These New California Laws Take Effect July 2023

LOS ANGELES - As we pass the halfway mark of the 2023 calendar year, California Governor Gavin Newsom will sign about a dozen new bills.

The new laws will kick in Saturday. Included in the list are old convictions on criminal records being sealed, penalties for contractors without worker's comp insurance and a gun lawsuit bill.

Here is a look at some of the new laws that will impact your life beginning July 1, 2023.

Criminal Records Seals (SB-731)

SB-731 was signed into law last fall by Newsom, making California the first state in the nation to allow almost all old convictions on a person's criminal record to be permanently sealed.

The bill will automatically seal conviction and arrest records for most ex-offenders who are not convicted of another felony for four years after completing their sentences and any parole or probation. Records of arrests that don’t bring convictions also would be sealed.

The bill would apply to offenses like domestic violence. It excludes those convicted of serious and violent felonies and felonies requiring sex offender registration.

Workers Compensation (SB-216)

A contractor that doesn’t carry worker’s compensation insurance could lose their license as a result of this bill.

Worker’s compensation was already required, but starting July 1 this new penalty will be added.

Remote Court Appearances (SB-241)

SB-241 gave Californians the option to use video conferencing as an alternative to in-person court appearances. This bill expires Saturday, July 1.

Gun Lawsuits (SB-1327)

Private citizens can sue companies that make and sell firearms if they sell assault weapons or ghost gun products, which are already illegal in the state.

The bill carries a minimum bounty of $10,000 for violators.

 
Bounty Hunter Licensing (AB-2043)

This law mandates the licensing, education and registration of bounty hunters.

It was inspired by a Palm Springs family whose child was killed in Palm Springs in 2021 by an illegal bounty hunter.

Filing Restraining Orders Online (AB-2960)

This bill gives Californians the option to request and file for restraining orders related to domestic violence or gun violence electronically instead of having to show up to court in-person. The bill also requires the Department of Child Support Services or the local child support agency to issue a notice to change a payee on an issued support order.

Under this bill, a restraining order pertaining to domestic abuse or gun control may be requested or petitioned online.

ZEV Conversion Rebate (SB-301)

"High-volume third-party" merchants will have to supply data starting July 1 including contact details and bank account numbers.

Teacher Overpayments (AB-1667)

Under this bill, teachers cannot be asked to repay overpayments found in audit reports by CalSTRS, the state teachers’ pension.

In the past, payments paid to retired teachers had to be repaid when audits revealed that they had been calculated incorrectly.

Housing Laws (AB-2011) / (SB-6)

Construction of affordable multi-family housing on land that is zoned for commercial, retail or parking use is streamlined under AB-2011 and SB-6. It also strengthens wage laws and health benefits rules for construction contractors.

Firearms Civil Suits (AB-1594)

This bill establishes a firearm industry standard of conduct, which would require a firearm industry member to establish, implement and enforce reasonable controls. Members of the firearm industry must take reasonable precautions to ensure they don't sell, distribute or provide a firearm-related product to a downstream distributor. Those in the industry may not manufacture, market, import provide wholesale sales of "abnormally dangerous" products.

Juneteenth (AB-1655)

Juneteenth will now be added to the list of state holidays. This will mean community colleges and public schools will close schools in addition to state employees being given time off with pay on June 19.

----------------FOX NEWS

California Gov. Newsom spars with Fox News host Hannity over Biden, immigration and the economy

FILE - California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a news conference in Paramount Calif., Monday, May 1, 2023. Late Monday, June 12, 2023, Newsom sparred with Fox News host Sean Hannity, insisting President Joe Biden is physically fit for a second term as president while refusing to say whether supporters have urged him to replace Biden on the 2024 ballot. (Hans Gutknecht/The Orange County Register via AP, File)

BY ADAM BEAM

SACRAMENTO, CALIF. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom sparred with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday night, insisting President Joe Biden is physically fit for a second term as president while refusing to say whether supporters have urged him to run against Biden on the 2024 ballot.

Asked if he believes Biden is “cognitively strong enough to be president,” Newsom said yes, adding that he talks with the president “all the time” and has traveled with him aboard Air Force One.

’You never answered my question directly,” Hannity responded. “How many times does your phone ping a day, people saying you need to get in this race because they agree with me that he’s not up to the job.”

Newsom stammered somewhat before responding: “I’m not answering.”

Newsom has repeatedly said he has no interest in running for president, saying he completely supports Biden’s reelection campaign. In April, Newsom raised money for Biden during a fundraiser in Washington shortly after the president announced his reelection campaign

But Newsom has continued to raise his national profile, fueling more speculation that he is laying the groundwork for a presidential campaign beyond 2024. After coasting to reelection as governor in 2022, Newsom took the millions of dollars left over in his campaign account to start a new political action committee.

Newsom said he plans to use the money to support Democrats running for office in Republican-dominated states like Arkansas, Alabama and Mississippi. Last week, Newsom said the committee would campaign for a 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution to harden federal gun laws.

Fox News said Monday was Newsom’s first interview on the network since 2010, back when Newsom was the mayor of San Francisco. Since then, Newsom has often joined the chorus of criticism against the conservative news outlet from Democrats who object to its coverage of guns and how some of the network’s hosts have embraced former President Donald Trump.

Last year, Newsom conceded that Republicans were “winning right now” in part because he said Democrats were too timid, giving conservatives the most compelling narrative over the airwaves. He has since opted for a more confrontational style — which includes Fox News. Newsom has said he is a regular viewer of the network. Last year, his campaign paid for an ad on Fox News in Florida and urging residents there to “join us in California.”

“We need more of these kinds of conversations, and we need to not just accuse each other of misleading the American people, but I think confront each other in the context of providing opportunities to address some of the facts that are often omitted in terms of the conversations and topics we choose to pick up,” Newsom said.

Monday’s interview had plenty of confrontation, with Hannity and Newsom often talking over each other. Hannity noted California lost population for the first time in its history as a state while Newsom was in office, offering that as evidence that the policies of Newsom and his fellow Democrats have failed. That includes California’s income taxes, with a top rate of 13.3% that is the highest in the nation.

Newsom pushed back that only the wealthy pay that 13.3% income tax rate. He said that top tax rate was established before he was governor, emphasizing that he has opposed new tax increases on the wealthy, including campaigning against a proposal on the 2022 ballot that would have raised taxes on the wealthy to pay for more zero-emission vehicles and to help fight wildfires.

“I’ve never been a profligate Democrat. I’ve balanced budgets. We make the hard choices. I’m a business guy,” Newsom said.

The interview was recorded previously in Sacramento before airing on Monday night. Hannity defended Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ use of taxpayer funds to fly migrants to California.

“You are an open sanctuary state! Why don’t you embrace them,” Hannity asked

“We embrace everybody here,” Newsom said. “I sat down with these migrants. I talked to every single one of them. They were lied to, they were misled.”

But it wasn’t all criticism from Newsom. The governor said he had a good relationship with former Republican President Donald Trump during the coronavirus pandemic, saying Trump “played no politics during COVID with California.”

