Chef Mario Batali's accuser testifies in sexual misconduct trial

Dua Lipa enjoys a sunny day out with her friends in Portofino, Italy on Saturday (May 28).

Unlike most films and series set in Naples, “Nostalgia” really does show us the city like we’ve never seen it before: from the melancholy perspective of someone who left forty years ago. Italian director Mario Martone makes the astute and powerful decision not to make this immediately obvious, opening the film with a stunning sequence showing a man (Pierfrancesco Favino) silently arrive in and explore the city at night.

Was Kris Jenner‘s dress for Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker‘s wedding inspired by Moira Rose? One fan compared the famous momager’s feathered Dolce & Gabbana gown to a look seen on Schitt’s Creek — and the resemblance is uncanny!

Former TOWIE star Mario Falcone has revealed he’s suffering from an infection just a week before his wedding. Confessing he’s been taken ill just days before his big day to fiancée Becky Miesner, the 34-year-old took to his Instagram Stories to share a snap of himself wearing an oxygen mask and looking concerned. “When you have a head cold and chest infection the week before your wedding,” wrote the dad-of-one alongside the snap.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentProlific Italian film and stage director Mario Martone, who is a Venice aficionado, is back in competition in Cannes 27 years after his Elena Ferrante adaptation “L’amore molesto” (“Troubling Love”) launched in competition from the Croisette in 1995. And there is a close connection between these two films that delve deep into the entrails of Martone’s native Naples.In his well-received “Nostalgia”, praised by Variety as Martone’s “most rewarding film in years,” ace actor Pierfrancesco Favino plays the middle-aged Felice Lasco, who returns to the bustling port city after having lived in Egypt for 40 years. Once back, he is caught up in memories of a distant life spent in his hometown, as his criminal youth slowly catches up with him.

For decades, Italian filmmakers dominated Cannes.If the 1960s saw Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni and Luchino Visconti reign supreme, somehow the 1970s were even richer. Elio Petri and Francesco Rosi won shared top prizes in 1972, while for two consecutive years later that decade the Taviani brothers and then Ermanno Olmi hoisted Palmes across a border that sits just 40 miles away.This year’s lone competition title from an Italian director (the only other Italian language film, “The Eight Mountains,” comes courtesy of two Belgians), Mario Martone’s “Nostalgia” will probably not break that particular drought, but the Neapolitan director can take solace in another modest honor: Telling a story about mothers and sons, about gangsters and priests, and about a peculiar kind of longing for the past in a place where little has changed for hundreds of years, “Nostalgia” is a nigh perfect candidate to wave il Tricolore.Taking a thin amount of plot and stretching it as far and wide as it can go, the film itself is far from perfect, but it does benefit from “The Traitor” star Pierfrancesco Favino’s terrific lead performance as a man who learns the hard way that there’s no going home again.After forty years abroad, Felice (Favino, of course) returns to his native Naples a stranger in a familiar land.

Nostalgia has seldom looked grittier, or more treacherous, than it does in Mario Martone’s eponymous new film. The Italian director splashes his teaming, boisterous, unruly native city of Naples across the screen in fulsome fashion in telling the story of a man who left as a teenager but, some 40 years later, is drawn back into its sinister embrace.

Guy Lodge Film CriticHometowns forget us quickly when we leave them, even if some of the people left behind do not. Architecture, infrastructure and whole communities can change with scant warning or regard for our memories, or our bearings when we return.

Jaws, will soon become the police chief of the town in which the movie was made.Jaws was filmed in Oak Bluffs, a town on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts throughout 1974, and released the following year. In the film, Searle and his real-life brother Steven play two children who stage a shark hoax using a fake fin, fooling the residents of the fictional town of Amity.Searle has been a member of the town’s police force since 1985.

EXCLUSIVE: Deadline has your first look trailer at Cannes competition title Nostalgia, directed by Italian helmer Mario Martone.

The BBC are set to sign This Morning chef Gino D’Acampo for the 20th anniversary of its hit show, Strictly Come Dancing, which will take place later this year. 43 year old Italian chef Gino has become a firm favourite on Britain’s TV screens, with his hilarious sense of humour – and brilliant cooking skills – earning him legions of fans. Not only has he been a chef on This Morning for 13 years, he also won I’m A Celebrity...

sexual assault trial in Boston.Nearly five years into the #MeToo era, former prosecutors, legal experts and victims’ advocates say prosecuting sexual misconduct cases has proven to be no easier than before the reckoning that ignited a firestorm of accusations against powerful, seemingly untouchable men.Cases such as Batali's, if nothing else, reinforce how the criminal justice system remains “an extremely imperfect tool” for addressing the needs of survivors, said Emily Martin, a vice president at the National Women’s Law Center, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group.“Failure to get a criminal conviction doesn’t mean that abuse didn’t happen or that it was okay,” she said. “It will often be extremely hard to prove sexual misconduct beyond a reasonable doubt, especially given the gender stereotypes that lead many people to be especially distrusting when women share their experiences of sexual assault.”Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Ian Polumbaum, who helped prosecute Batali, declined to comment specifically about the case Wednesday but said sexual assault cases are among the most challenging to prosecute.“Sexual assault victims are trusted less than nearly every other crime victim,” he said.

Mario Batali has been found not guilty of indecent assault and battery stemming from an alleged 2017 incident.According to multiple reports, the Boston Municipal Court Judge announced his ruling on Tuesday and agreed with the defense team's argument that the accuser had credibility issues. The trial lasted all of two days after Batali on Monday waived his right to a jury trial, meaning his fate was in the hands of the judge.Among the issues that stymied the accuser's credibility is that Batali's lawyer pointed to the accuser's recent admission of trying to avoid jury duty by claiming to be psychic.

CNN, Judge James Stanton described Batali’s actions “not befitting of a public person of his stature” back in 2017, noting the accuser’s “significant credibility issues” that supported the defendant’s “contention that her motive was financial gain.”Natali Tene, the 32-year-old woman who testified yesterday, said Batali’s behavior took place during her attempt to take a selfie at the restaurant in 2017. In her testimony, Tene described what happened, saying she “felt confused and powerless to do anything to stop the celebrity chef.”Anthony Fuller, Batali’s lawyer, said the assault did not happen, and said the accuser has financial incentive to lie about it. Fuller also detailed that the woman seeks more than $50,000 in damages in a separate suit against Batali that’s pending in Suffolk County Superior Court in Boston.Fuller also produced evidence to counter the woman’s claim in the form of receipts from the Boston Eataly, which Batali once owned.

Mario Batali was found not guilty.

Mario Batali was found not guilty of indecent assault and battery on Tuesday, following a swift trial in which the celebrity chef waived his right to have a jury decide his fate.

Celebrity chef Mario Batali was found not guilty today on a charge of indecent assault and battery stemming from an alleged 2017 groping incident in a Boston bar. It was the first criminal charge for the former The Chew chef amid a number of sexual assault and harassment allegations.