The European Union Parliament has backed a proposal for a law that would ban the sale of agricultural products linked to the destruction of forests. Once approved, the law would force companies and producers to give assurances that products are “deforestation-free.”

 

Businesses would be forced to verify that agricultural goods sold in the EU have not been made on deforested or degraded land anywhere in the world, the parliament said.

 

A Connecticut jury will begin hearing evidence today in a trial to decide how much money conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should pay relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting for spreading a lie that the massacre was a hoax.

 

The trial is expected to last about a month and feature testimony from both Jones and the families.

 

Lower gas costs slowed U.S. inflation for a second straight month in August, but most other prices across the economy kept rising — evidence that inflation remains a heavy burden for American households.

 

Consumer prices surged 8.3% last month compared with a year earlier, the government said Tuesday, down from an 8.5% jump in July and a four-decade high of 9.1% in June.

 

Owen Larson can be reached at lars6521@stthomas.edu.