Today’s edition of quick hits.
* The jury’s decision was just announced: “An Austin jury on Thursday decided Infowars host Alex Jones must pay $4.1 million to the family of a 6-year-old killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting for the suffering he and his website and broadcast caused them by spreading lies about the 2012 massacre.”
* An emergency declaration: “The Biden administration declared monkeypox a public health emergency on Thursday as cases topped 6,600 nationwide. The declaration could facilitate access to emergency funds, allow health agencies to collect more data about cases and vaccinations, accelerate vaccine distribution and make it easier for doctors to prescribe treatment.”
* Brittney Griner: “WNBA star Brittney Griner was sentenced to 9 years in Russian prison after being convicted on drug charges by a Moscow court Thursday.”
* Breonna Taylor’s case, two years later: “Two current and two former police officers in Louisville, Kentucky, have been charged with violating Breonna Taylor’s civil rights in the 2020 botched raid that led to the young Black woman’s death, federal officials said Thursday. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, in announcing the charges, said the Department of Justice alleges that the violations ‘resulted in Ms. Taylor’s death.’”
* This was a longshot: “A Texas judge on Thursday denied Alex Jones’s motion for a mistrial in a defamation case over the U.S. conspiracy theorist’s false claims about the Sandy Hook mass shooting.”
* The latest with Peter Navarro: “The Department of Justice is suing former Trump White House aide Peter Navarro in an effort to compel him to produce emails from a personal account that he allegedly used to conduct official White House business. In the complaint, filed Wednesday, the department has asked a judge to order Navarro to turn over the records.”
* Sen. Josh Hawley, a little too eager for attention, was the only member to vote against this: “The Senate passed a resolution Wednesday ratifying Finland’s and Sweden’s applications to join NATO as the Western military alliance seeks to strengthen its resolve against the threat posed by Russia. The measure was approved in a 95-1 vote that required support from at least two-thirds of senators present.”
* An important addition to the Joseph Cuffari file: “The Homeland Security watchdog now under scrutiny for his handling of deleted Secret Service text messages from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol previously was accused of misleading federal investigators and running ‘afoul’ of ethics regulations while he was in charge of a Justice Department inspector general field office in Tucson, according to a newly disclosed government report.” * No time to waste: “Determined to prevent a repeat of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, backers of an overhaul of the federal law governing the count of presidential electoral ballots pressed lawmakers on Wednesday to repair the flaws that President Donald J. Trump and his allies tried to exploit to reverse the 2020 results.” * As important as these negotiations are, it’s tough to be optimistic: “Iran, the U.S. and the European Union said Wednesday that they would send negotiators to Vienna for what could be make-or-break talks on reviving the 2015 nuclear agreement with Tehran, but expectations of an agreement weren’t high after months of stalled negotiations.” See you tomorrow.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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