The libel trial of the century is scheduled to kick off this week, and even with the hype having already reached max levels…the intrigue somehow keeps building. The showdown between Fox News and Dominion was supposed to begin this morning, but last night the Delaware Superior Court delayed the start until tomorrow without providing a reason.

There does seem to be a reason, though: The delay was put in place to allow the two sides to discuss a possible last-ditch settlement, according to the Washington Post.

What the case is about

Dominion Voting Systems, which makes electronic voting machines, has sued Fox News for defamation, accusing the network of knowingly pushing baseless claims about the company after the 2020 presidential election—including that it rigged vote counts to tilt the election in Joe Biden’s favor. Dominion is seeking $1.6 billion in damages.

While that’s not an insignificant amount of money, this case is being called the “Super Bowl” of libel cases for nonfinancial reasons: It could have lasting consequences for Fox News as well as the media industry’s First Amendment rights.

A Dominion win could spur a flurry of other defamation lawsuits against media orgs, while a Fox win could invite even more disinformation to spread and lead to the chipping away of protections afforded to journalists.

Dominion has a high bar to clear

It is very difficult to prove defamation in the US. Due to the precedent set in a 1964 Supreme Court case, Dominion has to demonstrate that Fox News acted with “actual malice” when reporting on it; in other words, that it recklessly disregarded the truth in its statements about Dominion.

Fox News lawyers say the network is fully covered by its First Amendment rights—it was simply commenting on the election fraud claims made by former President Trump, which were newsworthy because he was the president of the US.

However, court documents have revealed that Fox News hosts privately admitted they did not believe the fraud claims they were making on air.

• Accusations of election fraud are “unbelievably offensive to me. Our viewers are good people and they believe it,” host Tucker Carlson texted to another host, Laura Ingraham.
• “There is NO evidence of fraud,” chief political anchor Bret Baier wrote in another text.

Looking ahead…the judge presiding over this case has already ruled that it was “CRYSTAL clear” that Fox News’s statements about Dominion’s role in the 2020 election were false. So, this case will hinge on whether a jury finds that those false statements meet the actual malice threshold—if it gets that far.

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Samsung could dump Google for Bing. In what would be a shocking move, Samsung may ditch Google as the default search engine on its smartphones in favor of Microsoft’s AI-powered Bing, according to the New York Times. It certainly came as a shock to Google, which has launched an initiative to shield its $162 billion search business from rivals that are leveraging AI chatbot tech. Under a project called Magi, the company plans to eventually release an all-new search engine, and make AI-related tweaks to its current search product in the meantime, according to internal docs seen by the NYT.

Progress made for cancer vaccine. An mRNA-powered cancer vaccine from Merck and Moderna, when combined with the immunotherapy Keytruda, kept more melanoma patients from relapsing than when Keytruda was used alone, a midstage trial showed. While more data is needed from larger-scale trials before the vaccine has a chance of coming to market, researchers are cautiously optimistic that the results present a significant development for the use of cancer vaccines to keep patients in remission.

Manufacturing investments surge in the US. Companies have made pledges to invest more than $200 billion in US manufacturing projects since the government passed two pieces of legislation—the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act—that offer subsidies for certain manufacturing investments, the FT reported. The amount committed to clean tech and semiconductor projects is nearly double the commitments made to those sectors in 2021, and up almost 20x from 2019.

In remote Texas this morning, SpaceX will attempt the first orbital launch of its towering Starship system, the reusable space vehicle CEO Elon Musk says will be the key that unlocks trips to the moon and Mars and eventually turns humanity into a “multi-planet species.”

Before that happens, it needs to show it can reach orbit. Today at 8am ET, a two-and-a-half-hour launch window will open for Starship and the Super Heavy booster it’s mounted on.

Everything about this launch pushes the limits of conventional space flight:

• Starship is made of stainless steel, which the space industry has typically shunned for its weight.
• It’ll also be powered by methane instead of the traditional hydrogen. That could allow it to refuel on Mars, since the planet’s atmosphere contains trace amounts of the gas.
• The Super Heavy booster uses a mind-boggling 33 Raptor engines to blast into space. Anyone who’s seen a “check engine” light in their car knows how fickle a single engine can be—let alone nearly three dozen.

Musk has acknowledged this flight might not go as planned. Previous Starship test runs have ended in fiery explosions, and Musk has put the odds of Starship getting to orbit this morning at 50%.

But the odds of a good time? 100%. “I’m not saying it will get to orbit, but I am guaranteeing excitement. It won’t be boring,” Musk said.

Good luck to everyone running the Boston Marathon this morning—I’m going full standing desk today in solidarity. Here are the other big events you should know about this week…

G-7 holds its annual summit in Japan. Ministers from the Group of Seven countries have arrived at a Japanese hot spring resort town for a rejuvenating soak and to discuss the world’s most pressing geopolitical challenges, such as China’s aggression toward Taiwan, the war in Ukraine, and climate change. Japan has ramped up security after an apparent smoke bomb was thrown at the prime minister on Saturday.

More companies report earnings. Investors will be poring over reports from Tesla, Netflix, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, American Express, and dozens of other firms this week for clues on how corporate America is faring in these confusing economic times.

Playoffs? Are you kidding me? Playoffs?! Flip to a sports channel any evening this week, and you’ll probably find an NHL or NBA first-round playoff game. Poor Billy Joel—his Madison Square Garden concert was rescheduled since the arena got booked solid with Rangers and Knicks games.

Everything else…

• Ramadan will end at sundown on Friday.
• Earth Day is Saturday.
• Thursday is 4/20.

Stat: Just 327 people accounted for almost one-third of shoplifting arrests in New York City last year, according to Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell. Without identifying these people, Sewell said they had been arrested and rearrested more than 6,000 times, which sparked an online debate around the solutions for, and root causes of, the rise in shoplifting. Theft of items worth less than $1,000 jumped 53% between 2019 and 2022 at major commercial spots in NYC, according to the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Quote: “I’m still stuck on November 21, 2021. I don’t know anything about the world.”

On Friday, Spanish extreme athlete Beatriz Flamini emerged from a cave she (voluntarily) stayed in for 500 days. While in the cave, she had no contact with the outside world—meaning she didn’t know that Russia invaded Ukraine or that everyone forgot about the metaverse. Flamini said the experience was “excellent, unbeatable” and that she lost track of time after about two months. Scientists had been observing Flamini throughout her darkness retreat, which her support team said was a world record for time spent in a cave.

Read: How a small favor to deliver a violin turned into so much more. (Latif Nasser)

The catchiest song on the planet: “If I Were a Fish.”

Important question: Which letter of the alphabet would lead to the best apartment layout?

Final approach: This random airport generator shows you runways around the world.

Italian food “classics” like panettone and tiramisu? They’re recent inventions. Turns out, everything you thought you knew about Italian food is wrong.

It’s a lifestyle: If you work in the healthcare industry, you know how fast news, policies, and trends can shift. To stay on top of the latest developments, subscribe to Healthcare Brew.

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Turntable: “N” is the center of the solar system and six planets (letters) revolve around it in today’s Turntable. Play it here.

Guess the person

Which Englishman is the only person to have won BAFTA awards (British TV and film honors) in black and white, color, high-definition, and 3D- and 4K resolutions?

This question might seem daunting at first, but give it some thought and you can get it.

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Read why retailers must incorporate DTC to have an effective omnichannel strategy.

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