Author: CNN

CNN
 — 

In the photograph that introduced millions of people to Wadea Al-Fayoume for the first time, the kindergartener is seen celebrating his sixth birthday at his home near Chicago.

With one hand on a blue “Happy Birthday” hat on his head, Wadea stands in the warm light of the home, surrounded by presents. On a shelf behind him sits a wooden sign proclaiming “home.” A birthday video is seen playing on the living room TV.

Inside that same home – and just eight days after that photo was snapped – Wadea was stabbed 26 times by his family’s landlord because he was Muslim, authorities have said. The “ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis” was why the boy and his mother – who also suffered more than a dozen stab wounds but survived – were targeted, according to the Will County Sheriff’s Office.

The 71-year-old suspect has been charged with murder and hate crimes, among other charges, and was ordered to be held without bond during a court appearance Monday.

But Wadea knew nothing about the reasons that ultimately led to his brutal killing on Saturday, community advocates said this week.

Instead, they described him as a warm, kind child who focused on enjoying life with his friends and playing outside, and who loved his parents and family deeply.

In his final moments, Wadea offered words of comfort to his mother, a family member revealed Monday.

“His last words to his mom: ‘Mom, I’m fine,” Wadea’s uncle, Yousef Hannon, told reporters. “You know what, he is fine. He is in a better place.”

In his short life, Wadea “loved everything” – from his parents, to Legos to spending time with friends – said Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Chicago office, during a Sunday news conference.

“He loved everybody,” Rehab said. “He loved his parents, he loved his family and his friends, he loved life and he was looking forward to a long, healthy, prosperous life.”

And, like most other children, Wadea loved to play, the director said.

“He loved his toys, he loved anything with a ball, basketball, soccer, he loved to color, he loved to swing around,” Rehab said.

Wadea’s parents are from a village in the West Bank, Rehab said. His mother moved to the United States 12 years ago and his father moved to the US nine years ago. Wadea was born in the US.

“The child’s Palestinian Muslim family came to America seeking what we all seek—a refuge to live, learn, and pray in peace,” US President Joe Biden said in a statement in response to the killing. “This horrific act of hate has no place in America.”

Instead of returning to class Monday and spending time with his friends, Wadea was buried.

Outside the mosque where the child’s funeral services were held, Wadea’s father, uncle and community leaders gathered for a news conference Monday.

Hannon, the uncle, spoke of Wadea in present tense during a brief address to reporters.

“He’s a 6-year old kid,” Hannon said. “He’s a very kind kid, he likes to jump up and down.”

Wadea’s mother, Hanaan Shahin, could not attend the services as she is still recovering in the hospital, Rehab said.

While she sits alone in a hospital room, Rehab said, the child’s mom is “dealing with her injuries, dealing with her emotional trauma and dealing with the biggest hole that can never be filled, the biggest gap of all, the loss of her child.”

Moments before the attack unfolded, the suspect told Shahin he was angry at her for what was going on in Jerusalem, according to a court filing. She said they should “pray for peace” and the suspect attacked her with a knife, the filing states.

The mother locked herself in the bathroom to get away, but was not quick enough to get her son. By the time she reached 911, “her son was being stabbed,” according to the filing.

Deputies responded to the home at roughly 11:38 a.m. Saturday. Wadea was pronounced dead at a hospital at 12:19 p.m., court documents say.

Odey Al-Fayoume, boy’s father, has asked for accountability in the killing and said Monday he hoped something good could come from the tragedy.

“I am here because I am the boy’s father, not because I’m a politician or a religious cleric. I am here as the father of a child whose rights were violated,” he said, speaking in Arabic.

And local, state and federal leaders condemned the attack on the family and the reasons why they were targeted.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson called the killing a “shameful reminder of the destructive role Islamophobia plays in our society.”

“We grieve alongside his family and the Muslim, Arab and Palestinian communities in our state as we reckon with this unthinkable loss,” Johnson said on social media.

“Every single Palestinian child is just as beautiful, has just as much of a right to be mourned and when we mourn Wadea, we are mourning all of those children and when we condemn the hate that killed Wadea, we are condemning the hate that has killed all of those children,” said Imam Omar Suleiman, founder and president of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, and an adjunct professor of Islamic studies in the graduate liberal studies program at Southern Methodist University.

“What type of hate has to be manufactured in the head of a man for him to stand over a 6-year-old boy and stab him 26 times?” he added. “I want each and every single one of us to take a step back and to actually assess our own humanity in the moment.”

New York
CNN
 — 

Spending on the holiday season is expected to rebound to – and even surpass – pre-pandemic levels this year for the first time. But, surprisingly, it’s not gifts that consumers will be splurging on the most in the runup to Christmas, according to a new report Tuesday from Deloitte.

