Latest news with #PulitzerPrize-winning
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Son of Pulitzer-winning author Michael Chabon accused of rape, strangulation in NYC
NEW YORK — The 22-year-old son of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon has been accused of choking and raping a woman in Manhattan last year, prosecutors announced. Abraham Chabon, a student at New York University, is facing a count of second-degree strangulation and first-degree rape in connection with the the alleged attack, according to a criminal complaint viewed by the Daily News He pleaded not guilty to both counts during an appearance in Manhattan Criminal Court on June 13 and he was released following the arraignment, after Judge Kacie Lally set bail at $45,000 cash or a $150,000 bond. The alleged incident occurred inside a building on East 12th Street on Jan. 25 2024, according to the complaint. That's where Chabon allegedly grabbed the woman by her neck and forced her onto the bed. She said he choked her to the point where she struggled breathe as he raped her. She also alleged that Chabon repeatedly struck her in the face 'causing stupor and loss of vision in one eye' as well as pain, swelling, and bruising to her neck and face. An attorney for Chabon, Priya Chaudhry, declared his innocence in a statement to The New York Times, adding that he 'was as shocked by these false allegations as anyone.' Chaudhry also noted that Chabon 'has strong family support and a devoted partner who all believe in his innocence. We hope the prosecutor's investigation reveals his innocence quickly.' His father, Michael Chabon's writings include 'The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,' 'Wonder Boys,' 'The Yiddish Policemen's Union,' 'Telegraph Avenue,' and 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,' which won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It also served as inspiration for an opera of the same name, set to have its New York premiere at the Metropolitan Opera this fall. His mother, Ayelet Waldman, is also a writer known for her books 'Bad Mother' and 'A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life.' The couple share four children, including Abraham.
a day ago
- General
Pulitzer Prize-winning book inspires art museum exhibit honoring Harriet Tubman
Author and professor Dr. Edda Fields-Black discusses her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War."
Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Boston Globe
The unwitting poster child of the Vietnam War has forsaken bitterness for grace
Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up Her name is Phan Thị Kim Phúc. Advertisement When I recently found myself in the Toronto area, where Kim Phúc has lived for more than 30 years, I reached out to her. We first spoke by phone for two hours. Having been used as a propaganda figure by the Vietnamese government for years after the war, she sought asylum in Canada in 1992. In that call, she spoke with clarity about June 8, 1972, when the South Vietnamese Air Force — and not, as was and is still wrongly believed, the US Air Force — dropped napalm on her village. Advertisement Kim Phúc was 9 years old. She remembers the blast and seeing the fire and watching civilians and Vietnamese soldiers burn to death. 'I lost my future. I lost my freedom. I lost my dream. I lost my hope,' she says of that day. Even now, after years of treatment, she is still in pain. Kim Phúc did not see who took the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of her, but she believes Nick Út captured the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of her, despite She has identified the South Vietnamese squadron that dropped the napalm on her village, and she has spoken with living witnesses. Surviving veterans have given her a detailed timeline of the events that precipitated the bombing, for which they were ordered to clear sections of Tây Ninh province, notorious for housing Communist guerrilla fighters. They told her of their lasting shame over hitting civilians and fellow South Vietnamese soldiers as they fled a Cao Đài temple where Kim Phúc and others had been seeking refuge. But after all this time, one mystery remains. For 53 years, members of the unit have refused to reveal the name of the pilot who dropped the bomb. 'Why do you need his name?' they would say, reminding Kim Phúc that knowing it 'won't change anything.' They assured her: He feels guilty. He's in America. He became a vegetarian to atone for his sins. Advertisement While Kim Phúc respects the pilot's privacy, her greatest wish is to find him or his descendants. 'I do want to know who the pilot is — not because I'm angry,' she told me. 'I want to tell him: I survived. I forgave a long time ago. I don't hate you. I would give him a hug. He changed my life without knowing it.' She seeks neither justice nor publicity. Just a private meeting. Kim Phúc says she longs for one final opportunity for closure and, perhaps, to offer peace to someone — be it the pilot or a family member of his — who might still carry guilt. How and when did she find such equanimity? I needed to know. The morning after we spoke by phone, I joined Kim Phúc for her weekly Sunday service at Faithway Baptist Church in Ajax, an Ontario town about 45 minutes outside Toronto. Despite having been raised in the Cao Đài faith, which combines Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism, among other spiritual beliefs and practices, Kim Phúc says she finally found the solace she craved when she discovered a copy of the New Testament in Saigon's central library. Against her family's wishes, she converted to Christianity. (Years later, her parents followed her.) So there I was in mid-May, sitting in the pews beside the now 62-year-old Kim Phúc and her 91-year-old mother, Nữ, who put on headphones as her son-in-law, Kim Phúc's husband, Toàn, translated the pastor's English sermon into Vietnamese. That morning's message touched on the themes of forgiveness and restoration. Advertisement 'War makes everyone a victim,' Kim Phúc told me many times. 