News

Clues to Luigi Mangione's ideology. And, courts halt Kroger and Albertsons megamerger

Published

1 month ago

December 11, 2024

Clues to Luigi Mangione's ideology. And, courts halt Kroger and Albertsons megamerger

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Today’s top stories

Syrians are transitioning from celebrating the ousting of long-time dictator Bashar al-Assad and the toppling of his regime to thinking about the huge challenges facing the war-torn country. Ahmed al-Shara, who is at the forefront of the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, is at least nominally in charge of the country. Here are five things to watch as Syria looks toward a new future.

Syrian citizens wave the revolutionary flag and shout slogans, as they celebrate during the second day of the take over of the city by the insurgents in Damascus on Monday.

Hussein Malla/AP

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Hussein Malla/AP

🎧 “What is quite extraordinary is they seem to now be handling a relatively managed handover of power,” NPR’s Ruth Sherlock tells Up First. A new transitional government has been formed, which includes some politicians from the old regime. Soldiers conscripted into military service are being pardoned, and leaders are working to dismantle the regime’s feared security apparatus. Sherlock visited the Sednaya prison, one of the most feared complexes known for torture and mass executions. It is now open, and rebels have released prisoners. Many of those who were imprisoned are still missing, and the facility is full of their loved ones looking for clues as to where they may be.
➡️ More than a million Syrians now live in Germany after fleeing Syria due to violence under Assad’s regime. Now, many are debating whether to return. Some Syrians share their thoughts with NPR’s Rob Schmitz about whether to go back.
➡️ Journalist Austin Tice went missing 12 years ago during a reporting trip in Syria. After the fall of the Assad regime, there has been increased hope that he is still alive. U.S. officials say they are working with sources on the ground to get information about Tice.

Investigators and some extremism researchers are looking into whether there’s evidence of a clear ideology behind the UnitedHealthcare CEO’s killing after details about suspect Luigi Mangione surfaced online. Mangione is a member of a prominent Maryland family, graduated top of his class from an elite prep school and received two Ivy League school degrees. He reportedly suffered a major back injury and underwent surgery a couple of years ago.

🎧 Mangione had several social media accounts, including one on Goodreads where he posted an excerpt from the writings of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, NPR’s Odette Yousef says. One of the photos on his X account is an X-ray of a spine with four large screws inserted. It isn’t certain that this is his X-ray. His digital footprint doesn’t clarify much because it cuts off in the spring. Police found a handwritten note conveying a deep anger towards the healthcare industry and a feeling that someone had to take action, Yousef says.
➡️ Brian Thompson, the UnitedHealthcare CEO, was likely killed with a ghost gun. Here’s what they are and how they are made.

Two separate judges blocked the $24.6 billion merger deal for Kroger and Albertsons yesterday. One of the cases was brought by federal regulators while the other was presented by the Washington state attorney general. It would have been the biggest grocery merger in U.S. history. Now, after two years of delays, its fate is unknown.

🎧 The block is technically temporary and Kroger and Albertsons could keep fighting and appeal, NPR’s Alina Selyukh says. The state judge ruled the merger violated state consumer protection law and the federal case blocked the merger nationwide. Government lawyers argued the merger would leave shoppers worse off. Kroger and Albertsons made the case that the merger was a matter of survival and that their biggest rivals are not conventional supermarkets but giants like Walmart and Costco. The companies say they are disappointed and disagree with the decision and are currently weighing their options going forward.

Life advice

Monochrome illustration showing a person in the distance bent over in grief sitting underneath a willow tree. In the foreground, a figure stands with its head bent next to a path leading to the tree, symbolizing a loved one who is unsure how to help their friend who is grieving.

It can be hard to know what to say to someone whose loved one has died. You want to show love and support, but you also know there isn’t much you can say to heal their pain. If you feel at a loss for words, psychologist and grief consultant Mekel Harris and author of Grief is Love Marisa Renee Lee have some dos and don’ts when expressing condolences.

❤️ Don’t start anything with “at least.” This phrase may minimize your friend’s experience and could impose a viewpoint that may not ring true.
❤️ Saying “no need to respond” releases the grieving person from any pressure or expectation to reply.
❤️ Clichés like “time heals all wounds” can sound hollow and impersonal.
❤️ Keep reaching out, even months after the death. Grief is a long road, and each person heals at their own pace.