“I’ve got a lot of critique from the left by saying that,” Newsom said.

While the interview took up the full hour of Hannity’s show on Monday, the two men still had more to talk about. Hannity said the rest of the interview will air later this week.

Since His Ouster, Embarrassing Reports On Carlson Pile Up

FILE - Tucker Carlson, host of "Tucker Carlson Tonight," poses for photos in a Fox News Channel studio on March 2, 2017, in New York. A racist text message from Tucker Carlson is what helped drive the commentator's ouster from Fox News, The New York Times reports. The Times says that in a text uncovered as part of a recent defamation lawsuit, the former Fox host lamented how supporters of former President Donald Trump ganged up to beat a protester. “It's not how white men fight,” Carlson wrote. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

BY DAVID BAUDER

NEW YORK (AP) — A week after Fox News fired star host Tucker Carlson — for reasons that remain unexplained — he has been the subject of a handful of embarrassing stories about some of his private messages and statements while at the network.

The latest was in The New York Times on Wednesday, reporting on a text message that had been redacted as part of a recent defamation case targeting the network. In it, Carlson declared that a group of Trump supporters beating a protester was “not how white men fight.”

The sentiment was not out of character for Carlson, who has promoted the view that whites are being “replaced” by people of color. But the Times suggested the timing was crucial, as members of Fox’s board found out about the message as part of documents uncovered in the defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, shortly before a trial was to begin last month.

The newspaper said the discovery “contributed to a chain of events” that led to Carlson being fired April 24, less than a week after Fox agreed to pay Dominion nearly $800 million to settle the case.

Three times in the past week, the anti-Fox watchdog Media Matters for America has released “hot mic” moments of Carlson speaking while on Fox sets, material that was never included on broadcasts.

In one, Carlson is seen speaking to someone offscreen disparaging Fox’s streaming service, Fox Nation. In another, he shares offscreen sexual banter with Piers Morgan before an interview, commenting to someone offscreen that a person’s girlfriend “was kind of yummy.” He is also heard saying how he waits for his “post-menopausal fans” to make comments about his appearance.

Angelo Carusone, Media Matters chairman and president, would not comment Wednesday on how Media Matters acquired the material.

“Part of me can’t escape the idea that this is to demonstrate that Tucker was a liability,” he said.

Fox declined comment Wednesday on how the material on Carlson had surfaced. Messages sent to Carlson and his attorney seeking comment were not immediately returned.

While some of Carlson’s texts have been publicly released as part of the lawsuit, the one quoted by the Times remains redacted by the court, as do numerous other exhibits. Media organizations, including The Associated Press, continue to try to lift the redactions.

The Times reported that Carlson sent the text to a producer hours after Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He describes a video he had seen a couple weeks earlier of Trump supporters beating someone he described as “an antifa kid.”

Carlson wrote about his conflicting emotions in watching the fight, which he described as “three against one, at least.”

“Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously,” he wrote, according to the Times. “It’s not how white men fight.”

“I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed,” Carlson wrote, after admitting part of him was rooting for the attackers. “If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?”

Before his ouster last month, Carlson was Fox’s top-rated host. He drew controversy for supporting theories such as the idea that immigrants are being admitted to the U.S to “replace” people born here. Critics have called that white supremacy, an accusation he has denied.

A lawyer for The Times, The AP and National Public Radio wrote this week to Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis, who presided over the Dominion case, reiterating that the news organizations want to see redacted documents from the case opened to the public.

There’s still a compelling interest, and the settlement does not make the request moot, the news organizations said.

In a separate matter, however, Davis indicated a lack of interest in examining one aspect of the case now that it’s over. Davis had appointed a special master to investigate accusations that Fox lawyers had not turned over required evidence to the court. But after the settlement, Davis ended that investigation.

AP correspondent Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.

The Dominion Settlement Is Just The Beginning Of Fox And Rupert Murdoch's Nightmare

BY JEFFREY SONNENFELD AND STEVEN TIAN

Forget the repetitive media chatter debating the political and societal wins and losses over the historic record $787.5 million settlement between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems, after the voting machine maker alleged defamation by the cable network for promoting false news stories that Dominion rigged the 2020 presidential election against Donald Trump. Fox settled out of court at the last minute, seemingly panicked over the prospect of a dazed 92-year-old Rupert Murdoch, CEO of Fox News parent company Fox Corporation, having to take the stand to explain how he lost control of his prized creation—his “Foxenstein” monster. But while it’s a historic and record-setting amount to pay to avoid an embarrassing public trial over the airing of an admitted lie, the settlement doesn’t mark the end of Fox’s or Murdoch’s nightmare.

The horror story that is just beginning to unfold and that will continue to haunt the company and its patriarch is the corporate governance catastrophe this case leaves in its wake and the punctured business bravado of the scorching public record of admitted fraud and negligent management oversight. Fox’s celebrity anchors already soiled themselves in emailed evidence revealing they did not believe what they were reporting as truth. Their testimony and emails are in the public record for future litigants. Meanwhile, the judge’s special master, investigating fraudulent representations by Fox and its lawyers in discovery, continue undaunted by this settlement. The rest of Murdoch’s life and the rest of the careers of his board will likely be defined by ongoing fallout.

The Big Winner

There is no disputing that this is a grand slam for Dominion and nothing short of a transformative business success. Dominion is a tiny young company not even 1% the size of Fox, and it was sold to private equity investors Staple Street Capital for just about $40 million in 2018. This week’s settlement is gigantic—more than eight times their company revenues last year of $98 million, which assuming a 20% profit margin means that the settlement results in a whopping 5000% boost in the company’s earnings.

Such a whopping settlement may not have been awarded by a jury in court and very well could have been tossed on appeal. This small a company would have had a tough time proving concrete economic damage and lost revenues equivalent to $787.5 million let alone the $1.6 billion in damages they were seeking had it gone to trial. There are two types of damages—compensatory and punitive—and the idea that a company that may have been valued by its own investors, according to Fox’s lawyers, at no more than $80 million could get anything close to 10 times that as compensatory damages is blatantly ludicrous, while punitive damages are becoming increasingly pegged to the value of compensatory damages.

Even if an appellate court concurred with a possible jury verdict that an actual malice standard was met, the financial damages Dominion asked for were excessive. Plus, unlike the Alex Jones award of $1 billion, which is facing years of byzantine appeals and stalling, Dominion gets this money now—without any more hassle, delay, or expense and without having to deal with anxious insurers and litigation finance hedge funds breathing down their neck.

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The Even Bigger Loser

On the other hand, for Fox Corp., the parent company of Fox News, this is a major strikeout. Incredibly, even though $787.5 million, more than half of the company’s total profit last fiscal year, is four times larger than the prior record for a defamation settlement—in 2017, Disney/ABC News paid out $177 million over misleading reporting on pink slime—Fox’s woes are just beginning.

