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The cases against Harvey Weinstein: A timeline of allegations and trials

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The cases against Harvey Weinstein: A timeline of allegations and trials

Harvey Weinstein is arraigned in court on September 18, 2024 in New York City, pleading not guilty to a new sex crimes charge.

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This story was originally published in 2020, and has been updated with more recent information on Weinstein’s legal proceedings.

This report includes descriptions of sexual assault.

For much of Harvey Weinstein’s career, dark rumors of sexual assault and harassment tailed the Hollywood megaproducer. Only in recent years did the allegations gather the heft and momentum that culminated in multiple convictions.

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While scores of women have accused Weinstein of crimes dating back decades — ranging from intimidation to rape — this timeline focuses on the incidents cited in criminal cases against him in Manhattan and Los Angeles. Though Weinstein’s New York conviction was overturned in spring of 2024, a new trial is underway in Manhattan. Those updates are below.

Timeline

Winter 1993-94: Weinstein allegedly rapes Annabella Sciorra

The actress Annabella Sciorra, perhaps best known for her Emmy-nominated work on The Sopranos, said Weinstein raped her at her Manhattan apartment after an industry dinner. She says the producer dropped her off, only to reappear at her door and force his way inside.

Sciorra’s allegation went on to become the subject of pretrial arguments in Manhattan. While the alleged incident happened too long ago to be prosecuted under state law and Weinstein’s defense team objected to its inclusion, her testimony was heard anyway during the 2020 trial, in support of the charge of predatory sexual assault.

Summer 2004: Weinstein allegedly forces Lucia Evans to perform oral sex

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The former aspiring actress Lucia Evans told The New Yorker — in one of a pair of major stories that trained a national spotlight on the allegations against Weinstein — that he had raped her in his office in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood.

“He forced me to perform oral sex on him,” Evans alleged, adding: “I said, over and over, ‘I don’t want to do this, stop, don’t.’ I tried to get away, but maybe I didn’t try hard enough. I didn’t want to kick him or fight him.”

Her account led prosecutors to pursue a criminal sexual act charge against Weinstein, although it was dismissed in 2018.

July 10, 2006: Weinstein allegedly forces himself on Mimi Haley

Mimi Haley, a former production assistant at Weinstein’s now-bankrupt production company, says that after inviting her to his New York City home, the producer ignored her objections, pulled out her tampon and forcibly performed oral sex on her.

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“No woman should have to be subjected to this type of unacceptable abuse,” she said in 2017. “Women have the right to say no. A ‘no’ is a ‘no,’ regardless of the circumstances — and I told Harvey ‘no.’ “

Haley’s claim was included in charges against Weinstein filed in 2018 and she went on to testify in his 2020 trial in Manhattan.

Feb. 18-19, 2013: A pair of incidents in Los Angeles

These alleged incidents prompted Los Angeles prosecutors to file four charges against Weinstein in 2020: one felony count each of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, sexual penetration by use of force and sexual battery by restraint.

“On Feb. 18, 2013, Weinstein allegedly went to a hotel and raped a woman after pushing his way inside her room,” the office of Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey explained in 2020. “The next evening, the defendant is accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a hotel suite in Beverly Hills.”

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March 18, 2013: Alleged rape in New York City

For a long time, few details had been released about this allegation, which prompted two of the charges Weinstein was tried for in New York in 2020: first- and third-degree rape. Indeed, it was not until the trial’s opening statements that prosecutors released the name of the alleged victim, Jessica Mann, and the details of her story.

Prosecutors said Mann, an aspiring actress, had attended several industry events with Weinstein and endured increasingly aggressive sexual advances — including one incident in which, similar to Mimi Haley’s, Mann says Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her.

But it was later, on March 18 — one month after the alleged incidents in Los Angeles — that Mann says she tried to confront Weinstein at a hotel in Midtown Manhattan. There, he allegedly coaxed her up to his room, forced her to disrobe and ordered her onto the bed.

“He got on top of her and he raped her, forcing his penis into her vagina,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Meghan Hast told jurors in 2020. “Jessica just laid there. When he finished, he got off of her.

