Category: Новини

Alec Baldwin Thursday denied responsibility for the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of his Western movie “Rust,” saying he would have killed himself if he believed the shooting was his fault.

In an emotional television interview, the actor said he did not pull the trigger on the gun he was holding during a rehearsal, and that he did not think he would be criminally charged in the case.

“I feel someone is responsible for what happened, but I know it isn’t me. I might have killed myself if I thought I was responsible, and I don’t say that lightly,” Baldwin told ABC television’s George Stephanopoulos in his first public comments about the Oct. 21 shooting on the set near Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed and director Joel Souza was wounded when the gun fired off a live bullet.

The incident, including how live ammunition made its way to the set, is still being investigated by authorities in New Mexico. No criminal charges have been filed.

Baldwin had been told the gun was “safe” by crew members in charge of checking weapons. 

“I’ve been told by people in the know… that it is highly unlikely I would be charged with anything criminally,” Baldwin said.

Baldwin said he “would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them.”

In his first public description of what happened, he said the Colt revolver went off when he was cocking the gun and rehearsing camera angles with Hutchins.

“In this scene, I am going to cock the gun. I said, ‘Do you want to see that?’ And she said yes. So I take the gun and I start to cock the gun. I’m not going to pull the trigger. I

said, ‘Did you see that?’ She said, ‘Well just cheat it down and tilt it down a little bit like that’. And I cocked the gun and go, ‘Can you see that? Can you see that? And I let go of the hammer of the gun and the gun goes off.”

Baldwin said he first thought Hutchins had fainted and it wasn’t until hours later that he was told she had died. He said he “couldn’t imagine” ever making a movie that involved guns again.

The actor, best known for TV comedy series “30 Rock,” has been widely criticized for not checking the gun thoroughly himself. But he insisted in the interview that was not the actor’s job.

“When that person who was charged with that job, handed me the weapon, I trusted them… In the 40 years I’ve been in this business all the way up until that day, I’ve never had a problem,” he said.

Two crew members have filed civil lawsuits accusing Baldwin, the producers and others of negligence and lax safety protocols on the set. But Baldwin said he “did not observe any safety or security issues at all in the time I was there.”
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After decades of excavation efforts, Egypt has opened the ‘Avenue of Sphinxes,’ a 3,400-year-old walkway that connects Luxor’s main ancient temples. For VOA, Hamada Elrasam has this photo gallery with words by Elle Kurancid.
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A 29-year-old man has been arrested in the death of philanthropist Jacqueline Avant, who was fatally shot this week at the Beverly Hills home she shared with her husband, legendary music executive Clarence Avant, police said Thursday.

Aariel Maynor, who was on parole, was taken into custody early Wednesday by Los Angeles police at a separate residence after a burglary there, Beverly Hills Police Chief Mark Stainbrook said. 

Police recovered an AR-15 rifle at that home that was believed to have been used in the shooting of Jacqueline Avant. Maynor accidentally shot himself in the foot with the gun, police said, and was being treated before he could be booked into jail. 

Authorities said they did not believe there were any other suspects in the Avant case, and Stainbrook said there were no outstanding threats to public safety. 

Police had not yet determined a motive or whether the Avant home was targeted. It was not immediately known if Maynor had an attorney. 

Maynor has previous felony convictions for assault, robbery and grand theft.

Police were called to the Avants’ home early Wednesday after receiving a call reporting a shooting. Officers found Jacqueline Avant, 81, with a gunshot wound. She was taken to the hospital but did not survive. 

Clarence Avant and a security guard at their home were not hurt during the shooting. 

Reported shooting

An hour later, Los Angeles police were called to a home in the Hollywood Hills — about 7 miles (11.27 kilometers) from the Avant residence — because of a reported shooting. They found Maynor there, as well as evidence of a burglary at that home, and took him into custody. 

Jacqueline Avant was a longtime local philanthropist who led organizations that helped low-income neighborhoods including Watts and South Los Angeles, and she was on the board of directors of the International Student Center at the University of California-Los Angeles. 

Grammy-winning executive Clarence Avant is known as the “Godfather of Black Music” and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year. The 90-year-old was also a concert promoter and manager who mentored and helped the careers of artists including Bill Withers, Little Willie John, L.A. Reid, Babyface, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. 

Tributes to Jacqueline Avant poured in from across the country. She was remembered by former President Bill Clinton, basketball icon Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Democratic Representative Karen Bass of California and music star Quincy Jones.
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The Duchess of Sussex on Thursday won the latest stage in her long-running privacy lawsuit against a British newspaper publisher over its publication of parts of a letter she wrote to her estranged father.

The Court of Appeal in London upheld a High Court ruling that the publisher of The Mail on Sunday and MailOnline website unlawfully breached the former Meghan Markle’s privacy by reproducing a large chunk of the handwritten letter she sent her father, Thomas Markle, after she married Prince Harry in 2018.

