Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Jury ordered Jones to pay $965m in damages to families subjected to harassment from Jones’s lies about Newtown school shooting
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has asked a Connecticut judge to throw out a nearly $1bn verdict against him and order a new trial in a lawsuit by Sandy Hook families, who say they were subjected to harassment and threats from Jones’s lies about the 2012 Newtown school shooting.
Jones filed the requests Friday, saying Judge Barbara Bellis’s pretrial rulings resulted in an unfair trial and “a substantial miscarriage of justice”.
Randy Cox was arrested by Connecticut law enforcement and en route a detention center when he was knocked against a van wall
A man who was left partially paralyzed while in police custody has had all criminal charges against him dropped.
On 19 June, 36-year-old Randy Cox of New Haven, Connecticut, was arrested on charges of illegal handgun possession. Cox was put into a police transport van without any seatbelts and was en route to a detention center when the officer behind the wheel, Oscar Diaz, suddenly braked. Video footage released by Cox’s family and published by CNN shows a handcuffed Cox sliding across the bench and hitting the van’s wall with his head.
Verdict is second big judgment against Infowars host over promotion of the lie that the 2012 massacre never happened
The conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should pay $965m to people who suffered from his false claim that the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting was a hoax, a jury in Connecticut decided on 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.
Democrats select progressive Becca Balint for Vermont House seat while Trump-backed candidate nominated for Wisconsin governor
Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a member of the select progressive group in the House of Representative dubbed the Squad, eked out a closer-than-expected Democratic primary victory on Tuesday night against a centrist challenger who questioned the incumbent’s support for the “defund the police” movement.
The evening went far smoother for another progressive, Becca Balint, who won the Democratic House primary in Vermont – positioning her to become the first woman representing the state in Congress.
Jones ordered to pay $4.1m for defaming Sandy Hook parents by claiming shooting was a hoax, but could be forced to pay more
A financial expert testifying for the parents of a child killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting has estimated that Alex Jones and his media company are worth between $135m and $240m as they seek punitive damages beyond the $4.1m they secured a day ago for the US conspiracy theorist’s falsehoods about the massacre.
The expert, Bernard Pettingill, said from the witness stand in an Austin courtroom that Jones and his Free Speech Systems company earned more than $50m annually between 2016 to 2021 – even as popular social media companies banned him from promoting himself through them – due to his “rabid following” of millions.
Work by Francis Hines, who wrapped buildings and paintings and died at 96 in 2016, found in dumpster and now destined for sale
Paintings and other artwork found in an abandoned barn in Connecticut turned out to be worth millions of dollars.
Notified by a contractor, Jared Whipple, a mechanic from Waterbury, retrieved the dirt-covered pieces from a dumpster which contained materials from a barn in Watertown.
Philadelphia, New York and Boston in path of storm
Flooding, high winds and cold weather expected
A nor’easter with hurricane-force wind gusts battered much of the US east coast on Saturday, flinging heavy snow that made travel treacherous or impossible, flooding coastlines and threatening to leave bitter cold in its wake.
The storm thrashed parts of 10 states, with blizzard warnings from Virginia to Maine. Philadelphia and New York saw plenty of wind and snow, but Boston was in the crosshairs. The city could get more than 2ft of snow by early Sunday.
The US death toll from Hurricane Ida rose towards 60 on Saturday, nearly a week after one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the US mainland made landfall in Louisiana. Two more evacuated nursing home residents were confirmed to have died in the southern state.
Deaths and damage spanned huge areas in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Maryland
The death toll from floods and tornadoes in the US north-east rose past 40 on Thursday, as authorities continued to digest the full impact of the remnants of Hurricane Ida.
Ida struck Louisiana last Sunday, knocking out power to the city of New Orleans and causing deaths in that state and Mississippi.
National Hurricane Center says storm to slow down further and likely stall near Connecticut-New York line
The slow-rolling storm Henri was taking its time drenching the US north-east on Monday.
Henri, which made landfall as a tropical storm on Sunday afternoon in Rhode Island, had moved north-west through Connecticut. It hurled rain westward far before its arrival, flooding areas as far south-west as New Jersey before pelting north-east Pennsylvania, even as it dropped to tropical depression status.
Biden says storm has ‘potential for widespread consequences’
Inland rainfall seen as major threat in north-east states
Tropical Storm Henri made landfall in Rhode Island on Sunday, packing high winds and heavy rains that were projected to leave devastation from New Jersey and New York up to Massachusetts.
