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Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
White House: ‘No plans' for Trump to issue Pride Month proclamation
President Trump has 'no plans' to issue a proclamation recognizing June as Pride Month or dedicate it to any other group or cause, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday. 'There are no plans for a proclamation for the month of June,' Leavitt said during a media briefing at the White House, 'but I can tell you this president is very proud to be a president for all Americans, regardless of race, religion or creed.' Trump declined to issue proclamations recognizing Pride Month throughout his first term, though he briefly acknowledged it on social media in 2019 while touting his administration's efforts to decriminalize homosexuality worldwide, the first Republican president to do so. 'As we celebrate LGBT Pride Month and recognize the outstanding contributions LGBT people have made to our great Nation, let us also stand in solidarity with the many LGBT people who live in dozens of countries worldwide that punish, imprison, or even execute individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation,' Trump wrote on the social platform X, then Twitter, six years ago. 'My Administration has launched a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality and invite all nations to join us in this effort!' Former President Clinton, a Democrat, issued the first presidential proclamation designating June 'Gay and Lesbian Pride Month' in 1999. A declaration issued in 2011 by former President Obama expanded the scope to include bisexual and transgender people. The White House's decision comes amid a broader backlash against Pride and a political climate that is increasingly hostile to the LGBTQ community, particularly transgender people. Opponents of LGBTQ rights this week criticized U.S. companies that publicly acknowledged Pride with social media posts or by temporarily changing the colors of their corporate logos. A group of congressional Republicans accused PBS of 'grooming' children after 'Sesame Street,' one of the nonprofit TV network's flagship programs, shared a post recognizing Pride Month on Sunday. Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.), one of the GOP House members to criticize PBS and 'Sesame Street,' introduced a resolution Tuesday declaring June 'Family Month,' which she said would 'reject the lie of 'Pride' and instead honor God's timeless and perfect design.' 'The American family is under relentless attack from a radical leftist agenda that seeks to erase truth, redefine marriage and confuse our children,' Miller told the Daily Wire, a conservative news outlet, in an interview published Tuesday. On Monday, the Education Department said it was declaring June 'Title IX Month,' after the 1972 law against sex discrimination that the Trump administration has argued prohibits transgender women and girls from competing on female school sports teams. Trump's decision not to formally recognize Pride Month also comes as WorldPride, the international LGBTQ Pride event, takes place this month in Washington. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Harvey Weinstein Won't Testify In His Own Defense In NYC Sex Crimes Retrial; Jury Deliberations May Start Tuesday
At one point, Harvey Weinstein's lawyers worried aloud their much-ailing client wouldn't make it through his New York rape retrial alive. Now they've decided the much-accused Pulp Fiction producer will conclude the case without saying a word in his own defense. 'He wanted to testify, and we respect that instinct,' Weinstein's longtime spokesperson Juda Engelmayer told Deadline this morning after a weekend in which a final decision went back and forth, I hear. 'At this stage, doing so would subject him to scrutiny far beyond the scope of the current charges — raising issues that could unfairly damage his credibility. Our position is one of caution, not evasion.' More from Deadline Patricia Clarkson Recalls Harvey Weinstein Telling Her She'd 'Never Work Again' Sean 'Diddy' Combs Sex-Trafficking Trial Updates: Cassie Ventura's Testimony, $10M Hotel Settlement, Drugs, Violence, & The Feds Harvey Weinstein's Move For Mistrial Fails On Second Day Of Rape Retrial - Update This tracks as Weinstein expressed a desire before to testify in both his previous NYC trial and in a 2022 Los Angeles sex crimes case but never did. With the 73-year-old Weinstein not taking the stand in Judge Curtis Faber's state courtroom, the jury in the retrial that started on April 23 is expected to hear closing arguments from the defense and the Manhattan DA.'s office Tuesday afternoon. If all goes to plan, the defense should rest their case after