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Today in History: June 27, Hurricane Audrey makes Gulf Coast landfall

Today in History: June 27, Hurricane Audrey makes Gulf Coast landfall

Boston Globe9 hours ago

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In 1950, the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling on member nations to help South Korea repel an invasion from the North.
In 1957, Hurricane Audrey slammed into coastal Louisiana and Texas as a Category 4 storm, causing as many as 600 deaths.
In 1991, US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first Black jurist to sit on the nation's highest court, announced his retirement.
In 2005, BTK serial killer Dennis Rader pleaded guilty to 10 murders that had spread fear across Wichita, Kansas, beginning in the 1970s.
In 2006, a constitutional amendment to ban desecration of the American flag died in a US Senate cliff-hanger, falling one vote short of the 67 needed to send it to states for ratification.
In 2011, former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was convicted by a federal jury in Chicago on a wide range of corruption charges, including the allegation that he had tried to sell or trade President Barack Obama's US Senate seat. (Blagojevich was later sentenced to 14 years in prison; his sentence was commuted by President Trump in February 2020, and he received a full and unconditional pardon from Trump in February 2025.)
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In 2018, US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose vote often decided cases on abortion, gay rights and other contentious issues, announced his retirement.
In 2022, in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Supreme Court ruled that a high school football coach who sought to kneel and pray on the field after games was protected by the First Amendment.

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Gavin Newsom demanded $787M from Fox News in his defamation lawsuit. The number isn't a coincidence.
Gavin Newsom demanded $787M from Fox News in his defamation lawsuit. The number isn't a coincidence.

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Gavin Newsom demanded $787M from Fox News in his defamation lawsuit. The number isn't a coincidence.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom sued Fox News on Friday, accusing the media company of defaming him by misrepresenting his interactions with President Donald Trump. The figure Newsom demanded in damages might sound familiar: $787 million. That's nearly identical to the $787.5 million that Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corporation, agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems in 2023 after the media company promoted falsehoods that the election technology company rigged the 2020 presidential election. Dominion's lawsuit was filed in Delaware Superior Court, the same venue where Newsom filed his lawsuit on Friday. Newsom's private lawyers, Michael Teter and Mark Bankston, worked with the same Wilmington-based law firm that Dominion used, Farnan LLP, to file their suit in the Delaware court. Newsom alleges Fox News defamed him by calling him a liar when he denied speaking with President Donald Trump on June 9. Around that time, Trump had sent National Guard troops to Los Angeles over Newsom's objections. Demonstrators had held protests around the city in opposition to the president's immigration policies. At a press conference on June 10, Trump said he spoke to Newsom "a day ago." In fact, Newsom says, they spoke for 16 minutes around midnight on June 7 Eastern time (or June 6 Pacific time), the day Trump first sent the troops. Newsom posted phone records on social media showing the timing of their call. But his lawsuit says Fox News host John Roberts misled readers about the timing in his own social media posts, anyway. The lawsuit also says Jesse Watters, a Fox opinion host, falsely called him a liar. "Why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him? Why would he do that?" Watters said, according to the suit. The chyron on the screen at the time read "Gavin lied about Trump's call," the lawsuit says. Newsom's lawsuit says Fox News hasn't learned the lessons of the Dominion lawsuit, and that it misled its viewers for political reasons. "Unfortunately, the past two years have shown that the Dominion settlement did not serve as the deterrent many had predicted, as Fox has continued to launder the stream of false information flowing out of the White House," the lawsuit says. "Gov. Newsom's transparent publicity stunt is frivolous and designed to chill free speech critical of him," Fox News said in a statement. "We will defend this case vigorously and look forward to it being dismissed." Dominion's lawsuit proved embarrassing for Fox News. Depositions and emails obtained by the election technology company during the litigation process showed that then-host Tucker Carlson said he "passionately" hated Trump and that Rupert Murdoch wanted to make the now-president a "non-person" after the 2020 election. The company is also defending a separate pending lawsuit from Smartmatic, another election technology company that says it was defamed, in a New York court. Fox News has denied the allegations in Smartmatic's case, which remains ongoing. Defamation cases against public figures aren't an easy win The First Amendment makes it difficult for public figures, like Newsom, to succeed in defamation lawsuits. They must prove in court that the defendant acted with "actual malice," meaning the company or person knew they were lying or recklessly disregarded the truth. In a demand letter to Fox News, Newsom's lawyers said he would voluntarily dismiss the lawsuit if the outlet "retracts the claim that he lied when speaking about President Trump not calling him on June 9," and Watters issues an on-air apology. "If Fox News wants to lie to the American people on Donald Trump's behalf, it should face consequences — just like it did in the Dominion case," Newsom said in a statement. "I believe the American people should be able to trust the information they receive from a major news outlet. Until Fox is willing to be truthful, I will keep fighting against their propaganda machine." Trump himself has sued numerous media outlets, many having been dismissed. Disney settled a lawsuit with him earlier this year, and he is in ongoing settlement discussions with Paramount over a "60 Minutes" episode on CBS News that he says misleadingly edited an interview with Kamala Harris. Trump sued CBS in Texas, alleging it violated the state's consumer protection laws by editing an interview with Kamala Harris in a way he says is misleading. Newsom sued Fox on Friday under a similar California law. He said Fox "intentionally misled the public by purposefully broadcasting a deceptively edited video." "As President Trump has stated in his own complaint, 'News organizations…are responsible for accurately reporting the truth of events, not distorting an interview to try and falsely make their preferred candidate appear coherent and decisive,'" Newsom's lawsuit says, quoting from Trump's.

