Two of the largest grocery store chains, Kroger and Albertson's are looking to merge. They were in court Monday defending the plan against the Federal Trade Commission or FTC that's looking to block it. The FTC filed a lawsuit against the merger in Oregon back in February this day has been a long time coming. The $24 billion deal largest proposed merger in US history has been in the works for years. The chains first made the announcement back in October of 2022 saying a merger would lower prices and help them compete with larger stores like Wal Mart. Many employees aren't sold and protested outside the courthouse Monday morning is enough. We can no longer stand by and allow corporate greed that puts profit before people. The FTC is arguing the merger would eliminate competition, increase prices and lower employee wages already. Americans pay too high of grocery prices and if competition is removed from this merger, then the prices could go even higher. That's going to be real trouble because a lot of us are on fixed incomes and we just can't afford higher prices right now. If the deal goes through Kroger and Albertsons have already said they'll sell dozens of Safeway, Albertsons and QFC stores in Oregon and Washington. It's very confusing. The only thing I'm really concerned about is closing stores that are close to us, especially those that are disabled and having a hard time walking. It's now up to a federal judge to decide whether or not to grant the ftc's request for a delay as they continue to fight the merger. What we're focused on right now is, is, is winning this case and getting the P I so that we can move forward with our in house court to challenge the merger in full. All right. So in a statement, Kroger says that if the merger will help secure union jobs, if it goes through and if a judge grants the FT CS request to delay the grocery stores, they could appeal that could take a year or more and we won't know if that'll happen until about three weeks from now. Again, this is just the day one of the hearing back to you. We appreciate your reporting on this Blair in downtown Portland in front of that federal courthouse. More to come.