> She saw some activity around the court, asked about it, heard "retirement announcements,"

You missed the nuance. She had left the press room and noticed many others hadn't; asking about why not, she heard "retirement announcement", but what was said was "retirement announcements"

A singular announcement, that people were waiting around to listen to, would have only been Alito. Multiple announcements could include Alito or not, but would include staff and what not. A singular staff retirement would not have kept people for long.

▲

delichon an hour ago | parent [-]

> A singular announcement, that people were waiting around to listen to, would have only been Alito.

To me this is a wishful leap, more so that you would break a historic news story based on it. It seems to be a kind of Rorschach test. What do you see in this random blob? Both natural and artificial intelligences have answers ready, so it's a real problem but not novel.

	▲	toast0 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		There'a a push in the news industry to want the scoop. I don't know the exact timeline and circumstances, but if you leave the press room to go call in your story from the opinion releases, and notice it's been several minutes and nobody else came out, obviously you missed something. If that something is one person retired, they're probably saying a few words or being sent off with some words etc, so that'd be a Justice and Alito is known to be retiring 'soon'. It's like when your company is struggling and all of a sudden there's a mandatory all hands meeting in the morning. Gonna be layoffs (but sometimes it's not)