The year-end months of November and December typically are dominated by shoppers scouring stores for deals and discounts on seasonal merchandise, including gifts. The two months combined are also a good barometer of the spending power of the consumer and are critical for retailers, accounting for as much as a fifth or more of their annual sales.

Heading into the festive season, households have had their guard up because of pressures on their wallets from ongoing inflation and, more recently, the resumption of student loan payments.

But the 2023 Deloitte Holiday Retail Survey, which polled 4,330 consumers between Aug. 30 and Sept. 8, found shoppers are eager to get going with their holiday shopping, and maybe even indulge on themselves.

Among the findings: Consumers are expected to spend an average of $1,652 on holiday-related purchases, up 14% from last year and surpassing an average of $1,496 they spent in 2019.

Lupine Skelly, head of retail research with Deloitte, said in an interview with CNN that three factors have likely contributed to the uptick. More consumers will be actively celebrating the holiday season (95% versus 92% in 2022 and 88% in 2021), a majority of shoppers are expecting to pay higher prices on festive products and middle-to-higher income households will be the high spenders.

The survey also found that consumers this year are prioritizing non-gift purchases.

“As many as 82% of shoppers said they plan to spend on non-gift purchases such as decorations. That’s up from 77% last year. It’s not quite back to the 2019 levels where it was 88%, but it is inching up this year,” said Skelly.

While gift spending is still expected to grow 9% over last year, the report said people plan to buy one fewer gift versus last year. By comparison, spending on non-gift items like clothing for family, home furnishings and decorations is forecast to jump 25% this year over 2022.

“In terms of the allocation of holiday dollars, the biggest increase that we saw is in the non-gift group,” said Skelly.

Elsewhere in the report, Skelly said consumers might resort to giving gift cards in product categories “where they believe they are seeing the highest price increases.”

Even as retailers try to push up the start of holiday shopping into October, the report said two-thirds of holiday shoppers still plan to commence their deal-hunting the day after Thanksgiving, on Black Friday, and the following week on Cyber Monday for online bargains.

A version of this story appeared in CNN Business’ Nightcap newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free, here.

New York
CNN
 — 

As Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial enters its third week in Manhattan federal court, one of the biggest questions is whether he will take the stand to testify on his own behalf — a Hail Mary that legal experts say may be his best shot at mounting a defense.

On Monday, jurors heard from yet another member of Bankman-Fried’s former inner circle, Nishad Singh, who, like several witnesses before him, testified as part of a plea deal that he committed various financial crimes at Bankman-Fried’s direction.  

Bankman-Fried, 31, has pleaded not guilty to seven federal counts that could land him in prison for the rest of his life if he were to be convicted and given the maximum punishment. 

The one-time crypto mogul is accused of stealing billions of dollars in deposits from customers of his FTX crypto exchange and diverting those funds to buy luxury real estate, make campaign donations and backstop losses at his other firm, a crypto trading house called Alameda Research. 

While defense attorneys wouldn’t typically advise clients in white-collar crime trials to take the stand, the SBF trial may prove (in so many ways) to be an outlier. 

In a case where the prosecution’s evidence has been strong, a defendant taking the stand is a high-risk move that can “absolutely change the dynamic of a trial,” said Jordan Estes, a former federal prosecutor with the US Attorney’s Office who is now a partner at Kramer Levin in New York.

Whether or not to testify is case-dependent, and clients take a big risk in opening themselves up to cross-examination by prosecutors. But if the defense feels it hasn’t fully gotten its side of the story out, having Bankman-Fried take the stand may be one of the their only avenues left, Estes said. 

Of course, Bankman-Fried’s attorneys aren’t commenting publicly about their plans. (If he does testify, we likely won’t know until a moment before it happens.) But given how damning the testimony has been so far — and taking into account Bankman-Fried’s past inability to keep his mouth shut while under investigation — there is at least a decent chance he goes for the Hail Mary. 

In the lead-up to deciding whether he should testify, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers are concerned that he cannot “meaningfully participate” in his defense without his full dose of Adderall to treat ADHD and depression. 

The prescription medicine supply has been a recurring headache for the defense. Lead attorney Mark Cohen wrote in a letter to the judge Sunday night that his client “has been doing his best to remain focused during the trial,” despite not receiving his full dose of the medication.

In short: SBF is supposed to get four doses of Adderall each day, but he can only get it from the Metropolitan Detention Center, where he’s being held. So he’s only getting one in the morning before he’s transferred to the courthouse and one in the evening. 

Cohen said the Bureau of Prisons, which oversees the jail, hasn’t responded to multiple emails and voice messages to try to resolve the issue.

