vox--2020-05-10--SNL brings back Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump to give the Covid-19 graduation speech no one wanted

Coming in eighth place behind contenders like Axl Rose , murder hornets , Elon Musk and Grimes ’ s newborn baby , and a 90 Day Fiancé cast member , President Donald Trump ( played by Alec Baldwin ) was chosen as the graduation speaker for Saint Mary Magdalene by the Expressway 2020 high school during the cold open of Saturday Night Live ’ s season 45 finale .
“ Congratulations to the class of Covid-19 .
I ’ m so honored to be your validictator , ” Baldwin ’ s Trump said .
“ There are so many exciting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ store bouncer , cam girl , porch pirate , amateur nurse , and coal.
” The cold open sketch addressed the ways the nation ’ s new social distancing requirements have affected students graduating , and served as a scathing critique of Trump ’ s administration ’ s handling of the coronavirus pandemic .
With the show having been off the air for weeks , the sketch crammed in mention of the president ’ s bizarre suggestion to ingest disinfectants , the surging unemployment rate , and Trump ’ s recent , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the most mistreated president of all time .
While the real Trump plans to give an in-person commencement address at West Point , a number of other public figures , including former President Barack Obama , are scheduled to give digital graduation speeches as concerns over community spread have made traditional graduations impossible .
In the sketch ’ s address , Baldwin addressed his graduating class by saying , “ Today ’ s not about me , it ’ s about you , although I should spend a little time on me first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poorly , even worse than they treated Lincoln.
” He added : “ Lincoln would agree .
He ’ s probably smiling up at me from hell right now.
” Self-aggrandizing out of the way , Baldwin ’ s Trump promises to end his remarks with some words of inspiration and encouragement .
And to do that , he cites his own success story , referring to himself as “ the son of a simple , wealthy slumlord ” who didn ’ t have an easy time of getting to where he is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worst people you can find so that way you ’ ll always shine , ” Baldwin ’ s Trump said .
“ Reach for the stars because if you ’ re a star , they ’ ll let you do it.
” Baldwin then broke character and introduced the show , the finale for the 45th season of SNL .
This final episode marked the third installment of SNL “ at home ” — a version of the show shot in cast members ’ homes because of the shelter-in-place directives in New York @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

Coming in eighth place behind contenders like Axl Rose, murder hornets, Elon Musk and Grimes’s newborn baby, and a 90 Day Fiancé cast member, President Donald Trump (played by Alec Baldwin) was chosen as the graduation speaker for Saint Mary Magdalene by the Expressway 2020 high school during the cold open of Saturday Night Live’s season 45 finale.
“Congratulations to the class of Covid-19. I’m so honored to be your validictator,” Baldwin’s Trump said. “There are so many exciting new jobs out there, like grocery store bouncer, cam girl, porch pirate, amateur nurse, and coal.”
The cold open sketch addressed the ways the nation’s new social distancing requirements have affected students graduating, and served as a scathing critique of the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. With the show having been off the air for weeks, the sketch crammed in mention of the president’s bizarre suggestion to ingest disinfectants, the surging unemployment rate, and Trump’s recent, but recurring, claim that he’s the most mistreated president of all time.
While the real Trump plans to give an in-person commencement address at West Point, a number of other public figures, including former President Barack Obama, are scheduled to give digital graduation speeches as concerns over community spread have made traditional graduations impossible.
In the sketch’s address, Baldwin addressed his graduating class by saying, “Today’s not about me, it’s about you, although I should spend a little time on me first because I’ve been treated very poorly, even worse than they treated Lincoln.”
He added: “Lincoln would agree. He’s probably smiling up at me from hell right now.”
Self-aggrandizing out of the way, Baldwin’s Trump promises to end his remarks with some words of inspiration and encouragement. And to do that, he cites his own success story, referring to himself as “the son of a simple, wealthy slumlord” who didn’t have an easy time of getting to where he is now.
“Surround yourself with the worst people you can find so that way you’ll always shine,” Baldwin’s Trump said. “Reach for the stars because if you’re a star, they’ll let you do it.”
Baldwin then broke character and introduced the show, the finale for the 45th season of SNL. This final episode marked the third installment of SNL “at home” — a version of the show shot in cast members’ homes because of the shelter-in-place directives in New York City.


vox--2020-05-10--3 coronavirus task force members will quarantine after being exposed to virus

Three top US health officials will self-quarantine for two weeks after coming in contact with people at the White House who tested positive for the coronavirus .
Dr. Anthony Fauci , the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of the federal coronavirus task force , said Saturday he will be entering a “ modified quarantine ” after a “ low risk ” contact with a White House aide who tested positive for the virus .
Fauci told CNN he was not in close contact with the person who tested positive , but as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mask for the next 14 days .
Fauci said he does plan to go to the White House or Capitol Hill — wearing a mask and socially distancing — if asked to .
He will get tested every day , and may also go into his office at the National Institutes of Health , where he says he ’ d be the only person around .
Dr. Robert Redfield , director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , and Dr. Stephen Hahn , commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ next two weeks .
Politico reported that Hahn came in contact with Vice President Mike Pence ’ s press secretary , Katie Miller , who tested positive for the virus on Friday .
Redfield was also exposed to someone at the White House , though officials have not said who .
Fauci , Redfield , and Hahn were all slated to testify at a Senate hearing on the virus Tuesday .
Redfield and Hahn will now testify via video , while Fauci is expected to attend in person while wearing a mask .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ tested positive , but their exposure is the latest indication in recent days that even the White House — despite its rigorous testing standards — may not be safe from the virus .
White House staff who have regular contact with top officials have tested positive for coronavirus Fauci , Redfield , and Hahn aren ’ t alone in having had contact with infected people : Trump and other top officials may have had multiple brushes with the coronavirus recently .
The first of two recent scares came Thursday , when a military @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Valets are often quite close to the president and his family , providing food and accompanying them on travel , though Trump told CNN he had “ very little contact ” with the man before he tested positive .
The next day , Pence ’ s spokesperson Miller tested positive .
Miller regularly attends meetings of the White House task force , which includes Fauci , Redfield , and Hahn , as well as a number of other top officials such as Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Dr. Deborah Birx @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s also married to Stephen Miller , senior adviser to Trump .
Trump , Pence , and multiple top aides are now tested for the virus every day — as are any guests who come in contact with the president or vice president .
Other officials who don ’ t have regular contact with the president himself , like those who only interact with White House aides , are tested less often .
Neither Trump nor Pence wears a mask regularly or during public appearances — Trump appeared maskless at a plant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Pence recently apologized after not wearing a mask at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota .
Both have argued they do not need to wear masks because all those they come into contact with have been tested — tests , however , are not always accurate .
Concerns that even the White House testing regime has not kept US leaders from exposure have led some to worry about communities without the sort of testing capabilities that caught Miller ’ s infection , which are likely to find themselves in a dangerous situation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ In the span of hours , the coronavirus task force was likely exposed , the vice president was definitely exposed , and a top health official can ’ t come into the office , ” one senior administration official told Politico .
“ It ’ s a textbook case of why we can ’ t rush to re-open.
” White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Friday the administration had added safety measures in the West Wing in the two days prior .
“ I can tell you this is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ come to , ” he said .
But not every business has the means to institute similar safety protocols , and when one of the seemingly most secure places in the country is still vulnerable to infection , it doesn ’ t bode well for businesses eager to reopen their doors .
As Juliette Kayyem , a former assistant secretary of homeland security under President Barack Obama , told the New York Times : “ Whether it ’ s contained [ at the White House ] or not , we will know soon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ place — secured , with access to the best means to mitigate harm — is not able to stop the virus has the potential of undermining confidence in any capacity to defeat it.
” Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

Three top US health officials will self-quarantine for two weeks after coming in contact with people at the White House who tested positive for the coronavirus.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of the federal coronavirus task force, said Saturday he will be entering a “modified quarantine” after a “low risk” contact with a White House aide who tested positive for the virus.
Fauci told CNN he was not in close contact with the person who tested positive, but as a precaution will work remotely and wear a mask for the next 14 days. Fauci said he does plan to go to the White House or Capitol Hill — wearing a mask and socially distancing — if asked to. He will get tested every day, and may also go into his office at the National Institutes of Health, where he says he’d be the only person around.
Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Dr. Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, will also be in self-quarantine for the next two weeks. Politico reported that Hahn came in contact with Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary, Katie Miller, who tested positive for the virus on Friday. Redfield was also exposed to someone at the White House, though officials have not said who.
Fauci, Redfield, and Hahn were all slated to testify at a Senate hearing on the virus Tuesday. Redfield and Hahn will now testify via video, while Fauci is expected to attend in person while wearing a mask.
