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☆ Alec Baldwin Is Charged With Involuntary Manslaughter in ‘Rust’ Fatal Shooting
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Katherine Sayre | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Prosecutors filed involuntary manslaughter charges Tuesday against Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the movie “Rust” in New Mexico, according to court records. Santa Fe-area District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies also filed involuntary manslaughter charges against the film’s armorer who handled guns on the set, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed.

☆ Alec Baldwin Set to Be Charged Tuesday With Involuntary Manslaughter in ‘Rust’ Shooting
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Katherine Sayre | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Alec Baldwin has insisted he didn’t pull the trigger of the revolver when the gun discharged on the set of ’Rust.’Prosecutors plan to file involuntary manslaughter charges Tuesday against Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the movie “Rust” in New Mexico, according to the Santa Fe-area district attorney’s office. District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said earlier in January that she would file the charges before the end of the month.

☆ Analysis: Alec Baldwin 'Rust' shooting case could be tough for prosecutors
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Jack Queen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The most serious charge prosecutors are pursuing — which carries five years in jail — would require them to show beyond a reasonable doubt that Baldwin was more than just negligent. In announcing her intent to charge Baldwin, Carmack-Altwies said it was his responsibility to personally ensure the gun was safe to handle and would not fire. They said that criminal charges are rare even in accidental shooting deaths that take place in non-professional settings without safety protocols. And civil suits against Baldwin that are pending have claimed systemic cost-cutting led to dangerous conditions on set, allegations Baldwin and the film's production company have denied. But prosecutors face a much higher burden in a criminal case and will likely need to demonstrate extraordinary safety lapses across the board, legal experts said.

☆ Alec Baldwin, armorer to be charged over 'Rust' shooting
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Andrew Hay | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Jan 31 (Reuters) - Actor Alec Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed will be charged on Tuesday with involuntary manslaughter for the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Western "Rust" in 2021, a New Mexico prosecutor said. A sheriff's office investigation has yet to reveal how live ammunition got onto the set outside Santa Fe. Legal analysts have said prosecutors will struggle to win convictions without proof Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed knew live ammunition was present but took no precautions. Live ammunition is strictly forbidden on sets. The armorer testified to New Mexico's worker safety agency (OSHA) on Dec. 7 that the shooting might have been prevented had she had more time to train Baldwin.

☆ Baldwin charged for 'reckless acts' leading to 'Rust' shooting
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Andrew Hay | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Baldwin and set armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed were each charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter. Baldwin's case is remarkable in that there is little or no precedent for a Hollywood actor to face criminal charges for an on-set shooting. A statement of probable cause by the prosecution's special investigator, Robert Shilling, made clear Baldwin was being charged as an actor and producer on the low-budget movie. Videos from inside the church prior to the shooting show Baldwin with his finger on the trigger, Shilling said. [1/6] Actor Alec Baldwin departs his home, as he will be charged with involuntary manslaughter for the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie "Rust", in New York, U.S., January 31, 2023.

Santa Fe prosecutors on Tuesday filed charges of two counts of involuntary manslaughter against Alec Baldwin for the fatal shooting on the set of the movie "Rust." Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer of the film, was also charged with the same two counts of involuntary manslaughter. Due to Baldwin's distractions, the training he received was estimated to be 30 minutes, according to the DA's statement. According to the probable cause statement, Baldwin has "asserted publicly that he is an '...expert...' in the realm of firearms and filmmaking." "Reed knew Baldwin required more training," which "could have prevented the fatal shooting," prosecutors said, citing a statement Gutierrez-Reed issued in her deposition.

[1/2] Alec Baldwin arrives at the 2nd Annual NFL Honors in New Orleans, Louisiana, February 2, 2013. REUTERS/Lucy NicholsonJan 23 (Reuters) - Western movie "Rust" will continue filming with Alec Baldwin in the lead role, a lawyer for the production said Monday, days after prosecutors said they would charge the actor in the fatal shooting of the movie's cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Baldwin will continue to play grandfather Harland Rust while Joel Souza will return as "Rust" director following his wounding in the October 2021 shooting, said Melina Spadone, an attorney for Rust Movie Productions. Baldwin in October reached a settlement of a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the Hutchins family under which Hutchins would take a production role in "Rust" and filming would resume this month. Baldwin has denied responsibility for the shooting, saying live ammunition should never have been allowed on set and weapons handlers were responsible for firearm safety.

☆ Who Is the Prosecutor Planning to Charge Alec Baldwin for the ‘Rust’ Shooting?
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-21 | by ( Elizabeth Findell | Katherine Sayre | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Before taking office two years ago, Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies vowed to target the community’s worst criminal offenders, increase crime diversion programs, build trust with immigrant families, address a rape-kit backlog and crack down on gun crime. She will likely become best known as the woman who prosecuted Alec Baldwin.

