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Lion cubs make their public debut at the Denver Zoo

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Lion cubs make their public debut at the Denver Zoo



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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 9, 2025, 3:53 PM EDTBy Kate Reilly and Saba HamedyJimmy Kimmel pressed comedian Aziz Ansari this week about his decision to perform at Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Comedy Festival, with Kimmel calling the Saudi government a “pretty brutal regime” and questioning why Ansari would “take their money.”Held in Saudi Arabia’s capital city, the Riyadh Comedy Festival began on Sept. 26 and ends Thursday. The event has hosted over 50 stand-up comedians from around the world, including big names such as Ansari, Kevin Hart, Pete Davidson and Dave Chappelle. Those comedians have been facing backlash since accepting seemingly lucrative deals to perform in a country that has been criticized for its human rights violations.In an interview on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Tuesday night, Kimmel pressed Ansari about his decision to take the stage in Riyadh. “People, a lot of comedians especially, are very upset, because the people who paid the comedians to come to this are not good people,” Kimmel said. “It’s a pretty brutal regime. They’ve done a lot of horrible, horrible things.” The talk show host then asked Ansari why he chose to appear at the event, stating that “people are questioning why you would go over there and take their money to perform in front of these people.”Ansari said he put a lot of thought into the decision, explaining that he consulted his aunt, who used to live in Saudi Arabia.”There’s people over there that don’t agree with the stuff that the government’s doing, and to ascribe like the worst behavior of the government onto those people, that’s not fair,” Ansari said his aunt pointed out. “Just like there’s people in America that don’t agree with the things the government is doing.”Kimmel agreed that “we’re doing horrible things over here,” but pushed back on Ansari’s comparison between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. “They murdered a journalist,” Kimmel said, referring to Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Kimmel then asked Ansari if he had dealt “with those people specifically.”Ansari replied, “No, I was just there to do a show for the people.” The comedian further explained his thought process, saying his wife told him that “whenever there’s repressive societies like this, they try to keep things out — whether it’s rock ‘n’ roll music or blue jeans — because it makes people curious about outside ideas, outside values.”Ansari, who is Indian American, went on to add that “to me, a comedy festival felt like something that’s pushing things to be more open and to push a dialogue.” He then discussed how his own background compelled him to do the performance.”For me, especially being me and looking the way I do and being from a Muslim background, it felt like something I should be a part of. And I hope it pushes things in a positive direction.”Ansari did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for comment. When speaking to Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw at the publication’s Screentime event on Wednesday, Kimmel — whose show recently returned to the air after it was briefly suspended by ABC and Disney over the host’s remarks about Charlie Kirk’s assassination — addressed why he pressed Ansari on the matter.“I wouldn’t have gone (to Riyadh), but I wanted to hear his reasons,” said Kimmel, who also noted that Ansari was aware he would ask him about the festival.“Nothing’s black and white,” Kimmel added. “It’s not something I would do, but I do understand the idea that if we close ourselves off to the world … maybe that’s not good. I don’t know that my reasoning is correct reasoning.”He drew a parallel to current U.S. politics. “We see it happening in this country, too,” he said. “We travel abroad, many of us don’t want to be held accountable for what our president does and says.” Kimmel’s skepticism about the Riyadh Comedy Festival comes after many comedians have publicly criticized the event.”WFT” podcast host Marc Maron ripped into the festival in a stand-up clip posted to Instagram on Sept. 23. “I mean, how do you even promote that?” Maron said. “Like, ‘From the folks that brought you 9/11, two weeks of laughter in the desert. Don’t miss it.’”Shane Gillis also condemned the event on his podcast, and said that the festival organizers “doubled the bag” after he declined to perform. Human Rights Watch wrote in a press release published on Sept. 23 that the Saudi government is using the comedy festival “to deflect attention from its brutal repression of free speech and other pervasive human rights violations.”The Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., and Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, which announced the festival in July, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Kate ReillyKate Reilly is a news associate with NBC News.Saba HamedySaba Hamedy is the trends and culture editor for NBC News.
