US Business

Closing arguments are to be held on Friday in the bitter multi-million dollar defamation case between “Pirates of the Caribbean” star Johnny Depp and his former wife Amber Heard.

Lawyers will make their final appeals to the jury following dozens of hours of testimony and six weeks of blistering mutual accusations of domestic violence between the celebrity couple.

Judge Penney Azcarate is expected to hand the case over to the seven-person jury Friday afternoon. The panel will be off over the weekend and on Monday, a public holiday, and resume deliberations on Tuesday.

The 58-year-old Depp filed a defamation suit against Heard in Virginia over an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post in December 2018 in which she described herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”

The Texas-born Heard, who had a starring role in “Aquaman,” did not name Depp in the piece, but he sued her for implying he was a domestic abuser and is seeking $50 million in damages.

Heard countersued for $100 million, claiming that she suffered “rampant physical violence and abuse” at his hands.

Dozens of witnesses testified during the high-profile trial which began on April 11, including bodyguards, Hollywood executives, agents, entertainment industry experts, psychiatrists, doctors, friends and relatives.

Depp and Heard each spent days on the witness stand during the televised trial which attracted hundreds of fans of the “Pirates” star to the town of Fairfax near the US capital.

Video and audio recordings of heated, profanity-laced arguments between the couple were repeatedly played for the jury, which was also shown multiple photographs of injuries allegedly suffered by Heard during their volatile relationship.

Hours of testimony featuring medical experts was devoted to a finger injury that Depp suffered while filming the fifth installment of “Pirates” in Australia in March 2015, a month after the pair were married.

Depp claimed the tip of the middle finger on his right hand was severed when Heard threw a vodka bottle at him during an argument. Heard said she did not know how the injury occurred.

Both agreed that Depp went on to scrawl messages on walls, lampshades and mirrors using the bloody digit.

– ‘Monster’ –

Heard said Depp would become a physically and sexually abusive “monster” during alcohol- and drug-fueled binges and resisted her repeated efforts to curb his drinking and drug use.

Heard said Depp had promised to bring her “global humiliation” if she left him, and she has been the target of a vast #JusticeForJohnnyDepp social media campaign.

“I am harassed, humiliated, threatened every single day,” she said, and suffers from panic attacks, nightmares and trauma.

“People want to kill me and they tell me so every day,” she said. “I receive hundreds of death threats regularly, if not daily, thousands since this trial has started, people mocking my testimony about being assaulted.”

The trial has been attended daily by fans of Depp, some of whom have queued for hours overnight to secure one of the limited seats in the public gallery.

Heard was the final witness to take the stand before closing arguments.

Depp testified the previous day and said it has been “unimaginably brutal” to listen to his ex-wife’s “outlandish” accusations of domestic abuse.

“No human being is perfect, certainly not, none of us, but I have never in my life committed sexual battery, physical abuse,” he said.

– Damaged Hollywood careers –

Depp said he brought legal action because he needed to address “what I’ve been carrying on my back, reluctantly, for six years.”

Heard, who was married to Depp from 2015 to 2017, obtained a restraining order against him in May 2016, citing domestic violence.

Depp, a three-time Oscar nominee, filed a libel suit in London against the British tabloid The Sun for calling him a “wife-beater.” He lost that case in November 2020.

Both sides have claimed damage to their Hollywood careers.

Heard’s legal team presented an entertainment industry expert who estimated that the actress has suffered $45-50 million in lost film and TV roles and endorsements.

An industry expert hired by Depp’s side said the actor has lost millions because of the abuse accusations, including a potential $22.5 million payday for a sixth installment of “Pirates.”

A distraught Texas grandmother of a girl killed in the massacre in Uvalde pleaded Thursday for urgent action by US authorities to prevent future school shootings, as the country plunges again into the roiling debate over guns.

Ten-year-old Amerie Garza — a fourth-grader who loved her classes, drawing, and playing with clay — was one of 19 children murdered by a teen gunman at Robb Elementary School in an act of evil that has forever changed this small Texas town.

“My granddaughter was in there. She was an innocent little girl, loving school and looking forward to summer,” Dora Mendoza told reporters after paying respects at a makeshift memorial outside the school.

But the 63-year-old, who lived with Amerie and saw her at an end-of-year ceremony Tuesday just hours before she was killed, quickly made clear she wanted US officials such as President Joe Biden and Texas Governor Greg Abbott not to shy away from working together on reforms.

Biden, who is due to visit Uvalde on Sunday, and Abbott are polar opposites regarding restrictions on gun sales. Like many in the Democrat versus Republican divide, the two also differ on the path to take to curb the nation’s surging gun violence. 

