US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay the parents of a 6-year-old boy killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre $45.2 million in punitive damages — on top of $4.1 million in compensatory damages already awarded — for falsely claiming the shooting was a hoax, a Texas jury decided on Friday.
Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, separated parents of slain 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, testified that followers of Jones harassed them and sent them death threats for years in the false belief that they were lying about their son’s death in the Dec. 14, 2012, shooting that killed 20 children and six staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
The 12-person jury on Thursday decided on the compensatory damages following a two-week trial in the defamation lawsuit presided over by Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in state court in the Texas capital of Austin, where Jones’ radio show and webcast Infowars are based.
The parents had sought $145.9 million in punitive damages and $150 million in compensatory damages. Compensatory damages are awarded to cover a plaintiff’s suffering and losses. Punitive damages are awarded to punish a defendant’s actions.
Jones, who has been a prominent figure in American right-wing circles and a supporter of former President Donald Trump, had called the Sandy Hook massacre a hoax by the US government staged using crisis actors to serve as a pretext for taking away Americans’ guns.
“We ask that you send a very, very simple message, and that is: stop Alex Jones. Stop the monetization of misinformation and lies,” Wesley Todd Ball, a lawyer for the parents, told jurors earlier on Friday before they began deliberations on punitive damages.
An attorney for Jones, Federico Andino Reynal, had asked jurors to return a verdict of $270,000 in punitive damages based on the number of hours Infowars devoted to Sandy Hook coverage. Reynal did not immediately respond to a request for comment after the verdict.
The judge admonished Jones during the trial for not telling the truth during his testimony about his bankruptcy and lack of compliance with requests for documents.
Attorney Doug Mirell, a expert in defamation litigation who was not involved in the case, said the question of Jones’s truthfulness on the witness stand could have been a factor in the jury’s award of punitive damages, noting that it is unusual for a jury to award significantly more in punitive than compensatory damages.
“The jury may have simply latched on to their revulsion at the lies and decided Mr. Jones is truly a bad actor,” Mirell told Reuters.
Forensic economist Bernard Pettingill testified on Friday on behalf of Lewis’ parents that Jones “promulgated some hate speech and some misinformation” and “made a lot of money.” Jones and Infowars are worth between $135 million and $270 million combined, Pettingill said.
Jones sought to distance himself from the conspiracy theories during his testimony, apologizing to the parents and acknowledging that Sandy Hook was “100 percent real.”
Jones’ company, Free Speech Systems LLC, declared bankruptcy last week. Jones said during a Monday broadcast that the filing will help the company stay on the air while it appeals. The bankruptcy declaration paused a similar defamation suit by Sandy Hook parents in Connecticut where, as in Texas, he has already been found liable.
During closing arguments on Wednesday, Kyle Farrar, a lawyer for the parents, urged the jury to end what he called their nightmare and hold Jones accountable for profiting off their son’s death. Reynal acknowledged during his closing argument that Jones and Infowars reported “irresponsibly” on Sandy Hook but said his client was not responsible for the harassment.
The plaintiffs also have accused Jones of approaching the trial in bad faith, citing broadcasts in which he said the proceedings were rigged against him and that the jury pool was full of people who “don’t know what planet they’re on.”
The Sandy Hook gunman, Adam Lanza, used a Remington Bushmaster rifle to carry out the massacre. It ended when Lanza killed himself with the approaching sound of police sirens.
Trump ally Alex Jones told to pay $45.2 million more to Sandy Hook massacre victim’s parents
https://arab.news/n2jrr
Trump ally Alex Jones told to pay $45.2 million more to Sandy Hook massacre victim’s parents
- Alex Jones has repeatedly claimed the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a hoax
- 20 schoolchildren and 6 staff were killed in the Dec. 14, 2012, massacre in Newtown, Connecticut
South Africa police minister says Trump ‘twisted’ facts to push baseless genocide claims
JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s top law enforcement official said Friday that US President Donald Trump wrongly claimed that a video he showed in the Oval Office was of burial sites for more than 1,000 white farmers and he “twisted” the facts to push a false narrative about mass killings of white people in his country.
Police Minister Senzo Mchunu was talking about a video clip that was played during the meeting between Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House on Wednesday that showed an aerial view of a rural road with lines of white crosses erected on either side.
“Now this is very bad,” Trump said as he referred to the clip that was part of a longer video that was played in the meeting. “These are burial sites, right here. Burial sites, over a thousand, of white farmers, and those cars are lined up to pay love on a Sunday morning.”
Mchunu said the crosses did not mark graves or burial sites, but were a temporary memorial put up in 2020 to protest the killings of all farmers across South Africa. They were put up during a funeral procession for a white couple who were killed in a robbery on their farm, Mchunu said.
A son of the couple who were killed and a local community member who took part in the procession also said the crosses do not represent burial sites and were taken down after the protest.
