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Tag: Media

  • Guest lineups for the Sunday news shows

    Guest lineups for the Sunday news shows

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    WASHINGTON — ABC’s “This Week” — Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg; Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.; Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

    ——

    NBC’s “Meet the Press” — Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla.; Evan McMullin, independent candidate for Senate in Utah.

    ——

    CBS’ “Face the Nation” — Buttigieg; Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova; Betsey Stevenson, professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan.

    ———

    CNN’s “State of the Union” — National security adviser Jake Sullivan; White House economic adviser Cecilia Rouse; Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo.; the nominees for Arizona governor, Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Katie Hobbs; Joe O’Dea, Republican nominee for Senate in Colorado.

    ———

    “Fox News Sunday” — Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La.; White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein.

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  • Rupert Murdoch explores reuniting Fox and News Corp.

    Rupert Murdoch explores reuniting Fox and News Corp.

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    President Donald Trump (L) is embraced by Rupert Murdoch, Executive Chairman of News Corp, during a dinner to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea during WWII onboard the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum May 4, 2017 in New York.

    Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images

    Rupert Murdoch is exploring whether to put his media companies News Corp. and Fox Corp. back together, according to News Corp.

    News Corp., which owns Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones, said Friday that it had formed a special committee of board members to consider a possible deal. A merger isn’t certain, the company added in its announcement.

    Fox Corp., which was left over from the $71.3 billion Twenty-First Century Fox sale to Disney in 2019, owns right wing networks Fox News and Fox Business, which is a CNBC competitor.

    A combination would allow Murdoch to consolidate leadership in his media empire and cut costs. The discussions come as the audience shrinks for both print media and cable television, as readers and viewers increasingly get their news and entertainment from social media, online news and streaming services.

    The announcement will have no impact on the current operations of News Corp., CEO Robert Thomson told employees in a memo obtained by CNBC.

    “I would like to stress that the special committee has not made any determination at this time, and there can be no certainty that any transaction will result from this evaluation,” he wrote.

    Thomson also asked employees not to speculate about the potential deal or make any formal comments to media, shareholders or customers.

    The news also comes as Fox Corp. and Fox News are facing a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion argues that Fox News and Fox Business made false claims that its voting machines rigged the results of the 2020 presidential election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

    CNBC has reached out to Fox and News Corp. for comment. “Neither the Company nor the Special Committee intends to comment on or disclose further developments regarding the Special Committee’s work unless and until it deems further disclosure is appropriate or required,” News Corp. said in a statement on Friday.

    Murdoch, 91, split Fox and News Corp. in 2013. He is the chairman of Fox and the executive chairman of News Corp. His son Lachlan Murdoch is CEO of Fox and co-executive chairman of News Corp.

    The Murdoch family has a 42% voting stake in Fox and a 39% voting stake in News Corp., according to the Journal. Fox’s market value is about $17 billion, while News Corp.’s is about $9 billion, as of Friday’s market close. Class A shares of News Corp. rose more than 3% after hours, while Fox’s Class A shares barely moved.

    News Corp. also includes book publisher HarperCollins, scandal sheet the New York Post and news outlets in the U.K. and Murdoch’s native Australia. Fox’s holdings also include the Fox broadcast network, which airs “The Simpsons” and NFL games.

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  • Kroger and Albertsons Say Their Merger Will Cut Prices. Their Shares Are Tumbling.

    Kroger and Albertsons Say Their Merger Will Cut Prices. Their Shares Are Tumbling.

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    With inflation still an untamed threat, Friday’s announced merger of the grocers


    Kroger


    and


    Albertsons


    will spur debate about whether the consolidation will raise food prices, or lower them.

    The Biden administration’s antitrust regulators are scrutinizing mergers more closely than did predecessors, and an old argument against combinations is that they lead to price-gouging.

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  • Brothers reverse plea to guilty in car-bomb murder trial

    Brothers reverse plea to guilty in car-bomb murder trial

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    VALLETTA, Malta — In a stunning reversal, two brothers who are on trial for the car-bomb murder of a Maltese anti-corruption journalist on Friday entered guilty pleas on the first day of trial.

    Only hours earlier at the start of the trial in a Valletta courthouse, George Degiorgio, 59, and Alfred Degiorgio, 57 had entered not-guilty pleas.

    They are charged with having set the bomb that blew up Daphne Caruana Galizia’s car as she drove near her home on Oct. 16, 2017.

    The trial judge retired to chambers immediately after the change of plea and he was expected to sentence both defendants later on Friday.

    THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

    VALLETTA, Malta (AP) — The trial of two brothers charged in the car-bomb assassination of a Maltese journalist who investigated corruption in the tiny island nation began Friday, nearly five years after the slaying that sent shockwaves across Europe.

    George Degiorgio, 59, and Alfred Degiorgio, 57, are charged with having set the bomb that blew up Daphne Caruana Galizia’s car as she drove near her home on Oct. 16, 2017.

    Prosecutors allege that they were hired by a top Maltese businessman with government ties. That businessman has been charged and will be tried separately.

    The Degiorgio brothers have denied the charges. A third suspect, Vincent Muscat, avoided a trial after earlier changing his plea to guilty. Muscat is serving a 15-year sentence.

    In a Valletta courtroom Friday, Alfred Degiorgio pleaded not guilty while his brother declared that he had nothing to say. The court interpreted that as a not-guilty plea.

    The brothers had unsuccessfully tried to negotiate a pardon in exchange for naming bigger alleged conspirators, including a former minister whose identity hasn’t been revealed.

    The bomb had been placed under the driver’s seat and the explosion was powerful enough to send the car’s wreckage flying over a wall and into a field.

    A top Maltese investigative journalist, Caruana Galizia, 53, had written extensively on her website “Running Commentary” about suspected corruption in political and business circles in the Mediterranean island nation, an attractive financial haven.

    Among her targets were people in then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s inner circle whom she accused of having offshore companies in tax havens disclosed in the Panama Papers leak. But she also targeted the opposition. When she was killed she was facing more than 40 libel suits.

    The arrest of a top businessman with connections to senior government officials two years after the murder sparked a series of mass protests in the country, forcing Muscat to resign.

    Yorgen Fenech was indicted in 2019 for alleged complicity in the slaying, by either ordering or instigating the commission of the crime, inciting another to commit the crime or by promising to give a reward after the fact. He was also indicted for conspiracy to commit murder. Fenech has entered not-guilty pleas to all charges.

    No date has been set for his trial.

    A self-confessed middleman, taxi driver Melvin Theuma, was granted a presidential pardon in 2019 in exchange for testimony against Fenech and the other alleged plotters. Two men, Jamie Vella and Robert Agius, have been charged with supplying the bomb, but their trial has not yet begun.

    A deputy prosecutor, Philip Galea Farrugia, told the court that Theuma was asked by an unnamed person to find someone to kill Caruana Galizia. Theuma allegedly approached one of the Degiorgio brothers and a payment of 150,000 euros ($146,500) was negotiated, said Galea Farrugia.

    Galea Farrugia also said that a rifle was initially selected as the murder weapon, but that was later switched to a bomb. Prosecutors also said that a cell phone — one of three that George Degiorgio had with him on a cabin cruiser in Malta’s Grand Harbor — had triggered the explosion.

    A 2021 public inquiry report found that the Maltese state “has to bear responsibility” for Caruana Galizia’s murder because of the culture of impunity that emanated from the highest levels of government.

    The Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatović, has decried the “lack of effective results in establishing accountability five years later.”

    In a letter to the current prime minister, Robert Abela, the commissioner expressed the need for urgency in protecting journalists in Malta and cited ongoing defamation cases against Caruana-Galizia’s family.

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  • Meet the judge who tamed the Musk-Twitter trial

    Meet the judge who tamed the Musk-Twitter trial

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    DOVER, Del. — A lawyer for billionaire Elon Musk had barely begun speaking during a recent hearing when the Delaware judge presiding over Twitter’s lawsuit against Musk abruptly cut her off.

    “Skip the rhetoric and go to the meat,” Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick said bluntly.

    The judge’s tone that day illuminates the no-nonsense approach she brings as the first woman to lead Delaware’s 230-year-old Court of Chancery. The court is America’s go-to venue for high-stakes disputes involving some of the world’s biggest companies, many of which call Delaware their legal home.