“They shouldn’t just wait for… tragedy to start,” she said. 

“They need to do something about it. They need to not forget us, the babies… Don’t forget them, please,” Mendoza, speaking in a mix of English and Spanish, pleaded through her tears.

“Do something about it, I beg you. I beg you!” she wailed. “All the cries and all these little innocent babies… we don’t know what they went through.”

Amerie’s “abuela” was among several Uvalde residents who came to pray or leave flowers at the school memorial, where 21 small white wooden crosses have been erected bearing names of the 19 children and two teachers who were killed.

Among the mourners was Yaritza Rangel, 23, who brought her four children to lay flowers.

– ‘What if it happens again?’ –

“We’re all hurt. We never thought this would happen here,” where most town residents know each other, she said.

But Rangel, while avoiding politics, did point to three reforms she wants enacted: an expansion of background checks for gun purchases, tightening of security in schools, and raising the minimum age for buying firearms.

“It doesn’t make sense,” she said. “You have to go and wait until you’re 21 to go and buy alcohol. Why are they letting 18-year-olds be able to buy rifles?”

Rangel, whose young nephew was in a Robb Elementary classroom that the shooter tried but failed to enter, is now worried about her own children and says she has been traumatized by the attack.

Her son will be going to elementary school soon, and the prospect of violence keeps her awake at night.

“What if it happens again?”

Dozens of relatives, students and friends have been placing flowers, stuffed animals, candles and jewelry at a second memorial in Uvalde’s town square, which has become a gathering place for residents to unite in their anguish.

Like the first memorial, it features white crosses with the names of the victims. Meghan Markle, the wife of Britain’s Prince Harry, visited the site on Thursday.

The 40-year-old Duchess of Sussex — wearing jeans, a t-shirt and a blue baseball cap — reached down with her head bowed and placed flowers between two of the crosses.

Some mourners added messages on the crosses, including a young girl who wrote one for victim Jackie Cazares.

“Love you cousin ’till we meet again,” it said.

Texas police faced angry questions Thursday over why it took an hour to neutralize the gunman who murdered 19 small children and two teachers in Uvalde, as video emerged of desperate parents begging officers to storm the school.

In one jolty, nearly seven minute clip posted on YouTube, parents living a nightmare — a school shooting under way with their kids inside — are seen screaming expletives at police trying to keep them away from Robb Elementary School.

“It’s my daughter!” one woman bellows amid chaotic scenes of crying and shoving.

Angeli Rose Gomez, whose children were inside, told The Wall Street Journal she was handcuffed by federal marshals after she and others pushed police to intervene.

In another shorter video, parents at what is apparently the rear of the building complain angrily that police are doing nothing as the country’s worst school shooting in a decade is unfolding.

One woman, frantic about her son, yells to police: “If they’ve got a shot, shoot him or something. Go on.”

Jacinto Cazares, whose daughter Jacklyn died on Tuesday, said he raced to the school when he heard about the shooting.

“There was at least 40 lawmen armed to the teeth but didn’t do a darn thing (until) it was far too late,” Cazares told ABC News Wednesday.

“The situation could’ve been over quick if they had better tactical training.”

Daniel Myers and his wife Matilda — both local pastors — told AFP they saw parents at the scene growing frantic as police seemed to wait on reinforcements before entering the school.

“Parents were desperate,” said Daniel Myers, 72. “One family member, he says: ‘I was in the military, just give me a gun, I’ll go in. I’m not going to hesitate. I’ll go in.'”

– ‘Approximately an hour’ –

The tight-knit Latino community was changed forever when Salvador Ramos, an 18-year-old with a history of being bullied, entered the school and gunned down students and teachers with an assault rifle.

Relatives said the husband of one of the teachers killed in the attack died Thursday from a medical emergency — caused by grief over the loss of his wife. The couple had four children.

Facing rapid-fire questioning by journalists on the police response, Victor Escalon of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) said investigators were still working to piece together exactly what happened.

After shooting his own grandmother, Ramos crashed her vehicle near the school, Escalon said, then fired on bystanders before entering through a door that was apparently unlocked.

Officers went in minutes later, but were held back by gunfire and called for backup. A tactical team including US Border Patrol agents entered and killed the gunman “approximately an hour later.”

In the interim, officers evacuated students and teachers and unsuccessfully tried to negotiate with the gunman, who held them back with rifle fire, Escalon said.

– ‘I have no words’ –

Speaking out for the first time, Ramos’s mother Adriana Reyes told ABC News her son could be aggressive when angry but was “not a monster” — and that she was not aware he had been buying weapons.

