Harvey Weinstein Hospitalized After His Return to New York City From Upstate Prison

NEW YORK — Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer said Saturday that the onetime movie mogul has been hospitalized for a battery of tests after his return to New York City following an appeals court ruling nullifying his 2020 rape conviction.

Attorney Arthur Aidala said Weinstein was moved to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan after his arrival on Friday to city jails.

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“They examined him and sent him to Bellevue. It seems like he needs a lot of help, physically. He’s got a lot of problems. He’s getting all kinds of tests. He’s somewhat of a train wreck health wise,” Aidala said.

A message left with the hospital was not immediately returned Saturday.

Frank Dwyer, a spokesperson with the New York City Department of Correction, said only that Weinstein remains in custody at Bellevue. Thomas Mailey, a spokesperson for the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, said Weinstein was turned over to the city’s Department of Correction pursuant to the appeals ruling. Weinstein had been housed at the Mohawk Correctional Facility, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Albany.

On Thursday, the New York Court of Appeals vacated his conviction after concluding that a trial judge permitted jurors to see and hear too much evidence not directly related to the charges he faced. It also erased his 23-year prison sentence and ordered a retrial.

Prosecutors said they intend to retry him on charges that he forcibly performed oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006 and raped an aspiring actor in 2013.

Weinstein remained in custody after the appeals ruling because he was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape and was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

For some time, Weinstein has been ailing with a variety of afflictions, including cardiac issues, diabetes, sleep apnea and eye problems.

Aidala said he spoke to Weinstein on Friday afternoon after he was in transit to New York City from an upstate jail less than 24 hours after the appeals ruling, which was released Thursday morning.

He said his client’s ailments are physical, adding that mentally he is “sharp as a tack. Feet are firmly planted on the ground.”

The lawyer said it usually takes state corrections and prisons officials a week or two to arrange to transport a prisoner.

“He was not treated well. They refused to give him even a sip of water, no food, no bathroom break,” Aidala said. “He’s a 72-year-old sickly man.”

Mailey, the state corrections spokesperson, had no comment when Aidala’s remarks about Weinstein’s treatment were read to him over the phone.

Aidala said he was told that Bellevue doctors planned to run a lot of tests on Weinstein before he can be returned to the Rikers Island jail complex.

The lawyer said he’s scheduled to meet with Weinstein on Monday. He added that he plans to tell a judge when Weinstein goes to court on Wednesday in Manhattan that a retrial should occur after Labor Day.

source https://time.com/6971812/harvey-weinstein-hospitalized-new-york-city-jail-return/

Iraqi Authorities Investigate Killing of TikTok Star Shot Dead Outside Her Baghdad Home

BAGHDAD — Iraqi authorities on Saturday were investigating the killing of a well-known social media influencer, who was shot by an armed motorcyclist in front of her home in central Baghdad.

Ghufran Mahdi Sawadi, known as Um Fahad or “mother of Fahad,” was popular on the social media sites TikTok and Instagram, where she posted videos of herself dancing to music and was followed by tens of thousands of users.

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An Iraqi security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media, said that the assailant opened fire as Sawadi parked her Cadillac in front of her house on Friday, killing her, then took her phone and fled the scene.

The killing took place in Zayoona, the same neighborhood where a prominent Iraqi researcher and security expert Hisham al-Hashimi was gunned down in 2020. Before the U.S. invasion of 2003, the neighborhood was home to military leaders and considered a prestigious area in Baghdad. In recent years, many militia leaders have taken up residence there.

Sawadi isn’t the first prominent social media figure to be gunned down in central Baghdad. Last year, Noor Alsaffar or “Noor BM,” a transgender person with a large social media following, was also fatally shot in the city.

A neighbor of Sawadi who identified himself only by his nickname, Abu Adam or “father of Adam,” said he came out to the street after hearing two shots fired and saw “the car’s door open and she was lying on the steering wheel.”

“The woman who was with her (in the car) escaped, and security forces came and sealed off the entire area, and they took the victim’s body and towed her car,” he said.

