NEW YORK (AP) — A New Jersey man who was among seven people charged with smuggling electronic components to aid Russia’s war effort pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and other charges, authorities said.
Vadim Yermolenko, 43, faces up to 30 years in prison for his role in a transnational procurement and money laundering network that sought to acquire sensitive electronics for Russian military and intelligence services, Breon Peace, the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, said in a statement.
Yermolenko, who lives in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey and has dual U.S. and Russian citizenship, was indicted along with six other people in December 2022.
Prosecutors said the conspirators worked with two Moscow-based companies controlled by Russian intelligence services to acquire electronic components in the U.S. that have civilian uses but can also be used to make nuclear and hypersonic weapons and in quantum computing.
The exporting of the technology violated U.S. sanctions, prosecutors said.
The prosecution was coordinated through the Justice Department’s Task Force KleptoCapture, an interagency entity dedicated to enforcing sanctions imposed after Russian invaded Ukraine.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said in statement that Yermolenko “joins the nearly two dozen other criminals that our Task Force KleptoCapture has brought to justice in American courtrooms over the past two and a half years for enabling Russia’s military aggression.”
A message seeking comment was sent to Yermolenko’s attorney with the federal public defender’s office.
Prosecutors said Yermolenko helped set up shell companies and U.S. bank accounts to move money and export-controlled goods. Money from one of his accounts was used to purchase export-controlled sniper bullets that were intercepted in Estonia before they could be smuggled into Russia, they said.
One of Yermolenko’s co-defendants, Alexey Brayman of Merrimack, New Hampshire, pleaded guilty previously to conspiracy to defraud the United States and is awaiting sentencing.
Another, Vadim Konoshchenok, a suspected officer with Russia’s Federal Security Service, was arrested in Estonia and extradited to the United States. He was later released from U.S. custody as part of a prisoner exchange that included Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and other individuals.
The four others named in the indictment are Russian nationals who remain at large, prosecutors said.
NEW YORK (AP) — Amid the backdrop of a sales misconduct investigation and other looming legal troubles, security technology company Evolv is now firing its CEO.
Evolv’s board of directors terminated chief executive Peter George on Wednesday, effective immediately, according to a Thursday announcement from the company. Michael Ellenbogen, Evolv’s current chief innovation officer, will step into the role as interim CEO and president.
Specifics behind George’s firing were not immediately clear — but Evolv noted the dismissal was without cause and followed months of “careful planning and deliberation” by the board.
The move arrives just days after Evolv disclosed an ongoing investigation into the company’s sales practices, warning shareholders to no longer rely on recent financial statements. The board acknowledged this investigation Thursday, but maintained that it had been “evaluating leadership and performance for several months — long before we became aware of any potential issues relating to the Company’s sales practices and financial reporting.”
Evolv shared initial findings this investigation last week. An internal committee found that certain employees engaged in sales “subject to extra-contractual terms and conditions,” the company noted, some of which were not shared with accounting personnel. Evolv says it’s trying to determine if this misconduct impacted revenue reports and other financial metrics, and if so, when senior personnel became aware.
How high up that could be has yet to be confirmed, but Evolv said it would take any remedial actions as necessary. As of Friday’s disclosure, the investigating committee estimated that sales transactions at issue resulted in premature or incorrect revenue recognition of about $4 million to $6 million through the end of June.
This is far from the first time Evolv has found itself in hot water. The company has faced other legal issues over the years, including separate federal probes into its marketing practices led by the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities Exchange Commission.
And earlier this year, investors filed a class-action lawsuit, accusing company executives of overstating the devices’ capabilities and claiming that “Evolv does not reliably detect knives or guns.”
Evolv, which provides security screening technology powered by artificial intelligence, also made headlines after a pilot testing program used its portable weapons scanners inside some New York City subway stations this summer.
That program faced ample criticism from some civil liberties groups, as well as questions of efficacy. Recently released police data showed that the scanners did not detect any passengers with firearms — and had more than 100 false alerts over the one-month test.
Following the news of George’s firing, shares for Evolv were down nearly 10% Thursday afternoon.
According to the company, Evolv’s board formed a succession planning committee to evaluate leadership performance and plan for a CEO transition back in May. The company noted that it’s been actively recruiting candidates for CEO, and intends to announce an official successor “expeditiously.”
In a statement Thursday, the board added that a leadership change was necessary “to improve the company’s culture as we prepare for the next phase of growth.”
Ellenbogen, the current interim CEO, is one of Evolv’s co-founders and previously served as chief executive for seven years.
In August, Waltham, Massachusetts-based Evolv reported second-quarter revenue was $25.5 million, up 29% from $19.8 million for the same period last year. Its next earnings report is delayed due to the ongoing sales misconduct investigation.
NEW YORK (AP) — Halloween has plenty of traditions, from candy to jack-o’-lanterns — and the annual spectacle of Heidi Klum’s costume.
The supermodel-turned-TV personality is fond of surprising her guests with her elaborate costumes, like in 2022, when she arrived at the event on the end of a fishing line, encased in a slithering worm costume.
“I just wanted to be something random,” she explained while lying on the floor for maximum worm-like effect. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone being a rain worm before.”
“A lot of planning goes into it, you know,” Klum said through her peacock beak, with husband Tom Kaulitz next to her, dressed as an egg. “Because first, you have to have an idea.”
At her 2008 party she dressed as Kali, the Hindu goddess of death and destruction — complete with multiple arms, dangling heads and a deep coat of blue body paint.
Klum told The Associated Press she would immediately be planning her look for the following year. “After tonight I’ll be thinking about what I’ll do next year. It’s always got to be different. Completely different,” she said.
Other notable Klum costumes over the years have included a giant Transformer, a clone (complete with several Klum-lookalikes) an elderly version of herself, and an alien experiment gone awry.
The star has also transformed into a terrifying butterfly, an ape, a cat, a crow — and cartoon characters including Jessica Rabbit and Fiona from “Shrek.”
Her tip to those still trying to decide what to wear this Halloween? Leave the store-bought masks at home.
“I personally don’t like it when people hide behind those full masks. I prefer when people get a little bit creative and they play with their face, when they put a lot of makeup on,” she told the AP in 2007. “I always love that the most on me, I really go scary on the face.”
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico judge has upheld her decision to dismiss an involuntary manslaughter charge against Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of a Western movie.
In a ruling Thursday, state District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer stood by her July decision to dismiss an involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin. She said prosecutors did not raise any factual or legal arguments that would justify reversing her decision.
“Because the state’s amended motion raises arguments previously made, and arguments that the state elected not to raise earlier, the court does not find the amended motion well taken,” the judge wrote, adding that the request was also untimely.
A spokesperson for Baldwin’s lawyers said Friday that they had no immediate reaction to the decision.
Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey told The Associated Press that she disagrees with the court’s analysis and will appeal the ruling. Morrissey was appointed by the Santa Fe district attorney to take over the case in March 2023 after a previous special prosecutor resigned following missteps in the filing of initial charges.
The case was thrown out halfway through trial on allegations that police and prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense in the 2021 death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film “Rust.”
