North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson announced a lawsuit Tuesday against CNN over its recent report alleging he made explicit racial and sexual posts on a pornography website’s message board, calling the reporting reckless and defamatory.
The lawsuit, filed in Wake County Superior Court, comes less than four weeks after a television report that led many fellow GOP elected officials and candidates, including presidential nominee Donald Trump, to distance themselves from Robinson’s gubernatorial campaign. Robinson announced the lawsuit at a news conference in Raleigh.
CNN “chose to publish despite knowing or recklessly disregarding that Lt. Gov. Robinson’s data — including his name, date of birth, passwords, and the email address supposedly associated with the NudeAfrica account — were previously compromised by multiple data breaches,” the lawsuit states.
CNN declined to comment, spokesperson Emily Kuhn said in an email.
Months of drought in southern Africa triggered by the El Niño weather phenomenon have had a devastating impact on more than 27 million people and caused the region’s worst hunger crisis in decades, the United Nations’ food agency said Tuesday.
The World Food Program warned it could become a “full-scale human catastrophe.”
Five countries — Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe — have declared national disasters over the drought and resultant hunger. The WFP estimates that about 21 million children in southern Africa are now malnourished as crops have failed.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday will unveil his ticket’s plans to improve the lives of rural voters, as Vice President Kamala Harris looks to cut into former President Donald Trump’s support.
The Harris-Walz plan includes a focus on improving rural health care, such as plans to recruit 10,000 new health care professionals in rural and tribal areas through scholarships, loan forgiveness and new grant programs, as well as economic and agricultural policy priorities.
The plan was detailed to The Associated Press by a senior campaign official on the condition of anonymity ahead of its official release on Tuesday. Walz is set to announce the plan during a stop in rural Lawrence County in western Pennsylvania, one of the marquee battlegrounds of the 2024 contest.
He is also starring in a new radio ad for the campaign highlighting his roots in a small town of 400 people and his time coaching football, while attacking Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.
Eli Andersen can be reached at ande4516@stthomas.edu.