April 16, 2024

Tuesday, April 16, 2024. Annette’s News Roundup

I think the Roundup makes people feel not so alone.

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Joe is always busy.

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Remember who Trump is.

Led by MAGA Mike and Mob Boss Trump, Republicans continue to show they hate women.

Touch to watch the Biden ad.👇

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Trump faces his first criminal trial.

He wallowed in self pity on the eve of his criminal trial.

Jury Selection began.

“Donald Trump,” potential jurors were told, “falsified business records to conceal an agreement with others to unlawfully influence the 2016 presidential election.”

From Joyce Vance (Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Law at University of Alabama, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 2009 to 2017, MSNBC legal commentator):

Trump is charged with 34 violations of New York 175.10, falsifying business records in the first degree, a felony. The government has to prove that Trump made a false entry into the business records of an enterprise, or caused one to be made and that he did so with an intent to defraud that included an intent to commit, aid, or conceal another crime.

Will the jury find that the prosecution has provided proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump falsified the business records with the intent to commit another crime. If so, they should convict him on the felony charges. But Trump has suggested that the charges are, at worst, misdemeanors.

Here’s how that might play out: his lawyers will ask the Judge to instruct the jury on what’s called a “lesser included offense” theory, which will direct the jury to come back with only misdemeanor convictions if they believe Trump is responsible for the false business entries but don’t believe he possessed the intent to defraud and conceal other crimes.

One example of a lesser included offense involves the crime of burglary, which usually involves elements of both breaking and entering into another’s home or business and doing so with the intent to commit another crime while there. Trespassing is a lesser included offense of burglary—if the prosecution only proves breaking and entering but not the intent to commit another crime, the defendant can’t be convicted on the burglary charge but could be convicted of trespassing.

With Trump’s personality, he may insist on an all-or-nothing approach, but depending on how the government’s proof comes in, and given the fact that Trump is already suggesting the charges might “just” be misdemeanors, look for the defense to press hard on this approach.

How do we know the hush money payments were about the campaign, not Trump’s desire to protect his wife, who was at home with their young child while he was with Stormy Daniels? There are a lot of reasons, but one of the chief ones comes from the prosecution’s statement of facts.

Trump directed Cohen to delay making payment to Stormy Daniels for as long as possible. He told Cohen that “if they could delay the payment until after the election, they could avoid paying altogether, because at that point it would not matter if the story became public.” So much for Melania Trump’s feelings.

What will Republicans be doing as all of this goes on? Originally, they announced this as the House GOP’s agenda for next week.

That was their original agenda, a rather June Cleaver-ish affair but apparently the best they could muster for the week that the leader of their party, their nominee to be President of the United States, will be a defendant facing criminal charges in a courtroom in Manhattan. They simply aren’t fit to govern. (Joyce Vance, Civil Discourse).

Axios -A good summary of what really happened on Day One.

The first trial against former President Trump is now underway — and it looks like it might take a while.

• At least 50 potential jurors were dismissed today, the first day of jury selection, because they said they could not be impartial, per pool reports. It could take several days just to find 12 jurors.

• Judge Juan Merchan declined to recuse himself from the trial today, and he rejected another effort by former President Trump's legal team to delay the proceedings.

• Merchan scheduled a hearing for next week on prosecutors' claims that Trump violated the gag order in the case.

Trump "appeared to nod off a few times" during the proceedings, the NYT's Maggie Haberman reports.

Here is a more detailed New York Times account of Day One.

Here’s what to know about the trial.

The first criminal trial of an American president officially began on Monday as prosecutors and defense lawyers convened in a Manhattan courtroom to start selecting the jury that will decide Donald J. Trump’s fate.

The initial pool of prospective jurors dwindled rapidly. More than half of the first group of 96 were dismissed in short order after indicating that they did not believe they could be impartial. Court adjourned for the day roughly two hours after jury selection began, with zero jurors chosen.

Before beginning the arduous process of choosing a jury for the landmark trial — on allegations that Mr. Trump falsified documents to cover up a sex scandal involving a porn star — the judge overseeing the case once again declined to step aside, rejecting Mr. Trump’s latest effort to oust him.