“As we approach the defense case and the critical decision of whether Mr. Bankman-Fried will testify, the defense has a growing concern that because of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s lack of access to Adderall he…will not be able to meaningfully participate in the presentation of the defense case,” Cohen wrote.

At minimum, documenting the Adderall issue could help lay the groundwork for any future appeal. Under that scenario, the defense could point to conditions at the jail — limited access to technology, an unsteady supply of prescription medications and, at least initially, a diet of bread, water and peanut butter to accommodate Bankman-Fried’s vegan diet — as an issue that prevented them from mounting a thorough defense. 

After all, it has not been an easy road for Cohen and his co-counsel. While they have not yet presented their case, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers have repeatedly failed to stick the landing when it comes to cross-examining the government’s witnesses. Last week, Cohen’s questioning of Caroline Ellison, prosecutors’ most damning witness so far, was particularly scattershot and prompted near-constant objections from prosecutors that the judge largely sustained.

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CNN
 — 

If House Republicans elect hard-charging Jim Jordan as speaker on Tuesday, they will be picking an election denier who is known for working to shut down the government rather than running it.

The party would be ending its two-week speakership debacle, but it’d be elevating a ringleader in former President Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow the 2020 election into a position that is second in the line of succession behind President Joe Biden.

A Jordan speakership would represent a huge victory for Trump, given the Judiciary chairman’s record of using his power to target Democratic presidential candidates, including Biden and 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton. Before the midterm elections last year, for instance, Jordan said at the Conservative Political Action Conference that he’d use probes into the Biden administration to “frame up the 2024 race” for Trump.

He has been as good as his word, working to highlight the ex-president’s claims that the federal government has been “weaponized” against him in an effort to distract from the four criminal trials the GOP front-runner is now facing. And Jordan has been a prominent player in the impeachment investigation opened against Biden, despite the failure of the GOP to provide evidence that the president personally profited from the business ventures of his son in places like China and Ukraine.

Jordan’s hopes of becoming speaker increased dramatically over the weekend as he began to turn holdouts amid an intense lobbying campaign. Some key moderates who had previously said they wouldn’t back the Ohio Republican had changed course by Monday. But given the tiny House GOP majority, Jordan can lose only four Republicans and still win the job in a vote in the full House, which is expected at noon on Tuesday.

Several high-profile dissidents still insist they will only vote for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy or are firmly against Jordan, who co-founded the conservative Freedom Caucus that was instrumental in the demise of the last three Republican speakers. Jordan’s opponents have cited his role in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, insurrection – when he discussed plans to object to the results – and have concerns that his hardline positions could alienate crucial swing voters next year.

If Jordan wins the speakership, his reputation for resistance to compromise is likely to immediately fuel fresh fears of a government shutdown caused by Republican demands for massive spending cuts. Facing a right-wing revolt, McCarthy was forced to use Democratic votes to pass a stopgap funding measure. And he paid for his effort to stave off a national crisis, which could have hurt millions of Americans, with his job. Jordan has been among the right-wing Republicans who want to use their power to bulldoze through their agenda despite the fact that Democrats control the Senate and the White House.

As speaker, Jordan would be in control of half of one of the three branches of the US government – a role that confers duties to the Constitution and the national interest far greater than those that weigh on individual members. By definition, he’d be an insider after years as an insurgent, a switch that could be a challenge. Fellow Ohioan and former Republican House Speaker John Boehner told CBS News in a 2021 interview referring to Jordan: “I just never saw a guy who spent more time tearing things apart – never building anything, never putting anything together.”

A Jordan victory would mark one of the most significant milestones in Washington Republicans’ embrace of an extreme right-wing populist, nationalist ideology that is more dedicated to tearing political institutions down than using them to forge change. And it would reward the eight Republicans who voted with Democrats to topple McCarthy. More broadly, it would remove power from the party’s traditional Washington, DC, political establishment, which many of the party’s grassroots voters despise, and place the Freedom Caucus at the pinnacle of power in the House.

The shift toward Jordan over the weekend, however, may also reflect a realization by lawmakers that the optics of continued chaos in the House are disastrous for the party and sends a message of American weakness amid a raging crisis in the Middle East.

New York Rep. Marc Molinaro, who represents a district Biden would have won in 2020 under redrawn lines, announced Monday evening that he’s backing Jordan. “What I care deeply about is getting back to governing. And having been home over the weekend, I can tell you that most people I talk to just want us to fight inflation, just want us to secure the border, just want us to govern on their behalf. And truly they just want this House to function,” he told CNN.

