Month: June 2022

Elon Musk threatened to cancel his purchase of Twitter on Monday, accusing the social media platform of breaching the merger agreement by not providing the data he has requested on spam and fake accounts.

Musk alleged in a letter written to Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s head of legal, policy and trust, that Twitter is “actively resisting and thwarting his information rights” as outlined by the deal.  An attorney representing Musk wrote to the company: “This is a clear material breach of Twitter’s obligations under the merger agreement and Mr. Musk reserves all rights resulting therefrom, including his right not to consummate the transaction and his right to terminate the merger agreement.”  Musk has demanded that Twitter turn over information about its testing methodologies to support its claims that bots and fake accounts constitute less than 5% of the platform’s active user base. Musk has also alleged that the true number of spam accounts is likely much more, potentially as high as 90%. Musk has previously said the acquisition “cannot move forward” until the company provides “proof” of its spam metric.

Musk’s letter also insinuated that Twitter may be “withholding the requested data due to concern for what Mr. Musk’s own analysis of that data will uncover” and claimed Twitter had ‘sought to restrict access to the information by interpreting the merger agreement narrowly, such that providing the information would fall outside the scope of Twitter’s contractual requirements.’

Twitter’s CEO, Parag Agrawal, said in a statement Monday that “Twitter has and will continue to cooperatively share information with Mr. Musk to consummate the transaction in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement.” The company also said it intends to “close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement at the agreed price and terms.”

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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed sweeping gun reform bills on Monday, banning individuals under the age of 21 from buying or possessing a semi-automatic rifle. The package was passed by the New York Assembly on June 2 after the May 14 shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo that left 13 dead and the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Texas that left 19 children and two adults dead.

The new legislation will add to previous gun laws by banning the purchase or possession of semi-automatic rifles by those under 21, requiring state and local law enforcement agencies to share gun crime information with federal databases, expanding the ability of health care professionals, police and district attorneys to file Extreme Risk Protection Orders, banning the sale of body armor to the general public and requiring a license to purchase assault weapons. The package will also criminalize both the act of making a threat of mass harm and adding to a threat with overt acts to further it.

Gov. Hochul said:  “This is a moral moment for the people of New York but also the rest of the nation. Follow what we did here in New York, and we’ll finally start to be at the beginning of the end of all this gun violence and the massacres that are occurring every day in our country.” Hochul announced further funding as part of New York State’s Gun Involved Violence Elimination initiative.  The funding will go towards 20 local police departments across these 17 counties that account for over 80% of the violent crime in New York.

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Philadelphia police confirm that a mass shooting took place late Saturday night, leaving three people dead and at least 11 other people injured.  Police Inspector D.F. Pace said that officers patrolling the area heard gunfire from South Street, an entertainment district with bars and restaurants, just before midnight and saw “several active shooters shooting into the crowd.”  One officer fired his weapon at one of the shooters but Pace said that it was not clear if the suspect, who dropped the gun and fled, was hit.

Said Pace: “There were hundreds of individuals just enjoying South Street, as they do every single weekend, when this shooting broke out.”  No arrests have been made but police recovered two semiautomatic handguns at the scene, including one with an extended magazine.  The three victims who were killed, two men and a woman, have not been identified. The conditions of the victims who were wounded were not immediately known.

After a separate incident just a few blocks away near 4th Street and Bainbridge Street, police officers found 13 bullet casings, and are investigating whether the incidents are connected.  In a third shooting just a couple blocks north of South Street, and about two hours after that incident, police responded to reports of gunfire on Broad Street. A man was found nearby unconscious and with multiple gunshot wounds nearly an hour later, and after being taken to a local hospital, he was pronounced dead.

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At least three people were killed and 14 were injured early Sunday morning, after a shooting near a bar in Chattanooga, Tenn.

In a press conference on Sunday, Chattanooga Police Chief Celeste Murphy said that two victims died from gunshot injuries and a third died after being struck by a vehicle in the shooting, which took place at around 2:45 a.m. Additionally, 14 people were injured by gunfire and three more were hurt as they were hit by vehicles while attempting to flee the scene.  Murphy added that 16 of the victims are adults and one is a juvenile; and several of the victims remain in critical condition.

Investigators believe that more than one person opened fire during the shooting. Police Chief Murphy said the incident was not related to the Riverbend Festival, an annual music festival taking place in the city over the weekend, or another shooting that took place 3 miles away on the other side of downtown Chattanooga in which three people sustained non-life-threatening injuries.  She added that there is no immediate danger to the public.

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President Joe Biden delivered a prime-time nationwide address from the White House on Thursday evening, calling for Congress to ban assault weapons and implement stricter gun laws in the wake of several mass shootings in the United States.  Biden said in part: “We need to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines. And if we can’t ban assault weapons, then we should raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21, strengthen background checks, enact safe storage laws and red flag laws. Repeal the immunity that protects gun manufacturers from liability, address the mental health crisis.”

Biden added: “This is not about taking away anyone’s guns. It’s not about vilifying gun owners. The Second Amendment, like all other rights, is not absolute. There have always been limitations on the type of weapons you can own in America. Machine guns have been federally regulated for nearly 90 years and this is still a free country. This isn’t about taking away anyone’s rights, it’s about protecting children, it’s about protecting families.”

Referencing his trip to Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, after the shooting at that killed 19 students and two teachers May 24, Biden said: “Standing there, in that small town, like so many communities across America, I couldn’t help but think, there are too many other schools, too many other everyday places that have become killing fields.” The latest mass shooting occurred on Wednesday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, leaving four dead, following the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, as well as an apparently racially-motivated attack at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, leaving 10 Black people dead.

Biden called for Republican support for legislation that would ban high-capacity magazines for assault rifles. He also called for an outright ban on the weapons themselves, but added, “If we can’t ban assault weapons like we should, then we should at least raise the age to 21.”  Biden also called on lawmakers to take a stand against the gun lobby and gun manufacturers, whom he blamed for marketing assault weapons. The President said: “Guns are the number one killer of children in the United States of America. The number one killer. More than car accidents, more than cancer. Over the last two decades, more school-aged children have died from guns than on-duty police officers and active duty military combined.”

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Tulsa, Oklahoma police say that the motive of the alleged hospital shooter was to kill the doctor who performed back surgery on him “and anyone else who got in his way.”  Tulsa police Chief Wendell Franklin said during a live-streamed press conference Thursday that the gunman, Michael Lewis, blamed Dr. Preston Phillips for continuing pain after back surgery May 19.

Tulsa police said the first 911 call came at 4:52 p.m. Wednesday. Chief Franklin said Tulsa police first arrived at the scene at 4:56 p.m., and as police made their way to the second floor of the Natalie building on the campus of Saint Francis Hospital, they heard a final gunshot at 4:58 p.m.

Police said Lewis bought an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle Wednesday, hours before the killings, from a local Tulsa gun store. He bought a .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun from a local pawn shop. Police said 30 .223-caliber bullet casings and seven .40-caliber casings were recovered at the scene. A letter that made it clear he came to kill Phillips was found on Lewis’ body told the story of what he planned to do, according to police.

The deceased shooting victims were Drs. Preston Phillips and Stephanie Housen, as well as Amanda Green and William Love. Green was a receptionist and Love was a patient. Phillips’ body was found in an exam room. Police believe that was the gunman taking his own life. A half-hour after the shootings, Lewis’ wife called law enforcement to say her husband had killed several people, and added that she did not know in advance that her husband planned to do the shootings.

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