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Alex Jones’ $49.3M verdict and the future of misinformation

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Alex Jones’ $49.3M verdict and the future of misinformation

Alex Jones is dealing with a hefty price ticket for his lies concerning the Sandy Hook Elementary College bloodbath — $49.3 million in damages, and counting, for claiming the nation’s deadliest faculty capturing was a hoax — a punishing salvo in a fledgling warfare on dangerous misinformation.

However what does this week’s verdict, the primary of three Sandy Hook-related circumstances towards Jones to be determined, imply for the bigger misinformation ecosystem, a social media-fueled world of election denial, COVID-19 skepticism and different doubtful claims that the Infowars conspiracy theorist helped construct?

“I feel lots of people are pondering of this as type of a blow towards pretend information, and it’s essential to understand that libel legislation offers with a really specific sort of pretend information,” stated Eugene Volokh, a First Modification professor on the UCLA College of Legislation.

U.S. courts have lengthy held that defamatory statements — falsehoods damaging the repute of an individual or a enterprise — aren’t protected as free speech, however lies about different topics, like science, historical past or the federal government, are. For instance, saying COVID-19 isn’t actual will not be defamatory, however spreading lies about a physician treating coronavirus sufferers is.

That distinction is why Jones, who attacked the mother and father of Sandy Hook victims and claimed the 2012 capturing was staged with actors to extend gun management, is being compelled to pay up whereas Holocaust deniers, flat-earthers and vaccine skeptics are free to submit their theories with out a lot concern of a multimillion-dollar courtroom judgment.

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“Alex Jones was attacking people,” stated Stephen D. Solomon, a legislation professor and founding editor of New York College’s First Modification Watch. “And that’s essential. Lots of disinformation doesn’t assault people.”

Attorneys for the plaintiffs, the mother and father of one in every of 20 first graders killed on the Connecticut faculty in 2012, stated they hoped a big-money verdict towards Jones would function a deterrent to him and others who peddle misinformation for revenue.

“I’m asking you to take the bullhorn away from Alex Jones and all the others who imagine they’ll revenue off of concern and misinformation,” Wesley Ball stated in his closing argument Friday. “The gold rush of concern and misinformation should finish, and it should finish at the moment.”

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Jones, who has since acknowledged that the capturing was actual, has claimed his statements about Sandy Hook had been protected by the First Modification. He even confirmed as much as courtroom with “Save the first” scrawled on a bit of tape over his mouth.

However regardless of the general public theatrics, Jones by no means received to make that argument in courtroom. After Jones did not adjust to orders handy over important proof, a decide entered a default judgment for the plaintiffs and skipped proper to the punishment part.

Jones’ lawyer Andino Reynal advised the jury throughout closing arguments that a big judgment would have a chilling impact on individuals looking for to carry governments accountable.

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“You’ve already despatched a message. A message for the primary time to a chat present host, to all speak present hosts, that their customary of care has to vary,” Reynal advised jurors.

Free speech consultants say any chilling impact ought to be restricted to individuals who wantonly disseminate false info, not journalists or different residents making good-faith efforts to get on the reality of a matter.

“You need to take a look at this specific case and ask your self, what precisely are you chilling?” Solomon stated.

“The sort of speech that defames mother and father who’ve misplaced their kids in a bloodbath is possibly the sort of speech you do need to deter. You do need to chill that speech,” Solomon stated. “That’s the message that probably the jury wished to ship right here, that that is unacceptable in a civilized society.”

As for Jones, Reynal stated he isn’t going away any time quickly. He’ll stay on the air whereas they enchantment the decision, one of many largest and highest-profile selections in a defamation case in recent times.

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Amongst others: a gadfly ordered in February to pay $50 million to a South Carolina mayor after accusing her in emails of committing a criminal offense and being unfit for workplace; a former tenant ordered in 2016 to pay $38.3 million for posting an internet site accusing an actual property investor of operating a Ponzi scheme; and a New Hampshire mortgage supplier ordered in 2017 to pay $274 million to 3 businessmen after he posted billboards accusing them of drug dealing and extortion.

“These sorts of damages and verdicts do have a chilling impact,” Volokh stated. “They’re supposed to have a chilling impact on lies that harm individuals’s reputations.”

