A Deadly Mass Shooting in Canada, and the Latest on the Search for Nancy Guthrie

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0:36From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Wednesday, February 11th. Here's what we're covering.

0:49Like you, I am just learning about the horror of the tragedy that unfolded in Tumblr Ridge this evening. In a small town in western Canada, a shooter killed nine people and injured 25 yesterday. Most of those killed were at the town's high school. Two others were found dead at a home nearby. An individual we understand is the suspected shooter who is believed to have died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The top government official in British Columbia said there's still limited information available about what happened. The suspect was described in a police alert as a female in a dress with brown hair.

1:26Authorities declined to provide an age and said they haven't determined a motive. Tumblr Ridge, which is surrounded by wilderness in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, only has about 2 ,500 residents, and it's so remote that one local woman told the Times cell service drops out about 30 seconds outside of town. Mass homicides in Canada are rare. After the country's deadliest mass shooting in 2020, the country launched major gun reforms. In the years since, Canada froze handgun sales and expanded the list of banned firearms. Those efforts have proved politically divisive in the country.

2:08Authorities in Arizona have released the first images of a possible suspect in the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie. The 84-year-old, whose daughter Savannah is one of the most watched morning news anchors in the country, vanished from her home near Tucson 10 days ago in the middle of the night. Initially, the local sheriff said there was no footage from her house because her doorbell camera had been deactivated. But yesterday, authorities said they'd been able to recover some data. The silent black and white clips show a person in a ski mask with a handgun approaching her front door. When the person notices the camera, they raise a gloved hand to block it.

2:46Yesterday, authorities announced they detained a person for questioning. So you have no idea what led them to you? Nothing. They didn't say car make, a license, nothing. But a few hours ago, that man was released, telling reporters who caught up with him that he'd never even heard about the case. And you don't even know who the lady is? Do you know who Savannah Guthrie is? No. I don't follow the news. Right. Guthrie's disappearance has drawn a storm of attention from the media, amateur sleuths, and true crime obsessives, some of whom have gone to the scene. Yesterday, a pizza was delivered to Nancy Guthrie's home for a YouTuber live streaming from there.

3:24It was not the only delivery, leading the local sheriff's office to put out a statement saying, please do not order food to a crime scene.

3:38Now, three quick updates on the Trump administration. In Washington yesterday, an effort by federal prosecutors to indict Democratic lawmakers for posting a video that enraged President Trump collapsed in court. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution. In the video posted in November, the six Democrats reminded active duty troops and intelligence officers that they are obligated to refuse illegal orders. Trump called the message seditious behavior and even suggested the Democrats should be executed. In court on Tuesday, jurors refused to indict them over it. That kind of rejection from grand juries is becoming increasingly common as Trump appointees push forward with legally questionable cases in an effort to appease the president.

4:27Also, the Department of Homeland Security, which has been under scrutiny for echoing white supremacist messaging on social media, has hired a new digital communications director. But the Times has learned that some of his former co-workers raised the alarm about posts he made at his old job. 21-year-old Peyton Rollins spent most of the past year overhauling the Labor Department's social media pages, which started promoting an anti-Semitic trope and Confederate imagery, and used the typeface from the original cover of Hitler's Mein Kampf. According to internal messages and emails obtained by the Times, Rollins' co-workers repeatedly objected to the content, saying it made them uncomfortable and that it was getting engagement online from far-right extremists.

5:12Rollins did not respond to multiple requests for comment. And last update. The drugmaker Moderna says that the Food and Drug Administration has refused to review its cutting-edge flu vaccine. The unusual rejection, which came after the company spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars testing its shot, is the latest sign that federal health policy under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has become hostile to vaccine development. Moderna's vaccine uses mRNA technology, which was successfully used in COVID vaccines. Kennedy, however, has repeatedly criticized mRNA vaccines and canceled funding into their research and development.

5:52The FDA told Moderna it refused to review the drug because it hadn't run a, quote, adequate and well-controlled study, though it didn't cite any specific concerns about the product's safety or effectiveness.

6:10So I've recently been reporting on fringe movements online, and researchers are seeing some shocking stuff. Hate groups from across the ideological spectrum are taking advantage of the internet to recruit younger and younger children to extremism. My colleague Pranav Bhaskar has been looking into some alarming new statistics. Across North America and Europe, the UN estimates that children now account for 42 % of terrorism-related investigations. That's three times what it was just five years ago. And in Europe in particular, as much as a third of counterterrorism work now involves minors as young as 12 or 13 years old, according to a research group in The Hague.

6:51Pranov says that in recent years, there have been a few high-profile cases, like a 15-year-old British girl who was groomed online by a neo-Nazi in Texas. She later downloaded a bomb-making guide and posted about blowing up a synagogue. I spoke to dozens of radicalization experts, counter-recruiters, parents, and young people who have recently left extremist groups. And what they're seeing is that extremists are not just able to recruit and lure children on social media, but increasingly they're turning to video games like Minecraft and Roblox. And in doing so, they can meet children with very little barrier to entry and move to chat rooms where they can continue to indoctrinate those children.

7:33At the same time as these groups are shifting their recruitment tactics to conscript kids, the kids themselves may be particularly vulnerable right now. In many cases, miners swing between competing belief systems from white power to jihadism, which experts say indicates that the crisis may stem more from loneliness and wanting connection than any particular ideology. According to some of the experts Pranav talked to, the growing number of kids radicalized online won't necessarily translate to real-world violence in the near term, but they worry that extremist ideologies could simmer in kids for years to come.

8:10In statements to The Times, Roblox and Microsoft, which owns Minecraft, said they use multiple technologies to ensure safety on their platforms, though Roblox added that no system is perfect, so parents should talk to their kids about online risks.

8:30And finally, on the sidelines of the Olympics, beyond the skiing, skating, shooting, lugeing, The Times has been covering a few stories about the athletes themselves that have nothing to do with their performance or medal count or race times. A few that have caught our eye for different reasons.

8:52Yesterday, right after a Norwegian biathlete clinched bronze in his race, he got super emotional on camera, as he admitted on live TV that he'd cheated on his girlfriend a few months ago and just really wanted her back. Despite his win, he said it was the worst week of his life. In terms of why he chose to share this, he later said he thought the only way he could win her back was to, quote, put everything on the table and hope that she can still love me. Another remarkable story to watch. This week, a mother and son representing Team Mexico will compete in alpine skiing, becoming the first mother-son pair to ever appear at the same winter games.

9:36The 46-year-old mom, Sarah Schlepper, is in her seventh Olympics, while her 18-year-old son, Lassa, is competing in his first. And last one.

9:49An athlete from Ukraine, a skeleton racer, says he's going to defy Olympic organizers who told him he couldn't wear a helmet decorated with pictures of Ukrainians killed in the war with Russia. Olympic officials say the helmet violates the Games' ban on political speech, and suggested he wear a solid black armband instead. The athlete dismissed that and said there are not enough black armbands in all of Cortina to honor the dead. He said he's willing to risk being disqualified, and that he will wear the helmet during training today and in races later this week. Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, a deeper look at the TrumpRx site, which went up last week with the promise of saving Americans money on their prescriptions.

10:34You can listen to that in the New York Times app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.

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