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Alex Jones must pay $US965 million ($A1.5 billion) in damages to numerous families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting for claiming they were actors who faked the tragedy, a Connecticut jury says.

It is the second multimillion-dollar verdict against the conspiracy broadcaster in just over two months.

The verdict came after three weeks of testimony in a state court in Waterbury, Connecticut, not far from where a gunman killed 20 children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012.

Jones claimed for years that the massacre was staged as part of a government plot to take away peoples' guns.

In August, another jury found that Jones and his company must pay $US49.3 million ($A79 million) to Sandy Hook parents in a similar case in Austin, Texas, where the headquarters of Jones' Infowars website is located.

Lawyers for families of eight Sandy Hook victims during closing arguments in Connecticut last week said Jones cashed in for years on lies about the shooting, which drove traffic to his website and boosted sales of its various products.

The families, meanwhile, suffered a decade-long campaign of harassment and death threats by Jones' followers, lawyer Chris Mattei said.

"Every single one of these families (was) drowning in grief, and Alex Jones put his foot right on top of them," Mattei told jurors.

Jones' lawyer countered during his closing arguments that the plaintiffs had shown scant evidence of quantifiable losses.

The lawyer, Norman Pattis, urged jurors to ignore the political undercurrents in the case.

"This is not a case about politics," Pattis said.

"It's about how much to compensate the plaintiffs."

The trial was marked by weeks of anguished testimony from the families, who filled the gallery each day and took turns recounting how Jones' claims about Sandy Hook compounded their grief.

An FBI agent who responded to the shooting is also a plaintiff in the case.

Jones, who has since acknowledged that the shooting occurred, also testified and briefly threw the trial into chaos as he railed against his critics and refused to apologise to the families.

Jones' lawyers have said they hope to void most of the payout in the Texas case before it is approved by a judge, calling it excessive under state law.

© RAW 2022

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The younger brother of NSW Police Minister Paul Toole has been charged, accused of being part of a large drug syndicate supplying ice.

Detectives have have charged four people following an investigation into the supply of prohibited drugs across the state's Central Coast and Hunter region.

Police say they seized more than two kilos of methylamphetamine with an estimated potential street value of $2 million as well as $220,000 cash, a gel-blaster firearm and electronic devices in raids across multiple properties on Wednesday.

Joshua Toole, 38, was arrested along with a 24-year-old woman following vehicle stops at Belmont in Newcastle and Killarney Vale on the Central Coast, shortly after 9am.

Toole has been charged with supplying a large commercial quantity of a prohibited drug, participating in and directing the activities of a criminal group and contributing to criminal activity as well as five counts of supplying prohibited drugs on an ongoing basis.

He will appear in Newcastle Local Court on Thursday.

The deputy premier and Nationals leader told News Corp he was "devastated" by the news.

"But we are not the first family to have to deal with this and unfortunately we won't be the last," he said.

"No one is above the law."

The Killarney Vale woman has been charged with participating in the supply of a large commercial quantity of a prohibited drug and participating in criminal group activity.

She was granted conditional bail to appear at Wyong Local Court on Thursday.

A 43-year-old man was arrested during the search of a home at Belmont North and a 42-year-old man was arrested at a workplace in Wyong. Both face multiple serious drug supply charges.

They were refused bail and will appear at Newcastle Local Court on Thursday.

© AAP 2022

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The trial for the man accused of raping his former colleague Brittany Higgins inside Parliament House could be finished by the end of next week.

Bruce Lehrmann is charged with sexual intercourse without consent and is being tried in the ACT Supreme Court.

He has pleaded not guilty and denies having any sexual interaction with Ms Higgins.

The trial had originally been set with a four to six-week duration timeline.

But on the Wednesday of the trial's second week the court was told proceedings were further ahead of schedule than expected.

Chief Justice Lucy McCallum informed the jury that the prosecution and defence expected to deliver their closing arguments next week.

The jury was also told Ms Higgins would return to court on Friday after being unavailable earlier in the week.

The trial has continued in her absence with the Crown calling other witnesses.

When Ms Higgins returns on Friday she will face continued cross-examination by Lehrmann's defence lawyer Steven Whybrow.

The court has prevented publication of any evidence from other witnesses until after Ms Higgins has completed her evidence.

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© AAP 2022

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Qantas domestic cabin crew have applied to the federal industrial umpire to take protected action over fatigue concerns and claims of outsourcing.

The Flight Attendants' Association of Australia (FAAA) says Qantas management "have threatened employees that they will not have access to work on new aircraft unless they sign onto new enterprise agreements that dramatically cut conditions".

In May, Qantas ordered 20 Airbus A321XLR aircraft as part of the first tranche of its domestic fleet renewal which will replace its Boeing 737 aircraft.

The association says the airline would extend shifts from 10 to 12 hours for crew on the new Airbuses and cut rest time between shifts.

"To force crew to work even longer and harder than they already are with no additional break between shifts would cause more to go off sick with fatigue, causing further disruption to an already chaotic Qantas flight schedule," said the association's general secretary Teri O'Toole.

But Qantas denies the union's claims, saying the "grounds for taking this step towards industrial action are misleading".

"The shift length changes we're asking for are the same that apply to crew working at other domestic airlines in Australia," a Qantas spokesperson told AAP on Wednesday.

They also denied any plans to outsource the attendants' shifts.

"The FAAA signed off on these conditions as part of agreements for those airlines, so it's bizarre they're now claiming they're unsafe."

If the FAAA's application is successful cabin crew will then vote on industrial action which Qantas says cannot take place before mid-November.

"Cabin crew may serve tea and coffee on a good day, but when it's not a good day at the office they are the firefighters, the paramedics and the police on that aircraft, and they need to be able to act fast and be free of fatigue," Ms O'Toole said.

"Qantas turned a deaf ear to crews' safety concerns and instead issued an ultimatum. This is not good faith bargaining, it's bullying ... despite Qantas being the largest recipient of JobKeeper payments."

However, the airline maintains the deal it is proposing to the union has considerable financial incentives that assuage their concerns.

Last month, Qantas chairman Richard Goyder apologised to customers for the "bumpy" restart to regular travel which has resulted in flight delays and missing baggage.

© AAP 2022