AFP USA

Disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein faces a retrial starting Tuesday, on rape and sex assault charges for which a previous verdict was overturned, forcing survivors who helped fire up the “MeToo” movement to testify against him once again.Weinstein’s 2017 conviction by a jury was overturned seven years later by an appeals court that ruled the way witnesses were handled in the original New York trial was unlawful.The voiding of the jury’s verdict by the New York Court of Appeals was a setback to survivors of the movement against sexual violence and the promotion of justice for survivors.The onetime Miramax studio boss will be in court for the sexual assault of former production assistant Mimi Haleyi in 2006, the rape of aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013, and a new count for an alleged sexual assault in 2006 at a hotel in Manhattan. Haleyi and Mann testified in the earlier trial, sharing graphic testimony of their interactions with Weinstein.The new trial, expected to last up to six weeks in a Manhattan criminal court, begins Tuesday with jury selection, which could take five days, according to Judge Curtis Farber.Weinstein, 73, said he hopes the case will be judged with “fresh eyes,” more than seven years after investigations by the New York Times and the New Yorker led to his spectacular downfall and a global backlash against predatory abusers.Weinstein is serving a 16-year prison sentence after being convicted on separate charges in California in 2023 for raping and assaulting a European actor a decade prior.- ‘Very different’? -The producer of a string of box office hits like “Sex, Lies and Videotape,” “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love,” Weinstein has appeared frail and gaunt at recent courtroom hearings ahead of the trial.”It’ll be very, very different because of the attitude of New York City, New York state and, I think, the overall country,” said his lawyer Arthur Aidala.”Five years ago, when you guys were here, there were protests. There were people chanting: ‘Fry Harvey, he’s a rapist’… I think that, overall, has died down,” he said, adding that he hoped jurors would try the case on its merits.Weinstein has never acknowledged any wrongdoing and has always maintained that the encounters were consensual.Accusers describe the movie mogul as a predator who used his perch atop the cinema industry to pressure actresses and assistants for sexual favors, often in hotel rooms.Since his downfall, Weinstein has been accused of harassment, sexual assault or rape by more than 80 women, including actors Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lupita Nyong’o and Ashley Judd.In 2020, a jury of New Yorkers found Weinstein guilty of two out of five charges — the sexual assault of Haleyi and the rape of Mann.But the conviction and the 23-year prison sentence were overturned in April 2024.In a hotly debated four-to-three decision, New York’s appeals court ruled that jurors should not have heard testimonies of victims about sexual assaults for which Harvey Weinstein was not indicted.”It really reflects the challenges that survivors face in seeking justice for sexual assault,” said Laura Palumbo of the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. The three survivors of Weinstein’s alleged crimes are expected to testify once again.

US regulators on Monday issued an emergency order grounding the helicopter tour company behind last week’s deadly crash in New York.The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) took the action after it learned the company’s operations chief — who had agreed Sunday to halt flights voluntarily — was fired, acting administrator Chris Rocheleau said in a statement.A Spanish business executive, his wife and three children died along with the pilot when the helicopter operated by New York Helicopter Tours malfunctioned and plunged into the Hudson River on Thursday.The family was on a tourism flight over Manhattan, described by the operator as the “ultimate sightseeing tour of New York City.”According to the FAA’s order, the head of operations at New York Helicopter was fired shortly after he agreed to a request by the agency on Sunday to shut down flights the crash was investigated.New York Helicopter chief executive Michael Roth notified the FAA in an email that he did not authorize a cease of operations and that the person who agreed to do so was no longer with the company, according to the FAA.”The immediate firing of the director of operations raises serious safety concerns,” the FAA said in its emergency order.If New York Helicopter does not surrender its air-carrier certificate immediately, it will be hit with legal action including civil fines of as much as $17,062 a day until it complies, the FAA told Roth in the letter.The civil aviation authority already announced reviews of the helicopter tour operator’s license and safety record.The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash.Jersey City officials said working theories included a drone collision, a bird strike or mechanical failure.Video of the incident has emerged showing the fuselage apparently becoming detached from the rotor.The crash has shone a another light on US aviation safety after a string of deadly crashes, including the collision between a military helicopter and a passenger jet in Washington in January that claimed 67 lives.A light aircraft also crashed after departing Boca Raton airport in Florida on Friday, with local media reporting three people had been killed after the plane developed a mechanical issue.