    This court fight between the world’s richest man and the influential social platform could easily have become a circus, particularly given Musk’s penchant for chaos. That hasn’t happened largely thanks to McCormick, who’s been a judge for only four years. She has set firm deadlines, reined in over-the-top attorney requests and kept the case moving briskly.

    Musk has been battling Twitter since he announced in July that he wanted to scuttle an agreement to acquire the social media giant for $44 billion. Twitter sued Musk, seeking a court order of “specific performance” directing him to consummate the deal.

    McCormick recently ordered a temporary halt in the case after Musk indicated that he would go ahead with the transaction, but she also warned that she will schedule a November trial if Musk doesn’t close the deal by Oct. 28.

    The judge, whose humble demeanor belies her professional confidence, does not like the spotlight. After joining the court, McCormick admitted that she didn’t fully appreciate how everything she wrote or said would receive intense scrutiny.

    McCormick now seems unfazed that court observers and legal pundits are not only watching her every move, but sometimes pretending to know what she is going to do and why.

    “The world will have to wait for the post-trial decision,” she wrote in a September ruling, indirectly acknowledging the public spotlight on the case.

    From an early age, McCormick, 43, has demonstrated that she can adapt and persevere when faced with challenges.

    She was born in Dover, Delaware’s capital city, and raised with her two older brothers a few miles north in the town of Smyrna. Her mother taught English; her father taught history and coached Smyrna High School’s football team.

    “Katie” McCormick thought she, too, would become a teacher, even serving as president of the Delaware Future Educators of America, among other student organizations

    McCormick also was a tough athlete who played fastpitch softball and ran track despite having extreme scoliosis, an abnormal curvature of the spine that was apparent from birth and which required her to wear a brace at times. In 1995, when she was 15, McCormick underwent spinal fusion surgery.

    Two years later, as a 17-year-old senior, McCormick was the recipient of a scholarship awarded each year to a downstate athlete who had overcome a physical disability. A photograph from the awards banquet that night shows a smiling McCormick, in a white dress with paisley trim, standing between then-U.S. Sen. Joe Biden and former NFL quarterback Joe Theisman.

    “Some days were just a little harder than others, but I had faith it would all work out for the best,” McCormick said at the time, noting that other children she would meet during her hospital trips faced more severe problems.

    McCormick became the first Smyrna High student to attend Harvard University, where she majored in philosophy.

    McCormick, with a deep and eclectic interest in music, played in an Irish folk band while at college. She also became involved in a student-run legal aid program that helps low-income people in the Boston area. That experience helped pique her interest in the law, leading her to the University of Notre Dame law school.

    McCormick, who has long viewed the law as a path to serve others, spent her summers working in Northern Ireland for firms specializing in human rights work and international conflict resolution. After graduation, she looked homeward, taking a job with the Community Legal Aid Society, where she worked on housing issues.

    “Her academic record stood out. She was a Delaware native,” said CLASI executive director Dan Atkins, who recruited McCormick. “That was not typical for us, so that was cool.”

    After two years at CLASI, financial considerations involving the birth of her second child propelled McCormick into private practice. She later admitted that she felt “defeated” by the move because she had wanted to pursue a service-oriented path. Still, she developed a passion for business litigation, as well as for expedited proceedings like the fast-track schedule she ordered in the Twitter lawsuit.

    “Her return to public service with the court makes sense. She’s come full circle,” said Atkins, who noted that, in addition to corporate litigation, the Court of Chancery also handles equally important matters such as trusts and estates, guardianships and real estate disputes.

    “I bet you she gives those cases every bit of her attention that she gives the Twitter case,” he said. “I guarantee it.”

    McCormick is no humorless legal robot, however. In the introduction to her article in a law school journal, she poked fun at the supposed “misspelling” of her first name, Kathaleen, which she shares with her mother and grandmother. She explained that the unusual spelling was attributable to her great-grandmother, not the journal’s staff.

    On the Chancery Court, where judges sometimes cite historic, literary and even pop-culture references in their rulings, McCormick’s opinions tend to be comparatively prosaic and direct. Presented with the opportunity, however, she, too, can turn a phrase. A ruling last year in a lawsuit involving the cannabis industry opened with a reference to a Grateful Dead song.

    In another ruling last year, McCormick noted that, “Julia Child is rumored to have once said: ‘A party without a cake is just a meeting.’” In that case, she ordered a private equity firm to acquire a cake decorating company even though the buyers had “lost their appetite” for the deal after signing it. Such an order of specific performance is the same type of relief sought by Twitter against Musk.

    The icing on that particular cake? One week after that ruling, McCormick, who was appointed a vice chancellor in 2018 when the court expanded from five judges to seven, was promoted to chancellor.

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  • ‘She Said,’ drama of Weinstein reporting, premieres in NYC

    ‘She Said,’ drama of Weinstein reporting, premieres in NYC

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    NEW YORK — Five years after a pair of exposés revealed Harvey Weinstein’s long trail of sexual abuse of women, “She Said,” a film that dramatizes the dogged fight to uncover years of allegations against the movie mogul, premiered Thursday at the New York Film Festival.

    The film stars Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan as New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, who helped uncover the many allegations against Weinstein. When news of their impending report was first leaked by Variety, Weinstein at the time commented: “The story sounds so good, I want to buy the movie rights.”

    Instead, the movie that would become “She Said” was adapted from Twohey and Kantor’s 2019 book about the investigation. It unspooled Thursday at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, with numerous women who came forward to tell their story in attendance, including Ashley Judd. Weinstein, meanwhile, is currently being tried in Los Angeles for 11 counts of rape and sexual assault. He has pled not guilty.

    The 70-year-old Weinstein is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2020 for committing a criminal sexual act and third-degree rape.

    One of the loudest of the film’s numerous standing ovations was for Judd, whose on-the-record account led The Times’ first report and whose bravery emboldened many others to speak out. Other women who came forward were also in the audience. Judd plays herself in the film.

    “I just want to remember when I was speaking to my mother about all this, she said, ‘Oh, you go get ’em, honey,” Judd said in an on-stage conversation following the film, recalling that her father was with her after her 1996 meeting with Weinstein at the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel. “When I came down from the hotel room, he knew something devastating had just happened to me by the look on my face.”

    “It was very validating that someone finally wanted to listen and do something about it,” Judd added. “The film was the next step in that.”

    That “She Said” was premiering in New York at a festival Weinstein once frequented made the evening particularly poignant. Eugene Hernandez, executive director of the festival, noted that “it’s a room Harvey Weinstein has been in.”

    The movie, too, has been a subject in Weinstein’s current trial. During pre-trial hearings, Weinstein’s attorneys requested that the trial be delayed because of the release of “She Said,” arguing that it could influence jurors. Universal Pictures will open “She Said” in theaters Nov. 18. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench rejected the motion.

    But the array of women on stage — including the stars, the Times reporters, director Maria Schrader and screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz — made a powerful statement. “She Said” follows the ups and downs of Kantor and Twohey’s persistent investigation, battling against a decades-old wall-of-silence, a litany of NDAs and Weinstein’s own belligerent responses.

    “The number of people who shared information with us was relatively small, and yet their impact was so large,” Kantor. said “We hope this film helps people remember that these personal stories really can make an enormous difference.”

    The Times’ reporting on Weinstein, along with that of The New Yorker, was the catalyst not just for Weinstein’s dramatic downfall but the rapid expansion of the #MeToo movement begun by activist Tarana Burke that would spread throughout Hollywood and many other industries.

    “She Said” follows in the tradition of investigative journalism films like “All the President’s Men” and “Spotlight,” with the notable difference that its protagonists are women balancing their 24/7 work lives with their young families. The film takes care to show the reporters as hard-working professionals not so unlike the young, ambitious women Weinstein preyed on.

    Kazan took a moment to reflect on what’s changed in Hollywood in the five years since. There are now intimacy coordinators on set for sex scenes and a more open conversation about gender imbalance. But, she said, “there’s so much change left to be effected.”

    “Anybody reading the newspaper headlines since let’s just say the beginning of May would know that we’re still living in an oppressive patriarchy,” said Kazan. “That’s not special to our industry.”

    Judd added that, thanks to SAG-Aftra agreements, auditions no longer happen in hotel rooms. But she also made the point that something deeper has changed within women.

