Month: January 2020

Fans call it The House that Kobe Built, and since Kobe Bryant’s shocking death in a helicopter crash mourners by the thousands have gathered outside the glistening steel-and-glass edifice where the Los Angeles Lakers legend made so much basketball history.The arrivals at downtown Staples Center began soon after word spread that Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, were among nine people killed in Sunday’s crash. They continued unabated Monday as people took off from school or work to pay respects to a man with whom many felt a kinship.“The memories that he gave us as a family were great memories,” said Lawrence Perez or North Hollywood, who arrived with his wife, Maureen, and 15-year-old daughter, Desiree. “We could have been at home, but we wanted to be with other people who are kind of going through the same thing.”The Lakers had a game scheduled Tuesday night against the LA Clippers at Staples Center but the NBA postponed it “out of respect” for the Lakers. The next Lakers home game is Friday night against Portland.The Staples Center, home to the Lakers and Clippers, opened for the 1999-2000 season, just as a 21-year-old Bryant was blossoming. That season the team would win the first of five championships over the next 10 years.Although the mood there Monday was often somber as people hugged and wiped away tears, many couldn’t help but grin at times as they recalled joyful moments Bryant brought to their lives.“The greatest moment was when I got his autograph his rookie year,” Perez said, recalling how he told the teenage Bryant he was destined for greatness. Bryant smiled, shook his hand and said he hoped he’d just break into the team’s starting lineup sometime soon.Perez had planned to bring that ball to Bryant’s Hall of Fame induction, expected later this year, and ask him to sign it again.“But that’s not going to happen now,” he said softly as his wife hugged him and said, “He cried when he heard the news.”As people arrived at the arena they were greeted by a gigantic display of flowers, balloons, votive candles (some with Bryant’s photo on them), hats, jerseys, statuettes of angels and photos and paintings of Bryant and his daughter circling the entire area. Some showed father and daughter with angel’s wings. Others contained personal messages written in English, Spanish and Chinese, showing the international impact Bryant’s career had.“I left my shoe for him,” said Louie Guerrero of Los Angeles, who arrived at the memorial pushing a stroller with his 2-year-old daughter, Lexie, decked out in her own little Lakers uniform. He spontaneously decided to add one of his official Lakers basketball shoes to the memorial after scribbling on it, “We Love You, Kobe.”NBA’s Kobe Bryant Scores 60 Points in Farewell Game

        Kobe Bryant played the final game of his legendary 20-year career with the National Basketball Association's Los Angeles Lakers Wednesday night. The 37-year-old Bryant scored a season-high 60 points to rally the Lakers from a 15-point deficit to a 101-96 victory over the visiting Utah Jazz at Staples Center in front of thousands of fans -- including Oscar-winning actor Jack Nicholson -- who paid thousands of dollars a ticket for a chance to witness Bryant's last game wearing the Lakers's purple-and…

He walked away with only a sock on his left foot.Nearby, Michelle Rodriguez of Los Angeles wiped away a tear as she gazed at photos of Bryant with his daughter and his teammates. The 30-year-old emergency room nurse had arrived with her 12-year-old bulldog, Canelle, after working an overnight shift. Both were wearing Lakers jerseys.“I think everyone could say we loved the team as a whole, but it was different when you saw Kobe play,” she said.“And he was such an awesome man outside of basketball too,” she added. “All the work he did in the community, he’s a hero to this city.”
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The pilot of the helicopter that crashed and killed basketball superstar Kobe Bryant apparently climbed to avoid a cloud layer just before slamming into a hillside, federal investigators say.Jennifer Homendy of the National Transportation Safety Board said Monday the copter was about 700 meters off the ground before it plunged more than 300 meters into the hills north of Los Angeles.Air traffic say the pilot’s message that he had to climb to avoid the clouds was the last thing they heard from the copter.Homendy says the debris field is “extensive.””A piece of the tail is down the hill, the fuselage is on the other side of that hill and the main rotor is about 91 meters beyond that,” she said, adding that everything is looked at during the investigation — the pilot, the aircraft, and the environment.Federal rules do not require helicopters to carry black boxes.People gather at a memorial for Kobe Bryant near Staples Center Monday, Jan. 27, 2020, in Los Angeles.Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were among nine killed in Sunday’s crash that stunned the sports world and left fans and his fellow athletes speechless.The pilot also died along with Orange Coast College baseball coach John Altobelli. The helicopter was heading to a youth basketball tournament in which Gianna Bryant was scheduled to play.Kobe Bryant was 41 years-old and will be remembered as one of the greatest professional basketball players ever to step onto the court. He played 20 years in the NBA, nearly all of it with the Los Angeles Lakers — wining five NBA championships and the league’s Most Valuable Player award in 2008. He is the fourth all-time leading scorer. LeBron James passed him for number three on the list just one day before the crash.Some of Bryant’s accomplishments include becoming the NBA’s youngest all-star in 1998, when he was only 19 years old; an 81-point game in 2006 – the second-highest of all time; and Olympic Gold medals in 2008 and 2012.
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Harvey Weinstein “got offended”  when his repeated advances were rebuffed, Mimi Haleyi testified Monday when she took the witness stand as one of the key accusers whose allegations of sexual assault led to charges and the trial of the former movie mogul.
    
