Bill Cosby’s $3.4M settlement: Evidence of guilt or greed?

Bill Cosby, center, leaves his sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse on Monday, April 9 in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Cosby lawyer Tom Mesereau has signaled he intends to use the $3.4 million settlement to argue that Andrea Constand falsely accused the man once revered as “America’s Dad” in hopes of landing a big payoff. (AP)
Updated 10 April 2018
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Bill Cosby’s $3.4M settlement: Evidence of guilt or greed?

NORRISTOWN, Pennsylvania: The defense in Bill Cosby’s sexual assault retrial is expected to use its opening statement on Tuesday to portray a $3.4 million settlement paid to the woman he’s charged with sexually assaulting as evidence of her greed.
Cosby lawyer Tom Mesereau has signaled he intends to use the settlement to argue that Andrea Constand falsely accused the man once revered as “America’s Dad” in hopes of landing a big payoff.
District Attorney Kevin Steele revealed the previously secret settlement amount in his opening statement on Monday, but didn’t connect the dots to the prosecution’s earlier suggestions that Cosby wouldn’t have paid out so much money if the accusations against him were false.
Mesereau, who won an acquittal in Michael Jackson’s 2005 child molestation case, has said the jury will learn “just how greedy” Constand was.
The settlement amount had been confidential — and was kept out of the first trial — but a judge ruled that both sides could discuss it at this one.
“The question that I’m sure we’re going to hear a lot about is, why would an innocent man pay $3.38 million for something he didn’t do?” said lawyer Dennis McAndrews, who prosecuted chemical heir John E. duPont for murder in 1997 and is not associated with the Cosby retrial.
Cosby, 80, is charged with drugging and molesting Constand, a former employee of Temple University’s basketball program, at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.
Constand says he gave her pills that made her woozy, and then penetrated her with his fingers as she lay incapacitated, unable to tell him to stop.
Cosby’s first trial last spring ended with the jury hopelessly deadlocked. His retrial is expected to last a month.
Cosby faces three counts of aggravated indecent assault, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
At a pretrial hearing last month, Assistant District Attorney Stewart Ryan previewed how the prosecution might counter the defense’s allegations that Constand was setting up Cosby. He alluded to a 1997 case in which Autumn Jackson threatened to go public with claims she was Cosby’s daughter unless he paid her $40 million.
“Of course, people attempted to extort the defendant in the past, and what did he do? He called the police,” Ryan said.
Ahead of opening statements, a topless protester who appeared on several episodes of “The Cosby Show” as a child jumped a barricade and got within a few feet of Cosby as the comedian entered the courthouse.
The woman, whose body was scrawled with the names of more than 50 Cosby accusers as well as the words “Women’s Lives Matter,” ran in front of Cosby and toward a bank of TV cameras but was intercepted by sheriff’s deputies and led away in handcuffs. Cosby seemed startled by the commotion as a half-dozen protesters chanted at him.
The protester, Nicolle Rochelle, 39, of Little Falls, New Jersey, was charged with disorderly conduct and released.
“The main goal was to make Cosby uncomfortable because that is exactly what he has been doing for decades to women,” she said afterward.
Rochelle, an actress, said she didn’t have any bad experiences with Cosby when she was on the show, nor did she intend to physically hurt him. She is a member of the European feminist group Femen, which is known for staging topless protests around the world.
Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt praised deputies for their quick action but urged court officials to increase security. Officials added a second row of barricades, and Cosby left court without incident Monday afternoon.
“It’s a different world. Things have changed,” Wyatt told The Associated Press, referring to recent mass shootings and other cases. “You never know who’s going to want to make a name for themselves.”
The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.


