Nation

Harvey Weinstein Charged with Six Counts of Sexual Assault in L.A.

Published

2 years ago

October 2, 2020

Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced former Hollywood executive, has been charged with six more counts of sexual assault in Los Angeles, the New York Times reports. In March, he was sentenced to 23 years in prison for numerous sex crimes he had committed over many decades.

These new charges relate to incidents that occurred over a decade ago, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney, Jackie Lacey. This follows Weinstein being found guilty in February of two sexual assault-related felonies in New York, being charged in April for a 2010 incident in Los Angeles, and in January for allegedly assaulting two women in Los Angeles.

For many decades as one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood, he sexually assaulted dozens of actresses and other women in the industry, often threatening to end their careers if they ever spoke out. In October 2017, women whom he had sexually assaulted began to speak out, which then triggered a tsunami of sexual assault and harassment allegations against him and hundreds of other men in the industry in what came to be known as the #MeToo movement.

The six charges stem to instances throughout the 2000s up through 2010 when he allegedly raped multiple women at a hotel in Beverly Hills. Weinstein, according to the New York Times piece, is facing “a total of four counts each of forcible rape and forcible oral copulation, two counts of sexual battery by restraint and one count of sexual penetration by use of force, involving five victims for crimes dating from 2004 to 2013.”

Currently, Weinstein is held at a prison in Western New York State. An extradition hearing is set to happen on December 11 in Buffalo, NY, with prosecutors saying that they want him extradited to California to try him for the six charges.

You can follow Douglas Braff on Twitter @Douglas_P_Braff.

Related Topics:#metoo harvey weinstein sexual assault

Healthcare

CA to provide all low-income illegal immigrants health care at a cost of ‘$2.7 billion a year’

Published

2 hours ago

July 1, 2022

Sara Carter Staff

On Thursday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a $307.9 billion operating budget “that pledges to make all low-income adults eligible for the state’s Medicaid program by 2024 regardless of their immigration status” reports the Associated Press.

The guarantee of free health care for low-income immigrants here illegally, is a “move that will provide coverage for an additional 764,000 people at an eventual cost of about $2.7 billion a year” adds the AP.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health care nonprofit, people living in the country illegally in 2020 accounted for roughly 7% of the population nationwide, or about 22.1 million people. The border crisis and number of migrants entering the United States illegally has skyrocketed to historic levels since 2020 when President Joe Biden took office.

Medicaid nationwide is the current combination of federal and state governments assisting Americans and low-income adults and children to receive free health care, but the federal government does not cover those living here illegally.

“Some states, including California, have used their own tax dollars to cover a portion of health care expenses for some low-income immigrants” reports the AP. “Now, California wants to be the first to do that for everyone.”

“This will represent the biggest expansion of coverage in the nation since the start of the Affordable Care Act in 2014,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a statewide consumer health care advocacy group. “In California we recognize (that) everybody benefits when everyone is covered.”

While 92% of Californians currently have some form of health insurance, “that will change once this budget is fully implemented, as adults living in the country illegally make up one of the largest groups of people without insurance in the state” the AP concludes.