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CNN defamation trial: Jury remains undecided as deliberation carries into second day

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January 17, 2025
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PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA – The jurors remain undecided in the high-stakes defamation lawsuit against CNN as deliberation will continue into Friday morning.

The plaintiff, U.S. Navy veteran Zachary Young, alleged that CNN smeared him by implying he illegally profited when helping people flee Afghanistan on the “black market” during the Biden administration’s military withdrawal from the country in 2021. Young believes CNN “destroyed his reputation and business” by branding him an illegal profiteer” who exploited “desperate Afghans” during a November 11, 2021, segment that first aired on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper.”

The jurors had been deliberating for nearly six hours. 14th Judicial Circuit Court Judge William S. Henry, who presided over the trial in Bay County, Florida, had previously negotiated with the jury twice to continue working longer into Thursday evening after the jury had requested to return Friday morning. Jurors were provided pizza after one of them said they were getting “hangry and tired.” They were dismissed at 9:18 p.m. CT.

The trial will resume at 8:15 a.m. CT on Friday.

The trial comes after three-plus years of litigation and a wild, sometimes chaotic, eight-day trial. The court previously ruled that Young “did not act illegally or criminally” despite what the network reported on air.

CNN’S ALEX MARQUARDT HESITANT TO ADMIT HE MADE MONEY COVERING WAR ZONES: ‘I DON’T GO THERE TO GET PAID’

U.S. Navy veteran Zachary Young alleged that CNN smeared him by implying he illegally profited when helping people flee Afghanistan on the “black market” during the Biden administration’s military withdrawal from the country in 2021. (Jessica Costescu)

Tapper first teased the 2021 segment at the center of the suit by telling CNN viewers of “desperate Afghans still trying to escape the country being preyed on by folks demanding that they pay up big time to get out.”

Later in the show, Tapper reminded viewers that the story on “desperate Afghans” being “preyed upon” was up next.

Once the much-hyped segment began, Tapper said Marquardt found “Afghans trying to get out of the country face a black market full of promises, demands of exorbitant fees, and no guarantee of safety or success.”

Tapper tossed to Marquardt, who said “desperate Afghans are being exploited” and need to pay “exorbitant, often impossible amounts” to flee the country.

Marquardt then singled out Young, putting a picture of his face on the screen and saying his company was asking for $75,000 to transport a vehicle of passengers to Pakistan or $14,500 per person to end up in the United Arab Emirates.

“Prices well beyond the reach of most Afghans,” Marquardt told viewers.

CNN DEFAMATION TRIAL: EDITOR WHO SAID STORY WAS ‘FULL OF HOLES LIKE SWISS CHEESE’ GRILLED ON WITNESS STAND

The segment at the heart of the trial first aired on “The Lead with Jake Tapper.” (CNN/Screenshot)

CNN then aired Marquardt allegedly attempting to call Young, who did not answer the phone.

“In a text message, he told CNN that Afghans trying to leave are expected to have sponsors pay for them,” Marquardt said, adding that Young told the network evacuation costs are “highly volatile and based on environmental realities.”

Marquardt then said Young “repeatedly declined to break down the cost or say if he’s making money,” before playing a clip of an anonymous sympathetic man who couldn’t afford to have his family evacuated from Afghanistan.

Marquardt went back to Young, saying he received another text message.

“In another message, that person offering those evacuations, Zachary Young, he wrote, ‘Availability is extremely limited, and demand is high’… he goes on to say, ‘That’s how economics works, unfortunately,’” Marquardt told viewers.

Tapper responded, “Unfortunately, hmm,” before thanking Marquardt for the report.

No other people or companies were named other than Young.

CNN DEFAMATION TRIAL: PLAINTIFF ACCUSES NETWORK OF FAKING CRITICAL PHONE CALL FOR ‘THEATER’

CNN host Jake Tapper and correspondent Alex Marquardt during the segment at the center of the defamation lawsuit. (CNN/Screenshot)

The segment was shared on social media and also repackaged for CNN’s website. The Marquardt report was re-aired Nov. 13 on Jim Acosta’s CNN show and multiple times on CNN International.

Every second of the segment was picked apart during the trial, with CNN’s legal team insisting Young was not a major element of the story and the plaintiff’s team suggesting the “black market” implication essentially ruined Young’s career as a defense contractor, where that language was specifically mentioned as grounds for termination in a contract he signed.

