Fox and friends face billion-dollar US lawsuits | First Thing

Rightwing networks Fox News, OAN and Newsmax could be found liable over election fraud claims. Plus, the amazing fates of Hollywood's greatest dresses

Good morning.

In the months after the 2020 US presidential election, rightwing TV news in America was a wild west, an apparently lawless free-for-all where conspiracy theories about voting machines, ballot-stuffed suitcases and dead Venezuelan leaders were repeated to viewers around the clock.

What does Dominion say Fox Corp did? In the $1.6bn lawsuit, Dominion accuses Fox Corp, and the Murdochs specifically, of allowing Fox News to amplify false claims that the voting company had rigged the election for Joe Biden.

Should Fox News be worried? Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a legal expert, thinks Dominion has a good case. What's particularly bad for Fox is [that] Dominion asked them to stop and correct the record in real time, and Fox persisted in spreading misrepresentations about the voting machine company," she said.

What else is the supreme court set to tear up? The ideologically driven conservative majority is likely to further weaken key civil rights legislation after a term of radical rulings.