But there was also a ruling that favored the former president: The judge, Juan M. Merchan, rejected a request by prosecutors to introduce accusations of sexual assault that women lodged against Mr. Trump years ago, calling them “rumors” and “complete gossip.”

The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which brought the case against Mr. Trump, also asked the judge to hold Mr. Trump in contempt and penalize him $3,000 for violating a gag order barring him from attacking witnesses in the case.

On social media over the weekend, Mr. Trump assailed one of the prosecution’s key witnesses: Michael D. Cohen, his former fixer. Mr. Cohen paid $130,000 to the porn star, Stormy Daniels, during the 2016 presidential campaign to keep quiet about a sexual encounter she said she had with Mr. Trump.

After the lunch break — during which Mr. Trump posted a video of an ally yelling about the judge’s wife — Justice Merchan said he would hold a hearing later this month to discuss potential violations of the gag order, which also bars Mr. Trump from attacking the judge’s family.

The jury selection process could take two weeks or more, and the trial may spill into June. Mr. Trump is expected to be in the courtroom for much of it.

Mr. Trump seemed alternately irritated and exhausted during pretrial arguments on Monday, sometimes smirking and scoffing, but also appearing to nod off, his mouth slack and his head drooping to his chest.

After the trial got underway in the afternoon, he chuckled when Justice Merchan told the first group of 96 prospective jurors that he would ensure a fair trial.

Mr. Trump, who might take the witness stand in his own defense, has denied the sexual encounter with Ms. Daniels. But prosecutors say that, while serving as president, he allowed his company to falsify records to hide the reimbursements to Mr. Cohen. They argue the payment to Ms. Daniels was part of a pattern: Mr. Trump, faced with damaging stories that could have doomed his campaign, concealed them to influence the election.

Here’s what else to know about Mr. Trump’s trial:

This is the Manhattan criminal case against Mr. Trump, and it was brought by the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, a year ago. Mr. Trump is facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and, if convicted, could face up to four years in prison.

The case, one of four indictments facing the former president and presumptive Republican nominee, may be the only one to make it to trial before Election Day.

Jury selection will be crucial for both sides. Prosecutors have some advantage, as the jury pool is drawn from Manhattan, one of the most Democratic counties in America. Mr. Trump’s team will be looking for red needles in a blue haystack.

Mr. Trump has twice sought Justice Merchan’s recusal, citing his daughter’s work as a Democratic political consultant. Justice Merchan has declined to step aside, noting a ruling by a judicial ethics commission that found his daughter’s work posed no conflict for him. “There is no agenda here,” Justice Merchan said in court on Monday, adding, “we want to follow the law, we want justice to be done.” Mr. Trump has also attacked the judge’s daughter on social media.

Hundreds of potential jurors have been summoned. Those who say they cannot be fair or otherwise serve are being excused, and the remaining prospective jurors will answer 42 questions compiled before the trial. Lawyers on both sides will be able to remove a limited number of them without explanation. The lawyers can also ask to remove a potential juror “for cause” by providing specific reasons they believe that person cannot be fair.

In addition to the payment to Ms. Daniels, Mr. Bragg’s office is expected to highlight two other deals involving The National Enquirer, a tabloid that has longstanding ties to Mr. Trump. In one deal, the tabloid bought the silence of a man who had heard that Mr. Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock, a rumor that turned out to be false, and in the other, it paid Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, who wanted to sell her story of an affair with Mr. Trump.

The prosecution’s witness list is expected to include David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer, as well as Hope Hicks, a former aide to Mr. Trump. Ms. Daniels and Ms. McDougal could also testify.

Here is the New York Times link that leads to descriptions of all the key players in the Trump criminal trial in Manhattan. Check it out!

One more thing.

Judge Juan Mechan told the former president he must attend every day of the trial, which started Monday, or face arrest, reported NBC News.

"If you do not show up there will be an arrest," the judge told him. [The issue is whether he can go to the Supreme Court when his immunity case is taken.]

