Hawaii's Big Island was under a hurricane watch late Wednesday night after Tropical Storm Nolo formed in the Pacific Ocean earlier in the day, the National Hurricane Center said.
Nolo is expected to become a hurricane by Thursday night and could become a major hurricane by the weekend, the center said. A storm is considered a major hurricane when it reaches Category 3 or higher on the hurricane scale, meaning it has maximum sustained winds of at least 111 mph.
Maps show Tropical Storm Nolo's path
Storm Nolo had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph as of late Wednesday night local time. Its core was some 460 miles south-southeast of Honolulu and 285 miles south of South Point, which is on the Big Island.
Nolo was crawling north at 2 mph, but a "general north to north-northeast motion is expected through Friday, followed by a sharp westward turn by Saturday in the vicinity of the Big Island," the Miami-based hurricane center said.
Nolo is expected to approach the Big Island on Friday and Saturday.
The storm is expected to bring around 15 to 20 inches of rain to the Big Island, with up to 35 inches possible in some areas. The heavy rain could trigger "catastrophic life-threatening flooding and mudslides, especially in areas of steep terrain," the hurricane center warned.
Maui could see 5 to 10 inches of rain, with totals of up to 20 inches in some areas. Maui could also see life-threatening flooding and mudslides. The rest of the islands were forecast to get about 1 to 3 inches with 6 inches at most and could see isolated flooding.
Nolo formed as another storm, Hurricane Polo, continued to swirl in the Pacific, off Mexico's southwestern coast.
The latest storms add to an unsually active season in the Pacific. Earlier this month, Hurricane Lowell brought damaging winds and heavy rain to the western Hawaiian islands of Kauai and Niihau, bringing down trees, damaging roads and knocking out power for thousands.
Last month, Hurricane Lala washed away about 100 homes, triggered landslides and caused widespread power outages as it brushed past Hawaii.
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A judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's White House ban on three news organizations, calling it likely unconstitutional and ordering their access restored.
Trump announced a ban on reporters from CNN, MS NOW and Politico on Sept. 18, saying the outlets "constantly write or report fiction or lies" about his administration.
In response, the three banned news outlets filed a lawsuit against Trump and three of his top advisers in federal court on Monday, citing their First Amendment rights and demanding that access for their reporters be immediately restored.
In the complaint, the news outlets allege that Trump and the White House were retaliating against them for coverage they dislike.
The Justice Department’s response to the suit argued that the ban did not violate the First Amendment. "Access to the White House is a privilege — not a right," the filing said. The DOJ contends that Trump "has 'compelling interest' in enforcing minimum standards for bona fide journalists and safeguarding national security information."
However, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, blocked the ban for 14 days early on Thursday, describing it as unconstitutional and rejecting Trump’s contention that it had been put in place on national security grounds.
The president indicated in a Truth Social post on Monday that he would appeal any ruling against him.
Trump’s initial ban had prompted four major TV networks — ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News — to refuse to participate in the White House pool, which is the rotating group of reporters, photographers and videographers that document the president's public events.
As a result, Trump was largely inaudible during a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the White House's new helipad on Monday, where he gave a brief speech without the microphone that the pool would typically provide.
On Monday night, the White House launched a Trump TV YouTube stream. Branded "TRUMP TV: The Essentials Station," the White House said in its description that it would run videos and highlights of "the Trump Administration's biggest moments all in one place." The first video showed Trump's remarks on July 3 at Mount Rushmore.
How the ban unfolded
On Friday afternoon, Trump announced the ban in a Truth Social post, saying it was not prompted by any particular stories but was "a result of their constant 'reporting' FAKE NEWS!"
"It's really just cumulative stories over the last few years. You get sick of it," Trump said at an Oval Office event an hour later while explaining his decision to enact "the ban on the free press."
"There's something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories," the president said. "If they want to write them, that's fine, but I don't have to let them into my, into the people's house."
According to CNN, Trump's close aide Natalie Harp showed him clips of media coverage shortly before he announced the ban.
On Saturday, reporters from CNN, MS NOW and Politico were turned away from the White House by members of the Secret Service and had their credentials — so-called hard passes needed for access — confiscated.
The journalists — CNN's Betsy Klein, MS NOW's Akayla Gardner and Politico's Cheyenne Haslett — were listed as plaintiffs in the court filing.
