The conservative outlet Newsmax has agreed to pay $67m to Dominion Voting Systems to settle a defamation lawsuit over lies about voting in the 2020 election.
The settlement came as the case was headed to trial. Earlier this year, Delaware superior court judge Eric Davis ruled that Newsmax had defamed the voting technology company by broadcasting false claims about its equipment afthttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/18/newsmax-election-lies-dominion-settlementer the 2020 election. A jury would have considered whether Newsmax was liable for damages. Dominion had sued the outlet for $1.6bn.
After the 2020 election, lies about the security of Dominion voting machines, which are widely used in the US, became central to Donald Trump’s false claim that the election was stolen from him. Allies and other rightwing personalities made baseless claims that votes had been flipped and that the equipment was not secure.
Newsmax to pay $67m to Dominion to settle US election defamation lawsuit
Gaza’s journalists are talented, professional and dignified. That’s why Israel targets them
The first time I met Al Jazeera’s Gaza team lead, Tamer Almisshal, was in July last year. His team had already buried two journalists, Hamza al-Dahdouh and Samer Abu Daqqa. The rest, he told me, were hungry. They were also dealing with trying to get hold of protective gear, threats from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the killing of family members.
Ismail al-Ghoul hadn’t seen his wife and child in months and was missing them intensely. Hossam Shabat, Mohammed Qraiqea and Anas al-Sharif were asking for time to secure food in the morning before they could start reporting. Today, they are all dead.
The first time I met Al Jazeera’s Gaza team lead, Tamer Almisshal, was in July last year. His team had already buried two journalists, Hamza al-Dahdouh and Samer Abu Daqqa. The rest, he told me, were hungry. They were also dealing with trying to get hold of protective gear, threats from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the killing of family members. Ismail al-Ghoul hadn’t seen his wife and child in months and was missing them intensely. Hossam Shabat, Mohammed Qraiqea and Anas al-Sharif were asking for time to secure food in the morning before they could start reporting. Today, they are all dead.
I spoke with various members of the Gaza team while writing a profile of Gaza’s veteran reporter Wael al-Dahdouh, who lost his wife, three of his children and grandson. All spoke of their work as a duty that needed to be carried out despite the risks. Three members of that team have since been killed in a chain of assassinations.
Each time I sent condolences, the response was always that the coverage would not cease. “We are continuing,” the Gaza editor told me last week, after he lost his entire Gaza City team in the targeted strike that claimed the lives of Sharif, Mohammed Nofal, Ibrahim Thaher and Qraiqea. “We will not betray their message, or their last wishes.”
Trump administration restores public spending data after legal fight
The Trump administration restored a public database that showed how funding is apportioned to federal agencies following a recent order by a federal appeals court.
Public access to the data was restored over the weekend, not long after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ordered the website be restored in a unanimous ruling.
“To hear the Government tell it, the separation of powers hangs in the balance and only this Court can set things right. But when it comes to appropriations, our Constitution has made plain that congressional power is at its zenith,” U.S. Circuit Judge Karen Henderson wrote last wee
Under the apportionments process, agencies are given limited authority to spend funding allocated by Congress in installments.
More...Black suit and diplomacy: Zelenskyy dressed to impress in Oval Office do-over
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came dressed for diplomacy.
The last time Zelenskyy met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office in February - an acrimonious meeting that ended abruptly - he said he’d wear a suit after the Russian war on his country had ended.
The declaration came after a reporter asked Zelenskyy, who was wearing a black sweatshirt, black slacks and boots, why he was not wearing a suit while visiting the “highest level” office in the country.
I’ll “wear the costume after the war is finished," he replied. Kostium is the Ukrainian word for suit.
This time, his sartorial choice as well as his choice of words seemed carefully designed to insulate him from another unceremonious exit from the Oval Office. But perhaps his willingness to don a suit to the meeting, three days after Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, also revealed that peace could possibly be within reach.