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Remember how cowardly the Republican Party of 2024 is.

Opinion: Trump inspires yet another profile in cowardice - Los Angeles Times.

President Ford, left, and former President Nixon, right, flank their wives, Betty Ford and Pat Nixon, as the Nixons leave the White House in 1974

A kerfuffle in Grand Rapids, Mich., in recent days revealed a grim truth about America’s institutions in these troubled times: Too many of them lack the courage to stand up to the threat to democracy that is Donald Trump, thereby contributing to the alarming staying power of the once and perhaps future president.

We already know about the failure of the main institutional players in this constitutional crisis: those atop the Republican Party. “Political parties are democracy’s gatekeepers,” Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt wrote in their 2018 bestseller, “How Democracies Die,” which documented how the once-Grand Old Party abandoned that role to enable the rise of the demagogic would-be authoritarian.

Republican “leaders” at all levels recognized in 2016 the danger Trump represented, and yet, fearing his and his followers’ vitriol, mostly kept mum rather than form a united, vocal front against his nomination. Traditional Republicans who joined the Trump administration naively rationalized that they’d be good influences on the erratic president, only to learn who was boss. Trump critics turned into sycophants (here’s looking at you, Lindsey Graham), even after the disgrace of Jan. 6. When Congress fulfilled its institutional duty and impeached Trump, Republican senators acquitted him. The criminal justice system indicted the ex-president multiple times, but Republican judges and Supreme Court justices are forcing trial delays.

Meanwhile, many in corporate America — for all their talk of civic responsibility — stifled their evident horror at various Trump antics in return for tax cuts and fewer federal regulations. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers issued a challengeearly in Trump’s tenure: “If CEOs who employ hundreds of thousands of people are not in a position to speak truth to power, who is going to be?” Yes, who?

The mainstream media was cowed in covering Trump, at least initially, by its fealty to fairness, and still sometimes lapses into both-sides-ism, normalizing Trump’s abnormal behavior. And countless organizations, foundations and civic groups have stayed silent or inert, lest they offend donors or the vindictive and potentially reempowered Trump.

And that brings us to the recent brouhaha at one such organization, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, for a real-time window into institutional spinelessness in the age of Trump.

One of the foundation’s best-known trustees — Pulitzer Prize-winner David Hume Kennerly, Ford’s White House photographer and then his friend — resigned on Tuesday after its executive committee refused three times to consider giving its annual Gerald R. Ford Medal for Distinguished Public Service to former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, herself a board member, the daughter of Ford’s White House chief of staff, Dick Cheney, and, as the nation knows, Trump’s foremost Republican antagonist.

Politico disclosed Kennerly’s five-page scorcher of a letter to the foundation’s executive committee and board, in which he revealed that the members lacked the “kind of guts” that Ford had shown as a World War II combat veteran and politician — refusing to honor Cheney for fear of enraging Trump, who might threaten the foundation’s tax-exempt status or otherwise take retribution should he become president again.

How ironic. These are the leaders of a foundation dedicated to a president who lost election in 1976 at least in part for an action he believed was in the country’s best interest: pardoning Richard M. Nixon for his Watergate crimes, soon after succeeding Nixon when the disgraced president resigned. Fifty years later, they withhold a tribute from Cheney, who lost her House leadership post and then her congressional seat thanks to MAGA Republicans, because she too took a principled stand for the good of the country — against Trump.

“You aren’t alone,” Kennerly wryly wrote to the foundation invertebrates. “Many foundations, organizations, corporations, and other entities are caught up in this tidal wave of timidity and fear that’s sweeping this country. … This is the kind of acquiescent behavior that leads to authoritarianism. President Ford most likely would have come out even tougher and said that it leads directly to fascism.”

“Those of you who rejected Liz join many ‘good Republicans’ now aiding and abetting our 45th president by ignoring the genuine menace he presents to our country,” the letter continues.

Kennerly closed: “If the foundation that bears the name of Gerald R. Ford won’t stand up to this real threat to our democracy, who will?”