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Comply with Michael Sisak on Twitter at twitter.com/mikesisak

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Discover AP’s full protection of the Alex Jones trial at: https://apnews.com/hub/alex-jones

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Likely Yemen Houthi rebel attack targets ship in Gulf of Aden as Eisenhower reportedly heads home

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Likely Yemen Houthi rebel attack targets ship in Gulf of Aden as Eisenhower reportedly heads home

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A commercial ship traveling through the Gulf of Aden saw explosions near the vessel, authorities said Saturday, likely the latest attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels attempting to target the shipping lane.

The apparent fire by the Houthis comes after the sinking this week of the ship Tutor, which marked what appears to be a new escalation by the Iranian-backed Houthis in their campaign of attacks on ships in the vital maritime corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials reportedly ordered the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, the aircraft carrier leading America’s response to the Houthi attacks, to return home.

The captain of the ship targeted late Friday saw “explosions in the vicinity of the vessel,” the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said.

“The crew are reported safe and the vessel is proceeding to its next port of call,” the UKMTO said, without elaborating on whether the ship sustained any damage.

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The Houthis, who have held Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, since 2014, did not immediately claim the attack. However, it can take the rebels hours or even days to acknowledge their assaults.

The Houthis on Friday released footage of one of their drone boats, the “Tufan,” or “Flood,” which they said targeted the Tutor.

The Houthis have launched more than 60 attacks targeting specific vessels and fired off other missiles and drones in their campaign that has killed a total of four sailors. They have seized one vessel and sunk two since November. A U.S.-led airstrike campaign has targeted the Houthis since January, with a series of strikes May 30 killing at least 16 people and wounding 42 others, the rebels say.

In March, the Belize-flagged Rubymar carrying fertilizer became the first to sink in the Red Sea after taking on water for days following a rebel attack.

The Houthis have maintained that their attacks target ships linked to Israel, the United States or Britain. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the Israel-Hamas war.

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Meanwhile, the U.S. Naval Institute’s news service reported, citing an anonymous official, that the Eisenhower would be returning home to Norfolk, Virginia, after an over eight-month deployment in combat that the Navy says is its most intense since World War II. The report said an aircraft carrier operating in the Pacific would be taking the Eisenhower’s place.

The closest American aircraft carrier known to be operating in Asia is the USS Theodore Roosevelt. The Roosevelt anchored Saturday in Busan, South Korea, amid Seoul’s ongoing tensions with North Korea.

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Hot tub death: Wife files wrongful death lawsuit, calls for 'accountability'

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Hot tub death: Wife files wrongful death lawsuit, calls for 'accountability'

A Texas woman has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against two Mexican resort travel companies, seeking more than $1 million, after her husband tragically died after being electrocuted in a resort hot tub.

In the lawsuit, Lizzette Zambrano, from El Paso County, Texas, named vacation rental companies Casago LLC, Casago International LLC and High Desert Travel Inc., which operated Sonoran Sea Resort, where she was staying with her husband, Jorge Guillen.

Zambrano accused the companies of being “grossly negligent” and has called for the companies to “take accountability” for her 43-year-old husband’s death.

“I want somebody to take accountability for what happened to my husband and myself,” Zambrano told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

MEXICO HOT TUB DEATH: US TOURIST WHO WAS ELECTROCUTED REMEMBERED AS ‘BIG FAMILY MAN’ WHO HAD ‘HEART OF GOLD’

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Jorge Guillen and Lizzette Zambrano are from El Paso, Texas, according to media reports. (GoFundMe)

The lawsuit paints a picture of the couple’s last moments together before being electrocuted in a hot tub while vacationing.

As soon as Guillen entered the tub, he was “exposed to an electrical current in the water,” it said.

“Jorge immediately keeled over into the tub and was taken under the surface of the water,” the lawsuit said. “Witnessing her husband immediately collapse, Lizzette sprang forward from the pool deck to try and grab Jorge’s body.”

Zambrano attempted to rescue him, but was also shocked. 

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She was eventually rescued by a bystander and taken to a hospital.

“Patrons attempted to assist, grabbing a shepherd’s cross and other items to attempt to get Jorge’s body,” the lawsuit said. “However, the metal from the objects carried the electrical current and began shocking the rescuers.”

The lawsuit said it took “ten painstaking minutes” before staff members “availed themselves and began to assist in rescuing Jorge.”