None of the top health officials have tested positive, but their exposure is the latest indication in recent days that even the White House — despite its rigorous testing standards — may not be safe from the virus.
White House staff who have regular contact with top officials have tested positive for coronavirus
Fauci, Redfield, and Hahn aren’t alone in having had contact with infected people: Trump and other top officials may have had multiple brushes with the coronavirus recently.
The first of two recent scares came Thursday, when a military valet to the president tested positive. Valets are often quite close to the president and his family, providing food and accompanying them on travel, though Trump told CNN he had “very little contact” with the man before he tested positive.
The next day, Pence’s spokesperson Miller tested positive. Miller regularly attends meetings of the White House task force, which includes Fauci, Redfield, and Hahn, as well as a number of other top officials such as Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Dr. Deborah Birx, the task force coordinator. She’s also married to Stephen Miller, senior adviser to Trump.
Trump, Pence, and multiple top aides are now tested for the virus every day — as are any guests who come in contact with the president or vice president. Other officials who don’t have regular contact with the president himself, like those who only interact with White House aides, are tested less often.
Neither Trump nor Pence wears a mask regularly or during public appearances — Trump appeared maskless at a plant manufacturing N95 masks in Arizona this week, and Pence recently apologized after not wearing a mask at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Both have argued they do not need to wear masks because all those they come into contact with have been tested — tests, however, are not always accurate.
Concerns that even the White House testing regime has not kept US leaders from exposure have led some to worry about communities without the sort of testing capabilities that caught Miller’s infection, which are likely to find themselves in a dangerous situation as states begin to reopen nonessential businesses.
“In the span of hours, the coronavirus task force was likely exposed, the vice president was definitely exposed, and a top health official can’t come into the office,” one senior administration official told Politico. “It’s a textbook case of why we can’t rush to re-open.”
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Friday the administration had added safety measures in the West Wing in the two days prior. “I can tell you this is probably the safest place that you can come to,” he said.
But not every business has the means to institute similar safety protocols, and when one of the seemingly most secure places in the country is still vulnerable to infection, it doesn’t bode well for businesses eager to reopen their doors.
As Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary of homeland security under President Barack Obama, told the New York Times: “Whether it’s contained [at the White House] or not, we will know soon enough. But the fact that a place — secured, with access to the best means to mitigate harm — is not able to stop the virus has the potential of undermining confidence in any capacity to defeat it.”


vox--2020-05-10--Media coverage has blown anti-lockdown protests out of proportion

In the last few weeks , protests against state lockdowns and social distancing measures have seized national headlines .
The wall-to-wall coverage might give the impression that what we ’ re seeing is a powerful grassroots movement in the making .
But research we just conducted on protest attendance and media coverage shows something different : this massive media coverage has in fact been out of proportion .
A comprehensive look at the social distancing protests reveals that they have been small in terms of both the number of participants and locations .
As one official in the administration of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) tweeted about a protest in Annapolis on April 20 , “ There were more media inquiries about this than there were participants.
” Our count confirms this impression .
As of May 3 , we counted 245 protests throughout April and early May against social distancing and related restrictions .
In contrast , notable recent uprisings numbered in the hundreds of protests throughout the country in a single day , including Lights for Liberty against the detention of immigrants on July 12 , 2019 ( 699 ) , the climate strikes of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , pro-impeachment rallies on December 17 , 2019 ( 599 ) , and the fourth Women ’ s March on January 18 of this year ( 267 ) .
The social distancing protests have also drawn modest crowds , with between 35,000 and 47,000 total attendees reported across all events combined through May 3 .
In comparison , a single protest against the governor in Guaynabo , Puerto Rico brought out upward of 250,000 on July 21 , 2019 .
Hundreds of thousands turned out for PRIDE marches in June 2019 and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Liberty protests exceeded 100,000 and December ’ s pro-impeachment rallies exceeded 75,000 .
These numbers are backed up by recent polling that shows widespread national support for lockdowns to prevent the continued spread of coronavirus .
Yet anti-Trump protests with far more attendees in a single day than all of April and early May ’ s # ReOpen events ( as they have been called ) passed with far less attention in the national press .
Some coverage of the # ReOpen protests emphasized their Midwestern locales such as Michigan and Wisconsin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be on alert for evidence of political winds shifting in crucial battleground states .
But earlier , larger , and more numerous left-wing protests in the Midwest often failed to draw extensive coverage .
If every protest was seen as a potential harbinger for 2020 , we would have expected the hundreds of Families Belong Together rallies ( against Trump ’ s family separation policies ) , Lights for Liberty protests , and post-Parkland marches in support of gun reform to top the headlines too .
The media ’ s interest in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anti-social distancing protests have become a top story ?
One reason is fairly straightforward : the president of the United States has encouraged them and Fox News , the country ’ s most watched cable news network , has amplified them .
Both have significant power to commandeer the national conversation , much greater than that of civil society actors who organized many of the other protests we mentioned .
And it ’ s in President Donald Trump ’ s interest to keep the attention on such protests — such a storyline would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s standing than a continued focus on the death toll or the shortage of personal protective equipment ( PPE ) in our hospitals .
Another possible reason for the widespread coverage is that some of the rhetoric and accoutrements — Confederate and Nazi flags , weapons , and militaristic attire — are reminiscent of the ( much larger ) Tea Party protests of 2009 , which remade the Republican Party .
Analysts may assume that since the packaging looks like the Tea Party , it will have a similar impact and therefore merits @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decidedly nowhere close to the scale of the Tea Party uprising .
Some protests featured these symbols so prominently that they sparked coverage that questioned whether gun rights or white supremacy might be the central drivers behind these protests .
The Huffington Post drew parallels to the 2017 “ Unite the Right ” rally in Charlottesville , an alarming antecedent .
In addition , by mid-April , the Covid-19 story had been the top story in the US news for weeks , with overwhelming public approval of stay-at-home orders .
Perhaps the media @ @ @ @ @ @ @ change up the storyline .
The demonstrations , with controversial symbols and , in some cases , heavily armed participants , provided the perfect imagery for a different spin .
Meanwhile , many people who have participated in anti-Trump actions in the past are now observing public health guidance and are therefore engaging in physically distant or online actions that have attracted less press coverage .
Immigration activists have demanded that ICE release its detainees ; prison reform advocates have called for mass releases ; renters have demanded eviction moratoriums ; and voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the course of April there were at least 240 protests nationwide whose message was that leaders are not doing enough in response to the pandemic , with another 155 protests in early May as nurses protested PPE shortages .
Some counter-protesters also interrupted the anti-lockdown rallies .
Indeed , the extensive coverage in Denver , Colorado , may have been related to the emergence of an iconic counter-protest — nurses clad in scrubs and masks , arms folded , blocking protesters ’ cars .
But for the most part , these counter-protests have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social distancing — precisely the thing the pro-Trump protesters reject , allowing them to create an unrivaled spectacle in front of cameras .
The bottom line is that the anti-social distancing protests really have been modest , especially when compared with previous protests .
That ’ s not to say they can ’ t grow bigger .
More of the Trump base could still turn out for these protests — especially if the media that has given them so much attention amplifies their message , influence , and appeal to a nation in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Beitz Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at Harvard University .
Tommy Leung is a software engineer and co-founder of countlove.org , a website that documents local news coverage of US protest activity .
Nathan Perkins is a software engineer in natural-language processing and co-founder of countlove.org .
Jeremy Pressman is an associate professor at the University of Connecticut and author of the forthcoming book , The Sword Is Not Enough .
Lara Putnam is UCIS Research Professor and Chair of the Department of History at the University of Pittsburgh .
Every @ @ @ @ @ @ @ answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

In the last few weeks, protests against state lockdowns and social distancing measures have seized national headlines. The wall-to-wall coverage might give the impression that what we’re seeing is a powerful grassroots movement in the making.
But research we just conducted on protest attendance and media coverage shows something different: This massive media coverage has in fact been out of proportion.
A comprehensive look at the social distancing protests reveals that they have been small in terms of both the number of participants and locations. As one official in the administration of Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) tweeted about a protest in Annapolis on April 20, “There were more media inquiries about this than there were participants.”
Our count confirms this impression. As of May 3, we counted 245 protests throughout April and early May against social distancing and related restrictions. In contrast, notable recent uprisings numbered in the hundreds of protests throughout the country in a single day, including Lights for Liberty against the detention of immigrants on July 12, 2019 (699), the climate strikes of September 20, 2019 (1184), pro-impeachment rallies on December 17, 2019 (599), and the fourth Women’s March on January 18 of this year (267).
The social distancing protests have also drawn modest crowds, with between 35,000 and 47,000 total attendees reported across all events combined through May 3. In comparison, a single protest against the governor in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, brought out upward of 250,000 on July 21, 2019. Hundreds of thousands turned out for PRIDE marches in June 2019 and the September 2019 climate strike. The Lights for Liberty protests exceeded 100,000, and December’s pro-impeachment rallies exceeded 75,000.
