Bill Cosby faces a good chance of being sent to prison Tuesday, when a judge is expected to sentence the TV star who was convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in 2004.

 

Cosby, 81, will have the opportunity to speak in court before he is sentenced.

 

The once-beloved actor and comedian, dubbed “America’s Dad” for his role as Dr. Cliff Huxtable on the top-ranked, 1980s-era “Cosby Show,” faces anything from probation to 10 years in prison for drugging and molesting Andrea Constand, a Temple University basketball administrator, at his estate near Philadelphia. She went to police a year later, only to have a prosecutor turn down the case.

In the years since Constand first went to police in 2005, more than 60 women have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct, though none of those claims have led to criminal charges.

 

Cosby is the first celebrity of the (hash)MeToo era to go on trial, and the first to be convicted.

 

It’s a reckoning that accusers and prosecutors say has been decades in the making.

 

“The victims cannot be un-raped. Unfortunately, all we can do is hold the perpetrator accountable,” said Gianna Constand, the trial victim’s mother, who testified Monday that her daughter’s buoyant personality was forever changed after the attack.

 

The hearing is set to conclude Tuesday after testimony from a defense psychologist who believes Cosby is no longer a danger, given his age, and should not be branded a “sexually violent predator.”

 

Defense lawyer Joseph Green Jr. urged the judge ignore the protests and activism surrounding the case, and send Cosby home on house arrest.

 

“The suggestion that Mr. Cosby is dangerous is not supported by anything other than the frenzy,” Green said, as demonstrators gathered outside the suburban Philadelphia courthouse.

 

Being labeled a sexually violent predator would make him subject to mandatory lifetime counseling and community notification of his whereabouts.

 

On Monday, Kristen Dudley, a psychologist for the state of Pennsylvania, testified that Cosby fits the criteria for a sexually violent predator, showing signs of a mental disorder that involves an uncontrollable urge to have nonconsensual sex with young women.

 

Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said Cosby would no doubt commit similar crimes if given the chance, warning that the former TV star seemingly gets a sexual thrill out of slipping women drugs and assaulting them.

 

“To say that he’s too old to do that — to say that he should get a pass, because it’s taken this long to catch up to what he’s done?” Steele said, his voice rising. “What they’re asking for is a `get out of jail free’ card.”

 

Cosby, he said, has shown repeatedly that he feels no remorse over his actions. And he said the sentence should send a message to others.

 

“Despite bullying tactics, despite PR teams and other folks trying to change the optics, as one lawyer for the defense put it, the bottom line is that nobody’s above the law. Nobody,” the district attorney said.

 

He urged a five- to 10-year prison sentence .

 

After testifying for several hours at two trials, the first of which ended in a hung jury, Constand spoke in court Monday for just two minutes.

 

“The jury heard me. Mr. Cosby heard me. Now all I am asking for is justice as the court sees fit,” said Andrea Constand, who submitted a much longer victim-impact statement that wasn’t read in court.

 

The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they come forward publicly, which Constand and other accusers have done.

 

Cosby’s side didn’t call any character witnesses, and his wife of 54 years, Camille, was not in court.

 

Cosby became the first black actor to star in a prime-time TV show, “I Spy,” in 1965. He remained a Hollywood A-lister for much of the next half-century.

 

Monday’s proceedings took place as another extraordinary (hash)MeToo drama continued to unfold on Capitol Hill, where Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh faces allegations of sexual misconduct from more than three decades ago.

 

 

 
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Tiger Woods’ victory at the Tour Championship on Sunday has given the entire American Ryder Cup team a “nice buzz”, captain Jim Furyk said on Monday.

Furyk and his European counterpart Thomas Bjorn heaped praise on each other’s teams at a news conference at Le Golf National, where Woods was the center of attention even though he was not present.

The 14-times major champion ended a five-year drought with an emotional victory at East Lake in Atlanta on Sunday.

“It’s obviously a nice buzz for our team,” Furyk said.