    “I have reframed the experiences that I have had to understand that they were, in fact, harassment and assault, when I had previously minimized them,” Judd said. “I think that the individual transformation a lot of us have had as a result of what Tarana started and as a result of this reporting, has allowed women’s consciousness to transform and to set boundaries and reclaim autonomy and say, ‘This is the up with which I will not put. This is the hill on which I’m willing to die.’ ”

    ———

    Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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  • NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

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    A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

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    Ad misleads on treaty regulating global arms trade

    CLAIM: President Joe Biden just announced that he is adding the U.S. as a signatory to the United Nations “Small Arms Treaty,” which would “establish an international gun control registry” in which other countries can “track the ‘end user’ of every rifle, shotgun, and handgun sold in the world.”

    THE FACTS: There is no “U.N. Small Arms Treaty.” A separate U.N. agreement, the Arms Trade Treaty, regulates the international trade of a range of weapons, but does not track domestic gun sales. The false claim about an “international gun control registry” was shared in a Facebook advertisement by a gun rights group stoking fears about threats to the Second Amendment. The group, the “American Firearms Association,” claims in its Facebook ad that Biden “has just announced that he is adding America as a signatory to the U.N. Small Arms Treaty, setting the stage for a full ratification vote in the U.S. Senate.” “The U.N. Small Arms Treaty would establish an international gun control registry, allowing Communist China, European socialists, and 3rd World dictators to track the ‘end user’ of every rifle, shotgun, and handgun sold in the world,” continues the post, which links to a petition asking for users’ contact information. The post calls on supporters of the Second Amendment to oppose the treaty. But there is no treaty called the “U.N. Small Arms Treaty,” and the treaty that is being referenced does not record private gun sales in any country, experts say. The actual treaty, the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, deals not only with small arms such as rifles and pistols, but battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships and more, the AP has reported. The U.N. in 2013 adopted the treaty to keep weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists and human rights violators. The treaty prohibits countries that ratify it from exporting conventional weapons if they violate arms embargoes, or if they promote acts of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes. It does encourage its parties to maintain national records regarding exports of conventional arms and says such records should include the “end user.” But that’s a recommendation about recording exports that a country makes to another country, not gun sales to individuals within a country, said Jennifer Erickson, an associate professor of political science and international studies at Boston College. Experts note that the treaty was written to explicitly make clear it has no bearing on domestic gun rights or sales. The treaty’s preamble, for example, states that the agreement is “Reaffirming the sovereign right of any State to regulate and control conventional arms exclusively within its territory, pursuant to its own legal or constitutional system.” The U.N. has “no gun control registry in terms of private ownership, whatsoever,” Erickson said. Erickson said the U.S. government already uses “end-use” monitoring by recording where it sends weapons. “There is only in the Arms Trade Treaty a focus on cross-border transfers, so not domestic sales or ownership,” said Rachel Stohl, vice president of research programs at the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan think tank focused on international security. “It’s really looking at sales between governments. And it applies to the entire range of conventional weapons, not just small arms and light weapons.” The U.S. signed the treaty in 2013, though the Senate never ratified it — which means the country is a signatory of the agreement, but not an official party and bound by it. In 2019, Trump announced that he was revoking the country’s status as a signatory, though that move was symbolic. The U.N. still lists the U.S. as a signatory to the treaty, though in a footnote online it acknowledges that, in a July 2019 communication, the U.S. said it did not intend to become a party to the treaty and that it has no legal obligations in relation to it. Contrary to the ad’s claim, Biden has not yet taken any action to reverse the U.S.’s public position on the treaty, Stohl said. An inquiry to one of the directors of the American Firearms Association was not immediately returned.

    — Associated Press writer Angelo Fichera in Philadelphia contributed this report.

    Baseless claims about safety of mRNA vaccines circulate online

    CLAIM: Humans and other mammals injected with an mRNA vaccine die within five years.

    THE FACTS: There is no scientific evidence to suggest humans or other mammals given an mRNA vaccine die within five years, experts told the AP. Social media users are reviving concerns that mRNA-based vaccines, including those that are used to combat COVID-19, are extremely deadly. “No mammal injected with mRNA has ever survived longer than 5 years. The die-off has begun,” one user on Twitter wrote in a post that’s been liked or shared more than 17,000 times. But there’s no scientific proof that the mRNA vaccination shortens life expectancy or has led to mass die offs in humans or other mammals since research began on them decades ago, experts told the AP “Nothing of the scale suggested has happened,” Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, chief of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, told the AP. “The vast majority of the millions who have been injected are doing just fine.” Vaccines utilizing messenger RNA, or mRNA, teach cells how to make a protein that will trigger an immune response that protects a person from becoming seriously ill from a disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The molecule was first discovered in the early 1960s and research into its uses in medical treatment progressed into the 1970s and 1980s, according to Johns Hopkins University’s School of Public Health. A flu vaccine based on mRNA was tested on mice in the 1990s, but the first vaccines for rabies and influenza weren’t tested on humans until recently. Kuritzkes said no deaths from those vaccines were reported in those trials. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of people worldwide have been inoculated against COVID-19 in the last couple of years and reports of death after vaccination remain rare. Healthcare providers are required to report any death after a COVID-19 shot to the federal government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), even if it’s unclear whether the vaccine was the cause. More than 600 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the U.S. from December 2020 through last week, according to the CDC. During that time, there have been more than 16,500 preliminary reports of death, or 0.0027% of those that have received a COVID-19 vaccine. Of those, the CDC has identified just nine deaths causally associated with rare blood clots caused by the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is not mRNA based like those produced by Pfizer and Moderna. Kuritzkes also notes that mRNA only lasts in the body for a short period of time before rapidly degrading, making it unlikely that it would cause long term effects. “The fact that we’re just now getting to the five-year mark for some of the earliest studies is not evidence that people die from the vaccines,” he said. “Just evidence that five years have yet to elapse for many trials. Sort of like saying nobody who voted in the 2020 presidential election has lived more than five years.”

    — Associated Press writer Philip Marcelo in New York contributed this report.

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    Video of traffic at the Finnish-Russian border misrepresented

    CLAIM: Video shows lines of cars waiting at the Russian-Finnish border after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilization of reservists on Wednesday amid the war in Ukraine.

    THE FACTS: The video was filmed at the Vaalimaa border crossing point between Russia and Finland on Aug. 29, weeks before Putin announced the partial mobilization of Russian reservists to Ukraine. Following Putin’s announcement, social media users misrepresented a video showing traffic at the border crossing point in Finland, about a three hour drive from St. Petersburg, Russia. The original video, which was posted to YouTube and TikTok on Sept. 19, shows a long line of cars at the border crossing point. Social media users then took the clip out of context, falsely claiming that it captured Russians fleeing to Finland. “#Breaking: just in – The traffic jam at the border with#Russia/#Finland has pilled up to 35KM and is rising by the hour, it is the only border who is still open for Russian civilians with shengen visas, after#Putin announced he will send 300.000 new troops to#Ukraine,” a tweet with more than 2.7 million views falsely claimed. Igor Parri, the TikTok user who posted the original video confirmed to The Associated Press in an email that he filmed it on Aug. 29. He sent the AP the original video to verify that he filmed it and noted that the video “was just depicting the quite typical line” at the border. The Finish border authority on Wednesday publicly responded to the claims circulating widely on social media, noting that traffic conditions at the border remained normal. “Situation at Finnish Russian border is normal, both at green border and in border traffic,” Matti Pitkäniitty, a senior official with the Finnish border authority wrote in a statement posted to Twitter. “Just talked to our officers in charge. There is normal queuing in border traffic…” Pitkäniitty then tweeted on Thursday that traffic from Russia was at a “higher level than usual,” but was comparable to weekend traffic. In a statement to reporters on Thursday, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said that the country was considering ways to reduce Russian transit to Finland, after Putin’s announcement. Putin’s announcement on Wednesday sparked anti-war demonstrations across the country that resulted in almost 1,200 arrests, the AP reported. Some Russians rushed to buy plane tickets to flee the country.

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    Florida ranks 48th in teacher pay, not 9th

    CLAIM: When the Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took office, Florida ranked 26th in the nation for teacher pay. Today the state ranks 9th in teacher pay.