And if there is anyone who could keep far-right flamethrowers in line, it is Jordan. After all, he’s one of them. If wins the speakership, he’d potentially face a choice whether to at least seek a modicum of governance to show voters that the GOP can get results ahead of the 2024 election. Just as President Richard Nixon had the political cover as a hardline anti-Communist to forge an opening to Maoist China, Jordan might have more leeway than other potential Republican leaders to make painful concessions and keep his hardliners in line.

But choosing Jordan to end the impasse would also represent a huge risk for the GOP. His close alliance with Trump, who has endorsed the Ohio Republican for the top job, could alienate moderate voters in districts that paved the way to the party’s narrow majority in last year’s midterms. His record of full bore confrontation could exacerbate a showdown with the Democratic Senate and the White House over spending that could shut down the government by the middle of November and cause a backlash against Republicans.

And the qualities that his supporters see in Jordan – the fearsome use of power to drum up investigations against political opponents and a pugilistic refusal to find middle ground – are not those traditionally associated with successful speakers. Jordan has no history of bringing disparate factions of his party together – quite the opposite. His brand of politics is built around his history as a champion wrestler in college. “I look at it like a wrestling match,” Jordan told the New York Times earlier this year, referring to his staccato interrogations of witnesses in hearings that made him a hero on conservative media and a Trump favorite.

Another knock on Jordan is that he’s not known as a prolific fundraiser – one of the most important jobs of a party leader in the House. McCarthy was known for his lucrative hauls that he used to boost candidates and foster loyalty from his supporters. In fact, Jordan has actively worked against some fellow members in the past, with the political arm of the Freedom Caucus backing primary challengers to 10 GOP incumbents over the last few cycles.

The job of the House has traditionally been to pass laws. And by that measure, Jordan is one of the least effective legislators of his generation, according to the Center For Effective Lawmaking, a joint project of the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University.

Still, Jordan’s supporters worked to mitigate his liabilities heading into a floor vote that would force opponents to publicly renounce him at the risk of drawing primary challenges. House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers of Alabama, who had been vehemently anti-Jordan, flipped after what he described as “two cordial, thoughtful and productive” conversations with the prospective speaker and securing his support for a strong defense bill. Sources familiar with Jordan’s pitch to the GOP conference told CNN’s Annie Grayer and Melanie Zanona Monday that the Ohio congressman had promised to fundraise hard for Republicans across the country and that he would also do what he could to protect moderates – potentially by ensuring that they don’t face primary challenges next year from hardline pro-Trump candidates.

However, Zanona and Grayer also reported that some big GOP donors had vowed not to invest in the House majority under Jordan and would instead concentrate their resources on flipping the Senate next year. That GOP coolness highlights how a 2024 Republican slate featuring Trump, the front-runner for the presidential nomination, and Jordan as the most powerful Republican in Washington could delight Democrats campaigning in the battleground districts that could decide the election.

Rep. Don Bacon, who represents a swing district in Nebraska, emerged from a meeting of Republican lawmakers on Monday evening resolved not to support Jordan, after expressing concerns that handing him the speaker’s gavel would represent a victory for the hardliners who ended McCarthy’s tenure. Bacon said he was inclined to vote for McCarthy even though the former speaker is not standing, at least in a first ballot. “I’m going to vote tomorrow and we’ll take it after that one at a time,” Bacon said.

Another anti-McCarthy holdout is Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, who has said “part of” the reason he is opposed to Jordan is his behavior after the 2020 election. According to the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, Jordan was a “significant player” in Trump’s efforts to overturn the election and to block the certification of Biden’s victory in Congress, including in multiple conversations with Trump and senior White House officials.

But some key lawmakers appear to have made their peace with Jordan’s potential speakership, partly because of the damage being done to the GOP and their potential reelection prospects by self-indulgent internal battles. New York Rep. Mike Lawler, a freshman who is one of the most endangered Republicans next year and has been a strong supporter of McCarthy, called on the House to get back to work. “At the end of the day, we need to get back to the work of the American people,” Lawler told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Monday. He said he told Jordan on Friday that he was not a “hell no” and that he’d only back him if he had the votes to become speaker.

He shrugged off attacks that are already coming from Democrats over his possible vote for Jordan.

“They are going to attack me no matter what I do. That’s their job, that’s their objective. They want to get back into the majority,” Lawler told Tapper.

“My constituents know who I am, they know where I stand on these issues,” Lawler said, noting how he had fought to raise the government’s borrowing limit earlier this year, averting a debt default, and to keep the government open.

Lawler might be right. But the potential chaos and discord Jordan could sow may give voters fresh reasons to vote against Lawler by November of next year.

