Day: April 11, 2018

The first accuser to testify at Bill Cosby’s retrial described the comedian as “a serial rapist” Wednesday, stunning the courtroom as she parried with his lawyers.

In her second day on the witness stand, Heidi Thomas, a Colorado music teacher, told jurors she came forward with her allegations in early 2015 to support other women who have accused Cosby, not for the attention his lawyers say it brought her.

Thomas had testified that Cosby knocked her out with wine and forced her to perform oral sex in 1984 in Reno, Nevada.

She rejected a defense lawyer’s insinuation that she would do anything to help the comedian’s chief accuser, Andrea Constand.

“You’ve made it very clear that you want to help Andrea Constand, haven’t you?” Kathleen Bliss asked.

“I want to see a serial rapist convicted,” Thomas replied.

Thomas is one of five additional accusers who say the comedian drugged and attacked them long before he met Constand, a former Temple University women’s basketball administrator who alleges Cosby gave her pills and then violated her in 2004. He says the encounter with Constand was consensual.

Prosecutors are lining up the additional accusers to make the case that Cosby, once revered as “America’s Dad,” was a Hollywood predator who is only now facing a reckoning after allegedly assaulting Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home.

The women also could help prosecutors insulate Constand from the defense’s contention that she is a “con artist” who preyed on Cosby’s vulnerability after the 1997 killing of his son, Ennis, and then framed him to score a big payday via a $3.4 million civil settlement.

Thomas was a 24-year-old aspiring actress when her agent arranged for Cosby to give her acting tips. She testified that Cosby gave her the wine as they rehearsed a scene in which she portrayed a drunken woman.

She said she remembered feeling sick and wondering, “How did I get here?”

Thomas rebuffed a defense suggestion that she was seeking a share of the spotlight and trying to profit off her experiences. Under cross examination, she told jurors that many of the more than a dozen interviews she gave after going public stemmed from her work to extend the statute of limitations for sex crimes. Thomas has teamed with other Cosby accusers to lobby for longer statutes of limitations, including a successful effort to double Colorado’s to 20 years.

Court opened Wednesday with the defense successfully arguing that jurors should hear about another accuser’s criminal past so they can fully assess her credibility.

Cosby lawyer Jaya Gupta told the judge that Chelan Lasha’s 2007 guilty plea for making a false report to Arizona law enforcement “bears on her veracity.”

State law bars talk of witness convictions more than a decade old, but Gupta argued that Lasha’s conviction should be an exception since her allegations against Cosby date to 1986.

The judge ruled that Cosby’s lawyers can bring it up.

The former model and aspiring actress said she was immobilized and unable to speak as Cosby assaulted her after giving her a pill he described as an antihistamine. Her lawyer, Gloria Allred, said the defense is trying to smear Lasha.

The defense has urged jurors to ignore the other accusers, calling their allegations irrelevant to the charges involving Constand, who turned 45 on Wednesday.

Thomas once sent a Facebook message to Constand.

“I just wanted her to know that everything that was being said about her and about us, that there was somebody out there who knew she was telling the truth,” Thomas testified.

Cosby, 80, is charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison. His first trial last year ended in a hung jury.

As they began building their case against Cosby, prosecutors chose Thomas as their first substantive witness.

On Tuesday, Thomas testified that she blamed herself for what happened, thinking she must have said or done something that led Cosby to believe she would be open to his advances. She never told her agent or her parents about the alleged assault.

“I was pretty sure whatever I did was my fault,” Thomas testified, adding: “I was just going to move on. And I did.”

Under cross examination, Thomas testified that she chronicled her trip to Reno in a scrapbook and recorded a cassette tape at the home where she had the encounter with Cosby. She said she wanted to recount the trip for her mother and agent but destroyed it years later after seeing a psychiatrist.

It made no mention of the alleged assault, Thomas said, because she had planned to give it to her mom.

The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand and Thomas have done.

 
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Isaac Asimov’s influential “Foundation” science fiction novels about the collapse and resurgence of a galactic empire are heading to Apple as a television drama series, a company spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

The series is the latest step the iPhone maker has taken to acquire original programming as it seeks to rival more established outlets such as Netflix Inc, Time Warner’s HBO and Amazon.com’s Amazon Studios.

