Michael K. Williams’ cause of death has been confirmed as an accidental overdose.

The actor – who was best known for playing Omar Little in ‘The Wire’ – was found dead at his home in Brooklyn, New York, earlier this month at the age of 54.

And according to Variety magazine, the New York City’s chief medical examiner’s office has officially ruled his passing an accident, stating his death occurred as the result of an overdose.

The medical examiners also stated Michael had fluorofentanyl, heroin, and cocaine in his system at the time of his death.

Marianna Shafran, Michael’s long-time representative, was the one to confirm the sad news of his passing.

She said: “It is with deep sorrow that the family announces the passing of Emmy-nominated actor Michael Kenneth Williams. They ask for your privacy while grieving this insurmountable loss.”

Michael was found face-down in his apartment by his nephew, who had gone to visit him as no-one had heard from him in several days.

His nephew raised the alarm and a doorman subsequently called emergency services, reportedly telling the phone operator the ’12 Years A Slave’ star was “unresponsive” and “felt cold”.

At the time of his death, it was suspected there were drugs in his system after police allegedly found heroin on his kitchen counter and drug paraphernalia was discovered elsewhere in the apartment.

But Staci DuPont – who is married to the nephew who found Michael’s body – slammed the reports as untrue.

She said: “That’s not factual. We don’t have anything more to say at this time … “He meant everything to us. He was a wonderful, beautiful, loving person. He’d give you the shirt off his back. He was always there to help anybody who needed him, whether family or friends. It’s a great loss to us.”

(In ninth paragraph corrects figure to $1.4 billion, not $1.4 million)

By Daniel Trotta

(Reuters) -Prosecutors in Northern California on Friday charged power utility Pacific Gas & Electric with four counts of manslaughter and other felonies, alleging it failed to cut down a sickly tree that fell onto power lines and sparked a deadly wildfire.

The company denied it committed a crime.

The Zogg Fire started nearly one year ago when a 100-foot (30-meter) pine tree fell onto an electrical line and started a fire that killed four people, destroyed 204 structures and burned more than 56,000 acres (22,600 hectares), Shasta County District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett told reporters.

That tree, leaning downslope toward the electrical line with a cavity in its trunk, had been identified as dangerous in 2018 and PG&E had a legal responsibility to remove it, Bridgett said.

“Their failure was reckless, and was criminally negligent, and it resulted in the death of four people,” Bridgett said, naming the victims as Feyla McLeod, age 8, Alaina Rowe McLeod, 46, Kenneth Vossen, 52, and Karin King, 79.

The company was charged with 31 counts in all, including 11 felonies, the latest in a series of criminal accusations in recent years.

PG&E accepted the determination by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) that the fire was started when a tree fell on its line, but the company denied it was criminally liable, disputing Bridgett’s characterization that PG&E contractors had marked the tree as hazardous.

“We accept that conclusion. But we did not commit a crime,” Chief Executive Patti Poppe said in statement.

Two arborists had determined the tree, one of 8 million within striking distance of its lines, could stay, Poppe said. Meanwhile the company will remove 300,000 trees statewide this year, part of a $1.4 billion investment in vegetation management she said.

“I came to PG&E to make it right and make it safe,” said Poppe, who was named CEO last year after the company paid a $13.5 billion settlement to resolve claims related to several Northern California wildfires and emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

While no individuals can go to jail when a company is criminally charged, the company faces undetermined fees, fines and remediation costs if convicted.

PG&E last year pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of unlawfully starting the Camp Fire, which wiped out the town of Paradise.

The Camp Fire was the deadliest and most destructive fire in the state’s history, Cal Fire said.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

Los Angeles (AFP) – A follow-up to “Tiger King,” the documentary series that captivated millions around the world in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, will be released this year, Netflix said Thursday.

The original series followed “Joe Exotic,” a gay, mullet-wearing private zookeeper who ruled over a menagerie of big cats, wacky employees and misfit lovers, but ended up in prison for attempted murder.

It was watched by 64 million households in its first four weeks alone after its March 2020 premiere.