Baldwin’s trial was upended by revelations that ammunition was brought into the Santa Fe County sheriff’s office in March by a man who said it could be related to Hutchins’ killing. Prosecutors said they deemed the ammo unrelated and unimportant, while Baldwin’s lawyers say investigators “buried” the evidence in a separate case file and filed a successful motion to dismiss.
Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer for “Rust,” was pointing a gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal on a movie set outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer — but not the trigger — and the revolver fired.
A judge in April sentenced movie weapons supervisor Hannah Gutierrez-Reed to the maximum of 1.5 years at a state penitentiary on an involuntary manslaughter conviction in Hutchins’ death.
Marlowe Sommer last month rejected Gutierrez-Reed’s request to dismiss her conviction or convene a new trial on allegations that prosecutors failed to share evidence that might have been exculpatory. She found that the armorer’s attorneys didn’t establish that there was a reasonable possibility that the outcome of the trial would have been different had the evidence been available to Gutierrez-Reed, who still has an appeal pending with a higher court.
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Associated Press reporter Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque contributed to this report.
NEW YORK (AP) — There are so many Hollywood stars on New York theater stages or on the way that you might want to level up your stargazing game. Why not play some bingo?
Sure, Robert Downey Jr., Daniel Dae Kim, Jim Parsons, Mia Farrow, and Katie Holmes are currently in New York, and George Clooney, Denzel Washington, Nick Jonas and Jake Gyllenhaal are on deck for spring.
But if you really want to impress, why not connect the stars, like playing bingo with the stars of “Frasier”? Catch Bebe Neuwirth (who played chilly Lilith) now in “Cabaret” on Broadway; Dan Butler (who played Bulldog on the TV show) in the off-Broadway play “Another Shot;” and then in a few months, see David Hyde Pierce (who played Niles) in “The Pirates of Penzance.”
This combination of photos shows actors, from left, Dan Butler, David Hyde Pierce and Bebe Neuwirth. (AP Photo)
“I love that it would bring people there, and you would just hope that they get bitten by that thing theater can do that no other medium can do,” he says. “Hopefully, it brings you in the doors again.”
Laura Stanczyk, a veteran casting director and producer who has cast dozens of Broadway, off-Broadway and international plays and musicals, knows many shows secure a bankable star to try to stand out.
“When you have actors like Robert Downey Jr. who are finally showing up and participating in the New York theater scene, it becomes even more important to have someone who has some kind of notoriety,” she says.
She is producing the play that Butler is starring in by Spike Manton and Harry Teinowitz, in which a deadpan Butler plays a radio DJ in recovery. “It’s sort of like Bulldog goes to rehab,” jokes the actor.
A wave of stars
Movie and TV celebrities have been part of Broadway’s DNA for decades — one recent big wave was in 2010 with the arrival of Robin Williams, Chris Rock, Kiefer Sutherland, Daniel Radcliffe, Pee-wee Herman, Vanessa Redgrave, Ben Stiller and Edie Falco — but their presence this season is particularly striking.
Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler are starring in “Romeo & Juliet,” Nicole Scherzinger has “Sunset Boulevard,” Peter Gallagher and Julianna Margulies are in “Left on Tenth” and Sean Astin is playing Santa in “Elf the Musical.”
Dan Butler appears on stage during a performance of the off-Broadway play “Another Shot,” in New York on Oct. 13, 2024. (Joan Marcus via AP)
Stanczyk says it’s not too surprising to see so much star wattage since many of the TV and movie stars have their roots in theater. Margulies studied stage, and that’s also where Connor and Zegler got their starts. Scherzinger studied musical theater at Wright State University.
“People forget that these great actors got a lot of their start in theater,” she says. “I do think some directors gravitate towards that because they know those folks — it’s in their bones and there’s a common language.”
The reason “Frasier” Bingo is possible is because so many associated with the show are theater veterans, starting with James Burrows, the director who helped craft the “Cheers” spinoff. Burrows started in the theater and is the son of the legendary playwright and director Abe Burrows, behind “Guys and Dolls” and “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”
Butler — who was recently cheered on by Pierce during a visit to “Another Shot” — said “Frasier” often had a stage feel. “It sort of felt like doing a short play in front of a live audience every time we filmed,” he said.
Other TV shows — like “Law & Order,” “The Good Wife,” “The Gilded Age,” ”Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” and “Only Murders in the Building” — share that stage vibe since they also have leaned into casting from the theater.
So hot is New York that the stars are even coming off-Broadway, like Adam Driver in “Hold On to Me Darling,” Marisa Tomei in “Babe,” Kenneth Branagh in “King Lear,” T.R. Knight in “The Merchant of Venice” and Christian Slater and Calista Flockhart in “Curse of the Starving Class.”
The influx of Hollywood types aren’t squeezing out Broadway stars: Audra McDonald, Sutton Foster, Jonathan Groff, Patti LuPone, Megan Hilty, Jennifer Simard, Adrienne Warren and Darren Criss have all booked parts.
The lure of the stage
Louis McCartney, a rising screen star who will be bringing the play “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” from London to Broadway in spring 2025, didn’t train as a stage animal, but he’s mesmerized.
“It’s sort of this back and forth where you give yourself up,” he says. “You give your soul every single night. And I think that’s beautiful.”
If “Frasier” Bingo isn’t your speed, there’s always “Succession” Bingo: Jeremy Strong was on Broadway in a revival of “An Enemy of the People,” Kieran Culkin will be in a revival of “Glengarry Glen Ross” and Sarah Snook gets the stage all to herself as she plays all 26 parts in an adaptation of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” this spring. Or play a long game: With Clooney and Margulies, you can start on “ER” Bingo.
This combination of images shows the cast of HBO’s “Succession,” from left, Kieran Culkin, Sarah Snook, and Jeremy Strong. (AP Photo)
Stanczyk thinks Hollywood interest in the stage may be driven by the stars attempting to push themselves professionally and to capture that unique buzz that life theater can give.
“Every night you’re in the theater that thing that happens hasn’t happened before. It’s a unique exchange of energy,” she says. “There’s nothing else like it in the world.”
OCEAN CITY, N.J. (AP) — For generations of vacationers heading to Ocean City, the towering “Giant Wheel” was the first thing they saw from miles away.
The sight of the 140-foot-tall (42-meter) ride let them know they were getting close to the Jersey Shore town that calls itself “America’s Greatest Family Resort,” with its promise of kid-friendly beaches, seagulls and sea shells, and a bustling boardwalk full of pizza, ice cream and cotton candy.
And in the heart of it was Gillian’s Wonderland Pier, an amusement park that was the latest in nearly a century-long line of family-friendly amusement attractions operated by the family of Ocean City’s mayor.
But the rides were to fall silent and still Sunday night, as the park run by Ocean City’s mayor and nurtured by generations of his ancestors, closed down, the victim of financial woes made worse by the lingering aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic and Superstorm Sandy.
Gillian and his family have operated amusement rides and attractions on the Ocean City Boardwalk for 94 years. The latest iteration of the park, Wonderland, opened in 1965.
