PEOPLE IN THE NEWS
Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” is selling at a pace rarely seen for a political memoir, or any nonfiction book.
Combined hardcover, e-book and audio sales in the U.S. and Canada topped 2 million copies in the first 15 days, Crown Publishing announced Friday. By comparison, former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s memoir “Living History” needed a month to sell 1 million copies. Former President George W. Bush’s “Decision Points” took several weeks to reach 2 million. Former President Bill Clinton’s “My Life” quickly sold 1 million copies but took far longer to hit 2 million.
“Becoming,” which came out Nov. 13, now has 3.4 million hardcover copies in print.
‘Stop chaos:’ Weinstein lawyer urges dismissal of sex case
In the latest push to have Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assault case thrown out, the producer’s lawyer said Thursday that a woman accusing him of a 2013 rape pressured a friend to corroborate her account, but that the friend wouldn’t “make up a story.”
The friend told defense investigators that Weinstein and the rape accuser had been “hooking up” consensually for a long time and that she never heard the accuser say anything bad about him until last year, lawyer Benjamin Brafman said in a court filing.
Weinstein’s side also believes police set up a phone call between the film producer and one of his accusers, but the operation failed to produce incriminating evidence.
“The only reasonably prudent decision would be to stop this chaos now,” Brafman wrote, urging Judge James Burke to dismiss the case.