“Not that this event needs much more energy brought to it. It’s probably the biggest, grandest event in all golf but it’ll add that much more excitement I believe.

“You could see the emotion in (Woods) fighting back tears. It was important to him to win.”

Furyk said that Woods, who will be playing in his eighth Ryder Cup, had grown into his role as an elder statesman of the American team.

“What’s important to him right now is to be a part of that team, part of that group.

“He won yesterday as an individual and I know how much that means to him but he’s flipped that page pretty quickly and is really excited to join his team mates and move forward in that process.”

Bjorn also spoke warmly of Woods, and what he brings to the sport.

“Him winning golf tournaments again is brilliant because, in the end, whatever it is these 24 guys are going to do this week, the game of golf needs that boost of somebody like him that transcends the game to the masses,” Bjorn said. “So for everyone in golf it’s brilliant.”

As for each other’s teams, both captains were effusive ahead of the Friday start.

“Thomas mentioned this is probably the strongest American team we’ve ever had and maybe it’s the strongest team Europe has ever fielded top to bottom,” Furyk said.

Furyk’s players are well aware that the Americans have not won a Ryder Cup on European soil since 1993.

“We’re reminded of it quite often. Is it extra motivation? I’m not sure you need extra motivation in a Ryder Cup,” he said.

“There are some veteran players who have never won on foreign soil. That’s something that’s missing in their careers, so they’re anxious to get started. They are well aware of how difficult it is to win in Europe.”

The American team arrived in Paris early afternoon after an overnight flight from Atlanta, where all but Jordan Spieth played in the Tour Championship won by Tiger Woods on Sunday.

“We were on the ground by 12.45 and a nice police escort to the hotel, so guys are there, settled, trying to get ready for the week,” Furyk said.

Six of the European team also played in Atlanta, but captain Bjorn is not worried about fatigue.

“One thing I learnt about Ryder Cup is no matter how tired you are, you’re going to carry yourself, the last bit of adrenaline you have in your body,” the Dane said.

“Achieving big things obviously takes a bit out of you but they will carry themselves through this week because they’re top athletes and this is what they’ve been looking forward to probably the most all season.”
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As world leaders descended on New York on Monday for an annual gathering, South Korea’s top boy band, BTS, took advantage of the spotlight to urge young people to join global efforts against discrimination and poverty.

The seven-member band, who this year became the first K-pop group to top the Billboard 200 album chart, made an impassioned plea at the United Nations for young people to find their voices to help shape the future.

The 193 U.N. member states agreed three years ago to an ambitious set of 17 global goals designed to conquer poverty, inequality and other international woes by a 2030 deadline.

Campaigners have stressed the need for the younger generation to get involved, with the U.N. children’s fund UNICEF estimating the global population of adolescents and young people will reach two billion by 2030.

BTS leader Kim Namjoon, aka RM, spoke for the group to help launch a UNICEF campaign called “Generation Unlimited,” outlining the issues that they, their fans and young people around the world face today and the need to step up.

“I want to hear your voice, I want to hear your conviction. No matter where you’re from, skin color, gender identity, just speak yourself. Find your name [and] find your voice,” said Namjoon, 24, in a speech that went viral on social media.

BTS, formed five years ago, topped the 2018 Forbes Korea Power Celebrity list that ranks South Korea’s most powerful and influential celebrities. It was the first K-pop band to speak at any United Nation’s annual gathering.

YouTube star Lilly Singh, a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, also appeared at the #Youth2030 event alongside BTS, watched by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, who is Korean American.

“Young people make up 25 percent of the population but 100 percent of the future,” Singh told the 73rd session of the U.N. General Assembly.

UNICEF said “Generation Unlimited” was a campaign to get every young person into education, training or employment by 2030 as a lack of education currently holds back millions of young people and threatens progress and stability.

“All our hopes for a better world rest on young people,” Guterres said in a statement. “Sustainable development, human rights, peace and security can only be achieved if we empower these young people as leaders, and enable them to unleash their full potential.”
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Scrabble players, time to rethink your game because 300 new words are coming your way, including some long-awaited gems: OK and ew, to name a few.

