Cardi B and Post Malone marked major breakthroughs in the last year, but the rap stars won’t compete for best new artist at the 2019 Grammy Awards.

Cardi B, who earned two nominations at this year’s Grammys held in February, was not eligible for nomination because of her previous nominations. The Grammys, which has adjusted the rules of best new artist over the years to keep up with the changing musical landscape, state that “any artist with a previous Grammy nomination as a performer” would not qualify. If Cardi B had not released an album around the time she earned her first pair of nominations for “Bodak Yellow,” she could have qualified. But because she had enough music to be eligible for best new artist at the 2018 show and earned prior nominations, she was not qualified to enter the category.

A person familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to publicly discuss the topic, said Cardi B was submitted for best new artist at this year’s show, though she didn’t earn a nomination. The award went to Alessia Cara, while nominees included SZA, Khalid, Lil Uzi Vert and Julia Michaels.

Post Malone was also submitted for best new artist at this year’s show but didn’t garner a nomination. Because he had never earned a Grammy nomination, he met the criteria to be a best new artist contender for the upcoming awards show, but at a Grammy nominations meeting held this month his inclusion in the category was met with debate, the person said. Malone lost in a vote by music industry players — ranging from executives to producers to publicists — and will not compete for the coveted honor. Some felt because the hitmaker had success with his 2016 debut, “Stoney,” as well as the hit songs “Congratulations” and “White Iverson” — released in 2015 — he had already past new artist status.

A representative for Post Malone declined comment Wednesday. A representative for Cardi B did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The first round of voting for the 2019 Grammy nominations begins Oct. 17. Nominees will be announced Dec. 5 and best new artist will include eight contenders instead of five for the first time. The show airs live on Feb. 10.

The best new artist rules state that an artist can be submitted three times and is eligible so long as they have only released three albums or 30 tracks. Some artists, for example, earned nominations with second and third albums since those records marked their major breakthroughs as rising acts on the music scene.

Malone was also a hot topic at the Grammys meeting for his recent album, “Beerbongs & Bentleys,” which was kicked out of the rap category and pushed into the pop genre, the source said. Best rap album nominees must contain 51 percent or more of rap music, and the Grammys rap committee felt “Beerbongs” leaned more toward the pop genre with its the production, sound and melodies. The diverse album also includes singing, elements of R&B and rock and veers outside of rap with songs like the guitar-tinged “Stay.” The person said the larger Grammys committee listened to the entire 18-track album — which includes the No. 1 hits “Rockstar” and “Psycho” as well as “Better Now,” currently No. 4 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart — and voted that it would compete in pop instead of rap.

The best rap album category is expected to feature stiff competition since the genre has heavily dominated the pop charts in the last year, with albums by Drake, Eminem, XXXTentacion, Cardi B, Travis Scott, Lil Wayne, J. Cole and Migos being proposed as possible nominees.

It was not clear where Malone’s singles would land — they could appear in rap or pop, or both. Over the years more and more musicians have had songs from a single album appear in different genre categories. Beyonce’s “Lemonade” album had tracks compete in rock, pop, R&B and rap categories, while Justin Timberlake and Rihanna’s nominations have ranged over the years from dance to pop to R&B to rap.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

In Yassin Mohammed’s sketches and paintings, he and other Egyptian prisoners are crammed into tiny cells, feet in each other’s faces and their few belongings hanging from the walls.

The cramped scenes, defined by bars and closed cell doors, capture the claustrophobic reality of Egypt’s prisons, where tens of thousands have been locked away, often for months or years without charge, in the heaviest crackdown on dissent in the country’s modern history.

“One day, all this pain will go away,” one watercolor proclaims.

Mohammed, who walked free last month after serving a two-year sentence for taking part in a protest, chronicled daily life in his cellblock in dozens of sketches and paintings, offering a rare and intimate look inside Egypt’s sprawling prison network.

He has been in and out of prison since 2013, when the military overthrew a freely elected but divisive Islamist president. Since then, thousands of Islamists have been jailed, as well as a number of secular, pro-democracy activists, some of whom played a key role in the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Under President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who as defense minister led the 2013 military takeover, authorities view even mild dissent as a threat. Protests have been outlawed, hundreds of websites have been blocked, and vague laws criminalize the spreading of “false news.”