Sure, some Dominion fans or Fox News haters might be upset that the cable channel did not have to publicly accept responsibility or apologize, rather just releasing a statement of meaningless legalese: “We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.” But such disappointment ignores the massive business and financial ramifications that Fox will have to live with for years. We are still only in the early innings of Fox’s struggles.

What now stands as a statement of legal fact for future litigants is the judge’s condemning conclusions.

The judge wrote, “the evidence does not support that FNN conducted good-faith, disinterested reporting.”

In another finding, the judge wrote that the “evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.”

These rulings were accepted by Fox with “no contest” and stand as legal fact and cannot be appealed.

Other companies, such as Smartmatic, will surely be emboldened in their own defamation suits against Fox, which share basically the same fact patterns as Dominion’s. Furthermore, the condemning depositions of Fox anchors and executives, admitting that they knew their stories were false and sources were ludicrous, opens Fox’s board to serious claims of negligence and breaches of fiduciary duty—violations of a board’s duty of care and duty of loyalty under Delaware corporate law.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys are rushing to file derivative shareholder class action lawsuits on behalf of the 60% of Fox shares not held by the Murdoch family. Fox has a sophisticated board with accomplished individuals, such as former House Speaker Paul Ryan, Managing Partner of Quinn Emanuel William Burck, former Ford CEO Jacques Nasser, and Formula One CEO Chase Carey, all of whom have a lot to lose—whether by way of reputation or liability—by more embarrassing disclosures coming out of depositions and trials.

Already two of many law firms queuing up filed suit in Delaware Chancery Court, charging: “Fox knew—from the Board on down—that Fox News was reporting false and dangerous misinformation about the 2020 Presidential election, but Fox was more concerned about short-term ratings and market share than the long-term damages of its failure to tell the truth.”

While some media commentators have suggested that insurance might cover a large portion of Fox’s Dominion settlement, the company’s breaches of fiduciary duty could absolve insurers from having to cover the payout on top of permitting them to charge the company permanently higher insurance premiums. Even worse for Fox, unless the company reforms its coverage and corporate governance processes, insurers might recoil from underwriting the insurance of Fox’s board directors and officers, much the way Elon Musk was once forced to personally underwrite the insurance of Tesla’s board directors and officers after every insurance company refused to stomach the risk.

Admissions by Murdoch, Ryan, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott, and Fox Corp. Chief Legal Officer Viet Dinh demonstrate a failure to act on what they knew to be false—or a failure of their duties of care and duty of loyalty to the shareholders. Their duties were not to protect management or even to please viewers, but to protect the enterprise and shareholder value. Yet, when asked in a January deposition if he could have intervened when falsehoods were being spread on his cable network, Murdoch succinctly replied on the record, “I could have. But I didn’t.”

Alt-right media such as One America News Network and Newsmax are likely facing even greater financial peril as they are facing similar legal challenges as Fox.

Despite his self-proclaimed willingness to testify in court, Murdoch’s rambling, brutally candid, and self-incriminating answers in deposition raise questions over his judgment. Fox cannot retract Murdoch’s sworn testimony, and when they unsuccessfully tried to hide his actual Fox News executive oversight duties, they had to apologize for such deception. Presumably Murdoch will be forced to continue to shed light on how much he knew, when he knew it, and what he did or didn’t do in response, as the drumbeat of investigations rolls on.

For its part, Fox News is already modifying its approach and seeming to take some of these lessons to heart before they become total Faux News. Nobody would mistake Fox today for MSNBC, but the cable network has severely limited former President Trump’s airtime recently, rarely ever showcasing full Trump campaign rallies and speeches as it used to do, while anchors almost always now resort to pre-taped edited clips of Trump rather than offering the unchecked freewheeling surprise live dial-in privileges Trump used to enjoy. Like Samuel Johnson quipped, nothing so focuses the mind like the prospect of an imminent hanging. Still, as Murdoch tries to restrain his out-of-control creation, he has his work cut out for him.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

Why Fox News’s Settlement With Dominion Voting Systems Is Good News For All Media Outlets

BY JANE E. KIRTLEY, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

It’s all over but the spinning.

At the eleventh hour, after the jury was sworn in and the lawyers were ready to make their opening statements, the judge presiding over Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News announced on April 18, 2023, that the “parties have resolved the case.”

Little is known about the reported US$787.5 million settlement, one of the largest known defamation awards in the country’s history. Fox issued a vaguely worded statement confirming the merits of Dominion’s defamation claims – “We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false” – but was not required to make on-air apologies or corrections. With that, the lawsuit that captured public attention for two years ended.

Dominion’s claims that Fox and its on-air pundits had damaged the voting equipment company’s reputation by falsely questioning the integrity of its operations during the 2020 elections were the same essential claims that any libel plaintiff must make for a case to proceed to trial. The issue is not truth, alone, but whether false statements harmed the plaintiff’s reputation, and whether the news organization was at fault for publishing those statements.

Presiding Judge Eric Davis had already ruled that the many accusations Fox hosts and guests hurled at Dominion after the 2020 election – most notably that it switched votes from former President Donald Trump to challenger Joe Biden – were false as a matter of law. It was “CRYSTAL clear,” he wrote. All that remained for a jury to decide was whether the statements were made with actual malice.

Actual malice is the legal standard established by the Supreme Court in 1964 in New York Times v. Sullivan that applies to public officials and public figures. In most cases, corporations like Dominion that offer goods or services for sale are also considered public figures, as the Supreme Court held in 1984 in Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union.

In these cases, corporations must prove that the statements about their businesses were published with knowledge that they are false, or with reckless disregard for whether they were true or not. The high court’s rationale in New York Times v. Sullivan, which involved a police commissioner in Alabama who was unhappy with media coverage of the Civil Rights Movement, was that powerful individuals should not be able to file frivolous suits aimed at silencing the press in order to vindicate their reputations.

As a scholar of media ethics and law, I have followed Dominion’s defamation suit against Fox News closely, because it presented a direct threat to the Sullivan standard, which for nearly 60 years has protected journalists and authors from lawsuits brought by U.S. politicians, sheriffs, international arms dealers, political operatives and many others who would seek to punish and curtail robust reporting about them and their activities.
The facts were on Dominion’s side

Dominion had a tremendous advantage on the eve of trial. Pretrial discovery revealed a trail of texts and email messages that documented the doubts of executives, editors and pundits at Fox about the veracity of the claims of a conspiracy to steal the 2020 elections, of which Dominion was supposedly an integral part.

They showed that, although Fox fact-checkers operating in the network’s own “brain room” had debunked many of these claims as early as Nov. 20, 2020, Fox hosts continued to invite guests like Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, who clung to their theory of a vast conspiracy to steal the presidency from Trump. And it appeared that the motivation for these decisions was to try to hold on to viewers who, once they heard Fox call the state of Arizona for Biden, temporarily decamped to other conservative news outlets like OANN and Newsmax that reinforced their preferred narrative rather than challenge it.

