Horned man at riot apologizes
Visit supports original theory
PHOENIX — A shirtless Arizona man who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol while sporting face paint and a furry hat with horns now says he regrets storming the building, has apologized for causing fear in others and expressed disappointment with former President Donald Trump.
In a statement released late Monday through his attorney, Jacob Chansley said he has reevaluated his life since being jailed for over a month on charges stemming from the riot and now realizes he shouldn’t have entered the Capitol building. Chansley, who previously said Trump inspired him to be in Washington on Jan. 6, said Trump “let a lot of peaceful people down.”
Chansley said he’s coming to terms with the events leading up to the riot, and asked people to “be patient with me and other peaceful people who, like me, are having a very difficult time piecing together all that happened to us, around us, and by us. We are good people who care deeply about our country.”
Chansley’s attorney, Al Watkins, released the statement about half a day before Trump’s impeachment trial was scheduled to begin in the U.S. Senate.
Watkins, who had unsuccessfully sought a pardon on Chansley’s behalf from Trump, said the Senate didn’t take up his offer to have his client testify on how he was incited by the former president.
The defense lawyer said his client’s apology was a genuine expression of culpability. Still, he said he doesn’t think it’s right for the government to prosecute people who were incited.
WUHAN, China — The coronavirus most likely first appeared in humans after jumping from an animal, a team of international and Chinese scientists looking for the origins of COVID-19 said Tuesday, saying an alternate theory that the virus leaked from a Chinese lab was unlikely.
A closely watched visit by World Health Organization experts to Wuhan — the Chinese city where the first coronavirus cases were discovered — did not dramatically change the current understanding of the early days of the pandemic, said Peter Ben Embarek, the leader of the WHO mission.
But it did “add details to that story,” he said at a news conference as the group wrapped up a four-week visit to the city.
And it allowed the joint Chinese-WHO team to further explore the lab leak theory — which former U.S. President Donald Trump and officials from his administration had put forward without evidence — and decide it was unlikely.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology is home to many different virus samples, leading to allegations that it may have been the source of the original outbreak, whether on purpose or accidentally.
Embarek, a WHO food safety and animal disease expert, said experts now consider the possibility of such a leak so improbable that it will not be suggested as an avenue of future study. But another team member, Danish scientist Thea Koelsen Fischer, told reporters that team members could not rule out the possibility of further investigation and new leads.
The Chinese and foreign experts considered several ideas for how the disease first ended up in humans, leading to a pandemic that has now killed more than 2.3 million people worldwide.
The mission was intended to be an initial step in the process of understanding the origins of the virus, which scientists have posited may have passed to humans through a wild animal, such as a pangolin or bamboo rat.
Transmission directly from bats to humans or through the trade in frozen food products are also possibilities, Embarek said.