Associated Newspapers challenged the decision at the Court of Appeal, which held a hearing last month. Dismissing the appeal, senior judge Geoffrey Vos told the court Thursday that “the Duchess had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the letter. Those contents were personal, private and not matters of legitimate public interest.”

The publisher said it was “very disappointed” and was considering an appeal to the U.K. Supreme Court.

In a statement, Meghan, 40, condemned the publisher for treating the lawsuit as “a game with no rules” and said the ruling was “a victory not just for me, but for anyone who has ever felt scared to stand up for what’s right.”

“What matters most is that we are now collectively brave enough to reshape a tabloid industry that conditions people to be cruel, and profits from the lies and pain that they create,” she said.

Associated Newspapers published about half of the letter in five articles in August 2018. Their lawyers disputed Meghan’s claim that she didn’t intend the letter to be seen by anyone but her father.

They said correspondence between Meghan and her then-communications secretary, Jason Knauf, showed the duchess suspected her father might leak the letter to journalists and wrote it with that in mind.

The publisher also argued that the publication of the letter was part of Thomas Markle’s right to reply following a People magazine interview with five of Meghan’s friends alleging he was “cruelly cold-shouldering” his daughter in the run-up to her royal wedding.

But Vos said that the article, which the Mail on Sunday described as “sensational,” was “splashed as a new public revelation” rather than focusing on Thomas Markle’s response to negative media reports about him.

In their appeal, Associated Newspapers had also argued that Meghan made private information public by cooperating with Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, authors of “Finding Freedom,” a sympathetic book about her and Harry.

The duchess’ lawyers had previously denied that she or Harry collaborated with the authors. But Knauf said in evidence to the court that he gave the writers information, and discussed it with Harry and Meghan.

Knauf’s evidence, which hadn’t previously been disclosed, was a dramatic twist in the long-running case.

In response, Meghan apologized for misleading the court about the extent of her cooperation with the book’s authors.

The duchess said she didn’t remember the discussions with Knauf when she gave evidence earlier in the case, and said she had “absolutely no wish or intention to mislead the defendant or the court.”

Meghan, a former star of the American TV legal drama “Suits,” married Harry, a grandson of Queen Elizabeth II, at Windsor Castle in May 2018.

Meghan and Harry announced in early 2020 that they were quitting royal duties and moving to North America, citing what they said were the unbearable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British media. They have settled in Santa Barbara, California, with their two young children.

In her statement Thursday, Meghan said she had been subject to “deception, intimidation and calculated attacks” in the three years since the lawsuit began.

“The longer they dragged it out, the more they could twist facts and manipulate the public [even during the appeal itself], making a straightforward case extraordinarily convoluted in order to generate more headlines and sell more newspapers — a model that rewards chaos above truth,” she said.

Associated Newspapers had argued the case should go to a trial on Meghan’s claims against the publisher.

Associated Newspapers said in a statement Thursday that it believed “judgment should be given only on the basis of evidence tested at trial,” especially since “Mr. Knauf’s evidence raises issues as to the Duchess’s credibility.”

Lawyer Mark Stephens, who specializes in media law and is not connected to the case, said he believed the publisher will appeal, though it would be unusual for Britain’s Supreme Court to take such a case. He said the publisher could also try to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

“There’s an issue of principle here, which is whether this case should be finished before a trial without disclosure, without testing the evidence,” Stephens said. The ruling did not settle questions about whether the letter to Thomas Markle was “always intended for Meghan’s side to publish and to leak and to use as briefing material,” he added.

Associated Newspapers “have a right to this trial, and I think that that is just going to protract the pain for Meghan Markle,” Stephens said.
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Alec Baldwin said he did not pull the trigger of the gun that killed a cinematographer on the movie set of “Rust,” while investigators in New Mexico zeroed in on how live ammunition may have found its way to the set. 

Baldwin, who was holding a gun he was told was safe when it went off, spoke in his first full interview about the October 21 shooting. 

“Well, the trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger,” the actor told ABC television journalist George Stephanopoulos, according to an excerpt released on Wednesday of the interview, which is to be broadcast on Thursday. 

“I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them. Never,” Baldwin added. 

Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed and director Joel Souza was wounded in what Baldwin had previously called a tragic accident on the set of the Western movie he was making near Santa Fe. 

The Santa Fe Sheriff’s Department said on Wednesday that it had no comment on Baldwin’s statement. It was not known whether authorities were pursuing an accidental discharge scenario. 

No criminal charges have been filed. Investigators have been focusing their efforts on how live bullets, rather than dummies, got onto the set. 

Court documents released on Wednesday showed they found “Rust” documents and suspected live ammunition for a revolver like the one Baldwin was using during a search this week at the premises of an Albuquerque supplier of props and weapons for movie sets. 

The supplier, identified as Seth Kenny, earlier told police he believed the live bullets found on the set may have been “reloaded ammunition” that he previously had acquired from a friend, according to the documents. Reloaded ammunition is made up of recycled components, including bullets. 