Prosecutors will need a mountain of evidence to cast Alec Baldwin as a criminally negligent gunman, skeptical defense criminal lawyers said Friday, as Hollywood appeared to rally around the oft-polarizing actor. But prosecutors insist they have FBI lab reports that show Baldwin did fire the fatal round. "Is there some intentional act that placed that live round there that we know nothing about? She urged prosecutors to stop "blaming the victim" and rhetorically asked "how about investigating who put the live round into the gun?" "Nobody is asking who put the live round into the prop gun," tweeted Fisher, best known for her role in "Titanic."

☆ Alec Baldwin ‘Rust’ Manslaughter Charges Put Spotlight on First-Term Prosecutor
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Elizabeth Findell | Katherine Sayre | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

☆ Analysis: Alec Baldwin 'Rust' shooting charges could be difficult to prove
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Jack Queen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

They said that criminal charges are rare even in accidental shooting deaths that take place in non-professional settings without safety protocols. Host Alec Baldwin arrives at the 2nd Annual NFL Honors in New Orleans, Louisiana, February 2, 2013. Experts interviewed by Reuters could not cite another instance in which criminal charges stemmed from an accidental shooting death on a film set. And civil suits against Baldwin that are pending have claimed systemic cost-cutting led to dangerous conditions on set, allegations Baldwin and the film's production company have denied. Involuntary manslaughter charges are most common in fatal traffic accidents involving extreme recklessness, such as intoxication or excessive speeding, according to experts.

☆ Alec Baldwin to Be Charged With Involuntary Manslaughter in Fatal ‘Rust’ Shooting
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Katherine Sayre | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Prosecutors plan to charge Alec Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the movie “Rust” in New Mexico in 2021, the district attorney in Santa Fe said Thursday. The film’s armorer overseeing weapons, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, will also be charged with involuntary manslaughter in the incident, according to a statement from Santa Fe-area District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies. The charges are expected to be filed by the end of the month.

SANTA FE, N.M. — Prosecutors said Thursday they knew “pretty close to the beginning” of their probe into the fatal shooting of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins that criminal charges would be filed. Prosecutors announced Thursday that Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed will each face two counts of involuntary manslaughter. Baldwin was criminally responsible as both the alleged shooter and the “Rust” producer who should have had oversight on safety, officials said. Alec Baldwin practicing a scene with a revolver on the set of the Western "Rust" before cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot. Prosecutors declined to say if they offered Baldwin a chance to plead guilty in exchange for his testimony.

Oscar-nominated actor Alec Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the New Mexico set of the Western movie “Rust,” prosecutors said Thursday. "Rust" first assistant director, David Halls, has agreed to plead guilty to negligent use of a deadly weapon, according to Carmack-Altwies' office. Baldwin was rehearsing with a pistol for a scene set inside a church when the gun went off, killing Hutchins and wounding the director, Joel Souza. Jae C. Hong / AP fileIn early October, Hutchins’ husband reached a settlement in his wrongful death lawsuit against the producers of “Rust,” including Baldwin. Souza is expected to return as the director when filming picks back up this month.

REUTERS/Andrew KellyJan 19 (Reuters) - A New Mexico prosecutor on Thursday charged actor Alec Baldwin and others in the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during the filming of Western "Rust." District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies announced involuntary manslaughter charges against Baldwin and the film's armorer after more than a year of investigation into the October 2021 shooting on a film set outside Santa Fe. “On my watch, no one is above the law, and everyone deserves justice.”Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed will each be charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter, she said. Under New Mexico law, involuntary manslaughter is a fourth-degree felony and is punishable by up to 18 months in jail and a $5,000 fine. The sheriff's office focused on how live rounds got onto a movie set and how they were loaded into a firearm.

☆ Alec Baldwin to be charged with involuntary manslaughter in 'Rust' movie set shooting
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Rebecca Picciotto | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Hilaria Baldwin and Alec Baldwin speak for the first time regarding the accidental shooting that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, and wounded director Joel Souza on the set of the film "Rust", on October 30, 2021 in Manchester, Vermont. Alec Baldwin will be criminally charged by New Mexico prosecutors for the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film "Rust," authorities said Thursday. Baldwin, the Emmy-winning star of "30 Rock" and dozens of films including "The Hunt for Red October," shot the bullet that killed Hutchins. Joel Souza, the movie's director who was 48 at the time, was injured by the bullet but later recovered. Months later in Dec. 2021, Baldwin said he "didn't pull the trigger" in an ABC interview.

[1/3] District attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies speaks at a news conference after actor Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the film set of the movie "Rust" in Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S., October 27, 2021. REUTERS/Adria MalcolmJan 19 (Reuters) - A New Mexico prosecutor on Thursday will announce a long-awaited decision on whether she will charge actor Alec Baldwin or others for fatally shooting cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in 2021 as Baldwin rehearsed a scene on the Western movie "Rust." Hutchins was killed and director Joel Souza was wounded when a gun Baldwin was using during a rehearsal in October 2021 fired off a live bullet. Authorities have been trying to determine how a real bullet made its way to the movie set. Under the agreement, filming on the low-budget movie is set to resume this month with Hutchins' husband serving as an executive producer.