In Iraq, the role of social media influencers has broadened from promoting beauty products and clothing to government projects and programs. Official government invitations classify these influencers as key business figures at sports, security and cultural gatherings.

Videos featuring a prominent influencer during the 93rd anniversary on Thursday of the Iraqi air force’s founding sparked a backlash, with many criticizing the Ministry of Defense for allowing them to record and publish videos from sensitive military sites. The ministry defended itself, saying that in the era of social media, like defense ministries worldwide, it uses influencers alongside traditional media to communicate with the public.

Last year, an Iraqi court sentenced Sawadi to six months in prison for posting several films and videos containing obscene statements and indecent public behavior on social media as part of a recent push by the Iraqi government to police morals.

Separately on Saturday, the Iraqi parliament passed an amendment to the country’s prostitution law — widely criticized by human rights groups — that would punish same-sex relations with a prison term ranging from 10 to 15 years. A previous version of the law would have imposed the death penalty.

The law also bans any organization that promotes “sexual deviancy,” imposing a sentence of at least seven years and a fine of no less than 10 million dinars (about $7,600).

The acting parliamentary speaker, Mohsen Al-Mandalawi, said in a statement that the vote was “a necessary step to protect the value structure of society” and to “protect our children from calls for moral depravity and homosexuality.”

Rasha Younes, a senior researcher with the LGBT Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, said the law’s passage “rubber-stamps Iraq’s appalling record of rights violations against LGBT people and is a serious blow to fundamental human rights, including the rights to freedom of expression and association, privacy, equality, and nondiscrimination.”

A report released by the organization in 2022 accused armed groups in Iraq of abducting, raping, torturing, and killing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people with impunity and the Iraqi government of failing to hold perpetrators accountable.

source https://time.com/6971797/iraqi-authorities-investigate-tiktok-star-om-fahad-killing/

Trump VP Contender Kristi Noem Faces Backlash After Admitting to Killing Her Dog

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, a Republican and reported contender for Donald Trump’s Vice President pick in the 2024 election, has received pushback after admitting to killing her dog in her new memoir.

After obtaining a copy of No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward ahead of its publication next month, the Guardian reported that Noem wrote she shot dead Cricket, a 14-month-old dog she had intended to train for hunting pheasant, after the canine ruined a hunt, killed another family’s chickens, and moved to bite her.

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Noem said Cricket had an “aggressive personality” and was “untrainable,” per the Guardian’s report. Noem took Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs to try to teach the canine, but Cricket went “out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life.” 

She said she called Cricket, then used an electronic collar to try to control the dog. On the way home, Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and killed the chickens of a local family, who Noem compensated. The dog then “whipped around to bite me,” the politician wrote. 

After that, Noem said, “I realized I had to put her down.” She led Cricket to a gravel pit and shot and killed the dog. 

Noem also killed a male goat that she said was “nasty and mean,” smelled “disgusting, musky, rancid,” and “loved to chase” her children, knocking them down and ruining their clothes. She also killed the goat in the gravel pit, although it reportedly took two shots.

Noem said she told the story about Cricket to show that in politics and life, she was willing to do what was “difficult, messy, and ugly” if it was necessary.

The backlash from Democrats and conservatives alike has been swift. Rick Wilson, who co-founded the anti-Trump PAC The Lincoln Project, criticized on X, formerly Twitter, that Noem “killed a puppy because she was lazy at training bird dogs, not because it was a bad dog.” The Lincoln Project released an ad that said when tough moments come with pets, “shooting your dog in the face is not an option.”

Noem responded to the backlash on Friday in a post on X: “We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm. Sadly, we just had to put down 3 horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years.”

“If you want more real, honest, and politically INcorrect stories that’ll have the media gasping, preorder No Going Back,” she concluded, with a link to her book. 

With interest in Noem at an all-time high, here’s what you need to know about the U.S. politician. 

Who is Kristi Noem? 

Noem is the 33rd—and first female—governor of South Dakota, whose motto is “Under God, the People Rule.”

The 52-year-old was born in Watertown, S.D. She’s spoken about how she took on more responsibilities on her family’s farm after her father died in a farming accident. She attended Mount Marty College and Northern State University. She later graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science from South Dakota State University in 2011, according to VoteSmart.