These numbers are backed up by recent polling that shows widespread national support for lockdowns to prevent the continued spread of the coronavirus.
Yet anti-Trump protests with far more attendees in a single day than all of April and early May’s #ReOpen events (as they have been called) passed with far less attention in the national press.
Some coverage of the #ReOpen protests emphasized their Midwestern locales such as Michigan and Wisconsin. It makes sense for reporters to be on alert for evidence of political winds shifting in crucial battleground states.
But earlier, larger, and more numerous left-wing protests in the Midwest often failed to draw extensive coverage. If every protest was seen as a potential harbinger for 2020, we would have expected the hundreds of Families Belong Together rallies (against Trump’s family separation policies), Lights for Liberty protests, and post-Parkland marches in support of gun reform to top the headlines too.
The media’s interest in the anti-lockdown protests, explained
Why might the anti-social distancing protests have become a top story?
One reason is fairly straightforward: The president of the United States has encouraged them, and Fox News, the country’s most-watched cable news network, has amplified them. Both have significant power to commandeer the national conversation, much greater than that of civil society actors who organized many of the other protests we mentioned. And it’s in President Donald Trump’s interest to keep the attention on such protests — such a storyline would likely be better for the president’s standing than a continued focus on the death toll or the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) in our hospitals.
Another possible reason for the widespread coverage is that some of the rhetoric and accoutrements — Confederate and Nazi flags, weapons, and militaristic attire — are reminiscent of the (much larger) Tea Party protests of 2009, which remade the Republican Party. Analysts may assume that since the packaging looks like the Tea Party, it will have a similar impact and therefore merits extensive coverage, even if this seems decidedly nowhere close to the scale of the Tea Party uprising.
Some protests featured these symbols so prominently that they sparked coverage that questioned whether gun rights or white supremacy might be the central drivers behind these protests. The HuffPost drew parallels to the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, an alarming antecedent.
In addition, by mid-April, the Covid-19 story had been the top story in the US news for weeks, with overwhelming public approval of stay-at-home orders. Perhaps the media was looking for a new angle to change up the storyline. The demonstrations, with controversial symbols and, in some cases, heavily armed participants, provided the perfect imagery for a different spin.
Meanwhile, many people who have participated in anti-Trump actions in the past are now observing public health guidance and are therefore engaging in physically distant or online actions that have attracted less press coverage. Immigration activists have demanded that ICE release its detainees; prison reform advocates have called for mass releases; renters have demanded eviction moratoriums; and voters have staged die-ins against disenfranchisement. Over the course of April there were at least 240 protests nationwide whose message was that leaders are not doing enough in response to the pandemic, with another 155 protests in early May as nurses protested PPE shortages.
Some counter-protesters also interrupted the anti-lockdown rallies. Indeed, the extensive coverage in Denver, Colorado, may have been related to the emergence of an iconic counter-protest — nurses clad in scrubs and masks, arms folded, blocking protesters’ cars. But for the most part, these counter-protests have been muffled by the very fact of social distancing — precisely the thing the pro-Trump protesters reject, allowing them to create an unrivaled spectacle in front of cameras.
The bottom line is that the anti-social distancing protests really have been modest, especially when compared with previous protests. That’s not to say they can’t grow bigger. More of the Trump base could still turn out for these protests, especially if the media that has given them so much attention amplifies their message, influence, and appeal to a nation in lockdown.
Erica Chenoweth is the Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at Harvard University.
Tommy Leung is a software engineer and co-founder of countlove.org, a website that documents local news coverage of US protest activity.
Nathan Perkins is a software engineer in natural-language processing and co-founder of countlove.org.
Jeremy Pressman is an associate professor at the University of Connecticut and author of the forthcoming book, The Sword Is Not Enough.
Lara Putnam is UCIS Research Professor and chair of the Department of History at the University of Pittsburgh.


vox--2020-05-11--Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on America’s loneliness epidemic

The coronavirus pandemic has created a loneliness epidemic .
Social distancing , while necessary from a public health standpoint , has caused a collapse in social contact among family , friends , and entire communities — one that is particularly hard on populations already most vulnerable to isolation .
But Americans were experiencing a loneliness crisis long before anyone had heard of Covid-19 .
In a 2018 report by the Kaiser Family Foundation , 22 percent of all adults in the US — almost 60 million Americans — said they often or always felt lonely or socially isolated .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ adults : A major National Academies of Sciences report from February found that a little more than a third of adults over the age of 45 , and 43 percent of adults over 60 , felt lonely ( other surveys have returned similar results ) .
Loneliness isn ’ t simply painful ; it can be lethal .
Several meta-analyses have found the mortality risk associated with chronic loneliness is higher than that of obesity and equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes per day .
In 2017 , former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” a term that medical professionals don ’ t throw around lightly .
Murthy ’ s new book , Together : The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World , is a powerful account of this loneliness epidemic that has taken hold across much of the Western world .
It is also a searing — and quite radical — critique of the value system on which we ’ ve built modern society .
I recently spoke with Murthy by phone .
A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ communities across America as US surgeon general , you write that “ loneliness ran like a dark thread through many of the more obvious issues that people brought to my attention , like addiction , violence , anxiety , and depression.
” Can you talk about that a bit ?
In what sense was loneliness a connecting thread ?
I didn ’ t expect to find this thread of loneliness in so many of the stories I encountered .
People wouldn ’ t come up me and say “ I ’ m lonely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like “ I feel like I have to deal with all of these struggles on my own ” or “ I feel like if I disappeared tomorrow , nobody would even notice ” or “ I feel like I ’ m invisible.
” What I realized is that whether people were struggling with addiction or depression or violence in their communities , what was weighing on them most was the sense of having to deal with these challenges all alone .
When we ’ re separated from each other , it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the reasons why physical separation , isolation , and solitary confinement have been methods of punishment in societies for so many years .
That pain can be intense when you ’ re living in a state of deep separation from other people — whether that ’ s physical separation or you feel emotionally disconnected from them .
But we all deal with pain differently .
Some people will respond to that pain by picking up the phone and calling a friend .
Other people will respond to pain by reaching for a bottle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a drug .
Some will lash out at the people around them .
Some will hurt others or themselves .
Some will drown themselves in work .
But in many ways , it ’ s that deeper pain that we feel when we ’ re lonely that influences our behavior — and , in turn , influences our health .
I want to talk about where the pain of loneliness comes from in the first place and why it exists .
You talk about loneliness as a “ biological signal.
” So why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the first place ?
What ’ s the biological function of loneliness ?
We should think about loneliness like we think about hunger and thirst — as a natural signal that our body gives us when we ’ re missing something that we need for survival .
Relationships enabled us to take turns looking out for predators , to share food supplies , to share duties like child care .
All of that helped us to survive and even thrive .
So when we were separated from people thousands of years ago , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state .
In that stress state , several things happened to us : Our attention turned inward , our threat level shifted , we became hypervigilant .
That was useful because without our fellow humans to protect us , we were in constant danger .
That high level of stress helped us survive temporarily on our own and drove us back to our tribe .
Even though our circumstances have changed dramatically , our nervous system is still very similar to what it was thousands of years ago .
When we are separated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stress phase as a signal for us to seek out connections .
And if not attended to , it can cause damage in the same way that hunger or thirst can if they are not attended to .
You cite multiple meta-analyses in the book which show that the mortality risk of chronic loneliness is similar to obesity or smoking 15 cigarettes a day .
That ’ s staggering .
The body ’ s stress response from loneliness can be very helpful in the short term .
But when those stress states become @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
When you have a protracted stress state , levels of inflammation rise .
That inflammation starts to injure tissues and blood vessels , which increases our risk for chronic illnesses like heart disease .
It can impair your body ’ s immune response .
It can even cause long-term sleep deprivation , which puts us at greater risk of hypertension , obesity , and a host of other physical conditions .
What all of that points to is just how essential social connection is to our survival .
Part of the reason @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people see that our connections are not just nice to have , but necessary to have — and they should be much higher in our priority list .
They also should be what policymakers and leaders are thinking about as they develop policy or design workplaces and schools .
We need to ensure that all aspects of society support healthy relationships .
That ’ s how we will ultimately thrive as a society .
I want to talk about the shame around loneliness .
A thread that runs throughout the book is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a social problem , but we ’ ve also placed a huge social stigma around it .
Can you talk about how stigma and shame contribute to our loneliness epidemic , and perhaps the role our culture plays in facilitating that shame ?
What we see with loneliness — and also with addiction — is that when we feel shame around some aspect of our life , it drives us further inward and chips away at our self-esteem .