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March 2015: New York DA decides not to prosecute allegation

Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, a Filipina-Italian model, reported Weinstein to the New York Police Department for allegedly groping her during a meeting at his Tribeca office in 2015. She says that later, at the urging of police, she wore a recording device for an arranged meetup at a Manhattan hotel. She says it was during that meeting that Weinstein admitted to groping her and sought unsuccessfully to get her to come to his room.

However, the office of then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. decided not to pursue the case, saying at the time that “a criminal charge is not supported.”

Years later, after the publication of a New Yorker piece detailing Gutierrez’s allegations, her story would become a focus of intense criticism leveled at Vance, whose office became responsible for prosecuting the criminal trial. Then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo requested a review of the DA’s 2015 decision, though it’s not clear whether that was ever completed.

Oct. 5, 2017: The New York Times publishes allegations

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While rumors of sexual harassment and assault had long dogged Weinstein — even supplying punchlines at the Oscars — it wasn’t until The New York Times and The New Yorker published exposés that the allegations found serious traction.

The Times’ story, written by investigative journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, focused on allegations by a series of assistants and actresses, such as Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan.

Weinstein, in a statement released the same day, pledged to take a leave of absence from his production company and acknowledged that “I have a long way to go.”

Adding, “I so respect all women and regret what happened.” Weinstein did not admit any wrongdoing.

Oct. 10, 2017: The New Yorker‘s website publishes more allegations

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Published just days after the The New York Times article, journalist Ronan Farrow’s piece in The New Yorker focused on a slew of other accusations — including the allegation by Lucia Evans that had been added but was later dropped from the list of criminal charges Weinstein faces in New York.

Oct. 14, 2017: Weinstein is expelled from the Academy

In one of the first signs that the reaction to The New York Times and The New Yorker reports represented a sea change, complete with real-world implications for Weinstein, the Hollywood producer was expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the influential organization responsible for the Oscars.

“We do so not simply to separate ourselves from someone who does not merit the respect of his colleagues,” the Academy’s 54-member Board of Governors explained in a statement after an emergency meeting, “but also to send a message that the era of willful ignorance and shameful complicity in sexually predatory behavior and workplace harassment in our industry is over.”

March 19, 2018: The Weinstein Company files for bankruptcy

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Buffeted by months of negative press, the production company that Weinstein founded with his brother, Bob, went belly up. The Weinstein Company declared bankruptcy and sold “substantially all” of its assets to Lantern Capital Partners. It also voided the nondisclosure agreements it had reached with Weinstein’s accusers.

May 25, 2018: Weinstein surrenders to police

The former Hollywood producer arrived at the New York Police Department’s 1st Precinct in Lower Manhattan, where he submitted to arrest with droves of journalists looking on. It was Harvey Weinstein’s first arrest in connection with the sexual assault allegations.

The same day, then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. submitted Weinstein’s initial slate of charges: “The defendant is charged with Rape in the First and Third Degrees, as well as Criminal Sexual Act in the First Degree, for forcible sexual acts against two women in 2013 and 2004, respectively.”

About a week and a half later, Weinstein plead not guilty to the charges, which changed significantly as new information came to light.

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July 2, 2018: Additional charges against Weinstein announced

Manhattan District Attorney Vance announced the filing of a superseding grand jury indictment, which added charges connected with a third incident in 2006. The new slate included one count of criminal sexual act in the first degree and two counts of predatory sexual assault, the most serious charges levied against Weinstein by Manhattan prosecutors.

Miriam “Mimi” Haley, who was involved in the alleged 2006 incident, had come forward with her story more than half a year earlier, saying that during her time working at The Weinstein Company, Harvey Weinstein orally forced himself on her inside his New York City home.

Weinstein plead not guilty to the new charges a week after they were announced.

Oct. 11, 2018: One charge against Weinstein is dismissed

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Justice James Burke, the judge overseeing the Manhattan trial, dismissed one of the charges against Weinstein after it became clear that investigators didn’t properly present certain information to the grand jury.

Lucia Evans told the grand jury — and The New Yorker — that Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on him. But an unidentified friend of hers had contradicted that account in an interview with a detective, saying Evans called it a consensual act in exchange for the promise of acting work.

Prosecutors acknowledged later that the detective “failed to inform” them of “important details” of the interview prior to Evans’ grand jury testimony. Weinstein’s legal team pushed to have the criminal sexual act charge dismissed as a result, and prosecutors did not object.

