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Kroger’s Year-to-Date Earnings Double While Pushing for Merger That Will Raise Food Prices
Today, Kroger reported $466 million in Q2 2024 earnings, with year-to-date earnings of $1.4 billion nearly doubling from 2023—sky-high totals that coincide with criticism that some grocery retailers continue to use inflation as an excuse to pad profits. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is currently fighting to block Kroger’s proposed merger with grocery giant Albertsons, a deal that could cost $334 million in wages for nearly a million grocery workers, open the door for more price increases, and reduce grocery access across the country.
"The Biden-Harris administration is putting American families first by challenging the ill-advised merger between Kroger and Albertsons. Corporate price gouging has cost consumers enough, yet Kroger wants to make matters worse by cornering the market to maximize profits. Make no mistake: If the merger goes through, it will leave many families worse off with higher prices and fewer store locations.” —Accountable.US Liz Zelnick
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently found that Kroger—along with Dollar General and Dollar Tree/Family Dollar—has charged Americans over $90 million in junk fees annually “just to access their own money” via cash back transactions. In response, government watchdog Accountable.US called into question Kroger’s reliability when “they’ve proven they’ll take advantage of their customers to bolster their profits.”
MORE ON KROGER FROM ACCOUNTABLE.US
Accountable.US is a nonpartisan watchdog that exposes corruption in public life and holds government officials and corporate special interests accountable by bringing their influence and misconduct to light. In doing so, we make way for policies that advance the interests of all Americans, not just the rich and powerful.
LATEST NEWS
Josh Shapiro Trying to Derail Progressive Rabb in Favor of AIPAC Candidate for Pennsylvania House Race
One human rights lawyer said the centrist Pennsylvania governor was trying to stop Rabb because he's "anti-genocide, anti-AIPAC, pro-universal healthcare, and pro-labor."
May 11, 2026
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is working behind the scenes to derail progressive state representative Chris Rabb in his bid for a seat representing the state's 3rd Congressional District in the US House—reportedly putting his thumb on the scale to drag pediatric surgeon Dr. Ala Stanford, the Israel lobby’s preferred candidate, over the finish line.
Axios reported this weekend that the Democratic governor, who has sought to punish boycotts and other activism against Israel, was seeking to quietly influence the race to defeat Rabb, who has been an outspoken supporter of Palestinian rights on the campaign trail and a critic of Shapiro’s centrist stances.
Rabb has called for an arms embargo against Israel amid the genocide in Gaza and endorsed the right of return for Palestinian refugees. But he's also pressured Shapiro to end what he says is "state collaboration" with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
While still considered an underdog in the three-way primary, which takes place on May 19, Rabb has gained steam in recent weeks with key endorsements from progressive leaders, most notably Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who has raised funds and plans to visit Philadelphia to campaign with him on Friday, days before voters head to the polls.
Shapiro has not publicly weighed in on the race and has not endorsed a candidate. But according to Axios, he and his team "privately told allies that he disapproves of Rabb and has taken steps to block his path, according to three people familiar with the discussions."
The report continued:
Shapiro has privately advised Philadelphia's building trades unions to avoid inadvertently helping Rabb, the lone progressive in the race, by attacking one of his center-left opponents, two of our sources told us.
The sources said Shapiro suggested that the building trades, which are backing another candidate, Sharif Street, avoid running negative ads against a third contender, Ala Stanford.
Street and Stanford are seen as traditional Democrats who share similar voters.
Stanford led the race with 28% of the vote, ahead of Rabb’s 23%, in a poll conducted in April by the 314 Action Fund, a super PAC backing Stanford.
However, that very PAC has proven a liability for Stanford in the stretch run of the campaign. Last month, Drop Site News revealed that 314 Action Fund had acted as a shell organization for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and had covertly received $500,000 from the lobbying group, which Democratic voters have come to overwhelmingly view as toxic.
The revelation has proven a public relations disaster for Stanford, who had said she “did not accept money from AIPAC” back in March. When confronted by voters about her views on the conflict, she has struggled to answer their questions and has faced heavy criticism for her statements that accusing Israel of "genocide," an opinion held by many leading human rights organizations and UN experts, is "hurtful" to Jewish people in the same way that using a racial slur is hurtful to Black people.
Amid other embarrassments, including her failure to explain her plan to "abolish" ICE and her rollout of what was described as a "comedically amateurish" policy platform on social media, Stanford dropped out of an April 29 debate just hours before it was set to take place, citing unspecified “misogynistic attacks and lies from both of my opponents.”
There have not been any public opinion polls on the race since Stanford's crash. But PoliticsPA.com now gives Street a 61% chance of winning, Rabb a 33% chance, and Stanford a distant 5% chance, citing prediction markets.
Axios suggested that Shapiro's primary goal is to prevent the votes from splitting between the two centrists, thereby allowing Rabb to win. But the piece suggests that Stanford is Shapiro's preferred horse.
Stanford has the backing of PA-03’s outgoing occupant, Rep. Dwight Evans (D), who is described as a close ally of Shapiro. Street is also described as having a “strained relationship” with Shapiro, who backed his rival in a 2022 struggle for leadership of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.
Shapiro's push to blunt Rabb's momentum casts Philadelphia as yet another battleground in the broader war over the Democratic Party's identity, especially surrounding support for Israel, but also with other issues like immigration and healthcare, where leadership is out of step with voters' demands.
