10 things you need to know today: October 13, 2022

A jury orders Alex Jones to pay Sandy Hook families nearly $1 billion, the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly condemns Russia's "illegal" Ukraine annexations, and more

Alex Jones
(Image credit: Joe Buglewicz/Getty Images)

1. Connecticut jury says Alex Jones must pay almost $1 billion to Sandy Hook families

A Connecticut jury on Wednesday decided that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should pay $965 million in damages to the families of eight Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims and a law enforcement first responder. The damages, awarded in the second of three Sandy Hook defamation suits Jones faces, are compensation for the suffering he caused by falsely claiming on his Infowars show that the 2012 massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax, staged to stoke support for gun control. Parents of some of the 20 first graders murdered testified that Jones' lies prompted disturbing threats that started before their children's funerals. Jones vowed to appeal and claimed he can't pay regardless. "Do these people actually think they're getting any of this money?" he said on his show.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.