THE BIG STORY
Alex Jones has been ordered to pay Sandy Hook parents $4 million for calling the massacre a hoax |
Alex Jones answers questions during his trial in Austin on Aug. 3, 2022. Pool / Reuters |
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After years of spreading lies about the parents of murdered children, bombastic charlatan and conspiracy pusher Alex Jones is finally being held accountable. After less than a day of deliberating, a jury in Austin on Thursday ruled that Jones must pay more than $4 million in compensatory damages to two parents of a first-grader killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre. This comes after a judge earlier ruled that the Infowars founder defamed them with his frequent comments that they were crisis actors and that the mass shooting — in which 20 students and six teachers were gunned down at the school in Newtown, Connecticut — was staged as a pretext for gun control. While on the stand Wednesday, Jones sought to walk back his past claims about Sandy Hook. Having portrayed his trial as a fight for the First Amendment in which he had merely been asking questions about established narratives about mass tragedies, Jones finally conceded the school shooting had been real. A second phase of the trial will now commence in which the jury will hear evidence about Jones's net worth and determine how much to award in punitive damages. |
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STAYING ON TOP OF THIS Brittney Griner sentenced to 9 years in prison |
- US basketball star Brittney Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison by a Russian court on Thursday on drug charges. The WNBA player and two-time Olympic gold medalist, 31, has been held in detention since February when she was arrested at a Moscow airport with vape cartridges of hashish oil in her luggage.
- US diplomats have proposed a prisoner swap with Russia to secure the release of the Phoenix Mercury player and Paul Whelan, who was arrested in 2018 and accused of being a spy. Washington has proposed exchanging convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout for the two Americans.
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Four officers were charged more than two years after Breonna Taylor was killed in a botched "no-knock" police raid. Since Taylor was killed in 2020, not one Louisville police officer had been charged in her death until the federal charges were announced Thursday. Four people were critically injured in a lightning strike near the White House. All four were transported to hospitals with life-threatening injuries, said first responders in Washington, DC. HBO Max and Discovery+ are merging, but so far your favorite shows are safe. Details about the new service's cost, name, and rollout haven't yet been released, but executives tried to shut down speculation that it would mean a step away from the premium scripted shows that HBO has become known for.
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PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY Monkeypox has been declared a public health emergency in the US |
Dr. Emily Drwiega, left, and Maggie Butler, a registered nurse, prepare monkeypox vaccines at the Test Positive Aware Network nonprofit clinic in Chicago, on July 25, 2022. Eric Cox / Reuters |
The Biden administration has declared the current monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency in the US, in addition to the ongoing COVID pandemic that's still killing more than 300 people every day. The decision comes about two weeks after the World Health Organization deemed the monkeypox outbreak, which has been recorded in 87 countries, a public health emergency of international concern. By designating monkeypox a public health emergency, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has more options in terms of money and resources to control the outbreak. The designation, which lasts for 90 days but can be renewed, has been used in the past for COVID, the opioid crisis, hurricanes, and wildfires. As of Aug. 3, there are more than 6,600 monkeypox infections in the US across 48 jurisdictions, including Washington, DC; Puerto Rico; and every state — except Montana and Wyoming. While anyone can get monkeypox, the "vast majority" of those who have tested positive for the monkeypox virus reported having male-to-male sexual contact, HHS officials said during a media briefing on July 28.
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HOME RUN Mark Zuckerberg's little league baseball card is now an NFT |
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Meta announced that Instagram is now offering a way to share your NFTs and digital collectibles to your page by connecting your digital wallet, Katie Notopoulos reports. Oh, that sounds boring to you? Well, what if I told you that in order to promote this new feature, Mark Zuckerberg was turning his Little League baseball card into an NFT and selling it? Impressively, 8-year-old Zuckerberg had a .980 batting average, his favorite player was Roger Clemens (good choice), and his favorite team was the Yankees (boo). According to the comics shop brokering the NFT sale: "[Zuckerberg] had this card personally made in 1992 and gave it to his favorite camp counselor, Allie Tarantino. Allie accepted the gift and playfully asked Mark to sign it, like a real baseball player. Mark enthusiastically agreed and now, 30 years later, the card has finally surfaced. In a world filled with high-value sports cards, this piece is truly one-of-a-kind!" |
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Change is coming. Make it a good one, Alexa |
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