Citing Paris prosecutors, Reuters and other news outlets are reporting that the French movie director Christophe Ruggia was arrested and taken into custody for questioning today over allegations he sexually assaulted a teen girl who was cast in one of his films nearly two decades ago. Read the rest

Three separate, named women have independently accused Trump's EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland of repeated acts of sexual misconduct while he was in a position of physical, financial and professional power over them. Sondland denies the accusations. Read the rest

UPDATE: Here is an email I received from Tony Robbins' representative moments after I published this blog post about the Buzzfeed News story. I have appended Mr. Robbins' full statement, and that of his representative Jennifer Connelly, below. -- Xeni Jardin

Connelly, Jennifer 11:23 AM

Dear Xeni,

I represent Mr. Robbins and just saw your story which repeats the false story that BuzzFeed just published. While we appreciate you linking to Mr. Robbins’ Medium article, we respectfully ask that you also include my full media statement, or at the very least link to it.

I have to say I am confused as to why you would republish fake and false news before even reaching out to us for comment? Don’t we deserve the opportunity to comment before you just run with tabloid false news?

This is not ethical journalism and I respectfully request a response from you and your editor. Your headline does not reflect the truth and that is offensive and not credible journalism.

We respectfully request that you run my statement below in full.

Please confirm.

Thank you

Here is my statement

Here is Mr. Robbins statement.

Original blog post follows.

Motivational speaker Tony Robbins is accused of sexually assaulting a high schooler at a summer camp, report Buzzfeed's Katie Baker and Jane Bradley in an extensively investigated story just out today. Read the rest

In my latest podcast (MP3), I read my new Locus column, "Jeannette Ng Was Right: John W. Campbell Was a Fascist,"which revisits Jeannette Ng's Campbell Awards speech from this summer's World Science Fiction convention. Read the rest

On Tuesday, McDonald’s Corporation was sued by a group of workers in the state of Michigan who say the global fast-food chain allows pervasive sexual harassment to run rampant at its restaurant locations. Read the rest

In 2017, Carroll, Iowa police officer Jacob Smith resigned from the force after a disciplinary investigation regarding sexual encounters between Smith and teenaged girls. Read the rest

At the height of the #MeToo movement, giant management consulting firm Ersnt and Young (AKA "EY") sent a group of women to Power-Presence-Purpose, a "leadership and empowerment" workshop led by Marsha Clark, who advised them that "Women’s brains absorb information like pancakes soak up syrup so it’s hard for them to focus" and "Men’s brains are more like waffles. They’re better able to focus because the information collects in each little waffle square." Read the rest

Ronan Farrow reports in his forthcoming book Catch and Kill [Amazon] that TV host Matt Lauer is accused of raping a colleague at NBC News. Read the rest

The life of reviled Hollywood sex pest and alleged rapist Harvey Weinstein is "ruined".

An attorney for Harvey Weinstein lamented that “his whole life has been ruined” and defended the accused serial sexual abuser and disgraced movie mogul against the more than 70 women — including former employees and Hollywood stars — who have accused him of sexual assault by blaming them instead.

“No matter what happens to Harvey Weinstein, he will pay the biggest price there is. Even if he wins, Gayle, his whole life has been ruined, toppled, damaged,” Donna Rotunno told “CBS This Morning” host Gayle King in an interview that aired Tuesday. “And whether it’s by his own doing or others, that’s the fact. And the fact is that no matter what we do ― and we can walk out of that courtroom with a ‘not guilty’ and walk him out onto those courtroom steps, and he never gets to be Harvey Weinstein ever again.”

Such a shame. Read the rest

The latest turn in the Gamergate sage: Zoe Quinn (previously) outed their former partner, game dev Alec Holowka as a sexual and emotional abuser, which prompted others to come forward with their own stories of abuse at Holowka's hands, which led to Holowka being kicked out of his Night in the Woods game project -- and shortly thereafter, Holowka committed suicide. Read the rest

Supermajority's Gender Equality, the Status of Women and the 2020 Elections surveys likely 2020 voters (N=1912), finds a strong correlation between opposition and broad misogynistic beliefs, such as opposition to the idea that women and men should hold an equal number of positions of power; opposition to the #MeToo movement; a disbelief in the idea that access to birth control affects women's power in society (likewise, skepticism that the lack of woman role models in powerful positions is significant). Read the rest

In May 2018, Google faced a series of public resignations and scandals over a secret internal project to supply AI tools to the Pentagon's drone warfare project; then, in August 2018, scandal hit again with the news that Google was secretly developing a censoring, surveilling Chinese search-tool; then came the news that the company had secretly paid Android founder Andy Rubin $90m to quietly leave the company after credible accusations of sexual abuse and assault. Read the rest

In 2016, Google announced that it was renaming its small Google Ideas unit to "Jigsaw," giving the new unit a much broader, "wildly ambitious" mandate: to tackle "surveillance, extremist indoctrination, and censorship." Read the rest

PWC reports that the top reason that CEOs from large companies are fired is no longer related to bad financial performance or board conflict as has been the case for nearly two decades of their CEO Success studies. It's because the ousted CEOs are, surprise, slimeballs and crooks! From PWC:

For the first time in the study’s history, more CEOs were dismissed for ethical lapses than for financial performance or board struggles. (We define dismissals for ethical lapses as the removal of the CEO as the result of a scandal or improper conduct by the CEO or other employees; examples include fraud, bribery, insider trading, environmental disasters, inflated resumes, and sexual indiscretions.) The rise in these kinds of dismissals reflects several societal and governance trends, including more aggressive intervention by regulatory and law enforcement authorities, new pressures for accountability about sexual harassment and sexual assault brought about by the rise of the “Me Too” movement, and the increasing propensity of boards of directors to adopt a zero-tolerance stance toward executive misconduct.

"Succeeding the long-serving legend in the corner office" (PWC/Strategy&) Read the rest

Writing in Fortune, Beth Kowitt gives us a look inside the Googler Uprising, wherein Google staff launched a string of internal reform movements, triggered first by the company's secret participation in an AI/drone warfare project for the Pentagon, then a secret attempt to build a censored/surveilling search engine for use in China, then the revelation that the company had secretly paid off an exec accused of sexual assault, to tune of $150m. Read the rest

* whether they deserve one or not

After Skydance hired Pixar sex pest John Lasseter, actress Emma Thompson quit a project there in protest. Here's her letter to the studio. The LA Times:

When Skydance Media Chief Executive David Ellison announced this year that he was hiring John Lasseter to head Skydance Animation, many in and outside the company were shocked and deeply unhappy. Only months earlier, Lasseter had ended his relationship with Pixar — where he had worked since the early ’80s — and parent company Disney after multiple allegations of inappropriate behavior and the creation of a frat house-like work environment. Lasseter had admitted to inappropriate hugging and “other missteps.”

Read the rest