New York’s highest court has overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction and ordered a new trial. The Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the judge at the disgraced movie mogul’s landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced him with improper rulings, including by letting women testify about allegations that weren’t part of the case. The 72-year-old Weinstein is serving a 23-year sentence in New York. He’ll remain imprisoned because a 2022 conviction in a Los Angeles rape case resulted in a 16-year prison term. Weinstein's lawyer called the reversal a "tremendous victory." A dissenting judge called it part of a "disturbing trend" of reversals in cases involving sexual violence.

A prosecutor told jurors that Donald Trump tried to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election by preventing damaging stories about his personal life from becoming public. The statement came Monday at the start of the former president’s historic hush money trial. A defense lawyer countered by saying Trump was innocent and by attacking the integrity of the onetime Trump confidant who’s now the government’s star witness. The opening statements offered the 12-person jury — and the voting public — a roadmap for viewing the allegations at the heart of the case and Trump’s expected defenses.

Federal law enforcement officials have brought charges against a man accused of creating an illicit marijuana-growing operation off the beaten path in rural Maine. The bust of the home marked the latest example of what authorities describe as a years-long trend of individuals trying to exploit U.S. state laws that have legalized cannabis to produce marijuana and sell it in states where it's illegal. Court documents detailing how the man came to Maine to transform a house into a high-tech, illicit grow operation were detailed in court files unsealed this week with the arrest of the alleged operator. The man was ordered detained Friday until a detention hearing on Monday.