Elite US university Harvard was hit with a $2.2 billion freeze in federal funding Monday after rejecting a list of sweeping demands that the White House said was intended to crack down on campus anti-Semitism.The call for changes to its governance, hiring practices and admissions procedures expands on a list Harvard received on April 3, which ordered officials to shut diversity offices and cooperate with immigration authorities for screenings of international students.Harvard president Alan Garber vowed in a letter to students and faculty to defy the government, insisting that the school would not “negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights.”Trump’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism responded with a statement announcing the $2.2 billion hold in multi-year grants, plus a freeze on $60 million in government contracts. “Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges — that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws,” it said.”The disruption of learning that has plagued campuses in recent years is unacceptable. The harassment of Jewish students is intolerable. It is time for elite universities to take the problem seriously and commit to meaningful change if they wish to continue receiving taxpayer support.” Campuses across the country were rocked last year by student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, with some resulting in violent clashes involving police and pro-Israel counter-protesters.Trump and other Republicans have accused the activists of supporting Hamas, a US-designated terrorist group whose deadly attack on October 7, 2023 against Israel sparked the conflict.The Department of Education announced in March that it had opened an investigation into 60 colleges and universities for alleged “anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination.”Garber’s letter came after the administration placed $9 billion in federal funding to Harvard and its affiliates under review, making its first demands.On Friday, the government sent Harvard a much more detailed list demanding an “audit” of the views of students and faculty, which the university made public.- ‘Raging anti-Semitism’ -Harvard generated an operating surplus of $45 million on a revenue base of $6.5 billion in the last financial year.Garber said the school was “open to new information and different perspectives” but would not agree to demands that “go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.””No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” Garber said.Top Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who was lauded by Trump last year for aggressive questioning of universities over anti-Semitism, called for Harvard to be defunded, calling it “the epitome of the moral and academic rot in higher education.”The New York firebrand, seen as one of the most vocal supporters in Congress of Israel and US Jewish causes, accused the university of tolerating “raging anti-Semitism.”Harvard’s response to the White House’s demands was in sharp contrast to the approach taken by Columbia University, the epicenter of last year’s pro-Palestinian protests.The Trump administration cut $400 million in grants to the private New York school, accusing it of failing to protect Jewish students from harassment as protesters rallied against Israel’s Gaza offensive.The school responded by agreeing to reform student disciplinary procedures and hiring 36 officers to expand its security team.As well as the funding cut, immigration officers have targeted two organizers of the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia: Mahmoud Khalil, whom the government is seeking to deport, and Mohsen Mahdawi, who was arrested Monday as he attended an interview to become a US citizen.