For most of the two years he was in prison, Mohammed shared a 6- by 15-meter (yard) cell with nearly 30 other inmates — Islamists, jihadis, liberal leftists and, he said, people who were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Rights groups say abuse of political detainees is widespread in Egypt, but Mohammed says he wasn’t physically abused, other than occasionally being pushed or slapped by guards. He says the real torment came from the unending boredom and the total lack of privacy.

His only escape was through art.

He managed to paint in a corner of his cell where the guards could not see him. Fearing that the guards would destroy the art if they found it, he smuggled the paintings out.

One piece that landed him in trouble was an unflattering caricature of el-Sissi, which guards seized in a surprise raid on his cell. Prison authorities chose not to press charges, instead sending him to solitary confinement, a light punishment for a man who says he yearned for privacy so much he spent time in the toilet just to avoid the other inmates.

A self-portrait inspired by that experience shows him sitting in the corner of a gray and black cell, slumped in resignation as a solitary ray of sunlight shines through the barred window.

Others show rare signs of normality or even beauty. A depiction of a prison bathroom — including garbage pails used by the inmates to store water because of frequent outages — has signs on the wall reading: “Please, leave the bathroom as you would like to see it!”

A bouquet of brightly colored flowers hangs above the bathroom — a wedding anniversary gift from the wife of one of the inmates.

In another painting, cardboard boxes turned into flower planters hang from the iron bars above a corridor. Mohammed says the prisoners save the cardboard boxes that their families use to deliver food and gather soil from sacks of potatoes they get from the prison’s kitchen.

“Plants and flowers there are like life in the midst of death,” said Mohammed.

Mohammed periodically had possession of a cellular phone while in prison, enabling him to communicate with a close circle of friends on social media. In the posts — which he asked his friends not to share for fear of repercussions — he described his daily routine and chores, and the claustrophobia he depicted in the paintings.

“God, I pray to you every day when the call for the dawn prayers rings out so you will free all those that are unjustly jailed or to soften their plight, and to let me meet Tom Hanks,” one post said, reflecting his near-obsessive admiration for the Oscar-winning film star.

Since his release on Sept. 20, just a day short of his 24th birthday, he has been traveling across Cairo collecting the works he smuggled out. He would like to put on an exhibition of some 50 pieces, but Egypt’s few remaining art galleries are unlikely to display his work for fear of angering authorities.

Instead, he plans to display them in his apartment in downtown Cairo.

“I don’t want to go back to prison. It does not take much these days to be sent to prison,” he said. “So, I will silently listen, watch and observe, and when I feel like I want to express a political opinion, I will talk to myself while alone in the privacy of my room.”

 
…

From: MeNeedIt

In Yassin Mohammed’s sketches and paintings, he and other Egyptian prisoners are crammed into tiny cells, feet in each other’s faces and their few belongings hanging from the walls.

The cramped scenes, defined by bars and closed cell doors, capture the claustrophobic reality of Egypt’s prisons, where tens of thousands have been locked away, often for months or years without charge, in the heaviest crackdown on dissent in the country’s modern history.

“One day, all this pain will go away,” one watercolor proclaims.

Mohammed, who walked free last month after serving a two-year sentence for taking part in a protest, chronicled daily life in his cellblock in dozens of sketches and paintings, offering a rare and intimate look inside Egypt’s sprawling prison network.

He has been in and out of prison since 2013, when the military overthrew a freely elected but divisive Islamist president. Since then, thousands of Islamists have been jailed, as well as a number of secular, pro-democracy activists, some of whom played a key role in the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Under President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who as defense minister led the 2013 military takeover, authorities view even mild dissent as a threat. Protests have been outlawed, hundreds of websites have been blocked, and vague laws criminalize the spreading of “false news.”

For most of the two years he was in prison, Mohammed shared a 6- by 15-meter (yard) cell with nearly 30 other inmates — Islamists, jihadis, liberal leftists and, he said, people who were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Rights groups say abuse of political detainees is widespread in Egypt, but Mohammed says he wasn’t physically abused, other than occasionally being pushed or slapped by guards. He says the real torment came from the unending boredom and the total lack of privacy.

His only escape was through art.

He managed to paint in a corner of his cell where the guards could not see him. Fearing that the guards would destroy the art if they found it, he smuggled the paintings out.