Apple results top Wall Street targets on strong iPhone sales, shares drop on outlook

Updated 01 November 2024
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Apple results top Wall Street targets on strong iPhone sales, shares drop on outlook

  • Early iPhone 16 sales grew faster than iPhone 15 sales, says CEO Tim Cook
  • Apple’s AI strategy includes new iPhone 16 features
Apple beat Wall Street sales and profit expectations on Thursday for its fiscal fourth quarter, bolstered by strong early sales of iPhone 16, and forecast revenue growth of low to mid single digits for the current period.
“We expect our December quarter, total company revenue to grow low to mid single digits year over year,” CFO Luca Maestri said on a call with analysts. Analysts had expected revenue growth of 6.65 percent to $127.53 billion during the first quarter, according to LSEG data.
Shares dropped about 2 percent in extended trading. Apple said sales were $94.93 billion, ahead of Wall Street targets of $94.58 billion, according to LSEG. Earnings of $1.64 per share, excluding a massive one-time tax charge in the European Union, topped analyst expectations of $1.60 per share. Sales during the fourth quarter of Apple’s iPhone, the company’s main product, were up 5.5 percent to $46.22 billion, compared with analyst estimates of $45.47 billion. Other product lines missed expectations and the China sales total was less than Wall Street expected.
Apple’s fourth quarter ended Sept. 28, meaning it reflects only a few days of sales of its iPhone 16 series that went on sale Sept. 20. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook told Reuters that iPhone 16 sales grew faster than iPhone 15 sales did a year earlier, with both phones on sale for the same number of days in the fourth quarter.
Cook also said Apple customers are downloading a new version of its iPhone operating system with what it calls Apple Intelligence features at twice the rate they had the year before.
“We’ve had great feedback from customers and developers already,” Cook said. “We’re off to a good start.”
Tom Forte, an analyst at Maxim Group, attributed Apple’s slight share drop to China sales coming in below expectations.
“We see the potential for sustained weakness in China as we await additional details on the earnings call regarding the potential timing of Apple Intelligence in that important country,” Forte said.
Apple’s call with analysts began at 5 p.m. ET (2100 GMT).
The rollout of Apple’s artificial-intelligence strategy, which it revealed this year, hinges on how well its new phones sell.
Rather than introduce AI in a standalone app or service, Apple has sprinkled Apple Intelligence throughout its most recent operating systems as new features, such as the ability to help re-write an email in a more professional tone. Those features will mostly be available on iPhone 16 models, which feature more powerful computing chips, although the pro versions of the iPhone 15 both work with Apple Intelligence. While some of those Apple Intelligence features arrived this week, others have been delayed, which has led some Wall Street analysts to wonder whether consumers will be slower to upgrade their devices this year while flagship software features trickle out.
The early iPhone 16 results on Thursday could allay some of those concerns. IPhone sales helped steady Apple’s fourth-quarter sales in China, which were down less than 1 percent to $15.03 billion overall. Analysts were expecting China sales of $15.78 billion on average, according to data from Visible Alpha.
Apple’s rivals Microsoft and Meta both said this week they expect continued increases in spending to support their AI strategies. Apple said payments for property and equipment — a measure of its capital expenditures — were up $2.91 billion from the previous quarter to $9.45 billion.
Apple’s lower spending comes in part because it uses third-party data centers for some AI work. Some aspects of Apple Intelligence do rely on Apple’s own data centers, but the company is using its own in-house chips to power those features.
“There would be some (financial) benefit to us by using our own silicon, obviously, but that’s not the reason we’re doing it. We’re doing it because we can provide the same standard of privacy and security that we can provide on device,” Cook said.
Sales in Apple’s services business, which includes iCloud storage and Apple Music, were $24.97 billion, compared with analyst expectations of $25.28 billion, according to LSEG. Mac and iPad sales were $7.74 billion and $6.95 billion, respectively, compared to estimates of $7.82 billion and $7.09 billion, according to LSEG data.
Sales in Apple’s home and wearables business, which includes its Apple Watch and AirPods devices, fell to $9.04 billion, compared with estimates of $9.2 billion, according to LSEG.
Earnings per share were 97 cents including the charge related to a one-time multi-billion-euro European tax payment.