Washington, DC
CNN
 — 

Adjustable-rate mortgages, which got a bad name during the housing meltdown of the late 2000s, are gaining some traction again as would-be homebuyers face the highest rates in decades for fixed-rate mortgages.

As rates for the 30-year fixed-rate loan climb to levels not seen in 23 years, would-be homebuyers are looking for alternatives.

The most popular kind of mortgage — a 30-year, fixed-rate loan — reached an average rate of 7.67% last week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Meanwhile, the average rate for a kind of adjustable rate mortgage — a 5/1 ARM — dropped to 6.33% from 6.49%.

(Freddie Mac, which provides an average that CNN covers weekly, does not track interest rates for adjustable rate mortgages).

“Mortgage applications increased for the first time in three weeks [last week], pushed higher by a 15% jump in ARM applications,” said Bob Broeksmit, CEO of MBA. “With mortgage rates well above 7%, some prospective homebuyers are turning to ARMs to lower their monthly payment in the short term amidst these high mortgage rates.”

Leading up to the foreclosure crisis, home buyers signed on for teaser rates that then reset and caused monthly payments to balloon above borrowers’ ability to pay them. Now, stricter regulations and more transparency have made ARMs less risky than they used to be.

But they are still a roll of the dice, because your rate will not stay the same for the life of the loan. And while it may go down, it could also go up.

ARMs offer a fixed rate for a set period — typically five, seven or 10 years — but after that, the interest rate resets to current market rates.

A 5/1 ARM, for example, has a fixed rate for five years and then resets every year after that, while a 5/6 ARM is fixed for five years and then resets every six months. Loans reset based on a reference index like the Secured Overnight Financing Rate or the rate on short-term US Treasuries. There are also caps on how much a rate on an ARM can go up or down during each reset period and over the life of the loan.

Here’s why ARMs are getting a second look from some buyers.

Strong economic news over the past few weeks — a surprisingly robust jobs report and resilient consumer spending — has caused the Federal Reserve to suggest that its benchmark interest rate will remain “higher for longer.”

These economic data points “created shock waves through the market,” said Melissa Cohn, regional vice president at William Raveis Mortgage.

The geopolitical conflict following the Hamas incursion into Israel has led to higher oil prices, which act as inflationary, Cohn added.

Mortgage rates currently hover above 7.5%, and with another Fed meeting at the end of the month, “we need to expect rates to remain higher longer than we would like,” said Cohn.

While the Fed does not set mortgage rates directly, its actions influence them.

Mortgage rates tend to track the yield on 10-year US Treasuries, which move based on a combination of anticipation about the Fed’s actions, what the Fed actually does and investors’ reactions. When Treasury yields go up, so do mortgage rates; when they go down, mortgage rates tend to follow.

Some housing groups — including the Mortgage Bankers Association, National Association of Realtors and the National Association of Home Builders — wrote a letter last week urging the Fed to stop hiking rates.

Still, “rates won’t drop like a rock,” Cohn predicted, though there will be bubbles of rate drops, she said.

She recommends looking at five- and seven-year adjustable rates while keeping the monthly cost as low as possible and refinancing in 12 to 24 months.

“Hopefully, by the end of the year, [the Fed’s] rate hikes will really come through,” she said, meaning that inflation will come down and, in turn, mortgage rates will start decreasing next year.

While the overwhelming share of loans are still fixed-rate mortgages, ARMs are becoming more attractive in the current higher-rate environment.

The share of all loan applications that were adjustable-rate mortgages was 9.2% last week, according to MBA, the highest share since November 2022, when rates on 30-year fixed rate loans were also over 7%.

While ARMs come with more risks, they may be more cost effective in the near term for some buyers.

A buyer purchasing a median-priced $407,100 home with 20% down that they expect to live in for 7 years will pay over $14,500 more during that time with a 30-year fixed rate loan at 7.57% than they would with a 5/1 ARM at 6.33%, even if rates increase when it resets, according to numbers from Freddie Mac, which has a calculator borrowers can use to compare loans.

ARMs also often allow you to pay off more of the principal on the loan in those seven years. Generally, homeowners with higher mortgage rates will pay more in interest rather than principal for a longer time than those with lower interest rates.

Still, even with shorter-term savings, ARMs aren’t for everyone. For many people, a fixed rated loan, even at 7% or above, is better because of the set payments and the possibility to refinance to a lower rate, should rates drop.

Financial planners have some suggestions for homebuyers considering an ARM.

Kaylin Dillon, a certified financial planner in Kansas, said buyers should clear a couple of bars before getting into an ARM, including having extra cash to throw at payments on a monthly basis.