One piece that landed him in trouble was an unflattering caricature of el-Sissi, which guards seized in a surprise raid on his cell. Prison authorities chose not to press charges, instead sending him to solitary confinement, a light punishment for a man who says he yearned for privacy so much he spent time in the toilet just to avoid the other inmates.

A self-portrait inspired by that experience shows him sitting in the corner of a gray and black cell, slumped in resignation as a solitary ray of sunlight shines through the barred window.

Others show rare signs of normality or even beauty. A depiction of a prison bathroom — including garbage pails used by the inmates to store water because of frequent outages — has signs on the wall reading: “Please, leave the bathroom as you would like to see it!”

A bouquet of brightly colored flowers hangs above the bathroom — a wedding anniversary gift from the wife of one of the inmates.

In another painting, cardboard boxes turned into flower planters hang from the iron bars above a corridor. Mohammed says the prisoners save the cardboard boxes that their families use to deliver food and gather soil from sacks of potatoes they get from the prison’s kitchen.

“Plants and flowers there are like life in the midst of death,” said Mohammed.

Mohammed periodically had possession of a cellular phone while in prison, enabling him to communicate with a close circle of friends on social media. In the posts — which he asked his friends not to share for fear of repercussions — he described his daily routine and chores, and the claustrophobia he depicted in the paintings.

“God, I pray to you every day when the call for the dawn prayers rings out so you will free all those that are unjustly jailed or to soften their plight, and to let me meet Tom Hanks,” one post said, reflecting his near-obsessive admiration for the Oscar-winning film star.

Since his release on Sept. 20, just a day short of his 24th birthday, he has been traveling across Cairo collecting the works he smuggled out. He would like to put on an exhibition of some 50 pieces, but Egypt’s few remaining art galleries are unlikely to display his work for fear of angering authorities.

Instead, he plans to display them in his apartment in downtown Cairo.

“I don’t want to go back to prison. It does not take much these days to be sent to prison,” he said. “So, I will silently listen, watch and observe, and when I feel like I want to express a political opinion, I will talk to myself while alone in the privacy of my room.”

 
…

From: MeNeedIt

Preventing an extra single degree of heat could make a life-or-death difference in the next few decades for multitudes of people and ecosystems on this fast-warming planet, an international panel of scientists reported Sunday. But they provide little hope the world will rise to the challenge.

The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its gloomy report at a meeting in Incheon, South Korea.

In the 728-page document, the U.N. organization detailed how Earth’s weather, health and ecosystems would be in better shape if the world’s leaders could somehow limit future human-caused warming to just 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (a half degree Celsius) from now, instead of the globally agreed-upon goal of 1.8 degrees F (1 degree C). Among other things:

* Half as many people would suffer from lack of water.

* There would be fewer deaths and illnesses from heat, smog and infectious diseases.

* Seas would rise nearly 4 inches (0.1 meters) less.

* Half as many animals with back bones and plants would lose the majority of their habitats.

* There would be substantially fewer heat waves, downpours and droughts.

* The West Antarctic ice sheet might not kick into irreversible melting.

* And it just may be enough to save most of the world’s coral reefs from dying.

“For some people this is a life-or-death situation without a doubt,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, a lead author on the report

Limiting warming to 0.9 degrees from now means the world can keep “a semblance” of the ecosystems we have. Adding another 0.9 degrees on top of that – the looser global goal – essentially means a different and more challenging Earth for people and species, said another of the report’s lead authors, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, Australia.

But meeting the more ambitious goal of slightly less warming would require immediate, draconian cuts in emissions of heat-trapping gases and dramatic changes in the energy field. While the U.N. panel says technically that’s possible, it saw little chance of the needed adjustments happening.

In 2010, international negotiators adopted a goal of limiting warming to 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) since pre-industrial times. It’s called the 2-degree goal. In 2015, when the nations of the world agreed to the historic Paris climate agreement, they set dual goals: 2 degrees C and a more demanding target of 1.5 degrees C from pre-industrial times. The 1.5 was at the urging of vulnerable countries that called 2 degrees a death sentence.

The world has already warmed 1 degree C since pre-industrial times, so the talk is really about the difference of another half-degree C or 0.9 degrees F from now.

“There is no definitive way to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 above pre-industrial levels,” the U.N.-requested report said. More than 90 scientists wrote the report, which is based on more than 6,000 peer reviews.