“I had an uneasy feeling sometimes, like ‘what are you up to?,'” she told ABC Wednesday evening. “We all have a rage, that some people have it more than others.”

“Those kids… I have no words,” Reyes said through tears. “I don’t know what to say about those poor kids.”

Students who went to high school with Ramos said he bullied others as well as being on the receiving end of abuse.

“I do vividly remember him being a bully in school. It wasn’t just that he was getting bullied, he was also the bully,” 18-year-old Jaime Cruz told AFP.

The Uvalde shooting was the deadliest since 20 elementary-age children and six staff were killed at the Sandy Hook school in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.

– ‘Common sense’ –

Gun manufacturer Daniel Defense, which made the assault rifle used in Uvalde, told AFP it will not attend a convention of the powerful National Rifle Association gun lobby this weekend in Houston, in light of the “horrifying tragedy.”

“We believe this week is not the appropriate time to be promoting our products in Texas at the NRA meeting,” said the company, which stated its gun had been “criminally misused” in the attack. 

Pressed on how Ramos was able to obtain the murder weapon, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has brushed aside calls for tougher gun laws in his state — where attachment to the right to bear arms runs deep.

But in the shooting’s wake President Joe Biden — who will head to Uvalde on Sunday with First Lady Jill Biden — has called on lawmakers to take on the gun lobby and enact “common sense gun reforms.”

Gun control activists and lawmakers gathered outside the US Capitol Thursday, vowing no letup in their efforts in the run-up to November’s midterm elections.

“Gun violence prevention is going to be on the ballot,” said the Democratic senator from Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal.

The March for Our Lives advocacy group — founded by survivors of the 2018 Parkland school shooting in Florida — has meanwhile called for nationwide protests on June 11 to press for gun control.

Daniel Defense, the manufacturer of the assault rifle used in the Uvalde school shooting in Texas, said Thursday it will not attend a convention this week in the state of the powerful National Rifle Association gun lobby.

“Daniel Defense is not attending the National Rifle Association (“NRA”) meeting due to the horrifying tragedy in Uvalde, Texas where one of our products was criminally misused,” the company told AFP.

“We believe this week is not the appropriate time to be promoting our products in Texas at the NRA meeting,” it said.

The convention will be held in Houston, Texas from May 27-29. The NRA has been instrumental in preventing the passage of stricter firearms regulations in the United States.

Daniel Defense previously promised its full cooperation with the investigation into the Tuesday massacre, in which 19 young children and two teachers were killed.

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and community devastated by this evil act,” it said.

A week before the shooting, the company tweeted an image of a young boy sitting on the floor with an assault rifle across his legs, as an adult points a finger toward the weapon.

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it,” text accompanying the picture said.

The Daniel Defense account has since been set so its tweets can only be viewed by approved followers.

Russia on Thursday made an all-out effort to capture the rest of the industrial region of Lugansk in eastern Ukraine, officials said, as President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of seeking to commit “genocide” across the eastern Donbas.

As the fighting intensified, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba aired Kyiv’s increasing frustration with the West, accusing allies of dragging their feet on arms deliveries and telling his German counterpart that Ukraine needs heavy weapons “as soon as possible.”

Russian forces are now closing in on several urban centres, including the strategically located Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. Lugansk is part of the Donbas, the industrial basin comprising that region and Donetsk.

“The situation remains difficult, because the Russian army has thrown all its forces at taking the Lugansk region,” regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said in a video on Telegram. 

“Extremely fierce fighting is taking place on the outskirts of Severodonetsk. They are simply destroying the city, they are shelling it every day, shelling without pause.”

Russian forces also bombarded Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv, killing nine people, and five civilians were killed Thursday in the Donetsk region to the south, according to the governor.

In his daily televised address, Zelensky said Moscow was pursuing an “obvious policy of genocide” in the Donbas — after failing to take the capital Kyiv — and its bombardments could leave the entire region “uninhabited”.

Kyiv has been losing patience with what it views as the West’s failure to quickly arm Ukraine and impose a ban on Russian oil exports on top of punishing economic sanctions already in place. 

“We need more heavy weapons delivered as soon as possible, especially MLRS (multiple launch rocket systems) to repel Russian attacks,” Kuleba wrote on Twitter after speaking with Germany’s Annalena Baerbock.

– ‘Maximum intensity’ –

Earlier in the day, Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Ganna Malyar told journalists that fighting in the east had reached “its maximum intensity” since Russia invaded its neighbour on February 24.

Pro-Moscow separatist groups have since 2014 controlled parts of Donbas, but Russia now appears set on taking the whole region.