“I tried my best to sustain Wonderland for as long as possible, through increasingly difficult challenges each year,” Mayor Jay Gillian wrote in August when he announced the park would close. “It’s been my life, my legacy and my family. But it’s no longer a viable business.”
Gillian did not respond to numerous requests for comment over the past week.
Sheryl Gross was at the park for its final day with her two children and five grandchildren, enjoying it one last time.
“I’ve been coming here forever,” she said. “My daughter is 43 and I’ve been coming here since she was 2 years old in a stroller. Now I’m here with my grandchildren.”
She remembers decades of bringing her family from Gloucester Township in the southern New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia to create happy family memories at Wonderland.
“Just the excitement on their faces when they get on the rides,” she said. “It really made it feel family-friendly. A lot of that is going to be lost now.”
There were long lines Sunday for the Giant Wheel, the log flume and other popular rides as people used the last of ride tickets many had bought earlier in the year, thinking Wonderland would go on forever.
A local non-profit group, Friends of OCNJ History and Culture, is raising money to try and save the amusement park, possibly under a new owner who might be more amenable to buying it with some financial assistance. Bill Merritt, one of the non-profit’s leaders, said the group has raised over $1 million to help meet what could be a $20-million price tag for the property.
“Ocean City will be fundamentally different without this attraction,” he said. “This town relies on being family-friendly. The park has rides targeted at kids; it’s called ‘Wonderland’ for a reason.”
The property’s current owner, Icona Resorts, previously proposed a $150-million, 325-room luxury hotel elsewhere on Ocean City’s boardwalk, but the city rejected those plans.
The company’s CEO, Eustace Mita, said earlier this year he would take at least until the end of the year to propose a use for the amusement park property.
He bought it in 2021 after Gillian’s family was in danger of defaulting on bank loans for the property.
At a community meeting last month, Gillian said Wonderland could not bounce back from Superstorm Sandy in 2012, the pandemic in 2020 and an increase in New Jersey’s minimum wage that doubled his payroll costs, leaving him $4 million in debt.
Mita put up funds to stave off a sheriff’s sale of the property, and gave the mayor three years to turn the business around. That deadline expired this year.
Mita did not respond to requests for comment.
Merritt said he and others can’t imagine Ocean City without Wonderland.
“You look at it with your heart, and you say ‘You’re losing all the cherished memories and all the history; how can you let that go?’” he said. “And then you look at it with your head and you say, ‘They are the reason this town is profitable; how can you let that go?’”
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Follow Wayne Parry on X at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC
NEW YORK (AP) — The Vessel, a towering, honeycomb-like sculpture in Manhattan that was popular with tourists before a series of suicides forced its closure in 2021, will reopen Monday with new safety features.
The 150-foot (46-meter) structure opened in 2019 as the centerpiece of the Hudson Yards development on Manhattan’s West Side. The climbable sculpture with zigzagging stairs drew crowds of tourists, but was closed to the public in 2021 after several people took their own lives by jumping off the structure.
Related Companies, which owns Hudson Yards, confirmed Sunday that the Vessel will reopen Monday with floor-to-ceiling steel mesh barriers installed on parts of it. Only the upper level sections that have been fitted with mesh will reopen and the top level will remain closed. Tickets are required.
“Not a day goes by that we don’t have visitors walking up to our staff asking where they can buy tickets and when it will reopen,” Related CEO Jeff T. Blau said in a prepared statement, “that interest hasn’t diminished during the time we’ve been closed and we’re excited to welcome guests from all around the world back to Vessel with additional safety measures in place.”
Related had announced in April that the attraction would reopen at an unspecified time this year with the steel mesh barriers.
The Vessel was designed by Thomas Heatherwick and fabricated in Venice.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal regulator on Wednesday ordered Apple and Goldman Sachs to pay a combined $89 million for deceiving consumers and mishandled transaction disputes of Apple Card customers.
The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau orders point to “customer service breakdowns and misrepresentations” around Apple and Goldman’s credit card partnership. Apple failed to send tens of thousands of Apple Card disputes to Goldman, and when such customer disputes were reported, the investment bank did not follow federal requirements for investigating, the agency said.
As a result, many consumers faced long waits to get their money back from disputed charges and, in some cases, saw incorrect negative information added to their credit reports, the CFPB added.
Apple and Goldman were also accused of misleading people who purchased iPhones and other Apple devices about interest-free payments for the credit card. The CFPB found that many customers thought they would automatically get interest-free financing when buying an Apple device with Apple Card, for example, but were instead charged that interest, while Goldman misled consumers about some refund applications.
In a statement, Apple said it learned about the “inadvertent issues” years ago and address them along with Goldman Sachs, adding that it strongly disagrees with the CFPB’s characterization of its conduct. The California tech giant added that “Apple Card is one of the most consumer-friendly credit cards available, and was specifically designed to support users’ financial health.”
Goldman spokesperson Nick Carcaterra echoed that sentiment, noting the investment bank was proud to develop the credit card product with Apple, and said it was pleased to reach a resolution with the CFPB. Both companies also maintained that they had already worked to help impacted customers.
Wednesday’s CFPB action orders refunds for consumers and penalties for both companies. Apple is required to pay a $25 million penalty, the CFPB said, and Goldman a $45 million penalty and at least $19.8 million in redress.
The agency is also barring Goldman, which is already struggling with its wider consumer banking business, from launching another new credit card unless it can prove the product “will actually comply with the law.”
“These failures are not mere technicalities. They resulted in real harm to real people,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in prepared remarks, noting hundreds of thousands of Apple Card users were impacted overall. In a separate statement, he added that “Big Tech companies and big Wall Street firms should not behave as if they are exempt from federal law.”
Apple partnered with Goldman to launch the Apple Card in 2019. The now-popular credit card runs on the Mastercard network and is deeply embedded into Apple Pay. It is designed primarily to be used on devices like the iPhone or Apple Watch.
The CFPB suggested that Apple and Goldman launched Apple Card prematurely, pointing to third-party warnings about technological issues prior to the card’s launch.
Goldman’s venture into consumer banking has been far from smooth sailing. The Wall Street firm recently ended its credit card partnership with General Motors — with Barclays coming forward as its replacement just last week.
Struggling New York Community Bancorp said Friday that it is cutting 700 jobs at its Flagstar subsidiary as it tries to return to profitability after being rescued by investors earlier this year.
The bank said the cuts amount to 8% of its head count. It’s also selling its mortgage-servicing business to mortgage company Mr. Cooper, which will mean trimming another 1,200 employees from its payroll. Most of those employees will be offered the chance to transfer to Mr. Cooper, NYCB said.
Shares of Hicksville, New York-based NYCB fell 1.6% to close Friday at $12.18.
NYCB got a lifeline of more than $1 billion from a group of investors in March of this year its stock plunge by more than 80%.
That cash infusion brought four new directors to NYCB’s board, including Steven Mnuchin, who served as U.S. Treasury secretary under President Donald Trump. Joseph Otting, a former comptroller of the currency, became the bank’s CEO.
