NEW YORK: Opening statements in Harvey Weinstein’s #MeToo rape retrial began Wednesday with a prosecutor telling jurors about the three allegations at issue in the case, including one involving a woman who wasn’t part of the original trial in 2020. Weinstein’s lawyer countered that the women and the one-time Hollywood powerbroker had consensual relationships.
Kaja Sokola, a former model from Poland, alleges that Weinstein pinned her to a bed and forcibly abused her in 2006 after luring her to his Manhattan hotel room with the promise of movie scripts. Four years earlier, Sokola alleges, he molested her at his apartment when she was just 16, Assistant District Attorney Shannon Lucey told jurors.
Weinstein, 73, is charged in connection with the 2006 allegation, but not the earlier one. Sokola previously sued and received $3.5 million in compensation, Lucey said.
It’s the first time Manhattan prosecutors have detailed Sokola’s allegations, which were added to the case after New York’s highest court overturned Weinstein’s conviction last year. The rest of the retrial involves allegations from two women who were part of the original trial — Miriam Haley and Jessica Mann.
The Associated Press does not generally identify people alleging sexual assault unless they consent to be named, as Haley, Mann and Sokola have done.
Emphasizing Weinstein’s onetime influence in the movie industry, Lucey said the ex-studio boss used “dream opportunities as weapons” to prey on women. He is charged with raping Mann and forcing himself on Haley and Sokola.
“The defendant wanted their bodies, and the more they resisted, the more forceful he got,” Lucey said.
Weinstein, she said, “held the golden ticket: a chance to make it, or not.”
The Oscar-winning producer, seated in the wheelchair he now uses because of health problems, whispered with one of his lawyers and appeared to take notes as Lucey described his alleged crimes, but he didn’t look at the jury.
Weinstein has pleaded not guilty and denies raping or sexually assaulting anyone.
His lawyer, Arthur Aidala, told jurors in his opening statement that Weinstein engaged in “mutually beneficial relationships” with women who wanted his help in the industry but that nothing he did was illegal.
“In this case, the casting couch is not a crime scene,” Aidala argued.
He implored jurors to view the case with an open mind and to wait until they’ve heard all of the evidence before reaching a conclusion. Acknowledging Weinstein’s former career, Aidala compared the opening stage of the trial to a movie trailer.
“How often is a preview great, but the movie falls flat on its face?” the defense lawyer said. “After you hear all of the evidence, their case is going to fall flat on its face.”
The audience in the packed courtroom included Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. He inherited the landmark #MeToo case, brought by his predecessor, when the Court of Appeals last year threw out the 2020 conviction and 23-year prison sentence because the judge allowed testimony about allegations Weinstein was not charged with. The reversal led to the retrial.
Weinstein’s retrial is playing out at a different cultural moment than the first. #MeToo, which exploded in 2017 with allegations against Weinstein, has evolved and ebbed.
The jury counts seven women and five men — unlike the seven-man, five-woman panel that convicted him in 2020 — and there’s a different judge.
At the start of Weinstein’s first trial, chants of “rapist” could be heard from protesters outside. This time, there was none of that.
Weinstein is being retried on a criminal sex act charge for allegedly forcibly abusing Haley, a movie and TV production assistant at the time, in 2006, and a third-degree rape charge for allegedly assaulting Mann, a then-aspiring actor, in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013.
Weinstein also faces a criminal sex act charge for allegedly abusing Sokola, also in 2006. Prosecutors said she came forward days before his first trial but wasn’t part of that case. They said they revisited her allegations when his conviction was thrown out.
Weinstein’s acquittals on the two most serious charges at his 2020 trial — predatory sexual assault and first-degree rape — still stand.
Sokola’s lawyer, Lindsay Goldbrum, said Weinstein’s retrial marks a “pivotal moment in the fight for accountability in sex abuse cases” and a “signal to other survivors that the system is catching up — and that it’s worth speaking out even when the odds seem insurmountable.”
During jury selection, a prosecutor asked prospective jurors whether they’d heard of the #MeToo movement. Most said they had, but that it wouldn’t affect them either way.
Those who indicated it might were excused.
Harvey Weinstein’s rape retrial opens at a different #MeToo moment
https://arab.news/buv4q
Harvey Weinstein’s rape retrial opens at a different #MeToo moment
- It’s the first time Manhattan prosecutors have detailed Sokola’s allegations
- Emphasizing Weinstein’s onetime influence in the movie industry, Lucey said the ex-studio boss used “dream opportunities as weapons” to prey on women
2025 among world’s three hottest years on record, WMO says
- All eight datasets confirmed that the last three years were the planet’s three hottest since records began, the WMO said
- The slight differences in the datasets’ rankings reflect their different methodologies and types of measurements
BRUSSELS: Last year was among the planet’s three warmest on record, the World Meteorological Organization said on Wednesday, as EU scientists also confirmed average temperatures have now exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming for the longest since records began.
The WMO, which consolidates eight climate datasets from around the world, said six of them — including the European Union’s European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the British national weather service — had ranked 2025 as the third warmest, while two placed it as the second warmest in the 176-year record.
All eight datasets confirmed that the last three years were the planet’s three hottest since records began, the WMO said. The warmest year on record was 2024.
THREE-YEAR PERIOD ABOVE 1.5 C AVERAGE WARMING LEVEL
The slight differences in the datasets’ rankings reflect their different methodologies and types of measurements — which include satellite data and readings from weather stations.
ECMWF said 2025 also rounded out the first three-year period in which the average global temperature was 1.5 C above the pre-industrial era — the limit beyond which scientists expect global warming will unleash severe impacts, some of them irreversible.
“1.5 C is not a cliff edge. However, we know that every fraction of a degree matters, particularly for worsening extreme weather events,” said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at ECMWF.
Burgess said she expected 2026 to be among the planet’s five warmest years.
CHOICE OF HOW TO MANAGE TEMPERATURE OVERSHOOT
Governments pledged under the 2015 Paris Agreement to try to avoid exceeding 1.5 C of global warming, measured as a decades-long average temperature compared with pre-industrial temperatures.
But their failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions means that target could now be breached before 2030 — a decade earlier than had been predicted when the Paris accord was signed in 2015, ECMWF said. “We are bound to pass it,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. “The choice we now have is how to best manage the inevitable overshoot and its consequences on societies and natural systems.”
Currently, the world’s long-term warming level is about 1.4 C above the pre-industrial era, ECMWF said. Measured on a short-term basis, average annual temperatures breached 1.5 C for the first time in 2024.
EXTREME WEATHER
Exceeding the long-term 1.5 C limit would lead to more extreme and widespread impacts, including hotter and longer heatwaves, and more powerful storms and floods. Already in 2025, wildfires in Europe produced the highest total emissions on record, while scientific studies confirmed specific weather events were made worse by climate change, including Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean and monsoon rains in Pakistan which killed more than 1,000 people in floods.
Despite these worsening impacts, climate science is facing political pushback. US President Donald Trump, who has called climate change “the greatest con job,” last week withdrew from dozens of UN entities including the scientific Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The long-established consensus among the world’s scientists is that climate change is real, mostly caused by humans, and getting worse. Its main cause is greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, which trap heat in the atmosphere.