Check out the more tips here.

Picture show

Clockwise, from top left: Laura Forer, Michelle Alette, Domenique Rice, Jen Loga, Dr. Patty Ng and Marise Angibeau-Gray

Nancy Borowick

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Nancy Borowick

Nancy Borowick found that photography was therapeutic for her after she lost both of her parents within 364 days of one another. It continued to have healing power when she found herself deep in depression 13 months after the traumatic birth of her son. Borowick turned to social media to ask others about their experiences with birth trauma. One grandmother asked her, “Are you looking for stories about stillbirth?” The question prompted her to start The Loss Mother’s Stone, a project she hopes will draw awareness to women’s stories, educate Americans and destigmatize the conversation between doctors and patients.

3 things to know before you go

After The Onion was named the winning bidder for Alex Jones’ assets at a bankruptcy auction last month, the losing bidder tried to stop the sale, saying the process was rigged and “fatally flawed.”

Joe Buglewicz/Getty Images

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Joe Buglewicz/Getty Images

A bankruptcy judge has rejected a bid by The Onion’s owners to buy Alex Jones’ Infowars, saying the offer and process were flawed.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed a new law Monday that limits how a book can be banned in schools and public libraries and protects librarians from lawsuits. (via WHYY)
The U.S.’ first state-sanctioned facility for people to use illegal drugs under medical supervision opened yesterday in Rhode Island. The facilities are part of an effort to prevent overdoses. (via The Public’s Radio)

This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.

News

Tulsa Massacre Was a ‘Coordinated, Military-Style Attack,’ Federal Report Says

Published

1 hour ago

January 11, 2025

Press Room

Tulsa Massacre Was a ‘Coordinated, Military-Style Attack,’ Federal Report Says

The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, in which a prosperous Black neighborhood in Oklahoma was destroyed and up to 300 people were killed, was not committed by an uncontrolled mob but was the result of “a coordinated, military-style attack” by white citizens, the Justice Department said in a report released Friday.

The report, stemming from an investigation announced in September, is the first time that the federal government has given an official, comprehensive account of the events of May 31 and June 1, 1921, in the Tulsa neighborhood of Greenwood. Although it formally concluded that, more than a century later, no person alive could be prosecuted, it underscored the brutality of the atrocities committed.

“The Tulsa Race Massacre stands out as a civil rights crime unique in its magnitude, barbarity, racist hostility and its utter annihilation of a thriving Black community,” Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said in a statement. “In 1921, white Tulsans murdered hundreds of residents of Greenwood, burned their homes and churches, looted their belongings and locked the survivors in internment camps.”

No one today could be held criminally responsible, she said, “but the historical reckoning for the massacre continues.”

The report’s legal findings noted that if contemporary civil rights laws were in effect in 1921, federal prosecutors could have pursued hate crime charges against both public officials and private citizens.

Though considered one of the worst episodes of racial terror in U.S. history, the massacre was relatively unknown for decades: City officials buried the story, and few survivors talked about the massacre.

The Justice Department began its investigation under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which allows the agency to examine such crimes resulting in death that occurred before 1980. Investigators spoke with survivors and their descendants, looked at firsthand accounts and examined an informal review by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation, the precursor to the F.B.I. In that 1921 report, the agency asserted that the riot was not the result of “racial feeling,” and suggested that Black men were responsible for the massacre.

The new 123-page report corrects the record, while detailing the scale of destruction and its aftermath. The massacre began with an unfounded accusation. A young Black man, Dick Rowland, was being held in custody by local authorities after being accused of assaulting a young white woman.

According to the report, after a local newspaper sensationalized the story, an angry crowd gathered at the courthouse demanding that Mr. Rowland be lynched. The local sheriff asked Black men from Greenwood, including some who had recently returned from military service, to come to the courthouse to try to prevent the lynching. Other reports suggest the Black neighbors offered to help but were turned away by the sheriff.