Noem is a rancher, farmer, small business owner, and published author, according to her official biography. She joined the South Dakota House of Representatives in 2007, where she served as assistant majority leader, and then the U.S. House of Representatives in 2011. She was elected as governor in 2018 and re-elected in 2022.

Kristi Noem’s husband, children, and grandchildren  

Noem is married to Bryon. His First Gentleman biography says he grew up on a farm near Bryant, S.D., graduated from Northern State University with a degree in business and finance, has operated an insurance agency, and coached basketball. The couple went to high school together and have jointly run a farm and ranch, opened an ice cream shop, and helped manage a family restaurant, according to their biographies.

They have three children—Kassidy, Kennedy, and Booker. Kassidy Peters is married and has two children, according to her X profile. Peters was a real estate appraiser, but turned in her license and dissolved her business in 2021, according to a letter she wrote. A report approved by South Dakota lawmakers in 2022 found that Peters got preferential treatment in her application to get the license, the Associated Press reported.

Her husband, Kyle Peters, is in local politics and was elected to the City Council of Watertown, S.D. last year. He previously worked for his mother-in-law in the Governor’s Office of Economic Development from 2019 to 2021, according to his LinkedIn and news reports.

Kennedy Frick is also married and works as an account executive for an oil and gas consulting firm, according to her LinkedIn. Frick worked for her mother in the Governor’s office from Jan. 2019 to Aug. 2020, when she left to get her masters in business administration, according to her LinkedIn and news reports.

Booker is currently listed on the website of Collision Ministries, a Christian student organization, as the Watertown Area Director. His biography says he previously attended a Christian training school in Hawaii and worked in a ministry in San Francisco.

What is Kristi Noem’s net worth? 

Noem’s precise net worth is unknown. OpenSecrets estimated her net worth at $2.3 million in 2017. ExactNetWorth.com pegged it at around $4.5 million in 2021.

source https://time.com/6971773/kristi-noem-memoir-dog-kill-children-net-worth/

Puerto Rico Is Voting for Its Future

Puerto Rico is participating in the U.S. presidential primaries in late April: Republicans selected delegates for the Republican National Convention (RNC) on April 21, and Democrats hold their primaries a week later. While Puerto Ricans cannot vote in the general election despite being U.S. citizens, they do have the power to shape presidential contests. Puerto Rico will send 23 delegates to the RNC, while Democrats will have 56 delegates from Puerto Rico at the Democratic National Convention. This is more delegates than many states have at party conventions.

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This contest won’t affect the outcome of the primary—Donald Trump and Joe Biden will go head-to-head in November 2024. But voters will also have a chance this year to shake up the local political landscape in Puerto Rico—and its relationship to the United States. To understand what is shifting in Puerto Rico in the 2024 elections, we have to better understand the country’s history and its colonial relationship to the United States.   

Often referred as the world’s oldest colony, Puerto Rico’s history is marked by five centuries of colonialism, stretching to the Spanish conquest in 1493. The Spanish colonial system was sustained by labor exploitation, enslaved-labor, and fiscal policies that were detrimental to those living in Puerto Rico. After the Spanish-American War, the United States colonized Puerto Rico in 1898. The archipelago went from one imperial power to another.

Read More: How to Fix America’s Shambolic Elections

Following the U.S. occupation in Puerto Rico, there were debates among U.S. intellectuals, elected politicians, and journalists about the nature of Puerto Ricans, and whether they could ever be considered “Americans.” With much attention paid to the non-Anglo nature of the archipelago’s inhabitants, Puerto Ricans were characterized as inferior, alien, and too savage for self-government or annexation.  

After years of advocacy by different groups in Washington and the archipelago, the U.S. Congress passed the Jones-Shafroth Act in 1917, granting U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans, which gave them freedom of movement within the United States. Despite being U.S. citizens, however, Puerto Ricans in the archipelago were and remain unable to participate in presidential elections, underscoring the second-class nature of their citizenship.