“Enemy forces are storming the positions of our troops simultaneously in several directions. We have an extremely difficult and long stage of fighting ahead of us,” Malyar said.

Gaiday said three people died in recent Russian attacks on Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, which stand on the crucial route to Ukraine’s eastern administrative centre in Kramatorsk.

In Kramatorsk itself, children roamed the rubble left by Russian attacks as the sound of artillery fire boomed.

“I got used to the shelling,” said Yevgen, a sombre-looking 13-year-old who moved to Kramatorsk with his mother from the ruins of his village Galyna. 

And fresh shelling around Kharkiv killed another nine people and injured 19, officials said.

“Today the enemy insidiously fired on Kharkiv,” regional governor Oleg Sinegubov said on social media, warning residents to evacuate to air raid shelters.

An AFP reporter in Kharkiv saw plumes of smoke rising from the stricken area, along with several people injured near a shuttered shopping centre. An elderly man with injuries to his arm and leg was carried away by medics.

– ‘Show me one Nazi!’ –

Russia’s rationale of a “special military operation” to “demilitarise and de-Nazify” Ukraine drew a snort of derision in one village near Kharkiv that came under fire.

“Show me one Nazi in the village! We have our nation, we are nationalists but not Nazis nor fascists,” said retired nurse Larysa Kosynets.

Elsewhere, in the strategic southern port city of Mariupol, occupying authorities cancelled school holidays to prepare students to switching to a Russian curriculum, said a Ukrainian official.

Mariupol fell to Russia earlier this month after a devastating siege that left thousands dead the reduced the city to rubble.

“Throughout the summer, children will have to study Russian language, literature and history as well as math classes in Russian,” city official Petro Andryushchenko wrote on social media.

– ‘Trust is lost for generations’ –

Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin on Thursday became the latest Western official to visit Kyiv, where she said it would take Russia decades to repair its standing in the world after invading Ukraine.

“Trust is lost for generations,” Marin told a press conference.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has faced criticism over Berlin’s slow response, also weighed in Thursday, saying Russian President Vladimir Putin will not negotiate seriously until he realises he might not win in Ukraine.

“Our goal is crystal-clear — Putin must not win this war. And I am convinced that he will not win it,” Scholz told the World Economic Forum in Davos.

– Food crisis fears –

The Ukraine conflict has sparked fears of a global food crisis, on top of the political and economic shockwaves that have already reverberated around the world.

The Kremlin on Thursday pointed the finger at Western countries for stopping grain-carrying vessels from leaving ports in Ukraine — rejecting accusations that Russia was to blame.

Putin said Moscow was ready to make a “significant contribution” to averting the crisis if the West lifts sanctions imposed on Russia over Ukraine, in a telephone call with Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi.

Speaking to journalists after the call, Draghi said he would continue talking to both Moscow and Kyiv to resolve the food crisis, but added that he had little optimism for ending the war.

“When asked if I have seen any glimmer of hope for peace, the answer is no,” the Italian prime minister said.

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Actor Ray Liotta, who starred in Martin Scorsese’s gangster classic “Goodfellas,” has died suddenly in the Dominican Republic, officials and police said Thursday. He was 67.

Liotta, whose blistering turn as real-life mobster Henry Hill in Scorsese’s crime masterpiece won universal admiration, was shooting a new film in the country when he died in his sleep.

Police said emergency services were called early Thursday morning to a hotel in Santo Domingo where they found Liotta already dead.

The actor’s publicist in Los Angeles, Jennifer Allen, confirmed his death, saying there were no suspicious circumstances.

Allen said he had been working on a movie called “Dangerous Waters.”

Liotta became a household name in 1990 when he was cast alongside Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci in what is widely considered one of the greatest films of the 20th century.

“Goodfellas” won one Oscar, and was nominated for five others. Scenes from the movie continue to resonate as cultural touchstones more than three decades later.

A year before “Goodfellas,” Liotta had played baseball star “Shoeless Joe” Jackson in beloved sports movie “Field of Dreams,” opposite Kevin Costner.

The film was nominated for three Oscars, including best picture.

– ‘A gentle man’ –

News of Liotta’s death sparked a flood of tributes from colleagues and contemporaries, with “Goodfellas” co-star Lorraine Bracco, who played on-screen wife Karen, saying she was “utterly shattered to hear this terrible news.”

“I can be anywhere in the world & people will come up & tell me their favorite movie is Goodfellas,” she tweeted.

“Then they always ask what was the best part of making that movie. My response has always been the same… Ray Liotta.”

Actress Jamie Lee Curtis, who worked with Liotta on “Dominick and Eugene,” tweeted: “His work as an actor showed his complexity as a human being. A gentle man. So sad to hear.”