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Oct. 2, 2025, 6:10 PM EDTBy Chloe MelasWhen Harvey Weinstein, Luigi Mangione and NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere faced hard time, among the first people they called was Craig Rothfeld.Rothfeld is the founder and owner of Inside Outside Ltd., a company that helps clients, including the aforementioned three, navigate the unnerving world of life behind bars.With only about a half-dozen prison consulting firms in the United States, Rothfeld is part of a little-known niche industry spawned around the criminal justice system that caters to big-name and no-name clients, all with the same goal.“I’m advocating for their human rights,” Rothfeld said.Rothfeld said he knows firsthand the misery and anguish prisoners experience because he was once incarcerated himself. He served 18 months after he was indicted for various financial crimes and was released in 2017.He said he started his company later that year to help others get through the challenges he faced. “Somebody needs a CPAP machine. They can’t breathe or sleep without it. How do I arrange for that CPAP machine to be able to be brought into either a federal prison or a state prison with them?” Rothfeld said. Luigi Mangione at his arraignment at Manhattan criminal court on Dec. 23.Curtis Means / Pool via Getty ImagesWhen someone hires him, Rothfeld gives the person a list of do’s and don’ts based on the 40 questions clients most often ask him, he said. “Never sit on somebody else’s bed. … Do not go into their cell unless you’re invited. You do not join a conversation that you’re not a part of,” he said. Rothfeld, whom Weinstein granted permission to talk about his experience behind bars, said Weinstein’s first questions before he was locked up were the same as those of other, nonfamous clients. “How am I going to talk to my family? Where am I going? And where do you think I’m going, and how are we going to deal with all of my medical conditions and medical needs?” Rothfeld said.Weinstein, who has chronic myeloid leukemia, or bone marrow cancer, is serving time at Rikers Island in New York City as he awaits sentencing stemming from a sexual assault conviction in June.One of his attorneys, Jennifer Bonjean, said prison consultants are important advocates for people entering the system. “As lawyers, we depend heavily on them to help our clients adjust to prison in all manner of ways, whether it’s to help resolve a medical concern, assist with a disciplinary issue or to advocate for a placement in a facility,” Bonjean said this week.Craig Rothfeld.NBC NewsArthur Aidala, Weinstein’s longtime criminal defense attorney, said he refers clients to Rothfeld because the “fear of the unknown” is overwhelming.”Preparing to enter prison, and then crossing that threshold, is an experience whose horror is truly indescribable,” Aidala said this week. “For most people, it feels insurmountable.”In the case of Raniere, who was sentenced to 120 years in federal prison in 2019 on sex trafficking and child pornography charges, Rothfeld’s first task was to get him out of solitary confinement, he said. Raniere was confined to solitary in 2022 after he was allegedly assaulted by another inmate.“If you spent 280 days in the SHU [Special Housing Unit] with no explanation whatsoever and you have feces on the floor and the walls, yeah, your human rights are being violated,” he said.One of Raniere’s attorneys, Ronald Sullivan, said navigating the federal Bureau of Prisons requires knowledge of a “byzantine set of regulations, the understanding of which can make a tangible difference in time served.”He said that regulations change frequently and that relationships with prison officials often determine how quickly or slowly requests are granted.Rothfeld said conditions at Rikers Island and the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York City are “deplorable.” “Some days you have cold water, and that’s it. Sometimes you don’t get to shower for the week,” he said. “The food is inedible. Quite often, there’s leaks coming from the ceiling. There’s broken lights in cells, there’s mice, there’s cockroaches. It is completely inhumane.”Former film producer Harvey Weinstein appears in court for his retrial as the jury deliberates at Manhattan Criminal Court on June 10 in New York.Michael Nagle / Getty Images fileOfficials at Rikers Island, a jail that is operated by the city of New York, did not respond to a request for comment.The federal Bureau of Prisons, which oversees the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, said that it makes every effort to ensure inmates’ physical safety and health and that their treatment is humane. It also said the detention center provides nutritionally adequate meals.Rothfeld said he charges a flat fee for his services but would not provide specifics. He said celebrity clients account for only about 2% of his business. “I don’t cost what an attorney costs. I don’t cost six figures. I don’t cost what a brand-new, fancy sport car costs,” he said. “I work with families to meet them where they’re at.”It is not publicly known whether Sean “Diddy” Combs, the former music mogul who is scheduled to be sentenced Friday, has hired a prison consultant. Prosecutors are seeking a sentence of 11 years and three months in federal prison after he was found guilty on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. Combs has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center for over a year. Rothfeld said Combs can expect better conditions in a federal prison than at the detention center.“He’ll be able to go outside,” he said. “There’ll be a yard of access to fresh air. He’ll be able to work out if he wants to work out. The second thing is the nature of his living quarters. In all probability, he will be in a dorm-like setting. Anything is nicer or better, relatively speaking, than the MDC.”Rothfeld speaks alongside Diana Fabi Samson and John Esposito, attorneys for Harvey Weinstein, outside Queens criminal court in New York last year. Julia Nikhinson / APRothfeld said he encourages his clients to become voracious readers. “I always recommend that people read fantasy,” he said. “Speaking from personal experience, I read ‘Game of Thrones’ when I was in prison, and it got me outside of where I was.”For the victims of the crimes his clients have committed, Rothfeld said he is not an arbiter of morality. “It’s not my job to judge; it’s not my job to argue. It’s my job to advocate. And as I tell people, the punishment is prison,” he said. “I believe, no matter who you are, famous or not — most of my clients no one’s ever heard of — you should have humane living conditions. Your civil rights should be honored when you’re incarcerated.”Chloe MelasChloe Melas is an entertainment correspondent for NBC News. Emily Lorsch contributed.
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