When you ’ re lonely , what you need most of all is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But the shame around loneliness pushes you in exactly the opposite direction .
The longer your loneliness persists , the harder it is to reach out to other people because you don ’ t feel you ’ re worthy .
This is why the downward spiral of loneliness is very challenging to break .
This is where our culture makes things worse .
In an individualistic culture , your successes and your failures are entirely yours .
That can place an extraordinary burden on individuals who may experience failure , not simply @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of complex circumstances .
There are some people who might respond well to that , but a lot of people end up doing worse because they just beat themselves up further .
That leads to further erosion of self-esteem and confidence , and creates that downward spiral of loneliness .
One of the things I learned in writing that book , though , is that service is a very powerful way to break that downward spiral because it short-circuits some of these mechanisms .
Our focus is predominantly on ourselves when we ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Service shifts our focus away from ourselves to another person within the context of a positive interaction .
It also boosts our self-esteem because it reminds us that we have value to add to the world .
That ’ s why I refer to service in the book as a “ back door out of loneliness.
” It is such a powerful force when it comes to building a more connected world .
What are some other major drivers of widespread loneliness , in your view ?
We already talked about our society @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I think our culture around work and achievement has also become problematic .
And that has to do with how we define success in the modern world .
Success is driven by your ability to acquire one of three things : wealth , power , or reputation .
When we see somebody who has sold a company or invested money and made a tremendous return , we say they are successful .
When we see someone who is famous or who has achieved a high position in government or business , we say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ implication of that is that if I don ’ t have wealth , power , and reputation , then my life has less worth .
That is highly problematic because there are various circumstances outside of an individual ’ s control that often prevent us from having wealth , power , and reputation .
I think we have to recenter ourselves on the idea that each of us has intrinsic worth .
This is at the heart of so many spiritual traditions and so many cultures : the idea that , as human @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our ability to give and receive love .
And that love is most clearly manifest in our relationships — we experience love through other people .
As I think about my own kids , who are 3 and 2 , I want them to grow up knowing that their value is based on their ability to give and receive love .
That is something that they were born with .
It ’ s true to who they are .
And they don ’ t need to acquire money or fame or a powerful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a human being .
What makes them human is their ability to love , their ability to build relationships , their ability to serve .
This gets at something I appreciated about the book , which is just how subtly radical it is .
The ideas that individuals determine their own destiny and that our moral worth is a function of our ability to produce — these are the base assumptions at the heart of our political and economic systems .
And you ’ re basically saying they are wrong in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ funny you say that — I actually almost titled the book “ Radical Love.
” That ’ s because I do think there is something fundamental that we have to transform about how we ’ re living .
What I ’ m calling for is a much deeper and fundamental change that is not about transforming us into something we ’ re not , but a return to who we intrinsically are .
Every human being feels better when they ’ re giving or receiving love , regardless of political persuasion or the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anything else .
That ’ s how we ’ re meant to operate .
And , conversely , when we ’ re operating out of fear — which commonly manifests as anger or insecurity or jealousy or anxiety — it doesn ’ t feel good .
We all know that deep down .
In many ways , this book is about how we return to being who we intrinsically are , which is beings that are grounded by , powered by , and driven by love .
And it ’ s about how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by love instead of fear .
The book is not intended just to be a guide about how to build extra connections .
It ’ s about fundamentally transforming our lives and our society toward being a people-centered life and a people-centered society .
If I had a single credo with the book , it would be just three words : “ Put people first.
” I think one response to that idea of building a “ people-centered society ” is that those societies already exist .
My family is Lebanese and Palestinian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Middle East , they have plenty of problems , but loneliness generally isn ’ t one of them .
They have a hard time of even understanding how loneliness would be an issue for people .
At the same time , they ’ re so deeply embedded in family and community that they tend to have a lot less of the individual autonomy and freedom that we ’ ve come to cherish and respect .
You have a really interesting discussion of this trade-off between liberty and community — and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it — in the book .
Can you talk a bit about what you call first- , second- , and third-bowl societies ?
There are traditional cultures which I think of as narrow but deep bowls .
They tend to have a lot of constraints around what is acceptable : It may not be acceptable to get married later in life , to be gay , to pursue a career that your parents tell you is not appropriate .
But there ’ s a lot of depth in terms of social structure that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part of that network .
It could be the extended family structure , or generations of families that live together in villages that have close ties with each other .
If you remain within the narrow constraints of the community , you can often feel quite connected .
There are also more modern societies , which I think of as wide but shallow bowls .
In many Western societies , there ’ s a lot more freedom to be who you are and a more open embrace of different identities .
But the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they ’ re a part of a community are limited — it ’ s largely left up to individuals to find friends [ and ] some structure that they can ultimately call their community .
These societies , like the one we live in , tend to have higher levels of loneliness .
What I envision and hope for in the book is that we can build a third bowl — a bowl that is wide and deep .
A third-bowl society is one that embraces people ’ s individual identity and freedom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a society that has great depth in terms of the structures in place which allow people to feel connected to each other and provide community for everyone .
What would a third-bowl society actually look like in practice ?
What it looks like is organizations that build and design workplaces to strengthen human connection by creating opportunities for people to truly understand each other as human beings , not just as skill sets .
It looks like schools that invest in social and emotional learning so they can give children a foundation for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ looks like neighborhoods where we put more of a premium on reaching out to and getting to know neighbors .
It looks like a society that recognizes that we are truly interdependent creatures who need each other , which means that there are times when we have the ability to serve and times where we need to be served .
I think a lot of this is a matter of deciding to make human connection a priority .
The challenge is not that we have the wrong values — a lot of us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s that we ’ ve ordered our priorities in a way that is inconsistent with our deepest values .
That ’ s what we have to change .
Do you think coronavirus could be the spark that forces us to reconsider how we ’ ve prioritized our values ?
I hope .
This is such an unexpected and profound experience for us .
It ’ s turning so many of our lives upside down .
But despite all of the pain that this virus is causing , it also presents an opportunity for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we ’ re living our lives , particularly when it comes to social connection .
There ’ s been a lot of concern that , among many other things , the physical separation that we ’ re being asked to observe could contribute to a deepening of loneliness and further straining of social ties .
But I don ’ t think it has to be that way .
I think we have the opportunity to choose social revival over a deepening of our loneliness .
And we can do that if we step @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people and relationships in our lives .
What would you say to people sitting at home right now in the middle of a pandemic who are feeling extremely disconnected ?
What would you recommend they do ?
One of the larger themes that I realized in the writing of this book is that building a more connected life is ultimately grounded in the small things that we do .
It doesn ’ t require a wholesale inversion of your life .
There are small steps we take so that we find much deeper @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that one of the greatest gifts we can give other people is the gift of our full attention .
I know we ’ re an action-oriented society .
We ’ re used to thinking that the way to deal with a problem is to voice and enact a solution .
But there ’ s also great healing to be found in listening deeply to someone .
That ’ s something that we can do today , and it ’ s one of the most powerful things we can do .
Another thing we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a time where so many people are struggling .
So service in a time of Covid-19 , doesn ’ t have to look like going to a soup kitchen or spending a month with Habitat for Humanity .
It can look like calling a friend to see how they ’ re doing .
It can be checking on a neighbor who might be older to make sure that they have groceries .
It can be FaceTiming with your friends ’ children to virtually babysit them for 10 or 15 minutes so their parents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Vivek Murthy and Ezra Klein discussed the loneliness epidemic on The Ezra Klein Show in October of 2019 .
You can listen to the podcast by streaming it below or subscribing to The Ezra Klein Show wherever you get your podcasts .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

The coronavirus pandemic has created a loneliness epidemic. Social distancing, while necessary from a public health standpoint, has caused a collapse in social contact among family, friends, and entire communities — one that is particularly hard on populations already most vulnerable to isolation.
But Americans were experiencing a loneliness crisis long before anyone had heard of Covid-19. In a 2018 report by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 22 percent of all adults in the US — almost 60 million Americans — said they often or always felt lonely or socially isolated. The problem is even more concentrated among older adults: A major National Academies of Sciences report from February found that a little more than a third of adults over the age of 45, and 43 percent of adults over 60, felt lonely (other surveys have returned similar results).
Loneliness isn’t simply painful; it can be lethal. Several meta-analyses have found the mortality risk associated with chronic loneliness is higher than that of obesity and equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes per day.
In 2017, former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called loneliness a public health “epidemic,” a term that medical professionals don’t throw around lightly. Murthy’s new book, Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World, is a powerful account of this loneliness epidemic that has taken hold across much of the Western world. It is also a searing — and quite radical — critique of the value system on which we’ve built modern society.
I recently spoke with Murthy by phone. A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.