“Tiger King 2” promises “more madness and mayhem,” with a trailer featuring Exotic apparently phoning in from prison, where he is serving his 22-year sentence.

The brief teaser also features footage of Carole Baskin — the animal rights activist Exotic tried to have killed — although she told Fox Business she declined to participate after her “false portrayal” in the first series.

The original “Tiger King” focused on the rivalry between Exotic and Baskin, who had for years accused the flamboyant businessman of abusing the animals in his park.

It also heavily featured wild and unsubstantiated rumors that Baskin fed her husband to their sanctuary’s tigers. Baskin denies any involvement in her husband’s disappearance.

The trailer for the sequel series includes a billboard asking “Who murdered Don Lewis” and offering a $100,000 reward for information about the fate of Baskin’s husband.

In May, US officials seized 68 lions, tigers and lion-tiger hybrids from the former animal park of Joe Exotic, now run by Jeffrey and Lauren Lowe.

The current owners had repeatedly violated laws requiring appropriate care for animals and had not complied with an order to hire a qualified veterinarian, according to Justice Department officials.

Directors Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin return for “Tiger King 2,” which Netflix is billing as “the continuation of a cultural phenomenon.” 

Sarah Jessica Parker is “not ready” to publicly mourn the loss of her close friend, Willie Garson.

The 56-year-old actress has been left devastated by the death of her ‘Sex and the City’ co-star – who played her character Carrie Bradshaw’s best friend Stanford Blatch in the HBO series and subsequent spin-off movies – and she can’t face writing a tribute to him just yet.

Willie died on Tuesday (21.09.21) aged 57 following a short illness, and the majority of the cast have shared touching tributes on social media, including Chris Noth (Mr. Big), who simply posted: “Willie”, with a love heart and heartbroken emoji.

Commenting on her on-screen husband’s post, Sarah wrote: “Thank you dearest Chris. I’m not ready yet. Xxx.”

Kristin Davis (Charlotte York Goldenblatt) has also been left “bereft” by her co-star’s passing.

The 56-year-old actress hailed the ‘White Collar’ actor “smart and funny”, as she reflected on the decades that they have known one another.

She wrote on Instagram: “I first met Willie in 1995 on the spooky nighttime set of ‘The X-files’. He immediately made me laugh.

“Little did I know that we would have the joy of sharing ‘Sex and the City’ + ‘And Just Like That’ together. Willie is beloved by our entire community. He was smarter and funnier than you ever would have imagined. We are bereft without him.”

Kristin has two adopted children, Gemma and Wilson, and she bonded with Willie – who adopted Nathen, now 20, in 2009 – over their shared experience of single parenthood.

She added: “I really want to pay tribute to his fearless commitment to single fatherhood.

“We spoke about being single parents through adoption often. And nothing gave him more joy and pride than his son Nathen. Nathen’s strength and wisdom beyond his years are evident in his beautiful tribute to his dad.

“The outpouring of love is earned dear Willie. I am thankful for all of the time we had and grateful that so much of your bright light is on film forever. Maybe we can do our pod cast the next time around ? We love you forever xoxo.(sic)”

Nathen previously shared a touching tribute to his father on Instagram.

He wrote: “I love you so much papa. Rest In Peace and I’m so glad you got to share all your adventures with me and were able to accomplish so much.

“I’m so proud of you. I will always love you, but I think it’s time for you to go on an adventure of your own. You’ll always be with me. Love you more than you will ever know and I’m glad you can be at peace now. You always were the toughest and funniest and smartest person I’ve known.

“I’m glad you shared you’re love with me. I’ll never forget it or lose it.”

Washington (AFP) – A bipartisan effort spurred by the death of George Floyd to pass a police reform bill in Congress has collapsed, US lawmakers said Wednesday, in a setback for President Joe Biden.

The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act was approved by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives in March but has been stalled in the Senate.

Democratic and Republican senators had been seeking to hammer out a compromise and bring the bill to the floor of the Senate for a vote but they said on Wednesday that they have given up.