Young’s legal team obtained damning CNN internal messages through discovery repeatedly showing staffers expressing overt hostility towards the Navy veteran. Among those presented to the jury include one calling him a “shitbag” an “a–hole” one saying he has a “punchable face.”

Marquardt’s own message telling a colleague “we’re gonna nail this Zachary Young mf—er” was often cited throughout the trial.

Young also testified that he rescued at least 22 women from Afghanistan, but that information was never reported by CNN.

At one point, CNN senior national security editor Thomas Lumley was grilled in court after internal messages showed he was highly skeptical of the “pretty flawed” report. Lumley was called as a witness after internal messages showed he felt the report was “full of holes like Swiss cheese.”

CNN DEFAMATION TRIAL: REPORTER PRESSED ON HIS HEAVY PURSUIT OF NAVY VETERAN AS DEFENSE DOWNPLAYED INVOLVEMENT

CNN issued an on-air apology on March 25, 2022, when substitute anchor Pamela Brown was sitting in Tapper’s chair. However, several CNN staffers who took the witness stand said they didn’t feel the apology was necessary and CNN vice president Adam Levine testified that the apology was only issued for legal purposes.

The trial also included Judge Henry scolding CNNN lead counsel David Axelrod, who is not the on-air pundit with the same name, several times and forcing him to apologize to Young on the spot for calling him a “liar” when evidence proved he didn’t lie about failing to earn work in his field on the heels of the CNN segment airing.

Axelrod had insisted a document showing Young still had a security clearance was proof he was able to find work after the CNN segment aired, but it ultimately came out that the security clearance was dropped in 2022.

The trial resumes on Friday and will be streamed live on Fox News Digital.

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Joseph A. Wulfsohn is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter: @JosephWulfsohn.

U.K. Announces Rapid Review Into Scale of Child Sexual Abuse by Grooming Gangs

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January 17, 2025
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Britain’s government on Thursday bowed to pressure and announced new investigations into child sexual exploitation and abuse, less than a month after Elon Musk, the billionaire tech mogul, used his social media platform X to highlight the issue in a series of vitriolic posts.

Speaking in Parliament, Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, said she had commissioned a rapid three-month audit into the “current scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the country” that would examine data on the ethnicity of perpetrators.

She also said that the government would support and help fund up to five local inquiries into the issue of so-called grooming gangs — groups of men who were found to have sexually exploited thousands of girls in Britain, some as young as 11, in the 2000s and early 2010s. Most of the perpetrators were of British Pakistani heritage.

The scandal, which was widely covered in the British media in the 2010s and has already been the subject of local and national inquiries, spanned a number of towns and cities in which mostly white girls were exploited, assaulted and raped by groups of men.

According to a number of investigations, victims and parents who asked for help were often failed by the police and social services. Some police officers had referred to victims as “tarts” and to the girls’ abuse as a “lifestyle choice,” while other officials feared they would be labeled racist if they highlighted the ethnicity of the perpetrators.

Grooming gangs represent a fraction of the total number of recorded cases of child sexual abuse in England and Wales. Of 115,489 child sexual abuse crimes recorded in 2023, 4,228 cases — or 3.7 percent — involved groups of two or more perpetrators, according to official data published in November. And of those cases, 1,125 were perpetrated by relatives or family members at home.

But the issue is deeply emotive and was stoked by Mr. Musk who, this month, falsely accused Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other Labour Party lawmakers of enabling grooming gangs. His social posts included many inaccuracies and smears, including accusing Mr. Starmer, a former chief prosecutor, of being complicit in “the rape of Britain.” However his intervention reignited a debate on sensitive issues including race, sexual abuse and the cultural values of some immigrant communities.

The government had previously rejected calls to set up a new national investigation from the anti-immigration Reform U.K. party and the main opposition Conservative Party, whose leader, Kemi Badenoch, said that no one had “joined the dots” about the series of grooming cases, including the involvement of men of Pakistani heritage.

The government had said it would instead focus on implementing the recommendations of a previous national investigation by Professor Alexis Jay into child sexual abuse, which took seven years, processed more than two million pages of evidence and featured the voices of some 6,000 victims. That inquiry concluded in 2022 and made a series of recommendations that the previous Conservative-led government failed to implement.

