18 passengers from a cruise ship tied to a deadly hantavirus outbreak now being monitored in the U.S., with one testing mildly positive for the disease. The suspect in last month s White House Correspondents Dinner shooting pleads not guilty as his lawyers argue the prosecution is tainted by a conflict of interest. Former President Biden moves to block the release of audio recordings from his memoir that became evidence in the Robert Herr classified documents investigation. This was a year that will live forever in the hearts of Indiana football fans. And the undefeated national championship team, Indiana Hoosiers visit the White House. All that and more coming up in a moment on your AM Update.
00:03:01.560"...mildly positive because just one of two samples taken from that person indicated hantavirus."
00:03:08.980That patient reportedly doing well and not showing any symptoms.
00:03:12.300The Biocontainment Unit, a more specialized isolation facility,
00:03:16.480uses negative air pressure systems, meaning air is pulled into the room but not allowed to flow
00:03:22.440back out into surrounding areas, helping prevent any possible airborne spread. Two other passengers,
00:03:28.880a couple, were sent to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. One has mild symptoms and is receiving
00:03:34.800care in Emory's biocontainment unit. The other is that person's partner and close contact,
00:03:40.220now being monitored as a precaution. Hantavirus is carried by rodents and usually spreads to
00:03:46.200humans through contact with infected urine, droppings, or saliva. This outbreak involving
00:03:52.120the Andes variant, a rare and deadly strain that can also spread person to person through
00:03:57.860prolonged close contact. At least three people tied to the ship have died. The passengers now
00:04:04.260in the U.S. ranging in age from late 20s to early 80s. Health officials say the quarantine units
00:04:10.240are more like a hotel room with Wi-Fi, exercise equipment, and comfortable lodging, allowing for
00:04:16.180easy monitoring, including routine temperature checks. All of the passengers now facing a 42-day
00:04:22.460monitoring window, with health officials deciding case-by-case whether they can safely complete that
00:04:27.800period at home or need to remain under medical supervision. Captain Jackson at a press conference
00:04:33.840yesterday describing what the next several days will look like for these passengers.
00:04:38.260Right now, the folks, the passengers that are all in the sort of assessment phase,
00:04:44.460they're going to be here for at least a few days while we do assessments
00:04:47.900and then coordination from what happens next.
00:04:50.200They certainly have the option to stay here for the entire 42-day period
00:04:53.760if that's just the safest and most effective option for them.
00:04:58.020There's going to be an individualized decision plan for them to determine
00:05:01.340if it makes more sense for them to complete their 42-day monitoring period at home.
00:05:06.000There's going to be a couple of things that go into that decision.
00:05:09.480First and foremost, do they remain symptom-free?
00:05:11.860But then also, do they have all the structures and support to be able to continue that period at home, making sure that they can be able to isolate in a separate part of a structure from anybody else, make sure that they can contact their health department, get tested if necessary, if they develop symptoms, or if they need a higher level of medical care, that that's available to them.
00:05:30.440Captain Jackson also explaining why the CDC is casting a relatively wide net around possible exposure, even as officials stress that Hantavirus does not spread as easily as a respiratory virus like COVID.
00:05:44.820There's guidance that you can look to specifically on our website about close contact and how that defines exposures.
00:05:50.480Typically, we're talking about exposure specifically to bodily fluids, and that could include things like saliva.
00:05:55.260So if you're sharing eating utensils, kissing, touching, those type of things.
00:05:59.120It can also mean just being really, really close to that person for a fairly long period of time.
00:06:05.020So we're calling that right now six feet for at least a cumulative number of 15 minutes.
00:06:10.360I want to be clear, there's nothing magical about six feet.
00:06:12.960It's not a force field, but it's a rough number that gives us a sense of how close somebody has been.
00:06:16.780Fifteen minutes, again, it's a bit arbitrary, but it again gives some sense of how close someone has been.
00:06:21.000And I think that's actually a fairly conservative approach, given how we know how the evidence we should have so far about how this virus has spread in the past.