“Global warming is likely to reach 1.5 degrees C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate,” the report states.

Deep in the report, scientists say less than 2 percent of 529 of their calculated possible future scenarios kept warming below the 1.5 goal without the temperature going above that and somehow coming back down in the future.

The pledges nations made in the Paris agreement in 2015 are “clearly insufficient to limit warming to 1.5 in any way,” one of the study’s lead authors, Joerj Roeglj of the Imperial College in London, said.

“I just don’t see the possibility of doing the one and a half” and even 2 degrees looks unlikely, said Appalachian State University environmental scientist Gregg Marland, who isn’t part of the U.N. panel but has tracked global emissions for decades for the U.S. Energy Department. He likened the report to an academic exercise wondering what would happen if a frog had wings.

Yet report authors said they remain optimistic.

“We have a monumental task in front of us, but it is not impossible,” Mahowald said Sunday. “This is our chance to decide what the world is going to look like. ”

To limit warming to the lower temperature goal, the world needs “rapid and far-reaching” changes in energy systems, land use, city and industrial design, transportation and building use, the report said. Annual carbon dioxide pollution levels that are still rising now would have to drop by about half by 2030 and then be near zero by 2050. Emissions of other greenhouse gases, such as methane, also will have to drop. Switching away rapidly from fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas to do this could be three to four times more expensive than the less ambitious goal, but it would clean the air of other pollutants. And that would have the side benefit of avoiding more than 100 million premature deaths through this century, the report said.

“Climate-related risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security and economic growth are projected to increase with global warming” the report said, adding that the world’s poor are more likely to get hit hardest.

Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer said extreme weather, especially heat waves, will be deadlier if the lower goal is passed.

Meeting the tougher-to-reach goal “could result in around 420 million fewer people being frequently exposed to extreme heat waves, and about 65 million fewer people being exposed to exceptional heat waves,” the report said. The deadly heat waves that hit India and Pakistan in 2015 will become practically yearly events if the world reaches the hotter of the two goals, the report said.

Coral and other ecosystems are also at risk. The report said warmer water coral reefs “will largely disappear.”

The outcome will determine whether “my grandchildren would get to see beautiful coral reefs,” Princeton’s Oppenheimer said.
…

From: MeNeedIt

The largest city named for Christopher Columbus has called off its observance of the divisive holiday that honors the explorer, making a savvy move to tie the switch to a politically safe demographic: veterans.

Ohio’s capital city, population 860,000, will be open for business Monday after observing Columbus Day probably “for as long as it had been in existence,” said Robin Davis, a spokeswoman for Democratic Mayor Andrew Ginther. City offices will close instead on Veterans Day, which falls on Nov. 12 this year.

Native Americans and allied groups have long used Columbus Day to elevate issues of concern to them. That includes a peaceful protest of prayers, speeches and traditional singing in 2016 at Columbus City Hall — underneath the statue of the explorer that sits out front — to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline and to urge Ohio to support more renewable energy.

The decision to stop observing the holiday was not triggered by the national movement to abolish Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day as a way of recognizing victims of colonialism, Davis said. Columbus Day marks the Italian explorer’s arrival in the Americas on Oct. 12, 1492.

“We have a number of veterans who work for the city, and there are so many here in Columbus,” Davis said. “We thought it was important to honor them with that day off.” And, she said, the city doesn’t have the budget to give its 8,500 employees both days off, she said.

Columbus made its announcement Thursday in a two-paragraph news release focused on the impact on trash pickup and parking enforcement schedules. In that way, it avoided much of the consternation that has taken place elsewhere around the holiday.

An attempt in Akron to rename the holiday grew ugly last year, dividing the all-Democratic city council along racial lines. Five black members voted to rename the holiday and eight white members voted not to, keeping the holiday in place.

A similar effort twice failed in Cincinnati before a vote Wednesday finally recognized Columbus Day as the renamed Indigenous Peoples Day. It became the second Ohio city to do so, after the liberal college town of Oberlin in 2017. Cleveland, which has a large Italian-American population, continues to host a major Columbus Day parade.

Organizers of the 39-year-old Columbus Italian Festival, traditionally held on Columbus Day weekend, were not given advance notice of the city’s decision, said board member Joseph Contino.