So things didn’t look good for Fox, and that was before the parade of high-profile witnesses, ranging from Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch to hosts like Maria Bartiromo, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, were expected to be required to take the witness stand and submit to cross-examination. Dominion’s lawyers, no doubt, were about to evoke the legendary Watergate hearings question – “What did [the president] know and when did he know it?” And Fox’s institutional integrity would be on the line, as well as that of its pundits.

After the settlement was made public, Dominion claimed vindication of its reputation, declaring that “truth matters,” and that “for our democracy to endure another 250 years … we must share a commitment to facts.”

Fox, for its part, grudgingly conceded that it had to “acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false,” but added that the settlement was really a victory of sorts, because it “reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.”

I can hear the gales of cynical laughter from many who think Fox has no journalistic standards whatsoever. Those critics must be dismayed that Fox and its employees will not be raked over the coals and otherwise humiliated in the court of public opinion, as well as in the courtroom.
Disinformation was at the heart of the case

But those who are disappointed may have been seeking more from this case than a libel suit can deliver. For many, it had become a surrogate for their unhappiness – or even incandescent rage – directed toward Fox for its editorial positions. It was a referendum not only on Fox’s coverage of Dominion, but also on its long-established pattern of favoring one political viewpoint over all others, even at the expense of telling the truth. In other words, it was about disinformation and the people who are persuaded by it.

Many people would like to ban disinformation. But who decides what is disinformation? Under U.S. law, we don’t ask government tribunals to decide “the truth.” I have written about how experiences in other countries show that it is dangerous to ask courts, or any instrumentality of government, to do so.

If that sounds improbable, recall that it wasn’t that long ago that Donald Trump, while still a candidate, was calling news media like CNN and The New York Times “fake news.” He wanted to “open up the libel laws” and threatened to shut these outlets down. If the government decides which media sources are “real” or “fake,” a free press – and freedom of expression as we have known it – will cease to exist. As the late Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson wrote in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette in 1943, “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in matters of politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.” That means that the law tolerates errors in journalism – which are inevitable – as part of the search for truth.

I hold no brief for Fox. But had the Dominion case gone to the jury, the inevitable appeal by whomever lost would give the Supreme Court the chance to reconsider and possibly eliminate the New York Times v. Sullivan standard that protects all news media of all political stripes. At least two justices, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, have indicated they are eager to do just that, even though it has been the constitutional standard for nearly 60 years. Given this court’s willingness to overturn precedent, as it did with abortion rights, there is no guarantee that another three justices might not join them.

In the end, this lawsuit was about two questions: Did Fox knowingly publish false statements about Dominion that harmed the company’s reputation, and did it do so knowing, or having reason to know, that they were false? It has already vindicated Dominion and exposed Fox’s questionable practices to the public. Anything more will have to wait for another day, which may come sooner than we think. Smartmatic, which builds electronic voting systems, has a pending libel suit against Fox and is poised to continue the battle.

Fox, Dominion Reach $787M Settlement Over Election Claims

Attorneys for Dominion Voting Systems speak at a news conference outside New Castle County Courthouse in Wilmington, Del., after the defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News was settled just as the jury trial was set to begin, Tuesday, April 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

BY DAVID BAUDER, RANDALL CHASE AND GEOFF MULVIHILL

WILMINGTON, DEL. (AP) — Fox News agreed Tuesday to pay Dominion Voting Systems nearly $800 million to avert a trial in the voting machine company’s lawsuit that would have exposed how the network promoted lies about the 2020 presidential election.

The stunning settlement emerged just as opening statements were supposed to begin, abruptly ending a case that had embarrassed Fox News over several months and raised the possibility that network founder Rupert Murdoch and stars such as Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity would have to testify publicly.

“The truth matters. Lies have consequences,” Dominion lawyer Justin Nelson told reporters outside a Delaware courthouse after Superior Court Judge Eric Davis announced the deal.

Outside of the $787.5 million promised to Colorado-based Dominion, it was unclear what other consequences Fox would face. Fox acknowledged in a statement “the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false,” but no apology was offered.

“We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues,” Fox said. Its lawyers and representatives offered no other comment or details about the settlement.

Asked by a reporter whether there was “anything to this other than money,” Dominion CEO John Poulos did not answer.

The deal is a significant amount of money even for a company the size of Fox. It represents about one-quarter of the $2.96 billion the company reported earning last year before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — a figure often used to approximate a company’s cash flow.

The settlement also follows a $965 million judgment issued last year against Alex Jones by a Connecticut jury for spreading false conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook school massacre.

Coupled with other lawsuits in the pipeline, the agreement shows there is a real financial risk for conservative media that traffic in conspiracy theories. What remains unknown is how much of a deterrent this will be. Even as the Dominion case loomed this spring, Fox’s Tucker Carlson aired his alternate theories about what happened at the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

Dominion had sued Fox for $1.6 billion, arguing that the top-rated news outlet damaged the company’s reputation by peddling phony conspiracy theories that claimed its equipment switched votes from former President Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden. Davis, in an earlier ruling, said it was “CRYSTAL clear” that none of the allegations about Dominion aired on Fox by Trump allies were true.

Dominion set out to prove in the lawsuit that Fox acted with malice in airing allegations that it knew to be false, or with “reckless disregard” for the truth. It presented volumes of internal emails and text messages that showed Fox executives and personalities saying they knew the accusations were untrue, even as the falsehoods were aired on programs hosted by Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs and Jeannine Pirro.

Records released as part of the lawsuit showed that Fox aired the claims in part to win back viewers who were fleeing the network after it correctly called hotly contested Arizona for Democrat Joe Biden on election night. One Fox Corp. vice president called them “MIND BLOWINGLY NUTS.”

During a deposition, Murdoch testified that he believed the 2020 election was fair and had not been stolen from Trump.

“Fox knew the truth,” Dominion argued in court papers. “It knew the allegations against Dominion were ‘outlandish’ and ‘crazy’ and ‘ludicrous’ and ‘nuts.’ Yet it used the power and influence of its platform to promote that false story.”

Several First Amendment experts said Dominion’s case was among the strongest they had ever seen. But there was real doubt about whether Dominion would be able to prove to a jury that people in a decision-making capacity at Fox could be held responsible for the network’s actions.

Dominion’s Nelson called the settlement “a tremendous victory” and noted that there are six more lawsuits pending regarding election claims.

“We settled because it was about accountability,” Nelson said in an interview. “Our goals were to make sure that there was accountability for the lies, and to try to make our client right. And we accomplished both goals.”

It’s hard to tell what the deal will mean financially for Dominion. The company would not provide its most recent earnings, saying the figures were not public.

In the weeks leading up to the trial, Davis significantly narrowed Fox’s potential line of defense, including nixing the network’s argument that it was merely airing newsworthy allegations. Newsworthiness is not a defense against defamation, he said.

In a March 31 ruling, he pointedly called out the network for airing falsehoods while noting that bogus election claims still persist more than two years after Trump lost his bid for reelection.

