TV News LIES

Seven years after deadly violence erupted during the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, a federal appeals court has reinstated more than $2m in punitive damages for white nationalist leaders and organizations implicated in physical or emotional injuries suffered by people at the event.

The decision brought the total that a jury ordered to be paid to more than $26m. Most of that money, $24m, was for punitive damages, but a judge later slashed that amount to $350,000 – to be shared by eight plaintiffs.

On Monday, the Richmond-based fourth US circuit court of appeals restored more than $2m in punitive damages, finding that each of the plaintiffs should receive $350,000, instead of the $43,750 each would have received under the lower court’s ruling.

A three-judge panel at the fourth circuit affirmed the jury’s award of $2m in compensatory damages – but it found that a state law that imposes the $350,000 cap on punitive damages should be applied per person instead of for all eight plaintiffs, as a lower court judge had ruled.

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On a blistering-hot June day in Birmingham, Alabama, Elena Vasquez Garcia sautéed chicken and bell peppers over the stove, ingredients for tacos topped with "expensive" avocados for her three children at home, after she'd spent the week at a food pantry catering to community members who can't afford meat, milk and produce.

Feeding four people is especially difficult for her, as a single mom to three kids. Vasquez Garcia takes home about $500 a week and spends about half of it at the grocery store.

When her children – 15, 18 and 22 – are home all summer, "They're bored and eat everything in sight," she said. She's barely scraping by, but would rather keep the healthy meals coming than deprive her kids. One of them is heading to college in the fall, which will offer some financial relief, she said, "but it shouldn't be that way."

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected challenges to Illinois' ban on assault-style weapons, punting for now on the question of whether the ban is allowed under a controversial new test for gun restrictions.

The court was asked to block Illinois’ ban while multiple challenges to the state’s law are litigated.

The justices declined to take the cases.

Justice Samuel Alito said he would have taken the appeals.

Justice Clarence Thomas said the court was "rightly wary" of stepping in at this stage.

"But, I hope we will consider the important issues presented by these petitions after the cases reach final judgment," he wrote.

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The city of Detroit has agreed to pay $300,000 to a Black man who was wrongly arrested for shoplifting, and to change how police use facial-recognition technology to solve crimes after the software identified him as a suspect.

The conditions are part of a lawsuit settlement with Robert Williams. His driver’s license photo was incorrectly flagged by facial-recognition software as a likely match to a man seen on security video at a Shinola watch store in 2018.

“We are extremely excited that going forward there will be more safeguards on the use of this technology with our hope being to live in a better world because of it,” Williams told reporters, “even though what we would like for them to do is not use it at all.”

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Grief and anger engulfed the city of Utica, N.Y., after a police officer shot and killed Nyah Mway, a 13-year-old boy, on Friday night.

The Utica Police Department said the fatal shooting occurred amid a foot chase between Mway and three officers. The officers saw what they believed to be a handgun on Mway, according to a statement released by the department on Facebook. Mway, who graduated from middle school just two days earlier, was then tackled to the ground before an officer, later identified by police as Patrick Husnay, discharged his firearm. The weapon on Mway was later determined to be a pellet gun.

South Carolina has implemented one of the most restrictive book ban laws in the US, enabling mass censorship in school classrooms and libraries across the state.

Drafted by Ellen Weaver, the superintendent of education and close ally of the far-right group Moms for Liberty, the law requires all reading material to be “age or developmentally appropriate”. The vague wording of the legislation – open to interpretation and deliberately inviting challenge – could see titles as classic as Romeo and Juliet completely wiped from school shelves.

“All we’re going to have left is Lassie from here on out,” said Shanna Miles, an author and school librarian born and raised in South Carolina. “They’re not going to stop at one aspect of society they don’t like; they will keep on going. Now [that] they have a taste of power, this is never going to end.”

TVNL Comment:  Scary. Just plain Scary.

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