MS NOW's Akayla Gardner, CNN's Betsy Klein and Politico's Cheyenne Haslett are seen near the White House after all were denied entry on Sept. 19.
AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana
The White House Correspondents' Association condemned the move, saying it violates the First Amendment.
"The American people, through a free and independent press, must be able to scrutinize those elected to power, regardless of whether government officials view it favorably," Jacqui Heinrich, Fox News senior White House correspondent and WHCA president, said in a statement. "That's why courts have repeatedly held that once the White House provides access to journalists, it cannot deny that access arbitrarily or based on the content of their reporting."
On Sunday, Trump posted what appeared to be an AI-generated image of trash bags bearing the logos of CNN, MSNBC (MS NOW's former name) and Politico outside the White House.
A view of the White House Briefing Room on Sept. 19.
Graeme Sloan/Getty Images
On Monday, the three news outlets — which are longstanding members of the White House press pool — sued Trump and other members of his administration.
"This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes," CNN, MS NOW and Politico said in a joint statement.
According to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., the news outlets allege that Trump and the White House are retaliating against them for coverage they dislike.
"President Trump has said in no uncertain terms that he would prefer only to be covered by news organizations and reporters who praise his administration," the complaint states.
The Washington Post, the New York Times and HuffPost each announced that they would not publish images of Trump's trip to New York on Monday in solidarity with the banned journalists.
"You should not be here covering me," Trump said. "You said you weren't going to be covering me."
In a post on X, Collins said she was credentialed by the United Nations to cover the General Assembly.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also defended the ban in an appearance on NBC's Today show. "We're not closing CNN," Rubio said. "There aren't a bunch of police officers or soldiers kicking down the doors of MSNBC or MS NOW, whatever it's called, and arresting people and unplugging it from the grid. They're just not allowed to work from the workspace at the White House."
On Wednesday, dozens of media organizations signed an amicus brief in support of CNN, MS NOW and Politico.
"The President has indicated that evictions of other news organizations will follow," it states. "The current ban — and any future bans — are intended to impair the critical work of news organizations covering the presidency if this Court does not immediately intervene."
The president vs. the press
A White House staff member reaches for the microphone held by CNN's Jim Acosta as he questions President Donald Trump during a news conference on Nov. 7, 2018.
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
U.S. presidents throughout history have complained about negative coverage of their administrations. In 2009, the Obama administration sought to exclude Fox News from a series of interviews with a Treasury Department official in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, but backed down when the other major television networks objected.
During his first term in office, Trump continued the Oval Office's adversarial relationship with the media, referring to the press as "fake news" and the "enemy of the people." It has only escalated in his second.
In 2018, Trump administration officials revoked the press pass of then-CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta after they said that he had interrupted the president during a news conference. The network sued, and a federal judge — also Timothy Kelly — ordered Acosta's credentials restored.
A similar situation played out the following year when the White House revoked Playboy correspondent Brian Karem's press pass over a verbal argument between Karem and Sebastian Gorka, a former White House aide, at a Rose Garden event. A federal judge ordered the White House to restore Karem's pass.
Last year, Trump barred Associated Press journalists from the Oval Office, Air Force One and some official events after the news service declined to refer to the Gulf of Mexico by Trump's preferred name, the Gulf of America. The AP filed suit and the case is ongoing.
In December, the Pentagon announced new restraints on journalists, who were asked to sign a pledge affirming that they would not gather unauthorized information for publication. News organizations refused to sign the pledge, and temporarily lost their credentials. The New York Times filed suit, and in March, a federal judge ruled that the Pentagon restrictions were unconstitutional. The Pentagon restored press credentials to the journalists who refused to sign the pledge, while imposing a new rule that they can only enter the Pentagon with an escort. The Times again filed suit and the case is ongoing.
In his first event without a network TV pool on Monday, Trump unveiled the White House's new helipad before departing for New York. His remarks were nearly inaudible on the White House video feed. Joe Reberkenny, a White House correspondent for the Washington Blade who was serving as the in-town pool reporter, said he couldn't hear Trump "over the sound of the helicopter."
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Washington is getting a much chillier reception on Capitol Hill than at the White House as lawmakers from both parties use the visit to denounce China's actions on the world stage.