At the dawn of America’s Cold War after World War II, Puerto Rico was put in a glass case to display the wonders of U.S. capitalism to nations across the globe that were pushed to pledge allegiance to either the Soviet Union or the United States. Meanwhile, Puerto Rican nationalists challenged U.S. colonialism through armed rebellion. Some, for example, organized an insurrection in the inland town of Jayuya in 1950, while two nationalists unsuccessfully attacked the Blair House in Washington, D.C.

With the push for decolonization in the recently-created United Nations as its backdrop, in 1952, after a Constitutional Assembly, Puerto Rico became a commonwealth of the United States and adopted its own constitution. Afterwards, the Partido Popular Democrático (Popular Democratic Party, or PPD) won every single election until 1968, when a new political party, the Partido Nuevo Progresista (New Progressive Party, or PNP), broke the electoral streak. These two parties have alternated power ever since, with the Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño (Pro-Independence Party, or PIP) acting as a minority party.

Read More: House Passes Bill That Would Allow Puerto Rico to Vote on Its Statehood or Independence

Since the establishment of the commonwealth, Puerto Ricans have continued to debate their relationship to the United States: Should they retain their status as a commonwealth, petition for inclusion as a U.S. state, or call for independence altogether? These questions came down to party lines as the PPD championed the commonwealth status and the PNP advocated for statehood.

Over the years, voters have gone to the polls for six plebiscites, or referendums, on the future of Puerto Rico and its relationship to the United States. These were all non-binding consultations as the U.S. Congress holds plenary power over Puerto Rico. The first plebiscite took place in 1967; five others followed in 1993, 1998, 2012, 2017, and 2020.

While voters affirmed some version of “commonwealth” status in the first four referendums, in 2017 voters chose statehood, although voter turnout was extremely low. Only 27% of eligible voters cast ballots, and this trend continued in the most recent plebiscite, which took place in 2020. While statehood clearly won the ballot, it did so with only 55% of eligible voters participating.

For many Puerto Ricans, these non-binding referendums are a seen as a waste of government resources. Congress is not required to act upon its results. Nothing has changed as a result of these six different consultations, and many people have abstained from voting in these symbolic exercises.

But recent events have prompted important changes in Puerto Rico’s political landscape. In the summer of 2019, mass protests arose when a Telegram Chat from Governor Ricardo Rosselló and his inner circle was leaked. The chat documented how the governor and his friends, whom he called “los brothers,” made homophobic, sexist, and racist jokes—even mocking those who died after 2017’s Hurricane María. The protests in the summer 2019 even led to Rosselló’s resignation.

Read More: How Puerto Rico Achieved the Highest Vaccination Rate in the U.S.—Without a Political Fight

Many people, including a younger generation that took part in the massive 2019 protests, feel that traditional political parties do not represent them. More importantly, some feel that traditional parties are directly responsible for creating the dire social and fiscal situation that Puerto Ricans have faced in the last two decades.  

In 2019, a coalition of progressive groups created a new political party known as the Movimiento Victoria Ciudadana (Citizens’ Victory Movement, or MVC). Unlike traditional parties, the MVC does not center Puerto Rico’s relationship to the U.S. and status as its main platform point. The MVC is composed of supporters of statehood, the commonwealth, and independence, transcending older dividing lines. Instead, the party focuses on fiscal reforms, social justice, and equity.

The MVC surprised many people in the 2020 elections after earning 14% of the vote and electing two senators and two representatives to the Puerto Rican legislature. Similarly, the Pro-Independence Party, which has always struggled to garner votes, attained 14% as well. The popularity of MVC and the re-emergence of the PIP—like the rise of a far-right religious fundamentalist party Proyecto Dignidad (Dignity Project)—indicates that Puerto Ricans are looking for new alternatives not found in the traditional political parties.

The MVC recently announced an electoral alliance with the Pro-Independence Party (PIP) for the 2024 elections. If successful, they would end the PNP and the PPD’s seven decades of bipartisanship.  

The traditional parties have overlooked their differences to challenge the MVC-PIP alliance, taking legal action to seek to delegitimize and exclude the alliance’s candidates from the electoral process. They succeeded in decertifying some key MVC candidates like Senator Ana Irma Rivera Lassen, who is running for the position of Resident Commissioner in Washington, D.C.