South Africa struggles with extremely high levels of violent crime, although farm killings make up a small percentage of the country’s overall homicides. Both white and Black farmers are attacked, and sometimes killed, and the government has condemned the violence against both groups.
Whites make up around 7 percent of South Africa’s 62 million people but generally still have a much better standard of living than the Black majority more than 30 years after the end of the apartheid system of racial segregation. Whites make up the majority of the country’s wealthier commercial farmers.
Mchunu said Trump’s false claims that the crosses represented more than 1,000 burial sites was part of his “genocide story” — referring to the US president’s baseless allegations in recent weeks that there is a widespread campaign in South Africa to kill white farmers and take their land that he has said amounts to a genocide.
“They are not graves. They don’t represent graves,” Mchunu said regarding the video that has become prominent on social media since it was shown in the White House. “And it was unfortunate that those facts got twisted to fit a false narrative about crime in South Africa.”
“We have respect for the president of the United States,” Mchunu added. “But we have no respect for his genocide story whatsoever.”
The White House, when asked about Mchunu’s remarks, pointed back to press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s comments a day earlier at her briefing, when she said that “the video showed crosses that represent the dead bodies of people who were racially persecuted by their government.”
Of the more than 5,700 homicides in South Africa from January through March, six occurred on farms and, of those, one victim was white, said Mchunu. “In principle, we do not categorize people by race, but in the context of claims of genocide of white people, we need to unpack the killings in this category,” he said.
Lourens Bosman, who is a former lawmaker in the national Parliament, said he took part in the procession shown in the video the Trump administration played. It happened near the town of Newcastle in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal in September 2020. The crosses were symbols to white and Black farmers and farmworkers who had been killed across South Africa over the previous 26 years, Bosman said.
Trump’s falsehoods that South Africa’s government is fueling the persecution and killing of its minority white farmers has been strongly denied by the country, which says the allegations are rooted in misinformation.
Ramaphosa pushed for this week’s meeting with Trump in what he said was an attempt to change Trump’s mind over South Africa and correct misconceptions about the country to rebuild ties.
Trump issued an executive order on Feb. 7 that cut all US financial assistance to South Africa and accused it of mistreating white Afrikaner farmers and seizing their land. The order accused Ramaphosa’s government of “fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners.”
Trump’s executive order also accused South Africa of pursuing an anti-American foreign policy and specifically criticized its decision to launch a case at the International Court of Justice accusing US ally Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The order accused South Africa of supporting the Palestinian militant group Hamas through that case.
Defense Secretary Hegseth, bedeviled by leaks, orders more restrictions on press at Pentagon
- Newly restricted areas include his office and those of his top aides
Bedeviled by leaks to the media during his short tenure, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a series of restrictions on the press late Friday that include banning reporters from entering wide swaths of the Pentagon without a government escort — areas where the press has had access in past administrations as it covers the activities of the world’s most powerful military.
Newly restricted areas include his office and those of his top aides and all of the different locations across the mammoth building where the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Space Force maintain press offices.
The media will also be barred from offices of the Pentagon’s senior military leadership, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, without Hegseth’s approval and an escort from his aides. The staff of the Joint Chiefs has traditionally maintained a good relationship with the press.
Hegseth, the former Fox News Channel personality, issued his order via a posting on X late on a Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend. He said it was necessary for national security.
“While the department remains committed to transparency, the department is equally obligated to protect (classified intelligence information) and sensitive information, the unauthorized disclosure of which could put the lives of US service members in danger,” wrote Hegseth.
The Pentagon Press Association expressed skepticism that operational concerns were at play — and linked the move to previous actions by Hegseth’s office that impede journalists and their coverage.
“There is no way to sugarcoat it. Today’s memo by Secretary Hegseth appears to be a direct attack on the freedom of the press and America’s right to know what its military is doing,” it said in a statement Friday night. “The Pentagon Press Association is extremely concerned by the decision to restrict movement of accredited journalists within the Pentagon through non-secured, unclassified hallways.”
Hegseth also said reporters will be required to sign a form to protect sensitive information and would be issued a new badge that more clearly identifies them as press. It was not clear whether signing the form would be a condition of continued access to the building.
Two months ago, the department was embarrassed by a leak to The New York Times that billionaire Elon Musk was to get a briefing on the US military’s plans in case a war broke out with China. That briefing never took place, on President Donald Trump’s orders, and Hegseth suspended two Pentagon officials as part of an investigation into how that news got out.
The Pentagon was also embarrassed when the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, was inadvertently included in a group chat on the Signal messaging app where Hegseth discussed plans for upcoming military strikes in Yemen. Trump’s former national security adviser, Mike Waltz, took responsibility for Goldberg being included and was shifted to another job.
The administration has taken several aggressive actions toward the press since Trump took over, including FCC investigations into ABC, CBS and NBC News. Restrictions imposed on The Associated Press’ access to certain White House events earlier this year led to a court battle that is ongoing.
The White House has also increased access for conservative media that are friendly to the president. Nevertheless, a study released earlier this month found that Trump had more frequent exchanges with reporters during his first 100 days in office than any of his six predecessors.
