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Fugees rapper Pras Michel receives 14-year sentence for illicit contributions tied to Obama campaign

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Fugees rapper Pras Michel receives 14-year sentence for illicit contributions tied to Obama campaign


Grammy-winning rapper Prakazrel “Pras” Michel of the Fugees was sentenced on Thursday to 14 years in prison for a case in which he was convicted of illegally funneling millions of dollars in foreign contributions to former President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. 

Michel, 52, declined to address the court before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced him.

In April 2023, a federal jury convicted Michel of 10 counts, including conspiracy and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. The trial in Washington, D.C., included testimony from actor Leonardo DiCaprio and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Justice Department prosecutors said federal sentencing guidelines recommended a life sentence for Michel, whom they said “betrayed his country for money” and “lied unapologetically and unrelentingly to carry out his schemes.”

“His sentence should reflect the breadth and depth of his crimes, his indifference to the risks to his country, and the magnitude of his greed,” they wrote.

Defense attorney Peter Zeidenberg said his client’s 14-year sentence is “completely disproportionate to the offense.” Michel will appeal his conviction and sentence, according to his lawyer.

Zeidenberg had recommended a three-year prison sentence. A life sentence would be an “absurdly high” punishment for Michel, given that it is typically reserved for deadly terrorists and drug cartel leaders, Michel’s attorneys said in a court filing.

“The Government’s position is one that would cause Inspector Javert to recoil and, if anything, simply illustrates just how easily the Guidelines can be manipulated to produce absurd results, and how poorly equipped they are, at least on this occasion, to determine a fair and just sentence,” they wrote.

FILE — Pras Michel, former member of the Fugees, center, exits federal court in Washington, D.C., on April 3, 2023. 

Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images


Michel, a Brooklyn native whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Haiti, was a founding member of the Fugees along with childhood friends Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean. Their hip-hop band won two Grammy Awards and sold tens of millions of albums.

Michel obtained more than $120 million from Malaysian billionaire Low Taek Jho — also known as Jho Low — and steered some of that money through straw donors to Obama’s campaign.

Michel said during trial that he viewed Low’s payments as “free money,” and accepted the millions over the course of nine months to help Low secure a photo op with Obama. He said under oath at the time that no one told him such payments toward political donations could have been unlawful or violations of campaign finance laws.  

The Justice Department also charged Michel with serving as an unregistered foreign agent for China, alleging that in 2017 he sought to sway the Trump administration to halt its probe into Low and to extradite a Chinese government target living in the U.S. That individual, dissident Miles Guo, was charged in New York in a billion-dollar fraud case and is still in custody.

Low, who has lived in China, was one of the primary financiers of “The Wolf of Wall Street,” a movie starring DiCaprio. Low is a fugitive but has maintained his innocence.

“Low’s motivation for giving Mr. Michel money to donate was not so that he could achieve some policy objective. Instead, Low simply wanted to obtain a photograph with himself and then-President Obama,” Michel’s attorneys wrote.

In August 2024, the judge rejected Michel’s request for a new trial based in part on his defense attorney’s use of a generative artificial intelligence program during his closing of the trial’s arguments. The judges said that and other trial errors didn’t amount to a serious miscarriage of justice.



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Extended interview: Don Cheadle – CBS News

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Extended interview: Don Cheadle – CBS News


Oscar-nominated actor Don Cheadle has appeared in more than 100 films and TV shows. But it had been a quarter-century since he appeared on stage in the Off-Broadway hit “Topdog/Underdog,” until he made his Broadway debut this spring in a revival of “Proof.” In this web exclusive, he talks with Tracy Smith about the lessons of his parents; catching the “theater bug” as a child; the “hamster wheel” of an actor’s career; and his emotional investment in works like “Hotel Rwanda.”