It is unclear when Apple’s shows will be released, and where viewers will be able to see them. The company has not said if it will distribute them through its own iTunes Store, where it sells shows and films by other companies, or on another platform.

David S. Goyer, screenwriter of blockbusters “The Dark Night” and “Batman Begins,” and Josh Friedman, the writer of Steven Spielberg’s 2005 sci-fi adaptation “War of the Worlds,” have been charged to bring Asimov’s work to the TV screen.

Hollywood’s attempts over the past two decades to bring the Russian-American author and scientist’s saga of humans living on planets scattered throughout the Milky Way galaxy to either television or the big screen have so far never come to fruition.

The “Foundation” series began as several short stories published between 1942 and 1950, and was later developed into a trilogy of novels published from 1951 to 1953. It won a Hugo Award, the top awards for science fiction and fantasy writing, in 1966 as best all-time series, the only time the award has been handed out.

Apple has already ordered two seasons of a drama about a morning TV program starring Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston, as well as a remake of Spielberg’s 1980 sci-fi anthology series “Amazing Stories.”
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Comedic actor Tracy Morgan, who rose to prominence on sketch comedy series “Saturday Night Live” after growing up in one of New York City’s toughest housing projects, said he felt right at home receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Tuesday.

With his trademark wide, mischievous grin, Morgan, 49, bent over and kissed the emblematic terrazzo and brass star along Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, now one of the city’s most-visited sites but for decades was a home to L.A.’s underbelly.

“When I was a poor kid growing up in the projects in Brooklyn, I would never dream of having a star on the Walk of Fame,” the comic known for his cringe-inducing style said.

“But now that I’m here, I have to tell you I feel pretty comfortable,” the “30 Rock” star added. “I’ll tell you why! Because of the smell of weed and stale urine – it’s just like being in the projects. What would really make me feel at home, if somebody spray painted graffiti on my star.”

Morgan, who stars in the new Time Warner-owned TBS comedy “The Last O.G.” with Tiffany Haddish, was introduced by Oscar winner Jordan Peele and comedian Martin Lawrence, who gave Morgan his first break in 1994 on his TV comedy series “Martin.”

“The Last O.G.” is Morgan’s first big step back into Hollywood after he was seriously injured in 2014 when a Wal-Mart truck crashed into his limousine on the New Jersey Turnpike killing his friend, the comedian James McNair.

“He’s been through so many things and he’s come out with an outlook on life that is absolutely beautiful,” Peele told the assembled crowd.

“He’ll take you all over the map in a conversation with him,” Peele added. “You’ll be laughing one second, you’ll be crying the next second. He’ll have you thinking one second and then he’ll say something so stupid it’s just funny the next second.”

The Hollywood Walk of Fame is administered by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.
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Yvonne Staples, whose voice and business acumen powered the success of the Staple Singers, has died at age 80.

The Chicago funeral home Leak and Sons says she died Tuesday at her home in Chicago.

Staples’ family gospel group had a string of Top 40 hits and scored their first No. 1 with “I’ll Take You There” in the early 1970s.

She also performed with her sisters Mavis and Cleotha and their father Pops on other hits, including “Respect Yourself.”

The Chicago Sun-Times reports the family was active in civil rights and performed at the request of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, and honored with a lifetime achievement award from the Grammys in 2005.

A family friend says Yvonne Staples was “no nonsense” but “had a heart of gold.”
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Conflicts across the Middle East have had a tremendously adverse effect on children, the most vulnerable members of the population. With the Syrian civil war now in its seventh year and the Iraqi territories retaken from the Islamic State still unstable, millions of children in refugee camps have had to spend their early years dealing with the dire consequences of war.

But the American nonprofit behind the popular children’s show Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop, says it is sending its lovable and furry Muppets to these countries to help bring laughter and build resilience in the affected kids. 

In an interview with VOA, Sesame Workshop’s senior vice president for international social impact, Shari Rosenfeld, said her organization was teaming up with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) to provide early education to help children and families overcome the trauma of conflict.

“We will deliver this in two ways: direct, in-person services for 1.5 million of the most vulnerable children, as well as a new educational broadcast that will reach 9.4 million children across Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria,” she said. 

In December 2017, the MacArthur Foundation’s 100&Change program — a competition for funds to support a program that promises measurable progress in solving a critical contemporary problem — awarded Sesame Workshop and the IRC a grant of $100 million to help implement the project. 

