THE BIG STORY

Harvey Weinstein is a convicted rapist

Yesterday the disgraced film producer was found guilty of raping one woman and sexually assaulting another after a six-week trial. He was escorted from the court in handcuffs and taken to prison, where he will remain until his sentencing next month.

Jurors deliberated for four days before returning their verdicts. Weinstein was found not guilty of predatory sexual assault, the most serious charge he faced, which could have led to a life sentence.

Weinstein’s accusers “changed the course of history in the fight against sexual violence,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said after the verdict was announced. Here are six women’s testimonies against Weinstein.

Jane Rosenberg / Reuters

STAYING ON TOP OF THIS

There’s been an explosion of coronavirus cases in the Middle East

Globally there have been at least 79,000 cases of the COVID-19 illness that is caused by the coronavirus, and 2,627 deaths. The vast majority of those were in China, but it has made its way to 35 countries, including an outbreak in Iran that is rippling through the Middle East.

It’s looking more likely that the World Health Organization will eventually declare it a pandemic, Dan Vergano reports. That wouldn’t change how deadly the disease is, but it would signal the extent of its global spread.

“If COVID-19 does become a pandemic, outbreak models have suggested that anywhere from 40% to 70% of the world’s population might catch the illness, which appears extremely dangerous to the elderly or people with underlying health conditions,” Vergano reports.

SNAPSHOTS

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has died. He ruled for almost 30 years before being overthrown in the Egyptian revolution of 2011.

The Supreme Court will hear a contentious case involving LGBTQ equality. The case is a huge opportunity for religious conservatives to notch up a victory with the court’s new conservative majority.

Katherine Johnson, the pioneering NASA scientist depicted in Hidden Figures, has died. She was 101 years old.

Vanessa Bryant gave an extremely powerful speech at the memorial for her late husband and daughter. Watch the whole thing, with Kleenex nearby.

Katherine Johnson receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama in 2015 (Alex Wong / Getty Images)

THE ELECTION THAT CONTINUES TO HAPPEN

Tonight there’s another televised debate among the Democratic candidates, this one in the lead up to the South Carolina primary on Saturday.

South Carolina is a huge deal, because it’s the first real test of how the candidates are seen by black voters, who are a bedrock of the Democratic Party. The majority of voters in the South Carolina primary will be black, and the same will likely be true in other states across the Deep South.

Speaking of which! One week from today, a bunch of those Southern states, along with heavyweights like California and Texas, will all vote in the primaryfest known as Super Tuesday. Are you Super Excited?

CAREER CHOICES

From Homeless Hotspots to Bloomberg 2020

This one is a bit of a deep cut into ancient internet history: at the South by Southwest festival in 2012, an ad agency paid a bunch of people who were homeless to walk around carrying portable Wi-Fi hotspots, wearing shirts announcing they were a 4G hotspot.

The response was pretty much exactly what you’d expect, and the whole drama was mostly forgotten. Until now! Tim Nolan, the man behind Homeless Hotspots, has a new gig: He’s working on digital advertising for the presidential campaign of billionaire former NYC mayor, Michael Bloomberg.

“I still feel very proud of what we were able to do,” on the Homeless Hotspots project, Nolan told Katie Notopoulos on Friday. “What client doesn't want to see that you spent under $10K and received an inordinate amount of PR?”

It’s time to think bigger, Tim! The Bloomberg campaign hit a milestone last week: its advertising spending crossed the $500 million mark, reports Bloomberg News, the news division of Bloomberg, the company owned by Michael Bloomberg.

Make every Tuesday a Super Tuesday,

Tom