Depressingly, that question echoes the one Summers posed to corporate America seven years ago, and which has been put to many other institutions since. We’re still waiting for the answer.

The Ford Presidential Foundation‘s executive director, Gleaves Whitney, told Politico that because Cheney had not ruled out running for president this year, the nonprofit foundation could have risked losing its tax-exempt status by honoring her and making what “might be construed as a political statement.”

That’s ridiculous. Cheney is not running now, and she’s all but ruled out doing so as a third-party or independent candidate. But there is no reconsidering for the Ford folks: Their 2024 public-service award will go to Mitch Daniels, a former Indiana governor and President George W. Bush’s budget director.

More to the point, Daniels is a once-prominent Republican who’s hardly been known as a Trump critic all these years. A safe choice, in other words.

As Cheney wrote not long after the Trump mob’s attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, “History is watching. Our children are watching.” Alas, they’re not seeing much Cheney-like courage from the nation’s institutions and Republican leaders.

It’s up to voters to stand up to Trump. Again. (@jackiekcalmes, LA Times)

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Abortion, Florida - What will happen in November.

42% Of Florida Voters Want To Reverse Six-Week Abortion Ban—But Almost As Many Are Undecided, Poll Finds.

A plurality of Florida voters plan to support a constitutional amendment that would effectively reverse the state’s six-week abortion ban, according to a new survey—as Democrats hope the ballot measure will draw Biden voters to the polls in November.

Forty-two percent of voters plan to cast their ballots in favor of the constitutional amendment that would enshrine the right to abortion up until fetal viability, about 24 weeks of pregnancy, according to a Thursday Emerson College survey of 1,000 registered voters conducted April 9-10 (margin of error +/- 3).

A significant share, 32%, of voters are undecided, the poll found, while 25% will vote against the amendment.

While 56% of Democrats and 44% of Independents plan to vote for the measure, Republicans are divided on the issue, with 30% planning to vote in favor, 36% planning to oppose it and 34% who said they’re unsure.

The ballot measure would effectively reverse the six-week abortion ban that Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law, which 57% of respondents said was too strict, while 28% said it’s about right and 15% said it’s not strict enough.

Forty-three percent of voters believe Florida’s current law banning abortions past 15 weeks of pregnancy is too strict, while 36% said it’s about right and 21% said it’s not strict enough.

Democrats are hoping the ballot measure there and in Arizona will bolster President Joe Biden’s re-election chances—in the wake of a state Supreme Court ruling earlier this month allowing both the ballot measure and the six-week ban to move forward, Biden’s campaign expressed confidence it can flip Trump’s home state, despite him winning there in 2016 and 2020.

BIG NUMBER

51%. That’s the share of Florida voters who plan to vote for Trump, compared to 38% who said they’ll cast their ballots for Biden and 11% who are undecided, the Emerson poll found.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR

Voters in Arizona—a swing state Biden narrowly won in 2020—are also set to decide on a constitutional amendment (pending signature verification by the secretary of state’s office) that would reverse the 1864 ban the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday could go back into effect.

(To read the full article, click on the blue link above).

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The Olivier Awards List is shockingly British.

America loves British shows. The Olivier voters do not seem to reciprocate.

Olivier Awards 2024: the winners in full

Tom Francis and Nicole Scherzinger in Sunset Boulevard at the Savoy Theatre, London. Photo: Marc Brenner

Sunset Boulevard has scooped seven wins at the Olivier Awards 2024, with its stars Nicole Scherzinger and Tom Francis winning best actress and best actor in a musical for their respective performances.

The awards, presented in partnership with Mastercard, took place at the Royal Albert Hall on April 14, with Hannah Waddingham once more as master of ceremonies.

Sunset Boulevard picked up the most gongs of the evening, nabbing the prizes for categories including best director for Jamie Lloyd, best musical revival, best lighting for Jack Knowles and best sound design for Adam Fisher.

Meanwhile, other acting awards went to performers including Sarah Snook, Mark Gatiss, Will Close and Haydn Gwynne.

The National Theatre – celebrating its 60th anniversary – received an onstage dedication during the celebration’s finale.