Under the deal, NYCB was to get investments of $450 million from Mnuchin’s Liberty Strategic Capital, $250 million from Hudson Bay Capital and $200 million from Reverence Capital Partners. Cash from other institutional investors and some of the bank’s management took the total over $1 billion, the bank said in March.
NYCB was a relatively unknown bank until last year, when it bought the assets of Signature Bank at auction on March 19 for $2.7 billion. Signature was one of the banks that crumbled in last year’s mini-crisis for the industry, where a bank run also sped the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
The sudden increase in size for NYCB meant it had to face increased regulatory scrutiny. That’s been one of the challenges for the bank, which is trying to reassure depositors and investors that it can digest the purchase of Signature Bank while dealing with a struggling real-estate portfolio. Losses in loans tied to commercial real estate forced it to report a surprise loss for its latest quarter, which raised investors’ concern about the bank.
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The biggest source of new residents to Florida and Texas, the two U.S. states with the largest number of new residents last year, was other countries.
A little over 45% of the almost 634,000 residents in Florida who said that they had lived in a different state or abroad the previous year came from a foreign country, according to migration data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Florida, with 23 million residents, had more people who said they had lived in a different place the previous year than any other state, though Texas wasn’t far behind. Of the almost 612,000 Texas residents who had lived elsewhere in the previous year, 43% were from another country. Texas has 30.5 million residents.
The migration figures don’t show from which countries the new residents arrived.
Priscila Coronado moved last year to Miami from Guatemala, looking for a better future.
“I am happy. My dream is to study, learn English and graduate with a nursing degree,” Coronado said. “There is no crime here, and that is an achievement.”
Among U.S. states, New York was the top producer of new Floridians, and more recently minted Texans had lived in California the year before than any other state.
But Florida and Texas didn’t just gain residents; some also moved out. Georgia gained the most former Floridians last year, and California had the most ex-Texans.
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Associated Press writer Gisela Salomon in Miami contributed to this report. Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform X: @MikeSchneiderAP.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The new Unrivaled women’s basketball 3-on-3 league will have its games broadcast on TNT and its sports platforms.
The league announced a multiyear partnership with the network to show more than 45 games from the inaugural season that begins in January. Matchups will be shown three nights a week with twice-weekly games on TNT on Mondays and Fridays. Games that are played on Saturday will be shown on truTV.
Games begin on Jan. 17 and will be played in Miami.
“Our TNT Sports portfolio centers on premium live sports and our media and equity partnership with Unrivaled deepens our commitment to further expanding the depth of top tier women’s sports programming we offer our fans and presents an opportunity for us to shape and amplify the continued growth of women’s basketball,” said Luis Silberwasser, chairman and CEO of TNT Sports.
The league features 30 of the top women’s basketball players across six teams and was co-founded by Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart.
“I mean, to be able to have a network like that that supports us, especially in Year 1, I think is just a huge testament to women’s basketball right now and how much it’s growing,” Collier told The Associated Press at shootaround before Game 3 of the WNBA Finals on Thursday.
Having all the games on one platform was huge for the new league. The league was also having discussions with ESPN, Amazon, ION and the CW.
“We had a lot of interest as you could imagine and you know, we thought about carving this up in certain ways, but to give credit to Luis and the vision that he had, he wanted it all,” said former Turner President David Levy, who is the co-founder and co-CEO of Horizon Sports & Experiences and helped secure the media rights deal. “He thought it was smart for the league. And we talked about it, and we ended up deciding that maybe it is right to go with one entity, and a strong entity.”
TNT will have a studio show at least one of the two nights it’s showing games.
“Being on TNT, you know, for two of the three nights is really important, not just to help grow this league, but also to the women who play in it,” said Levy. “You know, they they grew up watching TNT. And then let’s not forget Bleacher Report and House of Highlights. That’s where all the Gen Z’ers are.”
Unrivaled President Alex Bazzell said that being on TV was received really well by the players.
“I think there’s a lot of nostalgia that goes along with this for the athletes,” he said. “We have an obligation with whichever partner it is that it’s someone they’re proud of and I think that first and foremost they’re really proud of this partnership. I’ve gotten tons of texts that our athletes are pumped up.”
Salaries for the new league will be in the six figures. Compensation was key for players, many of whom have spent their offseason overseas supplementing their WNBA incomes. The average WNBA base salary is about $130,000 with the top stars able to earn more than $500,000 through salary, marketing agreements, an in-season tournament and bonuses. Many of the players also will have an equity stake in the league.
The league will run for eight weeks with the 30 players divided into six teams. The squads will play two games a week with the contests taking place on a court about two-thirds the size of a WNBA one. The teams will stay the same throughout the season.
NEW YORK (AP) — Lawyers for Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs asked a New York judge Tuesday to force prosecutors to disclose the names of his accusers in his sex trafficking case.
The lawyers wrote in a letter to a Manhattan federal court judge that the hip-hop music maker needs to know the identities of his alleged victims so he can prepare adequately for trial.
Last week, a May 5 trial date was set for Combs. He has pleaded not guilty.
A spokesperson for prosecutors declined comment.
Combs, 54, remains incarcerated without bail after his Sept. 16 federal sex trafficking arrest. His lawyers have asked a federal appeals court to let him be freed to home detention so he can more easily meet with lawyers and prepare for trial.
So far, judges have concluded he is a danger to the community and cannot be freed.
The request to identify accusers comes a day after six new lawsuits were filed against Combs anonymously to protect the identities of the alleged victims. Two of the accusers were identified as Jane Does while four men were listed in the lawsuits as John Does. The lawsuits claimed he used his fame and promises of boosting their own prospects in the music industry to persuade victims to attend lavish parties or drug-fueled hangouts where he then assaulted them.
The plaintiffs in Monday’s lawsuits are part of what their lawyers say is a group of more than 100 accusers who are in the process of taking legal action against Combs.
In their letter Tuesday to Judge Arun Subramanian, lawyers for Combs said the case against their client is unique in part because of the number of accusers. They attributed the quantity to “his celebrity status, wealth and the publicity of his previously settled lawsuit.”
That reference appeared to cite a November lawsuit filed by his former girlfriend, Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura. Combs settled the lawsuit the next day, but its allegations of sexual and physical abuse have followed him since.
The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Ventura did.
Combs’ lawyers said the settlement of Cassie’s lawsuit, along with “false inflammatory statements” by federal agents and Combs’ fame have “had a pervasive ripple effect, resulting in a torrent of allegations by unidentified complainants, spanning from the false to outright absurd.”
They said the lawsuits filed Monday, along with other lawsuits, and their “swirling allegations have created a hysterical media circus that, if left unchecked, will irreparably deprive Mr. Combs of a fair trial, if they haven’t already.”
The lawyers wrote that the government should identify alleged victims because Combs has no way of knowing which allegations prosecutors are relying on in their accusations in an indictment.
“To the extent Mr. Combs is forced to mount a defense against criminal allegations that the government does not seek to prove at trial, he is entitled to know that,” the lawyers said.
The indictment alleges Combs coerced and abused women for years, with the help of a network of associates and employees, while using blackmail and violent acts including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings to keep victims from speaking out.
