Sarah Palin tests positive for Covid as trial begins

The 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee and former Alaska governor, Sarah Palin, has tested positive for Covid, a judge announced Monday as her trial against The New York Times was set to begin.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan, who is presiding over the case, announced that Ms. Palin had tested positive for the conoronaviruses. He added that she is unvaccinated.

Rakoff said Palin's positive test came from an at-home test whose reliability was lower than the tests administered at the courthouse and required for the trial. She is set to be retested to determine if jury selection can begin later Monday or the trial should be adjourned, probably until Feb. 3.

Palin's suit alleges that The New York Times falsely defamed her in an editorial that appeared to link her to political violence after the shooting of House Republican Whip Steve Scalise in 2017.

In an editorial titled America s Lethal Politics - An unsigned piece by the paper's editorial board, the newspaper included language from a political action committee associated with Palin, among examples of how vicious American politics has become. The editorial said that prior to the shooting, Sarah Palin s political action committee circulated a map of targeted electoral districts that put Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized crosshairs. The 2011 case made it clear that the gunman had been planning the attack for a long time before the Palin map was circulated. The map didn't depict Giffords and the other Democrats in cross-hairs - only outlines of their congressional districts.

Palin strongly objected to the editorial in a Facebook post, calling it sickening and characterizing it as an attempt to destroy innocent people with lies and more fake news. The Times corrected the editorial, saying there was no link between political rhetoric and the 2011 shooting, as well as clarifying its depiction of the map. The correction didn't mention Palin by name.

Palin and her family tested positive for Covid - 19 in April of last year. She urged people to wear face masks when they were socially distancing.