“I only suggest getting an ARM if you can afford to make excess mortgage payments large enough to pay off the loan in full before the fixed rate period of the loan ends,” she said. “This way, you have paid off your home at the lower interest rate without the risk of a ballooning interest rate at the end of the fixed period.”

If the rising rates have put your dream house out of reach, maybe it is time to take a breather from the housing market, said Jay Zigmont, a certified financial planner and founder of Childfree Wealth, based in Mississippi.

“You shouldn’t try to get fancy with your financing just to make your house ‘work,’” Zigmont said. He added that there is no guarantee that the value of the home will rise or that you will be able to refinance when the fixed term of the ARM ends.

If a buyer’s income is not expected to rise much and their monthly cash flow is already tight, taking on the possible burden of higher mortgage payments when an ARM resets is certainly a risk, said Cohn.

“What happens when the rate changes and you have to pay more each month? What happens if you lose your job and you can’t even afford to refinance? If you’re not willing to take on those risks, a fixed-rate is a better solution,” she said.

CNN
 — 

In his first public comments since Fox Corporation’s historic settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, Viet Dinh, the network’s top lawyer, blasted the judge who oversaw the election defamation case, saying Monday that he issued “illogical” rulings that “hamstrung” the right-wing network and undermined the “fairness and integrity” of the legal system.

Dinh, the outgoing chief legal and policy officer at Fox Corporation, lashed out at Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis, who presided over the historic case, which ended with Fox paying a $787 million settlement to the voting technology company.

“We knew we were right in the law, (but) the trial judge put us in a situation increasingly where it was very obvious that we were not able to win the trial, but we were very confident we would prevail on appeal,” Dinh said at a Harvard Law School event.

He continued, “As the judge compounded error upon error, we would get more and more confident in our ultimate chances of prevailing on appeal — because at some point, it became not just a matter of reversible error, it called into the fundamental fairness and integrity of the Delaware civil justice system.”

Dominion sued Fox News and its parent corporation in 2021 after Fox News hosts and guests repeatedly – and falsely – claimed on-air that Dominion voting machines rigged the 2020 election by flipping millions of votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. Fox denied wrongdoing and said its coverage was protected by the First Amendment.

Four months after the settlement, the network announced that Dinh would be leaving his post at the end of the year, though he would stay on as a “special adviser.” Dinh was reportedly a vocal advocate for not settling the suit, and his exit is a significant shakeup for Fox after criticism of how he handled the case.

Dinh said Davis issued “really illogical” rulings in the pretrial phase, which “hamstrung” Fox’s defense strategy. Davis’ decisions meant the trial would have been “three to four months of utter pain” for Fox and its employees, who would be called to testify, Dinh said, and therefore, it was a “business decision” to settle the case at the last second.

The judge ruled that none of Fox’s on-air statements about Dominion were true and rejected Fox’s attempts to throw the case out. He also decided that Fox couldn’t argue to the jury that it gave airtime to these election lies because they were “newsworthy.”

Dinh took issue with how Davis handled the discovery process, where both parties are required to turn over documents to the other side, issuing decisions that marked a turning point in the litigation. Dominion made many of these messages public through court filings, and they painted an incredibly damning picture of Fox News.

The private communications revealed that Fox executives, on-air hosts, producers and internal fact-checkers did not believe the 2020 election conspiracy theories that were being promoted on their channel. There were also embarrassing revelations, including a text from ex-Fox News star Tucker Carlson saying that he “passionately” hated former President Donald Trump.

At the Harvard event, Dinh criticized Davis for not imposing tighter restrictions on what Fox needed to give to Dominion, arguing that at least half of the materials that the right-wing network was ultimately forced to produce were “completely irrelevant to the case.”

That paved the way for Fox employees’ private emails to be “exposed to the world” and pored over by “navel-gazing” journalists who wanted to “feed the gossip beast,” he said.

“The court lost control of the media circus, to our detriment,” Dinh said.

The Delaware Superior Court declined to comment about Dinh’s remarks.

Fox is still fighting a separate defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic, another voting machine company that was accused of rigging the 2020 election and is seeking more than $2 billion in damages. That case is still in the discovery phase.

Two Canadian residents were confirmed to have died in the October 7 Hamas attack, according to Canadian officials and news agencies.

Netta Epstein, an Israeli Canadian, died while shielding his fiancée from gunfire and a grenade when Hamas militants invaded their home, according to the Israeli consulate in Toronto and CTV News. 

“Without hesitation, 21-year-old Netta jumped on the grenade to shield his loved one with his own body. His girlfriend survived and was rescued,” reads a statement the agency shared on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Their future dreams, including marriage, were abruptly and tragically cut short.”

Epstein’s mother, Ayelet Shachar-Epstein, spoke to CNN news partner CTV and said one of his last text messages to her stated “They’re here, Mom.”