Yet the MVC-PIP’s messages have enduring appeal. In recent years Puerto Ricans have faced a fiscal crisis that affected salaries and the price of goods, and stagnated the economy. There are electrical outages on an almost daily basis. Soaring poverty—particularly affecting children—makes life in Puerto Rico difficult, triggering the migration of Puerto Ricans to the United States and abroad.

Many attribute these challenges to the relationship between Puerto Rico and the U.S. One of MVC’s most important platform points involves the creation of a new constitutional assembly, which could redefine the future of Puerto Rico’s political status and bring an end to more than five centuries of colonialism. Such an assembly would provide Puerto Ricans with the opportunity to decide for themselves what the future of Puerto Rico looks like, freed from the constraints of the visions advanced by the traditional political parties.

If the MVC-PIP alliance increases its vote share in the 2024 elections, changes may be on the horizon. Perhaps they are already here; as these electoral processes take place, Puerto Ricans are not passively standing by. There are countless grassroots groups that are already enacting, imagining, and living the future they so desire in the present. They are also working towards the decolonization of the country. Many groups, such as La Colectiva Feminista en Construcción, Urbe a Pie, and La Sombrilla Cuir predate the protest movement and do not focus on electoral politics. They have instead concentrated on transforming the conditions and everyday lives of Puerto Ricans. It was grassroots organizing that amplified the 2019 protests and that have provided the energy for the creation of these new political parties.

Regardless of what route is chosen, the future of Puerto Rico must be decided by those in the archipelago in conversation with members of the Puerto Rican diaspora. Perhaps a constitutional assembly could provide that path.

Jorell Meléndez-Badillo is Assistant Professor of Latin American and Caribbean History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his most recent book is Puerto Rico: A National History (Princeton University Press, 2024), also published in Spanish as Puerto Rico: Historia de una nación by Grupo Planeta USA.

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.

source https://time.com/6969980/puerto-rico-voting-future/

Here’s All the Countries With TikTok Bans as Platform’s Future in U.S. Hangs In Balance

On Wednesday, Joe Biden signed into law  a bill that could lead to TikTok being banned in the U.S. if ByteDance, the app’s Chinese-owned parent company, does not sell it within a year. Lawmakers are increasingly worried that the app could pose national security concerns to the U.S. if the  Chinese government were to access data collected by the app. 

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TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, spoke in front of Congress in January of this year, defending the platform’s position. “We have not been asked for any data by the Chinese government and we have never provided,” he testified. 

Nevertheless, despite the CEO’s assurances, many governments around the world remain unconvinced, and have instituted their own TikTok bans and restrictions.

Here are all the countries that have banned or partially banned the app:

Afghanistan

The Taliban government banned TikTok in April 2022, saying that the application was “misleading youths.”

Armenia

Armenia reportedly temporarily blocked TikTok for multiple days during border clashes with Azerbaijan in September 2022.

Australia

TikTok was banned from Australian government devices in April 2023, but is still allowed on devices belonging to the general public.

Austria

Austria has banned TikTok from all government employee devices as of May 2023. 

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan blocked TikTok temporarily during border clashes with Armenia in September 2022. The application was blocked again one year later due to “anti-terrorist measures” according to Armenian local media. It was restored again on October 1, 2023. 

Bangladesh

In August 2021, a Bangladeshi court ordered the government to remove TikTok and several other apps from the country’s app store in order to “save children and adolescents from moral and social degradation.” The application was later allowed to return, providing its content moderation was in line with Bangladesh’s cultural sensibilities. 

Belgium

In March 2024, the Belgian government announced that it was banning the app from all government devices. “The safety of our information must prevail,” said Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo. TikTok is still available on non-government affiliated devices. 

Canada

Canada banned TikTok from all government-issued mobile devices in February 2023. “I suspect that as the government takes the significant step of telling all federal employees that they can no longer use TikTok on their work phones, many Canadians from business to private individuals will reflect on the security of their own data and perhaps make choices,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said when the ban was announced.