'Even the ones we think are strong.' Her life embodies this truth. After resettling in Canada, she channeled her suffering into purpose as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and through Kim Foundation International, the nonprofit she founded in 1997 to support international projects that offer medical, living, and educational assistance to young victims of trauma. 'When I see children in war today, I feel their pain like it's mine,' she told me. 'I want to use my voice to help protect them — because I remember what it's like to be them.' When we discuss our home village — a place I've only visited and Kim Phúc's family was forced to leave as the Vietnam War raged — our connection grows. My father has told me that my uncle, Tân Thúc Hưng, a first lieutenant in the local defense forces, ate regularly at Kim Phúc's family's food stall. Over lunch after service, I asked her mother if she remembered him. 'Ông Hưng? Of course,' she said. 'He was practically family. I remember the last time I saw him. He died the next day.' That was in 1971. The details surrounding his death have never been clear to my family. We know it happened at a cantina or pool hall on the town's main street, where his duty in psychological operations was to win the hearts and minds of the people. As the story goes, the Viet Cong sent a child into the venue with a grenade disguised as something else. The explosion maimed or killed everyone present. I immediately wanted to call my dad to tell him: 'Someone else in this world remembers your beloved brother. She might have fed him his last meal.' Advertisement Meeting with Kim Phúc and her parents drove home to me the impossible choices of war: those of the South Vietnamese pilot following orders to stop Viet Cong atrocities; those of my uncle trying to protect his community; Kim Phúc's family's decision to feed even those who might kill them. Everyone was trying to survive forces beyond their control. Such fragmented memories, passed down through the generations, teach us that history lives in people — in food stalls, shared meals, and the quiet act of remembering someone loved and lost. The hard reality is that 50 years after the end of the Vietnam War, children still flee bombs across the world. We scroll past images of their suffering, numbed by the endless stream. Kim Phúc's story cuts through that numbness because she lived to tell what comes after the photograph: the choice between bitterness and grace. Now a mother and grandmother who still bears the scars of the napalm attack, she has refused to let trauma define her. While the world remembers her as the ultimate poster child of war, it's her will to forgive rather than seek vengeance that I will remember her for. She is so much more than the girl who ran from napalm and became the unwitting subject of a famous photo. Phan Thị Kim Phúc survived terror and chose inner peace.
New York Post
2 days ago
- Business
- New York Post
Defunct NYC wine shop Sherry-Lehmann sues ex-owners, Pulitzer-winning NYT journalist over ‘press smear campaign'
Defunct New York City wine shop Sherry-Lehmann has filed a bizarre lawsuit that blames its spectacular implosion two years ago on its former owners — as well as a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. The ill-fated vintner's current proprietors — who shuttered the posh Park Avenue store in March 2023 amid mounting customer complaints over missing wine orders — claim New York Times columnist James B. Stewart conspired with Sherry-Lehmann's former owners to create a 'press smear campaign' against the shop for their 'financial benefit and personal gain.' The suit claims the 73-year-old scribe — best known for his 1991 book 'Den of Thieves' about the Michael Milken insider trading scandal — also egged on law enforcement to raid Sherry-Lehmann, allegedly telling the US attorney for the Southern District of New York that the wine shop 'was the greatest Ponzi scheme of all time.' 6 James B. Stewart is a Pulitzer-winning journalist for The New York times. Getty Images The suit goes on to make the claim that Stewart and three of the shop's former owners 'orchestrated' a series of 'false articles' in other publications — including the New York Post — that allegedly misrepresented Sherry-Lehmann to the public and to law enforcement. That, Sherry-Lehmann's owners alleged, amounts to a violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, according to the May 27 suit filed in Manhattan federal court. A spokesperson for The New York Times denied the RICO allegations, saying in a statement, 'There is no merit to the claims and we plan to defend against the suit vigorously.' In response to the allegations concerning The New York Post, a spokeswoman said in a statement, 'These allegations are absurd, and show a complete lack of understanding of how journalism works.' 6 Shyda Gilmer is a co-owner of Sherry-Lehmann. New York Post Sherry-Lehmann's complaint alleges that Peter Hellman, a reporter for the trade publication Wine Spectator, collaborated with Stewart 'in researching and writing their articles for Wine Spectator and The New York Times, with Hellman claiming to a representative for Sherry-Lehmann that he was the 'gumshoe reporter' for Stewart's article.' The suit also claims that Hellman tried to 'impersonate an HVAC repairman' to enter Sherry-Lehmann's temperature controlled Wine Caves facility in Pearl River, NY 'before he was escorted from the premises.' The complaint likewise alleges that Stewart allegedly 'impersonated a customer of Wine Caves (which Stewart never was)' to gather information for his article and that he allegedly told a Sherry-Lehman rep that 'this will win a Pulitzer Prize.' 