US prosecutors charged a man on Monday with the attempted murder of Democratic heavyweight and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro after a weekend arson attack at his official residence, court filings showed.Cody Balmer, 38, who was charged with attempted criminal homicide along with seven other offenses — including terrorism affecting the government and prowling at nighttime — was denied bail. He told police he harbored “hatred towards Shapiro,” who is Jewish and earlier in the night had marked the first night of the Passover holiday with friends and family.Shapiro has said he would not be intimidated in observing his faith following what prosecutors called a “homemade Molotov cocktails” attack.Asked what he would have done had he encountered Shapiro in the residence, Balmer told investigators he would “have beaten him with his hammer.”Shapiro, widely viewed as a potential 2028 presidential contender, was inside with his family when the fire broke out in a different part of the Georgian-style mansion in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Sunday, state police said.”While the fire was successfully extinguished, it caused a significant amount of damage to a portion of the residence,” the force said in a statement. No casualties were reported.Shapiro said that he and his sleeping family were woken up by a police trooper who “banged on our door” at around 2:00 am local time (0600 GMT) and that they were evacuated from the building.”Thank God no one was injured and the fire was extinguished,” he said. Speaking to reporters outside the residence, with fire damage visible behind him, Shapiro made a forceful appeal for an end to political violence.”This kind of violence is becoming far too common in our society, and I don’t give a damn if it’s coming from one particular side or the other… it is not OK, and it has to stop,” he said.Police said in charging documents released Monday that Balmer was captured on surveillance cameras climbing a perimeter fence, breaking a window and throwing a gasoline-filled Heineken beer bottle, before breaking another window, entering the residence and igniting another bottle.He then fled the property.- ‘Disgusting violence’ -An ex-lover of Balmer called police and reported that the alleged arsonist wanted to hand himself in, the criminal complaint alleges.Balmer then subsequently walked up to state police headquarters and told an officer he was responsible for the blaze.At a hearing, Balmer was arraigned before Judge Dale Klein and was denied bail, a court official said. He is next due in court on April 23.Top Republican officials reacted to the attack Sunday, with US Attorney General Pam Bondi saying on X she was “deeply relieved that Governor Shapiro and his family are safe.”Vice President JD Vance called the attack “really disgusting violence” and said he hopes “whoever did it is brought swiftly to justice.”President Donald Trump, who survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania last year, called Shapiro’s assailant on Monday a “whack job,” adding that “certainly a thing like that can not be allowed to happen.”The 51-year-old Shapiro was in the race to be Democrat Kamala Harris’s running mate in her ultimately unsuccessful US presidential bid — a position that instead went to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.Shapiro, an assertive political centrist, was elected governor of Pennsylvania in 2022 when he faced off against a far-right candidate backed by Trump.

US immigration authorities on Monday arrested another Columbia University student who participated in pro-Palestinian campus protests, detaining him as he attended an interview to become an American citizen.Mohsen Mahdawi’s lawyers, in a court filing seeking his release and halt to any imminent deportation, also claimed President Donald Trump’s mounting crackdown on immigrant student protesters violates the US Constitution — the latest judicial challenge to the Republican adminstration.A Palestinian born in the occupied West Bank, Mahdawi has been a legal US permanent resident since 2015, was set to graduate next month and planned to attend a Columbia master’s program this fall, the court filing said.He is the co-founder of a Palestinian student group at Columbia alongside Mahmoud Khalil, a face of the movement who Trump has also been trying to expel since his March arrest.”Mohsen Mahdawi of White River Junction, Vermont, walked into an immigration office for what was supposed to be the final step in his citizenship process. Instead, he was arrested and removed in handcuffs by plain-clothed, armed, individuals with their faces covered,” Senator Bernie Sanders said in a statement signed by other Vermont lawmakers.A video apparently made by Mahdawi’s friends circulating online showed masked agents loading an individual into a black SUV.District Judge William Sessions issued a temporary restraining order barring authorities from deporting Mahdawi or moving him out of Vermont “pending further order” from the court, a court filing showed.The arrest of Khalil and other students associated with campus activism has triggered outrage from Trump opponents, free speech advocates and some on the political right, who say the case will have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.Immigration officers have similarly detained and sought to deport a Tufts University student from Turkey, Rumeysa Ozturk, and Columbia student Yunseo Chung who is a US permanent resident originally from South Korea.Their deportations have also been blocked for now by courts.”Mahdawi was active on Columbia’s campus in organizing for Gaza and Palestine during the course of Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” the Palestinian Youth Movement said on Instagram.”His targeting represents a continuation of the Trump administration’s campaign that began with the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil last month, and an escalation in tactics by ICE and DHS to abduct and detain students and other noncitizens who have been vocal in their opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. “We demand the immediate and unconditional release of Mohsen Mahdawi.”

