Another one of President Donald Trump’s lawsuits against a news organization has fizzled out.

This time, it is a defamation lawsuit that the Trump Media and Technology Group brought against The Washington Post in 2023 over a story titled “Trust linked to porn-friendly bank could gain a stake in Trump’s Truth Social.”

A federal judge in Florida has thrown out the suit, saying that Trump Media “failed to present evidence that would allow a jury to find by clear and convincing evidence” that The Post “published the allegedly defamatory statements with actual malice.”

US District Judge Thomas Barber’s conclusion came during the summary judgment phase of the case, when a judge can evaluate evidence and make a determination before proceeding to trial.

The Post’s lawyers argued that Trump Media could not prove “actual malice,” the high legal standard that public figures must meet to prevail in a defamation case. It means that the defendant either knew a claim was false or displayed “reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”

The Post’s reporter who wrote the story in question, Drew Harwell, “thoroughly investigated” the subject and “had confidence in the article’s accuracy at the time of publication,” the newspaper’s lawyers wrote.

In a summary docket entry last week, first reported by Reason magazine, Barber sided with the Post. He said he would issue a full opinion later.

The Post itself reported on the legal victory on Tuesday. “We are pleased with the court’s decision and look forward to reviewing its written order upon release,” a spokesperson told CNN.

A spokesperson for Trump Media did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment, but the company told The Post, “We believe a jury should decide whether these falsehoods were actionable and will evaluate whether to appeal last week’s ruling in due course. We will also continue to hold the media accountable.”

Trump Media positions itself as an opponent of, and an alternative to, traditional tech and media companies. It is best known for operating Truth Social, a relatively small social network favored by the president.

The publicly traded company has been losing money for years; it made less than $1 million in revenue in the first quarter of this year, according to public filings.

The company has repeatedly filed lawsuits over news coverage it deemed false. A defamation lawsuit against The Guardian and other defendants was thrown out by a different Florida judge last November. Trump Media initially filed an amended complaint, but then dropped the matter altogether in April.

Trump Media’s suit against the Post accused the newspaper of a “conspiracy” to harm the company and sought $3.8 billion in damages.

The lawsuit lawyers succeeded in narrowing the case considerably and asserted that Truth Media could not satisfy the “heavy burden” of the actual malice standard.

In May, while awaiting the judge’s ruling, The Post published a correction to the 2023 story stating that “discovery in the ongoing litigation has established” that two assertions in the story were incorrect. But the correction emphasized that the assertions were “based on The Post’s reporting at the time of publication.”

Trump and his businesses have a long history of getting publicity from lawsuits, only to see judges later throw them out.

In April, a federal judge dismissed Trump’s defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over its reporting on a lewd birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein bearing his name. Trump refiled that suit in May. He also has pending litigation against the BBC, The New York Times and the Des Moines Register.

Washington DC residents breathed in “unhealthy” air for hours after a 40-minute Independence Day fireworks show over the National Mall on Saturday night, with the country’s capital briefly recording the worst air quality of any major city in the world.

The highly emitting display, which the president called “spectacular”, came as the Trump administration rolls back an unprecedented number of pollution controls.

Hourly concentrations of particulate matter rose to 6.7 times their pre-fireworks levels, according to a Tuesday analysis from the company Clarity Movement based on its network of 26 air quality sensors throughout the city in partnership with the local department of energy and environment. Every one of those sensors reached air quality levels which the Environmental Protection Agency deems “unhealthy for sensitive groups” during the event, the researchers found, with some recording even worse levels of emissions.

Levels of particulate matter peaked at 4am on Sunday, approximately five hours after the display concluded, according to the new analysis. It remained elevated for approximately five hours after reaching its peak, the authors found, with city officials issuing a Code Red alert.

“Outdoor air quality is unhealthy for seniors, kids, people with medical conditions,” the alert said. “General public may experience health issues. Limit time outside.”

The south-west region of DC experienced the highest pollution levels, the report’s authors found, probably because of its proximity to one of the fireworks launch sites in West Potomac park, as well as overnight meteorological conditions that trapped smoke over the area.

That highly polluted air probably drifted into Arlington, Virginia, said David Lu, CEO and co-founder of Clarity Movement.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have sensors there to confirm it,” he said. “That’s exactly why expanding real-time air quality monitoring matters. Without comprehensive coverage, communities can be exposed to significant pollution events that go undetected.”

The air quality across the city could have been even worse in the aftermath of the display if it were not for thunderstorms that struck the city on Sunday evening.

“Despite the scale of the fireworks display, the city’s air quality avoided a worst-case scenario thanks to favorable weather conditions and the timing of the event,” said Lu.

The Fourth of July fireworks show, organized by the Trump-backed non-profit Freedom 250, began at 11pm on Saturday evening. It involved more than 850,000 fireworks launched from 10 sites across the capital, the organizers said. (A typical Independence Day show in DC involves just 17,000 shells.)

Trump on social media called the show “the Most Spectacular Fireworks Show I have ever seen, and I’ve seen them all”.

The fanfare came as the region was baking under an extreme heatwave, which brought triple-digit temperatures to the city hours earlier. For a time after the fireworks show, the city recorded the worst air quality of any major city in the world, according to AirNow, the Environmental Protection Agency website that reports air quality measurements from its monitoring stations.

Asked to comment, a White House spokesperson, Taylor Rogers, said: “It was the largest and greatest firework display in the history of our country to properly celebrate America’s 250th birthday! Every year, fireworks on the Fourth of July cause short-term spikes in air quality across the United States, including Washington, DC. This was not unique to the 250th fireworks celebrations in our nation’s capital.”

The Guardian has contacted Freedom 250 for comment.

Americans shoot nearly 300m lb of fireworks into the atmosphere every year, according to the American Lung Association, letting off lung-harming gases such as sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.

The Trump administration has, since re-entering office, engaged in a wide-ranging assault on pollution controls, exempting polluting facilities from emissions regulations, boosting coal power, and halting the consideration of the value of lives saved when restricting fine particulate matter and ozone. On 4 July, the president also pardoned nine individuals convicted of violations related to the Clean Air Act, including people found to have tampered with emissions control equipment in cars or selling parts to bypass air pollution standards.