China

China itself does not permit the international version of TikTok to be used on the mainland. Instead, users must download Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok which is subject to censorship from the Chinese Communist Party. 

Denmark

Denmark’s Ministry of Defense banned the app from its employees’ work phones in March 2023. The country’s main public service broadcaster also instituted special protocols that mean journalists need special approval in order to use the app for reporting purposes following a warning from Denmark’s Center for Cybersecurity. 

Estonia

TikTok was banned from the work phones of state officials in Estonia in March 2023. 

European Union

The three main institutions that make up the E.U.–the European Parliament, European Commission and the E.U. Council–have all banned TikTok from employees’ work phones. Employees are also advised to remove the app from their personal devices. 

France

France has banned several social media applications from government employees’ phones including Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok as of March 2023.

India

India is one of a handful of countries that has completely banned TikTok, including on citizens’ personal devices. The ban was implemented in July 2020 after a border clash between China and India left 20 Indian soldiers dead. The two countries have had an ongoing centuries over their border that occasionally turns violent. In the aftermath of the 2020 border clash, some Indians called for a boycott of Chinese goods, and India’s information technology ministry put out a statement claiming that certain mobile applications were “stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data.” After the ban, many creators migrated to YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels.

Indonesia

Indonesia banned TikTok Shop, a portion of the application that allows creators to sell products to their audiences, in October 2023 for violating the country’s e–commerce laws. 

Iran

The Islamic Republic bans TikTok along with other internationally popular social media platforms including X and Facebook.

Ireland

TikTok was banned from government devices in Ireland in April 2023. 

Jordan

TikTok has been banned in the Kingdom of Jordan since December 2022, after a police officer was killed during a protest and videos of the event flooded social media. 

Kyrgyzstan

The small, formerly Soviet country banned Tiktok in August 2023, arguing that the application was harmful to the development of children. 

Latvia

The app is prohibited on work phones in Latvia’s Foreign Ministry as of March 2023. 

Malta

Tiktok is blocked from government-provided cell phones along with all other non-government applications in Malta. 

The Netherlands

The Dutch government banned the app from employees’ work phones in March 2023. The relationship between Amsterdam and Beijing has soured in the last year after a Dutch intelligence agency called China “the biggest threat to the Dutch economic security,” per Bloomberg. 

Nepal

Nepal banned TikTok for all its citizens in November 2023, saying the app was “detrimental to social harmony.”

New Zealand

Lawmakers and parliament employees in New Zealand were prohibited from having TikTok on their work phones as of March 2024. However, exceptions can be made if a lawmaker believes TikTok is necessary for their democratic duties, per the AP. The ban does not apply to employees in other branches of the government. 

North Korea

North Korea restricts most of its citizens from accessing the internet. A few websites and apps are permitted for the privileged elite to visit, but TikTok is not among them. 

Norway

The Norwegian parliament banned TikTok from employees’ work devices in March 2023. Municipal employees in the cities of Oslo and Bergen have also been encouraged to remove the app from their devices. “Norwegian intelligence services single out Russia and China as the main risk factors for Norway’s security interests,” said Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl in a statement, per EuroNews. 

Pakistan

Pakistan has banned TikTok temporarily at least four times. However, the application was restored in November 2021, and has reportedly been available in the country since then. 

Russia

Currently, Russians are restricted in terms of what they can view on TikTok, and viewers primarily only see videos made by Russian creators. This month, it has been reported that the Russian government intends to ban TikTok in order to encourage citizens to use domestic social media platforms, instead.

Senegal

Senegal instituted a total ban of the application in August after an opposition candidate was accused of using the platform to spread “hateful and subversive messages.” The government of Senegal has refused to reinstate the app unless a mechanism is developed that allows the government to remove specific accounts. 

Somalia

In August 2023, the Somali government announced that it was banning TikTok, Telegram, and the online betting website 1XBet. Minister of Communications Jama Hassan Khalif said that the apps were used for dangerous propaganda. “The Minister of Communications orders internet companies to stop the aforementioned applications, which terrorists and immoral groups use to spread constant horrific images and misinformation to the public,” the minister said in a statement, per Reuters.

