Harvey Weinstein appears in court days before new trial
Photo by Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Harvey Weinstein was back in court on Wednesday with less than a week before the start of his second New York sex assault trial. His trial is expected to last four to six weeks once testimony begins, prosecutors at the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Wednesday.
Jury selection begins Tuesday and is expected to last as long as five days, Judge Curtis Farber said.
Prospective jurors will be told about the nature of the case and the significant media attention it has received and must decide whether those things are an impediment to their ability to be fair and impartial, Farber said.
Weinstein, 73, sat at the defense table in a wheelchair as he has dealt with multiple health issues in the last year, including emergency heart surgery in September and being diagnosed with leukemia in October.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges of forcibly performing oral sex on a woman in 2006. He will also be retried for two other alleged sexual assaults after his conviction on those charges was overturned on appeal in April 2024.
The judge gave the attorneys 40 minutes to question each group of potential jurors after defense attorney Arthur Aidala asked for additional time.
“You have a shtick,” Farber deadpanned before granting the exuberant criminal defense lawyer an extra 10 minutes to question jurors.
Jurors will be told Weinstein has no obligation to testify in his own defense. If, however, he does, Farber decided there would be certain limits on the kinds of things he can be asked about his prior record.
Weinstein will stand trial on a new sexual assault charge at the same time he is retried on two other sexual assault charges after his earlier conviction was overturned.
In 2020, he was found guilty of criminal sexual assault and third-degree rape, receiving 23 years in prison.
His conviction was overturned after the appeals court found the judge in his first trial “erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes.”
The two nuclear reactors at FPL Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, in Homestead, Florida. (D.A. Varela/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Like a radioactive hot potato, a solution to America’s growing stockpile of nuclear waste keeps getting passed around.
The issue lands before the Supreme Court on Wednesday in a dispute from Texas over the federal government’s authority to allow temporary storage of spent nuclear fuel at privately owned facilities far from reactors.
The justices are being asked to reject the arrangement, even though it’s far from clear where the highly toxic waste would go.
Congress remains at an impasse over plans first approved more than 40 years ago to hold all of the country’s nuclear waste at a single permanent, underground federal facility, which has never been completed.
There are more than 91,000 metric tons of radioactive waste from U.S. commercial nuclear power plants, according to the Energy Department. The waste remains dangerous for thousands of years and must be carefully managed.
Plaintiffs in the high court case, including the state of Texas and a group of landowners, are seeking to block Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval of a private nuclear waste storage facility in the Permian Basin, an area rich with oil deposits and limited sources of safe drinking water near the New Mexico border.
Congress in 1954 gave the commission near exclusive control over the possession and transfer of nuclear material in the U.S., including the ability to issue licenses to private entities to store it in its various forms.
In 1982, lawmakers authorized creation of a federal nuclear waste site, later designated as Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and encouraged interim waste storage by private energy companies at power plants while construction moved forward.
Texas argues that because neither law makes explicit mention of storing nuclear waste at private facilities, far from the reactors where it was generated, the commission lacks the authority to issue a license.
A federal appeals court agreed, blocking construction.
“What to do with the nation’s spent nuclear fuel implicates a host of difficult technological, environmental, and political considerations. Thankfully, that policy debate is not this Court’s concern,” Texas argues in its brief to the high court. “Because Congress has decided how to handle spent nuclear fuel, all that matters is that Yucca Mountain is not in Texas and [a private storage company] is not the federal government.”
The commission insists its broad power includes a clear right to authorize temporary, privately run nuclear storage sites and that they are an imperative for the nation.
Roughly 20% of the energy consumed in the U.S. is nuclear powered, resulting in more than 2,000 metric tons of radioactive waste every year. It all has to go somewhere.
“Such storage is essential to continued operations because no currently available or reasonably foreseeable reactor and fuel cycle technology developments have the potential to fundamentally alter the waste management challenge this nation confronts over at least the next several decades,” the government argues in court documents.
The contested site in Texas, which would be run by Interim Storage Partners, had been approved by the commission to accept up to 5,000 metric tons of nuclear waste per year for 40 years.
The company told the justices in its legal brief that invalidating government authority to send nuclear waste to privately owned sites would be “destabilizing and potentially devastating to a critical industry at a critical time.”
“Utilities are forced to deal with spent nuclear fuel storage issues on a larger scale than anyone would have liked or anticipated,” the company wrote.
A ruling in favor of the government would allow the Texas storage facility to move forward. A decision in favor of the state could scuttle the plan and upend previously approved licenses for at least a dozen other privately owned nuclear waste storage locations.
The Supreme Court is expected to hand down a decision by the end of June.
(LOUISIANA) — An immigration judge ruled Friday that Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil can be deported on grounds that he threatens foreign policy, as alleged by the Trump administration.
The stunning move may have repercussions on hundreds of other international students who have been targeted by the administration.
The Louisiana judge has given Khalil’s lawyers a deadline of April 23 to file applications for relief to stop his deportation. The judge said if they failed to make the deadline she would file an order of removal to either Syria or Algeria.