6 A lawsuit filed on behalf of Kris Green (on the left) and Shyda Gilmer names New York Times columnist James B. Stewart as a Gotham Magazine Stewart has already won a Pulitzer — in 1987 for his coverage of the stock market crash when he was a writer for The Wall Street Journal. A source familiar with the lawsuit told The Post that Stewart and Hellman have never met. Stewart declined to comment. Hellman and Wine Spectator also declined to comment, citing 'pending litigation.' The lawsuit, filed on behalf of owners Kris Green and Shyda Gilmer, claims they missed out on a $20 million 'merger' offer from 'one of the largest vineyard owners in France' because of the negative press and that the former owners wanted to deep six the deal to sell the business, according to the complaint. 6 FBI agents raided the Park Avenue store in July 2023. James Keivom Gilmer and Green also claim the company was in the red long before they took over and blame the previous ownership's management for its woes. 'The co-conspirators…have engaged in a strategic, well-coordinated collaboration… to spread damaging false information about Sherry-Lehmann … with the sole intention of sabotaging its reputation and destroying its operations so they might profit,' according to the complaint. The suit singles out Stewart for a May 25, 2023, exposé in the Gray Lady entitled 'An Iconic Wine Store and the Mystery of the Missing Bottles' which reported that some of the wine belonging to storage customers was illegally sold to others. Sherry-Lehman denied this in its complaint. Sherry-Lehmann had been shuttered two months earlier after the State Liquor Authority issued a cease and desist order because the business had failed to renew its liquor license. 6 Sherry-Lehmann's landlord, Glorious Sun, is suing previous owners of the store for unpaid rent. James Keivom The nearly century-old, debt-ridden wine shop failed to pay its landlord, vendors and state taxes while also reportedly stiffing its customers out of wine they had paid for. A separate wine storage business – Wine Caves – went dark on customers who tried in vain get their booze back, as The Post reported. At the same time, the previous owners were dishing on Sherry-Lehmann's current owners, according to the lawsuit, because they wanted to be absolved of potential liability from the landlord who is owed millions of dollars. The previous owners, Michael Aaron, whose family founded Sherry-Lehman, Michael Yurch and Chris Adams are being sued in a separate lawsuit filed last year by Sherry-Lehmann's landlord Glorious Sun, which claims they are liable for the unpaid rent. Aaron, Adams and Yurch declined to comment on either of the lawsuits. 6 The store closed temporarily in March 2023 and never reopened. New York Post/Lisa Fickenscher The previous owners argue that they long ago severed ties with the business and have no stake in it, according to court documents. The final nail in the coffin for the business were multiple raids by the FBI, NYPD and US Postal Inspection Service on its store and wine storage facility in Pearl River, NY in July 2023. The 'unnecessary raids' in 2023 and as recently as 2024 resulted in canceled orders from customers, and potential acquirers, according to the complaint. But notably, there have been 'no indictments or arrests' as a result of these investigations, the suit claims. 'After withstanding [a] highly damaged reputation for over two years,' the lawsuit states, '[Sherry-Lehmann] can now finally come forward to tell the real story and to seek a remedy against all co-conspirators who profited from their misconduct, while fleecing Sherry-Lehmann in the process.' A US Postal Inspection Service spokesperson told The Post that its investigation of Sherry-Lehmann is 'active and ongoing.'
New York Post
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Son of Pulitzer-winning novelist Michael Chabon charged with rape
The son of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon is facing a felony rape charge for allegedly choking and beating a woman while molesting her, Manhattan prosecutors said. Abraham Chabon, 20, was charged June 12 with second-degree strangulation and first-degree rape earlier in the alleged Jan. 25, 2024 attack, according to a felony complaint unsealed in court. The younger Chabon, a student at NYU, made his second court appearance Wednesday after being arraigned on the charges last week. Abraham Chabon, left, was charged with second-degree strangulation and first-degree rape. Steven Hirsch He is accused of grabbing the victim by the neck, making it difficult for her to breathe, then carried her to a bed where he raped her and 'struck [the victim] repeatedly in the face… causing stupor and loss of vision in one eye,' the complaint said. He arrived at the courthouse with his mother, Israeli-American novelist Ayelet Waldman. His father is a noted American writer and Pulitzer Prize winner, whose works include 'Moonglow,' 'Wonder Boys,' The Mysteries of Pittsburgh' and 'Telegraph Avenue.' The 20-year-old is the son of Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Michael Chabon (left). Instagram/ayeletw Chabon won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for his novel, 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.' Michael Chabon was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2012. Abraham Chabon was released after his June 13 arraignment, with Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Kacie Lally setting bail at $45,000 cash or a $150,000 bond.