NEW YORK (AP) — Hunter Biden has revived a lawsuit that accuses Fox News of illegally publishing explicit images of him as part of a streaming series.
The president’s son first sued Fox in New York in July over images used in the Fox Nation series “The Trial of Hunter Biden,” a “mock trial” of Hunter Biden on charges he has not faced. He dropped the suit without explanation three weeks later, the same day President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race.
On Tuesday, Hunter Biden filed a largely identical suit in state court in Manhattan, again arguing that the dissemination of intimate images without his consent violates New York’s so-called revenge porn law. The new suit adds one current Fox executive one former executive as named defendants.
Biden’s attorney, Tina Glandian, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on why the suit was revived.
In a filing Tuesday, Fox asked that the case be moved to federal court. The company issued a statement describing the second suit as “once again devoid of any merit.”
“The core complaint stems from a 2022 streaming program that Mr. Biden did not complain about until sending a letter in late April 2024,” the statement said. “The program was removed within days of that letter, in an abundance of caution, but Hunter Biden is a public figure who has been the subject of multiple investigations and is now a convicted felon.”
Biden was convicted in July of three felony firearms charges related to the purchase of a revolver in 2018. The six-part Fox Nation series depicted a dramatized court proceeding on different, fictional charges.
Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism and Sphere Entertainment Co. announced the plan late Tuesday to bring a Sphere to the Middle East.
Under the deal, Abu Dhabi will pay a franchise fee to Sphere Entertainment to build the second location using its designs. Abu Dhabi’s government will pay to build the structure, as well as annual fees to Sphere Entertainment “for creative and artistic content.”
The announcement offered no financing information, nor did it say where the Sphere would be built in the Emirati capital. Abu Dhabi’s government did not immediately respond to questions about the project Wednesday. Sphere declined to comment beyond the initial announcement.
The massive $2.3 billion Las Vegas Sphere opened in 2023 as the gambling capital’s most expensive entertainment venue. A high-resolution LED screen wraps halfway around the 17,500-seat audience. It has hosted concerts and sporting events inside the world’s largest spherical structure standing at 366 feet (111 meters) tall and 516 feet (157 meters) wide.
However, efforts to build a second Sphere abroad have been choppy. London Mayor Sadiq Khan rejected a plan to build one in the city’s east over multiple concerns last year, including light pollution.
Abu Dhabi has been trying to differentiate itself as a travel destination from neighboring Dubai in the UAE, an energy-rich federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula.
Sphere is the brainchild of James Dolan, the executive chair of Madison Square Garden and the owner of the New York Knicks and Rangers.
Stock in Sphere closed more than 6% higher Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange to $48.91 a share. That’s a major boost after Benchmark last month downgraded Sphere Entertainment to “sell” over “concerns over the Sphere’s “scalability, high production costs and a potentially underwhelming profitability outlook.”
Meanwhile, some projects in the UAE have failed to be built or been delayed for years after being announced in economic downturns.
Trademark filings show Sphere Entertainment Co. trademark filings made as well in Japan, Oman and Qatar, though there’s no announced plans for similar venues. Companies often protectively trademark their names in other markets without necessarily having business there.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A family in South Carolina pleaded for help Wednesday in finding Broadway dancer Zelig Williams, whose disappearance nearly two weeks ago has also drawn the concern of the broader theater community, including Hugh Jackman.
Williams, who danced in New York productions of “Hamilton” and “MJ The Musical,” was last seen Oct. 3 in Columbia, when he left his home. Friends said they got an automatic emergency notification from his iPhone minutes later, Williams’ family said.
They reached out but did not hear back. Williams’ empty car was found undamaged in an isolated parking lot for the Palmetto Trail a day after deputies determined he was driving at the nearby Congaree National Park about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from downtown Columbia, according to the Richland County Sheriff’s Department.
Williams’ family said at a news conference that they think he stopped taking his medication just before he disappeared and are worried he might be behaving erratically or even could appear in a trance-like state to people looking to help him.
Tips from the community are likely going to be critical to finding Williams, Sheriff Leon Lott said at a news conference at the department’s headquarters, joined by family members of the dancer.
Deputies said nothing, including foul play, has been ruled out in the case.
“We have used every means of manpower and technology that is available,” Lott said.
They also are asking churches to pay special attention to anyone new, because Williams was visiting in an effort to find a place to worship. Williams, 28, had moved back to his hometown of Columbia a few months earlier.
Williams is the light for his family, cousin Mieoki Corbett-Jacobs said Wednesday. His two sisters died in a car crash 20 years ago and inspired him to start dancing, she said.
Williams’ mother “is having some serious pain in her heart missing her son in this moment,” Corbett-Jacobs said. “That’s why it is so special when you see him perform. He is dancing with his sisters in his heart.”
The family’s remarks ended with Williams’ mother, Kathy, who started sobbing as she spoke.
“I just want Zelig to come home. He’s all I got. He’s all I got. He’s all I got,” she said. The sheriff and Corbett-Jacobs helped her out of the room.
Williams’ colleagues on Broadway are also asking for help. Jackman, who worked with Williams in “The Greatest Showman” tour, posted Williams’ picture on his Instagram feed this month.
“Zelig we love you and are praying for your safe return,” Jackman wrote.
NEW YORK (AP) — CBS News, hosting vice presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz for the general election campaign’s third debate next week, says it will be up to the politicians — not the moderators — to check the facts of their opponents.
The 90-minute debate, scheduled for 9 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday in a Manhattan studio that once hosted the children’s program “Captain Kangaroo,” will be moderated by the outgoing “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell and “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan.
Tim Walz and JD Vance meet for their first vice presidential debate:
During ABC’s debate between presidential contenders Kamala Harris and Donald Trump earlier this month, network moderators on four occasions pointed out inaccurate statements by Trump, and none by Harris. That infuriated the former president and his supporters, who complained it was unfair.
Last spring, CNN moderators did not question any facts presented by Trump and President Joe Biden in the debate where Biden’s poor performance eventually led to him dropping out of the race.
On Friday, CBS said the onus will be on Vance and Walz to point out misstatements by the other, and that “the moderators will facilitate those opportunities” during rebuttal time. The network said its own misinformation unit, CBS News Confirmed, will provide real-time fact-checking during the debate on its live blog and on social media, and on the air during post-debate analysis.
With its plans, CBS News is clearly indicating it wants to take a step back from the heat generated by calling attention to misleading statements by candidates. Some argue that offstage fact-checking is too little, too late and not seen by many people who watch the event.
It’s not the first time
Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the international fact-checking network at the Poynter Institute, said she has seen examples of moderators who have successfully encouraged candidates to keep their opponents honest.
“I’ll be interested in seeing how this works in practice,” she said. “Having said that, you’re basically off-loading one of your journalistic responsibilities onto the candidates themselves, so I don’t think that it’s ideal. It takes journalistic courage to be willing to fact-check the candidates, because the candidates are absolutely going to complain about it. I don’t think the moderators’ first goal is to avoid controversy.”
During the ABC debate, moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis corrected Trump statements on abortion, the 2020 election, crime statistics and reports that immigrants in Ohio were eating pets.
