Renowned French actor Anouk Grinberg says the sexual assault trial against fellow actor Gérard Depardieu reflects the slow path toward awareness of sex abuse in France, especially in the film industry, after years of silence.
Grinberg, 61, who has appeared in about 30 films, spoke Monday at what was supposed to be the start of Depardieu’s trial but which was postponed until March because of concerns over the 75-year-old actor’s health.
She has known Depardieu for over three decades, appearing with him in a 1991 film and in the film “The Green Shutters.” The trial centers around the alleged sexual assault of two women, a production designer and a director’s assistant, on the set of the latter film in 2021.
Depardieu has denied any wrongdoing. In recent months, Grinberg has decided to speak out on the need for change, joining other French actors who decided to shine a light on the repulsive underside of the country’s industry.
“For several years, I witnessed this … without any reaction, like everyone else,” she told The Associated Press. “Because I was overwhelmed by the violence and also because at the time, we didn’t think of it as violence.”
Yet with the #MeToo movement and more women speaking out, something “has changed” in recent years, she said. “And I’ve taken the measure of this violence.”
Grinberg also said she personally knows actor Charlotte Arnould, who accuses Depardieu of two rapes allegedly committed in August 2018 in a separate case. Depardieu was charged in 2020 with rape and sexual assault in that case, but a magistrate has yet to decide whether to send it to trial.
“What’s complicated in cases of sexual violence is that most of the time, women don’t move, don’t defend themselves. And it’s not because they consent, it’s because they’re just petrified. Something has died inside them, paralyzed by terror, by disgust,” Grinberg said.
“That’s where we have to educate the society as well as the justice system,” she added.
Grinberg described with graphic details Depardieu’s obscene comments she said he kept making on “The Green Shutters” film set.
“The society as a whole has really been a great accomplice in these actions, these excesses, these deviances,” Grinberg said. “I’ve been a witness, on movie sets who were entirely silent or sniggering at this verbal violence.”
She said many in the cinema world remained silent because they were afraid they would not be able to work anymore if they spoke out against powerful people in the industry.
Depardieu’s trial shows that times have changed, especially since the alleged victims did not have high-profile roles. The “little hands” working in the cinema industry “are speaking out and saying enough is enough. Enough is really enough,” Grinberg said.
Earlier this year, French actor Judith Godrèche called on France’s film industry to “face the truth” on sexual violence and physical abuse during the Cesar Awards ceremony, France’s version of the Oscars. “We can decide that men accused of rape no longer rule the (French) cinema,” Godrèche said.
Stubbornly high warranty expenses and lagging cost-cutting efforts are holding back Ford Motor Co.'s profits this year, causing the company to lower its full-year earnings guidance.
That pushed the company’s stock price down 6% in trading after Monday’s closing bell.
The Dearborn, Michigan, automaker, which reported third-quarter earnings Monday, said its net profit tumbled nearly 26% as it took $1 billion in accounting charges to write down assets for a canceled three-row electric SUV.
Ford said it made $892 million from July through September, compared with $1.2 billion it made a year earlier.
But excluding the one-time items, the company made an adjusted pretax profit of $2.6 billion, or 49 cents per share. That beat analyst estimates of 46 cents, according to FactSet.
Revenue rose 5.5% to $46.2 billion, also beating Wall Street predictions. Ford reduced its full-year pretax income guidance to $10 billion, at the low end of the $10 billion to $12 billion it expected at the end of the second quarter, spooking investors.
“Cost, especially warranty, has held back our earnings power, but as we bend that curve, there is significant financial upside for investors,” CEO Jim Farley told analysts on a conference call.
Chief Financial Officer John Lawler said warranty costs were slightly below the third quarter of last year, but still high. The company wouldn’t give numbers until it files its quarterly report with securities regulators on Tuesday but said costs will be higher than a year ago.
Ford reported $800 million of increased warranty costs for the second quarter of this year.
Farley has been trying to get a handle on warranty costs for the past four years. In October of 2020, he said the company was working to cut quality-related repairs after glitch-prone small-car transmissions hit the automaker’s bottom line.