Harvey Weinstein arrives at court for jury selection on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020, in New York.

Harvey Weinstein arrives at court for jury selection on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020, in New York.

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Jan. 6, 2020: Trial in New York City begins

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Weinstein’s trial formally opened in Manhattan, with more than two weeks devoted to selecting a jury. After roughly a year and a half of pretrial wrangling, the charges Weinstein faced are as follows:

  • Two counts of predatory sexual assault
  • One count of rape in the first degree (connected to the 2013 incident)
  • One count of rape in the third degree (2013 incident)
  • One count of criminal sexual act in the first degree (2006 incident)

Jan. 6, 2020: Los Angeles prosecutors announce charges of their own

The same day that his trial opened in Manhattan, Weinstein was hit with new legal woes from the other side of the U.S.: four felony counts of sexual assault, filed by Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey. The charges are connected with incidents that allegedly happened at local hotels over two nights in February 2013.

“We believe the evidence will show that the defendant used his power and influence to gain access to his victims,” Lacey says, “and then commit violent crimes against them.”

Feb. 24, 2020: Manhattan jury finds Weinstein guilty in mixed verdict

After about five days of deliberations, jurors convicted the former producer of two of the five counts he faced — third-degree rape and a first-degree criminal sexual act — but acquitted him of the most serious charges.

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He did not visibly react as the verdict was read but, according to defense lawyer Arthur Aidala, repeatedly told his attorneys afterward: “I’m innocent. … I didn’t rape anyone.”

Of the two counts that stuck, the criminal sexual act is the more serious, carrying a sentence of at least five years in prison and a maximum of more than two decades.

After the hearing, Weinstein’s path to the Rikers Island, where he was to await his sentencing, was rerouted to a nearby hospital after he experienced chest pains and high blood pressure.

March 11, 2020: Weinstein receives 23-year prison sentence in New York 

The sentence handed down in a Manhattan courtroom included 20 years for first-degree criminal sexual act and three years for third-degree rape — nearly the maximum allowed under New York state law.

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Weinstein’s victims “refused to be silent, and they were heard,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said in a statement after the sentencing hearing. “Their words took down a predator and put him behind bars, and gave hope to survivors of sexual violence all across the world.”

Weinstein’s legal team vowed to appeal.

October 2022: Trial in Los Angeles begins 

The former movie mogul faced rape and sexual assault charges in front of a jury of nine men and three women at a Los Angeles court house. The former movie mogul was charged with raping and sexually assaulting four women between 2004 to 2013.

December 2022: Weinstein found guilty in mixed verdict in Los Angeles trial 

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Weinstein was found guilty of rape, forced oral copulation and sexual misconduct – three of seven charges – in his Los Angeles trial.

“It is time for the kingmaker to be brought to justice,” LA County Deputy District Attorney Marlene Martinez said during closing arguments of the trial.

Weinstein’s convictions hinged on allegations from one of four accusers. (The jury ruled Weinstein was not guilty on one of the remaining charges, and couldn’t reach a decision on three others.) Four additional charges were dismissed.

February 23, 2023: Weinstein sentenced in California 

Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years behind bars by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench, to be served consecutively after his 23-year sentence in New York.

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April 25, 2024: New York conviction is overturned 

Weinstein’s 2020 sex crime conviction was overturned while serving a 23-year sentence in New York. In a 4-3 decision, the New York State Court of Appeals ruled that Weinstein did not receive a fair trial because the proceedings included testimony from women whose allegations were not part of the case. These are otherwise known as Molineux witnesses.

Judge Jenny Rivera wrote: “We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes because that testimony served no material non-propensity purpose … The only evidence against defendant [Weinstein] was the complainants’ testimony, and the result of the court’s rulings … was to bolster their credibility and diminish defendant’s character before the jury.”

April 28, 2024: Weinstein in and out of the hospital 

Weinstein was hospitalized at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan upon his return to New York. After his 2020 conviction was vacated, Weinstein was turned over to the city’s Department of Correction. According to a state spokesperson Weinstein remains in custody because of his Los Angeles conviction and sentence.

