• Police seek suspects in deadly birthday party shooting
  • Lawmakers launch inquires into U.S. boat strike
  • Nov. 29, 2025, 10:07 PM EST / Updated Nov. 30, 2025,…
  • Mark Kelly says troops ‘can tell’ what orders…

Be that!

contact@bethat.ne.com

 

Be That ! Menu   ≡ ╳
  • Home
  • Travel
  • Culture
  • Lifestyle
  • Sport
  • Contact Us
  • Politics Politics
☰

Be that!

Senate to attempt votes on government funding as shutdown continues for third day

admin - Latest News - October 3, 2025
admin
29 views 30 secs 0 Comments



As the shutdown enters its third day, the Senate is set to vote on measures to fund the government that are not expected to reach the vote threshold required to pass. NBC News’ Monica Alba reports from the White House on where the parties stand in negotiations and what lawmakers have had to say about the shutdown.



Source link

TAGS:
PREVIOUS
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.
NEXT
45 second breakdown of Taylor Swift’s new album
Related Post
November 9, 2025
What to know about the nationwide FAA-mandated flight reductions
October 15, 2025
Oct. 15, 2025, 2:00 PM EDTBy Matt BradleyCAESAREA, Israel — Ten years ago this week, two Palestinian attackers boarded a bus in Jerusalem and shot, beat and stabbed Israeli American educator Richard Lakin to death along with two others before police killed one of the militants and injured and arrested the other.The surviving assailant, Bilal Abu Ghanem, was freed in February from his three consecutive life sentences for murder as part of the last Israeli ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas.That’s when his son, Micah Avni, had to watch his father’s murderer go free.“It feels like I’ve been betrayed by my country,” Avni, 56, said the day before Hamas exchanged 24 Israeli hostages for about 2,000 Palestinian detainees and prisoners, including 250 serving life sentences for serious crimes including terrorism. Bilal Abu Ghanem, in 2016.Ahman Gharabli / AFP via Getty Images fileAvni’s anguish and anger have now merged with a larger collective, shared by many Israelis whose loved ones were killed or maimed in terror attacks and who must now watch the perpetrators walk free as part of the latest ceasefire negotiated by the Trump administration.Their torment hasn’t just punctured the euphoria surrounding last week’s agreement — it very nearly halted the deal and could still frustrate its full implementation.Two far-right political parties in Israel’s government cited the release of 250 convicts as their reason for voting against President Donald Trump’s ceasefire and hostage release plan.“Alongside this joy, it is absolutely forbidden to ignore the question of the price: the release of thousands of terrorists,” said Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right minister of national security and leader of the Otzma Yehudit party, in a statement explaining his party’s opposition. “These are terrorists whose past experience proves that they will return to terrorism and their art of working to murder Jews.”While Ben-Gvir and others refer to thousands of “terrorists” released, 250 of those released were convicted of serious crimes.Most of the rest of the more than 1,700 people let go, among them doctors, nurses and journalists, had been held without charge. These detainees were not involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and were held under a controversial practice called administrative detention, which allows Israel to detain people for an indefinite period of time without ever charging them. More than 20 minors were on the list.For Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, the releases were cause for celebrations. Prisoners and detainees who returned to Gaza rode on the tops of buses through crowds of well-wishers.Families wait outside the Ramallah Cultural Palace for the Palestinian prisoners to be released on Monday.Daniele Hamamdjian / NBC NewsIn the West Bank, families waited for the released prisoners outside the Ramallah Cultural Palace in the Palestinians’ provisional capital. Some women and young girls arrived in traditional Palestinian dresses. Many refused to speak to the gathered press: Israel’s military, they said, had called them and warned them not speak to the media.The prisoners’ families said they had seen others being re-arrested in the past and didn’t want to gamble on the convicts’ hard-won freedom.