The No Spin Zone: The limits of the First Amendment guarantee of free speech go to trial today in a Delaware court in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against Fox News. The trial will test the limits, misinformation, lies, and the right to be wrong. 

  Dominion is suing Fox for  $1.6 billion for repeatedly airing claims that the voting company switched or dumped votes to ensure Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election. Pre-trial depositions show that Fox News hosts and executives knew they were airing false claims but broadcast them anyway to please a rabidly pro-Trump audience. 

  “Ultimately, this case is about the First Amendment protections of the media’s absolute right to cover the news,” Fox News has said in its defense. But is there a right to spread lies?

  In the landmark 1964 case New York Times v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court ruled that a plaintiff must prove that a news organization published false with “actual malice,” either by knowing that the information was false or displaying a reckless disregard for the truth. Judge Eric Davis has already ruled that statements aired by Fox about Dominion were false. 

  Ironically, Fox is the voice of the right wing, but a win for Fox could possibly result in louder calls from the right for limits on journalists.

  Whatever happens, the suit is revealing the sometimes blunt and ugly inside of the news business. As the old saying goes, if you like sausage or television news, you shouldn’t watch either being made.

The Shooting Gallery: An 84-year-old white man in Kansas City, Missouri has been charged in the shooting of Ralph Yarl, a 16-year-old black teenager who went to the wrong house to pick up his younger brothers.

  Lester told investigators that he fired immediately when he saw Yarl pull a door handle. A prosecutor said ‘there was a racial component to the case.”

  Andrew Lester shot Yarl in the head through the glass of his storm door, then shot him again in the arm. Yarl was able to crawl to a neighboring house for help. Lester has been charged with first-degree assault, which could get him a sentence of life in prison on conviction. 

  The boy’s father, Paul Yarl, told the NY Times that his son was actually able to walk out of the hospital on Sunday night and is expected to make a full recovery, his father said, but was still unable to speak.

  In rural upstate New York not far from Vermont, a 65 year old man has been charged with murder for shooting at a car that came up his driveway and killing a 20-year-old woman. 

  In Dadeville, Alabama, police are playing it close to the vest on whether they have arrested anyone or have even identified a suspect in the birthday party shooting that left four young people dead and 32 wounded. The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said police were still processing evidence including shell cases recovered from Mahogany Masterpiece dance studio.

  The dead ranged in age from 17 to 23.

  And in in Akron, Ohio, a grand jury decided to bring no charges against eight police officers who shot and killed 25-year-old Jayland Walker last June as he was running away. The cops say Walker had fired a shot at them from his car and thought he was still armed as he ran. They fired 94 rounds and hit him 46 times

It’s Political: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy yesterday at the New York Stock Exchange proposed a one-year increase in the national debt ceiling tied to spending cuts and policy changes, backing down from a nuclear threat to allow the country to default on its debt if the administration doesn’t agree to spending cuts. 

  McCarthy said House Republicans would vote “in the coming weeks” to  lift the debt ceiling in exchange for freezing spending levels while enacting regulatory rollbacks and stricter work requirements for social programs. His plan would be expected to be dead on arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate. 

The War Room: A Moscow court sentenced Vladimir Kara-Murza, a critic of Vladmir Putin, to 25 years in prison for giving speeches opposing Russia’s war on Ukraine. 

  The Russian Kara-Murza has been an opposition activist and Washington Post contributor. Two of his great-grandfathers were executed as spies and “enemies of the people” during Stalin’s purges.  Kara-Murza’s  grandfather was arrested in 1937 and served a sentence in labor camps in Russia’s Far East.

  In the fighting, Ukrainian forces are slowly losing the fight to symbolically hold the city of Bakhmut that has great propaganda but little strategic value. Ukrainian leaders are determined to defend Bakhmut to convince the Russian invaders that every inch of ground they take will cost them dearly.

The Spin Rack:  Kenyan runners Hellen Obiri and Evans Chebet won yesterday’s Boston Marathon on the 10th anniversary of the terrorist bombing that targeted the famous event. It was Obiri’s first Boston run and the second straight win for Chebet. — SpaceX scrubbed its launch of the Starship rocket yesterday because of a problem with a valve in the booster’s pressurization system that appeared to be frozen. The launch might be attempted within a few days. — Bales of cocaine estimated to be worth $440 million were found floating off the coast of Italy. — The FBI has arrested two Chinese agents accused of setting up a phony police station in New York’s Chinatown to keep an eye on Chinese dissidents.  — Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts signed a five-year, $255 million contract, making him at age 24 the highest paid player in the history of the NFL.

Below the Fold: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is still in a snit over his failure to take over the special district occupied by Disney World. He threatened to build a competing theme park or even a prison on state-owned land next door. Maybe he’ll call it “DeSantis World.”

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