A last-second settlement was reached in Dominion Voting Systems’ historic defamation lawsuit against Fox News, which the parties announced Tuesday in court.

The settlement appears to have been mediated when the court was on the verge of opening statements in Wilmington, Delaware.

After the jury was sworn in earlier on Tuesday, an unexplained hours-long delay put the trial on hold, once again fueling rampant speculation that a deal was underway.

What does it mean: A last-minute deal means that a closely watched case is effectively closed and will not go to trial. By agreeing with Dominion, powerful Fox News executives and on-air influencers will be spared the scrutiny of their coverage of the 2020 election, which was filled with lies about election fraud.

The details of the settlement were not immediately available and may never have been made public.

More on the case: In its lawsuit, Dominion sought $1.6 billion in damages from Fox News. The right-wing network argued vociferously during pre-trial proceedings that the number was inflated and did not come close to accurately reflecting the potential losses Dominion could have suffered from Fox broadcasts in 2020.

Fox News and Fox Corporation – its parent company, which was also the defendant – say they never slandered Dominion and say the case is a baseless attack on press freedom. They denied Dominion’s claim that they promoted these campaign plots to salvage their declining approval ratings after the 2020 election.

While the Dominion case is now over, Fox News is still facing a second major defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic, another voting technology company that was vilified on Fox shows after the 2020 election. This case is still in the process of being solved and no trial is expected anytime soon.

WASHINGTON — Senator Steve Danes, who chairs the Republican Senate National Committee, endorsed Donald Trump for president on Monday.

Danes’ backing, R-Mont, is the first GOP Senate leadership member president in his 2024 bid.

in on appearance On Donald Trump Jr.’s “Triggered” podcast, Danes said he was “proud” of Trump’s support.

“The best four years I’ve had in the US Senate was when President Trump served in the Oval Office,” Danes said, touting the bill, which he said resulted in “one of the biggest tax cuts in American history.”

“Joe Biden has strengthened and encouraged our adversaries with his weakness. He just shivers under his desk during the day,” Danes added. “For these reasons and more, I am proud to support Donald J. Trump for President of the United States.”

Danes also praised Trump’s stance on immigration, an issue the former president has highlighted in his campaign.

“Let’s finish building the wall and finish securing our southern border to protect our communities,” Danes said.

NBC News reported Thursday that Biden is preparing to formally announce his bid for a second term as early as Tuesday, according to three people familiar with his plans.

As of Friday, Trump has won the support of more than 50 members of Congress, including nine senators and 48 representatives. More than half of Florida’s Republicans in the House of Representatives supported him, compared to one Florida governor. Ron DeSantis, who has yet to announce his candidacy, is trailing Trump in the primary, according to a recent NBC News poll.

Danes’ support for Trump comes as the GOP field continues to expand: Nikki Haley, a former governor of South Carolina who also served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, launched her presidential campaign in February, and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, who said on his bid for the Republican nomination earlier this month.

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, another likely contender, set up a presidential exploratory committee earlier this month, and former Vice President Mike Pence said Sunday he will likely make a decision on the GOP primary “well before the end of June.” “.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — On Monday, the US brought the sister of an American imprisoned in Russia to the UN Security Council for a meeting chaired by Russia’s foreign minister, urging him to “look into her eyes and see her suffering.”

US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield urged Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to vacate Michigan security chief Paul Whelan, serving a 16-year sentence on charges of espionage. His family and the US government called the allegations unfounded.

Thomas-Greenfield also encouraged him to launch the Wall Street Journal. reporter Evan Gershkovichwho was arrested on March 29 and charged with trying to obtain classified information.

She accused Russia of using them as a “political trump card” and called on Moscow to “stop this barbaric practice once and for all.”

The US ambassador told Lavrov to turn to the visitors’ gallery where Elizabeth Whelan sat and “look into her eyes and see her suffering.”

“I want you to see what it’s like to miss your brother for four years,” she said. “To know that he is locked up in a Russian colony only because you want to use him for your own purposes.”

The UN cameras did not show whether Lavrov looked into the gallery.

Thomas-Greenfield told reporters that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken recently said the United States had made a proposal to release Whelan, “and we urge Russia to move forward on that proposal.”

“In the meantime, we will not stop, calm down, or relent until Paul, Evan, and all hostages and illegally detained Americans are returned safe and sound,” she said.

Prior to the meeting, Elizabeth Whelan told reporters that her brother had “a job he loves, a home, a life of hope and opportunity” and “everything that Russia has taken from him, a country that revels in its culture of lies.” its tradition of diplomacy with hostages.”

“Now Pavel is being held in the labor camp IK-17 in remote Mordovia, as a pawn and victim of Russia’s slide into lawlessness,” she said.

She called Russia a “terrorist state” and said her script is “so lazy” that Gershkovich has the same investigator who prosecuted her brother before his “sham trial” in June 2020.

Gershkovich, 31, is the first American correspondent since the Cold War to be detained in Russia on charges of espionage, which his family and newspaper vehemently deny. Thomas-Greenfield told the council that he was “just doing his job” as a journalist.