Ford has said that it has a $7 billion cost gap with competitors, and Lawler said Monday it has made progress on that figure. The problem is competitors, which he did not identify, are cutting costs too. “We’ve taken cost out, but we’re not doing it at a pace faster than our competition,” he told analysts.
Ford has removed $2 billion in material, freight and labor costs this year, but that was offset by warranties and inflation at its Turkish joint venture, he said.
He said Ford is focused on reducing warranty and other costs, which will show up in later quarters.
The company’s plans are working, as evidenced by 10 straight quarters of revenue growth, Lawler said.
Farley said Ford has restructured its operations in Europe, South America, India and China, which collectively lost $2.2 billion in 2018 but together are profitable now. For instance, China, including exports, has contributed over $600 million to pretax earnings this year, Farley said.
Although the appellate judges firmly asserted that counting late ballots violates federal law, even if those ballots are postmarked by Election Day, the judges stopped short of an order immediately blocking Mississippi from continuing the practice. Their ruling noted federal court precedents have discouraged court actions that change established procedures shortly before an election.
The outcome may be negligible in most elections in heavily Republican Mississippi, but the case could affect voting in swing states if the Supreme Court ultimately issues a ruling.
The three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a July decision by U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr., who had dismissed challenges to Mississippi’s election law by the Republican National Committee, the Libertarian Party of Mississippi and others.
The appeals court order sent the case back to Guirola for further action.
The appeals court said its ruling Friday would not be returned to a lower court until seven days after the deadline for appealing their decision has passed — which is usually at least 14 days. That would put the effect of the ruling well past Nov. 5.
UCLA law professor Richard Hasen wrote on his election law blog that the appeals court ruling was a “bonkers opinion” and noted that “every other court to face these cases has rejected this argument.”
Republicans filed more than 100 lawsuits challenging various aspects of vote-casting after being chastised repeatedly by judges in 2020 for bringing complaints about how the election was run only after votes were tallied.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley praised the ruling for upholding “commonsense ballot safeguards” and said voters deserve “a transparent election which ends on November 5th.”
A spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee did not immediately comment on the ruling.
Mississippi is one of several states with laws allowing mailed ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The list includes swing states such as Nevada and states such as Colorado, Oregon and Utah that rely heavily on mail voting.
In July, a federal judge dismissed a similar lawsuit in Nevada. The Republican National Committee is asking the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to revive that case.
A conservative federal court said Mississippi cannot count mail-in ballots that arrive shortly after Election Day, however Friday’s decision was not expected to affect the Nov. 5 election.
Although the appellate judges firmly asserted that counting late ballots violates federal law, even if those ballots are postmarked by Election Day, the judges stopped short of an order immediately blocking Mississippi from continuing the practice. Their ruling noted federal court precedents have discouraged court actions that change established procedures shortly before an election.
The outcome may be negligible in most elections in heavily Republican Mississippi, but the case could affect voting in swing states if the Supreme Court ultimately issues a ruling.
The three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a July decision by U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr., who had dismissed challenges to Mississippi’s election law by the Republican National Committee, the Libertarian Party of Mississippi and others. The appeals court order sent the case back to Guirola for further action.
The appeals court said its ruling Friday would not be returned to a lower court until seven days after the deadline for appealing their decision has passed — which is usually at least 14 days. That would put the effect of the ruling well past Nov. 5.
UCLA law professor Richard Hasen wrote on his election law blog that the appeals court ruling was a “bonkers opinion” and noted that “every other court to face these cases has rejected this argument.”
Republicans filed more than 100 lawsuits challenging various aspects of vote-casting after being chastised repeatedly by judges in 2020 for bringing complaints about how the election was run only after votes were tallied.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley praised the ruling for upholding “commonsense ballot safeguards” and said voters deserve “a transparent election which ends on November 5th.”
A spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee did not immediately comment on the ruling.