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May 1, 2024: Prosecutors plan for a new trial 

During a hearing in a New York courtroom, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg confirmed his office was putting together a new trial — first planned for the fall of 2024, and later delayed to the following spring.

May 29, 2024: New York prosecutors signal potential for new indictment

Manhattan prosecutors informed Judge Curtis Farber that they may seek a new indictment ahead of Weinstein’s upcoming trial. During a court hearing, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg confirmed that additional survivors had come forward with assault claims and may be willing to testify.

June 7, 2024: Weinstein’s lawyers appeal California conviction 

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Weinstein’s lawyers appealed his California conviction, arguing that evidence was excluded from his trial there, which ended in 2022.

September 12, 2024: Another New York indictment is announced

New York prosecutors announced in a hearing that Weinstein was indicted on additional sex crimes charges. Weinstein is not present in court, after being rushed into emergency heart surgery the weekend prior.

September 18, 2024: Weinstein pleads not guilty to new charge in New York

Prosecutors unsealed the indictment, detailing allegations of sexual assault against Weinstein in 2006. In a New York courtroom, Weinstein plead not guilty.

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April 15, 2025: Jury selection begins in Weinstein’s trial in New York

In Harvey Weinstein’s third trial in just over five years, the disgraced film producer is facing assault allegations from three different women, including one whose identity has not yet been revealed.

Ilya Marritz and Clare Lombardo contributed to this timeline.

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Nationwide anti-ICE protests call for accountability after Renee Good’s death

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Nationwide anti-ICE protests call for accountability after Renee Good’s death

A large bird puppet crafted at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre in Minneapolis is carried down Lake Street during a march demanding ICE’s removal from Minnesota on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026.

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People have been taking to the streets nationwide this weekend to protest the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics following the death of Renee Good in Minneapolis, a 37-year-old woman who was shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer this week.

At least 1,000 events across the U.S. were planned for Saturday and Sunday, according to Indivisible, a progressive grassroots coalition of activists helping coordinate the movement it calls “ICE Out For Good Weekend of Action.”

Leah Greenberg, a co-executive director of Indivisible, said people are coming together to “grieve, honor those we’ve lost, and demand accountability from a system that has operated with impunity for far too long.”

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“Renee Nicole Good was a wife, a mother of three, and a member of her community. She, and the dozens of other sons, daughters, friends, siblings, parents, and community members who have been killed by ICE, should be alive today,” Greenberg said in a statement on Friday. “ICE’s violence is not a statistic, it has names, families, and futures attached to it, and we refuse to look away or stay silent.”

Large crowds of demonstrators carried signs and shouted “ICE out now!” as protests continued across Minneapolis on Saturday. One of those protestors, Cameron Kritikos, told NPR that he is worried that the presence of more ICE agents in the city could lead to more violence or another death.

“If more ICE officers are deployed to the streets, especially a place here where there’s very clear public opposition to the terrorizing of our neighborhoods, I’m nervous that there’s going to be more violence,” the 31-year grocery store worker said. “I’m nervous that there are going to be more clashes with law enforcement officials, and at the end of the day I think that’s not what anyone wants.”

Demonstrators in Minneapolis on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026.

Demonstrators in Minneapolis on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026.

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The night before, hundreds of city and state police officers responded to a “noise protest” in downtown Minneapolis. An estimated 1,000 people gathered Friday night, according to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara, and 29 people were arrested.

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People demonstrated outside of hotels where ICE agents were believed to be staying. They chanted, played drums and banged pots. O’Hara said that a group of people split from the main protest and began damaging hotel windows. One police officer was injured from a chunk of ice that was hurled at officers, he added.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey condemned the acts of violence but praised what he said was the “vast majority” of protesters who remained peaceful, during a morning news conference.

“To anyone who causes property damage or puts others in danger: you will be arrested. We are standing up to Donald Trump’s chaos not with our own brand of chaos, but with care and unity,” Frey wrote on social media.

Commenting on the protests, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told NPR in a statement, “the First Amendment protects speech and peaceful assembly — not rioting, assault and destruction,” adding, “DHS is taking measures to uphold the rule of law and protect public safety and our officers.”

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Good was fatally shot the day after DHS launched a large-scale immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota set to deploy 2,000 immigration officers to the state.