    THE FACTS: Florida most recently ranked 48th in the nation in average public school teacher pay and was ranked 47th when DeSantis took office, according to the National Education Association, which compiles the data annually. The Florida Republican Party misled social media users this month when it posted on its verified Twitter and Facebook accounts that the state was among the best in the nation for teacher pay. “When Governor DeSantis took office Florida ranked 26th in the nation for teacher pay, today we are 9th,” the party wrote. “Every year he fights to ensure Florida teachers get the support and funding they need.” However, national salary data contradicts those numbers. The National Center for Education Statistics and several other online sources for such data get their salary information from the NEA, the nation’s largest teacher’s union, which compiles most of its data from state education departments. NEA data shows that in the 2018-2019 school year, when DeSantis entered office, Florida ranked 47th in the nation for average public school teacher pay, giving teachers an average annual salary of $48,314. It ranked 48th in the 2020-2021 school year, giving teachers an average of $51,009. The state is estimated to continue to rank 48th for the 2021-2022 school year, according to Staci Maiers, an NEA spokesperson. The governor’s press office in a news release in March touted the 9th-in-the-nation ranking, but referred to starting salary, rather than average teacher salary. “In 2020, the average starting salary for a teacher in Florida was $40,000 (26th in the nation), and with today’s funding, it will now be at least $47,000 (9th in the nation),” the release said. Those numbers also aren’t an exact match for the NEA’s data, which show that in the 2019-2020 school year, Florida ranked 29th in the nation for average public school teacher starting salary, according to Maiers. Estimates for the 2020-2021 school year show Florida ranking 16th in the nation on this benchmark. And based on the data from that school year, which is the most recent data available, a $47,000 starting salary would place Florida at 11th in the nation, not 9th. Cassandra Palelis, press secretary for the Florida Department of Education, explained that the press release from March featured previous data from the NEA, which was later updated. She said Florida’s estimated starting salary for the 2022-2023 school year is more than $48,000 per year, which would rank 9th in the nation according to NEA data. The Florida Republican Party didn’t respond to emailed requests for comment.

    — Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed this report.

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    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck

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    Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

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  • NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

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    A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

    ___

    Harris comments on addressing climate inequity misrepresented

    CLAIM: Vice President Kamala Harris said that Hurricane Ian relief will be distributed based on race, with communities of color receiving aid first.

    THE FACTS: Speaking at the Democratic National Committee’s Women’s Leadership Forum in Washington last week, Harris discussed distributing resources equitably to help vulnerable groups, such as communities of color, recover from disasters related to climate change. She did not describe the structure that would be used to allocate aid to victims of the recent hurricane. Widespread social media posts mischaracterized Harris’ comments during her conversation with actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas to claim she said communities of color would be prioritized in the distribution of relief for this storm. A Facebook video with a clip of Harris at the event on Sept. 29 alleged: “Kamala Harris tells hurricane victims in Florida they may not get aid because of their skin color?!” The video was viewed more than 211,000 times. The post refers to Harris’ response to a multipart question from Chopra Jonas in which she asked first about Hurricane Ian aid, and then, separately, about long-term efforts related to climate change. “Can you talk a little bit about the relief efforts, obviously, of Hurricane Ian and what the administration has been doing to address the climate crisis in the states?” Chopra Jonas asked, according to a full recording of the event. Chopra Jonas continued: “But — and just a little follow up, because this is important to me: We consider the global implications of emissions, right? The poorest countries are affected the most. They contributed the least and are affected the most. So how should voters in the U.S. feel about the administration’s long-term goals when it comes to being an international influencer on this topic?” Harris mentioned Hurricane Ian in passing, but did not talk about specific relief efforts the federal government would undertake. She instead referenced money allocated to address climate change in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and spoke about what she believes needs to be done to address the effects of climate change broadly, including the equitable distribution of resources. Pivoting to address the second part of Chopra Jonas’ question related to addressing disparities, Harris continued: “But also what we need to do to help restore communities and build communities back up in a way that they can be resilient — not to mention, adapt — to these extreme conditions, which are part of the future.” Harris then elaborated: “In particular on the disparities, as you have described rightly, which is that it is our lowest income communities and our communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions and impacted by issues that are not of their own making,” she said, adding: “We have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity, understanding that we fight for equality, but we also need to fight for equity; understanding that not everyone starts out at the same place. And if we want people to be in an equal place, sometimes we have to take into account those disparities and do that work.” Deputy White House Press Secretary Andrew Bates told the AP that claims Harris announced in this response that Ian aid would be race-based are “inaccurate.” He said Harris was discussing long-term goals for addressing climate change, having “explicitly moved on to answering the second question.” FEMA Director of Public Affairs Jaclyn Rothenberg also told the AP that claims the process will be race-based are false, and that Hurricane Ian aid will be given to all those affected by the storm. “The Vice President was talking about a different issue at that time and her comments were focused on long term climate investments,” she wrote in an email.

    — Associated Press writer Melissa Goldin in New York contributed this report.

    ___

    World Cup ‘rules’ graphic created by citizens group, not Qatari officials

    CLAIM: Qatar’s government created an infographic with instructions on how to behave during the 2022 World Cup, including rules that ban alcohol, homosexuality and dating.

    THE FACTS: The infographic being shared online ahead of the 2022 World Cup, which opens in Qatar next month, was not created or released by the government there, according to the state agency in charge of organizing the event. It was created by a Qatari citizens group and published on social media as part of a campaign called “Reflect Your Respect.” The graphic, shared on social media with claims that it listed official rules on how to behave in the Muslim-majority country during the event, states: “Qatar welcomes you! Reflect your respect to the religion and culture of Qatari people by avoiding these behaviors.” The poster cites eight specific examples, including “drinking alcohol, homosexuality, immodesty, profanity,” and not respecting places of worship. Playing loud music, dating and taking people’s pictures without permission are also noted. Images representing each of those areas are featured on the infographic and are covered by a circle with a slash through it. “Qatar’s rules for people who will attend the World Cup 2022 in the country,” a tweet with the infographic claimed. But the infographic does not reflect official policies from Qatar related to conduct during the World Cup, according to the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy, the state entity organizing the tournament. “The ‘Qatar Welcomes You’ graphic circulating on social media is not from an official source and contains factually incorrect information,” a committee spokesperson wrote in a statement to the AP. “We strongly urge fans and visitors to rely solely on official sources from tournament organisers for travel advice for this year’s FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.” Qatar is easing its stance on alcohol for the tournament. World Cup organizers have finalized a policy that would allow alcoholic beer to be served to fans inside stadiums and fan zones, the AP has reported. Qatari law calls for a prison sentence of one to three years for adults convicted of consensual gay or lesbian sex. Despite same-sex relationships being criminalized, the AP reported that Qatari officials insist that LGBTQ couples would be welcomed and accepted in Qatar for the World Cup, complying with FIFA rules promoting tolerance and inclusion. Still a senior leader overseeing security for the tournament told the AP earlier this year that rainbow flags may be taken away from fans to protect them from being attacked for promoting gay rights. Planners involved with Reflect Your Respect did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    ___

    No, COVID shots don’t change human DNA to a ‘triple helix’

    CLAIM: COVID-19 mRNA vaccines alter recipients’ DNA by changing its shape to a “triple helix.”

    THE FACTS: There is no evidence that the COVID-19 vaccines are editing humans’ DNA, experts have told the AP. The false claim, which has been shared repeatedly on social media, has surfaced again, this time in posts that allege the mRNA shots change DNA to a “triple helix.” DNA is made of two linked strands that appear like a twisted ladder, referred to as a double helix. RNA is closely related to DNA, and one type, called messenger RNA or mRNA, sends instructions to the cell for different purposes. The mRNA in the COVID-19 vaccines helps train the body to recognize a protein from the coronavirus to trigger an immune response. In one TikTok video that also appeared on Instagram, a woman claims: “The magic potion, if you actually read the patents, it is adding a triple helix.” Another Instagram video claims that “this new technology they came out with introduces a third strand, through mRNA messaging technology it actually breaks a strand and puts in a third strand, which creates a triple helix.” But the videos distort the science, experts said. The video attempts to back up its assertion by showing language from a Moderna patent application published in 2014 that at one point states: “According to the present invention, the nucleic acids, modified RNA or primary construct may be administered with, or further encode one or more of RNAi agents, siRNAs, shRNAs, miRNAs, miRNA binding sites, antisense RNAs, ribozymes, catalytic DNA, tRNA, RNAs that induce triple helix formation, aptamers or vectors, and the like.” But Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, chief of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told the AP the patent document was discussing RNA presenting as a triple helix, not changing humans’ DNA to a triple helix. “If you actually read the patent, it has nothing to do with forming a triple helix of the RNA therapeutic with the host DNA,” Kuritzkes said. It’s that the RNA molecule could theoretically form a triple helix, he said. For certain therapeutic applications, a triple helical RNA could be useful, he said. The patent was broad and not specific to Moderna’s eventual COVID-19 vaccine. “The messenger RNA from the vaccine does not form a triple helix, and it certainly doesn’t intercalate with the DNA to form a triple helix in any way,” Kuritzkes said. Experts emphasized that the mRNA in COVID-19 vaccines is not transforming humans’ DNA. “There is no mechanism for them to alter anyone’s DNA,” said Emily Bruce, an assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the University of Vermont. “It’s something that’s temporarily translated into protein and then the body gets rid of it.”

