News
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
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.
Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, the Food and Drug Administration’s top drug regulator, said she was fired from the agency Friday after she declined to resign.
She said she did not know who had ordered her firing or why, nor whether Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. knew of her fate. The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The departure reflected the upheaval at the F.D.A., days after the resignation of Dr. Marty Makary, the agency commissioner. Dr. Makary had become a lightning rod for critics of the agency’s decisions to reject applications for rare disease drugs and to delay a report meant to supply damaging evidence about the abortion drug mifepristone. He also spent months before his departure pushing back on the White House’s requests for him to approve more flavored vapes, the reason he ultimately cited for leaving.
Dr. Hoeg’s hiring had startled public health leaders who were familiar with her track record as a vaccine skeptic, and she played a leading role in some of the agency’s most divisive efforts during her tenure. She worked on a report that purportedly linked the deaths of children and young adults to Covid vaccines, a dossier the agency has not released publicly. She was also the co-author of a document describing Mr. Kennedy’s decision to pare the recommendations for 17 childhood vaccines down to 11.
But in an interview on Friday, Dr. Hoeg said she “stuck with the science.”
“I am incredibly proud of the work we were doing,” Dr. Hoeg said, adding, “I’m glad that we didn’t give in to any pressures to approve drugs when it wasn’t appropriate.”
As the director of the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, she was a political appointee in a role that had been previously occupied by career officials. An epidemiologist who was trained in the United States and Denmark, she worked on efforts to analyze drug safety and on a panel to discuss the use of serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the most widely prescribed class of antidepressants, during pregnancy. She also worked on efforts to reduce animal testing and was the agency’s liaison to an influential vaccine committee.
She made sure that her teams approved drugs only when the risk-benefit balance was favorable, she said.
The firing worsens the leadership vacuum at the F.D.A. and other agencies, with temporary leaders filling the role of commissioner, food chief and the head of the biologics center, which oversees vaccines and gene therapies. The roles of surgeon general and director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also unfilled.
The U.S. Supreme Court
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
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Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
The U.S. Supreme Court refused Friday to allow Virginia to use a new congressional map that favored Democrats in all but one of the state’s U.S. House seats. The map was a key part of Democrats’ effort to counter the Republican redistricting wave set off by President Trump.
The new map was drawn by Democrats and approved by Virginia voters in an April referendum. But on May 8, the Supreme Court of Virginia in a 4-to-3 vote declared the referendum, and by extension the new map, null and void because lawmakers failed to follow the proper procedures to get the issue on the ballot, violating the state constitution.
Virginia Democrats and the state’s attorney general then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to put into effect the map approved by the voters, which yields four more likely Democratic congressional seats. In their emergency application, they argued the Virginia Supreme Court was “deeply mistaken” in its decision on “critical issues of federal law with profound practical importance to the Nation.” Further, they asserted the decision “overrode the will of the people” by ordering Virginia to “conduct its election with the congressional districts that the people rejected.”
Republican legislators countered that it would be improper for the U.S. Supreme Court to wade into a purely state law controversy — especially since the Democrats had not raised any federal claims in the lower court.
Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Republicans without explanation leaving in place the state court ruling that voided the Democratic-friendly maps.
The court’s decision not to intervene was its latest in emergency requests for intervention on redistricting issues. In December, the high court OK’d Texas using a gerrymandered map that could help the GOP win five more seats in the U.S. House. In February, the court allowed California to use a voter-approved, Democratic-friendly map, adopted to offset Texas’s map. Then in March, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the redrawing of a New York map expected to flip a Republican congressional district Democratic.
And perhaps most importantly, in April, the high court ruled that a Louisiana congressional map was a racial gerrymander and must be redrawn. That decision immediately set off a flurry of redistricting efforts, particularly in the South, where Republican legislators immediately began redrawing congressional maps to eliminate long established majority Black and Hispanic districts.
An explosion and fire drew a large emergency response on Friday to a lumber mill in the Midcoast region of Maine, officials said.
The State Police and fire marshal’s investigators responded to Robbins Lumber in Searsmont, about 72 miles northeast of Portland, said Shannon Moss, a spokeswoman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Mike Larrivee, the director of the Waldo County Regional Communications Center, said the number of victims was unknown, cautioning that “the information we’re getting from the scene is very vague.”
“We’ve sent every resource in the county to that area, plus surrounding counties,” he said.
Footage from the scene shared by WABI-TV showed flames burning through the roof of a large structure as heavy, dark smoke billowed skyward.
The Associated Press reported that at least five people were injured, and that county officials were considering the incident a “mass casualty event.”
Catherine Robbins-Halsted, an owner and vice president at Robbins Lumber, told reporters at the scene that all of the company’s employees had been accounted for.
Gov. Janet T. Mills of Maine said on social media that she had been briefed on the situation and urged people to avoid the area.
“I ask Maine people to join me in keeping all those affected in their thoughts,” she said.
Representative Jared Golden, Democrat of Maine, said on social media that he was aware of the fire and explosion.
“As my team and I seek out more information, I am praying for the safety and well-being of first responders and everyone else on-site,” he said.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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