less than a week by mid-morning tomorrow. That means it is very likely the jury of seven women and five men will begin their deliberations on Weinstein's East Coast fate as early as the end of the day Tuesday. Of course, while not testifying, Weinstein has been running a guerrilla PR campaign of sorts during this retrial. For instance, in a jailhouse interview with Candace Owens, who exited her post at the far-right Daily Wire last year over antisemitic posts and saw her YouTube channel suspended for a spell over the same issue, Weinstein claimed he 'did not commit these crimes.' Facing civil suits all over the nation since the 2017 New York Times exposé of decades of rapes, assaults and more, Weinstein added to Owens last month: 'I swear that before God and the people watching now and on my family. I'm wrongfully accused. But justice has to know the difference between what is immoral and what is illegal.' Leaning into the shifts in society since 2017 and the start of the #MeToo movement, defense attorney Arthur Aidala told the jury during his opening statement in late April that what occurred between his client and accusers Jessica Mann, Miriam Haley and Kaja Sokola were mutual and consensual 'friends with benefits' arrangements. Having resided at Bellevue Hospital for the past several weeks, as opposed to the dank conditions at Rikers Island, Weinstein's retrial comes from his 23-year sentence from a 2020 rape conviction, which was tossed out in 2024 over much-debated prior 'Bad Acts' testimony the judge allowed at the time. Thanks to some sharp-elbowed NYC politics delivered by the well-connected Aidala, there is a new judge in this retrial. As well there is one additional count of Criminal Sexual Act in the First Degree, which was added to the indictment last September. Still imprisoned due to his 2022 conviction in LA on sex crimes and sentenced to 16 years, which also is under appeal, Weinstein almost certainly would spend the rest of his life behind bars if found guilty again in the Empire State. Best of Deadline Everything We Know About 'Stranger Things' Season 5 So Far 2025 TV Series Renewals: Photo Gallery 2025 TV Cancellations: Photo Gallery
Boston Globe
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
How the Right has reshaped the narrative around George Floyd
Five years later, that consensus has disintegrated. The right-wing reshaping of the narrative of that day is in full swing, to the point where Shapiro is calling on President Donald Trump to pardon Chauvin. Advertisement In the right's retelling, Floyd did not die from being deprived of air, and Chauvin was railroaded by a country that flew into a panic over race and did not consider the facts soberly. To build this case, conservatives have packaged misleading details from court documents, images of burning and looting during the protests, Floyd's criminal record and drug use, and legal theories that lawyers say are distorted. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Related : Disputing facts that most people once agreed on has become part of a new political playbook, often employed by right-leaning pundits and politicians. But the killing of Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, was not just any news story. For conservatives, it was the catalyst for a kind of liberal mania that, some of them assert, led directly to racial hiring quotas, 'woke' curricula in school and white guilt. Advertisement 'President Trump's war on wokeness cannot be considered complete unless he addresses the fundamental injustice that started it all,' Shapiro said in March, in one of five episodes of his show on the 'Daily Wire' devoted to 'The Case for Derek Chauvin.' A protester and a police officer clasped hands during a rally calling for justice over the death of George Floyd, in New York, on June 2, 2020. Wong Maye-E/Associated Press Many prominent Trump supporters have joined the defense of Chauvin, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Charlie Kirk and Christopher Rufo. 'America will not be made whole until we receive justice for Derek Chauvin,' Jack Posobiec, a Trump loyalist and conspiracy theorist, told a cheering audience in December. 'The truth must come out about what happened with George Floyd. It was a lie and it was always a lie.' Shapiro started an online petition that his spokesperson said has nearly 80,000 signatures. On social platform X, Elon Musk said a pardon was 'something to think about.' Related : Brian O'Hara, the police chief of Minneapolis, has decried what he called an attempt to rewrite history, saying the goal was to undermine police reform. 