Starbucks reports drop in comparable sales, earnings as global demand suffers

Updated 31 October 2024
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Starbucks reports drop in comparable sales, earnings as global demand suffers

  • The Seattle-based company’s strategy to drive demand through promotions and improved loyalty program offers fell flat

Starbucks on Wednesday reported a 7 percent drop in global comparable sales for the fourth quarter as the coffee chain struggles to revive demand for its pricey lattes in the key US and China markets.
Last week, Starbucks reported preliminary fourth-quarter results and suspended its annual forecast through the next fiscal year as new CEO Brian Niccol tries to steer the company toward the path to growth.
The Seattle-based company’s strategy to drive demand through promotions and improved loyalty program offers fell flat in the face of muted spending from cost-conscious consumers.
Starbucks is also facing an uphill battle in China, where it is dealing with a choppy macroeconomic recovery and stiff competition from local brands.
Comparable sales in China, the company’s second-largest market after the US, declined for three straight quarters, falling 14 percent in the fourth quarter.
Investors, however, are betting on seasoned industry veteran and ex-Chipotle Mexican Grill head Niccol to simplify the company’s leadership and operating structure, and reinvigorate the coffee-house culture at Starbucks’ US stores.
Shares of the company have risen about 26 percent since Niccol replaced Laxman Narasimhan as CEO in a surprise announcement in August. They were down about 1 percent in extended trading on Wednesday.
International comparable sales fell 9 percent in the fourth quarter, compared with expectations of a 6.5 percent drop, as per data compiled by LSEG.
Starbucks’ loyalty program growth was also tempered in the fourth quarter, with 90-day active members in the US remaining flat sequentially. That compares with a 3 percent sequential rise reported in the third quarter.
The company’s net income fell to $909.3 million, or 80 cents per share, from $1.22 billion, or $1.06 per share, a year earlier in the fourth quarter ended Sept 29.


Australian police recover 40,000 stolen coins based on the children’s animated series ‘Bluey’

Updated 30 October 2024
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Australian police recover 40,000 stolen coins based on the children’s animated series ‘Bluey’

  • A police statement said on Wednesday 40,061 coins were found on Tuesday afternoon in a self-storage business in Sydney
  • Police were notified on July 12 that 63,000 of the coins had been stolen from a Sydney warehouse

SYDNEY: Australian police said on Wednesday they had recovered more than 40,000 stolen limited-edition coins based on the hit children’s animated series “Bluey.”
The Bluey coins, with a face value of one Australian dollar (65 US cents) each, were found on Tuesday afternoon in a self-storage business in the Sydney suburb of Wentworthville, a police statement said.
Bluey is the name of a blue heeler puppy whose adventures with her cattle dog family living in the Australian city of Brisbane, where the series is produced, have become popular among children around the globe.
The series premiered in Australia in 2018 and began streaming on Disney+ in 2020.
The 40,061 recovered coins were still in the Royal Australian Mint plastic bags that they had been stolen in three months earlier, police said.
Police were notified on July 12 that 63,000 of the yet-to-be-released series of coins produced by the national mint in Canberra had been stolen from a warehouse in the Sydney suburb of Wetherill Park, not far from where the coins were recovered on Tuesday.
Police formed Strike Force Bandit to investigate. Bandit is the name of Bluey’s dad.
Three people have been charged over the theft.
A 27-year-old woman whom police allege drove two accomplices to the July burglary was arrested on Tuesday hours before the coins were recovered.
Two men had earlier been charged over the theft and police were a searching for a fourth suspect.
Police raided a Sydney property on July 31 and recovered 189 of the coins. They discovered the dealer selling them was a legitimate coin collector who had innocently bought them for AU$1.50 (98 US cents) each. He was paid no compensation for the seized coins.
A Royal Australian Mint spokesperson was not available for comment on Wednesday.