Unlike the two presidential debates, the two sides agreed that the vice presidential candidates’ microphones will not be turned off while their opponent is speaking, increasing the chance for genuine back-and-forth exchanges and the risk that the two men will talk over each other. CBS says it reserves the right to shut off a “hot mic” when necessary. Each candidate will have two minutes for a closing statement, with Vance winning a virtual coin toss and choosing to get the last word.
The stakes are high for CBS News
It’s a big moment for CBS News, long mired in third place in the evening news ratings. O’Donnell just announced she was stepping down from the role. Brennan is considered a rising star.
Like with the presidential debates, CBS is making its feed available for other networks to televise, and many are expected to take advantage of the opportunity.
There will be no audience when Vance and Walz meet at a West Side studio that, in its past, has hosted editions of “60 Minutes,” “CBS Sunday Morning,” “Inside the NFL,” “Geraldo” and “Captain Kangaroo.”
It’s not known whether there will be other opportunities to see Trump and Harris together on the same stage before the Nov. 5 election. Harris has accepted an invitation from CNN for another debate on Oct. 23, but Trump has rejected it. In a poll taken by Quinnipiac University and released earlier this week, likely voters said by roughly a two-to-one margin that they’d like them face off again.
CBS’ “60 Minutes” is looking to land both Harris and Trump for back-to-back interviews that will air on Oct. 7, but neither candidate has committed to it yet.
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty Friday to federal bribery charges, firmly rejecting allegations that he accepted overseas travel, campaign cash and other perks from foreign interests seeking to harness his influence.
Adams, a former police captain, entered the plea in a packed courtroom that’s just a short walk from City Hall, which has been roiled in recent weeks by a cascade of investigations, searches and subpoenas. The first-term Democrat maintains he did nothing wrong and has vowed to stay in office, rebuffing growing calls for him to quit.
“I am not guilty, your honor,” Adams said, looking solemnly at the judge.
His appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker came a day after prosecutors unsealed an indictment accusing him of taking $100,000 in flights and stays in opulent hotel suites from people tied to Turkey, and fueling his run for mayor with illegal donations that helped him qualify for more than $10 million in public campaign funds.
Adams was released on the condition that he not contact any witnesses or people described in the indictment. The mayor is allowed to speak with relatives and staff, but not about anything pertaining to the allegations.
Adams left the courtroom without commenting. He smiled at a court officer but ignored the rows of reporters he passed on his way out. Afterward, he stood silently outside the courthouse while his lawyer, Alex Spiro, railed against the charges to a crowd of cameras while onlookers shouted “Free Eric!” and “Lock him up!”
“This isn’t even a real case. This is the airline upgrade corruption case,” Spiro said. He told the judge would file a motion next week asking for the case to be dismissed.
Yet even as the mayor appeared in court, the investigation into his administration continued.
One of Adams’ closest City Hall advisers, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, was met at the airport Friday by investigators from the U.S. attorney’s office and Manhattan district attorney’s office after she got off flight from Japan. The federal investigators served her with a subpoena. The local prosecutors took her phones and searched her house, according to her lawyer, Arthur Aidala. A TV news crew got footage of investigators carrying out boxes marked “documents” and “electronics.”
“She will cooperate fully with any and all investigations and Ms. Lewis is not the target of any case of which we are aware,” Aidala said.
Adams, 64, is due back in court Wednesday for a conference before U.S. District Judge Dale E. Ho, who will preside over the case going forward.
In his 18-minute appearance Friday, Adams sat stoically with his hands folded in his lap as the magistrate judge read the charges aloud, her sturdy delivery underscoring the gravity of the case. He was at the courthouse for just under four hours.
The criminal case and tumult in Adams’ administration, including the sudden resignation of his police commissioner and retirement of his schools chancellor, have created a political crisis for the mayor.
Adams has so far weathered calls to resign, including from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, potential Democratic challengers in next June’s mayoral primary, and some Republicans. Top Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries have not called on Adams to quit, saying the legal process should be allowed to play out.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who has the power to remove Adams from office, appeared to issue a warning to a mayor she has often portrayed as a close ally, saying in a statement that she was reviewing her “options and obligations” and expects “the mayor to take the next few days to review the situation and find an appropriate path forward to ensure the people of New York City are being well-served by their leaders.”
Adams, who soared to office as a law-and-order champion of the middle class, is charged with five counts: wire fraud, bribery, conspiracy and two counts of receiving campaign contributions from a foreign national. If convicted of the most serious charge, wire fraud, he faces up to 20 years in prison, federal prosecutors said.
Among other things, Adams is accused of allowing a senior Turkish diplomat and others to shower him with luxury accommodations to places like France, China, Sri Lanka, India, Hungary, Ghana and Turkey, including valuable business-class upgrades, high-end meals and even a trip to a Turkish bath. Most of the trips took place while Adams was Brooklyn borough president, before he ran for mayor.
Adams is also accused of conspiring to take campaign contributions from foreign sources banned from giving to U.S. campaigns and disguising the payments by routing them through straw donors.
In return, Adams allegedly did favors for his patrons, including helping ensure that Turkey’s newly built diplomatic tower in Manhattan wouldn’t be subject to a fire inspection that it was certain to fail.
Spiro, whose roster of past and present clients includes Elon Musk, Alec Baldwin and Jay-Z, said it was neither unusual nor improper for an elected official to accept some travel perks. The mayor has denied ever knowingly accepting an illegal campaign contribution and said any help he gave people navigating city bureaucracy was just part of his job.
Adams’ indictment is unlikely to be the last word on federal investigations involving city government.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams told reporters Thursday: “This investigation continues. We continue to dig, and we will hold more people accountable, and I encourage anyone with information to come forward and to do so before it is too late.”
Federal prosecutors are believed to be leading multiple, separate inquiries involving Adams and his senior aides and relatives of those aides. In early September, federal investigators seized devices from the police commissioner, schools chancellor, two deputy mayors and other trusted Adams confidants.
None of those other officials have been publicly accused of wrongdoing or charged with a crime.
The Lower Manhattan courthouse is less than two blocks from the one where former President Donald Trump was tried and convicted of falsifying business records. Adams’ arraignment was in the same courthouse where a jury found Trump civilly liable for sexually assaulting the writer E. Jean Carroll in 1996 and in the very same courtroom where hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was arraigned last week on sex trafficking charges.
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Associated Press reporter Anthony Izaguirre in Albany contributed.
NEW YORK (AP) — Prince Harry said today’s youth is in the midst of an “epidemic” of anxiety, depression and social isolation due to negative experiences online, as he brought his campaign to help children and their parents navigate cyberspace to this week’s Clinton Global Initiative.
“These platforms are designed to create addiction,” Harry, 40, said in remarks Tuesday in New York City. “Young people are kept there by mindless, endless, numbing scrolling — being force-fed content that no child should ever be exposed to. This is not free will.”
Beyond supporting parents and youth throughout this advocacy, The Duke of Sussex stressed the need for corporate accountability. He asked why leaders of powerful social media companies are still held to the “lowest ethical standards” — and called on shareholders to demand tangible change.