Meta chief and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg took the stand Monday in a landmark US antitrust trial in which his social media juggernaut stands accused of abusing its market power to acquire Instagram and WhatsApp before they could become competitors.Federal Trade Commission (FTC) attorneys argue that Facebook, since renamed Meta, devoured what it saw as competitive threats.Zuckerberg was shown an internal Facebook email from 2011 that warned Instagram was a hit on smartphones and could easily copy what his social network offered.Another 2012 email regarding acquiring Instagram suggested simply keeping the app running without any improvements while Facebook developed its own products, and in doing so avoid upsetting users by shutting it down.Zuckerberg downplayed those exchanges as early talk before plans for Instagram came together.The start of the trial in a Washington federal court dashed the hopes of Zuckerberg that the return of President Donald Trump to the White House would see the government let up on the enforcement of antitrust law against Big Tech.The Meta case could see the owner of Facebook forced to divest Instagram and WhatsApp, which have grown into global powerhouses since their buyout.”They decided that competition is too hard and it would be easier to buy out their rivals than to compete with them,” FTC attorney Daniel Matheson said in opening remarks at the trial.Meta attorney Mark Hansen countered in his first salvo that “acquisitions to improve and grow an acquired firm” are not unlawful in the United States and that is what Facebook did.- Playing to Trump -The case against Meta was originally filed in December 2020, during the first Trump administration, and all eyes were on whether he would ask the FTC to stand down.Zuckerberg, the world’s third-richest person, has made repeated visits to the White House as he tried to persuade the US leader to choose settlement instead of fighting the trial.As part of his lobbying efforts, Zuckerberg contributed to Trump’s inauguration fund and overhauled content moderation policies. He also purchased a $23 million mansion in Washington in what was seen as a bid to spend more time close to the center of political power. Zuckerberg’s former lieutenant Sheryl Sandberg and a long line of executives from rival companies are scheduled to testify at a trial expected to last at least eight weeks.Central to the case is Facebook’s 2012 billion-dollar purchase of Instagram — then a small but promising photo-sharing app that now boasts two billion active users.An email from Zuckerberg cited by the FTC showed him depicting Instagram’s emergence as “really scary,” adding that is “why we might want to consider paying a lot of money for this.”The FTC argues that Meta’s $19 billion WhatsApp acquisition in 2014 followed the same pattern, with Zuckerberg fearing the messaging app could either transform into a social network or be purchased by a competitor.Meta’s defense attorneys counter that substantial investments transformed these acquisitions into the blockbusters they are today.They also highlight that Meta’s apps are free for users and face fierce competition.The FTC argues that Meta’s monopoly power is demonstrated by a severely downgraded user experience — with too many ads and product changes.A key courtroom battleground will be how the FTC defines Meta’s market.The US government argues that Facebook and Instagram are dominant players in apps that provide a way to connect with family and friends, a category that does not include TikTok and YouTube.But Meta disagrees. “The evidence at trial will show what every 17-year-old in the world knows: Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp compete with Chinese-owned TikTok, YouTube, X, iMessage and many others,” a spokesperson said.”The bigger that Meta can make the relevant market… the more likely it is to defeat the FTC’s case,” said lawyer Brendan Benedict on Substack.