Jennifer Lopez, who starred opposite Liotta in the television series “Shades of Blue,” said he was “the epitome of a tough guy who was all mushy on the inside.” 

“Like a raw nerve, he was so accessible and so in touch in his acting. We lost a great today … RIP RAY … it’s so sad to lose you what seems way to soon.”

Seth Rogen, who was cast alongside Liotta in black comedy “Observe and Report” called him “a true legend of immense skill and grace… a lovely, talented and hilarious person.”

Despite branching out to show the breadth of his talent, Liotta had recently returned to the world of mob films, with roles in Steven Soderbergh’s “No Sudden Move” and 2021’s “The Many Saints of Newark.”

Alessandro Nivola, who played alongside Liotta in “The Many Saints of Newark,” a prequel to hit TV series “The Sopranos,” said his co-star’s death had come “too soon.”

“I feel so lucky to have squared off against this legend in one of his final roles,” he wrote on Twitter.

“The scenes we did together were among the all time highlights of my acting career. He was dangerous, unpredictable, hilarious, and generous with his praise for other actors.”

Liotta was born in Newark, New Jersey, in December 1954.

Variety reported he was left at an orphanage at birth and adopted when he was six months old.

At the University of Miami, he performed in musicals, and after graduating landed a role on a soap opera that would provide him with three years’ work to 1981.

His first movie came in 1983, but it wasn’t until 1986’s “Something Wild” opposite Melanie Griffith and Jeff Daniels that he came to wider attention.

The comedy-action-romance was screened at Cannes and scored Liotta a Golden Globe nomination for supporting actor.

The day after his 18th birthday, Salvador Ramos, a troubled teenager from small-town Texas, bought an assault rifle. A week later, he walked into a local elementary school, where he shot and killed 19 young children and two of their teachers.

Authorities are still trying to piece together what drove Ramos to commit America’s worst school massacre in a decade, but here is what is known so far about the shooting:

– How the shooter attacked –

Described as a long-bullied youth with a history of self-harm, Ramos turned 18 on May 16 and bought an assault rifle the very next day. 

He purchased 375 rounds of ammunition on May 18, and then a second rifle two days after that.

Ramos — a school dropout with no criminal history — messaged on social media Tuesday morning that he planned to attack his grandmother, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said.

Ramos shot his 66-year-old relative in the face. She survived and was airlifted in critical condition to a hospital in nearby San Antonio.

The shooter then messaged again to say he had followed through on his plan to attack his grandmother, and that an elementary school was his next target.

He drove a little over two miles (3.2 kilometers), crashing near Robb Elementary School, where more than 500 students in grades two to four — aged around seven to 10 years old — had just three days of class left before summer vacation.

He fired on bystanders at a funeral home, then climbed a fence, entered the school through a door that was apparently unlocked, and made his way to two adjoining classrooms.

“That’s where the carnage began,” said Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS).

– How he was stopped –

As a crowd grew near the school, police arrived on the scene.

Officers entered the school minutes after the shooter, but were held back by gunfire and called for backup, according to Victor Escalon of DPS.

A tactical team that included US Border Patrol agents entered and killed the suspect “approximately an hour later,” Escalon said.

In the interim, officers evacuated students and teachers from the school, and unsuccessfully tried to negotiate with the gunman, who held them back with rifle fire.

Texas police are facing scrutiny over the delay between the start of the attack and the death of the shooter.

When pressed by journalists on the law enforcement response — and on contradictory accounts provided by officials — Escalon said investigators were still conducting interviews and working to piece together what happened.

There were “numerous officers” involved, he said. “Once we interview all those officers, what they were thinking, what they did, why they did it… we’ll have a better idea.”

– Who was the gunman? –

Ramos had been living with his grandmother for two months, McCraw said. According to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, no psychological problems were known to local health departments.

A cousin, Mia, told The Washington Post Ramos “wasn’t very much of a social person” after being bullied for a stutter.

But two graduating seniors at Uvalde High School — both of whom said they knew the shooter — painted a different picture.

“We went to school with him…. We all knew of him,” Jaime Cruz, 18, told AFP.

“I do vividly remember him being a bully in school. It wasn’t just that he was getting bullied, he was also the bully,” said Cruz.

“He was a bully. He was mean,” agreed Ariana Diaz, 17.

Speaking to ABC News, Ramos’s mother Adriana Reyes said her son could be aggressive when angry but was “not a monster” — and that she was not aware he had been buying weapons.

“I had an uneasy feeling sometimes, like ‘what are you up to?,'” she said. “We all have a rage, that some people have it more than others.”