Rosenfeld said the program would introduce a localized version of Sesame Street to provide engaging educational messages covering reading, languages, math and social skills.

Character customization

Instead of using popular character names such as Elmo, Big Bird and Cookie Monster, the puppets will have regional names and will speak Arabic and Kurdish.

“Not only will our content be made available through traditional television broadcast, but it will also be available on digital platforms like WhatsApp,” she said.

The program also will directly support children and parents at learning centers equipped with material for play-based learning, she added. Its trained workers will give home visitation and caregiving sessions to nearly 800,000 caregivers to mitigate the impact of toxic stress on children up to age 3.

“Toxic stress” occurs when a child’s brain development is disrupted because of prolonged adversity and leads to problems such as self-harm, suicide attempts and aggressive behavior.

Save the Children, a children’s rights and relief NGO, last year found that millions of Syrian children exposed to war could now suffer from “toxic stress” and needed immediate help to keep the damage from becoming irreversible.

The U.N.’s children agency, UNICEF, estimates that 1.75 million Syrian children remain out of school, and that 2.6 million Syrian children are living as refugees or are on the run for their safety.

In neighboring Iraq, the agency says, more than 1 million children have been displaced and 4 million are in need of assistance as a result of the war with the Islamic State group.

Affected children

Iraqi officials have expressed concerns, particularly about children who were schooled by IS. Counterterrorism officials have listed about 2,000 children needing therapy after having been influenced or brainwashed by IS.

Rights organizations say a majority of children affected by extreme violence do not receive proper education and rehabilitation. 

The IRC estimates that of the billions of dollars spent on humanitarian aid, only about 2 percent is reserved for education or child development.

Rosenfeld of Sesame Workshop said the organization’s project would meet the children’s needs to recover from violence and extremism by emphasizing critical issues, such as mutual respect and understanding, diversity and inclusion, and gender equity.

If the program is successful in achieving those goals, the organization would try to expand it for other crises.

​Projects elsewhere

Sesame Workshop has created local versions in several conflict-torn areas, such as Afghanistan, Nigeria, the Palestinian territories, Israel and Kosovo. 

In rural Afghanistan, where women’s rights are sharply restricted, particularly by extremist groups like the Taliban, the local version of Sesame Street, known as Baghch-e-Simsim, has targeted girls’ empowerment. The program features a vibrant hijab-clad female role model called Zari, a 6-year-old Muppet who loves going to school and has big dreams for her future.

An impact assessment by the organization showed that children who watch Baghch-e-Simsim test 29 percent higher in believing in girls’ and boys’ equal ability to do various tasks compared with their peers who did not watch the show.

In another assessment, Israeli and Palestinian children who watched the show were more likely to take someone else’s perspective and express the need for the use of dialogue to solve a problem.

Some experts say that by providing education for children and promoting messages of tolerance, the program also could be used as an effective counterterrorism tool.

Countering Boko Haram 

Naomi Moland, a lecturer at American University in Washington who studies the Nigerian version of Sesame Street, said the program producers tried to indirectly combat Boko Haram in northern Nigeria.

The terror group, whose name loosely translates as “Western education is forbidden,” has abducted hundreds of girls for going to secular schools.

“As far as gender equality, especially in regions where Boko Haram is active, even saying that girls should go to school is a counterterrorism message, because Boko Haram has fought against it,” Moland told VOA.

She said the creators of the localized show, called Sesame Square, feared being targeted by Boko Haram or having their show boycotted.

“They would say things like, ‘If we do one thing wrong, nobody in northern Nigeria is going to watch this because a certain extremist imam might say the show is not appropriate,’ ” she added.

Her forthcoming book, Can Big Bird Fight Terrorism? Children’s Television as Soft Power in Nigeria, concludes the creators faced other dilemmas, such as celebrating diversity without exacerbating divisions and stereotypes of others, and localizing the show to reflect children’s reality.

“I think that is a difficult challenge that Sesame will face in this new program with Syrian refugees — that is, how do you present something that seems somewhat realistic to the children in that it connects their experiences of trauma and displacement while also giving them hope that something could be different and they might be able to get along with people who are different from them?” asked Moland.
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