Bill Cosby faces a good chance of being sent to prison Tuesday, when a judge is expected to sentence the TV star who was convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in 2004.

 

Cosby, 81, will have the opportunity to speak in court before he is sentenced.

 

The once-beloved actor and comedian, dubbed “America’s Dad” for his role as Dr. Cliff Huxtable on the top-ranked, 1980s-era “Cosby Show,” faces anything from probation to 10 years in prison for drugging and molesting Andrea Constand, a Temple University basketball administrator, at his estate near Philadelphia. She went to police a year later, only to have a prosecutor turn down the case.

In the years since Constand first went to police in 2005, more than 60 women have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct, though none of those claims have led to criminal charges.

 

Cosby is the first celebrity of the (hash)MeToo era to go on trial, and the first to be convicted.

 

It’s a reckoning that accusers and prosecutors say has been decades in the making.

 

“The victims cannot be un-raped. Unfortunately, all we can do is hold the perpetrator accountable,” said Gianna Constand, the trial victim’s mother, who testified Monday that her daughter’s buoyant personality was forever changed after the attack.

 

The hearing is set to conclude Tuesday after testimony from a defense psychologist who believes Cosby is no longer a danger, given his age, and should not be branded a “sexually violent predator.”

 

Defense lawyer Joseph Green Jr. urged the judge ignore the protests and activism surrounding the case, and send Cosby home on house arrest.

 

“The suggestion that Mr. Cosby is dangerous is not supported by anything other than the frenzy,” Green said, as demonstrators gathered outside the suburban Philadelphia courthouse.

 

Being labeled a sexually violent predator would make him subject to mandatory lifetime counseling and community notification of his whereabouts.

 

On Monday, Kristen Dudley, a psychologist for the state of Pennsylvania, testified that Cosby fits the criteria for a sexually violent predator, showing signs of a mental disorder that involves an uncontrollable urge to have nonconsensual sex with young women.

 

Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said Cosby would no doubt commit similar crimes if given the chance, warning that the former TV star seemingly gets a sexual thrill out of slipping women drugs and assaulting them.

 

“To say that he’s too old to do that — to say that he should get a pass, because it’s taken this long to catch up to what he’s done?” Steele said, his voice rising. “What they’re asking for is a `get out of jail free’ card.”

 

Cosby, he said, has shown repeatedly that he feels no remorse over his actions. And he said the sentence should send a message to others.

 

“Despite bullying tactics, despite PR teams and other folks trying to change the optics, as one lawyer for the defense put it, the bottom line is that nobody’s above the law. Nobody,” the district attorney said.

 

He urged a five- to 10-year prison sentence .

 

After testifying for several hours at two trials, the first of which ended in a hung jury, Constand spoke in court Monday for just two minutes.

 

“The jury heard me. Mr. Cosby heard me. Now all I am asking for is justice as the court sees fit,” said Andrea Constand, who submitted a much longer victim-impact statement that wasn’t read in court.

 

The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they come forward publicly, which Constand and other accusers have done.

 

Cosby’s side didn’t call any character witnesses, and his wife of 54 years, Camille, was not in court.

 

Cosby became the first black actor to star in a prime-time TV show, “I Spy,” in 1965. He remained a Hollywood A-lister for much of the next half-century.

 

Monday’s proceedings took place as another extraordinary (hash)MeToo drama continued to unfold on Capitol Hill, where Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh faces allegations of sexual misconduct from more than three decades ago.

 

 

 
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The soggy remnants of Florence keep causing chaos in coastal South Carolina long after the hurricane swirled ashore, with rivers still flowing far beyond their banks and a new storm gathering more rain just offshore.

Authorities urged up to 8,000 people leave their homes in Georgetown County, on the South Carolina coast, as the Pee Dee and Waccamaw rivers overflowed with a record 3 meters (10 feet) of flooding reaching a crest in their communities Tuesday.

Some places along Georgetown’s waterfront were predicted to flood for the first time since record keeping began before the American Revolution.

The National Hurricane Center said a broad area of low pressure about 300 miles south of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, is producing showers and thunderstorms on its north side. Forecasters said it could become a tropical depression Tuesday as it approaches the coast, but will dump rain regardless on coastal areas of North and South Carolina.

Pastor Willie Lowrimore and some of his congregants initially stacked sandbags around their South Carolina church as the hurricane approached. Then they moved the pews to higher ground. Finally, the rank black water seeped around and over the sandbags on Monday, flooding the sanctuary.

“I’m going to go one day at a time,” Lowrimore said as the river ruined the church he built almost 20 years ago. “Put it in the Lord’s hands. My hands aren’t big enough.”

Ten days after Florence came ashore, the storm caused fresh chaos Monday in Yauhannah and elsewhere across South Carolina, where rivers kept rising and thousands more people were told to be ready to evacuate.

Georgetown County offered free transportation to emergency shelters from noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday in Pawley’s Island, saying pets are welcome as well as long as they’re kept in crates and have food and supplies.

The economic research firm Moody’s Analytics estimated that Florence has caused around $44 billion in damage and lost output, which would make it one of the 10 costliest U.S. hurricanes. The worst disaster, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, cost $192.2 billion in today’s dollars. Last year’s Hurricane Harvey cost $133.5 billion.

