Other top news includes Khloe Kardashian's birth of a baby girl, 'imminent' Western airstrikes in Syria, and sexual harassment scandal hits Nobel prize academy
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Janice Dickinson & Bill Cosby retrial
Former model and America’s Next Top Model legend Janice Dickinson made some incredibly unsettling claims during disgraced Bill Cosby’s retrial yesterday. Dickinson told the jury at Montgomery County court in Maryland that Cosby raped her in 1982 after giving her a pill - which he claimed would help ease her menstrual cramps - that immobilised her and made her unable to rebuke his advances. According to Dickinson’s testimony, she was rendered ‘motionless’ as Cosby climbed on top of her in a hotel room in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. ‘I didn’t consent to this. Here was “America’s Dad” on top of me. A married man, father of five kids, on top of me,’ Dickinson said. ‘I was thinking how wrong it was. How very wrong it was.’ After the incident, Dickinson spoke of the pain she felt in her vagina and that when she woke up the next day she discovered semen between her legs.
Khloe Kardashian’s baby & Tristan Thompson
Khloe Kardashian is a mother! Sources close to the family broke the news yesterday that the uber-famous reality star had given birth to a baby girl with NBA player Tristan Thompson. Unfortunately the joyous occasion has been overshadowed by a cheating scandal involving Khloe’s boyfriend. Tristan was filmed getting intimate with a number of different women in New York while his partner prepared to give birth to their baby in Cleveland, Ohio. Although Khloe hasn’t made any public statements about the state of their relationship, it seems everyone is Team Khloe. Not only did Tristan get booed as he stepped onto the court during a game against the New York Knicks earlier this week, but online fans have been trolling his Instagram in support of Khloe - snake emojis abound. And this isn’t the first Tristan has behaved in such a manner. He left his heavily pregnant ex-girlfriend Jordan Craig for Khloe as well. Karmic retribution some would say?
Nobel prize & sexual harassment
The literature world is aflame with a high-profile sexual harassment scandal. It seems not even the high culture world of nobel laureates and academics are above scrutiny for their troubling handling of abuse and harassment. Sara Danius, head of the Swedish Academy that selects the winner of the Nobel prize for literature, resigned as the body faces increasing backlash for not taking sufficient action against a man close to the institution. 18 women accused the man of physical abuse and harassment, prompting the academy to cut ties to him and sever all grants. However, it may be too little too late. The image of Nobel prizes may have been damaged beyond repair.
Strike action in Syria & Western promises
US officials in The Pentagon hoped to slow down imminent airstrikes against Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria following Donald Trump’s tweets saying American missiles ‘will be coming, nice and new and “smart”’. Defense secretary Jim Mattis is looking for more evidence that Assad used chemical weapons in an attack on Syrian civilians last weekend before going ahead with western-basked US action. Mattis raised the alarm in a closed-door meeting that retaliation must be balanced against the threat of war with forces like Russia and Iran, the New York Times reported. However, given Trump’s strong rhetoric that ACTION WILL BE DONE and his inflamed ego, chances are strikes are inevitable. Trump called on his Western allies to back a strong response to Assad’s regime of horror, with both France and the UK pledging their allegiance. British Prime Minister Theresa May seems to have learnt nothing from past Middle Eastern conflicts, lapping up to Trump’s request like a dog with a bone. German chancellor Angela Merkel has refused to join Western military action, however.
The concrete jungle & neighbourly raccoons
A bit of light entertainment for you because, let’s face it, most of the news is depressing AF. It seems New Yorkers can’t tell the difference between tigers and raccoons. It may be a concrete jungle, but the people of the Big Apple wouldn’t survive in a real jungle. The NYPD received calls about a ‘small tiger’ roaming the area near 162th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue at around 7:50 a.m on Thursday, a police spokesperson said. Residents were awoken by helicopters circling overhead, only to be later informed that the ‘dangerous’ creature was just a neighbourly raccoon.
Breakthrough medicine & pharmaceutical resistance
There is good news for people who suffer from Hepatitis C. An affordable treatment has been shown to be safe, effective, with very high cure rates for patients including hard-to-treat cases, in interim clinical trial results. The treatment is expected to cost $300 for 12 weeks, or $3.50 per day, in Malaysia, where trials were conducted along with Thailand – a fraction of the cost of other hepatitis C medicines produced by major US drugmakers, which often cost tens of thousands of dollars.