Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News Friday, arguing the cable news giant falsely claimed in an effort to boost faltering ratings that the voting company had rigged the 2020 election.

The lawsuit is part of a growing body of legal action filed by the voting company and other targets of misleading, false and bizarre claims spread by President Donald Trump and his allies in the aftermath of Trump’s election loss to Joe Biden.

Dominion argues that Fox News, which amplified inaccurate assertions that Dominion altered votes, “sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring Dominion in the process,” according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by The Associated Press.

Tornadoes and severe storms have torn through the Deep South, killing at least five people as strong winds splintered trees, wrecked homes and downed power lines.

The tornado outbreak rolled into western Georgia early Friday. Meteorologists said one large, dangerous tornado moved through Newnan and surrounding communities in the Atlanta metro area.

A day earlier, a sheriff in eastern Alabama said a tornado cut a diagonal line through his county, striking mostly rural areas.

As many as eight tornadoes might have hit Alabama on Thursday, said John De Block, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Birmingham. Multiple twisters sprang from a “super cell” of storms that later moved into Georgia, he said.

The George Floyd and Anti-Racist Street Art Database, started by St. Thomas art history professor Heather Shirey, English professor Todd Lawrence and Geography professor Paul Lorah, has reached 27,000 hits as of mid-March.

Shirey said the website, which was launched on June 4, functions as both a tribute to Floyd and a statement about anti-racism.
The database contains 172 pages of art pieces, ranging from graffiti tags to large street murals.

Maddie Peters can be reached at pete9542@stthomas.edu.