Month: February 2023

Former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years in prison Thursday for a rape conviction in Los Angeles. The 70-year-old Weinstein was convicted in the Los Angeles case in December, three years after he was convicted at a sex crimes trial in New York City. Weinstein’s new sentence will run consecutive with the 23-year term given to him in his New York trial, giving him a total of 39 years behind bars in sex crimes convictions.

A jury found Weinstein guilty of three counts in the L.A. case, related to the accuser known as Jane Doe 1: ‘forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and sexual penetration by foreign object.’  The jury found him not guilty of sexual battery by restraint involving a second accuser, identified as Jane Doe 2, and was unable to reach verdicts for allegations involving Jane Doe 3 and Jane Doe 4. Appearing in a wheelchair and a gray county jail uniform, Weinstein was allowed to speak during the hearing, where he proclaimed his innocence, accusing Jane Doe 1 of being an “actress” who can “turn on” her tears: “Please don’t sentence me to life in prison. I don’t deserve it. There are so many things wrong with this case. … This is a setup.”

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón has said that Weinstein faced up to 24 years in the Los Angeles case. Weinstein’s legal team filed an appeal requesting a new trial, alleging that evidence was excluded about a romantic relationship between Jane Doe 1 and a witness that could have altered the jury’s decision. Superior Court Judge Lisa B. Lench denied Weinstein’s request for a new trial.

Weinstein was convicted in New York in 2020 of third-degree rape and first-degree criminal sexual act for crimes against two women. Weinstein pleaded not guilty at both trials and has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex. In both trials, Weinstein waived his right to take the witness stand.

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Authorities confirmed that a local TV news journalist and a 9-year-old girl were among three people killed in shootings in Orlando, Florida, on Wednesday, while two others were wounded. Authorities said the mother of the 9-year-old child who died was in critical condition and is continuing to “fight for her life.”

Orange County Sheriff John Mina said in a news conference that Keith Melvin Moses, 19, has been arrested in connection with the shootings and is expected to be charged. Mina said that Moses has a lengthy criminal history that includes gun charges and charges for aggravated battery and assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and grand theft. The sheriff’s office said they didn’t yet know if the suspect had any connection to the news crew, or the mother and daughter.

Police say the deadly rampage began at 11 a.m. local time when deputies responded to a shooting and discovered a woman in her 20s who had been fatally shot.  Moses allegedly shot and killed a woman in her 20s (with whom he was an acquaintance) on Wednesday morning, and police were called later in the day to two additional shootings near the scene. Sheriff Mina said a 9-year-old child and her mother were shot at one home; and at another scene nearby, staffers from Spectrum News 13 were shot near their vehicle. Authorities located the reporter and photographer for Spectrum News 13 — who were on the scene to cover the homicide which had occurred Wednesday morning — shot in or near their news vehicle. One of the News 13 employees died from their injuries. Mina said it is unclear why the Spectrum News 13 crew members were targeted, or if the suspect even knew whether or not they were members of the media.

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A twin-engine plane crashed near the Clinton National Airport in Little Rock, Ark., on Wednesday afternoon, killing all five people on board. The Little Rock Police Department tweeted that emergency departments were alerted to the crash at 12:02 p.m., with callers reporting a crash near the 3M plant that is in the area. Sources from the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed there were no survivors.

The sheriff’s office said the plane was about a mile from the Clinton National Airport when it crashed after departing the airport. The plane was reportedly a Beech BE20 that was on its way to Columbus, Ohio.

Lt. Cody Burk, spokesman for the department, said it is unclear if weather played a role in the crash. A line of thunderstorms with wind gusts up to 46 mph swept through the heart of Arkansas at about the time of the crash.

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On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the first of two cases that could decide whether social media companies can be held liable for promoting incendiary content which have been allowed to widely circulate on the platforms, including terrorist activities. These rulings could overturn Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, and throw out longstanding federal protections that keep big tech companies from being sued over content published by independent users. The court could fundamentally determine whether the federal statute can still apply if algorithms used by the tech companies are targeting specific users with questionable content, while also spreading terrorist influence to their massive digital audiences.

The case of Gonzalez vs. Google arose out of a lawsuit filed by the family of 23-year-old Nohemi Gonzalez, an American student who was among 130 people killed in a 2015 Islamic State attack in Paris. Filed under the Antiterrorism Act, the lawsuit accuses Google – YouTube’s owner — of allowing barbaric videos to be posted to the platform, which then go viral as algorithms recommend the content to random users. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals previously upheld Section 230, saying the statute protects big tech in cases where it has recommended inflammatory content — so long as the algorithm was being used in the same way for all other content. However, the lower court acknowledged that Section 230 “shelters more activity than Congress envisioned it would” and suggested that U.S. lawmakers move to clarify the scope of the law. The Gonzalez family appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court upon that decision, which agreed to hear the liability case last year. Gonzalez is the first case that the Supreme Court has heard on this topic

In the second case, victims in Twitter vs. Taamneh, which the high court has agreed to take up on Wednesday, could determine whether Twitter, Facebook and Google can be held liable for aiding and abetting international terror groups who have turned to using the platforms. The Twitter case stems from a federal lawsuit filed by the Taamneh family — relatives of Nawras Alassaf, a Jordanian national who was among 39 killed in a 2017 terrorist attack in Istanbul.

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On Tuesday, the Biden administration released a new rule largely barring migrants who traveled through other countries on their way to the US-Mexico border from applying for asylum in the United States. The new 153-page proposed regulation marks a departure from decades-long protocol, and is the most restrictive policy put in place by the Biden administration to try and manage the US-Mexico border.

According to the text of the regulation, the proposed rule would presume asylum ineligibility and “encourage migrants to avail themselves of lawful, safe, and orderly pathways into the United States, or otherwise to seek asylum or other protection in countries through which they travel, thereby reducing reliance on human smuggling networks that exploit migrants for financial gain.” The rule would generally apply to migrants who unlawfully cross the US-Mexico border, but doesn’t apply to unaccompanied migrant children. The proposed rule will be posted in the Federal Register for a 30-day public comment period and likely take effect in May, when Title 42 is set to expire. The rule is also expected to last for two years. The United States had begun sending migrants from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua to Mexico under Title 42 and opened a separate program that allows migrants of those nationalities and Haiti to apply to legally come to the United States. Thousands of migrants have already applied.

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