Lawmakers have long found little downside to taking a hawkish tone on China, but the U.S.'s war with Iran has inflamed tensions as U.S. officials accuse China of propping up Iran's economy and supplying its military with components and intelligence, endangering U.S. service members in the Middle East.
In speeches, letters, press conferences and hearings, lawmakers from both parties aired criticism of Xi's visit. Their actions and events stand in stark contrast to the warm welcome that Trump gave Xi on Wednesday as he arrived in Washington for a lavish state visit.
Republicans air their dissenting views
Sen. Roger Wicker, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, took to the Senate floor Tuesday night, offering a list of issues for Trump to raise with Xi, but not before suggesting that Xi shouldn't have been asked to visit Washington at all.
“Quite frankly, had the White House asked me for advice, I would have suggested the president not invite Xi Jinping to Washington for such a lavish welcome here in the United States of America based on all of the troubling issues we have with President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party,” Wicker said.
Wicker seemed particularly taken aback by the honor of a state dinner. Over the salad course, Wicker said the president could ask Xi about the Chinese Navy's harassment of Filipino fishermen and sailors. Then, while the servers are “switching from chardonnay to cabernet at the fancy state dinner,” perhaps the president could turn to the issue of Taiwan, he said.
He went on to say he hopes some progress will be made when the president discussed trade and artificial intelligence with Xi. But concluded with this: “During every minute of dialogue, our commander in chief should keep in mind that his guest is a brutal, unelected, and oppressive dictator who seeks to dominate his neighbors and whose massive military arsenal is aimed directly at the United States of America.”
House committee weighs in with a critical video
Ahead of Xi's visit, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party released a highly critical video that had been viewed more than 245,000 times on X. In the video, the committee details Xi's rise to power starting in 1974 and ends by labeling him "the biggest opponent of freedom and liberty in the world.”
The House created the panel in 2023. It's held several hearings on human rights issues in China and advocates for legislation on an array of economic and military issues. For example, the committee's chairman, Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., recently introduced a bill that would prohibit the manufacture or sale of Chinese cars in the U.S.
Republican senators press for Taiwan aid
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and three other Republican senators used the Xi visit to press the Trump administration to move ahead with aid and arms sales to Taiwan.
In a letter, they reminded Secretary of State Marco Rubio that he had previously stated that “deterring an invasion of Taiwan must be our top priority.” And they noted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had once declared that the U.S. ”will not let our allies and partners be subordinated and intimidated."
China has pressed Washington to halt the arms sales, most prominently during a summit in May between Trump and Xi in Beijing. After that meeting, the United States paused the sale of a record-breaking $14 billion package — and Trump described arms sales to Taiwan as a “very good negotiating chip” with China.
“It is difficult to imagine how the United States might credibly project influence deterrence in the Indo-Pacific,” the senators wrote, “if the price of keeping up diplomatic appearances is denying our partners key deterrent capabilities.”
Democrats pile on the criticism
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and three other Democratic senators held a press conference to warn against the U.S. weakening export controls for advanced semiconductor chips and equipment. They're concerned that such exports could erase the U.S.'s lead in artificial intelligence over China.
They touched on voter concerns about the safety of artificial intelligence and contrasted Democrats’ call for greater regulation with the president’s call to “encourage it, not rein it in.”
“We must reject the false choice Trump keeps making,” Schumer told reporters. “We can and must both maintain our lead on AI by restricting China’s access to our technology and put up guardrails to mitigate AI’s risk."
Meanwhile, on the Senate floor, Democratic senators urged Trump to confront Xi directly about the support his country is providing Iran.
“If we want to bring this war to an end, we need to cut off the outside support that allows Iran to keep fighting, and that starts with China,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democratic lawmaker on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.
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NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s move to ban three news outlets from the White House grounds, ordering early Thursday that CNN, MS NOW and Politico must have their access restored.
It's the latest development in an escalating showdown between Trump and media outlets whose coverage he dislikes. Trump announced he was banning the outlets Friday, assailing what he called “fake news,” and later arguing that their reporting was a risk to national security. The outlets argued the ban was a blatant First Amendment violation because it singled them out for the content of their coverage.
In an order, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly said the media outlets had met the legal thresholds to obtain a temporary restraining order, in effect for 14 days. He said they were likely to succeed in showing that their White House press passes were revoked without due process.