00:06:29.660President Trump yesterday from the Oval Office offering measured reassurance.
00:06:34.080Now, the one thing with this one is that it's much harder to catch.
00:06:39.620And we've had it for a long time. It's been around for a long time.
00:06:42.460People are very familiar with it. So, you know, I hope it's fine.
00:06:46.480All I can do is everything that a president can do, which is actually somewhat limited.
00:06:52.880But it seems like it is not easy to spread.
00:06:59.160In fact, it's in certain ways very hard to spread.
00:07:03.920We've lived with it for years, many years, and we think we're in very good shape.
00:14:01.680The DOJ themselves have said these tapes serve no public interest.
00:14:06.240We spoke with Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project,
00:14:09.560a nonprofit government watchdog group.
00:14:11.980The Oversight Project beginning this effort while it was still under the Heritage Foundation umbrella
00:14:16.520and now continuing to partner with the think tank in the legal fight.
00:14:20.540Howell tells us what he expects the tapes to reveal.
00:14:23.240I think it's pretty obvious that Joe Biden was very faulty and not of sound mind.
00:14:29.440And so I expect this is an embarrassing recording for him, which is the motivation behind trying to fight for the release.
00:14:36.360It'll help, you know, paint a fuller picture of, you know, when the decline started and how bad it was.
00:14:42.680I also think it'll add context to how the, you know, then former vice president was illegally holding and using classified information, perhaps for private financial gain.
00:14:56.260Because keep in mind, the reason he wrote this book is because, and this is in the record,
00:15:01.380Joe Biden was embarrassed that they didn't have enough money.
00:15:04.880You had Hunter running around and making all the money.
00:15:07.220And so he paid somebody to write a book for him.
00:15:11.080And I think he was flipping secrets around in order to have a juicier book.
00:15:15.580Howell says after years of litigation, Team Biden is only moving to object now,
00:15:20.700just as the tapes appear close to release.
00:15:23.200This case has been going on for years.
00:15:25.160And now that it's on the eve of being released, they're just seeking to extend that.
00:15:30.120Jeff Clark, our VP for litigation here, said he's never seen in his 30 years of practicing a more obvious delay tactic than this.
00:15:38.300It reeks of politics. I mean, right now, going into midterms, there's been some articles written about how Biden intends to assert himself more in the political process.
00:15:47.980And I think they just finally figured out, like, hey, if, you know, they're going to be trotting out Joe Biden again and they're going to have a probably pretty embarrassing story coming out.
00:15:57.860They don't want those two things to happen at the same time.
00:15:59.800And so their lawyers put two and two together and then decided, oh, holy smokes, we should try to delay the release of this tape even longer.
00:16:08.240For Howell, the fight over these tapes now becoming part of a larger question about transparency, accountability and how the Biden White House operated.
00:16:17.220I'll say that the banner of how this country was run by an auto pen for four years
00:16:21.660still remains one of the greatest constitutional scandals in American history.0.99
00:16:25.760I know that it's kind of lost the spotlight a little bit in recent years with how quickly news moves,
00:16:32.200but we need to return as a country focused to this issue because, you know,
00:16:36.220for all of the talks going on right now about attacks on democracy, this attacks on democracy, that,
00:16:40.920there's been nothing more undemocratic than a president, you know, an entire branch of
00:16:46.220government rather being outsourced to staff using an auto pen. And so when we have potential pieces
00:16:52.780of evidence like a long recording of Joe Biden with his ghostwriter, there's no reason that
00:16:58.980should not be in the public record and should not be used to inform solutions to ensure something
00:17:03.340like this never happens again. The 2025 college football playoff champions, the Indiana Hoosiers,
00:17:10.920visiting the White House yesterday, celebrating the program's first national title and a perfect
00:17:16.28016-0 season after defeating Miami 27-21 in the championship game back in January.
00:17:25.220President Trump, who was at the championship game, welcoming the team and head coach