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The Senseless Killing That Was Totally Avoidable. Plus . . .
It’s Tuesday, September 9. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: How a Chinese company bought data on 75 million American kids. Why Trump can’t resist the pull of the velvet rope. And a rare interview with Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
But first: In America, every lunatic gets one free murder.
On August 22, in Charlotte, North Carolina, a man on a light rail train stood up from his seat. He stood over the young woman in the row ahead of him while she sat scrolling her phone. And then he stabbed her to death. That was how Ukrainian immigrant Iryna Zarutska died.
Now, there are many angles to this story: the media blackout that followed; the mayor’s response that offered more sympathy to the killer than the killed. He was well-known to law enforcement, having been arrested at least 14 times. Over and over, he was arrested and released.
The obvious question is: Why was this man walking free?
The answer is simple: We don’t like to incarcerate our maniacs until they kill. Mental institutions have been deemed too terrible an option. So in America, every lunatic gets one free murder. A lunatic who runs around trying to kill someone for years should at least get one before he is locked up, right? Iryna Zarutska was Decarlos Brown Jr.’s one free murder.
We have four stories today that touch on this disturbing story. Maya Sulkin covers the facts that we know so far. Ashley Rindsberg shows how editors at Wikipedia are suppressing this story. Kat Rosenfield ponders what we lose in a society that confuses permissiveness with compassion. And neuroscientist Abigail Marsh argues that we need to study violent criminals much more.
—Nellie Bowles
Mourners transport the shrouded body of Levi Yitzhak Pash after Palestinian gunmen opened fire at a bus stop in East Jerusalem on September 8, 2025. (John Wessels / AFP via Getty Images)Six people were killed and 12 were wounded after Palestinian attackers opened fire at a bus stop in Jerusalem yesterday, the deadliest attack in Israel since October 2024. Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas condemned “any targeting of Palestinian and Israeli civilians,” while Hamas called it a “natural response to the occupation’s crimes against our people.”
The French government collapsed yesterday after prime minister François Bayrou lost a no-confidence vote he called against himself. Discontent over Bayrou, a centrist, stems primarily from his austerity budget proposal designed to confront the nation’s deficit problem.
President Trump blamed the fatal stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on “Democrats who refuse to put bad people in jail, including Former Disgraced Governor and ‘Wannabe Senator’ Roy Cooper.” Cooper is running for a Senate seat in North Carolina against Republican Michael Whatley, who Trump said “WON’T LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN!”
A third of U.S. states could already be in a recession, and the nation’s manufacturing and construction industries are experiencing recession-like conditions, the Financial Times reported. Artificial intelligence, healthcare, and “a handful of narrow growth engines are propping up an otherwise broadly slowing economy.”
SpaceX is acquiring the rights to significant chunks of the wireless spectrum from telecommunications company EchoStar in a $17 billion deal as SpaceX seeks to expand its cellular and broadband services. The deal includes licenses to provide ground-based 5G services and related rights to beam signals from space.
Following the immigration raid at the Georgia Hyundai plant, South Korean business executives admitted that they frequently sent workers without proper visas to work in the U.S., the Financial Times reported. One South Korean official said companies were in an “impossible position” because the U.S. government made it difficult to secure short-term working visas for industrial projects.
At a private dinner last Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened to punch top housing finance official Bill Pulte “in the fucking face,” Politico reported. Bessent’s “expletive-laden diatribe” came after he was told Pulte had badmouthed him to the president. The two men have clashed over plans to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government-sponsored mortgage finance companies, as well as other economic issues.
OpenAI is teaming up with production companies to debut a feature-length animation film at the Cannes Film Festival next May. Critterz is about “forest creatures who go on an adventure after their village is disrupted by a stranger,” The Wall Street Journal reported. Its budget of “less than” $30 million is far less than what is typical for animated movies.
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By Bari WeissIt’s Tuesday, September 9. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: How a Chinese company bought data on 75 million American kids. Why Trump can’t resist the pull of the velvet rope. And a rare interview with Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
But first: In America, every lunatic gets one free murder.
On August 22, in Charlotte, North Carolina, a man on a light rail train stood up from his seat. He stood over the young woman in the row ahead of him while she sat scrolling her phone. And then he stabbed her to death. That was how Ukrainian immigrant Iryna Zarutska died.
Now, there are many angles to this story: the media blackout that followed; the mayor’s response that offered more sympathy to the killer than the killed. He was well-known to law enforcement, having been arrested at least 14 times. Over and over, he was arrested and released.
The obvious question is: Why was this man walking free?
The answer is simple: We don’t like to incarcerate our maniacs until they kill. Mental institutions have been deemed too terrible an option. So in America, every lunatic gets one free murder. A lunatic who runs around trying to kill someone for years should at least get one before he is locked up, right? Iryna Zarutska was Decarlos Brown Jr.’s one free murder.
We have four stories today that touch on this disturbing story. Maya Sulkin covers the facts that we know so far. Ashley Rindsberg shows how editors at Wikipedia are suppressing this story. Kat Rosenfield ponders what we lose in a society that confuses permissiveness with compassion. And neuroscientist Abigail Marsh argues that we need to study violent criminals much more.
—Nellie Bowles
Mourners transport the shrouded body of Levi Yitzhak Pash after Palestinian gunmen opened fire at a bus stop in East Jerusalem on September 8, 2025. (John Wessels / AFP via Getty Images)Six people were killed and 12 were wounded after Palestinian attackers opened fire at a bus stop in Jerusalem yesterday, the deadliest attack in Israel since October 2024. Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas condemned “any targeting of Palestinian and Israeli civilians,” while Hamas called it a “natural response to the occupation’s crimes against our people.”
The French government collapsed yesterday after prime minister François Bayrou lost a no-confidence vote he called against himself. Discontent over Bayrou, a centrist, stems primarily from his austerity budget proposal designed to confront the nation’s deficit problem.
President Trump blamed the fatal stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on “Democrats who refuse to put bad people in jail, including Former Disgraced Governor and ‘Wannabe Senator’ Roy Cooper.” Cooper is running for a Senate seat in North Carolina against Republican Michael Whatley, who Trump said “WON’T LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN!”
A third of U.S. states could already be in a recession, and the nation’s manufacturing and construction industries are experiencing recession-like conditions, the Financial Times reported. Artificial intelligence, healthcare, and “a handful of narrow growth engines are propping up an otherwise broadly slowing economy.”
SpaceX is acquiring the rights to significant chunks of the wireless spectrum from telecommunications company EchoStar in a $17 billion deal as SpaceX seeks to expand its cellular and broadband services. The deal includes licenses to provide ground-based 5G services and related rights to beam signals from space.
Following the immigration raid at the Georgia Hyundai plant, South Korean business executives admitted that they frequently sent workers without proper visas to work in the U.S., the Financial Times reported. One South Korean official said companies were in an “impossible position” because the U.S. government made it difficult to secure short-term working visas for industrial projects.
At a private dinner last Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened to punch top housing finance official Bill Pulte “in the fucking face,” Politico reported. Bessent’s “expletive-laden diatribe” came after he was told Pulte had badmouthed him to the president. The two men have clashed over plans to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government-sponsored mortgage finance companies, as well as other economic issues.
OpenAI is teaming up with production companies to debut a feature-length animation film at the Cannes Film Festival next May. Critterz is about “forest creatures who go on an adventure after their village is disrupted by a stranger,” The Wall Street Journal reported. Its budget of “less than” $30 million is far less than what is typical for animated movies.