“Parenting doesn’t end with the birth of a child. Neither does founding a company,” said Harry, who revealed that his smartphone lock screen is a photo of his children, five-year-old Prince Archie and three-year-old Princess Lilibet. “We have a duty and a responsibility to see our creations through.”
Harry’s remarks arrive as pressures continue to mount on tech giants like Meta, Snap and TikTok to make their online platforms safer, particularly for younger users. Many children on these platforms are exposed to content that is not age appropriate, such as violence, or misinformation. Others face unrealistic beauty standards, bullying and sexual harassment.
Companies have made some changes over the years — with Instagram, for example, announcing last week that it would be making teen accounts private by default in a handful of countries. But safety advocates have long-stressed that there’s more work to be done. Many also maintain that companies still put too much responsibility on parents when it comes to keeping children safe on social media.
Harry’s contribution to this year’s CGI annual meeting was part of the “What’s Working” theme, in a panel that included former President Bill Clinton, Clinton Foundation Vice Chair Chelsea Clinton and World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres.
The Archewell Foundation, which Harry founded with his wife, Meghan Markle, to carry out their philanthropic work recently launched an initiative supporting parents whose children have suffered or died due to online harms. Harry highlighted the work of that initiative, called The Parents Network, in his speech Tuesday.
The foundation has also partnered with the World Health Organization and others to end violence against children, an issue he and Meghan outlined during a recent trip to Colombia. Harry on Tuesday pointed to the inaugural Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children, which is set to take place in Bogotá this November. He said that this meeting could result in the first global agreement for prioritizing child safety and protection online.
His CGI address was part of a string of appearances for Harry in New York at the growing number of humanitarian and philanthropic events that run alongside the United Nations General Assembly Week.
On Monday, he appeared at an event for The HALO Trust, where he discussed how the work of the landmine clearing charity was influential on his late mother, Princess Diana, as well as at the 2024 Concordia Annual Summit, where he spoke with winners of The Diana Award.
“The HALO Trust’s work in Angola meant a great deal to my mother,” he said. “Carrying on her legacy is a responsibility that I take seriously. And I think we all know how much she would want us to finish this particular job.”
Harry’s message on Tuesday was generally well-received at the conference.
Nia Faith, 22, co-founder of the Canadian nonprofit Revolutionnaire, which works to empower youth and uses social media to mobilize members, said she saw his presentation as a “call to action” on an issue that does not get enough attention.
“I was incredibly moved by Prince Harry’s speech,” she said. “At Revolutionnaire, we use digital advocacy and social media to empower youth to make a positive impact. We also recognized that social media is being used in a way that is harmful and detrimental to the mental health of young people.”
Faith hopes that Harry’s work will convince companies and governments to take action to protect children while encouraging the use of platforms to drive more positive action.
Ashley Lashley, 25, whose Ashley Lashley Foundation works to address environmental challenges in her native Barbados by motivating young people to take action in their communities, said she was impressed by his remarks, even though she also worries about the digital divide in her country.
“His message really hit home that parents, teachers, and students really need to unite to educate each other about the safe usage of digital technology,” she said. “I really believe that there needs to be a multi sectorial approach. That’s what we’re seeing here at CGI where different persons from different sectors — from governments, from private sectors, from philanthropy organizations — can really work together to ensure that there is peace and equity across all social media platforms.”
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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
NEW YORK (AP) — Caroline Ellison, a former top executive in Sam Bankman-Fried ’s fallen FTX cryptocurrency empire, was sentenced to two years in prison on Tuesday after she apologized to everyone hurt by a fraud that stole billions of dollars from investors, lenders and customers.
Ellison, 29, could have faced a much tougher sentence, but both the judge and prosecutors said she deserved credit for talking extensively with federal investigators, pleading guilty and ultimately testifying against Bankman-Fried for three days at his trial last November.
U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said Ellison’s cooperation was “very, very substantial” and “remarkable.”
But he said a prison sentence was necessary because she had participated in what might be the “greatest financial fraud ever perpetrated in this country and probably anywhere else” or at least close to it.
Ellison was ordered to report to prison Nov. 7.
FTX was one of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchanges, known for its Superbowl TV ad and its extensive lobbying campaign in Washington, before it collapsed in 2022.
U.S. prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried and other top executives of looting customer accounts on the exchange to make risky investments, make millions of dollars of illegal political donations, bribe Chinese officials and buy luxury real estate in the Caribbean.
Ellison was chief executive at Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency hedge fund controlled by Bankman-Fried.
“I’m deeply ashamed with what I’ve done,” she said at the sentencing hearing, fighting through tears to say she was “so so sorry” to everyone she had harmed directly or indirectly.
She did not speak as she left Manhattan federal court, surrounded by lawyers.
In court Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon called for leniency, saying Ellison’s testimony was “devastating and powerful proof” against Bankman-Fried, 32, who was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Attorney Anjan Sahni asked the judge to spare his client from prison, citing “unusual circumstances,” including her off-and-on romantic relationship with Bankman-Fried and the damage caused when her “whole professional and personal life came to revolve” around him.
Judge Kaplan agreed that Ellison’s willingness to work with prosecutors was extraordinary.
“I’ve seen a lot of cooperators in 30 years here. I’ve never seen one quite like Ms. Ellison,” he said.
But he said that in such a serious case, he could not let cooperation be a get-out-of-jail-free card, even when it was clear that Bankman-Fried had become “your kryptonite.”
Bankman-Fried also testified at the trial, portraying himself to the jury as inexperienced and bumbling but not a criminal. He acknowledged making mistakes, but said he didn’t defraud anyone and wasn’t aware that Alameda Research had amassed billions of dollars in debt.
Sassoon, the prosecutor, described that testimony in court Tuesday as “evasive, even contemptuous.”
As the business began to falter, Ellison divulged the massive fraud to employees who worked for her even before FTX filed for bankruptcy, trial evidence showed.
Ultimately, she also spoke extensively with criminal and civil U.S. investigators.
Sassoon said prosecutors were impressed that Ellison did not “jump into the lifeboat” to escape her crimes but instead spent nearly two years fully cooperating.
Since testifying at Bankman-Fried’s trial, Ellison has engaged in extensive charity work, written a novel and worked with her parents on a math enrichment textbook for advanced high school students, according to her lawyers.
They said she also now has a healthy romantic relationship and has reconnected with high school friends she had lost touch with while she worked for and sometimes dated Bankman-Fried from 2017 until late 2022.
VENICE, Italy (AP) — “ Joker ” is a hard act to follow. Todd Phillips’ dark, Scorsese-inspired character study about the Batman villain made over a billion dollars at the box office, won Joaquin Phoenix his first Oscar, dominated the cultural discourse for months and created a new movie landmark.
It wasn’t for everyone, but it got under people’s skin.
Knowing that it was a fool’s errand to try to do it again, Phillips and Phoenix pivoted, or rather, pirouetted into what would become “ Joker: Folie à Deux.” The dark and fantastical musical journey goes deeper into the mind of Arthur Fleck as he awaits trial for murder and falls in love with a fellow Arkham inmate, Lee, played by Lady Gaga. There is singing, dancing and mayhem.