Roge Karma
Reflecting on your time traveling to communities across America as US surgeon general, you write that “loneliness ran like a dark thread through many of the more obvious issues that people brought to my attention, like addiction, violence, anxiety, and depression.” Can you talk about that a bit? In what sense was loneliness a connecting thread?
Vivek Murthy
I didn’t expect to find this thread of loneliness in so many of the stories I encountered. People wouldn’t come up me and say “I’m lonely,” but they would say things like “I feel like I have to deal with all of these struggles on my own” or “I feel like if I disappeared tomorrow, nobody would even notice” or “I feel like I’m invisible.” What I realized is that whether people were struggling with addiction or depression or violence in their communities, what was weighing on them most was the sense of having to deal with these challenges all alone.
When we’re separated from each other, it’s painful. That’s one of the reasons why physical separation, isolation, and solitary confinement have been methods of punishment in societies for so many years. That pain can be intense when you’re living in a state of deep separation from other people — whether that’s physical separation or you feel emotionally disconnected from them.
But we all deal with pain differently. Some people will respond to that pain by picking up the phone and calling a friend. Other people will respond to pain by reaching for a bottle of alcohol. Others will reach for a drug. Some will lash out at the people around them. Some will hurt others or themselves. Some will drown themselves in work. But in many ways, it’s that deeper pain that we feel when we’re lonely that influences our behavior — and, in turn, influences our health.
Roge Karma
I want to talk about where the pain of loneliness comes from in the first place and why it exists. You talk about loneliness as a “biological signal.” So why is it that we feel lonely in the first place? What’s the biological function of loneliness?
Vivek Murthy
We should think about loneliness like we think about hunger and thirst — as a natural signal that our body gives us when we’re missing something that we need for survival. Relationships enabled us to take turns looking out for predators, to share food supplies, to share duties like child care. All of that helped us to survive and even thrive.
So when we were separated from people thousands of years ago, that placed us in an immediate stress state. In that stress state, several things happened to us: Our attention turned inward, our threat level shifted, we became hypervigilant. That was useful because without our fellow humans to protect us, we were in constant danger. That high level of stress helped us survive temporarily on our own and drove us back to our tribe.
Even though our circumstances have changed dramatically, our nervous system is still very similar to what it was thousands of years ago. When we are separated from other people, we enter that stress phase as a signal for us to seek out connections. And if not attended to, it can cause damage in the same way that hunger or thirst can if they are not attended to.
Roge Karma
You cite multiple meta-analyses in the book which show that the mortality risk of chronic loneliness is similar to obesity or smoking 15 cigarettes a day. That’s staggering.
Vivek Murthy
The body’s stress response from loneliness can be very helpful in the short term. But when those stress states become chronic, they begin destroying the body. When you have a protracted stress state, levels of inflammation rise. That inflammation starts to injure tissues and blood vessels, which increases our risk for chronic illnesses like heart disease. It can impair your body’s immune response. It can even cause long-term sleep deprivation, which puts us at greater risk of hypertension, obesity, and a host of other physical conditions.
What all of that points to is just how essential social connection is to our survival. Part of the reason I wrote the book was to help people see that our connections are not just nice to have, but necessary to have — and they should be much higher in our priority list. They also should be what policymakers and leaders are thinking about as they develop policy or design workplaces and schools. We need to ensure that all aspects of society support healthy relationships. That’s how we will ultimately thrive as a society.
Roge Karma
I want to talk about the shame around loneliness. A thread that runs throughout the book is not only that we’ve ignored loneliness as a social problem, but we’ve also placed a huge social stigma around it. Can you talk about how stigma and shame contribute to our loneliness epidemic, and perhaps the role our culture plays in facilitating that shame?
Vivek Murthy
What we see with loneliness — and also with addiction — is that when we feel shame around some aspect of our life, it drives us further inward and chips away at our self-esteem. When you’re lonely, what you need most of all is to reach out and connect with others. But the shame around loneliness pushes you in exactly the opposite direction. The longer your loneliness persists, the harder it is to reach out to other people because you don’t feel you’re worthy. This is why the downward spiral of loneliness is very challenging to break.
This is where our culture makes things worse. In an individualistic culture, your successes and your failures are entirely yours. That can place an extraordinary burden on individuals who may experience failure, not simply due to their individual efforts but because of complex circumstances. There are some people who might respond well to that, but a lot of people end up doing worse because they just beat themselves up further. That leads to further erosion of self-esteem and confidence, and creates that downward spiral of loneliness.
One of the things I learned in writing that book, though, is that service is a very powerful way to break that downward spiral because it short-circuits some of these mechanisms. Our focus is predominantly on ourselves when we’re lonely because we feel threatened. Service shifts our focus away from ourselves to another person within the context of a positive interaction. It also boosts our self-esteem because it reminds us that we have value to add to the world. That’s why I refer to service in the book as a “back door out of loneliness.” It is such a powerful force when it comes to building a more connected world.
Roge Karma
What are some other major drivers of widespread loneliness, in your view?
Vivek Murthy
We already talked about our society’s focus on individualism, but I think our culture around work and achievement has also become problematic. And that has to do with how we define success in the modern world. Success is driven by your ability to acquire one of three things: wealth, power, or reputation.
When we see somebody who has sold a company or invested money and made a tremendous return, we say they are successful. When we see someone who is famous or who has achieved a high position in government or business, we say that they’re successful. The implication of that is that if I don’t have wealth, power, and reputation, then my life has less worth. That is highly problematic because there are various circumstances outside of an individual’s control that often prevent us from having wealth, power, and reputation.
I think we have to recenter ourselves on the idea that each of us has intrinsic worth. This is at the heart of so many spiritual traditions and so many cultures: the idea that, as human beings, our value is rooted in our ability to give and receive love. And that love is most clearly manifest in our relationships — we experience love through other people.
As I think about my own kids, who are 3 and 2, I want them to grow up knowing that their value is based on their ability to give and receive love. That is something that they were born with. It’s true to who they are. And they don’t need to acquire money or fame or a powerful position in order to augment their worth as a human being. What makes them human is their ability to love, their ability to build relationships, their ability to serve.
Roge Karma
This gets at something I appreciated about the book, which is just how subtly radical it is. The ideas that individuals determine their own destiny and that our moral worth is a function of our ability to produce — these are the base assumptions at the heart of our political and economic systems. And you’re basically saying they are wrong in a very profound way.
Vivek Murthy
It’s funny you say that — I actually almost titled the book “Radical Love.” That’s because I do think there is something fundamental that we have to transform about how we’re living. What I’m calling for is a much deeper and fundamental change that is not about transforming us into something we’re not, but a return to who we intrinsically are.
Every human being feels better when they’re giving or receiving love, regardless of political persuasion or the culture in which they grew up or anything else. That’s how we’re meant to operate. And, conversely, when we’re operating out of fear — which commonly manifests as anger or insecurity or jealousy or anxiety — it doesn’t feel good. We all know that deep down.
In many ways, this book is about how we return to being who we intrinsically are, which is beings that are grounded by, powered by, and driven by love. And it’s about how to create a society that is fueled by love instead of fear.
The book is not intended just to be a guide about how to build extra connections. It’s about fundamentally transforming our lives and our society toward being a people-centered life and a people-centered society. If I had a single credo with the book, it would be just three words: “Put people first.”
Roge Karma
I think one response to that idea of building a “people-centered society” is that those societies already exist. My family is Lebanese and Palestinian. And when I visit my relatives in the Middle East, they have plenty of problems, but loneliness generally isn’t one of them. They have a hard time even understanding how loneliness would be an issue for people. At the same time, they’re so deeply embedded in family and community that they tend to have a lot less of the individual autonomy and freedom that we’ve come to cherish and respect.
You have a really interesting discussion of this trade-off between liberty and community — and a potential synthesis that can help us reconcile it — in the book. Can you talk a bit about what you call first-, second-, and third-bowl societies?
Vivek Murthy
There are traditional cultures which I think of as narrow but deep bowls. They tend to have a lot of constraints around what is acceptable: It may not be acceptable to get married later in life, to be gay, to pursue a career that your parents tell you is not appropriate. But there’s a lot of depth in terms of social structure that allows you to feel that you are part of that network. It could be the extended family structure, or generations of families that live together in villages that have close ties with each other. If you remain within the narrow constraints of the community, you can often feel quite connected.
There are also more modern societies, which I think of as wide but shallow bowls. In many Western societies, there’s a lot more freedom to be who you are and a more open embrace of different identities. But the structures that ensure that people feel like they’re part of a community are limited — it’s largely left up to individuals to find friends [and] some structure that they can ultimately call their community. These societies, like the one we live in, tend to have higher levels of loneliness.