Taiwan

Taiwan banned all government devices from using Chinese-made software, including TikTok, in December 2022 after a warning from the FBI. 

United Kingdom

In March 2023, the U.K. banned all government employees from using TikTok on government provided mobile devices. “Given the particular risk around government devices, which may contain sensitive information, it is both prudent and proportionate to restrict the use of certain apps, particularly when it comes to apps where a large amount of data can be stored and accessed,” Cabinet Office minister Oliver Dowden told parliament.

United States

Congress and the armed forces have banned TikTok from all of their employees’ devices. Approximately half of all states ban the app on state-owned devices, and the Federal government similarly banned the app from employees’ devices in March 2023. 

Uzbekistan

TikTok has been unavailable in Uzbekistan since July 2021, after the authorities said the app was not compliant with the country’s personal data protection laws. 

source https://time.com/6971009/tiktok-banned-restrictions-worldwide-countries-united-states-law/

Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 Rape Conviction Overturned. Here’s What Happens Next

New York’s top court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction, the watershed case that sparked Hollywood’s #MeToo movement. 

The 72-year-old has been serving a 23-year sentence on rape and sexual assault charges in an upstate New York correctional facility since February 2020.

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Here’s what we know about the landmark decision.

Why was Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction overturned?

In a 4-3 decision, the New York Court of Appeals found that the appointed judge prejudiced the disgraced movie mogul’s case by allowing prosecution to call women who were not part of the case to testify as witnesses.

The court said that the testimony “served no material non-propensity purpose.” It added that the court’s decision to allow Weinstein to be cross-examined, when he had no criminal history, “portrayed [the] defendant in a highly prejudicial light.”

In 2020, Lauren Young, Dawn Dunning, and Tarale Wulff testified about their experiences with Weinstein under a state law that permits testimony on “prior bad acts” to demonstrate behavioral trends.  

The court said Thursday that, “under our system of justice, the accused has a right to be held to account only for the crime charged.” Juda Engelmayer, a spokesperson for Weinstein, told Deadline they are “cautiously excited” about the ruling. “He still has a long road ahead of him because of the Los Angeles case. We are studying the ramifications of the appeal right now.”

Read More: TIME Person of the Year 2017: The Silence Breakers

What does the overturned conviction mean for Harvey Weinstein?

Weinstein was also convicted of sex offenses in Los Angeles in 2022. In that case, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison. 

As a result of Thursday’s verdict, he will not be released from prison. Instead, it’s understood he will be transferred to authorities in California, where his conviction still stands.

What might happen next following the Court of Appeals’ decision?

A defining symbol of Hollywood, Weinstein was accused of using his position to bully, exploit, or coerce women in the film industry into granting him sexual favors. A bombshell 2017 New York Times article by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey reported that Weinstein reached “at least eight” financial settlements with women who accused him of sexual harassment and unwanted physical contact.

The article inspired the 2022 drama film She Said, based on Kantor and Twohey’s book of the same name in which they recount reporting on the story which propelled swathes of women to come forward with their own accusations. The #MeToo movement became a global phenomenon, with women across all industries coming forward to share their experiences of rape, harassment, and sexual assault. 

In light of Thursday’s decision, Weinstein’s accusers could be expected to take the stand again and retell their stories on the witness stand, Sky News reported. Manhattan prosecutors will decide whether to retry Weinstein.

In a statement emailed to TIME, anti-sexual violence organization RAINN criticized the decision. “Overturning the conviction of Harvey Weinstein is a horrible decision that does not protect due process—it upends justice for the survivors of his crimes,” Scott Berkowitz, RAINN founder and president, said.

“Harvey Weinstein was fairly convicted and deserves to be punished for all his crimes. RAINN urges District Attorney Bragg to immediately commit to retrying him. Our heart also goes out to the survivors who bravely testified against Weinstein and are now seeing that bravery turned into a legal loophole. We stand by you.”

source https://time.com/6970975/harvey-weinstein-appeal-2020-rape-conviction/

Why This Election Is the Media’s Opportunity to Rebuild Trust

What does it tell us, my students ask, that nine years after Donald Trump oozed down the golden escalator and into contention as Leader of the Free World, the American press, mainstream edition, is still arguing about how to cover him?  