Merriam-Webster released the sixth edition of “The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary” on Monday, four years after the last freshening up. The company, at the behest of Scrabble owner Hasbro Inc., left out one possibility under consideration for a hot minute — RBI — after consulting competitive players who thought it potentially too contentious. There was a remote case to be made since RBI has morphed into an actual word, pronounced rib-ee.

But that’s OK because, “OK.”

“OK is something Scrabble players have been waiting for, for a long time,” said lexicographer Peter Sokolowski, editor at large at Merriam-Webster. “Basically two- and three-letter words are the lifeblood of the game.”

There’s more good news in qapik, adding to an arsenal of 20 playable words beginning with q that don’t need a u. Not that Scrabblers care all that much about definitions, qapik is a monetary unit in Azerbaijan.

“Every time there’s a word with q and no u, it’s a big deal,” Sokolowski said. “Most of these are obscure.”

There are some sweet scorers now eligible for play, including bizjet, and some magical vowel dumps, such as arancini, those Italian balls of cooked rice. Bizjet, meaning — yes — a small plane used for business, would be worth a whopping 120 points on an opening play, but only if it’s made into a plural with an s. That’s due to the 50-point bonus for using all seven tiles and the double word bonus space usually played at the start.

The Springfield, Massachusetts-based dictionary company sought counsel from the North American Scrabble Players Association when updating the book, Sokolowski said, “to make sure that they agree these words are desirable.”

Sokolowski has a favorite among the new words but not, primarily, because of Scrabble scores. “It’s macaron,” he said, referring to the delicate French sandwich cookie featuring different flavors and fillings.

“I just like what it means,” he said.

Merriam-Webster put out the first official Scrabble dictionary in 1976. Before that, the game’s rules called for any desk dictionary to be consulted. Since an official dictionary was created, it has been updated every four to eight years, Sokolowski said.

There are other new entries Sokolowski likes, from a wordsmith’s view.

“I think ew is interesting because it expresses something new about what we’re seeing in language, which is to say that we are now incorporating more of what you might call transcribed speech. Sounds like ew or mm-hmm, or other things like coulda or kinda. Traditionally, they were not in the dictionary but because so much of our communication is texting and social media that is written language, we are finding more transcribed speech and getting a new group of spellings for the dictionary,” he said.

Like ew, there’s another interjection now in play, yowza, along with a word some might have thought was already allowed: zen.

There’s often chatter around Scrabble boards over which foreign words have been accepted into English to the degree they’re playable. Say hello to schneid, another of the new kids, this one with German roots. It’s a sports term for a losing streak. Other foreigners added because they predominantly no longer require linguistic white gloves, such as italics or quotation marks: bibimbap, cotija and sriracha.

Scrabble was first trademarked as such in 1948, after it was thought up under a different name in 1933 by Alfred Mosher Butts, an out-of-work architect in Poughkeepsie, New York. Interest in the game picked up in the early 1950s, according to legend, when the president of Macy’s happened upon it while on vacation.

Now, the official dictionary holds more than 100,000 words. Other newcomers Sokolowski shared are aquafaba, beatdown, zomboid, twerk, sheeple, wayback, bokeh, botnet, emoji, facepalm, frowny, hivemind, puggle and nubber.

 
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After spearheading an epic, 18-hour documentary on the Vietnam War, acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns has turned to more personal subject matter — one that knows him very intimately, too.

Burns tackles the famed Mayo Clinic in his next film, exploring the history of the innovative Rochester, Minnesota-based hospital that has been dubbed “The Miracle in a Cornfield.” It has treated luminaries such as the Dalai Lama — and Burns.

The first time Burns went, he was immediately impressed by the level and detail of his medical care, like the patient was at the center, not the doctor. “I began to get curious about why this was so different from any other health care experience I’d had,” he said.