She said she later learned from his fiancée that he sacrificed his life to save her.

CNN has also confirmed that Ben Mizrachi, 22, was killed while attending an outdoor music festival that came under attack, according to Sara Bandel with the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.

Taleeb Noormohamed, member of parliment for Vancouver Granville, shared condolences on X, formerly known as Twitter, on last week. 

“A wonderful young man from my riding of #VanGran — Ben Mizrachi — was found amongst those murdered by Hamas terrorists. My heartfelt condolences and prayers are with his family, his friends, loved ones & the community.”

Mizrachi graduated in 2018 from King David High School in Vancouver. The school released a statement last week, confirming his death and that he was gunned down while at the music festival. 

Global Affairs Canada on Sunday said that five Canadians have died and three others are still missing. GAC has not released names of the missing or the deceased from the Hamas attack.

New York
CNN
 — 

LinkedIn is laying off 668 people across its engineering, product, talent and finance teams as part of a broader restructuring, the social media platform announced Monday.

In a blog post, the social media site for professionals said it is making changes to its organizational structure and streamlining its decision making.

“Talent changes are a difficult, but necessary and regular part of managing our business,” the company said. Microsoft bought LinkedIn in 2016.

The company is dedicating many of its resources toward artificial intelligence. Recently, LinkedIn announced an AI-assisted candidate discovery for recruiters using the site. And in Microsoft’s most recent earnings report, LinkedIn reported its AI-powered collaborative articles are the fastest-growing traffic driver on the site.

LinkedIn already cut 716 positions in May and shut down its jobs app in mainland China. That decision was made amid shifts in customer behavior and slower revenue growth, CEO Ryan Roslansky said in a letter to employees.

In the wake of mass layoffs across the tech sector at the end of last year, LinkedIn enjoyed an uptick in users and “record engagement” among its 875 million members at the time, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told analysts in last October’s earnings call.

The company continues to grow financially. LinkedIn also announced in its most recent earnings report that it surpassed $15 billion in revenue for the first time during this fiscal year, and that its membership growth “accelerated” for the eighth quarter in a row.

Editor’s Note: This story contains a graphic image.

CNN
 — 

When Palestinians in north Gaza heeded the warnings issued in the Israeli military’s phone calls, text messages, and fliers advising them to head south, they thought they were fleeing to potential safety.

The Israeli Defense Forces issued the guidance Friday, telling all civilians in north Gaza to evacuate to areas south of Wadi Gaza “for your own safety and the safety of your families” as the IDF continues “to operate significantly in Gaza City and make extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians.”

However, some Palestinians who followed the evacuation warnings and fled their homes in search of safety suffered the very fate they were running from: Israeli airstrikes killed them outside of the evacuation zone.

The killings underscore the reality that evacuation zones and warning alerts from the Israeli military haven’t guaranteed safety for civilians in the densely populated Gaza Strip, where Palestinians have no safe place to escape Israeli bombs.

In the early hours on Friday, Aaed Al-Ajrami and his nephew, Raji, received a phone call from an Israeli military official – warning him to get everyone he knows and head southwards immediately, the nephew told CNN. Despite following the instructions and successfully fleeing south of the evacuation zone, Aaed’s family was killed by an Israeli airstrike the next day.

An audio recording of the phone call obtained by CNN reveals the details of the brief conversation – which included the IDF’s instructions to flee south of the evacuation zone and no guidance on how to get there. Raji said once they realized who was calling, they recorded the conversation so they could share it with other family members.

“All of you go to the South. You and all your family members. Gather all of your stuff with you and head there,” the officer told them.

Aaed wanted to know what road would be safe to take and what time they should leave.

“It doesn’t matter which road,” the officer replied. “Do it as fast as you can. There is no time left.”

Aaed heeded the warning. By sunrise on Friday, he headed south with his family and relatives to stay with friends in Deir Al Balah, a city roughly eight miles south of Wadi Gaza and outside the evacuation zone.

The next day, an Israeli airstrike in the area destroyed parts of the building where Aaed’s family sought refuge – killing him and 12 other members of his family, including seven children.

His nephew Raji, 32, was staying in a different building nearby when he heard the explosion and feared the worst. He rushed to the scene after receiving a call telling him that his uncle’s family members were amongst the victims.

“The destruction was massive,” Raji said. “We started digging people out who were hit by the explosion, some of them were still alive … the gunpowder smell was very strong, the dust was everywhere.”

“These people all thought that they were finally safe and that nothing would happen in the area,” Raji said. “You can follow the orders so that you aren’t exposed to danger, but the danger will still reach you wherever you are.”

CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment about the airstrike outside of the evacuation zone, including Deir Al Balah.

While an estimated 500,000 Palestinians have fled northern Gaza for the south since Friday, many others are unable to make the journey south of the evacuation zone and are stuck in northern Gaza.

Yara Alhayek, 22, told CNN that her family living in the north had nowhere to seek refuge if they headed south. “We couldn’t leave because there is no safe place to go to … it’s really dangerous if we leave our house, it’s really dangerous if we stay in our house, so we have no idea what to do.”

Israel has defended its ongoing hammering of Gaza with airstrikes as targeting Hamas headquarters and assets which are hidden within civilian buildings, claiming that what may appear as a civilian building is actually “a legitimate military target.”

Independent UN experts have condemned Israel’s “indiscriminate attacks against Palestinian civilians.” Doctors Without Borders released an update Sunday night saying the strikes have also hit hospitals and ambulances and decried that the “indiscriminate bombing campaign in which most casualties have been civilians.”

Israel’s military airstrikes have killed more than 2,800 and injured 11,000 since October 7, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said Monday, according to the official Palestinian press agency, WAFA.

Israeli troops and military equipment have massed at the border with Gaza as Israel prepares to ramp up its response to the deadly October 7 attack by the Islamist militant group Hamas. Warplanes continued to blast Gaza over the weekend, as civilians fled southward, following Israel’s evacuation instructions.

Several United Nations agencies have also warned that mass evacuation under such siege conditions will lead to disaster, and that the most vulnerable Gazans, including the elderly and pregnant, may not be able to relocate at all.

“The order to evacuate 1.1 million people from northern Gaza defies the rules of war and basic humanity,” wrote Martin Griffiths, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in a statement late Friday. “Roads and homes have been reduced to rubble. There is nowhere safe to go.”

Raji, who has taken in the wounded children that survived the attack, says he has to put on a strong face to support them despite being broken internally.

“I feel the injustice, these are innocent people, what did they do?”

New York
CNN
 — 

Drugstore chains for decades saturated US cities, suburbs and small towns with new stores.

Now, they are closing thousands of stores, leaving gaps in communities for medicines and essentials. Researchers find pharmacy closures lead to health risks such as older adults failing to take medication.

Rite Aid, the third largest standalone pharmacy chain, filed for bankruptcy Sunday and will reportedly close roughly 400 to 500 of its approximately 2,200 stores.

Rite Aid was undone by competition from larger rivals, its $3.3 billion debt load, and expensive legal battles for its alleged role in fueling the opioid crisis.

It comes amid walkouts by Walgreens pharmacists and technicians around the country and at CVS stores in Kansas City over low pay and understaffed stores.

Rite Aid’s bankruptcy reflects long-term struggles in the retail pharmacy industry.

The majority of drugstores’ sales comes from filling prescriptions. But their profits from that segment have declined in recent years because of lower reimbursement rates for prescription drugs.

The front end of drugstores, where they sell snacks and household staples, also face pressure.

CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid are eliminating some locations as they face rising competition for these items from Amazon, big-box stores with pharmacies like Walmart, and Dollar General in rural areas.

Although drugstores benefited during the pandemic from people getting Covid-19 vaccines, fewer consumers visited stores to shop and prescription volumes fell because people were getting fewer elective procedures.

“The pandemic was not a strong time for drugstores,” said David Silverman, a senior director at Fitch Ratings.

Theft has become a problem for drugstores in some locations, and some stores have resorted to locking up products to prevent theft. But this has made the customer experience worse.

“Theft appears to be hitting drug retailers more than other categories,” Silverman said.

Drugstores are trying to pivot into the more lucrative health care industry in recent years and become primary care providers. CVS acquired health insurer Aetna, and Walgreens took a majority stake in primary care network VillageMD.

But this strategy requires fewer brick-and-mortar retail stores.

Retail pharmacy chains overexpanded in the past, often pushing out local pharmacies in the process.

The number of independent pharmacies decreased by nearly 50% from 1980 to 2022, according to McKinsey.

Rite Aid, CVS and Walgreens have also been shuttering stores for years.

CVS, the largest US chain, closed 244 stores between 2018 and 2020. In 2021, it announced plans to close 900 stores by 2024.

Walgreens said in 2019 it would close 200 stores and in June announced an additional 150 store closures.

The loss of a retail pharmacy can leave a void, especially for lower-income households.

Roughly one out of every eight pharmacies closed between 2009 and 2015, which disproportionately affected independent pharmacies and low-income neighborhoods, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study found that pharmacies at greatest risk for closures are those with a large customer base on public insurance, which have lower reimbursement rates than private plans, as well as independent pharmacies.