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Once the charge was that he gets millions of dollars in free media because reporters obsessively overcovers him; now it’s that he gets a free ride because they have outrage fatigue. If you fact-check his lies, you risk spreading them further; if you don’t, you are normalizing nonsense. Round and round the arguments go, especially now that reporters must weigh how to cover the first criminal trial of a former President, a campaign conducted from a courtroom where voters once again are judge and jury. 

James Madison defended even a young, sloppy, partisan press as a “great bulwark of liberty” and you can feel in the growing attacks on press performance an urgent, underlying “do better; this election is too important to screw up.” Conservatives for years have flayed the “lamestream” press as arrogant and agenda-driven but political independents’ faith in the media has also dropped rather precipitously and according to Gallup, for the first time more Americans say they have no trust at all in the press than say they have a great deal or a fair amount.

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In fact, these days the most indignant denunciations of the mainstream political press often come from the left (though this could be because so many on the right have stopped watching and reading). Critics who charge reporters with “false equivalency” and “bothsidesism” condemn reporters for performing objectivity rather than practicing it, for normalizing depravity and numbing the audience to each shattered norm. Now that we experience politics in surround sound, inescapable and all-consuming, it’s little wonder researchers are tracking “news avoidance,” a rational response to coverage that people say feels disconnected from their lives and needs, and leaves them feeling depressed and angry.

The debate over how to cover this campaign reflects in part the challenge of unprecedentedness; have reporters ever faced more new questions than this fateful election presents? Everything from a candidate campaigning from criminal court to the rarity of presidential rematches to the implications of age, the threats of AI, the speed and scale of contagious falsehood, and sadly, the challenge of doing a job whose business model is shredding beneath us makes practical and ethical choices harder. At the very least, these conditions should be enough to chasten the press critics who suggest that the answers are obvious.

Fortunately, while there are few easy answers—we do have to cover the Trump trial and reckon with AI— there are clear opportunities. The core of journalism remains curiosity, with its patient partner, humility. We are seeing things in our politics we’ve never seen before, which is an invitation to explore and inquire and inform, not in perfunctory “diner safaris” but in an open-ended, open-minded conversation with people who hear the same speeches, read the same tweets and truths, and come to wildly different conclusions about what they mean and why they matter.

Research into political division often uncovers mass distortion; we see one another through a glass darkly, exaggerating differences, attributing extreme positions to those who don’t actually hold them. Research by the nonpartisan group More in Common, for instance, drilled down on the radioactive topic of how we teach history. “Many Republicans believe most Democrats want to teach a history defined by shameful oppression and white guilt,” they observed. “Many Democrats believe most Republicans want to focus on the white majority and overlook slavery and racism. But we found that both impressions are wrong.” People at the extremes of left and right are far more likely to post and tweet about politics than the vast center of the electorate, which adds more distortion to the picture.

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The challenge is that even when you tell voters that their political opponents are less extreme than they think, people don’t believe it. In much of our current media landscape, we aren’t likely to encounter the layered worldviews of voters who hold complex, even apparently contradictory views on everything from tax rates to trans rights to GMOs to wind turbines. Reporters perform a true public service when they embed not in campaigns but in communities, capture the trials and trade-offs of small-business owners and caregivers, working parents and police officers, and refocus the lens from the hated horse race to the intimate, immediate information voters need to make decisions about their lives as well as their votes.

One reason local news is far more trusted than national news is that it is simply closer to the facts on the ground. But people don’t only trust it more for the information they need to engage with their communities; they trust it far more for information about how to vote. The collapse of local news outlets—more than two newspapers a week go under on average—puts all the more responsibility on larger regional or national newsrooms to fill in the gaps, deploy reporters creatively, recruit local partners, and present a true picture of the issues most relevant to communities.   

Show, don’t tell, as we teach young reporters, and there’s no better time or place than the campaign that promises to shape our fates and fortunes for a generation.

source https://time.com/6970077/media-coverage-election-opportunities-2024/