What happened
A New York City jury yesterday found Daniel Penny, a former Marine and architecture student, not guilty of negligent homicide in the 2023 choking death of Jordan Neely. Penny, 26, had put 30-year-old Neely, a Black homeless subway entertainer with a history of mental illness, in a chokehold after he acted erratically in a subway car.

Who said what
Neely's death "prompted a national debate over the line between self-defense and vigilantism," The Wall Street Journal said. Prosecutors said Penny's "response was excessive," keeping Neely in a chokehold "even after the man was subdued and bystanders urged him to let go."

Penny's lawyers disputed that Neely died from choking but centered their defense on the "claim that he acted to protect other subway passengers," The Washington Post said. The case turned Penny into a "conservative symbol for citizen crime-fighting."

What next?
"I just want to say I miss my son," said Neely's father, Andre Zachary. "The system is rigged." A lawyer for the family said their "call to action is to take care of each other," since "we can't rely on the system to do it for us."

What happened
A Nevada commissioner denied a request by Rupert Murdoch and his oldest son, Lachlan, to amend their family's irrevocable trust so the patriarch's other three eldest children — Prudence, Elisabeth and James — have no control over the business empire when their father dies, The New York Times said yesterday, citing Saturday's sealed ruling.

Who said what
In an "at times scathing" ruling, the Times said, Commissioner Edmund Gorman Jr. called the proposed changes a "bad faith" and "carefully crafted charade" to "stack the deck in Lachlan Murdoch's favor." Rupert Murdoch, 93, wanted Lachlan to have sole control of "the world's most powerful conservative media empire" to "lock in Fox News' right-wing editorial slant" from any moderating efforts by the more liberal James and Elisabeth, the Times said. Under the trust, the four siblings have equal votes after their father dies.

Murdoch's children had secretly begun discussing how they would handle their father's death in April 2023, prompted by an episode HBO's "Succession" where "the patriarch of the family dies, leaving his family and business in chaos," Gorman's ruling said. The Murdochs are "one of the inspirations behind the hugely popular TV series," the BBC said.

What next?
The case will "now move to a district judge who could choose to affirm the recommendation, deny it or send it back for additional inquiry," The Washington Post said.