Hello Kitty – the cute, enigmatic character – turns 50 on Friday

Updated 30 October 2024
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Hello Kitty – the cute, enigmatic character – turns 50 on Friday

  • The simple design of the character – who is not a cat, but a little girl from London according to Sanrio – has mileage as a money-spinner for years to come, experts say

TOKYO: Hello Kitty, the cute, enigmatic character that adorns everything from handbags to rice cookers, turns 50 on Friday – still making millions for her Japanese creators.
The simple design of the character – who is not a cat, but a little girl from London according to Sanrio, the company behind Kitty – has mileage as a money-spinner for years to come, experts say.
One woman in the US state of California has amassed so much Hello Kitty merchandise that her husband built her a pink so-called “she-shed” to keep it in.
Stuffed inside are thousands of toys and other items featuring Kitty and her eye-catching red bow, including rows of sunglasses, a swivel chair and novelty gumball dispensers.
“People my age, you know, we are told many times, ‘Hello Kitty is for little kids,’ and I laugh at that,” said Helen from Riverside County, conceding she is “50 plus.”
Helen, who drives a Hello Kitty-decorated SUV and runs the local fan club “Hello Kitty SoCal Babes,” has been “obsessed” with the character since its 1970s US debut.
Her vast collection of Hello Kitty plushies “make me feel warm,” she said, describing spending hours among the soft toys, many of them rare, on a regular basis.
“Something in my inner child gets healed,” she said.
Hello Kitty started life as an illustration on a vinyl coin purse.
It has since appeared on tens of thousands of products – official and unofficial – including tie-ups with Adidas, Balenciaga and other top brands.
The phenomenon shows no sign of slowing, with a Warner Bros movie in the pipeline and a new Hello Kitty theme park due to open next year on China’s tropical Hainan island.
Sanrio’s share price has soared more than seven-fold, pushing its market cap over one trillion yen ($6.8 billion), since young CEO Tomokuni Tsuji took over from his grandfather in 2020.
“We’d be foolishly cynical to say that we don’t need these soft, fluffy, pink things,” Christine R. Yano of the University of Hawaii said.
In fact, “given the fraught nature of our contemporary lives, perhaps we need it now more than ever,” said Yano, author of the book “Pink Globalization” about Hello Kitty.
“This is not a phenomenon that has died or is going to die, at least soon.”
Unlike other Japanese cultural exports such as Pokemon or Dragon Ball, there is minimal narrative around the character, whose full name is Kitty White.
She has a twin sister Mimmy, a boyfriend called Dear Daniel, and a pet cat of her own, Sanrio says. She loves her mother’s apple pie and dreams of becoming a pianist or poet.
The rest is left to fans’ imaginations – just like her “abstract, bare design that can speak with a kind of simplicity and elegance to more people,” Yano said.
“I call her a ‘pure product’,” the researcher added.
Some feminists say Hello Kitty’s lack of mouth is a symbol of disempowerment, but Yano counters that by not depicting it, “she has a greater range of expression.”
Famous Hello Kitty fans include Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry, and her appeal extends to royalty: Britain’s King Charles wished her a happy birthday this year.
And on Hello Kitty’s TikTok account – whose bio is “CEO of supercute” – sardonic memes and footage from “Hello Kitty Day” at US baseball games delight 3.5 million followers.
Hello Kitty is the epitome of Japan’s “kawaii” – cute – soft power, and she is the mascot of a campaign promoting good tourist etiquette in Tokyo.
Posters celebrating the 50th anniversary are on display at Sanrio Puroland theme park, where businesswoman Kim Lu from Manila had brought her four-year-old niece on their holiday.
“This really is our priority here in Tokyo,” she said.
“To be honest, we really don’t know” the reason for Hello Kitty’s ineffable popularity, said Lu, 36.
“I think it’s the kawaii charm.”
Sanrio owns the copyright to hundreds of other popular characters, and Hello Kitty now accounts for 30 percent of profits, down from 75 percent a decade ago.
But Kitty is still a favorite of 23-year-old Rio Ueno, who took an overnight bus from Japan’s northern Niigata region to visit the park with a friend.
“I’ve had Kitty goods around me since I was a small child,” said Ueno, dressed in a fluffy Hello Kitty sweater, sporting a Kitty bag, and clutching a Kitty doll.
“She is someone who is always close to me, and I want it to stay that way.”