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President Trump praised the Supreme Court for its decision Friday limiting the ability of federal judges to impose nationwide injunctions, calling it a "monumental victory for the Constitution." In comments at the White House, the president said Friday, "This morning, the Supreme Court has delivered a monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers, and the rule of law in striking down the excessive use of nationwide injunctions to interfere with the normal functioning of the executive branch." The Supreme Court on Friday curbed the use of nationwide injunctions by federal judges, a practice the president and his allies have railed against as blocking or hindering their agenda. In a 6-3 decision that stemmed from the president's executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship, the Supreme Court said universal injunction orders likely exceeded the authority Congress has given the federal courts. Mr. Trump called the use of nationwide injunctions "a grave threat to democracy, frankly." Thanks to this decision, the president said the administration can "now promptly file to proceed with numerous policies that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis," including his effort to end birthright citizenship. Attorney General Pam Bondi predicted the Supreme Court would "most likely" rule on the merits of the birthright citizenship case during the next Supreme Court term, which begins this fall. Mr. Trump repeated a statement he often makes about birthright citizenship, a provision of the 14th Amendment, saying that it's no longer being used as it was originally intended. "Hundreds of thousands of people are pouring into our country under birthright citizenship, and it wasn't meant for that reason," he said. "It was meant for the babies of slaves." The president thanked Barrett for writing the opinion "brilliantly," and also the justices who sided with her. In the dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, "No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates. Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship," and the court's ruling means that "absent cumbersome class-action litigation, courts cannot completely enjoin even such plainly unlawful policies unless doing so is necessary to afford the formal parties complete relief." Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche also applauded other Supreme Court rulings, including a decision Friday to allow parents in a Maryland school district to opt their children out of storybooks based on objections to their approach to gender and sexuality. "I think the ruling was a great ruling, and I think it's a great ruling for parents," the president said. The president addressed other topics beyond the Supreme Court rulings, too, including his administration's tariffs and his trade negotiations with other countries. Although the president indicated his administration is close to deals with several countries, he said at some point in the next week and a half, his administration will be sending letters to some countries "and tell them what they have to pay." On Iran, the president expressed support for any new agreement with Iran, including a provision that the International Atomic Energy Agency — or "somebody" approved by the U.S. — act as an independent inspector to examine Iranian nuclear facilities. At the NATO summit in the Netherlands earlier this week, the president said the U.S. would have talks with Iran "next week," but on Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said there are currently no plans for formal talks or meetings. contributed to this report.

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