The ruling stunned supporters in the court as the judge issued it. Some supporters in the courthouse began to weep as she agreed with the government’s assertion that they did not have to provide any evidence in addition for the administration’s main claim against Khalil.
Khalil, a green card holder and permanent legal resident who is married to an American citizen, addressed the court after the hearing was adjourned and spoke to the judge directly, referring to a previous comment she made about due process and “fundamental fairness.”
“I would like to quote what you said last time that there’s nothing that’s more important to this court than due process rights and fundamental fairness. Clearly what we witnessed today, neither of these principles were present today or in this whole process. This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family. I just hope that the urgency that you deemed fit for me are afforded to the hundreds of others who have been here without hearing for months,” he said.
Judge Jamee Comans’ decision to remove Khalil fell in line with Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s assertion that his continued presence and actions in the country poses “adverse foreign policy consequence.”
The deportation hearing played out as a federal court case in New Jersey remains active. A judge in that case has ruled that Khalil cannot be deported while the proceedings are ongoing.
“Today, we saw our worst fears play out: Mahmoud was subject to a charade of due process, a flagrant violation of his right to a fair hearing, and a weaponization of immigration law to suppress dissent. This is not over, and our fight continues,” Marc van der Hout, an attorney for Khalil, said in a statement Friday. “If Mahmoud can be targeted in this way, simply for speaking out for Palestinians and exercising his constitutionally protected right to free speech, this can happen to anyone over any issue the Trump administration dislikes. We will continue working tirelessly until Mahmoud is free and rightfully returned home to his family and community.”
The immigration court has several limits on discovery and power to subpoena witnesses, as the judge mentioned several times on Friday.
The judge had given the government a deadline earlier this week to present evidence to back up several allegations it made against Khalil as grounds to deport him from the U.S., including that he misrepresented information on his green card application.
Despite Khalil’s team presenting evidence that went against the administrations’ narrative of their client, including interviews where he had denounced antisemitism, the judge did not rule on that rebuttal or information and instead agreed that she need not go further than a two-page memo Rubio penned and submitted to the court this week.
“Today’s ruling is a rush to judgement on baseless charges that the government presented no evidence to substantiate because no evidence exists. Our client, Mr. Khalil, has been unlawfully detained in direct retaliation of his advocacy in support of Palestinian rights,” said Amol Sinha, executive director of the ACLU-NJ, which is also representing Khalil. “This finding of removability is a dangerous departure from the fundamental freedoms at the bedrock of our nation that protect free speech under the First Amendment. We will continue to advocate for Mr. Khalil’s rightful release, and we are confident he will prevail.”
While a student at Columbia University, Khalil was part of a leadership group protesting the war in Gaza. Khalil took part in negotiations with school administrators demanding the institution cut ties with Israel and divest from Israeli companies. Khalil finished his graduate studies at Columbia in December and is set to graduate in the spring.
Khalil — who’s wife is about to give birth to his first child — was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at his Columbia housing in March.
The government on Thursday entered into evidence the memo signed by Rubio saying that he found Khalil’s presence in the U.S. “would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest.”
Attorneys for Khalil argued in a press conference on Thursday that the government — which entered the letter and other documents into evidence Wednesday — did not present evidence that Khalil’s presence in the U.S. poses an adverse foreign policy consequence.
The government has argued, under an obscure 1952 federal law called the Immigration and Nationality Act, that it believes migrants are deportable “if the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe that the alien’s presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
Attorneys for Khalil argued that determination is for a judge to make, after the government presents evidence.
The memo signed by Rubio also makes the case that another person, whose name is redacted, should be deportable under the same law.
Rubio wrote that Khalil should be deported because of his alleged role in “antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States.”
Marc Van Der Hout, one of Khalil’s attorneys, sharply criticized the memo during a Zoom press conference on Thursday.
Rubio “talks about First Amendment activity in the United States and the effect on people in the U.S. His ‘determination’ has absolutely nothing to do with foreign policy,” Van Der Hout said.
Khalil’s attorneys said the government did not present evidence as to the alleged misrepresented information Khalil made on his green card application.
(SELDEN, N.Y.) — A 15-year-old boy has been arrested for allegedly fatally stabbing his grandmother and injuring his mother in Selden, New York, according to police.
Vanessa Chendemi was allegedly stabbed by her son at about 9:45 p.m. Monday after which she ran out of her house and a passing motorist stopped to offer assistance, the Suffolk County Police Department said. Upon arriving at the scene, officers said they found 56-year-old Concetta Chendemi with stab wounds in the residence.
She was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police.
Vanessa Chendemi, 36, was transported to an area hospital and is in stable condition, Suffolk County police said.
The suspect fled the scene after the stabbing, police said. He was later arrested at around 11:20 p.m.
The accused stabber — who has not been identified by police because he is a minor — has been charged with second-degree murder and attempted murder.