MAN KILLED AFTER GETTING ELECTROCUTED IN SEASIDE RESORT JACUZZI 

“At no time prior to this, did Defendants seek to engage the emergency shutoff for the jacuzzi or attempt any rescue of either Jorge or Lizzette,” it said. “Jorge was being electrocuted and drowned under water for 10 minutes.”

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Puerto-Penasco-Mexico

A beachfront at the popular tourist resort of Puerto Peñasco in the state of Sonora, Mexico. (AP Photo/Annika Wolters/File)

Guillen was remembered in a GoFundMe for having a “heart of gold.”

 

“Our best friends have experienced a horrible accident. Jorge had a heart of gold and was always there for family and friends. The love they shared was one for ages,” reads a GoFundMe page set up for the couple. 

In a comment to the New York Post, Casago denied responsibility. 

“The Sonoran Sea is a condo resort and the homeowners’ association is responsible for all common areas, including the maintenance of the swimming pool, hot tubs, and grounds,” they said. “Casago, a vacation rental company, is not involved in any management or maintenance of the resort.”

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Fox News Digital has reached out to Sonoran Sea Resort for comment.

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Israel will be the ‘ultimate loser’ in war with Hezbollah, Iran says

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Israel will be the ‘ultimate loser’ in war with Hezbollah, Iran says

Israel says it will soon ‘make the necessary decisions’ about confronting the Iran-allied Lebanese group.

Iran says Hezbollah is capable of defending itself and Lebanon, warning Israel that it would be the “ultimate loser” in an all-out war with the Lebanese armed group.

Tehran’s statement on Friday came as fears of a major Israeli offensive in Lebanon continued to mount.

“Any imprudent decision by the occupying Israeli regime to save itself could plunge the region into a new war, the consequence of which would be the destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure as well as that of the 1948 occupied territories,” Iran’s mission to the United Nations said in a social media post.

“Undoubtedly, this war will have one ultimate loser, which is the Zionist regime. The Lebanese Resistance Movement, Hezbollah, has the capability to defend itself and Lebanon – perhaps the time for the self-annihilation of this illegitimate regime has come.”

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Israel also issued a threat to Iran-aligned Hezbollah on Friday with Foreign Minister Israel Katz saying “soon we will make the necessary decisions” about confronting the Lebanese group.

“The free world must unconditionally stand with Israel in its war against the axis of evil led by Iran and extremist Islam. Our war is also your war,” Katz said.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said this week that if the Israeli military goes to war in Lebanon, his group will use its rockets and drones to hit targets across the entire territory of Israel. He warned Hezbollah would wage a war with “no restraint and no rules and no ceilings”.

Nasrallah also issued a threat to Cyprus, a European Union member that sits in the eastern Mediterranean west of the Lebanese and Israeli coasts. He said the group has information that Israel is conducting military exercises in Cyprus in terrain similar to southern Lebanon.

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Nasrallah added that Israel plans to use airports and bases in Cyprus for military purposes if its own infrastructure is targeted during a serious war.

“Opening Cypriot airports and bases for the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon means the Cypriot government has become part of the war, and the resistance will deal with it as part of the war,” he said without elaborating.

Cyprus said Nasrallah’s threat is not grounded in reality, stressing the country enjoys great relations with Lebanon.

Still, the Hezbollah statement exacerbated concerns about an even larger regional war that could spill beyond Lebanon’s borders and pull Iran-allied groups – if not Tehran itself – as well as the United States into the conflict.

Hezbollah started attacking military bases in northern Israel the day after the outbreak of the war on Gaza on October 7 in what it says is a “support front” to back Palestinian groups. Israel responded by bombing southern Lebanese villages and Hezbollah positions.

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While the near-daily clashes have displaced tens of thousands of people in Lebanon and Israel, they have been largely contained to the border areas.

But the violence has escalated in recent weeks, especially after an Israeli air raid killed a top Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon last week.

On Friday, Hezbollah claimed several military operations against Israel, including a drone attack it said targeted Israeli forces at a coastal base on the western side of the border.

The US has pushed for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis while expressing concern about Hezbollah’s attacks. “We have made quite clear we do not want to see escalation of this conflict,” Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters on Thursday.

For its part, Hezbollah has said it will continue operations against the Israeli military until Israel ends its war in Gaza, which has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians.

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Members of Hezbollah attend the funeral of a senior field commander [File: Mohamed Azakir/Reuters]

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