Guilty Pleasures
By Associated Press
Weinstein won’t face charges in Britain, but he could be hit with new accusations in New York
LONDON | Disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein won’t face charges of indecent assault in Britain, prosecutors announced on Thursday.
The Crown Prosecution Service, which in 2022 authorized two charges of indecent assault against Weinstein, said it decided to discontinue proceedings because there was “no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.’’
“We have explained our decision to all parties,’’ the CPS said in a statement. ‘’We would always encourage any potential victims of sexual assault to come forward and report to police, and we will prosecute wherever our legal test is met.”
Meanwhile, there is a chance Weinstein could be facing new criminal charges in New York.
Veterans’ fundraiser draws Bruce Springsteen, Jerry Seinfeld, Questlove and Norah Jones
NEW YORK | Jerry Seinfeld, Bruce Springsteen, Jim Gaffigan, Norah Jones, Questlove and the ever-present Jon Stewart will stand up later this year at the annual Stand Up for Heroes fundraiser.
The fundraiser, which benefits injured veterans and their families, will also feature comedian Mark Normand and musician Patti Scialfa, who is married to Springsteen. Stewart has been a steady presence at the annual event.
This year’s event will take place Nov. 11 at David Geffen Hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. Since its inception, Stand Up for Heroes has raised $84 million to help veterans and military families.
Stand Up for Heroes was first held in 2007 and is produced by the New York Comedy Festival and the Bob Woodruff Foundation. Woodruff was nearly killed during a 2006 attack in Iraq while embedded with U.S. troops for ABC News.
“Our 18th Stand Up for Heroes promises to be another great evening of laughter, music, and entertainment, as well as a time to recognize our veterans, service members, and their families,” Suni Harford, board chair of the Bob Woodruff Foundation, said in a statement. “With our event falling on Veterans Day, it’s a perfect time to share our veterans’ stories and collectively honor them.”
Tickets for Stand Up for Heroes go on sale Thursday through bobwoodrufffoundation.org and the Lincoln Center box office.
Rushdie’s memoir of his attack is among 12 books up for a top nonfiction prize
LONDON | Salman Rushdie’s account of a stabbing attack that blinded him in one eye is among contenders announced Thursday for a prestigious nonfiction book prize.
Rushdie’s memoir “ Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder “ is among 12 books on the long list for the $66,000 Baillie Gifford Prize.
The 77-year-old novelist recounts being attacked at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York in 2022 as he was about to deliver a lecture on keeping writers safe from harm. A New Jersey man, Hadi Matar, is awaiting trial for the stabbing.
Prize judges called the book “brutally clear, honest and, best of all, funny.”
Rushdie won the Booker Prize for fiction in 1981 for “Midnight’s Children.” He spent years in hiding after Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, in 1989 calling for his death for the alleged blasphemy in his novel “The Satanic Verses.”
Other semi-finalists for the nonfiction prize include Australia’s Richard Flanagan for his memoir “Question 7” and several works on Asian history, including Gary J. Bass’ “Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia” and Viet Thanh Nguyen’s “A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial.”
Founded in 1999, the Baillie Gifford Prize recognizes English-language books from any country in current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts. It has been credited with bringing an eclectic slate of fact-based books to a wider audience.
Last year’s winner was John Vaillant’s real-life climate-change thriller “Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World.”
Finalists for the 2024 prize will be announced Oct. 10 and the winner will be crowned Nov. 19 at a ceremony in London.
Fictional sleuth Sam Spade will be back on the job in upcoming novel by Max Allan Collins
NEW YORK | The story of one of the great fictional sleuths, Dashiell Hammett ‘s Sam Spade, will be continued by prize-winning crime writer Max Allan Collins.
The publisher Hard Case Crime announced Thursday that Collins’ “The Return of the Maltese Falcon” will be released in January 2026, when the Hammett classic featuring Spade, “The Maltese Falcon,” enters the public domain. “The Maltese Falcon,” published in 1930 and known to movie fans for the 1941 adaptation starring Humphrey Bogart, is widely regarded as a model for the hard-boiled detective novel.
“It has been an inspiration to authors and filmmakers, actors and illustrators and musicians — and to me, for the entire 50-plus years I’ve been a novelist,” Collins said in a statement. “Not that writing about the world Hammett created, and those immortal, sometimes immoral characters isn’t challenging — Hammett’s best mystery also happens to be one of the greatest American novels, period.”
When copyright protection ends for a book, anyone is free to use the characters and story line. After F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” entered the public domain, in 2021, new creations included a Tony-winning musical of the same name and a prequel novel, “Nick,” by Michael Farris Smith.
According to Hard Case Crime, Collins’ new book will bring back Spade and Joel Cairo among other Hammett characters, and “a mysterious new femme fatale.” Collins, whose “Road to Perdition” was adapted into a film starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman, has a long history of working with famous literary detectives. He took over the Dick Tracy comic strip in the late 1970s after creator Chester Gould retired, and he was later authorized to continue Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer series.
“I’m something of an old hand at walking in the shoes of the giants who came before, though I never claim to filling them,” Collins told The Associated Press.
Various authorized Spade projects have been released, including a 2009 prequel, Joe Gores’ “Spade & Archer,” a novel about Spade and his professional partner, Miles Archer. Spade was featured this year in an AMC miniseries, “Monsieur Spade,” starring Clive Owen in a sequel that finds the detective retired and living in the South of France.
—From AP reports