Mississippi is one of several states with laws allowing mailed ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The list includes swing states such as Nevada and states such as Colorado, Oregon and Utah that rely heavily on mail voting.
In July, a federal judge dismissed a similar lawsuit in Nevada. The Republican National Committee is asking the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to revive that case.
A state judicial panel is recommending that Montana’s Republican attorney general be suspended from practicing law for 90 days for openly defying court orders and repeatedly attacking the integrity of justices in his defense of a law permitting the state’s Republican governor to directly fill judicial vacancies.
The law at issue was part of a nationwide GOP effort to forge a more conservative judiciary and was eventually upheld by Montana’s Supreme Court.
Both sides have up to 30 days to object to Wednesday’s recommendation by the five-member Commission on Practice and another 30 days to respond to objections before the Supreme Court hands down its decision. Five of Montana’s seven justices filed motions Thursday to recuse themselves from ruling on the punishment, meaning they would likely be replaced by state District Court judges.
If Austin Knudsen’s license is suspended it could affect his ability to do his job as attorney general, officials said. The state Constitution requires the attorney general to be “an attorney in good standing admitted to practice law in Montana who has engaged in the active practice thereof for at least five years before election.”
Department of Justice spokeswoman Emilee Cantrell said the office disagrees with the recommended punishment and intends to file an objection. The office instead supports a 2022 special counsel investigation recommendation that suggested “this could have been handled privately, avoiding a politically charged disagreement.” The judicial panel had rejected that recommendation.
In its findings, the panel said there was no doubt actions by the attorney general’s office “repeatedly, consistently and undeniably,” violated professional conduct rules and are “arguably deserving of the most serious consequences.”
They also dismissed a suggestion that holding Knudsen “accountable for his conduct may have further consequences,” because its only focus was on whether his conduct violated the Montana Rules of Professional Conduct.
In court filings, Knudsen’s office had accused state Supreme Court justices of judicial misconduct, corruption, self-dealing, “actual impropriety,” and having a conflict of interest.
The judicial panel noted that Knudsen acknowledged during a hearing earlier this month that a lot of things should have been done differently in representing the Legislature over the extent of its subpoena powers.
“If I had this to do over, I probably would not have allowed language like this — so sharp — to be used,” Knudsen testified. However, the panel also noted that Knudsen repeatedly refused to admit that any of his actions or language in court filings violated professional conduct rules.
The issue dates back to 2021 when the Legislature was working on a law to eliminate the Judicial Nomination Commission, which screened judicial applicants.
Lawmakers learned a Supreme Court administrator used state computers to survey judges about the legislation on behalf of the Montana Judges Association.
After the court administrator said she had deleted emails related to the survey, the Legislature subpoenaed the Department of Administration, which includes the state’s IT department, and received 5,000 of the administrator’s emails by the next day. The court administrator didn’t learn about the subpoena until after the emails had been turned over to the Legislature in April 2021.
The Supreme Court temporarily quashed the subpoena that same month — an order the attorney general’s office said it “does not recognize” — and in July 2021 ordered the emails be returned immediately. The attorney general’s office didn’t return the emails until March and April of 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Knudsen’s office defied the court order without seeking a stay, something the panel called “beyond the pale.”
This isn’t the only controversy marking Knudsen’s nearly four years in office. He is seeking reelection.
He was accused of pressuring a Helena hospital over its refusal to administer a parasite drug to a COVID-19 patient and his office also sided with a man who made an armed threat over a pandemic mask mandate. He tried to block three constitutional initiatives from the November ballot, recruited a token opponent for the June primary so he could raise more money, and was sued after forcing the head of the Montana Highway Patrol to resign.
A recent Supreme Court decision doesn’t mean New York can’t enforce laws banning firearms from “sensitive” places such as public transportation, hospitals and schools, a federal appeals court said Thursday, repeating findings it made a year ago.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan wrote that it had complied with a high court request that it review its December 2023 decision in light of a June ruling by the Supreme Court in another gun case.
The Supreme Court also asked seven other state and federal courts to reexamine their decisions, the 2nd Circuit noted.