☆ Facebook lost several notable leaders in 2022, from Sheryl Sandberg to John Carmack, with more changes likely to come
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

As Facebook began 2022 with a quiet reorganization, several executives and well-known leaders left the company. Along with executives leaving the company, Meta also laid off 11,000 employees, with even more cuts possible in the coming weeks. Sheryl SandbergSheryl Sandberg Facebook COO. Maria Angelidou-SmithAngelidou-Smith joined Meta in 2014 and spent five years as head of monetization for the Facebook app. When the company began to quietly reorganize and plan for layoffs in late summer, the Facebook app was not immune.

☆ Meta says it's committed to the metaverse and will continue to invest 20% of its spending in it
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Travis Clark | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Meta's chief tech officer wrote in a blog post on Monday that the company is committed to the metaverse. Meta will continue to invest 20% of its spending on the efforts. Bosworth addressed criticism that the company was diverting attention away from its core platforms like Instagram to focus on the metaverse. The post comes after John Carmack, who was the consulting CTO of Meta's virtual-reality initiative, including its Meta Quest headset, left the company last week. "During boom times, it's easy to make big, ambitious investments in what's coming next," Bosworth wrote in his Monday post.

☆ The perks of tech work are rapidly disappearing. Here's why.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Jordan Parker Erb | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

But we've got more to talk about today, including the disappearance of lavish tech industry perks, and which generation of workers are most likely to feel "tech shame." When Elon Musk purchased Twitter, one of the first things he did was take away perks related to wellness, family planning, productivity, training, and home offices. The disappearance of perks is a shift from the decade before, when perks helped companies differentiate themselves from competitors. We explain why the perks of tech work are rapidly disappearing. Musk made the comments before the closure of his Twitter poll, which asked users if he should stay.

☆ John Carmack: Virtual reality titan is leaving Meta
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-18 | by ( Ramishah Maruf | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

New York CNN —Video game pioneer John Carmack is resigning from his consulting position at Meta with “mixed feelings” about the “end of his decade in VR,” he announced in a Facebook post Friday. Carmack stuck around through the company’s more than $10 billion investment into virtual reality technology. He was an early advocate for virtual reality, thought it was not uncommon for him to criticize Meta. Meta bought Oculus VR in 2014 for $2 billion, and now sells the Meta Quest 2 and Quest Pro headsets. “I think my influence at the margins has been positive, but it has never been a prime mover,” Carmack said.

☆ In scathing exit memo, Meta VR expert John Carmack derides the company's bureaucracy: 'I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage.'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-17 | by ( Ashley Stewart | Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

John Carmack, the consulting CTO for Meta's virtual-reality efforts, announced his exit in an internal memo. Carmack joined Oculus in 2013 before Facebook acquired it, and moved to a new consulting role at Oculus in 2019. John Carmack, the consulting CTO for Meta's virtual-reality efforts, announced plans to leave the company Friday in an internal memo viewed by Insider. The scathing note, posted to the company's internal Workplace forum, openly criticized Meta's AR and VR work, core to its metaverse ambitions. "We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort," Carmack wrote in the memo.

☆ John Carmack, the consulting CTO for Meta's virtual-reality efforts, is leaving. 'I wearied of the fight'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Ashley Stewart | Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Carmack joined Oculus in 2013 as CTO, prior to its acquisition by Facebook. John Carmack, the consulting CTO for Meta's virtual-reality efforts, is leaving, according to two people familiar with the company. Overall, Carmack said he simply "wearied of the fight" with Meta, formerly known as Facebook, which acquired Oculus in 2014. Despite being one of the best known and more popular VR headsets on the market, Meta changed the name of the brand last year to Meta Quest. During Meta's developer conference in October, Carmack hosted a solo hour-long talk about the company's Oculus or Quest headset.

☆ 'Rust' filming will not return to New Mexico after shooting
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Andrew Hay | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt/File PhotoOct 20 (Reuters) - When Western movie "Rust" resumes filming it will not be in New Mexico, the state where actor Alec Baldwin fatally shot the film's cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in 2021, a lawyer for the production company said on Thursday. The announcement followed a civil lawsuit settlement on Oct. 5, between Baldwin, Rust producers and Hutchins' family under which filming will restart in January with the same principal actors and director. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register“The production of Rust will not return to New Mexico," attorney Melina Spadone said in a statement on behalf of Rust Movie Productions. New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies has said she may make a decision this month on possible criminal charges. The state's worker safety agency fined Rust Movie Productions the maximum amount possible for what it called "willful" safety lapses leading to Hutchins' death.

☆ How many more warning signs does Mark Zuckerberg need to see before he pulls the plug on his metaverse?
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Travis Clark | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Meta's metaverse experiment isn't off to a promising start, with plenty of recent warning signs. But so far, the overall experience of being in Meta's metaverse is lacking — for both the public and even those within the company. So, Meta's metaverse experiment is not exactly off to a promising start. "Why don't we love the product we've built so much that we use it all the time," the company's Metaverse VP Vishal Shah wrote in the memo, according to The Verge. Some other good questions: How many more warning signs does Zuckerberg need to see?

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