“For Israel, any Palestinian is a terrorist,” said the uncle of one of the released Palestinians, who refused to give his name, “even if they didn’t do anything.”Palestinian relatives mourn at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.Khames Alrefi / Anadolu via Getty ImagesIn addition, there is the collective pain of nearly 2 million in Gaza who have endured Israel’s two-year war against Hamas. There is little hope among Palestinians that anybody will be held responsible for the tens of thousands of innocent civilians killed by Israeli fire, along with those maimed in attacks.Israel has accused Hamas of operating in civilian areas, thus necessitating attacks that endanger noncombatants. In November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, whom Israel said it had killed, over alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes.Israel has forcefully rejected the allegations, and Netanyahu’s office branded the decision “antisemitic,” rejecting them as “absurd and false” and condemning the ICC as a “biased and discriminatory political body.”Tinged with sadnessPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged many Israelis’ public pain in comments on Sunday night.“Tomorrow, our sons will return to their borders,” he said. “This is a historic event that is tinged with sadness over the release of murderers — and joy over the return of kidnapped people.”Under President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan for ending the fighting, Hamas fighters who lay down their weapons would be spared any punishment — a condition that has also raised grave reservations among many Israelis, including Netanyahu, who had hoped to see Hamas destroyed.Rachel Goldberg-Polin, an American Israeli whose son, Hersh, was kidnapped on Oct. 7 and then killed by Hamas last year, said she’s rejected the feelings of anger that come with grief.Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, parents of Hersh, in Jerusalem in October 2024.Dmitry Solovyov / NBC News“Nothing can bring Hersh back,” she said in an interview last week. “I tend to look at this in a very zoomed-out way. I don’t have this fiery venomous anger that I think wouldn’t serve me in any purpose.”Avni, who opposed this week’s deal, said he worries that the released convicts will simply return to the battlefield or engage in terrorism against Israelis.“Obviously, every single Jewish person wants to get the hostages back,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that strategically trading thousands of terrorists for 20 lives makes sense.”Avni has advocated executing terrorists as a way to remove prisoner exchanges from the negotiating table. Israeli law allows for capital punishment, but only for treason and “crimes against humanity.” The death sentence has been used only twice in Israeli history.In the hours after his father’s murder, Avni admits that he considered taking matters into his own hands. Both Lakin and Abu Ghanem were taken to the same ward in the same Jerusalem hospital after the attack.The scene of the Jerusalem bus attack on Oct. 13, 2015, that resulted in Richard Lakin’s death.Kobi Gideon / Getty Images fileZaka volunteers and security forces inspect the scene after the bus attack that left Lakin and two other civilians dead.Gali Tibbon / AFP via Getty Images fileThe two men were treated only yards apart. Lakin died, but his killer survived.“I think I would have jumped on him and done something but he had police standing there,” Avni said. “I remember thinking to myself, you know, you’ll go to jail for life, and you’ve got responsibilities.”Recounting the cruel irony of his father’s killing still brings tears to Avni’s eyes. His father had been a peace-loving school principal who advocated for racially integrated education, had marched with Martin Luther King Jr. and participated in the anti-segregation “Freedom Riders” movement during the 1960s.The family moved to Israel when Avni was 15 years old.“He was a big believer in coexistence. I wish everybody could be like that, but they’re not,” Avni said of his father. “It was an innocent world view.”Richard Lakin, his grandchild, and his son, Micah Avni.Family handoutMatt Bradley reported from Caesarea, and Daniele Hamamdjian from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. Matt BradleyMatt Bradley is an international correspondent for NBC News based in Israel.Daniele Hamamdjian contributed.
November 7, 2025
Schumer puts forward new plan to end government shutdown
October 15, 2025
Hegseth's aircraft makes emergency landing in U.K.
Comments are closed.
Scroll To Top
  • Home
  • Travel
  • Culture
  • Lifestyle
  • Sport
  • Contact Us
  • Politics
© Copyright 2025 - Be That ! . All Rights Reserved