The winners in full

Best revival

Vanya at the Duke of York’s Theatre

Also nominated:
The Effect at the National Theatre
Macbeth at the Donmar Warehouse
Shirley Valentine at the Duke of York’s Theatre

Best actor in a supporting role

Will Close for Dear England at the National Theatre – Olivier and Prince Edward Theatre

Also nominated:
Paul Hilton for An Enemy of the People at the Duke of York’s Theatre
Giles Terera for Clyde’s at the Donmar Warehouse
Luke Thompson for A Little Life at the Harold Pinter Theatre and Savoy Theatre
Zubin Varla for A Little Life at the Harold Pinter Theatre and Savoy Theatre

Best actress in a supporting role

Haydn Gwynne for When Winston Went to War with the Wireless at the Donmar Warehouse

Also nominated:
Lorraine Ashbourne for Till the Stars Come Down at the National Theatre – Dorfman
Priyanga Burford for An Enemy of the People at the Duke of York’s Theatre
Gina McKee for Dear England at the National Theatre – Olivier
Tanya Reynolds for A Mirror at the Almeida Theatre and Trafalgar Theatre

Best set design

Miriam Buether for set design and 59 Productions for video design for Stranger Things: The First Shadow at the Phoenix Theatre

Also nominated:
Bunny Christie for set design for Guys and Dolls at the Bridge Theatre
Es Devlin for set design and Ash J Woodward for video design for Dear England at the National Theatre – Olivier and Prince Edward Theatre
Soutra Gilmour for set design and Nathan Amzi and Joe Ransom for video design for Sunset Boulevard at the Savoy Theatre

Best costume design

Marg Horwell for The Picture of Dorian Gray at the Theatre Royal Haymarket

Also nominated:
Bunny Christie and Deborah Andrews for Guys and Dolls at the Bridge Theatre
Ryan Dawson Laight for La Cage aux Folles at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre
Hugh Durrant for Peter Pan at the London Palladium

Best actress

Sarah Snook for The Picture of Dorian Gray at the Theatre Royal Haymarket 

Also nominated:
Laura Donnelly for The Hills of California at the Harold Pinter Theatre
Sophie Okonedo for Medea at @sohoplace
Sarah Jessica Parker for Plaza Suite at the Savoy Theatre
Sheridan Smith for Shirley Valentine at the Duke of York’s Theatre

Best actor

Mark Gatiss for The Motive and the Cue at the National Theatre – Lyttelton & Noël Coward Theatre

Also nominated:
Joseph Fiennes for Dear England at the National Theatre – Olivier and Prince Edward Theatre
James Norton for A Little Life at the Harold Pinter Theatre and Savoy Theatre
Andrew Scott for Vanya at the Duke of York’s Theatre
David Tennant for Macbeth at the Donmar Warehouse

Outstanding achievement in opera

Antonio Pappano for his role as musical director of the Royal Opera House

Also nominated:
Belarus Free Theatre Company for King Stakh’s Wild Hunt at the Barbican Theatre
Marina Abramović for her concept and design of 7 Deaths of Maria Callas at the London Coliseum

Best new opera production

Innocence by the Royal Opera at the Royal Opera House

Also nominated:
Blue by the English National Opera at the London Coliseum
Picture a Day Like This by the Royal Opera at the Royal Opera House – Linbury Theatre
The Rhinegold by the English National Opera at the London Coliseum

Best new play

Dear England by James Graham at the National Theatre – Olivier and Prince Edward Theatre

Also nominated:
The Hills of California by Jez Butterworth at the Harold Pinter Theatre
The Motive and the Cue by Jack Thorne at the National Theatre – Lyttelton and Noël Coward Theatre
Till the Stars Come Down by Beth Steel at the National Theatre – Dorfman

Best director

Jamie Lloyd for Sunset Boulevard at the Savoy Theatre

Also nominated:
Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin for Stranger Things: The First Shadow at the Phoenix Theatre
Rupert Goold for Dear England at the National Theatre – Olivier and Prince Edward Theatre
Sam Mendes for The Motive and the Cue at the National Theatre – Lyttelton and Noël Coward Theatre