The result is the two-hour documentary The Mayo Clinic: Faith, Hope, Science, which starts with the hospital’s birth during a tornado in 1883 and ends with the modern-day Mayo, state-of-the-art facilities over several campuses that treat up to 14,000 patients in 24 hours.

“The Mayo is just a quintessentially American story, just as baseball is a quintessentially American subject, as are the national parks, the Civil War,” Burns said. “And this was a story firing on all cylinders, at least as far as I felt. And it was a story that I don’t think had been fully understood.”

The documentary — directed by Burns, Erik Ewers and Christopher Loren Ewers — features the voices of Tom Hanks, Sam Waterston and Blythe Danner, as well as familiar touches: Peter Coyote narrates, there’s rousing music by Aaron Copeland and Scott Joplin, and evocative slow-scans of old photographs known as “the Ken Burns effect.”

The film is part of a documentary film empire Burns has on tap. Upcoming are works on the history of country music, Ernest Hemingway, Muhammad Ali, Benjamin Franklin and the American Revolution, as well as deep dives into crime and punishment in America and civil rights during President Lyndon Johnson.

“I’m plotted out to 2030 — God and funding willing,” he said with a laugh. “As much as I’d like to believe that I pick projects, in fact I think they pick me. And they pick me because they’re just quintessential American stories, whatever they might be.”

Burns has built a reputation for capturing sweeping historic moments with intimate details of peoples’ lives, tackling topics ranging from the Brooklyn Bridge to baseball, from Mark Twain to jazz. His films make the past come alive: Burns was once escorted out of an Alabama church by state troopers from people still upset by the Civil War’s outcome.

Mayo’s ‘secret sauce’

The Mayo film begins with the unusual collaboration by Dr. W.W. Mayo — “a doctor who worshipped Darwin,” Burns said — and a group of Franciscan nuns who began working with Mayo to help tornado victims in 1883.

The hospital adopted a salary-based model of teamwork — not based on ordering tests or a revolving door of patients — that is said to encourage innovation, time with patients and collaboration. In the film, Tom Brokaw and John McCain endorse its methods.

So does co-director Ewers, who started the project not as a Mayo patient but ended up one. He had been suffering from intestinal problems for 20 years and had been given seven different diagnoses without finding relief. While he was filming the Mayo documentary, its doctors reached out.

“They diagnosed it in two days,” Ewers said.

Burns calls Mayo’s formula a “secret sauce” — one that also manages to have poor patients get free care — and hopes it can offer answers to America’s health care problems.

“We were making a film about the history the Mayo Clinic, but realized that in their story and in their example might be a way for us all to re-enter a conversation about the essential question: What do we owe each other in terms of taking care of each other?” he said.

Hard-won perspective

Burns’ inimitable visual style is sometimes mocked, but the filmmaker isn’t in a rush to embrace flashy special effects, something he calls “all sizzle and no steak.” He admits to dragging his heels on embracing digital cameras and computer editing because he simply liked splicing film stock. But that doesn’t mean he’s inflexible — he used drones in the Mayo film.

“There’s a lot of sleek hares out there who are racing past the turtle that we are,” he said. “We make long films. And if you’re going to watch a long film, we have to make sure that we honor the attention you’re giving to us with an equal care in the crafting of it.”

The work is painstaking. For the documentary on country music, he estimates his team has poured over 100,000 photographs and scanned 60,000 of them — only to use less than 3,000. “I use the analogy of maple syrup: It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup,” Burns said.

By delving into America’s past so much, Burns has learned a lot about human nature, but he dislikes the cliche that history repeats itself. He prefers to quote Mark Twain, who said “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.”

His work has given him hard-won perspective. When people during the financial crisis in 2007 began evoking the Great Depression, Burns knew his history. He replied that if animals in the zoos were being shot for food, then it was an apt analogy.

“That’s what history can do. It’s a kind of an armor, or at least a thermal layer, that protects you from the chill of the present moment,” he said.
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Celine Dion has announced she will end her Las Vegas residency next year.

The singer announced on social media Monday that she will leave Caesars Palace in June 2019.