What I envision and hope for in the book is that we can build a third bowl — a bowl that is wide and deep. A third-bowl society is one that embraces people’s individual identity and freedom of expression. But it is also a society that has great depth in terms of the structures in place which allow people to feel connected to each other and provide community for everyone.
Roge Karma
What would a third-bowl society actually look like in practice?
Vivek Murthy
What it looks like is organizations that build and design workplaces to strengthen human connection by creating opportunities for people to truly understand each other as human beings, not just as skill sets. It looks like schools that invest in social and emotional learning so they can give children a foundation for how to build healthy relationships. It looks like neighborhoods where we put more of a premium on reaching out to and getting to know neighbors. It looks like a society that recognizes that we are truly interdependent creatures who need each other, which means that there are times when we have the ability to serve and times where we need to be served.
I think a lot of this is a matter of deciding to make human connection a priority. The challenge is not that we have the wrong values — a lot of us do value human connection. It’s that we’ve ordered our priorities in a way that is inconsistent with our deepest values. That’s what we have to change.
Roge Karma
Do you think coronavirus could be the spark that forces us to reconsider how we’ve prioritized our values?
Vivek Murthy
I hope. This is such an unexpected and profound experience for us. It’s turning so many of our lives upside down. But despite all of the pain that this virus is causing, it also presents an opportunity for us to push a reset on how we’re living our lives, particularly when it comes to social connection.
There’s been a lot of concern that, among many other things, the physical separation that we’re being asked to observe could contribute to a deepening of loneliness and further straining of social ties. But I don’t think it has to be that way. I think we have the opportunity to choose social revival over a deepening of our loneliness. And we can do that if we step back and use this opportunity to reprioritize people and relationships in our lives.
Roge Karma
What would you say to people sitting at home right now in the middle of a pandemic who are feeling extremely disconnected? What would you recommend they do?
Vivek Murthy
One of the larger themes that I realized in the writing of this book is that building a more connected life is ultimately grounded in the small things that we do. It doesn’t require a wholesale inversion of your life. There are small steps we take so that we find much deeper connection and fulfillment.
Sometimes we forget that one of the greatest gifts we can give other people is the gift of our full attention. I know we’re an action-oriented society. We’re used to thinking that the way to deal with a problem is to voice and enact a solution. But there’s also great healing to be found in listening deeply to someone. That’s something that we can do today, and it’s one of the most powerful things we can do.
Another thing we can do is service. This is a time where so many people are struggling. So service in a time of Covid-19 doesn’t have to look like going to a soup kitchen or spending a month with Habitat for Humanity. It can look like calling a friend to see how they’re doing. It can be checking on a neighbor who might be older to make sure that they have groceries. It can be FaceTiming with your friends’ children to virtually babysit them for 10 or 15 minutes so their parents have time to sit and breathe.
Related listening
Vivek Murthy and Ezra Klein discussed the loneliness epidemic on The Ezra Klein Show in October 2019. You can listen to the podcast by streaming it below or subscribing to The Ezra Klein Show or wherever you get your podcasts.


vox--2020-05-11--The killing of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black jogger in Georgia, explained

After two months of a limited investigation into the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery — an unarmed black man who was killed by two white men while jogging — Georgia ’ s attorney general has asked the Department of Justice to step in and review how the case has been handled .
Last Tuesday , Arbery ’ s family released a graphic video showing the last moments of the 25-year-old ’ s life .
The two white men — Gregory McMichael , 64 , a retired district attorney investigator and police detective , and his son Travis McMichael , 34 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a pickup truck after seeing him jog by ; they later told police officers they believed Arbery to be a suspect in two burglaries in the Satilla Shores area .
However , Arbery ’ s mother , Wanda Cooper , told CBS News that the video “ proves that my son was not committing a crime .
He was out for his daily jog and he was hunted down like an animal and killed.
” The footage sparked outrage among criminal justice advocates across the country , and led a Georgia prosecutor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ investigate the fatal shooting .
Two days later , the McMichaels were arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault .
On Friday , the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced that the man who captured the video — the McMichaels ’ neighbor , William “ Roddie ” Bryan — was now also under investigation .
Arbery ’ s death has been compared with the shooting deaths of many other unarmed black people , including 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and Botham Jean , who was killed in his Dallas apartment in 2018 .
The release @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Georgia — where social distancing requirements were recently relaxed — with hundreds of people marching through Satilla Shores on Tuesday , promising to “ run with Maud ” and chanting , “ We want justice !
” “ The video is very clear that they were on the truck with guns hunting him down , ” civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump , who represents Arbery ’ s father , told the Associated Press .
“ I don ’ t know what more you need to make an arrest.
” Prior to the video @ @ @ @ @ @ @ record of Arbery ’ s final moments were the statements the McMichaels gave to police and an investigation into the shooting had been limited , as a series of prosecutors recused themselves from the case .
This has frustrated Arbery ’ s supporters , who argue that his killing — and the subsequent actions of local law enforcement — shows how little has changed in an area of Georgia that ’ s been described as dotted with Confederate flags , with a history of mobs of white men taking justice into their own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ men dead .
Everything we know about Ahmaud Arbery ’ s killing Much of what we know about the circumstances around Arbery ’ s death comes from four sources : a police report filed after he was killed , several 911 calls , accounts from Arbery ’ s friends and family , and a viral video .
None of these provide a complete picture of the 25-year-old ’ s killing on February 23 , 2020 .
The police report captures only the narrative of Gregory McMichael , a former police detective , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The 911 recordings feature unknown callers .
The video — which was later confirmed to be filmed by the McMichaels neighbor , Bryan — was done so through the windshield of a vehicle and has obstructed views of certain key moments .
And no friends or family were with Arbery at the time of his death .
“ The video is very clear that they were on the truck with guns hunting him down .
I don ’ t know what more you need to make an arrest.
” Arbery , a former @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about staying in shape , according to friends and family , who told the New York Times he often spent his free time running .
He went for one such run on February 23 , ending up in Satilla Shores , a few miles away from his home in Glynn County .
Gregory McMichael claims he was in his front yard when he saw Arbery “ hauling ass , ” after which he ran inside to get a weapon and his son , Travis .
He told police that he said , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the street , let ’ s go.
” By “ the guy , ” he meant the person responsible for what some in the neighborhood have described as two burglaries .
Larry English , a man building a home in the McMichaels ’ neighborhood , said someone stole $ 2,500 in fishing gear from him earlier this year , but he never reported the theft , he told the Daily Beast .
The second was reported to police by Travis McMichael , who said a 9mm pistol was stolen on January 1 from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In the police report filed after Arbery ’ s killing , Gregory McMichael said the burglar had been caught on surveillance video and that Arbery matched the description of the suspect .
There seemed to be concern about Arbery ’ s presence in the neighborhood for much of his time there on the afternoon of February 23 ; although it is not clear who made them , several calls were placed to 911 .
Satilla Shores is a predominantly white neighborhood , one the Daily Beast ’ s Justin Glawe describes as featuring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flags , one bearing the president ’ s smiling face with the phrase , Make liberals cry again.
” The first featured a caller expressing distress about Arbery being near a house that is under construction on property owned by English .
The caller claimed Arbery was inside the home , which is open to the air due to the construction ; the dispatcher asked what Arbery was doing wrong but never received an answer .
Arbery ’ s family has said he ’ s always been inquisitive and was likely just having @ @ @ @ @ @ @ home , since that ’ s something one doesn ’ t see every day .
After that first call , 911 received another , in which the caller said , “ I ’ m out here at Satilla Shores .
There ’ s a black male running down the street.
” The caller can be heard yelling , “ Watch that .
Stop , damn it !
Stop !
” but stops responding to the dispatcher ’ s inquiries .
As these calls were being made , the McMichaels were preparing to pursue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ armed himself with a .357 magnum while his son got a shotgun .
George told police he felt the weapons were called for because he ’ d seen Arbery in the neighborhood previously with his hand in his pants in a manner suggestive of a firearm .
Then the men got into Travis McMichael ’ s pickup truck and began to chase Arbery through the neighborhood .
Arbery ’ s uncle told the Brunswick News that Arbery was amazingly fast and agile .
And the police report suggests that — despite being on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a time .
George McMichael claims his son tried to cut off Arbery with his truck , but that he turned around and ran in the other direction .
The police report mentions another person , identified only as “ Roddy ” — William Bryan — who tried unsuccessfully to cut Arbery off with his vehicle .
McMichael claims they were able to catch up with Arbery and shouted out of the truck , “ Stop , stop , we want to talk to you , ” before stopping the truck beside him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his shotgun .
Then , McMichael claims , Arbery attacked his son , the two men fought over the shotgun , two shots were fired , and then Arbery fell , bleeding .
The officer who wrote the report said Arbery died not long after police arrived on the scene .