“The statements at issue were dramatically different than the truth,” Davis said in that ruling. “In fact, although it cannot be attributed directly to Fox’s statements, it is noteworthy that some Americans still believe the election was rigged.”

In its defense, Fox said it was obligated to report on a president who claimed that he had been cheated out of reelection.

“We never reported those to be true,” Fox lawyer Erin Murphy said. “All we ever did was provide viewers the true fact that these were allegations that were being made.”

Dominion had sued both Fox News and its parent, Fox Corp, and said its business had been significantly damaged. Fox said the company grossly overestimated its losses, before agreeing to pay about half of what Dominion had asked for.

In a 1964 case involving The New York Times, the U.S. Supreme Court limited the ability of public figures to sue for defamation. The court ruled that plaintiffs needed to prove that news outlets published or aired false material with “actual malice” — knowing such material was false or acting with a “reckless disregard” for whether or not it was true.

That has provided news organizations with stout protection against libel judgments. Yet the nearly six-decade legal standard has come under attack by some conservatives in recent years, including Trump and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who have argued for making it easier to win a libel case.

“The larger importance of the settlement ... is that the high level of protection for news media in a defamation case remains intact for now,” said Doreen Weisenhaus, an instructor of media law at Northwestern University.

In documents released in recent months, Fox executives and anchors discussed how not to alienate the audience, many of whom believed Trump’s claims of fraud despite no evidence to back them up. Fox’s Tucker Carlson suggested a news reporter be fired for tweeting a fact check debunking the fraud claims.

Some of the exhibits were simply embarrassing, such as scornful behind-the-scenes opinions about Trump, whose supporters form the core of the network’s viewers. Text exchanges revealed as part of the lawsuit show Carlson declaring, “I hate him passionately,” and saying that “we are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights.”

Fox News announced the settlement on Neil Cavuto’s afternoon news show. “It’s a done deal,” he said. “It’s a settlement and for at least Fox, it appears to be over.”

But Fox’s legal problems may not be over. It still faces a defamation lawsuit from another voting technology company, Smartmatic. Its lawyer, Erik Connolly, said Tuesday that “Dominion’s litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox’s disinformation campaign. Smartmatic will expose the rest.”

___ Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz in New York and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.

___

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

How election lies, libel law were key to Fox defamation suit

FILE - A person walks past the Fox News Headquarters in New York, Wednesday, April. 12, 2023. Dominion Voting Systems' defamation lawsuit against Fox News for airing bogus allegations of fraud in the 2020 election is set to begin trial on Tuesday, April 18, 2023, in Delaware. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)

BY JENNIFER PELTZ AND NICHOLAS RICCARDI

Fox News settled a major defamation lawsuit for $787.5 million on Tuesday, according to the voting machine company that sued the top cable news network.

The settlement avoids a trial that could have shed additional light on former President Donald Trump’s election lies, revealed more about how the right-leaning network operates and even redefined libel law in the U.S. Here are some things to know about the case.

THE CASE

Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox for $1.6 billion, claiming the news outlet repeatedly aired allegations that the company’s voting machines were rigged against Trump in 2020 while knowing the accusations were untrue. Fox contended that it was reporting newsworthy charges made by supporters of the Republican president. The network said it was supported legally by libel standards.

The judge in the case announced that the two parties had resolved the matter Tuesday, just as opening arguments were scheduled to begin. Fox did not reveal settlement terms, but Dominion said the deal was for $787.5 million.

ELECTION DISCONNECT

Denver-based Dominion produced evidence that prominent people at Fox didn’t believe the fraud allegations, even as the network gave Trump’s allies airtime to repeat them. Multiple staffers texted and emailed in disbelief as Trump latched onto increasingly tenuous claims of being robbed by voter fraud. Fox’s Sean Hannity said in a deposition that he did not believe the fraud claims “for one second” but wanted to give accusers the chance to produce evidence.

Fox founder Rupert Murdoch, questioned under oath, agreed that the 2020 election, won by Democrat Joe Biden, was free and fair: “The election was not stolen,” he said. Murdoch even wrote on Jan. 5, 2021, to a top executive urging that prominent Fox personalities issue a statement acknowledging Biden’s legitimate win. At the same time, Murdoch acknowledged that Fox hosts such as Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro at times endorsed false claims of election fraud.

FOX’S FEAR

The court papers laid out a profound concern at Fox over the impact of its election night call that Biden had beaten Trump in the battleground state of Arizona — a call that was accurate. Fox scooped its rivals on the call, but it infuriated Trump and many Fox viewers, who expressed their anger and began tuning in to rival conservative media outlets such as Newsmax. Emails and memos released in the case show Fox executives were highly aware of a drop-off in their network’s viewership at the same time that Newsmax was gaining viewers, and the executives viewed that dynamic as a potential threat.

LIBEL LAW

In its defense, Fox relied on a doctrine of libel law that has been in place since a 1964 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The doctrine has made it difficult for some plaintiffs to prove defamation by news outlets. Public figures, and Dominion fits that standard in this case, have to prove not only that the information reported was incorrect but that the news organization acted with “reckless disregard” about whether it was true or not.

Some First Amendment advocates suggested the voting machine company had a strong argument. But they worried that a prolonged legal battle would give the Supreme Court a chance to change libel laws that would weaken protection for all media.

JUDGE’S IRE

The run-up to the trial was rocky for Fox, and not just because the public got a look at such private chatter as primetime host Tucker Carlson saying he “passionately” hated Trump. The trial judge has scolded the network for 11th-hour disclosures about Murdoch’s role at Fox News and about some evidence involving Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, including recordings of her talking off-camera with Trump’s lawyers.

Fox lawyers later apologized to the judge about the Murdoch matter, saying it was a misunderstanding not intended to deceive. Fox, meanwhile, won some legal fights over limiting what jurors could hear, including a ruling that barred testimony about the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

TRUMP’S INTEREST

Trump took a keen interest in the case, judging by his social media posts. Always concerned about loyalty, and nursing a grudge about the Arizona call, he expressed anger at revelations in the case that many people at Fox not only did not support his fraud allegations but privately disdained them. Trump stepped up his criticism of Fox as the 2024 Republican presidential race gained steam, but he gave recent interviews to Carlson and Hannity.

THE ELECTION

Federal and state election officials, exhaustive reviews in multiple battleground states where Trump challenged his loss, and Trump’s attorney general found no widespread fraud that could have changed the outcome of the 2020 election. Nor did they uncover any credible evidence that the vote was tainted. Trump’s allegations of fraud also have been roundly rejected by dozens of courts, including by judges he appointed.

Former Hospital Nurse In Independence Sentenced For Raping Patient

Chukwuemeka Emmanuel

BY BRIAN DULLE

KANSAS CITY, MO. (FOX 4) — A former nurse who worked at an Independence hospital has been sentenced for raping a patient in 2019.

A judge sentenced 38-year-old Chukwuemeka Emmanuel, of Overland Park, on Thursday to 20 years in prison for first-degree rape.

Emmanuel was convicted after a bench trial last month on the first-degree rape charge.