 
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U.S. President Donald Trump returns to the stage at the United Nations on Tuesday to address the annual gathering of world leaders. After an international debut last year in which he threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea, many are anxious about what message he may bring this year to the U.N. General Assembly.

Since last September’s war of words with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — during which Trump memorably called Kim “Rocket Man” and Kim responded from Pyongyang, calling Trump a “dotard” — tensions have cooled dramatically and the two leaders have met amid much fanfare to discuss North Korea’s denuclearization.

This year, however, Iran looks to be in Trump’s sights, with members of his administration ramping up the rhetoric ahead of the General Assembly.​

Tough talk

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the Trump administration is “working to get Iran to behave like a normal nation” and “stop being the world’s largest state sponsor of terror.”

U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley regularly castigates Tehran for its destabilizing role in Syria and Yemen and its support for militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

Earlier this year, Trump announced the United States was withdrawing from the Obama-era 2015 deal to end Iran’s nuclear weapons program and reimposing unilateral sanctions on Tehran. In November, companies doing business with Iran will have to stop or risk being shut out of the U.S. financial system. Washington wants to pressure Tehran back to the negotiating table for a new, broader deal.

Trump will most likely fault Tehran for its destabilizing behavior in the region and disparage the nuclear deal when he addresses the General Assembly early Tuesday. Experts warn the U.S. might find itself somewhat isolated at the gathering.

“The problem for the Trump administration is that many of the U.S.’s allies, including the powers which are signatories to the Iran nuclear deal, they will not join such condemnation,” noted the Middle East Institute’s Ahmad Majidyar. “While these countries share Washington’s concerns about Iran’s controversial ballistic missile program or support for some terrorist and militant groups in the region, they strongly support the nuclear deal and they do not back Washington’s unilateral exit.”

The United States also happens to hold the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council this month and is using the opportunity for Trump to chair a meeting Wednesday on nonproliferation. Expect him to talk a lot about Iran.

“I am sure that will be the most-watched Security Council meeting ever,” Haley said in a nod to her boss’s love of good television ratings.

While Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is also attending this week’s General Assembly, a meeting between the two leaders is highly unlikely. Trump said on Twitter Tuesday that “Despite requests, I have no plans to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Maybe someday in the future. I am sure he is an absolutely lovely man!”

Expect Rouhani to counter any criticism from Trump during his own address to the assembly hours after Trump’s speech, and at a news conference on Wednesday.

North Korea

Denuclearization talks with North Korea is also dominating the week.

South Korea’s president personally relayed a message on Monday to President Trump, telling him that North Korea’s leader wants to meet him again soon to make progress on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

“You are indeed the only person who can solve this problem,” Moon Jae-in, who met Kim Jong Un last week in Pyongyang, told Trump.

The U.S. president responded that he would be “having a second summit with Chairman Kim in the not-to-distant future” and the location remains to be determined but likely would not be Singapore, where he first met the North Korean leader on June 12.

“The relationship is very good – in fact in some ways it is extraordinary,” added Trump.

Multilateralism in peril?

In the year since he made his U.N. debut, Trump has cut funding to the world organization, withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement and the Iran nuclear deal, and quit U.N. bodies, including the Human Rights Council. He has also had difficult outings at gatherings of G-7 leaders and NATO.

“I think that a lot of leaders are going to be pretty cautious with President Trump,” said Richard Gowan, senior fellow at the U.N. University Centre for Policy Research. “The Europeans have been quite burned at a number of recent summits.”

Without naming names, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently told reporters that “multilateralism is under attack from many different directions precisely when we need it most.” He said he would use his meetings to press for a renewed commitment to a “rules-based global order and to the United Nations.”

White House correspondent Steve Herman contributed to this report
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China says it is impossible to hold trade talks with the United States with a new round of tariffs in place.

U.S. imposed duties on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, and a retaliatory set of tariffs imposed by Beijing on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods, took effect on Monday. 

Chinese vice commerce minister Wang Shouwen asked reporters in Beijing Tuesday how can any talks proceed now that the Trump administration has adopted such “large-scale restrictions,” which he said is like “holding a knife to someone’s throat.” Wang led a Chinese delegation to Washington for the last round of talks between the two sides in August. 

The new U.S. duties covers thousands of Chinese-made products, including including electronics, food, tools and housewares. The new tariffs begin at 10 percent, then will rise to 25 percent on January 1, 2019. Among the items included in the new Chinese tariffs on U.S. products are liquefied natural gas.

The Trump administration has argued tariffs on Chinese goods would force China to trade on more favorable terms with the United States.

It has demanded that China better protect American intellectual property, including ending the practice of cyber theft. The Trump administration has also called on China to allow U.S. companies greater access to Chinese markets and to cut its U.S. trade surplus.

The U.S. has already imposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods, and China has retaliated on an equal amount on U.S. goods. And President Donald Trump has threatened even more tariffs on Chinese goods — another $267 billion worth of duties that would cover virtually all the goods China imports to the United States.

Economic forecasters say the trade spat between the world’s two biggest economies could slow the global economy through 2020.
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Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s embattled Supreme Court nominee, tells the Fox News Channel that he is not withdrawing his name from consideration despite the sexual abuse accusations against him. He is calling for a fair process. Meanwhile, Democrat and Republican lawmakers are at odds as to how the allegations should be handled. VOA’s Jesusemen Oni has more.
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