    — Associated Press writer Angelo Fichera in Philadelphia contributed this report.

    ___

    Inflation is worse than it was a year ago, despite online claims

    CLAIM: New data shows that inflation has dropped to half of what it was a year ago, marking a win for President Joe Biden.

    THE FACTS: While inflation has slowed in recent months, the latest government estimates show that prices are still higher in August 2022 than they were in August 2021. As steep consumer price hikes continue to strain Americans’ budgets, a tweet downplaying the severity of recent inflation spread online. “BREAKING: New data has dropped that inflation has dropped to half of what it was a year ago,” read the tweet, which amassed more than 28,000 likes. ”That’s a Biden Win!” The tweet’s claim isn’t supported by data, economists told the AP. While the Consumer Price Index, a measure of change in consumer prices and a common metric of inflation published by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, was up just 0.1% in August from July, the index is still up 8.3% since August 2021. “There is no hard evidence of either inflation falling sharply on a monthly basis, on a quarterly basis, on a semi-annual basis, on a yearly basis, or announcement of any substantial revision of official statistics,” said Alessandro Rebucci, an associate professor of economics at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. The Bureau of Labor Statistics did report that consumer prices increased 0.3% in August 2021 from July 2021, which is a higher monthly rate of change compared to the 0.1% monthly increase reported in August 2022. While the monthly change in consumer prices was lower in August 2022 than it was in August 2021, comparing those rates alone doesn’t accurately reflect how prices have changed during that 12-month timeframe, experts say. Lower gas prices slowed U.S. inflation for the second straight month in August, but most other prices kept rising, the AP reported. This jump in “core” prices, which exclude volatile food and energy costs, outpaced expectations and continues to pose a significant burden for U.S. households. “There’s still a fair amount of inflation embedded in the economy,” said Stephan Weiler, a professor of economics at Colorado State University, adding that Americans’ overall purchasing power has been reduced by 8.3%. The August CPI “basically means that things are getting more expensive,” said Yun Pei, an assistant professor of economics at the University at Buffalo. He characterized the idea that inflation has been halved over the last year as “clearly not true.”

    — Associated Press writer Josh Kelety in Phoenix contributed this report.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck

    ___

    Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

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  • Poll: Most in US say misinformation spurs extremism, hate

    Poll: Most in US say misinformation spurs extremism, hate

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    Americans from across the political spectrum say misinformation is increasing political extremism and hate crimes, according to a new poll that reflects broad and significant concerns about false and misleading claims ahead of next month’s midterm elections.

    About three-quarters of U.S. adults say misinformation is leading to more extreme political views and behaviors such as instances of violence based on race, religion or gender. That’s according to the poll from the Pearson Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

    “We’re at a point now where the misinformation is so bad you can trust very little of what you read in the media or social media,” said 49-year-old Republican Brett Reffeitt of Indianapolis, who participated in the survey. “It’s all about getting clicks, not the truth, and it’s the extremes that get the attention.”

    The Pearson Institute/AP-NORC survey shows that regardless of political ideology, Americans agree misinformation is leaving a mark on the country.

    Overall, 91% of adults say the spread of misinformation is a problem, with 74% calling it a major problem. Only 8% say misinformation isn’t a problem at all.

    Big majorities of both parties — 80% of Democrats and 70% of Republicans — say misinformation increases extreme political views, according to the survey. Similarly, 85% of Democrats and 72% of Republicans say misinformation increases hate crimes, including violence motivated by gender, religion or race.

    Overall, 77% of respondents think misinformation increases hate crimes, while 73% say it increases extreme political views.

    “This is not a sustainable course,” said independent Rob Redding, 46, of New York City. Redding, who is Black, said he fears misinformation will spur more political polarization and violent hate crimes. “People are in such denial about how dangerous and divisive this situation is.”

    About half say they believe misinformation leads people to become more politically engaged.

    Roughly 7 in 10 Americans say they are at least somewhat concerned that they have been exposed to misinformation, though less than half said they are that worried that they were responsible for spreading it.

    That’s consistent with previous polls that have found people are more likely to blame others than accept responsibility for the spread of misinformation.

    Half of U.S. adults also believe misinformation reduces trust in government.

    “Just because it’s on the internet doesn’t mean it’s true,” said 74-year-old Shirley Hayden, a Republican from Orange, Texas. “A lot of it is opinions and a lot of it is just troublemaking. I don’t believe any of it anymore.”

    The poll finds that Americans who rate misinformation as a major problem are more likely to say it contributes to extreme political beliefs and distrust of government than those who do not. They’re also more likely to try to reduce the spread of misinformation by running claims by multiple sources or fact-checking websites.

    Overall, roughly three-quarters of adults say they have decided not to share something on social media at least some of the time because they didn’t want to spread misinformation, including about half who do that most of the time. Similar percentages regularly check the sources of news they encounter and check other sources of information to ensure they’re not encountering misinformation.

    Only 28% of Americans consult fact-checking sites or tools “most of the time,” though an additional 35% do some of the time. About a third say they do so hardly ever or never.

    “My Facebook page is loaded with this stuff. I see it on TV. I see it everywhere,” 63-year-old Democrat Charles Lopez from the Florida Keys said of the misinformation he encounters. “Nobody does the research to find out if anything is fake or not.”

    Whether it’s lies about the 2020 election or the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, COVID-19 conspiracy theories or disinformation about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, online misinformation has been blamed for increased political polarization, distrust of institutions and even real-world violence.

    The spread of misinformation in recent decades has coincided with the rise of social media and declines in traditional, often local journalism outlets.

    The results of the Pearson Institute/AP-NORC poll didn’t surprise Alex Mahadevan, director of MediaWise, a media literacy initiative launched by the Poynter Institute that works to equip individuals with defenses in the fight against misinformation.

    “You have uncertainty, polarization, the decline of local news: it’s a perfect storm that’s created a flood of misinformation,” Mahadevan said.

    People can teach themselves how to spot misinformation and avoid falling for dubious claims, according to Helen Lee Bouygues, founder and president of the Paris-based Reboot Foundation, which researches and promotes critical thinking in the internet age.

    First, rely on a variety of trusted, established sources for news and fact checks, Bouygues said.

    She also encouraged people to double-check claims that seem designed to play on emotions like anger or fear, and to think twice about reposting content that relies on loaded language, personal attacks or false comparisons.

    “There are steps people can take — simple steps — to protect themselves,” Bouygues said.

    Lopez, the survey respondent from Florida, said he has lost friends after pushing back on misinformation they posted online and that new laws are needed to force tech companies to do more to address misinformation. Maybe that will happen, he said, if voters can pierce the fog of misinformation ahead of next month’s election.

    “You can always have hope,” Lopez said. “We’ll see what happens after this election. You may want to call me back then.”

    ___

    Associated Press writer Nuha Dolby in New York contributed to this report.

    ___

    The poll of 1,003 adults was conducted Sep. 9-12 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.

    ___

    Follow the AP’s coverage of misinformation at https://apnews.com/hub/misinformation.

    Learn more about the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research at www.apnorc.org.

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  • Police: Missing Georgia toddler believed dead, mom a suspect

    Police: Missing Georgia toddler believed dead, mom a suspect

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    A Georgia toddler reported missing by his mother last week is believed to be dead, according to police, and his mother has been named a suspect in the boy’s death

    SAVANNAH, Ga. — A Georgia toddler reported missing by his mother last week is believed to be dead, according to police, and his mother has been named a suspect in the boy’s death.

    In a tweet late Wednesday, the Chatham County Police Department said, “We are saddened to report that CCPD and the FBI have notified Quinton Simon’s family that we believe he is deceased. We have named his mother, Leilani Simon, as the prime suspect in his disappearance and death.”

    No arrests have been made and no charges have been filed, the tweet said.