“This is a high bar, but Plaintiffs have met it,” he wrote.
The ruling hands the news outlets a reprieve in the escalating showdown between Trump and news organizations whose coverage he sees as negative. But the administration has repeatedly found ways to challenge coverage it dislikes.
Kelly said the government must have clear standards for conduct that would lead to revoking a press pass. He called the standard of objectionable reporting outlined in letters that the White House sent the outlets “so vague it hardly does the trick.”
Kelly — whom Trump nominated in 2017 and who ordered a CNN journalist’s access restored in a similar case in 2018 — heard arguments Wednesday. Temporary restraining orders are typically designed to preserve the status quo pending a closer review of the case by the court.
“This is a strong ruling vindicating freedom of the press, due process and the rule of law," Theodore Boutrous Jr., attorney for the outlets, said in an emailed statement. "We greatly appreciate the court’s swift action.”
The White House did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press requesting comment.
In an emergency hearing Wednesday, Kelly said his decision must be guided by prior rulings in comparable First Amendment cases, even if the government disagrees with them. His decision noted that the White House argued that previous cases cited had been wrongly decided.
“Maybe,” Kelly wrote, “but this Court is bound by D.C. Circuit precedent, full stop.”
Kelly also rejected the White House’s claim that revoking the press passes was necessary for national security, saying officials did little to back up that notion. “Nothing in the record ... suggests that the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes was motivated by national security concerns,” he wrote.
"The Court is skeptical ... that Defendants’ interest in safeguarding national security is the actual motivation for, or is even advanced by, the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes.”
In arguments Wednesday, attorneys debated access to White House and any risk to national security
Boutrous argued about the urgent need for a change, saying there had been irreparable harm to the outlets at a time of momentous news events. “We’re at war. We have world leaders coming to Washington.”
Justice Department attorney Michael Velchik had reiterated the administration’s point that the president had the right to choose who gets into the White House.
“Access to the White House is a privilege, not a right,” Velchik said.
In arguing that Trump was not engaging in viewpoint discrimination, Velchik said the president had criticized other news organizations even more harshly — such as calling ABC “the worst” — but hadn’t banned them.
“The president should be able to take immediate action to protect national security,” Velchik told the court.
In response, Boutrous said, “Suddenly it’s a national security case,” arguing that the president brought up that point only after the lawsuit was filed.
Trump “keeps proving our point,” Boutrous said, describing how the president has consistently used negative coverage of him as justification for the ban.
The Trump administration outlined ‘reporting incidents’ of each news outlet
In a filing Tuesday, administration lawyers detailed letters sent to each of the three news outlets that identified “a non-exhaustive list of reporting incidents, including those that have threatened national security and spread falsehoods.”
The “reporting incidents” cited included: CNN reporting on “‘top-secret’ construction details related to the East Wing bunker”; MS NOW reporting “on an alleged leak investigation”; and Politico publishing “a document detailing funding for the White House ballroom containing intricate descriptions of how the Secret Service would invest in security improvements.”
Further examples were given in individual letters. Politico’s letter detailed six reporting instances, including in June citing a “senior administration official … granted anonymity” predicting whether a preliminary deal would end the conflict with Iran.
That item appeared to reference a background briefing set up by the White House, where an official briefed reporters on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House itself. Several other outlets also reported the official’s remarks.
Major networks refrained from covering Trump for the media pool
The ban prompted other media outlets to take action in solidarity. The five-network U.S. network press pool — a rotating cast of news outlets that covers the president, and to which CNN belongs — suspended coverage of Trump events.
After the hearing Wednesday, the networks continued their ban on filming Trump coverage. At Joint Base Andrews, where the president formally welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping, journalists from Fox News, CBS and NBC were present but not shooting video.
Other television outlets whose crews were present, according to signs on their tripods and cameras, were NewsNation, Newsmax, Right Side Broadcasting Network, One America News and LindellTV.
Ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, an amicus brief was filed by other news groups, including The AP, urging the court to immediately restore the three outlets’ White House access.
___
Golden reported from Seattle.
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Three leading US news outlets went to court after being banned from the White House by President Donald Trump (Jim WATSON)
CNN, MS NOW and Politico can be shut out from areas of the White House at President Donald Trump's request, the Department of Justice said on Tuesday, a day ahead of a court hearing.
