Visits: 2
It’s Thursday, April 18, 2019. Let’s start here.
1. Muellermania
Today’s the day: Americans finally get a chance to see what special counsel Robert Mueller devoted almost two years of his life to investigating.
Attorney General William Barr has scheduled a press conference for 9:30 a.m. Eastern time, but the 400-page report, built over 22 months, won’t be delivered to Congress with Barr’s color-coded redactions appended until at least an hour later.
Democrats don’t love this plan.
“The attorney general appears to be waging a media campaign on behalf of President Trump, the very subject of the investigation at the heart of the Mueller report,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said Wednesday night.
Because reporters won’t have access to the report before the press conference, ABC News Chief Legal Analyst Dan Abrams expects Barr to field questions primarily about the process of unveiling it rather than what’s in it.
“Is this an example of transparency,” Abrams asks on today’s podcast, “or is this an example of Barr basically writing his third letter, in effect, about what’s in the Mueller report, as opposed to just letting the report speak for itself?”
2. #floridawoman
Students in Colorado are returning to class after the Miami high school student who flew to Denver on Monday and immediately bought a shotgun and bullets and threatened nearby schools appears to have shot herself.
The body of Sol Pais, 18, was found near a trail in Clear Creek, Colorado, ending a 36-hour FBI manhunt. Pais, authorities said, was obsessed with the 1999 Columbine shooting, the 20th anniversary of which is on Saturday.
“We have found that multiple past attackers have zeroed in on several specific attacks, Columbine being one in particular, as it related to school shooters,” says John Cohen, an ABC News contributor and former acting undersecretary for the Department of Homeland Security. “There’s something about the Columbine attack that resonates with individuals whose grievances focus towards their school.”
(Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office) Colorado authorities are searching for Sol Pais, 18, after she allegedly traveled to the state and made threats to the Denver metropolitan area. 3. ‘Overwhelming’
The influx of families approaching the U.S.-Mexico border is “overwhelming our ability to provide humanitarian aid,” Kevin McAleenan, acting Secretary of Homeland Security, said on Wednesday, citing a new report.
The surge of families crossing the border, according to the report, has increased 600 percent in the last year, leading immigration officials to call it a “humanitarian crisis,” ABC News’ Lauren Pearle tells “Start Here.”
“These families are hoping for asylum,” Pearle says, “but, keep in mind, only about 15% of these families will actually get asylum, and that process can take over two years.”
4. What is dead may never die
A team of Yale scientists has restored some cell function to the brains of 32 slaughtered pigs, according to a new study, blurring the line of what it means to be dead.
But experiments on these, uh, franken-swine, may raise ethical concerns.
“We have a huge problem in our society getting people to understand,” Professor Art Caplan, a medical ethicist with the New York University School of Medicine, says on the podcast, “that once the brain totally and completely stops working, it can’t come back.”
“Start Here,” ABC News’ flagship podcast, offers a straightforward look at the day’s top stories in 20 minutes. Listen for free every weekday on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn or the ABC News app. Follow @StartHereABC on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for exclusive content and show updates.
Elsewhere:
‘Unflagging commitment to covering the news and serving their community at a time of unspeakable grief’: The Pulitzer Prize Board honors The Capital Gazette, the Maryland newspaper at which five people were murdered last year.
‘We need to be more respectful of human dignity’: For the first time, an African American wins a Pulitzer for editorial cartooning.
‘Event of very weighty significance’: North Korean state media reports a missile test or something.
From our friends at FiveThirtyEight:
With Manchester City out, the new Champions League favorite is … : City is out, but the favorites to win the whole thing still hail from Northern England. According to our SPI, Liverpool has the best chance to conquer Europe.
Doff your cap:
Astronaut Christina Koch was supposed to spacewalk her way into history last month, but NASA didn’t have enough spacesuits that were the right size … because reasons.
Her all-female spacewalk may have been canceled, but NASA is trying to make it up to her by letting her stay in space through February 2020.
“I still have the grin on my face that won’t seem to go away, just that I’m here every day,” she told ABC News’ David Kerley. “I don’t necessarily count numbers or days, I just think about doing my best every day.”
Koch, speaking to Kerley from the International Space Station, launched for the ISS on March 14.
“My primary message is to challenge yourself to reach farther than you think you can go,” Koch added. “I think when we achieve a dream that’s just outside of what we thought was in our reach, it has magnifying effects both for ourselves and what we can then strive to do in the future.”