The failure of the negotiations is a blow to Biden, who was elected last year with strong African-American support and has pledged to make police reform a priority of his administration.

Biden accused Republicans of rejecting even “modest reforms” while “refusing to take action on key issues that many in law enforcement were willing to address.”

“I still hope to sign into law a comprehensive and meaningful police reform bill that honors the name and memory of George Floyd, because we need legislation to ensure lasting and meaningful change,” he said in a statement.

Biden said the White House will consult with members of Congress, law enforcement, civil rights groups and victims’ families to “define a path forward,” including potential executive actions.

Democratic Senator Cory Booker had been engaged in months of negotiations with Republican Senator Tim Scott in a bid to reach agreement on the legislation.

“It remains out of reach right now,” Booker said. “The time has come to explore all other options to achieve meaningful and common sense policing reform.”

Scott said the two sides had reached agreement on numerous areas including banning chokeholds, limiting the transfer of military equipment to police and increased mental health resources.

“Democrats said no because they could not let go of their push to defund our law enforcement,” he said, adding that they have “squandered a crucial opportunity to implement meaningful reform.”

The House bill was named after George Floyd, the 46-year-old African-American man who was murdered by a white Minneapolis police officer in May 2020, sparking protests against racial injustice and police brutality across the United States.  

Ben Crump, a lawyer for the Floyd family, expressed “extreme disappointment.”

“In the last year and a half, we have witnessed hundreds of thousands of Americans urging lawmakers to bring desperately needed change to policing in this country so there can be greater accountability, transparency, and ultimately trust in policing,” Crump said.

Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP civil rights organization, said it was “disheartening that there is a lack of courage and bravery to bring about true reform.” 

“But one thing is clear, the battle for police reform is far from over,” Johnson said. “It will remain a top priority for us because innocent lives are at stake.”

New York (AFP) – Singer R. Kelly used “lies, manipulation, threats and physical abuse” to operate an “enterprise” enabling him to commit decades of sex crimes, the prosecution said during marathon closing arguments Wednesday.

In ushering the lurid trial towards its finish, assistant US attorney Elizabeth Geddes kicked off the first two hours of her lengthy summation by telling the jury the once-dominant R&B artist “used his money and public persona to hide his crimes in plain sight.”

The government is tasked with proving the 54-year-old singer operated a criminal ring of associates who facilitated his abuse of women and teenagers, alleged victims whom, according to six weeks of testimony, the artist preyed on sexually, physically and emotionally.

“Without them at this service, the defendant could not have carried out his pattern of crime for nearly three decades,” Geddes told the jury, standing before a poster board displaying images of members in his orbit, photos that revolved around Kelly’s mugshot.

Describing the “Robert Kelly-centric universe,” the prosecutor said his employees and entourage either directly carried out criminal activity or “enabled” it when they “didn’t ask questions” and “effectively enforced the defendant’s rules.”

“They were a means to his criminal ends,” Geddes said.

The prosecution’s closing arguments followed three days of disjointed questioning and testimony from the singer’s defense, which called five witnesses including former employees and a childhood friend who said they hadn’t personally seen the harrowing abuse Kelly, now 54, is accused of inflicting.

The artist opted against taking the stand.

The mere hours of defense evidence came after more than a month of graphic testimony presented by the prosecution.

With 45 witnesses including 11 accusers — nine women and two men — government attorneys vied to illustrate systematic abuse by Kelly, and the coterie of associates he orchestrated.

Jury deliberation approaches

Women said they were raped, beaten, drugged, imprisoned and sometimes denied food or access to bathrooms. 

Six of the alleged victims were underage when Kelly initiated sex with them. Many victims also said the singer routinely filmed the encounters, which in several of the cases would constitute child pornography.

One woman said Kelly coerced her into getting an abortion when she was a teenager. Four said they contracted herpes after sexual contact with the singer, who they said did not disclose that he carried the incurable virus.