“It’s very in vogue politically right now to do that. It’s not PC for me to say anything against indigenous peoples,” he said. “You can kick Christians, you can kick Catholics. That’s the message that it sends to us and that’s what it feels like; we’re Europeans and we lop Indians’ heads off. Which is just not true.”

Contino said he viewed the decision on the holiday as a missed opportunity.

“If you’re mayor of a city and its name is Columbus, why wouldn’t you capitalize on that? Use it to unite everybody,” he said. “Use this day to celebrate the entire culture, celebrate Italians and indigenous both.”

Tyrone Smith, director of the Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio, said the city’s decision is another step in embracing its growing diversity.

“The past is the past. It may not be pretty at times, but we cannot hold what happened back then against today’s society, regardless their bloodline,” he said. “The fact that the city of Columbus is taking action is a victory for everyone.”

 
…

From: MeNeedIt

The largest city named for Christopher Columbus has called off its observance of the divisive holiday that honors the explorer, making a savvy move to tie the switch to a politically safe demographic: veterans.

Ohio’s capital city, population 860,000, will be open for business Monday after observing Columbus Day probably “for as long as it had been in existence,” said Robin Davis, a spokeswoman for Democratic Mayor Andrew Ginther. City offices will close instead on Veterans Day, which falls on Nov. 12 this year.

Native Americans and allied groups have long used Columbus Day to elevate issues of concern to them. That includes a peaceful protest of prayers, speeches and traditional singing in 2016 at Columbus City Hall — underneath the statue of the explorer that sits out front — to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline and to urge Ohio to support more renewable energy.

The decision to stop observing the holiday was not triggered by the national movement to abolish Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day as a way of recognizing victims of colonialism, Davis said. Columbus Day marks the Italian explorer’s arrival in the Americas on Oct. 12, 1492.

“We have a number of veterans who work for the city, and there are so many here in Columbus,” Davis said. “We thought it was important to honor them with that day off.” And, she said, the city doesn’t have the budget to give its 8,500 employees both days off, she said.

Columbus made its announcement Thursday in a two-paragraph news release focused on the impact on trash pickup and parking enforcement schedules. In that way, it avoided much of the consternation that has taken place elsewhere around the holiday.

An attempt in Akron to rename the holiday grew ugly last year, dividing the all-Democratic city council along racial lines. Five black members voted to rename the holiday and eight white members voted not to, keeping the holiday in place.

A similar effort twice failed in Cincinnati before a vote Wednesday finally recognized Columbus Day as the renamed Indigenous Peoples Day. It became the second Ohio city to do so, after the liberal college town of Oberlin in 2017. Cleveland, which has a large Italian-American population, continues to host a major Columbus Day parade.

Organizers of the 39-year-old Columbus Italian Festival, traditionally held on Columbus Day weekend, were not given advance notice of the city’s decision, said board member Joseph Contino.

“It’s very in vogue politically right now to do that. It’s not PC for me to say anything against indigenous peoples,” he said. “You can kick Christians, you can kick Catholics. That’s the message that it sends to us and that’s what it feels like; we’re Europeans and we lop Indians’ heads off. Which is just not true.”

Contino said he viewed the decision on the holiday as a missed opportunity.

“If you’re mayor of a city and its name is Columbus, why wouldn’t you capitalize on that? Use it to unite everybody,” he said. “Use this day to celebrate the entire culture, celebrate Italians and indigenous both.”

Tyrone Smith, director of the Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio, said the city’s decision is another step in embracing its growing diversity.

“The past is the past. It may not be pretty at times, but we cannot hold what happened back then against today’s society, regardless their bloodline,” he said. “The fact that the city of Columbus is taking action is a victory for everyone.”

 
…

From: MeNeedIt

Bill Cosby’s lawyers have asked a Pennsylvania court to overturn the actor’s conviction and three- to 10-year prison sentence because of what they call a string of errors in his sex assault case.

The defense motion argued that trial Judge Steven O’Neill erred in declaring Cosby a sexually violent predator who must be imprisoned to protect the community. Lawyers called the sentence more punitive than necessary, given the standard two- to three-year guideline range for the crime and the fact Cosby is 81 and blind.

They also said the trial evidence never proved the encounter with accuser Andrea Constand took place in 2004, and not 2003, or that Cosby was arrested within the 12-year time limit.