The white mob viewed attempts to protect Mr. Rowland as “an unacceptable challenge to the social order,” the report said. The crowd grew and soon there was a confrontation. Hundreds of residents (some of whom had been drinking) were deputized by the Tulsa Police. Law enforcement officers helped organize these special deputies who, along with other residents, eventually descended on Greenwood, a neighborhood whose success inspired the name Black Wall Street.

The report described the initial attack as “opportunistic,” but by daybreak on June 1, “a whistle blew, and the violence and arsons that had been chaotic became systematic.” According to the report, up to 10,000 white Tulsans participated in the attack, burning or looting 35 city blocks. It was so “systematic and coordinated that it transcended mere mob violence,” the report said.

In the aftermath, the survivors were left to rebuild their lives with little or no help from the city. The massacre’s impact, historians say, is still felt generations later.

In the years since the attack, survivors and their descendants and community activists have fought for justice. Most recently, a lawsuit seeking reparations filed on behalf of the last two known centenarian survivors was dismissed by Oklahoma justices in June. In recent years, Tulsa has excavated sections of a city cemetery in search of the graves of massacre victims. And in 2024, the city created a commission to study the harms of the atrocity and recommend solutions. The results are expected in the coming weeks.

News

The strange world of the Euro-Gulf

Published

3 hours ago

January 11, 2025

Press Room

Stay informed with free updates

Waiting for the Tube, I see a poster for an upmarket gym chain. Locations? “City of London. High Street Kensington. Dubai.” What a shame to choose a setting that is so disfigured with bad taste and clueless expats. Still, the City and Dubai branches must be first-rate.

Soon after, I am in Doha, and again the Euro-Gulf linkage is inescapable. The emir of Qatar is back from a state visit to Britain, where the hosts were angling for a trade deal. Swiss-headquartered Fifa has just given the World Cup hosting rights to Saudi Arabia. Even in skyscraper-free Muscat, where alleys that might have been rationalised elsewhere in the Gulf twist freely behind the corniche, three restaurants in my hotel are outposts of Mayfair brands.

What a shame the word “Eurabia” is taken. And by such cranks. (It is a far-right term for a supposed plot to Islamise Europe.) Because we are going to need a word for this relationship. The Arabian peninsula has what Europe lacks: space, natural wealth and the resulting budget surpluses to invest in things. For its part, Europe has “soft” assets that Gulf states must acquire, host or emulate to carve out a post-oil role in the world. This isn’t the Gulf’s deepest external connection. Not while 38 per cent of people in the UAE and a quarter in Qatar are Indian. But it might be the most symbiotic, if I understand that word correctly.

True, the US has a defence presence in all six Gulf Cooperation Council states. This includes the Saudi footprint that Osama bin Laden wasn’t super-stoked about. But everyday contact? America is a 15-hour flight away. Its soft assets are either harder to buy or less coveted. Its citizens have little fiscal incentive to live in tax havens, as Uncle Sam charges them at least some of the difference.

In the 1970s, when Opec profits gushed through London, Anthony Burgess wrote a dystopia in which grand hotels became “al-Klaridges” and “al-Dorchester”. What a mental jolt it was for even the worldliest Europeans to see — we mustn’t pussyfoot around this — non-white people with more money than them. Still, they could condescend to the Gulf as being no place to live. Half a century on, their grandchildren would call that copium. In fact, their grandchildren might literally live there for economic opportunities. (Al-Dorado?) As a banker friend explains it, the time zones allow you to sleep late, trade the European markets, then dine late, so it is the young ones who do a Gulf stint, not the burnouts who are my age.

For how long, though? It is the sheer unlikelihood of this tryst, between a universal rights culture and monarchical absolutism, between a mostly secular continent and the home peninsula of an ancient faith, that distinguishes it from anything I can think of. A relationship can be both necessary and untenable. It wouldn’t take much — some intra-GCC violence, say, which seemed close in 2017 — for Europe’s exposure to the Gulf to age as badly as its former openness to Russia. If Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City are found to have committed financial chicanery, a chunk of Premier League history will be tainted. Because it is “just” sport, I sense people are underprepared for the backlash.

