Report: Conspiracy theorists fuel bump in extremist killings

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
Associated Press

The Anti-Defamation League says the number of killings by domestic extremists rose last year in the United States. The Jewish civil rights group tallied 29 such killings nationwide in 2021 after counting 23 in 2020. It says far-right extremists were responsible for 26 of those attacks. The group’s report says many of the attacks were fueled by conspiracy theories, misogyny and the anti-vaccine movement. The group concluded that roughly half of the 2021 killings didn’t have a clear ideological motive. The tally includes a mass shooting in Denver by a man involved in a toxic masculinity subculture known as the “manosphere.”