In addition to these unexpected embarrassments [referring to her recent problematic speech], the prime minister also had the pre-planned contrition of having to apologise for her poor performance in the recent general election. She said of her poor performance that the election had been "too scripted, too presidential... I hold my hands up for that. I take responsibility. I led the campaign and I am sorry."

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At least three Democrats have already said they will donate money they received from Weinstein to charitable causes.

A representative for Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said in an email Friday that Blumenthal would donate his contribution from Weinstein to the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence. Weinstein contributed $5,400 to Blumenthal in October of last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Meanwhile, the campaign manager for Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) told CNN that the $5,600 Leahy received from Weinstein in campaign contributions would be donated to the Women's Fund at the Vermont Community Foundation, while a representative for Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) told the outlet his $5,400 contribution would be donated to the non-profit Community Against Violence in New Mexico.
...
"During three-decades worth of sexual harassment allegations, Harvey Weinstein lined the pockets of Democrats to the tune of three quarters of a million dollars," RNC chairwoman Ronna Romney-McDaniel said in a statement. "If Democrats and the DNC truly stand up for women like they say they do, then returning this dirty money should be a no brainer."

Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, James Corden, and Stephen Colbert all seemingly passed on the Weinstein news, both in their monologues and interviews with movie-star guests.

...now that Weinstein's sordid practices are out in the open, people are coming out of the woodwork to refer to the allegations as one of the "worst kept secrets" in the industry. Many people apparently knew full well that he was a creep, and that treated women this way, for decades. Yet he was feted, awarded, and applauded in those same glamorous cliques because he could make and break careers.

Actress Lena Dunham referred to a "flimsy but firm veil of secrecy." In The Cut, journalist Rebecca Traister wrote, "I have been having conversations about Harvey Weinstein's history of sexual harassment for more than 17 years." Axios ran an article headlined, "Harvey Weinstein was Hollywood's biggest open secret." CNN anchor Jake Tapper reported that a Hollywood producer told him, "Shocked it's taken so long for a Harvey Weinstein behavior expose. One of the most open secrets in Hollywood."
...
Weinstein's trail of political donations is long and his contributions benefitted many prominent Democrats. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, those lawmakers include: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Al Franken, D-Minn., Richard Bluementhal, D-Conn., Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

It also includes former Sens. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Russ Feingold, D-Wis., Chris Dodd, D-Conn., Harry Reid, D-Nev., Tom Daschle, D-S.D., former Gov. Howard Dean, D-Vt., former Secretary of State John Kerry, and former President Bill Clinton.

Don't forget the hundreds of thousands of dollars Weinstein donated to the DNC, DSCC, and DCCC as well.

Given that his behavior was apparently an "open secret" in Hollywood, it's worth questioning how it's possible that none of those Democrats, who claim to be staunch supporters of women's rights, were aware of Weinstein's reputation. Hollywood and Washington are separate worlds, but politicians, and especially Democrats, travel in circles that include plenty of powerful people from the entertainment industry. It's difficult to imagine high-profile Democrats such as the Clintons, Obamas, Franken, and Schumer were ignorant of the rumblings about Weinstein's conduct towards women.

The conversations started when I was a young editorial assistant at Talk, the magazine he financed, in 1999; back then it was with young people, friends - women and men - who worked for him, at Miramax, and told tales of hotel rooms, nudity, suggestion, and coercion, and then of whispered payoffs, former assistants who seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth. ...

In my mid-20s, I became a reporter and fact checker at the New York Observer, and part of my beat was covering the film business in New York. The night before the 2000 election, I was working on a story - perhaps my first seriously reported story - about O, the violent reimagining of Othello that Miramax's Dimension division was then sitting on, perhaps out of deference to the cringey clean-media message of the Al Gore-Joe Lieberman campaign, which Weinstein was publicly supporting; already there was talk of Weinstein's ambitions in Democratic politics. After Weinstein failed to respond to my calls for comment, I was sent, on Election Eve 2000, to cover a book party he was hosting, along with my colleague Andrew Goldman. Weinstein didn't like my question about O, there was an altercation; though the recording has alas been lost to time, I recall that he called me a cunt and declared that he was glad he was the "fucking sheriff of this fucking lawless piece-of-shit town." When my colleague Andrew (who was also then my boyfriend) intervened, first calming him down and then trying to extract an apology, Weinstein went nuclear, pushing Andrew down a set of steps inside the Tribeca Grand - knocking him over with such force that his tape recorder hit a woman, who suffered long-term injury - and dragging Andrew, in a headlock, onto Sixth Avenue.

Such was the power of Harvey Weinstein in 2000 that despite the dozens of camera flashes that went off on that sidewalk that night, capturing the sight of an enormously famous film executive trying to pound in the head of a young newspaper reporter, I have never once seen a photo. Back then, Harvey could spin - or suppress - anything; there were so many journalists on his payroll, working as consultants on movie projects, or as screenwriters, or for his magazine.

The following photos show Turkish forces with artillery being prepared along the Syrian border in Turkey's Hatay province.

A video also emerged of the residents of Reyhanli in Hatay province applauding the deployment of Turkish tanks ahead of the Idlib operation.

It is worth highlighting that Turkey was the biggest sponsor of these jihadist forces since the beginning of the Syrian War in 2011.