The charges center around six women: Jerhonda, Stephanie, Faith, Sonja and a woman who testified under a pseudonym, along with Aaliyah, the R&B singer who died in a plane crash in 2001 but whom Kelly illegally married when she was 15.

Several more victims alleging abuse who are not included in the indictment were allowed to testify as part of the prosecution’s bid to detail a criminal pattern.

During cross-examination, defense lawyers aimed to cast accusers as aggrieved superfans who became “spiteful” when relationships with the superstar ended. 

The artist born Robert Sylvester Kelly faces one count of racketeering and eight violations of the Mann Act, which bans transporting people across state lines for sex.

He denies all charges. In addition to his Brooklyn trial, Kelly faces prosecutions in three more jurisdictions, including in Illinois federal court on child pornography and obstruction counts.

His New York trial is the first time the singer, who ruled the pop and R&B charts in the late 1990s and early 2000s with hits including “I Believe I Can Fly,” has faced federal prosecution.

He was acquitted after a controversial state trial in Chicago in 2008, on charges of child pornography.

Following closing statements in the Brooklyn federal courthouse, which are expected to continue at least into Thursday, the jury of seven men and five women will begin deliberating Kelly’s fate.

Debra Messing has questioned why Kim Kardashian West is to host ‘Saturday Night Live’.

The ‘Will & Grace’ star asked fans if she was “missing something” after it was revealed the 40-year-old reality star is to guest present the comedy showcase, because she insisted that while Kim is a “cultural icon”, those who front the programme are usually “performers”.

She wrote on Twitter: “Why Kim Kardashian? I mean, I know she is a cultural icon, but SNL has hosts, generally, who are performers who are there to promote a film, TV show, or album launch. Am I missing something?”

Confirming the news, Kim tweeted: “OMFG no turning back now!!!! LOL

I’m hosting SNL!!!!!!

@nbcsnl (sic)”

Debra’s tweet comes after it was revealed Kim, Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis and Rami Malek will all front NBC’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ during the next series, which will be livestreamed on Peacock for the first time.

Owen will host the first episode of the season, and the musical guest will be Kacey Musgraves.

Kim is to make her presenting debut on the show on October 9th, when Halsey will provide the music.

Rami will host on October 16th, just days after the release of James Bond movie ‘No Time To Die’, in which he portrays Lyutsifer Safin, and Young Thug will be the musical guest.

Jason is no stranger to ‘SNL’, having been part of the cast from 2005 to 2013.

But the ‘Ted Lasso’ star will be back for his first appearance as the show’s presenter on October 23rd, during which Brandi Carlile will provide the tunes.

The late-night sketch and variety show – which was created by Lorne Michaels – has aired since October 1975.

Washington (AFP) – Former supermodel Linda Evangelista says she has been permanently disfigured by a fat-reduction cosmetic procedure that backfired and caused her to look bloated and unrecognizable.

Evangelista, 56, said she underwent “CoolSculpting” five years ago and that it had the rare side effect of causing her fat cells to increase rather than decrease.

Evangelista, a 1990s modeling icon from Canada who starred on catwalks with colleagues like Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell, said in an Instagram post Wednesday that she was never warned of the procedure’s risks and is now filing a lawsuit.

She said her current appearance — the result of a condition called paradoxical adipose hyperplasia — explained her absence from the public spotlight in recent years.

“To my followers who have wondered why I have not been working while my peers’ careers have been thriving, the reason is that I was brutally disfigured by Zeltiq’s CoolSculpting procedure which did the opposite of what it promised,” Evangelista wrote.

“It increased, not decreased, my fat cells and left me permanently deformed even after undergoing two painful, unsuccessful, corrective surgeries. I have been left, as the media has described, ‘unrecognizable,'” she added.

The cosmetic sculpting procedure is supposed to freeze and kill the cells in fat deposits so that the body can eliminate them.

Evangelista said the botched job has turned her into a depressed recluse ridden with self-loathing, her livelihood destroyed.

“I am moving forward to rid myself of my shame, and going public with my story,” Evangelista wrote. 

“I’m so tired of living this way. I would like to walk out my door with my head held high, despite not looking like myself any longer.”