Outstanding achievement in affiliate theatre

Sleepova by Matilda Feyişayo at the Bush Theatre

Also nominated:
Blue Mist by Mohamed-Zain Dada at the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre
A Playlist for the Revolution by AJ Yi at the Bush Theatre
The Swell by Isley Lynn at the Orange Tree Theatre
The Time Machine: A Comedy by Steven Canny and John Nicholson at the Park Theatre

Best entertainment or comedy play

Stranger Things: The First Shadow at the Phoenix Theatre

Also nominated:
Accidental Death of an Anarchist at the Lyric Hammersmith
Old Friends at the Gielgud Theatre
Vardy V Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial at Ambassadors Theatre

Best family show

Dinosaur World Live by Derek Bond at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

Also nominated:
Bluey’s Big Play by Joe Brumm at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall
The House with Chicken Legs, book by Sophie Anderson, adapted by Oliver Lansley at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall
The Smeds and the Smoos, book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, adapted by Tall Stories at the Lyric Theatre

Outstanding achievement in dance

Isabela Coracy for her performance in NINA: By Whatever Means, part of Ballet Black: Pioneers at the Barbican Theatre

Also nominated:
Jonzi D for his artistic direction of Breakin’ Convention 2023 International Festival of Hip Hop Dance Theatre at Sadler’s Wells
Rhiannon Faith for her community focussed conception of Lay Down Your Burdensat the Pit at Barbican

Best new dance production

La Ruta by Gabriela Carrizo, part of Nederlands Dans Theater – NDT 1 at Sadler’s Wells

Also nominated:
Broken Chord by Gregory Maqoma and Thuthuka Sibisi at Sadler’s Wells
The Rite of Spring by Seeta Patel at Sadler’s Wells
Time Spell by Michelle Dorrance, Jillian Meyers and Tiler Peck, part of Turn It Out With Tiler Peck and Friends at Sadler’s Wells

Best musical revival

Sunset Boulevard at the Savoy Theatre

Also nominated:
Groundhog Day at the Old Vic
Guys and Dolls at the Bridge Theatre
Hadestown at the Lyric Theatre

Outstanding musical contribution

Alan Williams for musical supervision and musical direction for Sunset Boulevard at the Savoy Theatre

Also nominated:
Tom Brady for musical supervision and arrangements and Charlie Rosen for orchestrations for Guys and Dolls at the Bridge Theatre
Matt Brind for musical supervision, arrangements and orchestrations for Just for One Day at the Old Vic
Steve Sidwell for orchestrations and Joe Bunker for musical direction for Operation Mincemeat at the Fortune Theatre

Best theatre choreographer

Arlene Phillips with James Cousins for Guys and Dolls at the Bridge Theatre

Also nominated:
Fabian Aloise for Sunset Boulevard at the Savoy Theatre
Ellen Kane and Hannes Langolf for Dear England at the National Theatre – Olivier and Prince Edward Theatre
Mark Smith for The Little Big Things at @sohoplace
Susan Stroman for Crazy for You at the Gillian Lynne Theatre

Best lighting design

Jack Knowles for Sunset Boulevard at the Savoy Theatre

Also nominated:
Jon Clark for Dear England at the National Theatre – Olivier and Prince Edward Theatre
Jon Clark for Stranger Things: The First Shadow at the Phoenix Theatre
Paule Constable for Guys and Dolls at the Bridge Theatre

Best sound design

Adam Fisher for Sunset Boulevard at the Savoy Theatre

Also nominated:
Paul Arditti for Stranger Things: The First Shadow at the Phoenix Theatre
Dan Balfour and Tom Gibbons for Dear England at the National Theatre – Olivier and Prince Edward Theatre
Gareth Fry for Macbeth at the Donmar Warehouse

Best actress in a supporting role in a musical

Amy Trigg for The Little Big Things at @sohoplace

Also nominated:
Grace Hodgett Young for Sunset Boulevard at the Savoy Theatre
Zoë Roberts for Operation Mincemeat at the Fortune Theatre
Eleanor Worthington-Cox for Next to Normal at the Donmar Warehouse

