KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian soccer club Shakhtar Donetsk said on Friday it has agreement to play home Champions League games at Chelsea, which for nearly 20 years was owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich.
Shakhtar has at least four home games in the elite competition that starts in September but cannot play in Ukraine for security reasons during the full Russian military invasion that started in February 2022.
The war begun by Russia also forced Abramovich to sell Chelsea under pressure from British government sanctions. The club’s ownership group now includes United States businessman Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali of Clearlake Capital.
Shakhtar said it will play four home games in the main phase at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge “subject to regulatory approvals” from UEFA. The opponents will be decided at the competition draw next Thursday in Monaco.
“Our true home is Ukraine, and we all hope that very soon we will be able to play European football in front of our own fans again,” Shakhtar said. “But while the war makes this impossible, Stamford Bridge is an exceptional place for us to call home in Europe."
It has been unable to play in Donetsk since 2014 when Russian-backed conflict started in the Donbas region.
Shakhtar played UEFA competition games around Ukraine from 2014-21 and since 2022 in Poland, Germany and Slovenia. The team has yet to play a home game in England.
Chelsea's squad includes former Shakhtar winger Mykhaylo Mudryk. Chelsea did not qualify for any UEFA competition this season and will not have fixture clashes with the Ukrainian champion.
“Over the coming weeks we will work closely with Shakhtar to ensure the matches are held safely and comfortably for the team and its supporters,” Chelsea said.
See AP’s full soccer coverage here
Chelsea's Marco Palestra, right, and Real Sociedad's Jon Mikel Aramburu battle for the ball during the pre-season match between FC Chelsea and Real Sociedad in London, England, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026. (John Walton/PA via AP)
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas court on Friday slashed a $50 million judgment to $1.5 million against Infowars founder Alex Jones over falsely calling a 2012 school shooting a hoax.
The ruling does not affect a $1.4 billion judgment against Jones in Connecticut, but is a significant legal victory for for him after he and his company, Free Speech Systems, were found liable for damages for claiming the mass shooting didn’t happen.
Despite the multiple financial judgements against him in Connecticut and Texas, Jones has yet to make any payments as he appeals the amounts and the attempt to liquidate his company through.
The unanimous opinion by the Texas Third Court of Appeals found that Sandy Hook parents Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis did not show evidence that harassment inflamed by Jones’ hoax claims rose to a level that would allow them to exceed the state’s $750,000 cap on damages for each plaintiff.
Heslin and Lewis’s 6-year-old son Jesse Lewis was among 20 children and six educators killed in the 2012 attack in Newtown, Connecticut. The lawsuit and 2022 verdict against Jones marked the first time he was held financially liable for peddling lies about the massacre, claiming it was faked by the government to tighten gun laws.
Jones, who portrayed the lawsuit as an attack on his First Amendment rights, conceded during the trial that the attack was “100% real” and that he was wrong to have lied about it.
However, on his streaming show Friday, he called the Texas ruling "a gigantic victory for the First Amendment,” and said he will continue to appeal the case to the state Supreme Court to get the remaining damages thrown out.
“I got lawyers who are good constitutional lawyers and they are not backing down,” Jones said.
Heslin and Lewis told jurors in the case that an apology wouldn’t suffice and called on them to make Jones pay for the years of suffering he has put them and other Sandy Hook families through.
Jones’ trial attorney Andino Reynal had said immediately after the verdict that Jones would appeal the damages amount, and predicted it would be reduced to $1.5 million.
Jones and his company have filed for bankruptcy, and those legal proceedings continue. The satirical website The Onion also moved to take over Jones' Infowars platforms and turn his bullhorn of conspiracy theories into parody sites.
Jones gave up the Infowars brand in April and moved to a new location, switching his shows to new websites and posting them on his personal X account. The Onion, meanwhile, has set up its own Infowars webpage on its website, running videos of shows parodying Jones.
FILE - Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones speaks to the media after arriving at the federal courthouse for a hearing in front of a bankruptcy judge in Houston, June 14, 2024. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)