Washington (AFP) – President Joe Biden cut a beleaguered figure Thursday as he raced to extinguish political fires on the left and right, at home and abroad, in an attempt to save his hopes of transforming the United States.

Whether it’s war, diplomatic incidents, economic shocks or an obstructionist Congress, all presidents feel the heat sooner or later.

Biden’s feeling all those flames at once.

To the south, there is the human and national security drama of thousands of Haitian migrants abruptly appearing across the border from Mexico and camping under a Texas bridge.

To the east across the Atlantic there is a disgruntled ally in France, furious at losing a conventional submarines contract when Australia accepted an offer for US nuclear submarines.

All over the United States there is the fight against Covid-19, which Biden declared on the way to being defeated in July, only to see it roar back with the Delta variant.

And right in Washington, the 78-year-old president faces the mind-boggling task of juggling a Republican opposition eager to wreck his presidency and a Democratic Party flirting with self-destruction.

“I’ve been here for cliffs and crises and wars, and this is going to be the biggest mashup we’ve ever had since I’ve been here,” Democratic congressman Peter DeFazio, from Oregon, told NBC News.

Debt default?

DeFazio was talking about the perfect storm brewing in Congress, where Republicans are fighting Democrats over Biden’s agenda and Democrats are fighting themselves.

Put simply, Republicans and Democrats did agree earlier this year — back when Biden’s presidency seemed to be going far better — to pass a roughly $1 trillion infrastructure bill.

This was good news for America’s crumbling bridges — and for Biden’s promise that he could heal national divisions.

However, the real prize was Biden’s push for a separate, mammoth $3.5 trillion social spending bill that he argues will redress gross inequalities by reforming taxes, reinforcing education and resisting climate change.

On this, he never had Republican support, yet with Democrats holding a narrow majority in Congress he didn’t have to worry.

That was the theory.

Fast forward to this week and both the smaller and bigger packages are on life support, with conservative Democrats insisting on whittling down the $3.5 trillion figure and leftist Democrats threatening to reject the $1 trillion version if the bigger version isn’t passed first in its entirety.

Gleefully watching the infighting, Republicans have upped the tension now by refusing to join Democrats in authorizing more government debt.

In previous years this has been a largely uncontroversial, bipartisan decision that simply allows the government to keep borrowing so it can pay its bills.

This time, hardball-playing Republicans are forcing the Democrats to take the decision by themselves, apparently to try and portray them as spendthrifts. Democrats so far refuse to cave in, insisting that Republicans join them.

Worst case scenario?

Paralysis in Congress. Current debt limits max out some time in October. The borrowing spigot dries up. The government shuts down. And the United States defaults on debts, sending stock markets into a panic.

“I have no idea how it all works out,” DeFazio said.

Biden remains sunny

The mess — especially the Covid rebound and the ugly Afghanistan withdrawal — has made Biden deeply unpopular.

His latest Gallup approval rating of 43 percent is at Donald Trump levels and marks a plummet from 56 percent in June.

Yet for now, the veteran Democrat has not lost his trademark sunny optimism — or belief in his vaunted experience as a lifelong Washington insider.

On Wednesday, he got on the phone with French President Emmanuel Macron to bury the hatchet in the submarine spat.

Then he spent hours in the White House with different Democratic factions to air out differences on the spending packages.

Biden is “rolling up his sleeves,” Press Secretary Jen Psaki said, brushing off doomsayers by describing the congressional impasse as “a messy sausage-making process.”

But even Psaki, master of the half-glass-full narrative, acknowledges that her boss is up against it.

“Well, I think the country is going through a lot right now,” she replied when asked about his plunge in the polls.

By Joseph Ax

(Reuters) – Two weeks after Richmond, Virginia, removed a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that had prompted protests over racial injustice, the city unveiled a new monument on Wednesday commemorating the end of slavery.

The Emancipation and Freedom Monument, designed by Oregon sculptor Thomas Jay Warren, comprises two 12-foot bronze statues depicting a man and a woman carrying an infant, newly freed from slavery.