'We all knew what we saw, and we all knew it was wrong,' he wrote in an opinion essay in The Minnesota Star Tribune in February. Misinformation began to circulate immediately following Floyd's death in 2020. A YouTube video amplified by conspiracy group QAnon claimed that the entire incident had been faked by the deep state and that Floyd, who is buried in Texas, was still alive. There were viral social media posts alleging that George Soros, the billionaire who has become a punching bag for the right, was secretly funding the protests, which was not true. As body camera videos and autopsy reports became available, right-wing news sites began to construct a counternarrative of the day of Floyd's arrest. Advertisement In these accounts, Chauvin was a decorated officer who was only following his police training. In fact, he was both honored for some actions and the subject of numerous complaints, and Minneapolis police officials testified that his treatment of Floyd did not conform to the department's training. Ben Shapiro spoke during a Conservative Political Action Conference on Dec 4, 2024, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Tomas Cuesta/Getty Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News commentator, said Chauvin was railroaded by mob justice that he likened to a Southern lynching. Other accounts suggest Floyd died not because he was pinned down for so long, but from other causes -- a drug overdose, heart disease or maybe even a rare type of tumor. Related : At Chauvin's trial, medical experts gave conflicting opinions on all three claims. The jury concluded that Floyd would not have died but for Chauvin's actions. In December, in response to an attempt by Chauvin to overturn his conviction, a federal judge granted permission to run tests on medical samples from Floyd to determine if the tumor contributed to his death. Shapiro and other right-wing commentators also argue that the jury was under intense pressure to convict, or was predisposed to do so. These accounts purport to reveal the 'real truth' about what happened. They rely heavily on autopsy reports, body camera video and other evidence that have been available for years and were presented to the jury in great detail. Many note the fact that the autopsy found no injury to Floyd's neck, though medical examiners say that a person's air supply can be cut off with no signs of injury. In an interview, Shapiro said that he had changed his mind about Chauvin's guilt while watching the trial and that he had waited to make a case for a pardon until after Trump took office. Advertisement Such a pardon would largely be symbolic. Chauvin was convicted of both state and federal crimes, and Trump has the power to pardon him only for the federal ones. If he did so, Chauvin would be transferred from federal prison to Minnesota to serve out the rest of his 22 1/2-year state sentence. In March, Trump said he was not considering a pardon, but Shapiro was undaunted. 'Concerned citizens speak out consistently,' Shapiro told his viewers. 'Eventually, those voices permeate the administration's awareness and influence what makes it onto the president's agenda.' The narrative of the invasion of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, went through a similar shift. At first, the event was met with bipartisan condemnation. But upon taking office in January, Trump pardoned the participants in what he called a 'day of love.' Media analysts say that a strategy like Shapiro's can be effective. 'Repetition and amplification equals truth for our brains, so this is how bad actors can hack the media,' said Esosa Osa, the founder of Onyx Impact, a nonprofit that fights disinformation targeting Black communities. Over the years the machinery of reinvention has cranked on. In 2022, Ye, a vocal Trump supporter, attended the premiere of a documentary by a right-wing firebrand, Candace Owens, 'The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM.' The rapper formerly known as Kanye West said afterward that Floyd had died of a drug overdose. Law enforcement officers stood along Lake Street as fires burned after a night of protests in Minneapolis on Friday, May 29, 2020, following the death of George Floyd. David Joles/Associated Press Another Chauvin defender was Liz Collin, a former Minneapolis news anchor who is married to Robert Kroll, the former head of the Minneapolis police union. Chauvin's first public comments appeared in Collin's documentary, 'The Fall of Minneapolis,' released in 2023. He called the trial 'a sham.' Advertisement In an interview, Collin said the idea that Floyd was a victim of racist brutality had caused unnecessary strife. She blamed officials who she said were slow to disclose information, and what she called the media's failure to emphasize elements of the narrative, such as the fact that one of the officers who arrested Floyd was Black. These gaps, she said, created a 'dangerous and divisive narrative that we're still living with the consequences of to this day.' With the fifth anniversary of Floyd's murder Sunday, Minnesota officials have braced for unrest over a potential pardon. And the right and the left have accused each other of using the issue -- and massaging the facts -- for political advantage. On his podcast, Tim Pool, a conservative influencer, said Democrats were exaggerating the possibility of a pardon to attack Trump. On the other hand, Larry Krasner, the liberal prosecutor in Philadelphia, warned his Instagram followers that they should not fall into the trap of rioting if Chauvin is pardoned. 