Names and faces
■ Gina Torres used to wonder about the back story of her Suits character, Jessica Pearson. The character was the co-founder and boss of the law firm at the center of the show, but that was about all that was known. Torres wondered: “‘She doesn’t have family, she doesn’t have people. When are we gonna meet her people? What’s gonna happen? When are we gonna get to know more of the woman?’” Torres’ questions are answered in the new spinoff, Pearson, that premiered earlier this week on USA. As the show begins, Pearson has been disbarred and can no longer practice law. She relocates from New York to Chicago where she’s hired as the unofficial fixer for the mayor, who is married, but involved with the city attorney. Pearson is “not Suits 2.0. It’s not Suits Jr.,” Torres said. It’s not a legal series or a procedural and is different in tone from Suits. “I like to call it a legacy show because clearly I come from the world of Suits, but it’s a very, very different animal,” she said. “It’s not a different Jessica, it’s just more of Jessica in a place of evolving. She’s sort of questioning her choices, she’s looking forward to what she wants to do and there’s still more to accomplish.” Torres also serves as an executive producer, a role that has been one of her career goals.
■ Urged on by the first lady and celebrities including Kim Kardashian West, President Donald Trump said that he is trying to help free rapper A$AP Rocky, who has been held in police custody in Sweden for weeks. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said that he’d been alerted to the case by black supporters, as well as by his wife. “We’ll be talking to them,” Trump said, referring to Swedish officials. “We’ve already started.” First lady Melania Trump added, “We’re working with the State Department, and we hope to get him home soon.” A$AP Rocky — the stage name of Rakim Mayers — is being held for another week in pretrial detention to allow police to finish investigating a June 30 fight in downtown Stockholm, a Swedish court said Friday. Stockholm’s District Court decided to accept the request from prosecutors to hold A$AP Rocky on a suspected assault charge until Thursday. On July 5, Mayers and his bodyguards were ordered held for two weeks after being accused of getting into a fight in Stockholm before appearing at a music festival. The case has earned the attention of a slew of celebrities, including Kardashian West, who has worked with the Trump administration on criminal justice issues. A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Kardashian West had reached out to Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, to tell him about the situation on behalf of her husband, Kanye West, a supporter of the president.