    Simon told officers on Oct. 5 that her 20-month-old son Quinton had been in his playpen before she discovered he was missing, Chatham County Police Chief Jeff Hadley said then.

    Police fanned out across a neighborhood just outside Savannah to search for the toddler, described as last seen wearing a Sesame Street T-shirt and black pants. Hours later he still had not been found.

    “We’re very concerned about Quinton,” Hadley told reporters at the time. “We’re hoping we can find him safe and bring him home to his parents.”

    The police chief said officers had contacted the boy’s biological father and did not believe he was involved. Officers also performed a cursory search of the child’s home but didn’t find him hiding inside, he added.

    No Amber Alert was issued for the missing boy, Hadley said, because that would require police to first determine the child had been abducted.

    Hadley will hold a news conference Thursday to discuss the case.

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  • NBC reporter’s comment about Fetterman draws criticism

    NBC reporter’s comment about Fetterman draws criticism

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    NEW YORK — An NBC News correspondent who interviewed Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman says an on-air remark she made about him having difficulty following part of their conversation should not be seen as a commentary on his fitness for office after he suffered a stroke.

    But reporter Dasha Burns’ comment that Fetterman appeared to have trouble understanding small talk prior to their interview has attracted attention — and Republicans have retweeted it as they seek an advantage in the closely followed Senate race between Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz.

    Fetterman, a Democrat, suffered a stroke on May 13, and his health has emerged as a major issue in the campaign.

    Burns’ Friday interview with Fetterman, which aired Tuesday, was his first on-camera interview since his stroke. He used a closed-captioning device that printed text of Burns’ questions on a computer screen in front of him.

    Fetterman appeared to have little trouble answering the questions after he read them, although NBC showed him fumbling for the word “empathetic.” Burns said that when the captioning device was off, “it wasn’t clear he was understanding our conversation.”

    “This is just nonsense,” business reporter and podcaster Kara Swisher, who had a stroke herself in 2011, said on Twitter. “Maybe this reporter is just bad at small talk.”

    Swisher recently conducted an interview with Fetterman for her podcast and said, “I was really quite impressed with how well he’s doing. Everyone can judge for themselves.” Swisher has called attacks on Fetterman because of his health “appalling.”

    A New York magazine reporter, Rebecca Traister, who interviewed the candidate for a cover story titled “The Vulnerability of John Fetterman,” tweeted that his “comprehension is not at all impaired. He understands everything. It’s just that he reads it and responds in real time … It’s a hearing/auditory challenge.”

    Burns said she understands that different reporters had different experiences with Fetterman.

    “Our reporting did not and should not comment on fitness for office,” Burns tweeted on Wednesday. “This is for voters to decide. What we push for as reporters is transparency. It’s our job.”

    Stories about the interview aired on “NBC Nightly News” and the “Today” show.

    Fetterman, 53, has been silent about releasing medical records or allowing reporters to question his doctors. He’s been receiving speech therapy and released a letter in June from his cardiologist, who said he will be fine and able to serve in the Senate if he eats healthy foods, takes prescribed medication and exercises.

    Problems with understanding and using language are common in recovering stroke victims, said Kevin Sheth, director of the Yale University Center for Brain and Mind Health. Some completely recover, some have continued impairments, he said.

    “There is an arc to the trajectory of recovery that varies from person to person,” Sheth said.

    But he cautioned that, without an examination, people should not make judgments about Fetterman’s condition based on his use of a language-assistance device.

    Burns’ statement about Fetterman has already been tweeted by political opponents, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Republican National Committee.

    The conservative website Townhall.com tweeted Burns’ quote, without making clear she had been referring to small talk and not the interview itself.

    Doug Andres, press secretary for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, tweeted that it was weird to see liberals attack a reporter for doing her job.

    “It’s almost like that whole thing about respecting and trusting the media is only true when it’s convenient for them,” he wrote.

    Swisher said in her podcast that her mother, a Pennsylvania resident, told her she didn’t think Fetterman should be in the U.S. Senate after suffering a stroke — even though her own daughter had recovered from one.

    Swisher said producers of the podcast refrained from cleaning up Fetterman’s interview — such as removing extraneous phrases like “um” or “you know” — so listeners could get an unvarnished view of how Fetterman responded to questions.

    In the podcast, Fetterman had little trouble with the word “empathy.”

    “Listen to the interview,” Swisher tweeted this week. “Even my rabidly GOP mother had to admit she was wrong.”

    ———

    Associated Press correspondent Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.

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  • Infowars host Alex Jones ordered by Connecticut jury to pay $965 million over Sandy Hook ‘hoax’ claims

    Infowars host Alex Jones ordered by Connecticut jury to pay $965 million over Sandy Hook ‘hoax’ claims

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    WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) — The conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should pay $965 million to people who suffered from his false claim that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax, a jury in Connecticut decided Wednesday.

    The verdict is the second big judgment against the Infowars host over his relentless promotion of the lie that the 2012 massacre never happened, and that the grieving families seen in news coverage were actors hired as part of a plot to take away people’s guns.

    It came in a lawsuit filed by the relatives of five children and three educators killed in the mass shooting, plus an FBI agent who was among the first responders to the scene. A Texas jury in August awarded nearly $50 million to the parents of another slain child.

    “ Experts testified that Jones’s audience swelled when he made Sandy Hook a topic on the show, as did his revenue from product sales. ”

    The Connecticut trial featured tearful testimony from parents and siblings of the victims, who told about how they were threatened and harassed for years by people who believed the lies told on Jones’s show.

    Strangers showed up at their homes to record them. People hurled abusive comments on social media. Erica Lafferty, the daughter of slain Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung, testified that people mailed rape threats to her house.

    Mark Barden told of how conspiracy theorists had urinated on the grave of his 7-year-old son, Daniel, and threatened to dig up the coffin.

    Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis discusses a question from the jury with attorneys on Tuesday.


    H. John Voorhees III/Hearst Connecticut Media/AP

    Testifying during the trial, Jones acknowledged he had been wrong about Sandy Hook. The shooting was real, he said. But both in the courtroom and on his show, he was defiant.

    He called the proceedings a “kangaroo court,” mocked the judge, called the plaintiffs’ lawyer an ambulance chaser and labeled the case an affront to free speech rights. He claimed it was a conspiracy by Democrats and the media to silence him and put him out of business. “I’ve already said ‘I’m sorry’ hundreds of times, and I’m done saying I’m sorry,” he said during his testimony.

    Twenty children and six adults died in the shooting on Dec. 14, 2012. The defamation trial was held at a courthouse in Waterbury, about 20 miles from Newtown, where the attack took place.

    The lawsuit accused Jones and Infowars’ private parent company, Free Speech Systems, of using the mass killing to build his audience and make millions of dollars.

    Experts testified that Jones’s audience swelled when he made Sandy Hook a topic on the show, as did his revenue from product sales.

    Don’t miss: Alex Jones’s audience and Infowars’ revenue grew as Jones alleged Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax

    Also: Alex Jones has created a ‘living hell’ of harassment and death threats, testify Sandy Hook school parents

    In both the Texas lawsuit and the one in Connecticut, judges found the company liable for damages by default after Jones failed to cooperate with court rules on sharing evidence, including failing to turn over records that might have showed whether Infowars had profited from knowingly spreading misinformation about mass killings.

    See: Texas jury orders Alex Jones to pay more than $49 million in damages in Sandy Hook case

    Because he was already found liable, Jones was barred from mentioning free-speech rights and other topics during his testimony.

    Jones now faces a third trial, in Texas around the end of the year, in a lawsuit filed by the parents of another child killed in the shooting.

    It is unclear how much of the verdicts Jones can afford to pay.

    During the trial in Texas, he testified he couldn’t afford any judgment over $2 million. Free Speech Systems has filed for bankruptcy protection. But an economist testified in the Texas proceeding that Jones and his company were worth as much as $270 million.

    Read on: Alex Jones’s Infowars picks new CRO for bankruptcy

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  • TikTok going big on US e-commerce? Job listings offer clues

    TikTok going big on US e-commerce? Job listings offer clues

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    NEW YORK — TikTok appears to be deepening its foray into e-commerce with plans to operate its own U.S. warehouses, the kind of packing and shipping facilities more associated with Amazon or Walmart than the social media platform best known for addictive short videos.

