AMERICAN CULTURE: AMAZON SWALLOWS WHOLE FOODS.

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• Amazon is doubling down on its push into brick-and-mortar stores. And now they’re not just bookstores; they’re grocery stores.
• The world’s largest online retailer announced today it is buying the pricey organic supermarket chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion, adding to the online grocery delivery service it already has. [CNN Money / Paul R. La Monica and Chris Isidore] 
• The news has already sent other grocery stocks into a tailspin. Kroger, Supervalu, and Costco shares all dropped, as did those of Target and Walmart. [CNBC / Katie Little] 
• So what’s in the details of biggest deal the internet giant has made to date? First of all, it’s great for Whole Foods, which has been struggling with falling sales recently. It gets a bunch of cash and the ability to keep operating under its name. [Business Insider / Bob Bryan] 

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• For Amazon, it’s the latest sign of an internet giant moving to dominate the retail market in all areas, from books to clothes to electronics and now food. Amazon already makes movies and television shows, designs its own clothing lines, and manufactures home electronics, and is opening up more physical bookstores across the US.
• Its Prime service is transforming how Americans buy products (and has also come under fire for discriminatory delivery practices). [Bloomberg / David Ingold and Spencer Soper] 
• Amazon’s vast presence has important implications for US antitrust laws, which are supposed to guard against businesses becoming monopolies, incentivize competition, and protect consumers from high prices. [Yale Law Journal / Lina Khan] 
• In many ways, antitrust laws aren’t prepared to handle internet retail and the modern economy. Because those laws focus more on prices of the things we buy, they aren’t really equipped to deal with a business like Amazon, which underprices some of its goods to undercut the competition and grow even bigger. [The Yale Law Journal / Lina Khan] 
• What remains to be seen is how Amazon fares under Trump, who does not have the friendliest relationship with its CEO, Jeff Bezos (an outspoken critic of Trump policies and the owner of the Washington Post). [Recode / April Glaser]