“The enslaved built this city with their hands,” Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney said at a ceremony to mark the occasion. “We will rebuild this city with our hearts.”

The new monument is located less than two miles from the site where the towering 61-foot Lee statue had stood for more than a century.

Statues honoring the leaders of the Confederacy, the pro-slavery group of Southern states that seceded from the United States and fought in the 1861-65 Civil War, have become targets of anti-racism protests. Richmond was the Confederate capital during the war.

Governor Ralph Northam announced the Lee statue’s removal in June 2020, days after George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, sparking nationwide demonstrations.

“Just a couple of weeks ago, one of my proudest days, we took down a statue of a man who led an army to stop the emancipation and freedom these figures symbolize,” Northam said at Wednesday’s ceremony.

The pedestal features the names and biographies of 10 Black Virginians who contributed to the fight for liberty before and after emancipation, including Nat Turner, who led a briefly successful slave revolt in 1831 in the state, and Dred Scott, a slave whose unsuccessful lawsuit seeking his freedom led to the infamous U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1857 that people of African descent were not entitled to citizenship.

The project began a decade ago as part of the state’s commemoration of the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which abolished slavery in the United States.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

New York (AFP) – Former US president Donald Trump on Tuesday filed a $100 million lawsuit against his estranged niece Mary Trump and The New York Times, alleging they engaged in “an insidious plot” to obtain his tax returns for the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of his finances.

The lawsuit, filed in Dutchess County, New York state, says that New York Times reporters Susanne Craig, David Barstow and Russ Buettner conducted “an extensive crusade to obtain Donald J. Trump’s confidential tax records.”

“The defendants engaged in an insidious plot to obtain confidential and highly-sensitive records which they exploited for their own benefit and utilized as a means of falsely legitimizing their publicized works,” the lawsuit says, alleging they were “motivated by a personal vendetta.”

The New York Times and the three journalists won the Pulitzer in 2019 for their investigation of the Trump family’s finances, which the Pulitzer Prize Board said “debunked his claims of self-made wealth and revealed a business empire riddled with tax dodges.”

The newspaper’s story alleged that Trump had received more than $400 million in today’s terms from his father’s real estate empire, much of it through fraudulent tax schemes.

Mary was the daughter of the eldest Trump brother Fred Trump Jr, who died in 1981 from complications due to alcoholism.

In her no-holds-barred 2020 memoir, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” she revealed that she was the primary source for the New York Times investigation.

‘Loser’

Trump’s 27-page lawsuit asserts that the New York Times reporters “relentlessly sought out his niece, Mary L. Trump, and convinced her to smuggle the records out of her attorney’s office and turn them over to The Times.”

Times reporter Craig tweeted early Wednesday: “I knocked on Mary Trump’s door. She opened it. I think they call that journalism.”

The lawsuit alleges that, by providing information, Mary Trump was in violation of a non-disclosure agreement signed in 2001 after a settlement over the estate of Donald Trump’s father, Fred Trump Sr.

The former president is seeking $100 million in compensation and damages, as well as all the proceeds from his niece’s book.

In a statement quoted by NBC, Mary Trump called her uncle “a loser.”

“It’s desperation. The walls are closing in and he is throwing anything against the wall that he thinks will stick,” she said.

“As is always the case with Donald, he’ll try and change the subject.”

Trump is under investigation in New York for tax fraud and other alleged wrongdoings relating to the financial activities of his Trump Organization.

The Justice Department in August also ordered the Treasury to provide a congressional committee with six years of records that Trump has long refused to make public.

US presidents are not required by law to release details of their personal finances, but every US leader since Richard Nixon has done so.

Trump repeatedly said he would release them pending an audit but ultimately broke with the tradition.

“The Times’s coverage of Donald Trump’s taxes helped inform citizens through meticulous reporting on a subject of overriding public interest,” Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokeswoman for the paper, said in a statement quoted by US media.

“This lawsuit is an attempt to silence independent news organizations and we plan to vigorously defend against it.”