    In the past two weeks, TikTok has posted several job listings on LinkedIn looking for candidates to help it develop and grow its “Fulfillment by TikTok Shop” in the U.S. to accommodate sellers using the app. According to the listings, TikTok plans to provide warehousing, delivery and item return options to sellers.

    A company spokesperson declined to comment on TikTok’s e-commerce plans in the U.S.

    But the U.S. job listings offer a window into a possible U.S. e-commerce expansion. In some listings, TikTok says it is looking for a candidate who can manage a free return program, plan how to move inventory from one warehouse or business to another, and develop its fulfillment service in the U.S. In another listing for a position in Seattle, the company refers to a global e-commerce team and a team member who will be responsible for building a global warehousing network, signaling its plans could be much larger.

    “The e-commerce industry has seen tremendous growth in recent years and has become a hotly contested space amongst leading Internet companies, and its future growth cannot be underestimated,” the company wrote in the job listings. “With millions of loyal users globally, we believe TikTok is an ideal platform to deliver a brand new and better e-commerce experience to our users.”

    Axios first reported on the job postings.

    Shopping on social media sites, known as social commerce, is a $37 billion market in the U.S., led by Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, according to Insider Intelligence. ByteDance, the Beijing-based company that owns TikTok, already runs a thriving social media marketplace on Douyin, its twin video app for the Chinese market. The TikTok spokesperson said the company is focused on “providing merchants with a range of product features and delivery options” in places it currently has e-commerce programs, such as Southeast Asia and the United Kingdom.

    Insider Intelligence projects about 23.7 million U.S. shoppers are expected to make at least one purchase through TikTok this year by using affiliated links or conducting a transaction on the platform itself.

    Some of those sales are already having an effect. Communities such as #BookTok, a corner of TikTok devoted to literature and reading, has been credited with driving a spike in the sales of print romance books this year. To accommodate more purchases on its app, TikTok said last summer it would partner with the Canadian e-commerce company Shopify to allow users to buy items directly on the app.

    TikTok has been intensifying competition with Meta and other rivals, luring younger users — as well as popular influencers — from YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. The site’s bite-sized, entertaining clips are served up by an algorithm that often seems to know what people want before they do.

    The results are difficult to ignore. In July, Meta posted its first revenue decline in history, due in part to competition from TikTok. YouTube, meanwhile, recently said it would make the creators of short-form videos eligible to join its revenue-sharing program. Previously, YouTube only allowed revenue sharing for longer videos.

    Compared to digital advertising, ecommerce is a tiny source of revenue for Meta, and will likely be for TikTok for the foreseeable future. At the same time, TikTok executives are likely looking to broaden the company’s revenue sources beyond ads — a market dominated in the U.S. by Meta and Alphabet, which owns YouTube and Google.

    Neil Saunders, managing director for GlobalData Retail, said TikTok’s reach and influence are helping it become a powerful force in advertising and sales and building out that capability with warehouses and other facilities would enable it to offer a complete service.

    “This would both be an additional revenue stream and would improve the quality of the shopping experience for consumers,” Saunders said. But a serious move into warehousing would be an expensive undertaking, and TikTok would face established competitors in the likes of Amazon and Walmart.

    “However, TikTok has a massive audience and a massive customer base, so it has more than enough demand for this to make sense,” Saunders said. “Provided TikTok maintains its popularity it could pose a threat to incumbents and prove to be a highly disruptive force.”

    Others are taking a different tone.

    “It’s idiotic,” said Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter. “They have no chance of competing and it is a complete waste of money and time.”

    ——————

    Associated Press writer Barbara Ortutay in San Francisco contributed to this report.

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  • Judge keeps slain Vegas reporter’s files protected, for now

    Judge keeps slain Vegas reporter’s files protected, for now

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    LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas police, prosecutors and defense attorneys must wait to access a slain investigative journalist’s cellphone and electronic devices, over concerns about revealing the reporter’s confidential sources and notes, a judge said Tuesday.

    Clark County District Court Judge Susan Johnson said the pause will last until all sides craft a way for a neutral party to screen the records.

    The judge granted a Las Vegas Review-Journal request to block immediate review of the records, which are expected to include source names and notes by reporter Jeff German.

    Police and prosecutors say they need access to German’s records for evidence that Robert “Rob” Telles, a former Democratic elected county official, fatally stabbed German on Sept. 2 in response to articles German wrote that were critical of Telles and his managerial conduct.

    The newspaper — with backing from dozens of media organizations including The Associated Press and The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press — maintains that confidential information, names and unpublished material are protected from disclosure under state and federal law.

    Telles, 45, the Clark County public administrator, was arrested Sept. 7 and remains jailed without bail on a murder charge. Authorities say surveillance video, Telles’ DNA on German’s body and evidence found at Telles’ home connect him to the killing.

    Johnson acknowledged that because it is rare for U.S. journalists to be killed allegedly because of their work, there was little legal precedent that could be followed to allow investigators to search German’s files.

    German, 69, was widely respected for his tenacity and confidential contacts in 44 years of reporting on organized crime, government corruption, political scandals and mass shootings — first at the Las Vegas Sun and then at the Review-Journal.

    Attorney David Chesnoff, representing the Review-Journal, said the judge needs to balance First Amendment rights of the media with the interests of police and prosecutors. He also acknowledged Telles’ defense team’s constitutional right to access to information about German’s killing, including identities of other people who might have had a motive to attack him.

    “It will have a long-term and chilling effect on sources and journalists receiving information from sources,” Chesnoff said, “if it’s OK to kill a journalist so that then everything that journalist dedicated himself to” can be exposed. “That would be outrageous,” he said.

    The Review-Journal argues that police should never have seized German’s cellphone, computers and hard drive. It cites Nevada’s so-called “news shield law” — among the strictest in the U.S. — along with federal Privacy Protection Act and First Amendment safeguards.

    “We are dealing with something unique,” the judge observed from the bench. “Everybody in this room is probably on his phone as far as a contact, right? I may be in his contact list.”

    Johnson said Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department homicide detectives should have access to relevant electronic information. She said German’s files and contact lists could first be reviewed by a three-person team appointed by the court.

    “I’m leaning toward two trusted Metro officers that are higher-ups,” along with a respected former U.S. magistrate judge, Johnson said. She set an Oct. 19 date for ruling and added that she “wouldn’t be horrified” if the seven-member Nevada Supreme Court reviewed her decision to provide guidance about how to proceed.

    Chesnoff, with Ashley Kissinger also representing the Review-Journal and media, said there was no way to know who in Las Vegas police ranks had ties to the slain reporter. Chesnoff urged Johnson to enlist police investigators from outside Las Vegas for the review panel.

    Attorney Matthew Christian, representing the police department, acknowledged the issue might need state high court review.

    But Las Vegas police “have a duty to run down a complete investigation, and the victim’s devices are always part of that,” he said.

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  • Apple-Apps-Top-10

    Apple-Apps-Top-10

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    The top 10 apps on the Apple Store for week ending10/09/2022

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  • Memorial at New Hampshire church honors slain journalist

    Memorial at New Hampshire church honors slain journalist

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    A stone memorial for slain journalist James Foley stands near flowers, Sunday, Oct. 9, 2022, outside St. Katharine Drexel Church, in Alton, N.H. Foley, a freelance journalist, was among a group of Westerners brutally murdered in Islamic State captivity in Syria in 2014. He grew up in Wolfeboro and attended St. Katharine Drexel Church in Alton, where the memorial was unveiled Sunday. (Photo/Rosemary Sullivan via AP)

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  • Uvalde school superintendent announces retirement

    Uvalde school superintendent announces retirement

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    UVALDE, Texas — The superintendent of the Texas school district where a gunman killed 19 elementary school students and two teachers last May announced his retirement Monday, according to his wife’s Facebook page.

    In the statement posted to Donna Goates Harrell’s Facebook page, Uvalde school Superintendent Hal Harrell said he would remain in office throughout this school year until the school board hires his successor.

    After an executive session, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District board unanimously voted Monday night to begin a search immediately for Harrell’s successor.

    The Facebook posting was first reported by CNN. The superintendent asked his wife “to post this message since he doesn’t have Facebook.”

    Harrell, the Uvalde school board and other school district officials have faced heavy criticism over the May 24 Robb Elementary School massacre in which officers allowed a shooter with an AR-15-style rifle to remain in a fourth-grade classroom for more than 70 minutes.

    “My heart was broken on May 24th and I will always pray for each precious life that was tragically taken and their families,” the Facebook post said.