And it is parochial to assume that the relationship could only ever break down on one end. It is the Gulf side that has to make the awkwardest cultural adjustments. Because Europeans associate 1979 with Iran and perhaps with Margaret Thatcher, they sometimes pass over the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by zealots who thought the House of Saud had grown soft on western habits. Governments in the region assuredly don’t forget.

How far a place can liberalise without tripping a cultural wire occupies (and is answered differently in) each state, or emirate. Everyone is very nice to “Mister Janan” in his Doha hotel. But the metal scanners that must be passed on each re-entry to the building stand as a reminder of the stakes here. I wonder if Europe and the Gulf throw so much into their liaison out of a niggling doubt that it can last.

Email Janan at janan.ganesh@ft.com

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News

Fox News headed for trial, again, over 2020 election fraud claims

Published

4 hours ago

January 11, 2025

Press Room

Fox News headed for trial, again, over 2020 election fraud claims

Fox News appears headed for trial over false election fraud claims made after the 2020 election, after a New York state appellate court chose not to dismiss a lawsuit brought by voting tech company Smartmatic.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images/Getty Images North America

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Spencer Platt/Getty Images/Getty Images North America

Fox News appears to be headed once more to court over the lies involving election fraud it aired about the 2020 presidential race. This time, it’s over the false claims that election tech company Smartmatic sabotaged the re-election of then-President Donald Trump.

In April 2023, on the eve of a trial in Delaware in which Fox founder Rupert Murdoch was set to testify, the network and its parent corporation agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle a defamation suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems.

Fox News settles blockbuster defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems

A flood of revelations from the pre-trial process of discovery yielded damning internal communications. The judge found that network figures from junior producers to primetime hosts, network executives, Murdoch and his son Lachlan knew that Joe Biden had won the election fairly. Yet, they allowed guests to spread lies that Trump had been cheated of victory to win back Trump viewers. Some hosts amplified and even embraced the claims.

Now, an appellate court ruling in New York state is allowing Smartmatic’s parallel, $2.7 billion suit to press ahead. The same ruling also dismissed some counts against the network’s parent company, Fox Corp.

Pro-Trump Fox hosts including Maria Bartiromo and the late Lou Dobbs invited guests making unsubstantiated and wild claims about Smartmatic on the air, and at times appeared to endorse those allegations themselves.

Fox forced Dobbs off the air just a day after Smartmatic filed its suit in February 2021. Two weeks later, Fox News and Fox Business Network ran an awkward segment with a voting tech expert, Edward Perez, to present viewers with a rebuttal to those outlandish claims. Newsmax, a right-wing channel in competition with Fox for viewers who supported Trump, did much the same.

“Today, the New York Supreme Court rebuffed Fox Corporation’s latest attempt to escape responsibility for the defamation campaign it orchestrated against Smartmatic following the 2020 election,” Smartmatic’s lead attorney, Erik Connolly, said in a statement. “Fox Corporation attempted, and failed, to have this case dismissed, and it must now answer for its actions at trial. Smartmatic is seeking several billion in damages for the defamation campaign that Fox News and Fox Corporation are responsible for executing. We look forward to presenting our evidence at trial.”

Unlike Dominion, whose voting machines were used in two dozen states, Smartmatic says its technology was used only in Los Angeles County in 2020. Fox has sharply questioned the value of Smartmatic and the contracts it says were jeopardized and lost.

“We will be ready to defend this case surrounding extremely newsworthy events when it goes to trial,” a network spokesperson said in a statement. “As a report prepared by our financial expert shows, Smartmatic’s damages claims are implausible, disconnected from reality, and on their face intended to chill First Amendment freedoms.”

In the Dominion case, Fox also relied on arguments that its shows and hosts were simply relaying inherently newsworthy allegations from inherently newsworthy people — the then-president and his allies. The presiding judge in Delaware, Eric M. Davis, rejected that argument; he found that Fox’s executives, stars, and shows had broadcast false claims and defamed Dominion in doing so.

Fox has said that the New York case offers a new venue, with slightly different implications, although Davis applied New York defamation law in his Delaware proceedings.

Fox settled, as it has in many other cases, before opening arguments of the trial with Dominion. It maintains it will fight the allegations Smartmatic is making in court.