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Trump threatens executive order to end mail-in voting; says Putin agrees
President Donald Trump said he would sign an executive order to abolish mail-in voting, a move he said Russia’s President Vladimir Putin supported.
Mailing ballots is a popular option for voters to avoid waiting in line at polling places on Election Day. Election-security officials say voting has never been more secure and that the president has no role overseeing elections. But Trump has long railed against mail-in voting as vulnerable to fraud – despite election experts, including those in his first administration, who said mail-in voting is secure.
“We’re going to end mail-in voting," Trump told reporters Aug. 18 in the Oval Office. "It’s a fraud."
He reiterated arguments he made earlier in a social-media post. He argued elections would be more reliable if everyone voted in person with paper ballots rather than through machines.
“It’s very hard to cheat," Trump said of in-person voting.
Video shows prominent Palestinian prisoner for the first time in years
The world got a glimpse of one of the most famous Palestinian prisoners in Israel on Friday, Marwan Barghouti, for the first time in years.
A video posted by Israel's far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, shows him berating Barghouti in his prison cell.
"You will not win. He who messes with the people of Israel, he who will murder our children, he who will murder our women, we will wipe him out," Ben-Gvir is recorded as saying.
Now, he is serving five consecutive life sentences, after being convicted by an Israeli court in 2002 for helping plan attacks on civilians during a Palestinian uprising that came to be known as the Second Intifada.
ESPN will not air Spike Lee’s docuseries on quarterback Colin Kaepernick
Director Spike Lee’s multi-part documentary series for ESPN Films about former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who sparked a national debate when he protested racial injustice nearly a decade ago, will not be released, the filmmaker and ESPN said.
“ESPN, Colin Kaepernick and Spike Lee have collectively decided to no longer proceed with this project as a result of certain creative differences,” ESPN said in a statement to Reuters on Saturday. “Despite not reaching finality, we appreciate all the hard work and collaboration that went into this film.”https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/16/espn-spike-lee-colin-kaepernick-docuseries
Lee told Reuters on Friday that the series was not going to be released.
“It’s not coming out. That’s all I can say,” Lee said on the red carpet ahead of the Harold and Carole Pump Foundation dinner, a fundraiser for cancer research and treatment, in Beverly Hills, California.
European leaders will join Zelensky at White House visit: EU’s von der Leyen
European leaders will join Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a high-stakes meeting at the White House on Monday after President Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a post on the social platform X on Sunday that she will join the meeting “at the request of President Zelenskyy.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s office also announced he will be traveling to Washington on Monday for “political talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European heads of state and government,” according to a translated statement from his office.
The statement said the purpose of the trip is the “exchange of information” with Trump after his meeting with Putin and that Merz plans to discuss peace efforts and “underscore Germany’s interest in a swift peace agreement in Ukraine.”
“The talks will address, among other things, security guarantees, territorial issues, and continued support for Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression. This includes maintaining the pressure of sanctions,” the translated statement said.
Nationwide Protests Over The War In Gaza Erupt In Israel
Israeli protesters demanding a deal to free hostages in Gaza attempted to shut down the country Sunday in one of the largest and fiercest protests in 22 months of war. Organizers, representing the families of hostages, asserted that hundreds of thousands of people took part.
Frustration is growing in Israel over plans for a new military offensive in some of Gaza’s most populated areas. Many Israelis fear that could further endanger the remaining hostages. Twenty of the 50 who remain are believed to be alive.
“We live between a terrorist organization that holds our children and a government that refuses to release them for political reasons,” said Yehuda Cohen, whose son Nimrod is held in Gaza.
Even some former Israeli army and intelligence chiefs now call for a deal to end the fighting.
Protesters gathered at dozens of places including outside politicians’ homes, military headquarters and on major highways. They blocked lanes and lit bonfires. Some restaurants and theaters closed in solidarity. Police said they arrested 38 people.
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- Judge strikes down Trump administration guidance against DEI programs at schools
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