Adnan Syed, whose conviction for allegedly killing his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, was the subject of the hit podcast Serial, is a free man—at least for now—after a Baltimore judge overturned that conviction yesterday and ordered his release from prison.

Judge Melissa M. Phinn’s decision comes after prosecutors asked for the conviction to be tossed in light of new evidence regarding two alternative suspects for the murder. Prosecutors, who had previously fought back against Syed’s efforts to get a new trial, noted they were not saying he was innocent but that Syed, who has been serving a life sentence for the past 23 years, deserved a new trial and should be allowed out of prison while the investigation continues.

So, what’s the new evidence?

Two suspects, who have not been named, were considered in the original investigation but not properly ruled out. Both had a history of violence against women, and one even threatened to kill Lee. Syed’s lawyers also want new forensic testing to see if DNA evidence is available.

Syed, who was arrested at 17 and is now 41, has always maintained that he was not involved in the 1999 crime, and his story came to national prominence when Serial debuted in 2014.

• The podcast’s first season, which raised doubts about the evidence against Syed, including flimsy cellphone records, has been downloaded more than 300 million times and is considered the world’s most listened-to podcast.

Serial didn’t just change Syed’s life, it also changed podcasting

The This American Life spinoff was the first podcast ever to win a Peabody Award, and besides garnering prestige, it showed just how popular the medium could be. It also breathed new life into the true-crime genre and inspired a slew of imitators—and some of those have led to exonerations and new convictions.

What’s next? Syed isn’t totally out of the woods yet—the judge gave prosecutors 30 days to decide whether to drop the charges or retry the case. A new episode of Serial drops today.—AR

Rockstar confirms GTA VI leak. A massive leak over the weekend containing 90 videos of footage from Grand Theft Auto VI was confirmed to be legitimate yesterday by its publisher, Rockstar Games. “We are extremely disappointed to have any details of our next game shared with you all in this way,” the company, one of the world’s largest video game publishers, wrote on Twitter. The game, reportedly at least two years away from being finished, appears to feature a woman protagonist for the first time (confirming reports from earlier this year). The hacker behind the leak also claims to be behind the hack of Uber last week, and has threatened to leak more data soon.

Book bans are on the rise, and the censors are organized. More than 1,600 books were banned from US schools during the last school year, affecting 4 million students, with many of the targeted texts featuring LGBTQ+ and racial themes, according to PEN America. The bans weren’t just the work of concerned individual parents; the free speech group says 50 organized advocacy groups have sprung up (most of them since 2021) to challenge books—and they were involved in close to half of the removals. Texas had the most book bans, with a total of 801.

Hurricane Fiona leaves a trail of destruction. After dumping at least 27 inches of rain and knocking out power on Puerto Rico, Hurricane Fiona lashed the Dominican Republic yesterday before heading out into the Atlantic (it’s not expected to hit the US East Coast). The governor of Puerto Rico called the damage “catastrophic” and warned that it would take days for electricity to be fully restored. Heavy storms are also hitting Japan: 9 million people were told to evacuate their homes before the arrival of “super typhoon” Nanmadol—one of the biggest typhoons Japan has ever experienced.

Opendoor, the home-flipping site, is probably regretting its bulk order of subway tiles and DIY laminate flooring. The company lost money on 42% of resales in August, according to Bloomberg.

The company that rode the first wave of real estate iBuying, a way to automate real estate purchases, was hailed as the “Amazon of homes” when it went public in 2020. Its strategy: make fast offers for homes using an algorithm, do some light reno, and resell them, sometimes in less than a few months.

But red-hot house prices during the height of Covid were looking more like smoldering coals by June, and the Fed pumping interest rates through the summer had potential buyers closing Zillow tabs. So the company had all this inventory that it paid a lot of money for that no one wanted to buy.

You might remember when Zillow shut down its home-flipping business last fall for similar reasons. And proving that you shouldn’t throw stones if you have overpriced houses, Opendoor even trolled Zillow after the announcement, saying Opendoor was “open for business.”

Big picture: Some analysts say the worst is over for Opendoor, but other indicators—like homebuilder sentiment dropping for its ninth straight month in September—hint that the housing market party has finally hit the morning after.—MM

South Korean prosecutors have requested that Interpol issue a red notice against Terra and Luna founder Do Kwon, alleging the disgraced crypto mogul isn’t cooperating with investigators. (An Interpol red notice is essentially an appeal to law enforcement officials worldwide to arrest a given individual.) Accused of fraud and under investigation by the SEC, Kwon was believed to be in Singapore, though police there say he is not in the city-state.

The founder defended himself against charges that he’s on the run from investigators, writing on Twitter last weekend that “I am not ‘on the run’ or anything similar.” In response, prosecutors issued a statement that Kwon was “obviously on the run.” Kwon’s whereabouts remain unknown.

This is just the latest chapter in the ongoing saga of a massive crypto collapse that spooked the entire industry. Even if you’ve gone to great lengths to avoid reading anything that includes the word “stablecoin,” you might want to pay attention to this story—the May collapse of Kwon’s crypto company wiped out $40 billion of investors’ cash and sparked a broader crypto market crash, resulting in losses of about $500 billion.

That collapse sparked investigations into Kwon and Terraform Labs (his company), ultimately leading South Korea to issue an arrest warrant last week for him and five others connected to the company.—MK

Stat: Fall is just about here, and workers across the US are putting on pants and heading back to the office. In 10 major metro areas, average office use between Sept. 8 and Sept. 14 was back up to 47.5% of what it was in early 2020, according to Kastle Systems, a company that tracks keycard swipes. That’s the highest it’s been since Covid shutdowns got rolling. Still, most folks seem to prefer working in their jammies close to the weekend—midweek days had the most office entries, per Kastle.

Quote: “We’ve shown that we know how to win on the battlefield. Another important task for us is to achieve victories in the economy as well, and to be an attractive country for investors.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky videoconferenced with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink to discuss steering investments to Ukraine, which needs serious cash to rebuild ($350 billion by one estimate), even as it continues to fight back against Russia’s invasion. The two discussed how the asset management giant could give the nation pro bono advice on setting up a reconstruction fund.

View: Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in pictures. (BBC)

How to run a book club: Here are some tips from professors and librarians to keep book club night from turning into a wine and whine fest.

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Nutritional Facts

In this game, we give you the ingredient list for a popular food product, and you have to name it.

Enriched flour, palm oil, salt, dried carrot flake, contains less than 2% of autolyzed yeast extract, citric acid, concentrated green cabbage juice, dextrose, disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate, disodium succinate, dried corn, dried parsley, egg white, garlic powder, hydrolyzed corn protein, hydrolyzed soy protein, lactose, maltodextrin, natural and artificial flavor, onion powder, potassium carbonate, potassium chloride, powdered chicken, rendered chicken fat, silicon dioxide, sodium alginate, sodium carbonate, sodium tripolyphosphate, soybean, spice and color, sugar, tBHQ (preservative), wheat.

Wondering how to invest during a recession? Check out these best practices from a Wall Street pro to keep your portfolio stable—even when the market is down. Watch here..

The latest episode of Business Casual explores how you’ll use augmented reality in the future. Listen now.

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