By David Bauder, Media Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --What do Ernest Hemingway, Muhammad Ali, Benjamin Franklin and Leonardo da Vinci have in common?
All are getting the Ken Burns treatment in the next few years. The PBS documentarian said Tuesday that he has eight projects in the works, half of them in-depth looks at the four personalities. The da Vinci project is the first one Burns has done on a non-American subject, he said.
The next great conflict that the maker of "The Civil War" is turning to is the American Revolutionary War, a project he hopes to have ready in 2025.
He's also doing documentaries on the United States' actions during the Holocaust, the comeback of the buffalo and the history of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.
PBS announced an online home for Burns' work and many of its documentary projects. On Aug. 4, the service will launch the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel, available by subscription for $3.99 a month. Past programming on from the "NOVA," "Frontline," "Nature" and "American Experience" shows will also be available for streaming on the new service.
It will join other existing streaming services PBS Kids, PBS Masterpiece and PBS Living.
Public television also announced a series of upcoming projects planned in part as a reaction to the nation's discussion of social justice issues in the wake of George Floyd's death.
One will be a PBS Kids half-hour special, premiering on Oct. 9, about talking to youngsters about race and racism.
"Our commitment runs deep, throughout PBS and public television, to make sure all of our audience can see their stories reflected," said Paula Kerger, PBS' president and CEO.
Alicia Keys is the executive producer of a documentary, "American Masters: How It Feels to be Free," that will premiere early next year. It will tell the story of six Black female entertainers — Lena Horne, Abbey Lincoln, Nina Simone, Diahann Carroll, Cicely Tyson and Pam Grier.
Also next year, PBS will air a two-part documentary from Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on Black churches, spotlighting their history and music. Gates said he felt fortunate to finish filming at churches throughout the country just before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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