A last-second settlement was reached in Dominion Voting Systems’ historic defamation lawsuit against Fox News, which the parties announced Tuesday in court.

The settlement appears to have been mediated when the court was on the verge of opening statements in Wilmington, Delaware.

After the jury was sworn in earlier on Tuesday, an unexplained hours-long delay put the trial on hold, once again fueling rampant speculation that a deal was underway.

What does it mean: A last-minute deal means that a closely watched case is effectively closed and will not go to trial. By agreeing with Dominion, powerful Fox News executives and on-air influencers will be spared the scrutiny of their coverage of the 2020 election, which was filled with lies about election fraud.

The details of the settlement were not immediately available and may never have been made public.

More on the case: In its lawsuit, Dominion sought $1.6 billion in damages from Fox News. The right-wing network argued vociferously during pre-trial proceedings that the number was inflated and did not come close to accurately reflecting the potential losses Dominion could have suffered from Fox broadcasts in 2020.

Fox News and Fox Corporation – its parent company, which was also the defendant – say they never slandered Dominion and say the case is a baseless attack on press freedom. They denied Dominion’s claim that they promoted these campaign plots to salvage their declining approval ratings after the 2020 election.

While the Dominion case is now over, Fox News is still facing a second major defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic, another voting technology company that was vilified on Fox shows after the 2020 election. This case is still in the process of being solved and no trial is expected anytime soon.

With COVID-19 immigration restrictions expiring, the Biden administration on Thursday announced measures to stop migrants from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, both by cracking down on many of those who do arrive and by creating new pathways designed to offer an alternative to the perilous journey.

Efforts include opening processing centers outside the United States for people fleeing violence and poverty to apply for legal arrivals and settle in the US, Spain or Canada. The first processing centers will open in Guatemala and Colombia, with others to follow.

The administration also plans to quickly screen migrant asylum seekers at the border itself, quickly deport those deemed unqualified, and punish people who illegally cross the US border or illegally cross another country on their way to the US border.

Ukrainian military shelling on Saturday reportedly left several Russian villages along the border between the two warring countries without electricity.

The reports came from the Belgorod region of Russia, located northeast of the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine. During the year-long intense conflict, Belgorod was frequently hit by nearby military battles.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region, first reported the power outage on his official Telegram account.

“Today, the village of Novaya Tavolzhanka came under Ukrainian shelling,” Gladkov wrote. “Power lines damaged.”

In addition, four more villages in the area of ​​Novaya Tavolzhanka were left “without electricity” as a result of shelling, Gladkov added. Currently, work is underway to restore the power supply to the villages.

Gladkov noted in his post that “according to preliminary information” no one died as a result of the shelling, although he did not mention possible injuries. Damage was also caused to several private houses and buildings in the area.

“There was serious damage in one private household, a shell flew into the courtyard of a new non-residential building,” Gladkov wrote, translated from Russian software by Google. “Also, various damages were revealed in 10 private households: the facade was hooked somewhere, fences and windows were cut out. There is damage to power lines: residents of the villages of Arkhangelskoye, Shamino, Ziborovka, Murom, Novaya Tavolzhanka remain. without electricity. The head of the district Vladimir Zhdanov, operational and emergency services on the spot continue to bypass the territory. In the near future, brigades of electricians will begin restoration work.

Newsweek reached out to Ukrainian officials via email for comment.

The shelling of Belgorod came about at the same time that a night-time drone strike set fire to a Russian oil depot in Crimea. A peninsula located in southern Ukraine, Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014 amid escalating tensions between the two countries. The move was widely denounced on the international stage, with few countries recognizing the peninsula as Russian soil.

Like Belgorod, Crimea has been the target of numerous strikes since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine that began in February last year, most of which Russia has blamed on Kyiv. Footage from the scene taken on Friday shows a massive plume of smoke hanging over the Kazachya Bay area during the daytime. Russian state news agency TASS said the flames engulfed about 21,500 square feet around the depot.