Kenny could not be reached for comment on Wednesday. 

Baldwin, best known for playing an egotistical TV network executive on the TV comedy series “30 Rock,” has kept a low profile since the accident at the Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe. 

Baldwin, who was the star and also a producer on the low-budget Western, “went through in detail what happened on the set that day,” Stephanopoulos said on Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” show ahead of the interview broadcast. 

Two crew members have filed civil lawsuits accusing Baldwin, the producers and others on the production of negligence and lax safety protocols. The producers have said they are conducting their own internal investigation. 
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Jacqueline Avant, a Los Angeles philanthropist and the wife of music legend Clarence Avant, was fatally shot in Beverly Hills, California, early Wednesday, according to authorities and a Netflix spokeswoman. 

Netflix spokeswoman Emily Feingold confirmed that Jacqueline Avant was killed in the shooting. Avant’s daughter, Nicole, is married to Ted Sarandos, Netflix co-CEO and chief content officer. 

Jacqueline Avant, 81, was a local philanthropist who was the president of the Neighbors of Watts and served on the board of directors of the International Student Center at the University of California-Los Angeles. 

Her husband, Clarence Avant, is known as the “Godfather of Black Music” and was recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Former President Barack Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris were among those who paid tribute to him in a video made for the induction ceremony in October. 

Nicole Avant, who served as U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas from 2009 to 2011, is now a film producer whose work includes a 2019 Netflix documentary about her father, “The Black Godfather.” In an interview with NBC News about the documentary, she praised her mother.

“My mom is really the one who brought to my father and our family the love and passion and importance of the arts and culture and entertainment,” she said. “While my father was in it, making all the deals, my mother was the one who gave me, for example, my love of literature, my love of filmmaking, my love of storytelling.” 

Beverly Hills police have not identified Jacqueline Avant as the victim in Wednesday’s violence. They have said only that detectives were investigating a shooting that killed one person.

The coroner’s office has not yet officially identified the person, either, but said the victim was reported as a woman in her 80s. 

The suspect or suspects fled the scene and have not been found, Beverly Hills police said in a news release. 

Police received a call at 2:23 a.m. reporting the shooting in a neighborhood. Officers found a person with a gunshot wound, who was later pronounced dead. 

The shooting was reported on the street where the Avants live, according to voter registration records. 

The police chief was expected to hold a briefing later in the day with more information. 

The Avants were married in 1967. They had two children, Nicole Avant and Alexander Du Bois Avant. 

Clarence Avant, 90, is a Grammy-winning executive, concert promoter and manager who mentored and helped the careers of artists including Bill Withers, Little Willie John, L.A. Reid, Babyface, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. 

He founded Sussex Records and Tabu Records in the 1960s and 1970s and was the chairman of Motown Records in the 1990s. 

Basketball icon Earvin “Magic” Johnson wrote on Twitter that he and his wife were devastated by the news of Avant’s death, calling her “one of our closest friends.” 

“This is the saddest day in our lives,” he wrote. 

U.S. Representative Karen Bass, a Democrat from California, said she was heartbroken by the violence. 

“Mrs. Avant was a force of compassion and empowerment locally and nationally for decades, as well as a model of service and giving back to those who needed it most,” Bass wrote on Twitter. 
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The late American entertainer and civil rights activist Josephine Baker has become the first Black woman to be inducted into the Pantheon in Paris, the highest honor that France bestows.

Legendary entertainer Josephine Baker famously sang that she had two loves — “J’ai Deux Amours” — my country and Paris.    

She was born in Saint Louis, Missouri, but having come to Paris to perform, she reveled in life here, free of the institutionalized racism and segregation at home.    

Baker quickly became the darling of Parisian society, as people flocked to see her perform in her trademark banana skirt, or in shimmering sequins at the city’s nightspots.     

She made France her home, dividing her time between Paris and a fairytale castle she bought in southwest of the country.    

Baker became French by marriage — and as soon as World War II began, she joined the French Resistance, famously saying “I want to give myself to France, do what you want with me.” 

Her fame served her well —she was able to pass coded messages in her music scores without being stopped.    

She hid Resistance fighters and fleeing Jews in her castle.    

She also fought against racism in the U.S., becoming active in the civil rights movement.  

Her family said it saddened her that she had to leave home to be treated as an equal. 

On Tuesday, she became, the first Black woman, the first American and the first professional entertainer to enter the Pantheon, reserved as the final resting place for just dozens of France’s greatest, including Victor Hugo, Voltaire, and Marie Curie.    

The moving ceremony was led by French president Emmanuel Macron, who called Baker an “exceptional figure” who embodies the French spirit.

 

He noted that she fought for the freedom and equality of all. 

Outside, her music played to the crowds who had come to watch this historic moment.  

At the request of her surviving children, Baker’s remains will stay in Monaco where she was buried. 

Instead, a plaque was placed on a cenotaph containing soil from the four places dearest to her heart: St Louis, Paris, her castle and Monaco. 
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