But the video — filmed by Bryan from his vehicle — appears to show something slightly different .
Civil rights attorney S. Lee Merritt , who is representing Arbery ’ s family , reposted the video on his Twitter account Tuesday .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a road , a black man wearing a white shirt — what Arbery was described as wearing in 911 calls — can be seen running .
A white pickup truck , ostensibly the McMichaels ’ , blocks his path ; a white man is in the street next to the driver ’ s side of the truck , and another stands in the flatbed .
The video is blocked by the dashboard for a moment , and some unintelligible yelling can be heard .
The video then shows the black man trying to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s not possible to see what happens next , but there ’ s a gunshot ; the black man and the white man who was standing in the road reappear in the frame , engaged in a struggle , and move off the road , again leaving the video ’ s frame .
As the man in the flatbed brings up his firearm , there ’ s another gunshot .
The video Merritt posted ends with the struggle — seemingly over possession of a firearm — continuing .
A longer version available online @ @ @ @ @ @ @ black man falling to the pavement , his shirt seemingly red with blood .
When police arrived , Arbery was “ on the ground ‘ bleeding out , ’ ” according to the report .
Travis McMichael had blood on his hands ; his father said this was from Travis rolling Arbery ’ s body over to check for a gun .
Arbery ’ s supporters say this is a clear case of racist murder — but complications have inhibited an investigation Advocates for Arbery argue his killing is a very clear case @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the video , Merritt wrote , “ Ahmaud Arbery was pursued by three white men that targeted him solely because of his race and murdered him without justification.
” It ’ s a sentiment echoed by others , including presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden , who tweeted Tuesday , “ The video is clear : Ahmaud Arbery was killed in cold blood.
” Stacey Abrams , who narrowly lost Georgia ’ s 2018 gubernatorial election and who has said she hopes to become Biden ’ s running mate , demanded a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and an unbiased prosecution.
” But charges have been slow in coming , due to conflicts of interest and Georgia ’ s stand-your-ground law and citizen ’ s arrest law .
The case is on its third prosecutor ; the first put in charge of the case , Brunswick District Attorney Jackie Johnson , recused herself because she ’ d previously employed George McMichael .
The district attorney of Waycross , Georgia , George Barnhill , was then assigned it , but he recused himself after Arbery ’ s mother pointed out his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Before his recusal , however , Barnhill wrote a letter laying out the reasons he felt the McMichaels had done nothing wrong , noting Georgia has an open-carry law , that a separate state law allows a private citizen to attempt arrests if an “ offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge , ” and that it has a stand-your-ground law that allows someone who feels threatened “ to use deadly force to protect himself , ” without having to first try to retreat or call law enforcement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interpretation of these laws , telling CNN he doesn ’ t believe the McMichaels were trying to make a citizen ’ s arrest , noting that the McMichaels ’ statements frame the shooting as an act of self-defense .
And he said the citizen ’ s arrest law says “ you actually have to be observing the crime or be in the immediate knowledge of the crime ” but argues the McMichaels never claimed this was the case .
“ The only thing they have ever said is ... that Ahmaud stopped by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he looked through the window , ” Merritt said Sunday .
“ We don ’ t know if that happened or not , but even if that did happen , that is not a felony that would invoke the citizen ’ s arrest statute that would make this allowable.
” Merritt has also pushed back against other claims in Barnhill ’ s letter , including that Arbery had mental health issues , as well as the district attorney ’ s efforts to point out that Arbery was once convicted of shoplifting and of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was in high school .
“ The reference to ... alleged conduct from high school or shoplifting is absurd and has nothing to do with his murder , ” Merritt said .
The real root of the killing , Merritt suggested , can be seen in the 911 calls , when the caller fails to give a clear reason for the call but does note , “ There ’ s a black male running down the street.
” Gregory McMichael told the Daily Beast Arbery ’ s race has nothing to do with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have gone after someone for their color , ” saying instead that Barnhill ’ s letter is the “ closest version of the truth.
” Investigations have ramped up since the video went viral The actual version of the truth may come to light soon , however .
District Attorney Tom Durden of Hinesville , Georgia , has now taken over for Barnhill .
Earlier this week , he promised to look at the case without “ any preconceived idea about it ” and announced he will have a grand jury investigate the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accepted an offer from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation — an independent state agency with investigative and forensic expertise — for assistance .
Gov .
Kemp promoted the offer on Twitter Tuesday , writing , “ Georgians deserve answers .
State law enforcement stands ready to ensure justice is served.
” On Thursday , two days after the state took over the case , the McMichaels were arrested and booked in a Glynn County jail .
They both face charges of aggravated assault and murder .
On Friday , Georgia Bureau of Investigation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also under investigation .
“ Hypothetically , if we believe there ’ s probable cause for an arrest , then we ’ ll do it , ” Reynolds said in regards to whether there will be further arrests in the case , according to BuzzFeed News .
On Sunday , Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr announced he had asked the Department of Justice to investigate the handling of the case .
“ We are committed to a complete and transparent review of how the Ahmaud Arbery case was handled from the outset , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ The family , the community and the state of Georgia deserve answers , and we will work with others in law enforcement at the state and federal level to find those answers.
” Correction : An earlier version of this story miscategorized the incidents described by Larry English and Travis McMichael .
They were burglaries .
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Editor’s note, November 24, 2021: This article was last updated in June 2020. Travis and Gregory McMichael and William Bryan have since been found guilty in Ahmaud Arbery’s murder. To read our latest coverage of the verdict, click here.
The three white men arrested in the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery — an unarmed black man who was attacked while jogging — were indicted on murder charges Wednesday by a grand jury in Georgia.
Arbery was killed on February 23, when Gregory McMichael, 64, a retired district attorney investigator and police detective, and his son Travis McMichael, 34, armed themselves and followed him in a pickup truck after seeing him jog by. They later told police officers they believed Arbery to be a suspect in two burglaries in the Satilla Shores area.
The McMichaels — along with neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, who filmed the incident — were arrested and charged last month with murder. And on Wednesday, District Attorney Joyette M. Holmes announced that the Glynn County grand jury had returned an indictment on all three defendants, including four counts of felony murder, two counts of aggravated assault, and one count each of false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment.
While the shooting happened months ago, the case did not receive national attention until Bryan’s graphic video — released by Arbery’s family and showing the last moments of the 25-year-old’s life — went viral on May 5.
Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, told CBS News that the video “proves that my son was not committing a crime. He was out for his daily jog and he was hunted down like an animal and killed.”
The footage sparked outrage among criminal justice advocates across the country, and led to the call for a grand jury to investigate the fatal shooting. The Department of Justice is also looking into hate crime charges and reviewing how Arbery’s killing was handled on the state and local levels.
Arbery’s death has been compared with the shooting deaths of many other unarmed black people, including 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and Botham Jean, who was killed in his Dallas apartment in 2018. Protests have continued in Georgia — where social distancing requirements were recently relaxed — with hundreds of people marching through Satilla Shores, promising to “run with Maud” and chanting, “We want justice!”
“The video is very clear that they were on the truck with guns hunting him down,” civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who represents Arbery’s father, told the Associated Press. “I don’t know what more you need to make an arrest.”
Prior to the video’s release, the only public record of Arbery’s final moments were the statements the McMichaels gave to police. An investigation into the shooting had been limited, as a series of prosecutors recused themselves from the case over their ties to Gregory McMichael. This has frustrated Arbery’s supporters, who argue that his killing — and the subsequent actions of local law enforcement — shows how little has changed in an area of Georgia that’s been described as dotted with Confederate flags, with a history of mobs of white men taking justice into their own hands in a manner that leaves black men dead.
Everything we know about Ahmaud Arbery’s killing
Arbery, a former high school football star, was passionate about staying in shape, according to friends and family, who told the New York Times he often spent his free time running. He went for one such run on February 23, ending up in Satilla Shores, a few miles away from his home in Glynn County.
“The video is very clear that they were on the truck with guns hunting him down. I don’t know what more you need to make an arrest.”
Gregory McMichael claims he was in his front yard when he saw Arbery “hauling ass,” after which he ran inside to get a weapon and his son, Travis. He told police that he said, “Travis, the guy is running down the street, let’s go.”
By “the guy,” he meant the person responsible for what some in the neighborhood have described as two burglaries. Larry English, a man whose home was under construction in the McMichaels’ neighborhood, said someone stole $2,500 in fishing gear from him earlier this year, but he never reported the theft, he told the Daily Beast; he also never accused Arbery of committing any crimes.
