Happy Thursday! We thought Sarah Isgur and David French were being clever when we saw the show notes for the latest edition of Advisory Opinions linking to the case of “U.S. vs. Approximately Two Dogs.”
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- FBI Director Christopher Wray told FBI employees on Wednesday that he plans to resign before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January. His resignation, seven years into a 10-year term that is meant to insulate the role from politics, paves the way for Trump to nominate Kash Patel, which he had already announced he would do.
- South Korean police said they were blocked from searching President Yoon Suk Yeol’s office on Wednesday by security officials. Former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, who resigned following Yoon’s brief declaration of martial law last week, was officially arrested on Wednesday for allegedly playing a key role in the decision. Kim apparently attempted suicide on Tuesday while in detention but is now in stable condition. The main opposition party submitted a second motion to impeach Yoon on Thursday.
- A minister in Afghanistan’s Taliban government was reportedly killed in a suicide blast in Kabul on Wednesday that was believed to have been carried out by the Islamic State. The slain minister for refugees was a senior member of the Taliban’s Haqqani network, an al-Qaeda-linked group responsible for attacks on U.S. troops during the war in Afghanistan. He was also the highest-profile casualty of a bombing since the Taliban took over Afghanistan three years ago.
- Federal prosecutors announced on Wednesday that authorities in Northern California arrested a Chinese national accused of flying a drone over Vandenberg Space Force Base to take photographs of the facility. He was arrested on Tuesday at San Francisco International Airport as he was preparing to board a flight to China.
- Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where he defended the Biden administration’s handling of the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. Blinken argued that the administration was hamstrung by a bad deal struck by the first Trump administration in 2020. The testimony follows a report from the committee about the botched withdrawal released earlier this year.
- The Albertsons grocery chain on Wednesday backed out of its $25 billion merger agreement with the Kroger chain and sued Kroger, one day after two judges separately blocked the deal. In its lawsuit, Albertsons claimed Kroger had failed to fulfill its obligations for the merger, demanding $600 million in termination fees. Kroger called the accusations “baseless and without merit.” Federal Judge Adrienne Nelson on Tuesday blocked the merger, which the companies said was intended to help the chains compete with Walmart and Amazon, on the grounds that Walmart and Amazon were not their true competitors and the merger would likely result in higher prices for consumers.
- The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.3 percent month-over-month and 2.7 percent annually in November, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. That’s slightly more compared to the 0.2 percent monthly and 2.6 percent increase for the year that ended in October. Core inflation—less the more volatile food and energy prices—held steady from October at 3.3 percent annually in November.
Forever West
Police Charge Suspect in Insurance CEO’s Death
Last Wednesday, Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was shot and killed in a brazen attack in Midtown Manhattan. It was 6:45 a.m., and he was making his way to UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor meeting. His killer approached him on the sidewalk from behind and fired several rounds, striking Thompson in the back and leg. The 50-year-old was a 20-year veteran of the health insurance company. He left behind a wife and two teenage sons.
The week since Thompson’s murder has featured reactions that ranged from the expected sympathy for the victim of a brutal murder to tacit endorsements of the killer’s purported cause to explicit justifications for the targeted killing. Public figures—and even some lawmakers—have fallen short of wholeheartedly condemning the murder as his suspected killer looks set to face justice.
On Monday, police arrested the suspected shooter at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania after a five-day manhunt. New York prosecutors on Tuesday charged Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old suspect, with second-degree murder and additional charges could follow. Authorities seem confident they’ve found their man, with police saying the suspect’s fingerprints matched prints at the crime scene. When arrested, Mangione had with him a gun that has since been matched to the one used in the killing, a notebook that reportedly detailed the plan to assassinate the CEO, and a manifesto that attacked the health care industry and in which Mangione …
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Worth Your Time
- WhatsApp, Meta’s messaging app, isn’t widely used in the United States. But elsewhere, it’s dominant. “With over 2 billion users, WhatsApp is not just the most popular messaging app in the world—it’s a digital lifeline,” Sonia Faleiro reported for Rest of World. “Its closest competitors, WeChat (1.3 billion users) and Facebook Messenger (1 billion users), pale in comparison. In many parts of the world, WhatsApp is synonymous with the internet itself. For Nigerian content creators, Brazilian shopkeepers, and Indian aunties, it is often the only app they need. On WhatsApp, you can chat with friends and family, attend school, run a business, catch up on the news, shop, and even bank. Increasingly, it’s where people watch TV, book medical appointments, and arrange dates. … WhatsApp, originally developed as a lightweight tool for sending simple texts to friends, has by now become something infinitely bigger, more complicated, and more surprising. The app has been repurposed and remade by niche communities and for diverse cultural activities in ways that many in the West could never imagine—and in ways that its creators never expected.”
- Chinese Christians are adapting their Advent and Christmas celebrations, Eva Chou reported for Christianity Today. “For Robert Wang, observing Advent is a new Christmas tradition. In the past, his house church would hold large Christmas gatherings with around 60 first-time visitors in attendance,” Chou wrote from Shanghai. “Because the Chinese government passed tighter religious regulations in 2018, the 150-member church has split into several smaller churches, one of which is pastored by Wang. Today, Wang has changed how the congregation celebrates Christmas, not because of government restrictions but out of a desire to better integrate Christmas into the life of the church. Instead focusing on one isolated event, he wants church members to walk through the Advent season and make evangelism part of their weekly rhythm. ‘Through meditative reflection during Advent, learning Christmas hymns, prayer, and worship, the preparation for the season has become the most anticipated and exciting time of the year for our church,’ Wang said. The changes at Wang’s church are happening all over the country.”
Presented Without Comment
Politico: Judge Rejects Sale of Alex Jones’ Infowars to The Onion
Also Presented Without Comment
The Guardian: North Korea Decries ‘Dictatorship’ in South in Wake of Martial Law Attempt
Also Also Presented Without Comment
The Hill: Ohio Lawmaker Proposes Bill to Make ‘Flag Planting’ in Ohio State Stadium a Felony
In the Zeitgeist
Someone was cutting onions near us while we watched this Coldplay music video for the band’s song “All My Love,” featuring 99-year-old entertainer Dick Van Dyke.
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Toeing the Company Line
- In the newsletters: Nick Catoggio zeroed in on (🔒) the two senators from Iowa to explore whether Trump will get his nominees through the Senate, and Jonah Goldberg explained what pardoning Hunter Biden has to do with the handwaving away of Luigi Mangione’s alleged crime.
- On the podcasts: Jonah Goldberg is joined by Razib Khan on The Remnant to explore whether Christopher Columbus was actually Jewish, and Sarah Isgur and David French discuss judicial retirement rumors and marijuana banking on Advisory Opinions.
- On the site: Charlotte Lawson covers what a post-Assad Syria means for Israel and Joseph Roche reports from Ukraine on the Witches of Bucha, a mostly female volunteer unit doing anti-drone warfare.
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