Dion says the decision brings mixed emotions as the Colosseum venue has been a big part of her life for the past 20 years.

This will mark the end of her second long-running residency at Caesars Palace.

Dion has performed nearly 1,100 shows there since 2003. The first time was from 2003 until 2007. Her current residency began in 2011.

Tickets for next year’s shows go on sale Tuesday.

Her final concert will be June 8, 2019.
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It’s apt that a maze cut into an Oklahoma cornfield featuring the likeness of a former NASA astronaut can be seen from space – and has been photographed by a satellite orbiting Earth.

The image of Oklahoma-born Thomas P. Stafford is cut into a 10-acre field at P Bar Farms in Hydro, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) west of Oklahoma City.

 

The maze was created in partnership with the Stafford Air and Space Museum, named for the astronaut, in nearby Weatherford.

 

A satellite photographed the tribute from its orbit 400 miles (650 kilometers) away.

 

The 88-year-old Stafford is a Weatherford native whose space missions included commanding the Apollo flight that linked with a Soviet spacecraft in 1975. It was the first meeting of American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts in space.
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Bill Cosby faced the start of a sentencing hearing Monday at which a judge will decide how to punish the 81-year-old comedian who blazed the trail for other black entertainers and donated millions to black causes but preyed on at least one young woman and perhaps many more.

Cosby was the first celebrity to go to trial in the (hash)MeToo era and could be the first to go to prison — perhaps for the rest of his days — after being convicted in April of drugging and sexually assaulting former Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.

 

Judges can’t help being influenced a little by the “optics” of a case — that it, how it is going to look to the public, said Daniel Filler, dean of Drexel University’s Kline School of Law.

 

In this instance, “the judge is going to get flak,” he said. “The judge is going to get less flak if they see Bill Cosby walk out in cuffs.”

 

At the end of the potentially two-day hearing, Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O’Neill could sentence Cosby to as many as 30 years in prison or send him home on probation. The state guidelines for someone like Cosby, with no prior convictions, call for about one to four years behind bars.

 

“Obviously, the allegations are serious, and, except for his age and poor health, would normally warrant some jail time,” said Samuel Stretton, a veteran defense lawyer not connected to the case.

 

Cosby is legally blind and uses a cane, something his lawyers are certain to point out along with his achievements and philanthropy. Prosecutors hoped to call some of his other accusers to paint Cosby as a sexual predator deserving of prison.

 

Whatever the sentence, Cosby is likely to be deemed a sexually violent predator and will have to undergo monthly counseling the rest of his life, in prison or out. Neighbors and schools will be warned he is living nearby.

 

In the years since Constand first went to police in 2005, more than 60 women have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct, though none of those claims have led to criminal charges.

 

Two of those women, Lise-Lotte Lublin and Chelan Lasha, said Sunday at a Philadelphia news conference that they want prison for him and hope they get to make impact statements at the sentencing.

 

“I really think it’s important that he spend some time behind bars,” said Lublin, who said Cosby assaulted her when she was 23 in 1989. “At some point, he should acknowledge what he’s done, and do the time for the crime.”

 

Monday morning, just a few hours before the sentencing hearing was to begin, Constand tweeted Ephesians 4:26, a Bible verse about letting go of anger: “Be wrathful, but do not sin; do not let the sun set while you are still angry; do not give the Devil an opportunity.”

 

Cosby, who grew up in public housing in Philadelphia, became the first black actor to star in a prime-time TV show, “I Spy,” in 1965. He remained a Hollywood A-lister for much of the next half-century, hitting his peak in the 1980s with the top-rated “Cosby Show” as the warm, wisecracking dad, Dr. Cliff Huxtable.

 

But behind the scenes, according to testimony, the married star sought out sexual encounters with young women, including actresses he offered to mentor, models seeking a part on his shows, and flight attendants he met in his travels. He also acknowledged obtaining quaaludes in the 1970s to give to women before sex.

 

The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they come forward publicly, which Lublin, Lasha and Constand have done.

 

 
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