Cosby was arrested on Dec. 30, 2015, and was convicted at a second trial this April. He has been in a state prison near Philadelphia since the Sept. 25 sentencing, when the judge refused to let him stay out on $1 million bail pending appeal. Given his fame, wealth and use of drugs to molest the accuser, the judge said, Cosby could remain a threat to other women.

The defense motion said O’Neill improperly considered the trial testimony of five other accusers in sentencing Cosby, instead of limiting that “prior bad act” testimony to the question of his guilt or innocence. O’Neill, in explaining the sentence in court, told Cosby he considered “voices from the past, your past,” and that he “heard their voices loud and clear,” the defense said.

The lawyers also challenged the state’s sex offender laws, which have been revised several times amid challenges they are unconstitutionally vague. The law requires judges to find that a sexually violent predator has a “mental abnormality,” a term they said has no legal or psychological meaning, yet subjects defendants to lifetime counseling and police registration.

The defense motion, dated Friday, was posted to a public court docket in the case over the weekend. Kate Delano, a spokeswoman for the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office, said the office will file a response.

The motion was filed by lawyer Peter Goldberger, a top appellate lawyer in the region, and Joseph P. Green Jr., who handled Cosby’s sentencing after more than a dozen other lawyers on the case had come and gone. A former appellate lawyer on the case is suing Cosby over what he called more than $50,000 in unpaid bills.

The defense also complained that an audio recording played to jurors of a 2005 conversation between Cosby and Gianna Constand, the mother of accuser Andrea Constand, was “not authentic.” They said they did not make the discovery until an expert review after the trial.

District Attorney Kevin Steele has dismissed that as a legitimate appeal issue, saying it’s been widely known that Gianna Constand started her recorder after the call began. She had called Cosby to get answers about what happened to her daughter after Andrea Constand disclosed the assault a year later. The family went to police, who suggested they try to record Cosby.

During the call, Cosby acknowledged engaging in “digital penetration” after giving her daughter pills he would not identify, and offered money for Andrea to attend graduate school, Gianna Constand testified.

“If that’s what they’ve got, it’s beyond a Hail Mary,” Steele said at the sentencing, as Cosby’s lawyers sought to keep Cosby free on bail over the tape recording. O’Neill instead had Cosby led out of the courtroom in handcuffs.

 
…

From: MeNeedIt

Bill Cosby’s lawyers have asked a Pennsylvania court to overturn the actor’s conviction and three- to 10-year prison sentence because of what they call a string of errors in his sex assault case.

The defense motion argued that trial Judge Steven O’Neill erred in declaring Cosby a sexually violent predator who must be imprisoned to protect the community. Lawyers called the sentence more punitive than necessary, given the standard two- to three-year guideline range for the crime and the fact Cosby is 81 and blind.

They also said the trial evidence never proved the encounter with accuser Andrea Constand took place in 2004, and not 2003, or that Cosby was arrested within the 12-year time limit.

Cosby was arrested on Dec. 30, 2015, and was convicted at a second trial this April. He has been in a state prison near Philadelphia since the Sept. 25 sentencing, when the judge refused to let him stay out on $1 million bail pending appeal. Given his fame, wealth and use of drugs to molest the accuser, the judge said, Cosby could remain a threat to other women.

The defense motion said O’Neill improperly considered the trial testimony of five other accusers in sentencing Cosby, instead of limiting that “prior bad act” testimony to the question of his guilt or innocence. O’Neill, in explaining the sentence in court, told Cosby he considered “voices from the past, your past,” and that he “heard their voices loud and clear,” the defense said.

The lawyers also challenged the state’s sex offender laws, which have been revised several times amid challenges they are unconstitutionally vague. The law requires judges to find that a sexually violent predator has a “mental abnormality,” a term they said has no legal or psychological meaning, yet subjects defendants to lifetime counseling and police registration.

The defense motion, dated Friday, was posted to a public court docket in the case over the weekend. Kate Delano, a spokeswoman for the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office, said the office will file a response.

The motion was filed by lawyer Peter Goldberger, a top appellate lawyer in the region, and Joseph P. Green Jr., who handled Cosby’s sentencing after more than a dozen other lawyers on the case had come and gone. A former appellate lawyer on the case is suing Cosby over what he called more than $50,000 in unpaid bills.