’I’m terrified’: French auteur Audiard hits Oscars trail for ‘Emilia Perez’

Updated 30 October 2024
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’I’m terrified’: French auteur Audiard hits Oscars trail for ‘Emilia Perez’

  • Now French director Jacques Audiard is steeling himself for the next, arduous stage — a glitzy yet grueling campaign as an Oscars frontrunner

LOS ANGELES: His film “Emilia Perez” won multiple prizes at Cannes, and was snapped up by Netflix. Now French director Jacques Audiard is steeling himself for the next, arduous stage — a glitzy yet grueling campaign as an Oscars frontrunner.
“I’m terrified,” Audiard told AFP in an interview in Los Angeles, before the surreal musical about a transgender Mexican drug lord hits limited US theaters this Friday, before streaming on November 13.
“Mass success is something very unsettling — it’s not real life.”
With his movie a favorite for the best picture Academy Award, and tipped for nods in categories from best actress to best director, the 72-year-old Audiard will be shuttling back and forth from France to the United States for the next several months.
Modern Oscars campaigns involve a swirl of galas, press conferences, screenings and smaller awards shows, each offering chances to press the flesh with mercurial Hollywood voters in an expensive and crowded marketplace.
Netflix, which has come to dominate Hollywood’s vital streaming sector but has yet to win the coveted best picture Oscar, intends to use all its considerable heft in promoting Audiard’s 10th feature.
Following North American festival appearances in Telluride in August and Toronto in September, “Emilia Perez” opens The American French Film Festival (TAFFF) in Los Angeles this week.
The campaign promises to be much more intense than in 2010, when Audiard’s film “A Prophet” was nominated for an Oscar in the lower profile though still highly prestigious best international film category.
“It’s like going from a provincial competition to the Olympics,” said Audiard, a Parisian dandy, who wore a leopard-print shirt and a scarf around his neck under his blue suit.


Audiard’s genre-hopping film — winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes — is the story of the repentance of Manitas, a powerful Mexican drug lord.
Trapped in a violent, macho world, Manitas employs a lawyer (Zoe Saldana) to arrange a deep, lifelong aspiration — to become a woman, named Emilia.
Finally free to be herself, Emilia begins a crusade to help victims of the narco gangs. She also reconnects with her former wife (Selena Gomez) and children, who believe she is dead, by posing as a distant relative.
Playing both Manitas and Emilia, Karla Sofia Gascon is heavily tipped to become the first openly transgender actress ever nominated for an Oscar.
Indeed, Gascon heavily shaped the role. Audiard had originally envisioned a younger heroine, but upon meeting the Spanish star who transitioned at 46, he quickly reworked the script.
A younger character would not have suffered enough to be credible, he told AFP.
“I tried hard to make it work, but it didn’t add up,” said Audiard.
“When Karla Sofia appeared, it was a revelation. It was like the Virgin appeared before me — it was so clear.”
“When you transition at 46, I can’t even dare to imagine what her experience was like before... what was her life and her pain?“
This epiphany helped Audiard give more substance to his transgender heroine, who was first inspired by the Boris Razon novel “Ecoute.”


Borrowing stylings from opera, “Emilia Perez” is billed as a musical drama but stands at the crossroads of multiple genres — narco-thriller, Latin American telenovela, and LGBTQ drama, among others.
That unique combination was, for Audiard, the “obvious” way to embrace his heroine’s transition and the many contradictory facets of her personality.
The film’s “kitsch” trappings insolently address social issues, such as when choirs sings the refrain “Rhinoplasty! Vaginoplasty” in a hospital-set dance sequence, he said.
“It had to absorb everything. It’s a film that has to be embarrassing,” Audiard said. “We are singing about things that are improbable.”
Those unlikely ingredients have combined to make a work hailed in the American press as one of the leading Oscars contenders, with nominations set to be revealed in January. The ceremony takes place on March 2.
Success would be a crowning achievement for Audiard’s award-winning career, in which he has repeatedly put diverse outsiders at the center of his films.
“Dheepan,” which won the Cannes top prize Palme d’Or in 2015, followed the lives of Tamil refugees in a Paris suburb. “Rust and Bone” chronicled an orca trainer who lost her legs in a horrific accident. “A Prophet” delved into the world of prison violence.
“I am a curious person,” said Audiard.
“I’m fascinated by people who are difficult to categorize.”