News Roundup

This week, yet again, America mourns a mass shooting after a young white man attacked the Tops Food Market in Buffalo, New York, killing thirteen people, eleven of them Black, in what appears to be premeditated murder motivated by racism.  Along with the fact, toll, and motivation of the shooting, accomplished as others with a legally purchased assault rifle, is an additional hallmark of our time – the suspect plotted and broadcast the attack on the internet.  Keep reading for more on this story and other news. Buffalo.  An 18-year-old man, Payton Gendron, faces first-degree murder charges in Erie County, New York, as authorities allege that he travelled hundreds of miles from his home last Saturday to attack a Tops Food Market, which he claims to have purposefully targeted because of its location in a predominantly Black neighborhood. Gendron, who previously made violent comments while in high school, appears to have been influenced by what is known as the “great replacement” theory, a white supremacist conspiratorial belief that various groups intend to diminish the white population in the United States through immigration and other means. As the Verge notes, a portion of the attack was live-streamed to Twitch, a video streaming service commonly used to broadcast sessions of videogame play.  While fewer than 30 accounts are estimated to have watched the stream in real-time, the footage quickly went viral and spread throughout the internet.  Twitch claims to have shut down the stream within about two minutes, a response time that media [...]