On a frigid Chicago night in January 2019, actor Jussie Smollett, a star on the TV drama Empire, reported that he was the victim of a hate-motivated street attack, but police later accused him of staging the whole affair as a publicity stunt.
The case went to trial on Monday in Cook County Circuit Court, with a jury selected by late afternoon to hear evidence for six felony counts of disorderly conduct against Smollett who stands accused of making false reports to the police.
Smollett, 39, has denied that he faked the attack, pleading not guilty in February 2020.
The openly gay black actor told police he had been accosted on a darkened street by two masked strangers.
Assailants threw a noose around his neck, Smollett said, and poured chemicals on him while yelling racist and homophobic slurs and expressions of support for former president Donald Trump.
A month later, police arrested him, accusing him of paying two brothers $3,500 to stage the attack in a hoax aimed at gaining public sympathy and raising his show business profile.
Smollett's acting career has faded since the incident. He lost his role as a singer-songwriter in the final season of Empire, a Fox television hip-hop drama that ended a five-year run in 2020.
His case took an unexpected turn in the spring of 2019 when the Cook County state attorney's office dropped a 16-count indictment against him in exchange for Smollett forfeiting his $10,000 bond without admitting wrongdoing.
The dismissal drew criticism from the mayor of Chicago at the time Rahm Emanuel and the city's police superintendent, who called the reversal a miscarriage of justice, leading a Cook County judge to appoint Dan Webb, a former US attorney, to review the case.
After a five-month investigation, Mr Webb overruled the state attorney's office and concluded that prosecution of Smollett was warranted, questioning the judgment of prosecutors in dropping the original case.
“When he reported the fake hate crime, that was a real crime,” Mr Webb said.
The current case against Smollett has been slowed by legal challenges and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Key trial evidence is expected from the brothers, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, who prosecutors have said were paid by Smollett to participate in the phoney attack. Smollett is not required to speak in his own defence.
The class-four felony for disorderly conduct and lying to police carries a prison sentence of up to three years, but experts have said it is likely that if Smollett is convicted, he would be placed on probation and perhaps ordered to perform community service.
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
Schedule
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21 Lessons for the 21st Century
Yuval Noah Harari, Jonathan Cape
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Dust and sand storms compared
Sand storm
- Particle size: Larger, heavier sand grains
- Visibility: Often dramatic with thick "walls" of sand
- Duration: Short-lived, typically localised
- Travel distance: Limited
- Source: Open desert areas with strong winds
Dust storm
- Particle size: Much finer, lightweight particles
- Visibility: Hazy skies but less intense
- Duration: Can linger for days
- Travel distance: Long-range, up to thousands of kilometres
- Source: Can be carried from distant regions
