Names and faces

■ Taking the stage Saturday at an Italian conference on justice, Amanda Knox accused the media of having built a false narrative around her during her yearslong murder trial and appeals process, depicting her as guilty even though she was eventually acquitted. The former exchange student from the United States returned to Italy for the first time since an appeals court acquitted her in 2011 in the slaying of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher. Knox, speaking in Italian on a panel discussion at the Criminal Justice Festival in Modena titled “Trial by media,” said she was depicted “on the global scene as cunning, psychopath, drug-addicted, whore. Guilty.” Speaking through tears, she said the media that labeled her “Foxy Knoxy” invented a “false and baseless story, which fueled people’s fantasies and talked to their fears.” Knox’s 2011 acquittal was part of a long legal process that saw multiple flip-flop rulings before she was definitively acquitted in 2015 by Italy’s highest court. Knox said she had returned to Italy despite the fact that she was afraid of being “molested, derided, framed, that new accusations will be directed against me for telling my truth.” She was accused with her Italian boyfriend at the time, Raffaele Sollecito, and Ivorian-born Rudy Guede of killing Kercher on Nov. 1, 2007, in the university town of Perugia. After multiple rulings, Italy’s highest court acquitted Knox and Sollecito in 2015. Guede is still serving a 16-year sentence. During her speech, which was followed by a standing ovation, Knox recalled Perugia prosecutor Giuliano Mignini as the one who accused her in his search for justice. “One day I’d like to meet the real Mignini, and I hope that when he comes, he will also see that I am not a monster, I simply am Amanda,” Knox said.

■ Taylor Swift put on a surprise performance at an iconic gay bar a day after releasing a song supporting the LGBT community. Swift celebrated Pride Month by appearing at New York City’s Stonewall Inn on Friday night. On Thursday, she released a new tune called “You Need to Calm Down,” in which she calls out those who attack the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. The song is the second single from Swift’s seventh album, Lover, which will be released Aug. 23. Swift sang her hit song “Shake It Off” at the New York City bar with Modern Family actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who hosted the event. Ferguson is working on a documentary about Stonewall Inn, where patrons resisted a police raid in 1969 and helped spark the gayrights movement. The bar is marking 50 years since the riots.

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Knox