A jury in Texas ordered far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay the parents of a 6-year-old boy killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting $45.2million in punitive damages for falsely calling the mass shooting a hoax.
Why it matters: The punitive damages come on top of the $4.1 million the jury ordered Jones to pay in compensatory damages to the parents, Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, on Thursday, which marked the first time he had been held financially liable for spreading conspiracy theories about the mass shooting.
Longtime Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) was killed in a car crash in her district on Wednesday, according to local officials. She was 58.
The latest: The Elkhart County Sheriff's office changed its account of what happened on Thursday, now saying the car occupied by Walorski crossed the state highway's centerline and collided with another car.
Why it matters: The Elkhart County Sheriff's office initially said that Walorski and two of her staffers, Emma Thomson and Zachery Potts, were killed when a car driving the opposite direction veered into oncoming traffic in northern Indiana.
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a man who threatened to kill National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci to more than three years in federal prison, the Justice Department said.
Driving the news: Thomas Patrick Connally, Jr., 57, was arrested last year in West Virginia for sending threatening emails to Fauci. He was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison and then three years of supervised release.
The Republican National Committee unanimously voted on Friday to hold its 2024 convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel announced on Twitter.
The big picture: The RNC was expected to choose Milwaukee as the site of the 2024 Republican National Convention, as the party focuses its efforts on flipping Wisconsin.
Ten years ago, a white supremacist opened fire in the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in suburban Milwaukee. Friday marks a decade since the gunman killed six people and wounded several others, one of whom would die from his injuries in 2020.
The big picture: Experts and family members of the victims say the white supremacist ideologies that motivated the 2012 attack have now gone mainstream.
A new Republican ad that began airing Friday ties Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) to President Joe Biden, saying Warnock "means well, but it's not really working."
Why it matters: It's the latest example of a revised GOP strategy to undercut Warnock, which acknowledges that past attacks on his biography have fallen flat. Republicans now see Biden's dismal approval ratings as one of their strongest November advantages in swing states like Georgia.
President Biden and first lady Jill Biden are planning to visit Kentucky on Monday after the devastating and deadly floods that hit the eastern part of the state, the White House said.
The big picture: At least 37 people died from the catastrophic flooding in Appalachia last week, and power outages affected thousands of citizens throughout the state.
Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for the state's U.S. Senate seat, will hold his first campaign rally since suffering a stroke in May.
The big picture: Fetterman made his first in-person appearance since the stroke at a fundraiser in Philadelphia in mid-July. He will hold his first campaign since the setback in Erie County, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 12, his campaign announced on Friday.
It's a hot summer with a labor market to match. The question is no longer "is this a recession," but rather: "Is the job market too hot for the Fed's comfort?"
Driving the news: The jobs slowdown economists have been expecting isn't materializing. Rather, the economy added 528,000 jobs in July — the strongest print since February, and double what economists expected.
Employers added a stunning 528,000 jobs in July, while the unemployment rate ticked down to 3.5%,the lowest level in nearly 50 years, the Labor Department said on Friday.
Why it matters: It's the fastest pace of jobs growth since February as the labor market continues to defy fears that the economy is heading into a recession.
China imposed undefined sanctions on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her immediate family members on Friday after she infuriated Beijing with an overnight trip to Taiwan earlier this week.
Why it matters: China's Foreign Ministry also announced it was ending talks with the U.S. on climate change, military issues, anti-drug measures and other matters in retaliation for Pelosi's visit.
A startling number of lawmakers in President Biden's own party have been unwilling in recent days to say he should seek re-election in 2024, amid gnawing fears he'll be too old or unpopular to win.
Why it matters: Backing your own party's first-term president is usually so automatic that no one would bother to ask. But behind the scenes, there's a very real concern that going all in on Biden could be a mistake.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday responded to China's live military drills around Taiwan by saying that Beijing won't succeed in isolating the self-governing island nor stop U.S. officials from visiting Taipei.
Driving the news: Pelosi made the comments after meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo as she wrapped up this week's congressional delegation trip to Asia that included a visit to Taiwan, which triggered the drills that Beijing plans to last for several days.
Taiwan reported multiple Chinese "warships and warplanes" near the island Friday as China's military conducted live ammunition drills for a second day in the wake of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taipei this week.
The big picture:Pelosi responded Friday to the Chinese military firing missiles into the sea near Taiwan on the first day of drills by declaring that Beijing couldn't stop U.S. officials from visiting the self-governing island. Taiwan's Defense Ministry described Beijing's actions as "highly provocative."
FBI Director Christopher Wray expressed concern at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday at growing violence in the U.S. related to politically divisive domestic issues that are now "almost a 365-day phenomenon."
Details: "I feel like everyday I'm getting briefed on somebody throwing a molotov cocktail at someone for some issue," he said. "It's crazy," added Wray, noting that there had been an "uptick" in violence related to abortion rights since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Meta announced Thursday that it shut down a troll farm with links to a sanctioned Putin ally and Russia's Internet Research Agency that spread disinformation during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign.
The big picture: The action was part of a wider social media crackdown on cyber espionage operations and other bad actors detailed in the Facebook and Instagram owner's Quarterly Adversarial Threat Report.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) said Thursday that she plans to "move forward" with a revised version of Democrats' reconciliation bill after reaching a deal to scale back some of the original tax provisions and beef up climate funding.
Why it matters: Sinema was potentially the last hurdle for Democrats who have been seeking to clinch President Biden's longtime goal of passing an ambitious package tackling climate change, health care and taxes — renamed the "Inflation Reduction Act of 2022."
Kari Lake defeated Karrin Taylor Robson in Arizona's Republican gubernatorial primary, AP reports, propelling the Trump-endorsed candidate into a general election where she's favored to become the state's 24th governor.
Driving the news: The former Fox 10 anchor took the race by storm last year, becoming the immediate frontrunner with a style and message that closely emulated former President Trump.
