Memorandum Of Misunderstanding, Fatal ICE Shooting, Paramount Merger Suit

our moves. The waterway was supposed to be open after they signed a memorandum of understanding is vague language causing a misunderstanding.

I'm Michelle Martin, that's Amartina's and this is up first from NPR News.

An ice officer shot and killed a person in mania today. It's the second fatal shooting by an ice agent in the past week where an agent shot someone in a moving vehicle. Local officials have questions they want answered. And it doesn't states follow lawsuit to prevent paramount from merging with Warner Brothers

Discovery that justice department previously cleared the deal how much influence the president

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For a third night in a row, the U.S. and Iran attacked each other, fighting over who controls

a straight-up or moves, President Trump said Monday the U.S. military will return to another act of war. We're putting the blockade back and it's a blockade not for anybody but Iran. The military says that blockade will be going into effect later today. This comes after a week of the U.S. and Iran trading heavy air strikes in a month after

both sides signed a memorandum of understanding that was meant to end the conflict.

“But that 14-point document has only caused more confusion over the status of the key waterway.”

NPR's International Affairs correspondent, Jackie Northam, has been following all this. Jackie's one other blockade and more fighting overnight to over the straight. Right, and this is largely about control over the straight-up for moves. It's considered an international waterway, but since the start of the crisis, Iran has claimed it's in control and has insisted ships get permission and follow approved routes.

And it's been attacking ships if they don't. A Monday President Trump pushed back saying that going forward, U.S. will be known as the guardian of the Hormuz strait. And he's threatened to start charging 20% fees on all goods transiting through the waterway. Even though his administration has said charging fees violates international law, Iran

lodged out at this saying under no circumstances will it allow the U.S. to interfere with the management of the strait. So Iran in the U.S. signed an agreement last month that was, I thought, supposed to resolve all this. Why is this all happening?

Yes, it was a memorandum of understanding and you're right. It was meant to help in the fighting and equally important open the straight-up for moves.

And this is particularly crucial for President Trump ahead of the midterm elections.

One of the big complaints by the deal's numerous critics was that it was quickly cobbled together with the idea that, you know, the details would be worked out later on. The problem is that with a details, the agreement lasts clarity and therefore it's open to interpretation and, you know, that's led to confusion and ultimately renewed fighting. Because so kicking up as an example of that.

Sure, take paragraph five. It says Iran would make arrangements using quote, "it's best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vehicles." That's pretty vague. The Trump administration sees that is, okay, Iran will open the straight-up for moves

and ships come past freely. Iran views that paragraph as "it decides which ships come past." In other words, Iran is in control of the straight. Yeah, I spoke with Michael Seng and he's a MIDI specialist and managing director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and he says, "These types of documents are often left

deliberately vague to allow both sides to claim victory. Here he is."

“I think the wording, you know, he was much more to what Iran wanted to get out of that”

understanding because it seems to place responsibility for the straights in Iran's hands rather than reinforcing that this is an international waterway. And so this is a document which I think could have been negotiated better. And a Seng says, "If the agreement had been negotiated better perhaps we wouldn't be seeing

All right, so where does this leaf thing, the thing is a straight open or is it closed? Well, it's unclear. You know, the number of ships trying to pass the straight yesterday was just reduced to a trickle. And Seng believes sometimes these things have to be worked out through a combination

of both talking and fighting at the same time, which is what we're seeing now. That's MPR's international affairs correspondent, Jackie Northham, Jackie Thanks. Thank you, A. And immigration and customs enforcement officers shot and killed a Colombian immigrant in Maine on Monday.

This is the second time ICE agent shot and killed someone in a week.

And at least the ninth time since President Trump launched his immigration crackdown. The Department of Homeland Security said agents were watching the address of an immigrant with a deportation order when someone drove away and an officer eventually shot him. Some elected officials in Maine say the victim was not even the target of an ICE warrant. Reporter Ari Snyder, with Maine public, has been following this, Ari, so what's known

so far? Yeah, so this shooting took place Monday morning and bid effort. That's a small city about half an hour south of Portland. The victim is a 26-year-old Colombian man that's according to immigrant rights groups here and Maine's independent senator, Angus King.

Well we don't have official confirmation on the victim's name. Many members are telling me it was a man named Joanne Sebastian Guerrero. They're also telling me he had a wife and a young child.

His immigration status isn't yet clear, but immigrant rights groups are saying that he did

have authorization to work in the US.

“So do you know if ICE was in fact targeting this particular person for arrest and deportation?”

Yeah, so that part's not totally clear yet. A spokesperson for Senator King's office said the victim was quote not the target of the warrant and quote. The spokesperson says that information comes from the head of the agency, DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullin, in an email after that, an ICE spokesperson said the shooting happened

after a driver left a house they were surveilling. But did not definitively say if the driver was who they were looking for. The spokesperson told us agents were surveilling the last known address of, again, quoting here, an illegal alien with a final order of removal. The ICE spokesperson says quote, "the vehicle attempted to flee the scene and fearing for

public safety and officer discharged his weapon." So now, Maine's attorney general says his office is investigating what happened and Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins said in a statement that DHS is Inspector General is also looking into this investigating a cooperation with the FBI. So what are you in your colleagues hearing as you've been talking to people in Bidified?