In Philadelphia, police estimated about 500 demonstrators “were cooperative and peaceful” at a march that began Saturday morning at City Hall, Philadelphia Police Department spokesperson Tanya Little told NPR in a statement. And no arrests were made.

In Portland, Ore., demonstrators rallied and lined the streets outside of a hospital on Saturday afternoon, where immigration enforcement agents bring detainees who are injured during an arrest, reported Oregon Public Broadcasting.

A man and woman were shot and injured by U.S. Border Patrol agents on Thursday in the city. DHS said the shooting happened during a targeted vehicle stop and identified the driver as Luis David Nino-Moncada, and the passenger as Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, both from Venezuela. As was the case in their assertion about Good’s fatal shooting, Homeland Security officials claimed the federal agent acted in self-defense after Nino-Moncada and Zambrano-Contreras “weaponized their vehicle.”

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Why men should really be reading more fiction

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Why men should really be reading more fiction

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A friend sent a meme to a group chat last week that, like many internet memes before it, managed to implant itself deep into my brain and capture an idea in a way that more sophisticated, expansive prose does not always manage. Somewhat ironically, the meme was about the ills of the internet. 

“People in 1999 using the internet as an escape from reality,” the text read, over an often-used image from a TV series of a face looking out of a car window. Below it was another face looking out of a different car window overlaid with the text: “People in 2026 using reality as an escape from the internet.” 

Oof. So simple, yet so spot on. With AI-generated slop — sorry, content — now having overtaken human-generated words and images online, with social media use appearing to have peaked and with “dumb phones” being touted as this year’s status symbol, it does feel as if the tide is beginning to turn towards the general de-enshittification of life. 

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And what could be a better way to resist the ever-swelling stream of mediocrity and nonsense on the internet, and to stick it to the avaricious behemoths of the “attention economy”, than to pick up a work of fiction (ideally not purchased on one of these behemoths’ platforms), with no goal other than sheer pleasure and the enrichment of our lives? But while the tide might have started to turn, we don’t seem to have quite got there yet on the reading front, if we are on our way there at all.

Two-fifths of Britons said last year that they had not read a single book in the previous 12 months, according to YouGov. And, as has been noted many times before on both sides of the Atlantic, it is men who are reading the least — just 53 per cent had read any book over the previous year, compared with 66 per cent of women — both in overall numbers and specifically when it comes to fiction.

Yet pointing this out, and lamenting the “disappearance of literary men”, has become somewhat contentious. A much-discussed Vox article last year asked: “Are men’s reading habits truly a national crisis?” suggesting that they were not and pointing out that women only read an average of seven minutes more fiction per day than men (while failing to note that this itself represents almost 60 per cent more reading time).

Meanwhile an UnHerd op-ed last year argued that “the literary man is not dead”, positing that there exists a subculture of male literature enthusiasts keeping the archetype alive and claiming that “podcasts are the new salons”. 

That’s all well and good, but the truth is that there is a gender gap between men and women when it comes to reading and engaging specifically with fiction, and it’s growing.

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According to a 2022 survey by the US National Endowment for the Arts, 27.7 per cent of men had read a short story or novel over the previous year, down from 35.1 per cent a decade earlier. Women’s fiction-reading habits declined too, but more slowly and from a higher base: 54.6 per cent to 46.9 per cent, meaning that while women out-read men by 55 per cent in 2012 when it came to fiction, they did so by almost 70 per cent in 2022.

The divide is already apparent in young adulthood, and it has widened too: data from 2025 showed girls in England took an A-Level in English literature at an almost four-times-higher rate than boys, with that gap having grown from a rate of about three times higher just eight years earlier.

So the next question is: should we care and, if so, why? Those who argue that yes, we should, tend to give a few reasons. They point out that reading fiction fosters critical thinking, empathy and improves “emotional vocabulary”. They argue that novels often contain heroic figures and strong, virtuous representations of masculinity that can inspire and motivate modern men. They cite Andrew Tate, the titan of male toxicity, who once said that “reading books is for losers who are afraid to learn from life”, and that “books are a total waste of time”, as an example of whose advice not to follow. 