'What they're trying to do is, they're trying to get people in the cities to engage in unrest so they can bring in the military,' he said. This article originally appeared in
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Harvey Weinstein Gives Candace Owens First Interview in 8 Years From Prison: ‘I'm Angry at the System'
Harvey Weinstein gave his first interview in eight years to conservative podcaster Candace Owens on Tuesday, defending himself over a videoconference link from Rikers Island prison where the disgraced movie mogul is being held as he undergoes retrial for rape and sexual assault. Wearing a dark suit and crisp white dress shirt, Weinstein reiterated his innocence to Owens, who has recently supported the 'Pulp Fiction' producer as he fights multiple charges in a Manhattan courtroom for a second time. 'I just wanted to say that I'm not angry, but I'm angry at the system,' Weinstein said to kick off the 20-minute interview, an unusual move for an inmate in the middle of a criminal trial. 'You know, my situation was transactional, you know, looking back at it.' He thanked the right-wing Owens (exited from Daily Wire for what the ADL has called 'antisemitic vitriol'), who has said Weinstein (a major Democratic supporter in the past) is being railroaded in a cultural battle, for granting him the chance to speak – then launched into his defense. Weinstein admitted to rampant infidelity and trading his influence for sex, but maintained, as he has since the beginning of the #MeToo movement, that he never assaulted or raped anyone. 'I just want to say something very clearly: I believe women should be heard,' he said. 'But I'm wrongfully convicted, you know what I mean? … Justice demands a clear, honest look at each case. And I am here for fairness and the truth.' Weinstein said he made mistakes that hurt his family and friends, 'but I did not commit these crimes. I swear that before God and the people watching now and on my family, I'm wrongfully accused. But justice has to know the difference between what is immoral and what is illegal.' He also thanked Joe Rogan, who has recently begun to agree with Owens that Weinstein's accusers all had something to gain by sleeping with him, then jumping onboard when he was accused publicly. 'Evidence has to matter. I've lost everything, you know what I mean. I've lost everything a man can lose, but still the truth matters. I've been condemned of crimes I did not commit. I understand why people want someone to blame, but I am telling the truth.' Weinstein says while Hollywood has fully abandoned him, 'the friends that stayed with me were my friends that I grew up with. The people that I knew before I was famous, before I had power. The people in my life who were steadfast all through my life were the ones who remain loyal.' Harvey bemoaned that the media has been 'obsessed' with his relationship to Gwyneth Paltrow, admitting that he 'made a pass' at her, but swearing he never touched her. 'It's a complete fabrication, you know, about my relationship with Gwyneth,' Weinstein said. 'You know, I'm going to talk about it and just say that I had a meeting with her. … At the end of the meeting we had a glass of champagne. As I was walking out the door, I said to her, 'I'd love you to give me a massage.' And she went [dismissively], 'Yeah.' And, you know, that was it. I didn't put my hand on her. I didn't touch her. I definitely made a pass, I guess. You know, you could call it that. But that was the sum total of that situation.' Weinstein recounted the oft-told story of how Brad Pitt, her boyfriend at the time, called him: 'Brad, very manly, very cool, just said, 'Don't do that again.' And that was that.' Paltrow and Weinstein went on to make 11 movies together and turned into 'total friends.' 'And now I heard, you know, that she thought the relationship was abusive,' Weinstein said. 'There's pictures of her hugging me when I was sick, when I was sick and in the hospital and didn't think I was going to make it in 1999. … In her Academy Awards speech, she thanks me.' Watch the entire interview in the video above. The post Harvey Weinstein Gives Candace Owens First Interview in 8 Years From Prison: 'I'm Angry at the System' | Video appeared first on TheWrap.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Harvey Weinstein Interviewed by Candace Owens From Prison: Defamed Producer Claims He Was ‘Wrongfully Convicted' and Attacks Accusations From Gwyneth Paltrow and Rose McGowan