According to court documents, a patient at Centerpoint Hospital in Independence reported to Independence police that her nurse raped her on June 15, 2019.

The victim stated she had asked her nurse, Emmanuel, to help clean her because her catheter was leaking

When Emmanuel entered the room, the victim said he put on rubber gloves and began to perform sexual acts, raping her and touching her, court documents say.

The next day, another nurse conducted a sexual assault kit on the victim. During the exam, the victim told the nurse that she asked Emmanuel to stop and he was not wearing protection.

Centerpoint Hospital security cameras showed Emmanuel entering the victim’s room at 12:19 a.m. and exiting 20 minutes later.

During the investigation, another nurse at Centerpoint, who said she was in a relationship with Emmanuel, told police he called her and told her he was going to Nigeria because he had been accused of rape. She believed he was in New York or Nigeria. He was later taken into police custody.

At Least 9 US Citizens Die In Cartel Attack In North Mexico

This combination of frames from Nov. 4, 2019, video by Kenny Miller and posted on the Twitter account of Alex LeBaron shows two views of a burned-out vehicle that was being used by some members of the LeBaron family as they were driving in a convoy near the Sonora-Chihuahua border in Mexico. Mexican authorities say drug cartel gunmen ambushed multiple vehicles, including this one, slaughtering several women and children. (Kenny Miller/Courtesy of Alex LeBaron via AP)

Map locates the site of the cartel killings of at least nine US citizens in the Mexican state of Sonoma;

At least nine American citizens including children have been killed by a Mexican drug cartel after being ambushed on the road. Bodies found in burning SUV. Image: Fox TV

BY MARK STEVENSON

MEXICO CITY (AP) — At least three women and six children, all apparently U.S. citizens, were slaughtered by drug cartel gunmen in northern Mexico, officials said Tuesday. Six children were found alive, one child had a bullet wound and one child was still missing.

Mexican Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo said the gunmen may have mistaken the group’s large SUVs for rival gangs. He said at least five children have been taken to Phoenix, Arizona for treatment.

The slaughter of U.S. citizens on Mexican soil quickly became an international issue, with U.S. President Donald Trump tweeting, “This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth.”

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador refused that approach, saying at a Tuesday news conference, “The worst thing you can have is war.”

“We declared war, and it didn’t work,” Lopez Obrador said, referring to the policies of previous administrations. “That is not an option.”

Still, it was the second failure in recent weeks for López Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” anti-crime strategy. Two weeks ago, Mexican troops had to release a drug lord after his supporters mounted armed attacks in Culiacan, Sinaloa.

“The United States stands ready, willing & able to get involved and do the job quickly and effectively,” Trump tweeted. “The great new President of Mexico has made this a big issue, but the cartels have become so large and powerful that you sometimes need an army to defeat an army!

A relative said the victims lived in the hamlet of La Mora in Sonora state, a decades-old settlement founded as part of an offshoot of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

La Mora is about 70 miles (110 kilometers) south of Douglas, Arizona. Many of the church’s members were born in Mexico and thus have dual citizenship.

The group was attacked while travelling in a convoy of SUVs. The relative asked not to be named for fear of reprisals.

The relative said he had located the burned-out, bullet-ridden SUV containing the remains of his nephew’s wife and her four children — twin 6-month old babies and two other children aged 8 and 10.

“The mafia vehicles got her and four of her kids, and then set their vehicle on fire, burnt them to a crisp,” said the relative.

Two women and two other children were later found dead.

“A wonderful family and friends from Utah got caught between two vicious drug cartels, who were shooting at each other, with the result being many great American people killed, including young children, and some missing,” Trump wrote.

Durazo said police, soldiers and the National Guard were searching the rural, mountainous area on the Sonora-Chihuahua border for the missing child.

The relative said “We’re guessing right now, but we believe it was a case of mistaken identity. They just opened fire on the vehicle because it was an SUV.”

Durazo said the Sinaloa cartel had an important presence on the Sonora said, but that a rival cartel was trying to invade the territory from the Chihuahua side.

The relative said he saw cartel gunmen gathered about a mile away after the ambush. “The cartels from Sonora, there were probably 50 or 60 of them, armed to the teeth.”

Another relative, Julian LeBaron, said on his Facebook page that one of the dead woman was Rhonita Maria LeBaron.

Jhon LeBaron, another relative, posted on his Facebook page that his aunt and another woman were dead. He also posted that six of his aunt’s children had been left abandoned but alive on a roadside.

It would not be the first time that members of the break-away church had been attacked in northern Mexico, where their forebears settled — often in Chihuahua state — decades ago.

In 2009, Benjamin LeBaron, an anti-crime activist who was related to those killed in Monday’s attack, was murdered in 2009 in neighboring Chihuahua state.

Descendants Of 2 African Slaves To Spend Night Inside Reconstructed North Carolina Slave Cabin

Inside a reconstructed slave cabin at Somerset Place State Historic Site. (North Carolina Historic Sites)

BY LUCIA I. SUAREZ

CRESSWELL, NC (FOX NEWS) -- The descendants of two Africans who were enslaved at a North Carolina plantation will spend the night in a reconstructed slave cabin near the same sites where they once lived.

Mina Wilson, 57, of El Cerrito, Calif., is among the 40 descendants of two slaves named Kofi and Sally who are gathering Saturday for a reunion at the Somerset Place State Historic Site in Creswell, N.C. She is among the six family members staying overnight on the grounds.

“I think it will be a deeply spiritual experience,” she told the Associated Press. “I think we’ll be talking and communicating with the energy there.”

It will be the first time descendants of slaves will have spent the night at the former plantation.

The two slaves were among the 80 slaves brought to Creswell from the coast of west Africa in 1786 to clear out swamps for the plantation. Karen Hayes, the site manager for Somerset, told the AP that these dozens of slaves spent two years doing backbreaking work to dig a 6-mile, 20-foot wide transportation canal connecting Lake Phelps to the Scuppernong River.

"They were dealing with mosquitos, snakes and heat exhaustion," Hayes said. "And they didn't know why they were here and why they were captured."

In an 1899 book, a former Somerset overseer said that the slaves would drown themselves to escape bondage and some died from the work. In an indication of mortality among the slaves, just 15 of the original 80 are identified on the 1803 slave inventory, according to genealogical data gathered by Dorothy Redford, former executive director of the site.

By 1865, Somerset had expanded to include thousands of acres of crops, along with sawmills. The number of slaves working the property grew to more than 200.

The main house, built about 1830, still stands while the original slave cabins did not survive. The two there today were built at the same location as the original ones, to the same size and using the same materials, Hayes said.

Wilson and her family members are part of a larger group of 18 people staying on the grounds Saturday night as part of the Slave Dwelling Project.

Joseph McGill, who began the project to emphasize the history of slaves and has stayed overnight in slave dwellings about 200 times, told the AP it’s “totally different” to have direct descendants participating.