" Josh Shapiro is trying to derail the congressional run of Democratic PA State Rep Chris Rabb because Rabb is anti-genocide, anti-AIPAC, pro-universal healthcare, and pro-labor," said human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid.
Will Bunch, a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, said the governor's effort to defeat Rabb was “one more reminder that Josh Shapiro is who we thought he was.”
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'We Refuse to Be Silenced': Gaza Doctors Documentary Censored by BBC Wins Prestigious Award
“Just a question to the BBC,” said the documentary's executive producer. “Given you dropped our film, will you drop us from the BAFTAs screening later tonight?”
May 11, 2026
The makers of a documentary about Israeli attacks on healthcare workers and infrastructure in Gaza won a prestigious BAFTA award on Sunday—and they used their acceptance speech to lash out at BBC for refusing to air their work.
The film, "Gaza: Doctors Under Attack," was originally scheduled to be aired by the BBC in early 2025 before the network announced in June that it would not be releasing the documentary because it had "come to the conclusion that broadcasting this material risked creating a perception of partiality."
Shortly after, the documentary was picked up by the UK-based Channel 4 and aired in July.
UK journalist Ramita Navai, the main reporter of the documentary, criticized the BBC for declining to show the film, which she denounced as a political decision.
“Israel has killed over 47,000 children and women in Gaza so far," Navai said. "Israel has... targeted every single one of Gaza’s hospitals. It’s killed over 1,700 Palestinian doctors and healthcare workers. It has imprisoned over 400 in what the UN now calls a ‘medicide.’ These are the findings of our investigation that the BBC paid for but refuses to show. But we refuse to be silenced and censored."
🇵🇸🇬🇧 A Gaza documentary the BBC paid for and refused to air just won a Bafta.
The filmmakers used their acceptance speech to call out the BBC directly.
Presenter Ramita Navai:
"We refuse to be silenced and censored."
The BBC then edited portions of her remarks from its own… https://t.co/xLRLfdLV6W pic.twitter.com/K8pYhOzJTd
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) May 11, 2026
Ben de Pear, the film's executive producer, also pointed the finger at the BBC as he accepted the BAFTA award for best current affairs television program.
"Just a question to the BBC,” said de Pear, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “Given you dropped our film, will you drop us from the BAFTAs screening later tonight?"
As reported by Al Jazeera, de Pear after accepting the award also praised Palestinian journalists Jaber Badwan and Osana Al Ashi, who contributed on-the-ground footage for the documentary at the risk of their own lives.
"[We] woke up every day wondering if the two journalists on the ground were still alive," de Pear told reporters backstage.
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Following Pattern Set by Venezuela and Iran Assaults, US Surveillance Flights Off Cuba Surge
The Trump administration has conducted more than two dozen surveillance and reconnaissance flights off Cuba's coast since early February, according to CNN.
May 11, 2026
US surveillance and reconnaissance flights off the coast of Cuba have surged in recent months as President Donald Trump has issued increasingly belligerent threats to seize the island nation by force.
CNN reported Sunday that the US Navy and Air Force have conducted more than two dozen surveillance flights—mostly of them near Havana and Santiago de Cuba, the country's largest cities—since early February, after the Trump administration invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its president. The outlet noted that "similar patterns, in which ramped-up rhetoric by the Trump administration coincided with an uptick in publicly visible surveillance flights, occurred in the lead-up to US military operations in both Venezuela and Iran."
"The flights are notable not only for their proximity to the coast, which puts them well within range of gathering intelligence, but for the suddenness of their appearance—prior to February, such publicly visible flights were exceedingly rare in this area—and for their timing," CNN reported.
CNN published its story days after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced new sanctions targeting a conglomerate operated by Cuba's military and a natural resources firm, intensifying the United States' decades-long economic war against the island nation.
"Our people already know the cruelty behind the actions of the US government and the viciousness with which it is capable of attacking us," Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said in response to the sanctions. "They understand, just as the rest of the world does, that this is a unilateral aggression against a nation and a population whose sole ambition is to live in peace, masters of their own destiny and free from the pernicious interference of US imperialism."
In a New York Times op-ed on Monday, US Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.) wrote that the Trump administration's "blockade of fuel to Cuba, on top of the longest embargo in modern US history, defies the norms of international law that provide for state sovereignty, nonintervention in domestic affairs and the right of nations to trade freely."
"It amounts to an economic assault on the basic infrastructure of Cuba, designed to inflict collective punishment on the civilian population by manufacturing a humanitarian crisis in which healthcare, running water, agriculture and transportation are no longer available," wrote Jayapal and Jackson, who visited Cuba in April and witnessed firsthand the devastating impact of US economic warfare.
"During our visit, we spoke with a wide range of Cuban citizens—political dissidents, religious leaders, entrepreneurs, and members of civil society organizations and humanitarian aid groups," the Democratic lawmakers wrote. "We also met with the families of Cuba’s political prisoners. Everywhere, there was agreement: America’s blockade must end, and a US invasion must not take place."
Trump has repeatedly threatened a military assault on Cuba in the months since his administration illegally attacked Venezuela and abducted its president.
"Cuba is next, by the way," Trump declared at a Saudi-backed investment summit in Miami in late March. "Pretend I didn't say that, please."
Citing unnamed US officials, The Associated Press reported last week that the Trump administration "is not looking at imminent military action against Havana" as the two sides continued to negotiate a diplomatic agreement.
AP added that the administration officials cautioned "that Trump could change his mind at any time and that military options are still on the table."
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