Forecasters predict landfall in New York or Connecticut
New England has not been hit by hurricane since 1991
Preparations for a monster storm forecast to hit parts of the US north-east were stepped up on Saturday after Henri was promoted to a hurricane as it moved closer to land.
In New York, Andrew Cuomo used his last hours as governor to direct the state response, declaring a state of emergency in some areas and telling residents: “If you have to get to higher ground, it has to be today.”
Expansion will stretch hundreds miles and is fiercely opposed by numerous groups – but despite repeated calls the Canadian government has not forced the pipeline reveal its insurers
Nestled in the harbors of Vancouver, the Tsleil-Waututh Nation has lived for thousands of years within an inlet set against the mountain views of the Pacific north-west.
But across the water from Tsleil-Waututh Nation’s reserve, less than 2km away, or a little over a mile, is a jarring juxtaposition: an industrial terminal for the large Trans Mountain oil pipeline.
Conspiracy theorist was fighting Connecticut court sanction in defamation lawsuit brought by relatives of victims of the shooting
The US supreme court on Monday declined to hear an appeal by the Infowars host, Trump ally and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was fighting a Connecticut court sanction in a defamation lawsuit brought by relatives of some victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting.
Large section of Hole in the Wall Gang Camp destroyed
Camp set up by film star to support children with limitations
A fire on Friday evening destroyed a large section of Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in Connecticut, a long-established haven for seriously ill children.
Officials in the nearby town of Ashford said they responded to an alarm and arrived to find a large fire in the main camp building, which resembles an old western town and was reportedly inspired by the late actor’s role in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
British-born comic abused city in recent segment on juries
Mayor says plant is ‘full of crap just like you, John’
Officials in Danbury, Connecticut, say they will name their sewage plant after the comedian John Oliver, in retaliation for an expletive-filled rant about the city on his HBO show.
Joe Biden assailed Donald Trump in a pair of virtual events in Wisconsin, calling him “a destroyer of everything he touches.”
“All he’s ever done is hollow out what really matters and then slap a gold sign on a flimsy foundation,” Biden said during the virtual rally in the battleground state.
“Donald Trump claimed he would fight for the forgotten man, the working class,” the former vice president continued. “But as soon as he got into office, he forgot them.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Biden held a virtual roundtable with Wisconsin congressman Ron Kind and community advocates who spoke about the challenges facing rural Americans during the epidemic.
During the back and forth, Biden, referring to federal funding to combat the economic fallout from the virus, said: “Not one more penny should go to a Fortune 500 company. Period. Period. They don’t need it.”
“Among the speakers at the “rally” was Wisconsin senator Tammy Baldwin, who has been mentioned as a possible vice presidential nominee after she won re-election in 2018. Biden called her a “true champion for Wisconsin, a true leader.” Biden has been ramping up his virtual campaign schedule in recent weeks. Earlier events have been riddled with technical glitches - and the occasional honking duck. By contrast, Wednesday’s events went smoothly.
Prisoners and advocates told the Guardian that some infected inmates are in isolation without medical care or adequate food, cut off from family and attorneys
More than 3,200 prisoners in California have contracted Covid-19 and at least 16 inmates have died, in a public health catastrophe that advocates say was both predictable and preventable.
Chill coincides with Vermont reopening outdoor pursuits
Mother’s Day weekend got off to an unseasonably snowy start in the US north-east on Saturday, thanks to the polar vortex bringing cold air down from the north.
Some higher elevation areas in northern New York state and New England reported snowfall accumulations of up to 10in, while traces of snow were seen along the coast from Maine to Boston and as far south as Manhattan.
Lenny Pozner, whose six-year-old son was killed in the shooting, sued authors of a book that claimed the shooting never happened
The father of a victim of the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre has won a defamation lawsuit against the authors of a book that claimed the shooting never happened; the latest victory for victims’ relatives who have been taking a more aggressive stance against conspiracy theorists.
The book, Nobody Died at Sandy Hook, has also been pulled from shelves to settle claims against its publisher filed by Lenny Pozner, whose six-year-old son, Noah, was killed in the shooting.
High court justices issued 4-3 ruling over how Remington marketed the Bushmaster military-style rifle used in the shooting
The Connecticut supreme court has dealt a blow to gun manufacturers by ruling that victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting could go to trial against Remington Arms, on the grounds that the gun company irresponsibly marketed the gun used in the shooting to high-risk individuals.
“The families are grateful that our state’s supreme court has rejected the gun industry’s bid for complete immunity, not only from the consequences of their reckless conduct but also from the truth-seeking discovery process,” Josh Koskoff, one of the lawyers representing the Sandy Hook families, said.