Ms. Jay, who also oversaw a 2014 inquiry into grooming gangs in Rotherham, a northern England town where 1,400 minors were raped and trafficked by mainly Pakistani heritage men between 1997 and 2013, had argued against a new national inquiry, instead urging the Labour government to act on her previous recommendations.

On Thursday, Ms. Cooper said she had asked Louise Casey, who conducted a 2015 investigation into the authorities’ response to child sexual abuse in Rotherham, to undertake an audit of the scale of gang exploitation and to look at more evidence that was not previously available.

“It will properly examine ethnicity data and the demographics of the gangs involved and their victims, and will look at the cultural and societal drivers for this type of offending, including among different ethnic groups,” Ms. Cooper said of the new audit.

Ms. Cooper also announced plans to help the northern town of Oldham and up to four other municipalities undertake inquiries “to get truth and justice for victims and survivors.” Police chiefs have also been asked to revisit past gang exploitation cases where no charges were brought and reopen investigations where appropriate.

The government’s announcement on Thursday followed calls for action from a handful of Labour lawmakers, including Sarah Champion, who represents Rotherham. She had proposed a five-point plan that called for ministers “to mandate local inquiries around the country to hold authorities to account — which then report back to the government,” and for a “national audit” to investigate whether grooming gangs were still in operation or whether cases had been missed.

On Thursday Chris Philp, who speaks for the Conservative Party on home affairs, dismissed the initiative as insufficient. “The Government’s announcement of just five local rape gang inquiries is totally inadequate,” he wrote on social media, saying that many more towns were affected. “What about the rest — don’t they matter?”

Freezing temperatures are expected during Trump’s second inauguration : NPR

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January 17, 2025
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Fog hovers over the dome of the U.S. Capitol in Dec., 2024.

Kent Nishimura/Getty Images/Getty Images North America

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Kent Nishimura/Getty Images/Getty Images North America

When President-elect Donald Trump takes his oath of office on Monday, it will be during an unusually brisk Inauguration Day, with temperatures expected to be about 20 degrees colder than normal for this time of year.

The high temperature for the day is projected to be below freezing at 23 degrees, as Trump takes his second term in office, while the low for the day may drop to just 10 degrees.

Trump’s return to Washington will mark the coldest Inauguration Day in 40 years, since President Regan’s swearing-in in 1985, when temperatures were a chilly 7 degrees , but described as “sunny, but bitter cold.“

When Trump first took the presidential oath in 2017, the weather was pretty normal for the day, with a temperature of 48 degrees, although ceremony attendees had to deal with light rain throughout the day.

The good news for those attending the event this year is that no precipitation is expected on Inauguration Day itself, although snow and rain are possible the afternoon prior.

Fever reveal plans for $78 million training center after Caitlin Clark’s historic season

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January 17, 2025
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The Caitlin Clark effect has paid off in a big way for the Indiana Fever and women’s basketball.

Pacers Sports & Entertainment unveiled its $78 million plan to build a “world-class” performance center in downtown Indianapolis exclusively for its WNBA team, which is expected to open before the start of the 2027 season.

Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) talks to Indiana Fever guard Kelsey Mitchell (0) during the first half of Game 2 of the first round of the 2024 WNBA Playoffs at Mohegan Sun Arena Sept. 25, 2024. (Paul Rutherford/Imagn Images)

“We are excited to partner with Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett to identify the perfect location for the Indiana Fever Sports Performance Center,” PS&E Owner Herb Simon said in a statement. “The city of Indianapolis continues to be a tremendous partner as we elevate our team, players and community.”

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The 108,000-square-foot practice center will be connected to the Gainbridge Fieldhouse, where both the Fever and the Indiana Pacers play, and construction is expected to begin in August 2025.

According to a press release from the team, the design of the center will be geared toward “the specific needs of female athletes competing at the highest level, including performance and conditioning, recovery and rehabilitation, mental health and wellness and lifestyle support.”

“This elite training center is a reflection of our organization’s ongoing commitment to ensuring that our players have the highest level of resources to be successful,” Indiana Fever president of basketball and business operations Kelly Krauskopf said in a statement provided by the team.

Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) shoots as the Dallas Wings’ Jacy Sheldon (4) and Natasha Howard, right, defend in the first half of a WNBA game Sept. 1, 2024, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

EX-NOTRE DAME COACH OPENS UP ON CAITLIN CLARK BACKING OUT OF COMMITMENT: ‘I MAY STILL BE COACHING IF SHE CAME’

“As we look to the future, the focus of creating a first-class player experience designed exclusively for women athletes will set us apart.”

The new center will have two regulation courts, a full-service kitchen and areas dedicated to yoga and Pilates. In addition, the team said other features incorporated into the design include “a hair and nail salon, child care space and podcast and content production studio to support player lifestyles.”

The Fever have their own standalone training center at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse, which was last renovated in 2020.

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Clark’s historic rookie season generated record numbers for the WNBA, both in viewership and attendance. For the first time in league history, the league announced full-time charter flights for all its teams in May, which were projected to cost around $25 million per year for the next two seasons.

Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever reacts after a 3-pointer during the first half at Gainbridge Fieldhouse Aug. 16, 2024, in Indianapolis. (Justin Casterline/Getty Images)

Las Vegas, Seattle and Phoenix have all opened new training centers in the last few years, and Chicago has one under construction.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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‘The Interview’: Ambassador David Pressman Is Alarmed by What He Has Seen

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January 17, 2025
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When you say that they were trying to make you seem weird or gross, what were these articles saying? There’s a whole strand of reporting that’s suggestive that I’m a pedophile, which is a pretty extraordinary thing. I’m a father of two children. I’ve been in a relationship with my partner now for close to 24 years. I remember, I was with fellow ambassadors from the diplomatic corps, marching in the only Pride march outside of Budapest in a city called Pécs. It was sort of ragtag, small. And as they always were, the government media’s cameras were principally trained on me, and I remember my colleague, the Irish ambassador, who was there with me, had brought his daughter. And he had just arrived, and he wanted to introduce me to his daughter, and he leaned over and said, “This is the United States ambassador,” and we shook hands. And that evening on the news, the headline story was that the United States ambassador leads the Pride march in Pécs, which is of course absurd, and was surrounded by children, and we even saw him interact with the children. And it was said in a way that they didn’t have to finish the sentence. The message was clear.

There has been this growing relationship between the right in the United States and in Hungary, which is one of the reasons Viktor Orban has become more well known in America than he might have otherwise been. CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference) has held multiple conferences in Hungary. We’ve seen thinkers on the right, like the president of the Heritage Foundation, media personalities like Tucker Carlson, incoming Vice President JD Vance, express admiration for Orban. What have you observed about that relationship while you’ve been ambassador? As the American ambassador, I want to be a little careful about speaking about American politics. But what I will say is that Orban’s government has broadcast to communities, including political communities in the United States, that they are a country that is standing up for family values, that they are a country that’s fighting woke ideology, that they’re a country that’s fighting migration. Their tagline is: no migration, no gender, no war — things that resonate in political constituencies in the United States but also elsewhere in Europe and around the world. But what that does is it obfuscates something else that is happening. And what else is happening is a very dangerous system of rewards and punishment that has been set up in Hungary, where the government has effectively taken control of two things, money and the media, and then uses those two things to punish individuals who ask questions or express views that are dissonant with the government’s policy. And they use their control of the media to render those individuals radioactive. And so, the admiration for the Hungarian government that is sometimes expressed on the basis of some of the social issues or hot-button political issues, including in U.S. politics, I often wonder if those individuals actually understand the nature of what this government is standing for in its relationship, both with Russia and with China, but also the system of kleptocracy that has taken hold and is eroding democratic institutions here.

Orban has really shifted many things. As you said, he’s a champion of traditional, quote-unquote “family values.” He’s cracked down on L.G.B.T.Q. rights. He’s embraced anti-immigrant positions. Vance has talked admiringly about how Orban changed higher education in Hungary. Can you talk me through how Orban did that? What the Hungarian government did was effectively take what were public universities and public assets and transfer them to private hands. They set up something called public-private foundations, transferred all the assets of that university to the public-private foundation and then appointed a board of trustees for that foundation that was Fidesz party loyalists to a tenure for life. So what it did effectively was take what were public resources and put them under the infinite control of a single political party.

A look back at Deb Haaland's time as the first Indigenous cabinet secretary

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January 17, 2025
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The nation’s first Indigenous cabinet secretary is wrapping up at the Department of Interior. It’s unclear how many of Deb Haaland’s reforms will remain intact under Trump.

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