Best actor in a supporting role in a musical

Jak Malone for Operation Mincemeat at the Fortune Theatre

Also nominated:
Cedric Neal for Guys and Dolls at the Bridge Theatre
David Thaxton for Sunset Boulevard at the Savoy Theatre
Jack Wolfe for Next to Normal at the Donmar Warehouse

Best actor in a musical

Tom Francis for Sunset Boulevard at the Savoy Theatre

Also nominated:
David Cumming for Operation Mincemeat at the Fortune Theatre
Daniel Mays for Guys and Dolls at the Bridge Theatre
Charlie Stemp for Crazy for You at the Gillian Lynne Theatre

Best actress in a musical

Nicole Scherzinger for Sunset Boulevard at the Savoy Theatre

Also nominated:
Natasha Hodgson for Operation Mincemeat at the Fortune Theatre
Caissie Levy for Next to Normal at the Donmar Warehouse
Marisha Wallace for Guys and Dolls at the Bridge Theatre

Best new musical

Operation Mincemeat, music, lyrics and book by David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson & Zoë Roberts at the Fortune Theatre

Also nominated:
The Little Big Things, music by Nick Butcher, lyrics by Nick Butcher and Tom Ling, book by Joe White at @sohoplace
Next To Normal, music by Tom Kitt, book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey at the Donmar Warehouse
A Strange Loop, music, lyrics and book by Michael R. Jackson at the Barbican Theatre (The Stage)

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Yesterday, the Olympic Relay began in Paris.

https://x.com/afp/status/1779837071324225588?s=61&t=I_Od53CbnPTsbLcD0baXPg

The Paris 2024 Olympic Torch Relay will start its journey in France on 8 May 2024 with the flame arriving in Marseille ahead of 68 days of travel across the French territories. Here are some key figures from the Paris 2024 Olympic Torch Relay. 

"On Friday 23 June, the Organising Committee for the Olympic Games Paris 2024unveiled the next Olympic Torch Relay route in a historical and symbolic place, at the Sorbonne University, where Pierre de Coubertin held the founding speech for the Modern Olympic Games.

It will start in Olympia on 16 April 2024 with the arrival of the Olympic flame in Marseilleon 8 May from Athens, Greece, after travelling by sea onboard the full-rigged ship Belem.

“At Paris 2024, with more than two months of uninterrupted festivities, we’ll live a magnificent adventure together, all over the territory, with millions of French people in the wake of the Games,” declared Tony Estanguet, President of Paris 2024.

When asked for three words to characterise the Torch Relay, Estanguet chose: "Spectacular – we want to make people dream, we want to show a France that shines. National – we’re lucky to have strong support from all regions. Sporting – it’s really important to celebrate sport in the whole country and make it more sporting."

Amélie Oudéa-Castera, Minister for Sport and the Olympic & Paralympic Games said: "It's going to be beautiful! For months and years, the local collectivities have been very involved in the organisatiom of these Games, which will run in seven regions and 11 departments. These are the most decentralised Games ever in history and it was important to have the overseas territories covered. This part of the relay is also going to be wonderful."

Olympic gold medallist, swimmer Florent Manaudou, leader of one of the relays said: "It's incredible to be captain. When you are a kid discovering the Games, you see the sporting part but also the Olympic torch, which is highly symbolic. I am very happy to showcase all the amazing landscapes we have in France."

Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, said: "Paris is shining. It's the symbol of a free city, a wonderful city, the most beautiful city in the world. I am very proud to have driven this bid and brought back the Games in Paris.

"The flame is the energy of a country, the will to be together. The Torch Relay is preparation for the Opening Ceremony, it's a national story telling, which brings us together. In this story telling, there are landscapes, territories, nature, the beauty of the sites and our diverse cultures."

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And yesterday, this happened too.

The Indiana Fever’s whole season is already sold out.

The Fever will play The New York Liberty at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn on May 18th.

It is going to be a helluva WNBA season.

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