Yeah, so Bidified is a small city, a little over 20,000 people and it's got deep immigrant roots in part because it was a mill town that drew a lot of French Canadians. These days it's got growing immigrant communities from all over the world in part because we're seeing people getting priced out of Portland. The reaction there was swift and many residents said they're in shock that something

like this would happen in, you know, what really feels like a small town. So to give you an example, you know, the shooting took place in the morning and by noon, a couple hundred protestors were marching through downtown, protestor Kelsey Cummings says she's tired of politicians ignoring requests to rain in ice. And we don't need the thoughts and prayers.

This was so preventable. We've been screaming about this. This is just crazy. This all of us are here because we live a block away in each direction. This is affecting all of us.

And then last night, there were visuals both in Bidified and in Portland that each true hundreds of people.

“What is ice enforcement look like in May and recent months?”

Yeah. So something that's very present in people's minds right now and certainly for immigrant communities is this sudden surge in federal immigration enforcement that happened in January when 200 people were arrested in less than a week according to numbers from the deportation data project.

That was a huge escalation from what we saw during the first month of the second Trump

administration. But even with that dramatic increase in enforcement, we hadn't seen any shootings here fatal or otherwise until now. OK, that's a reporter, Ari Snyder of Maine Public. Ari, thank you very much.

Thank you. That blockbuster merger of two Hollywood giants might not happen. A dozen states filed a lawsuit Monday to block paramount from taking over Warner Brothers Discovery. California Attorney General Watt Bonta says the takeover would lead to higher prices, lower

quality and less content for film and television. That's now turned to MPR media correspondent, David Folk and Flick, David.

“So how big of a company would this merger of paramount and Warner create?”

Well, Bonta said yesterday the merger would kill competition between two of the nation's five largest, you know, studios that's five largest studios of Hollywood, you know, be a titanic merged studio. In fact, the studio is the broadest titanic in franchises like the Star Trek and Harry

But it's not just about the studios, it's about other things as well.

It's about streaming platforms, paramount, plus an HBO Max, it's about news, you'd see CNN and CBS news, it's about 50 cable channels and the CBS broadcast network all under the same roof. What Bonta says is just department declined to follow the lawsuit, so the states are stepping in.

Why did the justice department decide not to sue? So the justice department undertook an eight month review, it investigated and concluded publicly that the merger would be good for competition, especially against these giant streamers like Netflix, Amazon and even Apple, which is part of the logic that paramount has put out there for it.

“I think we cannot in any way dismiss or negate the influence, whether direct or indirect”

of present Trump's paramount is owned by the Ellison family, Larry Ellison, the co-founder

of Oracle, one of the richest people on the planet, is Sun David, the Hollywood producer. They only took over paramount a year ago with Trump's strong approval and recommendation Trump arranged for Larry Ellison to take a controlling stake in TikTok U.S. and he's also an advisor to the president. In this case, you know, the Wall Street Journal reported that the top officials, the Justice

Department, were clearing a path for the deal to happen, even as career lawyers wanted to file suit. The top antitrust official of Justice Department, who's leaving the department, said that's not the case. So, what does paramount say in response to the lawsuit?

Well, they put out statement yesterday saying this is a fundamental misreading of antitrust law. In fact, if you do look at those huge digital titans like Netflix, like Amazon, the market has expanded beyond what you think of as the traditional Hollywood studios, they note that Disney bulked up in 2019, a completed deal to take over most of the entertainment holdings

of Fox, you know, President Trump gave his seal of approval for that, as he called

“his buddy, Murdoch, who controls Fox and said, you know, are you holding on to Fox News?”

Murdoch said yes, and Trump said, you go right ahead. That's great. So, you know, paramount is saying, we need to do this, that it will hurt workers to block this deal. I will say that's something that the attorneys general and that the writer's guild of America

and others who are on the labor side of things dispute their worried that with fewer employers, prices will be driven down for those who create all this and driven up for those of us who pay for these services. David, I've got a feeling this is not going to be resolved anytime soon. Well, unless paramount magically gets this dismissed in federal court in California, this

could stall the merger for weeks or more likely at least months, and that can get really expensive for the company. Paramount has a deal with Warner Bros. discovery that for every 90 days after October 1st, that

“the deal isn't consummated, it owes an extra $650 million to Warner Bros. discovery shareholders,”

and if the deal never goes through, it owes $7 billion as a breakup fee.

But this is going to get increasingly expensive and increasingly complicated for paramount to be able to pull off, which is some of the leverage that the attorneys general get even if they don't ultimately prevail in court. That is NPR's David Folk and Flick David, thank you. You bet.

And we should no paramount in Warner Bros. are financial supporters of NPR. And that's a first for Tuesday, July 14th, the May Martinez. And time to show Martin today's episode of "A first was edited by Eric Westervelte, Emily Cop, Miguel Macias, Alice Wolfley, Mohammed Elbar, DC, MC and Butch. It was produced by Paige Waterhouse and the Ademos, our director is Christopher Thomas.

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