Fox News Basically Paid $787.5 Million to Keep Rupert Murdoch Off the Stand

DeSantis’s Disney Prison • Dianne Feinstein Still Out • Biden’s Border Blunders

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Fox News Basically Paid $787.5 Million to Keep Rupert Murdoch Off the Stand

Good morning from the Hive newsroom! There will be no trial: Dominion settled its defamation lawsuit against Fox News for $787.5 million—nearly half of what it sued for—before the two teams even delivered opening statements Tuesday, Charlotte Klein reports. That means Rupert Murdoch and Fox News’ biggest stars, like Tucker Carlson, will be spared from having to take the stand and answer for the 2020 election lies the network spread.

Klein also caught up with Bellingcat sleuth Aric Toler, who discussed how he helped The New York Times land a major intelligence scoop: the identity of the man suspected of having leaked Pentagon documents. In other news, Molly Jong-Fast says it’s time for Dianne Feinstein to resign. And Bess Levin finds Ron DeSantis threatening to build a prison next to Disney World. Thanks for reading.

Fox News and Dominion Settle Defamation Case for $787 Million

The eleventh hour deal came just ahead of opening statements in the highly anticipated trial and before Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and the Murdochs could take the stand.

It’s Time for Dianne Feinstein to Resign

The 89-year-old California senator has been a trailblazer. But a public servant needs to serve the public—and Feinstein is no longer doing that.

“The FBI Called Me”: Meet Aric Toler, the Bellingcat Sleuth Who Helped The New York Times Find Suspected Pentagon Leaker Jack Teixeira

The Times publicly identified the man believed to have leaked intelligence documents before law enforcement did. Toler helped the paper’s Visual Investigations team—and dodged a meeting with the FBI.

It’s Getting Harder to Tell the Difference Between Biden’s and Trump’s Border Failures

The Department of Health and Human Services reportedly pushed out multiple staffers who sounded the alarm over labor trafficking among child migrants.

Disney Sees Ron DeSantis’s Prison-Complex Threat and Raises Him a “Pride Nite” Extravaganza

The Florida governor has taken his authoritarian ambitions to new heights.