The three leading outlets went to court after Trump ordered on Friday that they be barred from the presidential mansion as punishment for distributing what he calls "fake news."
A US district judge set a hearing on the complaint for Wednesday.
The Department of Justice said in a court filing that Trump can "control reporters' access to restricted presidential areas, such as the Oval Office."
"Access to the White House is a privilege -- not a right," it added.
The court filing said that letters explaining the president's reasons for the ban had been sent to the outlets on Tuesday. They have until Friday to object.
The letters cite numerous "reporting incidents" by the outlets that "threatened national security and spread falsehoods," according to the filing.
The letter to CNN cited a story on Trump's plans to build a bunker below the East Wing ballroom he is constructing, which "disclosed 'top-secret' construction details," and several stories about the Iran war, the network said.
Journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico were denied any access to the White House grounds on Saturday and had their passes confiscated.
In their lawsuit, the three outlets asked for a temporary restraining order against the ban on the grounds that it violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which upholds the right to a free press.
"This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles," the outlets said in the court filing.
On Tuesday, Trump appeared to have suggested that CNN should not be covering him outside of the White House too.
"I'm surprised that CNN is here covering me, you shouldn't be here," Trump told reporters covering his visit to the United Nations General Assembly this week.
Trump has long attacked media outlets that have aired critical coverage of his campaigns and administrations, repeatedly blasting the press as the "enemy of the people."
But the ban comes at a time when his approval ratings are at record lows, his Republican Party risks losing control of Congress in November's midterm elections, and the war in the Middle East drags on with no end in sight.
bur-lkd/ami
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Now, a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine takes those findings a step further, reporting that younger adults in the Millennial and Gen Z cohorts—people born from 1981 to 2012—are driving that trend. Meanwhile, older Americans, aged 50-64, are actually consuming more alcohol than they used to, with rates increasing by more than one third since 2018.
“It’s encouraging to see alcohol use decline for the first time since the start of the pandemic,” said lead author Dr. Brian Lee, a hepatologist and liver transplant specialist with Keck Medicine of USC, in a statement that accompanied the release of the report. “However, use remains above pre-pandemic levels and certain groups continue to have concerning trends.”
Lee and his collaborators conducted their work by sifting through the responses from more than 114,000 U.S. adults who, from 2018 to 2024, participated in the National Health Interview Survey—an annual study conducted by the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. The survey consists of several face-to-face interviews throughout the year. In the current study, researchers looked at whether and how much respondents drink; heavy drinking, for instance, is defined as five or more drinks per day or 16 or more per week for males, and four or more drinks per day or eight or more drinks per week for females.
Americans saw a 2% drop in overall drinking and 8% in heavy drinking in just the 2022 to 2024 window. Total drinking dropped most dramatically among Gen Z, with rates falling nearly 6% from 2022 to 2024, compared with about 2% for Millennials. Heavy drinking fell by roughly a fifth in both generations.
Older Americans, however, went in the opposite direction, with those in the 50 to 64 age group seeing an increase of 4% in overall drinking, and 36% spike in heavy drinking from 2018 to 2024.
The reasons for the changes are not clear, but greater public awareness of the health risks of drinking may play a role in alcohol’s overall decline. Alcohol has been linked to 62 different diseases, according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, especially liver disease, cardiovascular disease, and various forms of cancer. But not all Americans are equally aware of alcohol’s health harms. Past Research from 2024 found that far more younger people know that alcohol negatively affects health compared to older adults.
Some of that knowledge may track back to the COVID-19 pandemic. “There was a lot of messaging around young adults who were dying more from alcohol-related harm during the pandemic,” says Lee. “So they could have been targeted for this.”
It’s seniors, however, who could most use the same kind of public information, especially as their drinking rates go up—because the older people get, whether they drink or not, the more likely they are to contract most diseases. “This age group faces some of the greatest risks of harm from alcohol, including cirrhosis and alcohol-related cancers,” Lee said in the statement.
Public information campaigns are just one of the possible causes of the drop in drinking among young people. It’s also possible that Gen Z and Millennials are simply swapping one intoxicant for another. “The idea of substitution is a leading theory,” says Lee. “With the legalization of cannabis, are people using that rather than alcohol?”