It has since come to light, however, that the Glynn County Police Department contacted English in December 2019, asking him to reach out to Gregory McMichael whenever he “got action” on his surveillance camera, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Greg is retired Law Enforcement and also a Retired Investigator from the DA’s office,” Officer Robert Rash texted English, along with McMichael’s phone number. “He said please call him day or night when you get action on your camera.” English’s attorney said her client never took McMichael up on his offer.
Trespassing on English’s property was, apparently, a common occurrence. In mid-May, CNN obtained 11 surveillance clips from English’s attorney and found that multiple people, including women and children, had entered the home in the months leading up to Arbery’s death. The only confirmed instance of Arbery himself being on the property was on February 23.
The second burglary in the area was reported to police by Travis McMichael, who said a 9 mm pistol was stolen on January 1 from a vehicle parked outside his home. In the police report filed after Arbery’s killing, Gregory McMichael said the burglar had been caught on surveillance video and that Arbery matched the description of the suspect.
There seemed to be concern about Arbery’s presence in the neighborhood for much of his time there on the afternoon of February 23; several calls, at least one of which was from the McMichaels, were placed to 911. Satilla Shores is a predominantly white neighborhood, one the Daily Beast’s Justin Glawe describes as featuring “several homes ... decorated with Trump flags, one bearing the president’s smiling face with the phrase, Make liberals cry again.”
The first featured a caller expressing distress about Arbery being near a house that is under construction on property owned by English. The dispatcher asked what Arbery was doing wrong but never received an answer. Arbery’s family has said he’s always been inquisitive and was likely just having a look at the bones of the home, since that’s something one doesn’t see every day.
After that first call, 911 received another, in which the caller said, “I’m out here at Satilla Shores. There’s a black male running down the street.” The caller can be heard yelling, “Watch that. Stop, damn it! Stop!” but stops responding to the dispatcher’s inquiries.
As these calls were being made, the McMichaels were preparing to pursue Arbery. Gregory McMichael told police he armed himself with a .357 magnum while his son got a shotgun. He told police he felt the weapons were called for because he’d seen Arbery in the neighborhood previously with his hand in his pants in a manner suggestive of a firearm. Then the men got into Travis McMichael’s pickup truck and began to chase Arbery through the neighborhood.
Arbery’s uncle told the Brunswick News that Arbery was amazingly fast and agile. And the police report suggests that — despite being on foot — he evaded the McMichaels for a time. Gregory McMichael claims his son tried to cut off Arbery with his truck, but that he turned around and ran in the other direction.
The police report mentions another person, identified only as “Roddy” — William Bryan — who tried unsuccessfully to cut Arbery off with his vehicle.
McMichael claims they were able to catch up with Arbery and shouted out of the truck, “Stop, stop, we want to talk to you,” before stopping the truck beside him, at which point Travis exited with his shotgun. Then, McMichael claims, Arbery attacked his son, the two men fought over the shotgun, two shots were fired, and then Arbery fell, bleeding. The officer who wrote the report said Arbery died not long after police arrived on the scene.
But the video — filmed by Bryan from his vehicle — appears to show something slightly different. Civil rights attorney S. Lee Merritt, who is representing Arbery’s family, reposted the video on his Twitter account on May 5.
As the vehicle turns a bend in a road, a black man wearing a white shirt — what Arbery was described as wearing in 911 calls — can be seen running. A white pickup truck, ostensibly the McMichaels’, blocks his path; a white man is in the street next to the driver’s side of the truck, and another stands in the flatbed. The video is blocked by the dashboard for a moment, and some unintelligible yelling can be heard. The video then shows the black man trying to run around the truck.
It’s not possible to see what happens next, but there’s a gunshot; the black man and the white man who was standing in the road reappear in the frame, engaged in a struggle, and move off the road, again leaving the video’s frame. As the man in the flatbed brings up his firearm, there’s another gunshot. The video Merritt posted ends with the struggle — seemingly over possession of a firearm — continuing. A longer version available online features a third gunshot, and the black man falling to the pavement, his shirt seemingly red with blood.
While the police were en route, Arbery was “on the ground ‘bleeding out,’” according to the report. Travis McMichael had blood on his hands; his father said this was from Travis rolling Arbery’s body over to check for a gun.
An autopsy report released May 12 revealed that Arbery was shot twice in the chest and “had a third wound” on one of his wrists.
Arbery’s supporters say this is a clear case of racist murder — but complications have inhibited an investigation
Advocates for Arbery argue his killing is a very clear case of racial profiling; in his caption for the video, Merritt wrote, “Ahmaud Arbery was pursued by three white men that targeted him solely because of his race and murdered him without justification.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by others, including presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who tweeted, “The video is clear: Ahmaud Arbery was killed in cold blood.”
Stacey Abrams, who narrowly lost Georgia’s 2018 gubernatorial election and who has said she hopes to become Biden’s running mate, demanded a “full investigation, appropriate charges, and an unbiased prosecution.”
But charges were slow coming, due to conflicts of interest and Georgia’s stand-your-ground law and citizen’s arrest law.
The case is on its fourth prosecutor; the first put in charge of the case, Brunswick District Attorney Jackie Johnson, recused herself because she’d previously employed Gregory McMichael. The district attorney of Waycross, Georgia, George Barnhill, was then assigned to it, but he recused himself after Arbery’s mother pointed out his son works in Johnson’s office.
Barnhill officially recused himself in an April 7 letter — and in it, he wrote that his son and Gregory McMichael “both helped with the previous prosecution of Arbery” on behalf of Johnson’s office. Arbery was convicted of probation violation after facing a shoplifting charge in 2018, something Barnhill pointed out in an earlier letter in which he laid out the reasons he believed the McMichaels had done nothing wrong.
In that letter, dated April 3, Barnhill suggested Arbery had mental health issues, and highlighted not just the shoplifting issue, but also the incident that led to Arbery being placed on probation: having brought a gun to campus while he was in high school.
The letter also notes Georgia has an open-carry law, a separate state law allows a private citizen to attempt arrests if an “offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge,” and that it has a stand-your-ground law that allows someone who feels threatened “to use deadly force to protect himself,” without having to first try to retreat or call law enforcement.
Merritt has dismissed Barnhill’s interpretation of these laws, telling CNN he doesn’t believe the McMichaels were trying to make a citizen’s arrest, noting that the McMichaels’ statements frame the shooting as an act of self-defense.
And he said the citizen’s arrest law says “you actually have to be observing the crime or be in the immediate knowledge of the crime” but argues the McMichaels never claimed this was the case.
The Washington Post also reported that Gregory McMichael had his law enforcement certification suspended last year after repeatedly failing to complete required training. He also received a warning in 2014 for neglecting to finish mandatory firearms and use-of-force classes.
Merritt has also pushed back against other claims in Barnhill’s letter, including the references to Arbery’s mental health and previous interactions with the legal system.
“The reference to ... alleged conduct from high school or shoplifting is absurd and has nothing to do with his murder,” Merritt said.
The shoplifting case does connect Barnhill, Gregory McMichael, and Arbery, however. When Barnhill recused himself in an April 7 letter, he wrote that his son and Gregory McMichael “both helped with the previous prosecution of Arbery” on behalf of Johnson’s office.
The real impetus behind the killing, Merritt suggested, can be seen in the 911 calls, when the caller fails to give a clear reason for the call but does note, “There’s a black male running down the street.”
Gregory McMichael told the Daily Beast Arbery’s race was irrelevant and that he “never would have gone after someone for their color,” saying instead that Barnhill’s letter is the “closest version of the truth.”
Meanwhile, pressure has mounted for Barnhill and Johnson to be removed from office. Protesters gathered at the Glynn County Courthouse on May 16 to demand their resignations.
“Racism is real in America and racism is real in Brunswick, Georgia and we come today to send a message to the racists and the supremacist that we will fight you with everything that we have,” Rev. Timothy McDonald said at the protests, Reuters reported.
Investigations have ramped up since the video went viral
Two days after the state took over the case, the McMichaels were arrested and booked in a Glynn County jail. A day later, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Vic Reynolds announced that Bryan was also under investigation. He was charged with felony murder and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment two weeks later.
On May 10, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr announced he had asked the Department of Justice to investigate the handling of the case. “We are committed to a complete and transparent review of how the Ahmaud Arbery case was handled from the outset,” Carr said in a statement. “The family, the community and the state of Georgia deserve answers, and we will work with others in law enforcement at the state and federal level to find those answers.”
Meanwhile, Carr reassigned the case to a new district attorney, Joyette Holmes of Cobb County, which is northwest of Atlanta. In a statement, Carr said that while Durden had been executing his duties well, he believed someone with more resources was needed.
On June 24, Holmes announced an indictment with nine counts against each of the three defendants: malice murder, four counts of felony murder, two counts of aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment.
Correction: An earlier version of this story miscategorized the incidents described by Larry English and Travis McMichael. They were described as thefts or burglaries.