“It’s making that connection,” he said. “It’s rare that African Americans can make those connections to the place where their ancestors were enslaved.… They still have to get over the anxiety of visiting the place where their ancestors were enslaved.”

Wilson said she is part of the sixth generation of Kofi and Sally and that her story gives her “a different level of appreciation for the journey my parents and their parents took, and the vision they had to lead themselves from that to where I sit.”

“I have an immense gratitude and appreciation for that,” she added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

In this undated photo made available by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural resources, a list from Nov. 10, 1803 shows the slaves at Somerset Plantation in NC., among them the names of Sally and Kofi (listed as Cuff). (North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources)

Trump Plans To Roll Back Deportation Protections For Families Of US Troops, Immigration Lawyers Say

President Donald Trump salutes a U.S. Marine while stepping off of Marine One after arriving back at the White House. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

BY AUSTIN WILLIAMS

WASHINGTON (FOX-10-PHPENIX) - - President Donald Trump, who has long been outspoken regarding his respect for the U.S. military and its personnel, is now looking to roll back a program that protects undocumented family members of active-duty troops from being deported, according to immigration attorneys.

According to NPR, attorneys who work with family members and loved ones of deployed soldiers are racing against the clock to submit applications for what is known as parole in place, after hearing that the program is "being terminated."

The parole in place program extends immigration protections to family members of all active-duty troops, selected and ready reserve individuals, and those who previously served and were not dishonorably discharged.

According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, parole in place is only available to military family members on a case-by-case basis, in one-year increments and under “urgent humanitarian reasons.”

The purpose of this program is to give military members peace of mind while serving, knowing that their undocumented families will be safe from deportation.

“What I’ve learned in the last week or so from multiple military and government attorneys is that the Trump administration plans to roll back the remaining military-related immigration benefits,” said Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney who represents recruits and veterans in deportation proceedings.

She said that various government lawyers have been notified that in the next 30 days “they’re going to remove these benefits and they won’t be available anymore.”

According to Stock, the NPR story only mentioned the benefits for active-duty personnel, but she says there is going to be a rollback of all of the immigration benefits available to active duty, National Guard, reserve and military veterans and their families as well.

For her and many others, not only does the change in policy not make any sense, it would negatively affect thousands of U.S. soldiers and their families, some of whom she represents.

“I have a client who’s a soldier in the Army, who’s about to be deployed to Africa, with Africa command, and she has a husband in the United States and a child, and her husband would’ve been eligible for benefits under the Obama administration’s policies,” said Stock.

“But under these new policies he’s not going to be eligible for benefits so he’s going to be facing deportation, while she’s deployed in Africa, and he’s supposed to be the one taking care of their baby.”

An email Stock said she obtained from a government lawyer who she knows personally read, “I am urging all attorneys who have clients eligible for PIP [parole in place] to do just that ASAP.”

It went on to say, “Time is no longer your client’s friend.”

Another email she obtained from a civilian attorney who she says works at the Pentagon said, “Yesterday the Baltimore Field Office told a young Marine’s wife that PIP was ‘being terminated’ in 30 days.”

Another government lawyer has urged immigration lawyers to “act quickly before the program is officially terminated next month,” according to NPR.

"I would advise clients that if they are eligible for [parole in place] to submit it ASAP," the government lawyer warned in a message obtained by NPR. "Wish there was better news to share. Big take-away is that no group is 'safe' any longer," the lawyer added.

So far, there has been no statement from the White House regarding the Trump administration’s interest in deprecating the parole in place program.

A spokesperson from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in an email that “there is no new information to release at this time.”

Stock said the White House is fully aware of the “firestorm of criticism” that they’re going to get from implementing the rollbacks.

“They know they’re going to have to deal with the chaos, obviously someone is telling them to implement a policy that doesn’t make any sense other than it plays to the anti-immigrant crowd,” said Stock.

“They’re saying they’re not going to confirm it, kind of is confirmation that they’re doing it because they’re not denying it,” she added.

This story was reported from Los Angeles.

Fox Draws Nearly 2.6 Million Viewers For Sanders Town Hall

Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during a Fox News town-hall style event Monday April 15, 2019 in Bethlehem, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

BY DAVID BAYDER

NEW YORK (AP) — Sen. Bernie Sanders took heat from some Democrats for holding a town hall on Fox News Channel but there’s one result hard to argue with: it was the most-watched candidate event in the election campaign so far.

An estimated 2.55 million people saw Sanders’ town hall Monday in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the Nielsen company said. Not only did that beat the 1.35 million people who saw Sanders on CNN on Feb. 25, the Fox telecast aired before prime time when traditionally the largest audience gathers.

Sen. Kamala Harris’ CNN town hall in January was seen by 1.95 million viewers, the previous high for a 2020 presidential contender.

The Vermont senator also apparently had one prominent viewer in Washington. President Donald Trump tweeted Tuesday that it was “so weird to watch Crazy Bernie” on Fox News. He said Bret Baier, who co-anchored the event with Martha MacCallum, and the audience was “so smiley and nice.”

Baier later tweeted his thanks to Trump for watching, and said he’d like to have the president on a town hall or for an interview on his nightly news show.

“We cover all sides,” Baier said. While Trump is a frequent interview subject on Fox, he tends to avoid newsier personalities like Baier and Chris Wallace.

Later Tuesday, Trump claimed that “Many Trump Fans & Signs were outside of the @FoxNews Studio” during the Sanders event. “Big complaints about not being let in-stuffed with Bernie supporters,” the president tweeted. “What’s with @FoxNews?”

During the town hall, Sanders noted the blowback he’d gotten from some Democrats for appearing on Fox and took a few shots at the network, at one point drawing a rebuke from Baier.

“We are very grateful that you’re here,” Baier said. “We are giving you an hour of substance and talk on our airwaves so we can get over the Fox thing, if you’re alright with that,” he said.

Fox says it is in talks with other Democrats to have town halls on the network, but hasn’t said who.

Democratic National Committee head Tom Perez said earlier Monday that the organization was not reconsidering its decision in February not to hold any of its upcoming debates on the network. He was responding to a question from Fox’s Bill Hemmer about upcoming debates, which the DNC has scheduled on NBC News and CNN.

Fox chose not to pre-empt its opinionated prime-time lineup of Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham to show Sanders on Monday. The prime-time hosts spent relatively little time on the Sanders appearance that had preceded their shows.

“You saw crazy Bernie on the air tonight,” Hannity said during his monologue. “That was hard to watch. ... Let’s hear every communist idea we possibly can.”

Chisom Mbonu-Ezeoke Excited To Use LA Experience To Inspire Women, Girls Of Nigeria

BY JILL PAINTER LOPEZ

Chisom Mbonu-Ezeoke Image Via Fox Sports

LOS ANGELES (FOX SPORTS WEST) — Chisom Mbonu-Ezeoke had never seen an ice rink or a hockey game, let alone lace up ice skates.

Mbonu-Ezeoke, a sports broadcaster in Nigeria, was about to check that trifecta off her bucket list within two days in Los Angeles.