    “My wife and I love you all and this community that we both grew up in, therefore this decision was a difficult one for us. I have been blessed to work among amazing educators and staff who believe in education for more than 30 years, which have all been in our beautiful community. These next steps for our future are being taken after much reflection, and is completely my choice,” Harrell said in the post.

    “I am truly grateful for your support and well wishes,” Harrell said.

    The announcement came a week after Uvalde school district officials suspended the entire school district police force. That move came a day after the district fired a former state trooper after she was revealed to have not only been on the Robb Elementary School campus during the May attack as a Texas state trooper but was also under investigation over her actions that day.

    That the developments all came one month into the new school year in the South Texas community underscores the sustained pressure that families of some of the 19 children and two teachers killed earlier this year have kept on the district.

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  • Kanye West’s Twitter, Instagram locked over offensive posts

    Kanye West’s Twitter, Instagram locked over offensive posts

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    Kanye West’s Twitter and Instagram accounts have been locked because of posts by the rapper, now known legally as Ye, that were widely deemed antisemitic.

    A Twitter spokesperson said Sunday that Ye posted a message that violated its policies.

    In a tweet sent late Saturday, Ye said he would soon go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE,” according to internet archive records. That’s an apparent reference to the U.S. military readiness condition scale known as DEFCON.

    In the same tweet, which was removed by Twitter, he said: “You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”

    Earlier this month, Ye had been criticized for wearing a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt to his collection at Paris Fashion Week.

    Rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs posted a video on Instagram saying he didn’t support the shirt, and urged people not to buy it.

    On Instagram, Ye posted a screenshot of a text conversation with Diddy and suggested he was controlled by Jewish people, according to media reports.

    Ye’s account on Instagram was locked Friday for policy violations, according to media reports. Spokespeople for Instagram’s parent company, Meta Platforms, didn’t immediately respond to a request to confirm the reports.

    Under their policies, the two social networks prohibit the posting of offensive language. Ye’s Twitter account is still active but he can’t post until the suspension ends, after an unspecified period.

    Ye had returned to Twitter on Saturday following a nearly two-year hiatus, reportedly after Instagram locked his account.

    Billionaire Elon Musk, who last week renewed his $44 billion offer to buy Twitter following a monthslong legal battle with the company, greeted Ye’s return to the platform before his suspension by tweeting “Welcome back to Twitter, my friend.”

    Musk has said he would remake Twitter into a free speech haven and relax restrictions, although it’s impossible to know precisely how he would run the influential network if he were to take over.

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  • Bradley Cooper – Please Don’t Make The Hyperion Cantos

    Bradley Cooper – Please Don’t Make The Hyperion Cantos

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    You are reading this for the wrong reason. Thus begins Volume Three of the legendary four-part work The Hyperion Cantos, by word wizard Dan Simmons. I quote this line at the outset to emphasize that I have nothing against Bradley Cooper. In fact, I’m a fan who admires him for his guts as an actor and director. I am writing because I believe that a film (or series of films) is the wrong medium for the Cantos and would reduce and constrain our imaginative opportunity. I believe it is a work that

    should be left alone as one for the ages to be read (and perhaps listened to, more about which shortly). In a larger sense, my objection invites us to reconsider the question of how medium and story should best fit together.

    Allow me to expand. For those of you who don’t know, the Hyperion Cantos is a four-volume saga equal in scope, moral force and sheer entertainment value to The Lord of the Rings. If you haven’t read it, stop and order it right away. It is a virtuoso mashup of hard science fiction, mythology, a profound love story, thoughts about the future of the human/AI relationship, organized religion and more. It is a philosophical tract on what it means to be human, a deep exploration of power and politics, an almost lyrical future military history, a meditation on leadership, art, poetry and more. You get the idea.

    I have now read the four volumes from cover to cover twice and keep coming back to their expansive universe with fresh curiosity and unanswered questions. Not all of their meanings can be easily digested in a single reading.

    Recently I added listening to reading via the Audible versions of the Cantos. I was mesmerized by the superb artistry of narrator Victor Bevine and his ability to bring complicated characters to life. In reading, one is tempted to rush ahead, to find out what happens next. In contrast, my spoken word experience was more conducive to savoring and reflecting because it slowed down the experience and enabled a different pace of digestion. Most importantly, hearing the voices of the characters allowed room for my imagination while luxuriating in the primal experience of being read to.

    Thus I got worried when I heard rumblings of an effort to develop the Cantos into a film(s) at Warner Brothers, driven by no less a member of Hollywood royalty than Bradley Cooper. Having been around the film business and produced a couple of feature films myself, I can certainly appreciate how producers go into heat when they sense a Dune-like epic that can ring the cash registers with multiple sequels, prequels, and spinoffs (not to mention the merch).

    But I say don’t do it. Making this film will reduce the impact of this timeless narrative and its characters. Film condenses in a way that can severely constrain the imagination. Let’s first do a bit of simple math, The four books weigh in at 2046 pages. Assuming an average reading pace of a page a minute, we’re talking 34.1 hours of reading. And the Audible versions clock in at a whopping 95 hours! Lots of room for the imagination to take flight. To reflect, digest, learn, weep, rejoice. In contrast, a film occupies somewhere between two and three hours. Draw your own conclusions.

    There are times when I want a gifted film-maker to take my imagination along for a ride, regardless of the source material. I’m glad that I read The Lord of the Rings

    before seeing the movies, but Peter Jackson’s version stands out as faithful to this beloved work. The current Rings of Power on the other hand travels a lesser road IMHO, sacrificing depth for plot points. And that’s where the risk lies.

    Frankly, I don’t want to see the Cantos brought to earth by the latest clever casting decisions involving flavor-of-the-month actors. I don’t want to see Hollywood’s version of massive space battles. I don’t want to see the subtleties of human/AI interaction reduced to digital FX. Film is literally reductive; it’s someone else’s imagination on the screen for you to experience. For example, I read Dune when it first came out. Now I

    see Oscar Isaac whenever I reflect on the travails of Duke Leto, and that’s OK for me. When the film craft is good, all is forgiven. When it is mediocre (or the budgets are limited), the imagination suffers.

    Leave me alone, Bradley Cooper. This project is too big to have any chance of being faithful to the original. Let me hang out in the Cantos in my own way, warmed by the words of Dan Simmons who ought to someday get a Nobel Prize for narrative imagination. Let me savor characters who have become my friends through Victor Bevine’s narration. Leave me alone with my own imagination to bring the words – written and spoken – to life. I don’t need someone else’s imagination to hitch a ride to this galaxy. Leave me alone. Don’t disempower my imagination. Don’t take away my ability to dream.

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    John Kao, Contributor

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  • Mississippi day care employees fired over viral videos

    Mississippi day care employees fired over viral videos

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    HAMILTON, Miss. — State regulators are investigating after a video showing four day care employees scaring children at a facility in an unincorporated northeast Mississippi community went viral on social media.

    The videos on Facebook show a day care worker at Lil’ Blessings Child Care & Learning Center in Hamilton wearing a Halloween mask and yelling at children who didn’t “clean up” or “act good.”

    Children can be seen and heard crying and, at times, running away from the employee wearing the mask while another employee gives directions about which children acted good or bad. The employee in the mask is shown screaming inches away from children’s faces at times.

    Sheila Sanders, who has owned the business for the past 20 years, said she was unaware of the videos until Wednesday afternoon, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reported.

    Sanders said one video was filmed in September and another on Tuesday. “No one came forth to tell me it happened in September,” she said.

    The behavior shown by her former employees in the video, she said, isn’t tolerated.

    “I contacted my licensure, and she has gotten involved,” Sanders said. “The people that did those acts are no longer with us. They were fired. I wasn’t here at the time and wasn’t aware they were doing that. I don’t condone that and never have. I just want to say it’s been taken care of.”

    The Mississippi State Department of Health and the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office are investigating. Liz Sharlot, director of communications at the state health department, confirmed the investigation.

    Thursday morning, parents reacted to the videos as they dropped off their children for care, expressing their support for the facility.

    “I know 100% that Ms. Sheila, the owner and director, was not aware of this situation that was going on and as soon as she found out, all parties were terminated immediately,” said Kimberly Smith, whose child can be seen in one of the videos. “The witch hunt that has been going on for her and the other ones still here, it really needs to stop. Was the situation that did happen horrible? Absolutely. But should this daycare be shut down and others be villainized that are still here, absolutely not.”

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