US music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs pleaded not guilty Monday to two new charges added to the criminal racketeering and sex trafficking case against him, which is expected to go to trial next month.The superseding indictment includes an additional charge of sex trafficking and one of transportation to engage in prostitution, relating to a woman identified by prosecutors only as “Victim-2.”Combs, 55, appeared in federal court in New York to deny the accusations that could spell more prison time if the multi-millionaire entertainer is convicted.In the new charges, prosecutors say that over the course of two decades Combs “abused, threatened, and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation and conceal his conduct.”With employees and resources of his business empire, Combs created a criminal enterprise that engaged in crimes including sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice, prosecutors said.The hip hop magnate is accused of sexually abusing people and coercing them into drug-fueled sex parties using threats and violence, with prosecutors also alleging he forced employees to work long hours while demanding their silence.He has denied all charges thus far, insisting that any sex acts were consensual.The trial is expected to start in May with jury selection but US media reported that one of his lawyers, Marc Agnifilo, said Monday the defense might request a two-week delay to examine new evidence.The judge gave the defense two days to make their request in writing.Public allegations have been building against the Grammy winner since late 2023 when singer Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura, alleged Combs subjected her to more than a decade of coercion by physical force and drugs, as well as a 2018 rape.Along with the federal criminal case, Combs faces a mountain of civil suits that allege harrowing abuse by the artist with assistance from a loyal network of employees and associates.The rap superstar has been incarcerated since September, during which time he has started to look noticeably aged, with a crop of salt-and-pepper hair.

A man who allegedly torched two vehicles at a Tesla dealership and painted “Die Elon” on the side of the building has been hit with federal charges, the US Department of Justice said Monday.The charges are the latest to be levied in connection to attacks on the EV maker, whose boss Elon Musk has become a hate figure for some over his role in slashing government as a top advisor to President Donald Trump.Two Tesla vehicles were badly damaged in the firebomb attack on a showroom in Albuquerque on February 9, and slogans likening Musk and his company to Nazis were sprayed on the walls.Jamison Wagner, 40, who lives in the city, in the western state of New Mexico, was also charged over a firebomb attack that hit an office of the state’s Republican Party last month.If convicted of the two counts of malicious damage or destruction of property by fire or explosives, he could be jailed for up to 20 years on each count, the Department of Justice said.”Let this be the final lesson to those taking part in this ongoing wave of political violence,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “We will arrest you, we will prosecute you, and we will not negotiate. Crimes have consequences.”Federal prosecution carries a stiff penalty compared to local law, where such a crime typically results in a sentence starting from just 18 months’ incarceration and a $5,000 fine. In March, Trump even suggested that people who vandalize Tesla property could be deported to prisons in El Salvador.Musk, the South Africa-born billionaire chief of Tesla and SpaceX, is leading Trump’s ruthless cost-cutting drive at the head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).Lauded on the right, he has rapidly become one of the most controversial figures in the country.Several Tesla dealerships and a number of cars both in the US and around the world have been vandalized, and the company’s stock price has taken a hammering.

Elite US university Harvard risked billions of dollars in federal funding Monday as it rejected a list of sweeping demands that the Trump administration said are intended to crack down on campus antisemitism.The call for changes to its governance, hiring practices and admissions procedures expands on a list Harvard received on April 3, which ordered officials to shut diversity offices and cooperate with immigration authorities for screenings of international students.Harvard president Alan Garber vowed in a letter to students and faculty to defy the government, insisting that the school would not “negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights.”Campuses across the country were rocked last year by student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, with some resulting in violent clashes involving police and pro-Israel counter-protesters.Trump and other Republicans have accused the activists of supporting Hamas, a US-designated terrorist group whose deadly attack on October 7, 2023 against Israel sparked the conflict.”Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating anti-Semitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard,” Garber wrote.The Department of Education announced in March that it had opened an investigation into 60 colleges and universities for alleged “anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination.”Garber’s letter came after the administration placed $9 billion in federal funding to Harvard and its affiliates under review, making its first demands.On Friday, the government sent Harvard a much more detailed list, which the university made public, demanding an “audit” of the views of students and faculty. – ‘Raging anti-Semitism’ -Garber said the school was “open to new information and different perspectives” but would not agree to demands that “go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.””No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” Garber said.Top Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who was lauded by Trump last year for aggressive questioning of universities over anti-Semitism, called for Harvard to be defunded, calling it “the epitome of the moral and academic rot in higher education.”The New York firebrand Stefanik, seen as one of the most vocal supporters in Congress of Israel and US Jewish causes, accused the university of tolerating “raging anti-Semitism.”Harvard’s response to the White House’s demands was in sharp contrast to the approach taken by Columbia University, the epicenter of last year’s pro-Palestinian protests.The Trump administration cut $400 million in grants to the private New York school, accusing it of failing to protect Jewish students from harassment as protesters rallied against Israel’s Gaza offensive.The school responded by agreeing to reform student disciplinary procedures and hiring 36 officers to expand its security team.As well as the funding cut, immigration officers have targeted a leader of the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia, Mahmoud Khalil, arresting him and pushing for his deportation.