The appeals court said the Supreme Court case involved a regulation of firearms “quite different” than New York’s.
Last December, a three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit said New York could continue enforcing laws banning firearms in 20 categories of “sensitive” locations and could require handgun owners to be of “good moral character.”
It also disallowed a requirement that handgun license applicants reveal their social media accounts and blocked a ban on concealed weapons in places such as shops, supermarkets and restaurants.
In 2022, the Supreme Court struck down New York’s old rules, which had restricted guns being carried outside the home to people who could show they had a special need for protection.
A New York gun law passed after that decision made it easier for more people to get handgun licenses but also restricted where guns could be carried. The law, which was passed after a white supremacist killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, also banned guns in places such as zoos, playgrounds, schools, theaters, bars, voting locations, buses and airports.
In a footnote, the 2nd Circuit said its ruling comes “at a very early stage of this litigation.”
It said its decision does not determine the ultimate constitutionality of the challenged aspects of the law because the provisions must now be subjected to further argument by lawyers along with historical analysis and any evidence unearthed as the case proceeds.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement that the appeals court upheld the “common-sense measure” she signed into law two years ago.
She said the law was “saving lives across New York” and was a factor in New York having one of the nation’s lowest firearm mortality rates.
Gun Owners of America, a lobbying organization involved in the litigation, called Thursday’s decision “an incredibly frustrating ruling.”
“The Second Circuit got it wrong the first time, SCOTUS told them so and said try again, and this nearly identical ruling is a slap in the face to the Justices and every gun owner across New York,” Erich Pratt, the group’s senior vice president, said in a statement.
Sam Paredes, speaking on behalf of the group’s board, said it might again ask the Supreme Court to intercede.
“This ruling will continue to leave innocent New Yorkers, who simply want the ability to protect themselves and their loved ones, defenseless,” he said.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement that the ruling was “another victory in our effort to protect all New Yorkers from the scourge of gun violence.”
She added: “After repeated attempts to weaken our gun safety regulations, once again we have prevailed.”
David Pucino, legal director of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun safety group that also submitted papers in the case, said the ruling shows that the “Second Circuit had it right before and the Second Circuit has it right now.”
“Gun safety laws remain constitutional since they are consistent with our history and tradition,” he added.
Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo have lived in Colorado Springs for decades in the elephant exhibit at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Now an animal rights group is trying to release the elephants from what they say is essentially a prison for such highly intelligent and social animals known to roam for miles a day in the wild.
Colorado’s highest court will hear arguments Thursday on whether the older African female elephants should be legally able to challenge their captivity under a long-held process used by prisoners to dispute their detention. The animal rights group NonHuman Rights Project says the animals are languishing while “unlawfully confined” at the zoo, and wants them released to an unspecified elephant sanctuary.
“They are suffering immensely and unnecessarily. Without judicial intervention, they are doomed to suffer day after day, year after year, for the rest of their lives,” a lawyer for the group, Jake Davis, said in a May brief submitted to the Colorado Supreme Court.
The main legal issue is whether or not the elephants are considered persons under the law, and therefore able to pursue a petition of habeas corpus challenging their detention. The NonHuman Rights project argues that legal personhood is not limited to humans.
The lawsuit is similar to an unsuccessful one the group filed challenging the confinement of an elephant named Happy at the Bronx Zoo in 2022. New York’s Court of Appeals ruled that Happy, while intelligent and deserving of compassion, cannot be considered a person illegally confined with the ability to pursue a petition seeking release.
The New York ruling said giving such rights to an elephant “would have an enormous destabilizing impact on modern society” and change how humans interact with animals.
The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo says moving the elephants and potentially placing them with new animals would be cruel at their age, potentially causing them unnecessary stress. It says they are not used to being in larger herds and, based on its experience, they do not have the skills or desire to join them.
In a statement ahead of Thursday’s hearing, the zoo claimed the NonHuman Rights Project isn’t concerned about the elephants but is just trying to create a judicial precedent that would allow the captivity of any animal to challenged.