
“I am devastated by the senseless act of violence that took place late last night in our City,” West said in a statement on Twitter. “My prayers are with all those affected – the victims, their family, their friends, and their coworkers. I am grateful for the quick actions taken by our first responders who rushed to the scene. Cheaspeake is a tightknit community and we are all shaken by this news. Together, we will support each other throughout this time. Please keep us in your prayers.”
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin also made a statement regarding the shooting on social media in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
“Our hearts break with the community of Chesapeake this morning. I remain in contact with law enforcement officials throughout this morning and have made available any resources as this investigation moves forward,” said Youngkin. “Heinous acts of violence have no place in our communities.”