The defense also complained that an audio recording played to jurors of a 2005 conversation between Cosby and Gianna Constand, the mother of accuser Andrea Constand, was “not authentic.” They said they did not make the discovery until an expert review after the trial.

District Attorney Kevin Steele has dismissed that as a legitimate appeal issue, saying it’s been widely known that Gianna Constand started her recorder after the call began. She had called Cosby to get answers about what happened to her daughter after Andrea Constand disclosed the assault a year later. The family went to police, who suggested they try to record Cosby.

During the call, Cosby acknowledged engaging in “digital penetration” after giving her daughter pills he would not identify, and offered money for Andrea to attend graduate school, Gianna Constand testified.

“If that’s what they’ve got, it’s beyond a Hail Mary,” Steele said at the sentencing, as Cosby’s lawyers sought to keep Cosby free on bail over the tape recording. O’Neill instead had Cosby led out of the courtroom in handcuffs.

 
…

From: MeNeedIt

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Saturday it currently had no reason to doubt statements from companies that have denied a Bloomberg report that their supply chains were compromised by malicious computer chips inserted by Chinese intelligence services.

“The Department of Homeland Security is aware of the media reports of a technology supply chain compromise,” DHS said in a statement.

“Like our partners in the UK, the National Cyber Security Centre, at this time we have no reason to doubt the statements from the companies named in the story,” it said.

Bloomberg Businessweek on Thursday cited 17 unidentified intelligence and company sources as saying that Chinese spies had placed computer chips inside equipment used by around 30 companies, as well as multiple U.S. government agencies, which would give Beijing secret access to internal networks.

Apple and Amazon

Britain’s national cyber security agency said Friday it had no reason to doubt the assessments made by Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc challenging the report.

Apple contested the Bloomberg report Thursday, saying its own internal investigations found no evidence to support the story’s claims and that neither the company, nor its contacts in law enforcement, were aware of any investigation by the FBI on the matter.

Apple’s recently retired general counsel, Bruce Sewell, told Reuters he called the FBI’s then-general counsel, James Baker, last year after being told by Bloomberg of an open investigation of Super Micro Computer Inc, a hardware maker whose products Bloomberg said were implanted with malicious Chinese chips.

“I got on the phone with him personally and said, ‘Do you know anything about this?” Sewell said of his conversation with Baker. “He said, ‘I’ve never heard of this, but give me 24 hours to make sure.’ He called me back 24 hours later and said ‘Nobody here knows what this story is about.” Baker and the FBI declined to comment Friday.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Ben Affleck says battling addiction is “a lifelong and difficult struggle.”

The actor posted on Instagram Thursday that he has completed a 40-day stay at a treatment center for alcohol addiction and remains in outpatient care.

The 46-year-old says the support he’s received from family and friends has given him strength to speak about “his illness” with others. He says he is fighting for himself and his family.

Affleck says battling addiction is a full-time commitment and “one is never really in or out of treatment.”

He had previously sought treatment in 2001 and 2017.

Affleck has been separated from actress Jennifer Garner since 2015. They have three children.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Ben Affleck says battling addiction is “a lifelong and difficult struggle.”

The actor posted on Instagram Thursday that he has completed a 40-day stay at a treatment center for alcohol addiction and remains in outpatient care.

The 46-year-old says the support he’s received from family and friends has given him strength to speak about “his illness” with others. He says he is fighting for himself and his family.

Affleck says battling addiction is a full-time commitment and “one is never really in or out of treatment.”

He had previously sought treatment in 2001 and 2017.

Affleck has been separated from actress Jennifer Garner since 2015. They have three children.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Monica Lewinsky is teaming up with celebrities for an anti-bullying campaign that targets name-calling.

Appearing Friday on ABC’s Good Morning America, Lewinsky says the #DefyTheName campaign calls on people to change their social media names to include the names they were bullied by. Lewinsky says she’ll now be known as ”Monica Chunky Slut Stalker That Woman Lewinsky.”

Lewinsky says she had a long list of names from childhood on. She says name-calling is the most common form of bullying and it’s important not to let those names define you.

Lewinsky says organizers want to recreate a community of empathy online.

Lewinsky was a White House intern when she had an affair with President Bill Clinton. Clinton initially denied the affair before admitting to it in 1998.
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From: MeNeedIt