{"source_url": "http://www.arkansasonline.com", "url": "http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2020/jan/01/judge-fines-sandy-hook-hoax-promoter-6-/", "title": "The nation in brief", "top_image": "https://media.arkansasonline.com/static/ao_redesign/graphics/adgog.jpg", "meta_img": "https://media.arkansasonline.com/static/ao_redesign/graphics/adgog.jpg", "images": ["https://media.arkansasonline.com/static/ao_redesign/dist/img/adg-logo.svg", "https://media.arkansasonline.com/static/ao_redesign/graphics/adgog.jpg", "http://media.arkansasonline.com/static/ao_redesign/dist/img/adg-logo-white-alt.svg"], "movies": [], "text": "Judge fines Sandy Hook hoax promoter\n\nAUSTIN, Texas -- A Texas judge ordered conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay $100,000 in another court setback over the Infowars host using his show to promote falsehoods that the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax.\n\nJones is being sued for defamation in Texas by the parents of a 6-year-old who was among the 26 people killed in the Newtown, Conn., attack.\n\nState District Judge Scott Jenkins ruled on Dec. 20 that Jones and his defense team \"intentionally disregarded\" an earlier order to provide witnesses to attorneys representing Neil Heslin, a Sandy Hook father who filed the lawsuit. Jenkins also denied Jones' request to dismiss the lawsuit.\n\nAn attorney for Jones did not immediately comment Tuesday.\n\nJones operates Infowars in Texas. He is fighting similar lawsuits in Connecticut filed by other families of Sandy Hook victims for promoting a theory that the shooting was a hoax. A 20-year-old gunman killed 20 first-graders, six educators and himself at the school after having killed his mother at their Newtown home.\n\nThe families said they have been subjected to harassment and death threats from Jones' followers because of the hoax conspiracy.\n\nJones has since acknowledged that the Sandy Hook killings occurred. His attorneys have defended his speech in court as \"rhetorical hyperbole\" and deny it was defamation.\n\nIn June, the father of 6-year-old Noah Pozner, one of the Sandy Hook victims, won a defamation lawsuit against the authors of a book that claimed the shooting never happened.\n\n6 arrests made in deadly Fresno shooting\n\nFRESNO, Calif. -- Police said Tuesday that they have arrested six suspected gang members in the shooting deaths of four men last month at a backyard gathering of family and friends that they believed was a rival gang's party.\n\nFresno Police Chief Andy Hall said at a news conference that the suspects are all self-admitted members of the Mongolian Boys Society gang and that they were retaliating against a rival gang called the Asian Crips that they believed was responsible for killing a member of their gang hours earlier.\n\nThe victims were killed Nov. 17 when gunmen entered the backyard of a home through an unlocked gate and used semi-automatic weapons to open fire on people watching a football game. Four people were killed, and six people were wounded.\n\nBilly Xiong, 25, of Fresno was arrested Dec. 17 in a mail-theft case and authorities found one of the weapons used in the killing of the four men, Hall said. His brother, Randy Xiong, was the gang member who was slain 16 hours before the mass shooting.\n\nFresno police served 19 search warrants last week, recovering the other gun used in the slayings, which had been stolen from Oklahoma, Hall said. Also arrested were Anthony Montes, 27; Jhovanny Delgado, 19; Pao Vang, 19; Porge Kue, 26; and Johnny Xiong, 25. Sia Vang is wanted, police said.\n\nNo bail for cancer-research-theft suspect\n\nBOSTON -- A medical student from China who U.S. authorities said tried to smuggle cancer research material taken from a Boston hospital out of the country is being held without bail by a judge who ruled he was a flight risk.\n\nZaosong Zheng, 29, who last year earned a visa sponsored by Harvard University to study in the U.S., appeared Monday in U.S. District Court in Boston.\n\nMagistrate Judge David Hennessy ruled that evidence suggested Zheng had tried to smuggle vials of research specimens in a sock in his suitcase bound for China and granted the prosecution's request to hold him without bail. Authorities said he stole the materials from his lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.\n\nHe was arrested Dec. 10 at Boston's Logan Airport on a charge of making false statements. Zheng was possibly acting on behalf of the Chinese government, the FBI said in an affidavit included in court documents.\n\nIowa care center's chief fired after probe\n\nGLENWOOD, Iowa -- The superintendent of an Iowa care center for people with intellectual disabilities has been fired during a federal investigation into the facility.\n\nJerry Rea was notified in a letter Monday that he was being discharged from Iowa Department of Human Services employment and his position at Glenwood Resource Center.\n\n\"This action is being taken as a result of a mounting list of disregard for policies and procedures,\" said the letter signed by Rick Shults, who oversees the department's mental health and disability services division.\n\nEfforts to reach Rea on Tuesday were unsuccessful.\n\nThe Glenwood center cares for about 250 people with intellectual disabilities.\n\nFew details have been released about the federal investigation into Glenwood. A Nov. 21 letter said the investigation was focusing on whether the state was violating the federal rights of residents by placing them at risk with experiments that include using residents as subjects of sexual arousal research.\n\nA Section on 01/01/2020", "keywords": [], "meta_keywords": [""], "tags": [], "authors": ["Compiled Democrat-Gazette Staff Wire Reports"], "publish_date": "Wed Jan  1 00:00:00 2020", "summary": "", "article_html": "", "meta_description": "Judge fines Sandy Hook hoax promoter", "meta_lang": "en", "meta_favicon": "//media.arkansasonline.com/static/ao_redesign/dist/img/apple-icon-57x57.png", "meta_data": {"msapplication-TileColor": "#ffffff", "msapplication-TileImage": "//media.arkansasonline.com/static/ao_redesign/dist/img/ms-icon-144x144.png", "theme-color": "#333333", "apple-mobile-web-app-title": "Arkansas Democrat-Gazette", "application-name": "Arkansas Democrat-Gazette", "viewport": "width=device-width, initial-scale=1, shrink-to-fit=no", "description": "Judge fines Sandy Hook hoax promoter", "category": "[News] /Root/News/justice, [News] /Root/News/national, [News] /Root/News/region,", "scrapeurl": "https://wehco-bi.appspot.com/app.php?id=1234205&d=arkansasonline", "twitter": {"card": "summary_large_image", "site": "@arkansasonline", "description": "Judge fines Sandy Hook hoax promoter", "title": "The nation in brief"}, "og": {"title": "The nation in brief", "type": "article", "url": "//www.arkansasonline.com/news/2020/jan/01/judge-fines-sandy-hook-hoax-promoter-6-/", "image": "https://media.arkansasonline.com/static/ao_redesign/graphics/adgog.jpg", "site_name": "Arkansas Online", "description": "Judge fines Sandy Hook hoax promoter"}, "fb": {"app_id": 345816788851641}, "article": {"published_time": "2020-01-01 3:42"}}, "canonical_link": "//www.arkansasonline.com/news/2020/jan/01/judge-fines-sandy-hook-hoax-promoter-6-/"}