Hegseth, however, has been far less available. He has yet to speak to the press in the Pentagon briefing room. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell has held only one Pentagon press briefing since Jan. 20. The Pentagon has taken other steps to make it more difficult for reporters, including taking office space away from eight media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and NBC.
Kyiv mayor says drones and missiles attack city, triggering fires
- Officials said anti-aircraft units were in action
Ukraine’s capital Kyiv was coming under a combined drone and missile attack early on Saturday, Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said.
Timur Tkachenko, head of the capital’s military administration, said two fires had broken out in the city’s Sviatoshinskyi district. Drone fragments had hit the ground there and in three other districts.
Officials said anti-aircraft units were in action.
Reuters witnesses reported waves of drones flying over the city, which had been jolted by a series of explosions.
White House National Security Council hit by more firings, sources say
- The restructuring of the NSC is expected to grant more authority to the State Department, the Defense Department and other agencies
WASHINGTON: A large restructuring of the White House National Security Council got under way on Friday as President Donald Trump moved to reduce the size and scope of the once-powerful agency, five sources briefed on the matter said.
Staff dealing with a variety of major geopolitical issues were sent termination notices on Friday, said the sources, who requested anonymity as they were not permitted to speak to the media.
The move comes just weeks after Secretary of State Marco Rubio took over from Mike Waltz as national security adviser. The NSC declined to comment.
The restructuring of the NSC is expected to grant more authority to the State Department, the Defense Department and other agencies, the sources said. The aim is to reduce the size of the NSC to just a few dozen people.
The NSC is the main body used by presidents to coordinate national security strategy. Its staff often make key decisions regarding America’s approach to the world’s most volatile conflicts and play a key role in keeping America safe.
The firings will reduce the NSC’s already pared-down staff. The body had more than 300 staffers under Democratic President Joe Biden, but even before the recent firings under Trump was less than half the size of Biden’s NSC.
The NSC staffers who are cut from the agency will be moved to other positions in government, two of the sources told Reuters.
Russia to present peace accord draft after prisoner exchange, Lavrov says
- Lavrov says Europe encourages Ukrainian drone attacks, seeks to disrupt peace talks
- Ukraine accuses Moscow of mass drone attacks, says leaders’ meeting should include Trump
MOSCOW: Russia will be ready to hand Ukraine a draft document outlining conditions for a long-term peace accord once a prisoner exchange now under way is completed, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday.
Lavrov, in statements on his ministry’s website, said Russia was committed to working out a peaceful settlement in the more than three-year-old war pitting Moscow against Kyiv.
He also accused Ukraine of launching waves of drone attacks over several days on Russian targets that caused casualties and disrupted air traffic. He suggested European countries had encouraged Kyiv to launch the attacks to undermine peace efforts led by US President Donald Trump.
Russia and Ukraine each released 390 prisoners on Friday and said they would free more in the coming days, an initiative agreed in talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials in Turkiye last week.
“We remain committed to a peace settlement. We are always open to talks...and let me stress that we are committed to the agreements that were achieved recently in Istanbul,” Lavrov said.
“We are working actively on the second part of the agreements which call for preparation by each side of a draft document setting out the conditions for achieving a reliable, long-term agreement on a settlement.”
“As soon as the exchange of prisoners of war is completed we will be ready to hand to the Ukrainian side a draft of such a document which the Russian side is now completing.”
Lavrov said the surge of Ukrainian drone attacks — some 800 sent against Russian targets over the last three days — was “a direct consequence” of support for Ukraine by European Union countries whose leaders visited Kyiv in recent days.
“We are certain that they will be held accountable for their share of responsibility for these crimes,” Lavrov said, referring to the European countries.
“This is clearly an attempt to disrupt peace talks and undermine progress made in Istanbul following the agreements between the presidents of Russia and the United States...We will continue this work no matter what provocations there may be.”
Lavrov’s ministry earlier vowed to respond to the attacks.
In Kyiv, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told reporters that Kyiv was waiting for Russia’s proposals on the form of talks, a ceasefire and a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.
Sybiha, quoted by Ukrainian media, said Kyiv would be in favor of expanding such a meeting to include US President Donald Trump.
“We believe that this meeting could take place in an expanded format,” Sybiha was quoted as saying. “We would like very much for President Trump to be included.”
Upsurge nin drone strikes
Ukraine has offered little comment on the drone strikes, though it acknowledged hitting a battery plant on Friday in Russia’s central Lipetsk region.
Ukraine has also accused Russia of staging periodic mass drone attacks. One such attack on Sunday, described as the largest in the three-year-old war, destroyed homes and killed one woman.
Authorities in Ukraine’s southern city of Odesa accused Russia of striking port infrastructure with missiles on Friday, killing two people.
Prosecutors in eastern Donetsk region, the focal point of the war’s frontline, said three people were killed in shelling incidents in different parts of the region.