Former production assistant Mimi Haleyi testified that before the alleged assault, Weinstein showed up at her apartment and begged her to join him on a trip to Paris for a fashion show. She said he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
    
“At one point, because I just didn’t know how to shut it down so to speak. …So I said, You know you have a terrible reputation with women, I've heard,' " Haleyi said.
    
The then-revered Hollywood honcho "got offended,'' she said. "He stepped back and said,What have you heard?”’
    
Asked by prosecutor Meghan Hast if she had any romantic or sexual interest in Weinstein, Haleyi firmly answered: “Not at all, no.”
    
Weinstein, 67, is charged with forcibly performing oral sex on Haleyi in his New York City apartment in 2006 and raping another woman, an aspiring actress, in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013. He insists any sexual encounters were consensual.
    
The 42-year-old Haleyi, whose legal name is Miriam Haley, is the first of the two women whose accusations are at the heart of the charges against Weinstein to take the stand at the closely watched #MeToo-era trial, which is in its fourth day of testimony.
    
Last week, “Sopranos’”actress Annabella Sciorra testified  that Weinstein overpowered and raped her after barging into her apartment in the mid-1990s. While outside the statute of limitations for criminal charges, Sciorra’s allegations could be a factor as prosecutors look to prove Weinstein has engaged in a pattern of predatory behavior.
    
Haleyi went public with her allegations at an October 2017 news conference, appearing in front of cameras alongside lawyer Gloria Allred, who also represents Sciorra and other Weinstein accusers.
    
Haleyi, born in England and raised in Sweden, said she met Weinstein while in her 20s at the 2004 London premiere of the Leonardo DiCaprio film “The Aviator.”  They crossed paths again at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 and, when she expressed interest in working on one of his productions; he invited her to his hotel room and asked for a massage. She declined, saying she was “extremely humiliated.”
   
“I felt stupid because I was so excited to go see him and he treated me that way,” she testified.
    
More meetings followed, and Weinstein secured Haleyi a job helping on the set of “Project Runway,” the reality competition show he produced. Later, she said, he invited her to attend a fashion show in Paris, but she declined by bringing up his sketchy reputation.
    
The alleged assault occurred at Weinstein’s Soho apartment after he sent a car to pick Haleyi up for what she thought was a friendly meeting about her career, she said at the 2017 news conference.
    
Instead, she said, Weinstein pushed her onto a bed and forced his mouth onto her genitals. She said she tried to get him to stop, even telling him she was menstruating, but he wouldn’t relent.” I was mortified. I was in disbelief and disgusted,” she said.
    
In opening statements, Hast said there was a subsequent hotel room encounter that Haleyi didn’t reveal in 2017. Hast said that though Haleyi didn’t want to have intercourse with Weinstein, she kept still and “let him degrade her.”
    
The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they have been victims of sexual assault, unless they agree to be named as Haleyi and Sciorra have.
    
In testifying, Haleyi will have to deal with a defense team that said it plans to confront Weinstein’s accusers with their own words, messages they exchanged with Weinstein well after the alleged assaults. Weinstein’s lawyers argue the positive-sounding emails and texts call into question the accusers’ accounts.
    
The jury of seven men and five women also heard testimony from Dr. Barbara Ziv, a forensic psychiatrist who said that most sex assault victims continue to have contact with their attackers, often under threat of retaliation if the victims tell anyone what happened.
    
Some of Haleyi’s messages were made public last year when Weinstein’s lawyers sought to get his case dismissed. One sent to Weinstein’s phone in 2007 reads: “Hi! Just wondering if u have any news on whether Harvey will have time to see me before he leaves? X Miriam.”
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