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The racist conspiracy theory behind the Buffalo shooting · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Monday May 16th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news, and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
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  It was the deadliest mass shooting so far this year. 10 people shot and killed, 3 injured after an 18 year old man opened fire at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
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  President Biden addressed the shooting on Sunday.
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  [START NBC NEWS ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  President Joe Biden: The Justice Department has stated publicly that it's investigating the matter as a hate crime, a racially motivated act of white supremacy and violent extremism. As they do, we must all work together to address the hate that remains a stain on the soul of America.
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  [END NBC NEWS ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  The suspect, who's white, allegedly posted a document online where he clearly outlined his belief system: that white America is under attack and at risk of being replaced by immigrants and people of color. This idea is known as "replacement theory." "The Washington Post" reports on how this racist conspiracy theory has moved from the fringes of the internet to mainstream media and politics.
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  But before we get into that, let's briefly talk about what's in this 180-page document. According "The Post," the document describes how the gunman was radicalized on Internet forums like 4chan. And it details his plan to target Black people in Buffalo, a city 200 miles away from his home. He explicitly said he takes inspiration from others who've committed similar acts like the gunman who killed 51 people at two mosques in New Zealand in 2019. In fact, according to analysis done by a think tank that combats extremism, 28 percent of his online screed is plagiarized from a similar document written by the New Zealand shooter.
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  [START FOX NEWS ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Tucker Carlson: I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term 'replacement.' If you suggest the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World. But they become hysterical because that's what's happening actually. Let's just say it. It's true.
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  A Fox spokeswoman told "The Post" that Tucker Carlson is against political violence.
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  Last year, Pennsylvania Congressman Scott Perry brought up a similar idea in a congressional hearing, saying that native-born Americans are being replaced to quote "permanently transform the political landscape" of the country. His office did not respond to "The Post's" requests for comment.
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  One expert in political violence told "The Post," "there are consequences to these ideas being repeated on TV and by elected officials." Recent polling from the "Associated Press" and NORC found that nearly 1 in 3 Americans say they are extremely or very concerned that native-born Americans are being replaced by immigrants. That same political violence expert said the most dangerous proponents of this idea, the ones who are calling for violence, they still appear to be limited to fringe forums.
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  Meanwhile, the suspect in Buffalo pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder. If the District Attorney decides to charge him with domestic terrorism too, he could face life in prison without parole.
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  The Ends of the Earth. It's normally just an expression, but a "Time Magazine" reporter took it literally. She traveled to the North and South poles to see for herself just how serious the threat of climate change is.
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  Aryn Baker: What happens in the Arctic does not stay there.
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  Aryn Baker says it's good to study the poles because they regulate the climate all over the globe.
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  Baker: Turbulent weather or too hot weather in the poles is going to send ripple effects and increase either humidity in certain weather patterns, which increases the, the intensity and the rainfall of hurricanes, or it can skew weather patterns and wind patterns so that there's no rainfall at all in other areas that are prone to drought. So the minute something goes wrong in the poles, it will ripple all the way down elsewhere, on the planet.
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  She told us that she and the science team she was with saw a lot that was wrong. She could tell the moment that she arrived in Antarctica. It just wasn't that cold.
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  Baker: We were walking around in just our leggings that you would normally wear under your protective gear, because it was so warm… And that's not supposed to be happening in an Antarctic summer.
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  She spent time with researchers doing a census of the penguin population.
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  Baker: Penguins aren't just cute little icons of the Antarctic. They are what is called a sentinel species, and that is a species that scientists can observe and understand bigger issues going on in the region.
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  Baker explains why the decline in the number of penguins should worry us.
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  Baker: So what that tells us is that if there is not enough food in the ocean to sustain these penguin populations, it also means there's not enough food in the ocean to sustain the fish population that we need as humans to eat, to survive.
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  She saw a lot more in her travels, which you can read about in the full piece. You come away with a very real sense of how interconnected things are.
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  Baker: What happens in the Arctic and Antarctic is not just a sign of what's going to happen elsewhere on the planet, but it also fundamentally impacts our daily life.
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  Fans of live music are facing a bleak, new reality. Your favorite smaller music venues might've closed sometime in the past two years, and tickets are now way more expensive.
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  Kristin Corry: It's almost as though these ticketers are preying on people's desperation to be able to see shows.
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  Kristin Corry wrote about this for "Vice." She told us, the live music industry was already on a troubling path before the pandemic hit. Take a big corporation like Ticketmaster. The company says its pricing is a reflection of the market. But it's more accurate to say, Ticketmaster has near-monopoly control of the market. It drives ticket prices up when demand is high, kind of like Uber surge pricing, and then it tacks on servicing fees, sometimes as high as 27% of the ticket's original cost.
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  Corry: It's similar to kind of like the hospitality industry or the airline industry where, they're looking to see, okay, people want to go to X show. This is festival season. We can mark it up because people will buy it.
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  Those mark-ups combined with inflation are pushing prices to new highs. General admission for Coachella cost nearly $500 this year, that's up 15 percent from just a few years ago. But Corry says, the thing that really concerns her is seeing small venues go under.
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  Corry: Sometimes I feel a little dramatic for thinking about this. I think the music ecosystem is in danger by not having an infrastructure that supports artists at every level. When you don't have smaller venues, you don't have an outlet for these emerging artists to play.
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  Corry told us not only does it hurt artists, but it also hurts fans, people who enjoy feeling like they "discovered" an artist early and stuck with them since the beginning.
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  Corry: I just think that it does a disservice to the industry at large when you don't have those sort of grassroots communities, to be able to say, "Hey, I saw Frank Ocean when he was just starting, and it only cost me $30."
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  The Eurovision Song Contest crowned the winner this weekend, a folk-rap group from Ukraine. Here's the moment they found out they won.
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  [START EUROVISON SONG CONTEST ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Announcer: [INDISCERNIBLE]
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  [CHEERING AND SCREAMING]
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  [END EUROVISON SONG CONTEST ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  The performers jumped up and down together, draped in the Ukrainian flag. It was an easy victory for them. They had a lot of support from the crowd. "NPR" has a nice write-up on the winning group. Kalush Orchestra were granted special permission to leave Ukraine just to compete in Eurovision. In fact, one of their bandmates stayed behind to help defend Kyiv.
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  One of the band members told "NPR," he wrote their winning song "Stefania" about his mother. And even though he wrote it before the war, it's taken on a patriotic meaning now. He said many Ukrainians listen to it and think of it as a reference to Ukraine as the motherland. Here you can listen and see how the band mixes rap verses with traditional Ukrainian woodwind instruments.
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  [[MUSIC - "STEFANIA" BY KALUSH ORCHESTRA]]
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  Usually, the country that wins Eurovision hosts it the next year. Kalush Orchestra told "NPR," they're hopeful that Ukraine will be able to do that, safely. But in the meantime, they're celebrating the win.
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  You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. Plus, can | just say it was a really fun weekend in sports. Across the NBA and the Stanley Cup playoffs, we saw seven winner-take-all matchups. Catch up on scores and more in the Apple News app. And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News+ partners. I'll talk with you again tomorrow.
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