I agree with all of this — wholeheartedly, I might add. But I’m not sure how many of us, women or men, are picking up books in order to become more virtuous people. Perhaps the more compelling, or at least motivating, reason for reading fiction is simply that it offers a form of pleasure and attention that the modern world is steadily eroding. In a hyper-capitalist culture optimised for skimming and distraction, the ability to sit still with a novel is both subversive and truly gratifying. The real question, then, is why so many men are not picking one up.

jemima.kelly@ft.com

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Slow-moving prisoner releases in Venezuela enter 3rd day after government announces goodwill effort

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Slow-moving prisoner releases in Venezuela enter 3rd day after government announces goodwill effort

SAN FRANCISCO DE YARE, Venezuela — As Diógenes Angulo was freed Saturday from a Venezuelan prison after a year and five months, he, his mother and his aunt trembled and struggled for words. Nearby, at least a dozen other families hoped for similar reunions.

Angulo’s release came on the third day that families had gathered outside prisons in the capital, Caracas, and other communities hoping to see loved ones walk out after Venezuela ’s government pledged to free what it described as a significant number of prisoners. Members of Venezuela’s political opposition, activists, journalists and soldiers were among the detainees that families hoped would be released.

Angulo was detained two days before the 2024 presidential election after he posted a video of an opposition demonstration in Barinas, the home state of the late President Hugo Chávez. He was 17 at the time.

“Thank God, I’m going to enjoy my family again,” he told The Associated Press, adding that others still detained “are well” and have high hopes of being released soon. His faith, he said, gave him the strength to keep going during his detention.

Minutes after he was freed, the now 19-year-old learned that former President Nicolás Maduro had been captured by U.S. forces Jan. 3 in a nighttime raid in Caracas.

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The government has not identified or offered a count of the prisoners being considered for release, leaving rights groups scouring for hints of information and families to watch the hours tick by with no word.

President Donald Trump has hailed the release and said it came at Washington’s request.

On Thursday, Venezuela ’s government pledged to free what it said would be a significant number of prisoners. But as of Saturday, fewer than 20 people had been released, according to Foro Penal, an advocacy group for prisoners based in Caracas. Eight hundred and nine remained imprisoned, the group said.

A relative of activist Rocío San Miguel, one of the first to be released and who relocated to Spain, said in a statement that her release “is not full freedom, but rather a precautionary measure substituting deprivation of liberty.”

Among the prominent members of the country’s political opposition who were detained after the 2024 presidential elections and remain in prison are former lawmaker Freddy Superlano, former governor Juan Pablo Guanipa, and Perkins Rocha, lawyer for opposition leader María Corina Machado. The son-in-law of opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González also remains imprisoned.

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One week after the U.S. military intervention in Caracas, Venezuelans aligned with the government marched in several cities across the country demanding the return of Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. The pair were captured and transferred to the United States, where they face charges including conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism.

Hundreds demonstrated in cities including Caracas, Trujillo, Nueva Esparta and Miranda, many waving Venezuelan flags. In Caracas, crowds chanted: “Maduro, keep on going, the people are rising.”

Acting president Delcy Rodríguez, speaking at a public social-sector event in Caracas, again condemned the U.S. military action on Saturday.

“There is a government, that of President Nicolás Maduro, and I have the responsibility to take charge while his kidnapping lasts … . We will not stop condemning the criminal aggression,” she said, referring to Maduro’s ousting.

On Saturday, Trump said on social media: “I love the Venezuelan people and I am already making Venezuela prosperous and safe again.”

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After the shocking military action that overthrew Maduro, Trump stated that the United States would govern the South American country and requested access to oil resources, which he promised to use “to benefit the people” of both countries.

Venezuela and the United States announced Friday that they are evaluating the restoration of diplomatic relations, broken since 2019, and the reopening of their respective diplomatic missions. A mission from Trump’s administration arrived in the South American country on Friday, the State Department said.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil responded to Pope Leo XIV, who on Friday called for maintaining peace and “respecting the will of the Venezuelan people.”

“With respect for the Holy Father and his spiritual authority, Venezuela reaffirms that it is a country that builds, works, and defends its sovereignty with peace and dignity,” Gil said on his Telegram account, inviting the pontiff “to get to know this reality more closely.”

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