With the help of Los Angeles Kings broadcaster Daryl Evans, she donned a pair of skates and leaned on Evans as they made their way around the rink at the Toyota Sports Center. Mbonu-Ezeoke’s progress was slow and steady, but she was determined to get to center ice for a photo.

She had the event documented on Facebook Live so many of her followers could see a rink for the first time as well.

“First of all, it was fun,” she said. “In the sports world, I’ve pretty much covered everything I’ve wanted to cover, Olympics, world championships, everything. Being in that rink, wow. I just wanted to share it with the people back home.”

And that’s why she’s here in Los Angeles, to learn and glean as much information as she can and in return share her experiences with women and girls in Nigeria in the hope of arming them with the tools to lead better lives.

The 38-year-old Mbonu-Ezekoke, who was the first female soccer analyst for SuperSport, a network she watched and dreamed of working for one day.
She is spending a month away from her husband and two children and career in Nigeria while she’s in the United States as part of the Global Sports Mentoring Program, in which, the U.S. Department of State seeks to empower women all over the world as they give back to their communities through sports.

FOX Sports is hosting Chisom this month, while participants in the program are paired up with league offices, agencies, and media partners around the country.

Mbonu-Ezeoke proudly wears the slogan “GSMP” on T-shirts around town and at games. There were few females doing what she wanted to do while growing up and watching soccer, basketball and participating in track and field.

“I was inspired by a guy,” Mbonu-Ezeoke said. “There was this anchor (South African broadcaster Thomas Mlambo), a very young boy about my age or a couple years older in South Africa. I watched the English Premier League and everything. I wanted to be like him. For me, it was a guy. I liked him and I told my friends, that one day, I was going to do that. It wasn’t that I saw women and wanted to be like them. I saw him. At the time I was young. I didn’t know the challenges facing women to do this.

“The norm for women is to get married and have children,” Mbonu-Ezeoke added.

She is married to Melvin and the two have a 4-year-old daughter, Dabeluchukwu Ezeoke, and a 2-year-old son, Yagazie Ezeoke, but Mbonu-Ezeoke has a career as well.

Her sister is helping take care of the children while Mbonu-Ezeoke’s in the mentoring program.

Mbonu-Ezeoke hopes her daughter is among the many women and girls who might be helped by the tools she’s learning. She plans to get tents and have parents drop their children off for a weekend of fun and education. They’ll play net ball and other sports on Saturday and Sundays and not just for the exercise.

“We use sports to teach life lessons,” Mbonu-Ezeoke said. “With sports you want to constantly improve. You want to win. You want to be better. You want to be faster. You want to defend better. You have to have tactics to win a game. These things translate to everyday life.”

She’ll use defense as a theme.

“You need to defend yourself against HIV, so no unsafe sex,” she said. “You have to defend your mind from perverts. Don’t let them come in. Don’t let people tell you that you can’t do something, so you defend your mind.”

And Mbonu-Ezeoke will have help. She knows the power and strength in numbers. She plans to enlist the help of many of the men and women she’s met in the United States and have them give talks via Skype, like Jennifer Pransky, one of her mentors and coordinating producer at FOX Sports.

Pransky is expected to travel to Washington D.C. where Mbonu-Ezeoke will present her action plan to the Global Sports Mentoring Program this weekend before returning to Nigeria.

“She’s in a situation where it’s tougher to make an impact,” Pransky said. “Here, it’s a little easier to inspire people. We don’t have the culture pressures. We don’t have the pressure to get married at 15. Her work is cut out for her. One of her main motivating factors was her mother. The fact she didn’t have a mom that went along with the societal and cultural norms. She encouraged her to make strides forward and do what she wanted.

“Chisom is someone who can go back and be that role model. Here there’s so many people you can look at who do great and wonderful things and there there are so few. She’ll have to be that singular figure for a while, doing the little things and and there will be more weight on her shoulders. She got where she is because of her mother.”

In Nigeria, 63 percent of the population lives on $1.90 per day. Mbonu-Ezeoke hopes to educate and inspire so that women can lead better lives.

She’s enlisted so many in her quest to learn, including chats with Kings defenseman Drew Doughty and Eric Shanks, president, COO and executive producer of FOX Sports.

And of course, there was that first skating lesson with Evans.

“You just hope that this little bit, with the couple of days I was able to chat with her and with the others she’s been meeting, hopefully she’s able to take some of that back and get it on the right sets of ears and somebody will listen,” Evans said. “Make steps. Don’t expect anything to happen overnight.

“I remember when I first came here with hockey in California in 1980 when I was drafted to see where it is now 37-years later is a whole new world. If something like that could happen and hopefully it doesn’t take quite as long, you never know. It could be something special in the years to come.”

Mbonu-Ezeoke and her family have access to a small generator so they can have electricity. Generators are considered luxuries for many. It’s that very reason that ice or hockey rinks in Nigeria would be a costly endeavor and something the country likely wouldn’t see for quite some time.

“I had never seen ice hockey,” she said. “We don’t have ice in Nigeria. I’ve held a baseball bat and a football, but I’d never seen an ice rink. It was a totally new experience.”

She didn’t conduct the Facebook Live of her ice skating experience herself, she said, because she “was trying to save my life.”

Everything is done with a smile or laugh.

Mbonu-Ezeoke attended her second NBA game and first in the Clippers-Lakers rivalry last week, where he Clippers won easily.

She saw the professional debut of Lonzo Ball and has since looked up his statistics to see how he’s progressing. She follows American sports and admires Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Candace Parker among others. She posed with many of the Staples Center statues, like Magic Johnson’s, outside Staples Center

The Kings game she attended was her favorite event because of the show. She wishes sports arenas hosted such light displays and made cool videos in Nigeria.

Mbonu-Ezeoke learned she had the opportunity to watch the Ducks play the Montreal Canadiens last week but she wasn’t getting out of a meeting in Los Angeles until 5 p.m. on game day.

Mbonu-Ezeoke didn’t flinch about the prospect of the hours-long commute to Anaheim. She hopped in an Uber and arrived during the first period. She got to sit in the stands when the Ducks scored three goals within 97 seconds and watch the FOX Sports West crew broadcast the game.

Afterward, she chatted with saxophonist Michael Forbes, who plays outside the Honda Center and told her “your smile is worth a million bucks.” At her request, he played Lionel Ritchie’s ‘Hello’ for her.

Chisom’s smile and infectious personality are as big as her hopes and dreams for other women in Nigeria. She’ll use the fun of sports help accomplish her goals.

“It also made me a little sad. I see the way things are done, and I think, ‘why can’t we do this?'” Mbonu-Ezeoke asked. “If it’s rocket science, I would understand. I don’t understand why we can’t have the same. I’m not just talking about the fan base. The arenas, the production, everything. The excitement. It actually looks good, something that everyone could enjoy. You guys are about 300 years ahead of us.”

Mbonu-Ezeoke is trying to bridge that gap.

One slow and steady lap around the rink at a time.