If Phillips and Phoenix have learned anything over the years, it’s that the scarier something is, the better. So once again they rebelled against expectations and went for broke with something that’s already sharply divided critics.
As with the first, audiences will get to decide for themselves when it opens in theaters on Oct. 4.
“HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GET JOAQUIN PHOENIX TO DO A SEQUEL?”
Any comic book movie that makes a billion dollars is going to have the sequel talk. But with “Joker” it was never a given that it would go anywhere: Joaquin Phoenix doesn’t do sequels. Yet it turned out, Phoenix wasn’t quite done with Arthur Fleck yet either.
During the first, the actor wondered what this character would look like in different situations. He and the on-set photographer mocked up classic movie posters, like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Yentl” with the Joker in them and showed them to Phillips.
“Sometimes you’re just done with something and other times you have an ongoing interest,” Phoenix said. “There was just more to explore. … I just felt like we weren’t done.”
So Phillips and his co-writer Scott Silver got to work on a new script, one that leaned into the music in Arthur Fleck’s head. Then his dreary Arkham life turns to Technicolor when he meets and falls for Lee, a Joker superfan.
“Joaquin Phoenix is not going to do a line drive. He’s not going to do something that’s fan service,” Phillips said. “He wanted to be as scared as he was with the first movie. So, we tried to make something that is as audacious and out there and hopefully people get it.”
LADY GAGA FINDS LEE’S VOICE, AND LOSES HER OWN
One decision that’s already sparking debate is casting someone with a voice like Lady Gaga’s and not using that instrument to its full power. Phillips, who was a producer on “A Star is Born,” wanted someone who “brought music with them.” But Lee isn’t a singer.
Actor Lady Gaga and director Todd Phillips delight in returning to Venice Film Festival with “Joker: Folie à Deux,” as Gaga reveals why she sings differently in the eagerly anticipated sequel. (Sept. 5)
“Singing is so second nature to me, and making music and performing on stage is so inside of me. Especially this music,” Gaga said. “I worked extensively on untraining myself for this movie and throwing away as much as I could all the time to make sure I was never locking into what I do. I had to really kind of erase it all.”
Phoenix, who wasn’t quite sure what it would be like working with someone who has such a larger-than-life superstar persona, found Gaga to be refreshingly unpretentious and available. And as an actor, he admired her commitment to the character.
“Her power is in singing and singing a particular way,” he said. “For her to sacrifice that through character, to do something that people would call a musical, but to not be performing it in the way that would sound best as a singer but to approach it from the character was a very difficult process. I was really impressed with her willingness to do that.”
In addition to writing a “waltz that falls apart” for the film, Gaga is releasing a companion album, “Harlequin” on Friday with song titles including “Oh, When the Saints,” “World on a String,” “If My Friends Could See Me Now” and “That’s Life.”
Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix at the Venice Film Festival. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
SORRY PUDDIN’, THIS AIN’T MARGOT ROBBIE’S HARLEY QUINN
“We’re never going to outdo what Margot Robbie did,” Phillips said. “You have to do something 180 degrees in the other direction.”
Sure, Lee will still casually light something on fire to get some time alone with Joker, but the tumult is more internal. And Gaga threw herself into making Lee something new: A real person, grounded in a reality that came before her.
“I spent a lot of my time on developing her inner life (which) for me had a lot to do with her storm and what thing was always making her about to explode,” Gaga said. “There’s a particular kind of danger that she carries with her, but it’s inside and it’s kind of explosive.”
“DO YOU JUST WANT A BRUTE?”
Phoenix and Brendan Gleeson, background center, in a scene from “Joker: Folie à Deux.” (Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)
Brendan Gleeson didn’t have much hesitation about joining the ensemble. He’d worked with Phoenix before on “The Village” and was in awe of what he’d done on the first movie.
“He has an absolute relentless integrity and curiosity and drive,” Gleeson said. “He won’t just plough the same furrow for its own sake.”
But he also didn’t want to play the simple version of an Arkham prison guard.
“I said, look, do you just want a brute? Because I’m not sure I just want to do a brute,” Gleeson said. “He wanted something more. We tried to find layers in this guy.”
CREATING MAYHEM
Anyone who has worked with Phoenix knows that he likes to keep things fresh. That may mean something as small as changing the location of a prop or as big as throwing out choreography that you’ve been rehearsing for months at the last minute.
“I think we both love mayhem and not just in movies but on the set,” Phillips said. “It had to feel like anything can happen.”
Gaga, director Todd Phillips, and Joaquin Phoenix at the Venice Film Festival. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP, File)
With the crew 95% the same as the first, everyone was ready to be flexible. Gaga, too, dove right in, suggesting that they sing live on camera.
“It changed the whole making of the film,” Phillips said. “We were not only singing live, we were singing live differently every take.”
THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT?
Since Arthur killed Robert De Niro’s talk show host Murray Franklin on live television in the first film, he’s become a kind of icon and curiosity thanks in no small part to an oft referenced, but never seen, television movie that was made about him. Now, the trial is going to be televised as well.
“Underneath it all, there’s this idea of corruption and how everything is corrupt in the system, from the prison system to the judicial system to the idea of entertainment, quite frankly,” Phillips said. “This idea that in the States at least, everything is entertainment. A court trial could be entertainment, and a presidential election can be entertainment. So, if that’s true, what is entertainment?”
NO LONGER A COMPLETE WILD CARD
It’s easier to be to the insurgent, not the incumbent, Phillips said. Although a Joker film is never going to fly completely under the radar, the spotlight is undoubtedly more intense this time around.
“You do feel like you have a larger target on your back,” Phillips said.
While much of the film was made on Warner Bros. soundstages in Los Angeles, the production did go back to New York to film again on the Bronx staircase (which now come up on Google Maps as the Joker Stairs) and outside a Manhattan courthouse. The production staged a massive protest scene, with Gaga, almost concurrently with the media frenzy around the Donald Trump hush money trial as if there weren’t enough eyes on them already.
Some are also handwringing about the sequel’s bigger budget and whether it can match the success of the first. But Phillips has learned to take it in stride.
“There’s a different amount of pressure, but that just comes with making movies,” he said. “You can’t please everybody and you just kind of go for it.”
Gleeson has an even sunnier outlook.
“It has kind of arthouse movie integrity on a blockbuster scale. It’s great news for cinema, is the way I look on it,” Gleeson said. “If these event movies can continue to have depth and can be so conflicting like this one, is we needn’t worry about the future of cinema.”
SO, IS IT A MUSICAL?
Phoenix and Lady Gaga in a scene from “Joker: Folie à Deux.” (Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)
One thing Phillips didn’t mean to do was ignite a discourse about what is and isn’t a musical. He’s just trying to manage expectations.
“People go, ‘what do you mean it’s not a musical?’ And it is a musical. It has all the elements of a musical. But I guess what I mean by it is all the musicals I’ve seen leave me happy at the end for the most part, ‘Umbrellas of Cherbourg’ not being one of them. This has so much sadness in it that I just didn’t want to be misleading to people.”