Harvey Weinstein sat down with conservative political commentator Candace Owens for a tell-all interview on-camera from prison, in which the defamed producer maintains his innocence and rebuffs the claims of his Hollywood accusers. Weinstein opens the interview by claiming he was 'wrongfully convicted,' denouncing the fact he was twice found guilty of sexual crimes: First in 2020 of a criminal sexual act in the first degree and third-degree rape, and the second in 2022 of rape. His 2020 conviction was overturned in 2024 because the trial judge allowed testimony based on accusations that were not included in the case, a point Weinstein brings up multiple times, seemingly as evidence to support his innocence. He describes his actions as merely 'mistakes' and asserts he has done nothing 'illegal.' More from Variety Candace Owens Is Out at Daily Wire, CEO Says Anti-Trans Post From Brittany Aldean Leads to War of Words Between LGBTQ+ Supporter Maren Morris and Candace Owen More Sex Crime Trials for Cosby, Weinstein in Los Angeles 'I hurt my family. I hurt my friends. I cheated on my wife. And that was a mistake, you know, a terrible mistake,' Weinstein said. 'But I did not commit these crimes. I swear that before God, and the people watching now, and on my family.' The infidelity, he asserts, was triggered by the pressures of his work. 'Oh, I was not a good boss,' he admits. 'I was tough and I was demanding, and I should have been better at it, but I wasn't. I had a temper. You know, I just should have controlled myself better. And the pressures of that work was my excuse for the cheating.' Owens then prompted Weinstein to discuss some of his former accusers, including Gwyneth Paltrow. In 2017, Paltrow claimed Weinstein invited her into his hotel room, put his hands on her and suggested a massage after casting her in the 1996 film 'Emma.' The incarcerated Weinstein called the accusation 'a complete fabrication.' Though he admitted that he 'definitely made a pass,' he claimed he 'didn't touch her.' 'She thought the relationship was abusive. Anybody who was there, who witnessed that relationship with [Paltrow], it just turned into total friends,' Weinstein said. 'There's pictures of her hugging me when I was sick and in the hospital and didn't think I was gonna make it in 1999. Gwyneth, at the Golden Globes, said, 'Bomber, we miss you.' She got up and made a speech about me. Nobody asked her to do that. In her Academy speech, she thanks me.' Weinstein argues that his falling-out with Paltrow instead happened because he didn't like the script for Donna Tartt's 'Secret History' that Paltrow and her brother Jake Paltrow wrote after he had optioned the bestseller. Weinstein also addressed Rose McGowan, who came forward in a bombshell New York Times article published in 2017, claiming that Weinstein paid her $100,000 to stay silent about a sexual encounter at the Sundance Film Festival. The article quotes a legal document in connection with the cash, which states that the money was 'not to be construed as an admission' by Weinstein, and was only to 'avoid litigation and buy peace.' Weinstein said the money was to make sure his infidelity to his then-wife, Eve Chilton, remained a secret. 'I settled with Rose McGowan,' he said. 'I gave her $100,000, you know, to say…just don't tell my wife, don't get me in trouble.' As for what Weinstein has been up to since his historic fall from Hollywood royalty, he tells a clearly sympathetic Owens he's been helping some of his industry connections develop their films from jail. 'I have friends who are still in the industry who slip me their screenplays and ask me for notes,' Weinstein said. 'You know, can I do something for it? Can I help? Can I improve it? And I just give them my honest thoughts. So I'm not doing anything for me, but I'm doing things for others.' Weinstein is currently on trial in New York and charged with two counts of committing a 'criminal sexual act' in the first degree and one count of third-degree rape. The charges stem from accusations by former model Kaja Sokola, former TV production assistant Miriam Haley and actor Jessica Mann. The Owens-Weinstein interview premieres on YouTube on Tuesday, but can be accessed now through Owens' paid subscription service. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