And sometimes, it might simply come down to money—which most older folks have in relative abundance compared to younger people. “Younger adults in general have less disposable income [to spend on alcohol] than middle-aged or older adults,” says Lee.
Reducing drinking—or cutting it out altogether—may ultimately be a self-reinforcing habit, as social expectations shift in a newly temperate demographic. “When fewer people around you drink, there is less and less societal pressure,” says Lee. “Older adults grew up in an era where everyone was drinking heavily around them and it was acceptable, whereas that's no longer the case among Gen Z or Millennials.”
Whatever the causes of our society’s new sobriety, the less alcohol anyone consumes, the better. Young people may have tumbled to that truth first, but the older age groups among us would benefit from doing the same.
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NEW YORK (AP) — The first time Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to prison, reporters, advocates and the curious public crammed the courtroom to witness the disgraced Hollywood honcho’s #MeToo reckoning.
Hours later, the world began shutting down as the COVID-19 pandemic raged. Now, after an overturned conviction and two retrials, Weinstein is set to be sentenced again on Wednesday for one of the same crimes — more than six years after his first sentencing in March 2020.
Weinstein, 74, faces up to 25 years in prison for sexually assaulting a one-time TV production assistant, Miriam Haley, at his Manhattan apartment in 2006. He has already served more than six years as his case has cycled again and again through the criminal justice system. Haley gave her account of the assault at two trials.
“The unthinkable was happening,” Haley testified last year, dabbing her eyes.
Haley, who has also gone by the name Mimi Haleyi, is planning to speak at Weinstein’s sentencing, her lawyer, Gloria Allred, said. Weinstein will also address the court, his spokesperson, Juda Engelmayer, said.
The Oscar-winning “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love” producer was originally sentenced to 23 years in prison after a jury convicted him of assaulting Haley and raping an aspiring actress, Jessica Mann, in 2013.
But New York’s highest court erased those guilty verdicts in 2024, ruling that Weinstein was prejudiced by testimony from other women whose allegations weren’t part of the case.
Tried for a second time last year, Weinstein was again convicted of first-degree criminal sex act for assaulting Haley. In a messy split verdict, the jury acquitted him of forcibly performing oral sex on another woman, Kaja Sokola, and could not reach a verdict on a rape charge involving Mann.
After another retrial ended in a hung jury in May, Manhattan prosecutors dropped the rape charge rather than pursue a fourth trial after Mann said she could not bear to testify again.
That decision cleared the way for Weinstein’s sentencing.
Manhattan prosecutors have said they will ask for 20 years in prison — which would keep him behind bars until at least his late 80s.
Weinstein’s lawyers haven’t said what sentence they’ll seek. He denies raping or sexually assaulting anyone. Once he’s sentenced, he can appeal.
Weinstein is also awaiting resentencing in a separate rape case in Los Angeles. A California appeals court upheld the 2022 conviction but threw out his original 16-year sentence because the judge had considered his New York convictions that were later thrown out as an aggravating factor.
After shuffling between state prison, where he tested positive for COVID-19 early in the pandemic, and New York City’s notorious Rikers Island complex, the ailing Weinstein is now housed at a medical unit for jail inmates at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.
His health issues in recent years have included chronic myeloid leukemia, diabetes and walking difficulties that necessitate a wheelchair to get in and out of court, his lawyers said. Two years ago, he underwent emergency surgery to remove fluid on his heart and lungs.
Haley, 49, is a former entertainment producer now working in advertising.
Born in Finland and raised in Sweden, she said she met Weinstein through a mutual connection and worked briefly as a production assistant on a reality competition show that he produced, “Project Runway.”
Haley said she accepted an invitation to visit Weinstein’s Manhattan apartment because it would have been odd to decline since she was scheduled to fly to Los Angeles the next day on his company’s dime to attend a film premiere.
After she and Weinstein briefly chatted on his living room sofa, he lunged to kiss her, she testified. She said she leaped up and rebuffed him, but he grabbed her, forcibly backed her into a bedroom and sexually assaulted her, ignoring her pleas to stop.
She recalled Weinstein asking, “Don’t you think we’re much closer now?” after either the alleged assault or a subsequent occasion when she says she had unwanted, but not forced, sex with him.
She also recalled telling him after the second encounter, “You know you can’t keep doing this.”
The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Haley, Sokola and Mann have done.
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