US tariff exemptions for electronics prompted market rallies Monday from Asia to Wall Street, but uncertainty dominated in a global trade war that Chinese leader Xi Jinping warned can have “no winner.”Wall Street was buoyant, with the Dow Jones index rising one percent shortly after the opening and the S&P 500 up 1.45 percent. This followed boosts on Asian and European markets.Investors are relieved at the apparent easing of pressure in President Donald Trump’s wide-ranging but often chaotic attempt to reorder the world economy by using tariffs to force manufacturers to relocate to the United States.Tit-for-tat exchanges have seen US levies imposed on China this year rise to 145 percent, and Beijing setting a retaliatory 125 percent barrier on US imports.The electronics tariff reprieve, US officials said late Friday, means exemptions from the latest duties against China for a range of high-end tech goods such as smartphones, semiconductors and computers.But Trump suggested Sunday that the exemption would be only temporary and that he still planned to put barriers up on imported semiconductors and much else.”NOBODY is getting ‘off the hook’ for the unfair Trade Balances,” Trump blasted on his Truth Social platform. “We are taking a look at Semiconductors and THE WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN.”On Monday, in remarks at the White House, Trump once again pivoted to suggesting possible compromise, saying he was “looking at something to help some of the car companies” hit by his 25 percent tariff on all auto imports.”I don’t want to hurt anybody,” he said.The Chinese commerce ministry said Friday’s move was only “a small step” and all tariffs should be cancelled.China’s Xi warned Monday — as he kicked off a Southeast Asia tour with a visit to Vietnam — that protectionism “will lead nowhere” and a trade war would “produce no winner.”- Short-lived relief? -Trump initially unveiled huge tariffs on countries around the world on April 2.He then made an about-face a week later when he said only China would face the heaviest duties, while other countries got a global 10 percent tariff for a 90-day period.The trade war is raising fears of an economic downturn as the dollar tumbles and investors dump US government bonds, normally considered a safe haven investment.And the latest wrangling over high-tech products — an area where China is a powerhouse — illustrates the uncertainty plaguing investors.Washington’s new exemptions will benefit US tech companies such as Nvidia and Dell as well as Apple, which makes iPhones and other premium products in China.But the relief could be short-lived, with some of the exempted consumer electronics targeted for upcoming sector-specific tariffs on goods deemed key to US national defense networks.On Air Force One Sunday, Trump said tariffs on semiconductors — which power any major technology from e-vehicles and iPhones to missile systems — “will be in place in the not distant future.”The US president said he would announce tariffs rates for semiconductors “over the next week,” and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said they would likely be in place “in a month or two.”- Negotiations  -The White House says Trump remains optimistic about securing a trade deal with China, although administration officials have made it clear they expect Beijing to reach out first.EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic said “the EU remains constructive and ready for a fair deal,” after meeting with Lutnick and US trade envoy Jamieson Greer in Washington.Sefcovic said this deal could include reciprocity through a “zero-for-zero” tariff offer on industrial goods, but added in a social media post that “achieving this will require a significant joint effort on both sides.”The Trump administration also says that dozens of countries have already opened trade negotiations to secure deals before the 90-day pause ends.Japanese Economic Revitalization Minister Ryosei Akazawa will visit Washington for negotiations this week, with his country’s automakers hit by Trump’s 25 percent tariff on the auto sector.He warned that Japanese company profits are already “being cut day by day.”burs-sms/dw