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Charlie Sheen updates on relationship with old pal Jon Cryer

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Charlie Sheen updates on relationship with old pal Jon Cryer


Charlie Sheen updates on relationship with old pal Jon Cryer

Charlie Sheen has admitted he still hasn’t reached out to his Two and a Half Men co-star Jon Cryer despite repeatedly saying he intends to, and took a playful swipe at his old friend for being “a little grudgy” more than a decade after their famous falling-out.

Sheen was speaking at a For Your Consideration event for the Netflix documentary aka Charlie Sheen in Los Angeles on 22 April, where he was asked about reconnecting with Cryer, who also participated in the film.

“Every time this comes up, I say I’m going to [reach out to him] and I never do,” he told PEOPLE. “I don’t like to bother people. But I think Jon would be open to that. Jon’s a lovely man and a very talented guy.”

During the panel portion of the evening, Sheen couldn’t resist a gentle jab at Cryer’s absence. 

“Jon’s not here tonight, is he? No, he’s a little grudgy like a decade and a half later. I’m like, ‘Dude, what the f—? I got over it. What are we doing, Jon?'” 

He quickly softened, expressing genuine appreciation for everyone who agreed to participate. 

“They could have easily said, ‘Go f— yourself. I’m not interested. I lived it. I don’t need to talk about it again.’ And I would have been, ‘OK, that’s fine.’ But they didn’t, and they stepped up.”

The documentary and Sheen’s memoir The Book of Sheen both landed in the same week in September 2025, with Sheen describing the experience of finally documenting his story as a relief. 

“It’s documented, and I think told beautifully, visually and, hopefully, decently. There’s stuff in the book that’s not in the doc and vice versa, because there are things I couldn’t capture with the written word that [director Andrew Renzi] did visually, because some things you just have to see to feel it.”

He also recalled being uncertain about taking part at first, until Renzi laid out his case. 

“He said, ‘Because you have a story that is unlike anyone who’s ever just in the business, but also outside of it.’ And then he went through listing stuff, and I’m like, alright, OK.” 

Renzi put it plainly: “There’s only one Charlie Sheen… and there’s just not many people that would have had the life that he had that would want to talk about it, or are alive to talk about it.”

Sheen, who has been sober for eight years, said he would not have taken on either project while still in the grip of addiction. 

“I think it always sort of had a happy ending attached to it, regardless of where the story went.”





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Here’s real update on POTUS’s health

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Here’s real update on POTUS’s health


Trump dozed off at White House meeting: Here’s update on Here’s real update on POTUS’s health

In a recent White House meeting, U.S. President Trump momentarily dozed off .

The incident sparked speculations about the 79-year-old president’s health, with a prominent medical expert indicating the symptoms may point to sleep apnea.

This video, which was recorded at the affordability event at the Oval Office on Thursday, displays Trump sitting with his eyes shut, jaw hanging loose, and head slumped down. Even though there have been no medical warnings made by the White House, it has generated a lot of discussions on social media.

A medical expert, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor of Medicine and Surgery linked with CNN, weighed in on the matters.

Reiner wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter): “When a patient tells me that they can’t stay awake in meetings, we do formal sleep testing to look for sleep apnea.”

“The president continues to struggle with daytime somnolence. This is a common problem, and there are things that can be done to improve these symptoms,” he added.

In medical terms, sleep apnea is a condition where the patient suffers from a pattern of interruptions in breathing while sleeping.

The White House does not acknowledge any such medical condition, and President Trump has not yet had an officially scheduled annual physical examination in 2026, although he has been known to undergo semiannual physical exams. It has been observed that President Trump, who is turning 80 in June, holds fewer public meetings than he did in his first presidential term.

Concerning the POTUS ‘health, Congressman Ted Lieu said: “There’s something mentally wrong with the President of the United States. There is also something physically wrong… he can’t stay awake at public events with the cameras rolling.”

However, White House has maintained the stance of Trump’s good health. Until now, no official medical evaluation has been released.

Given these rising concerns, another video of Trump is circulating where he can be seen falling asleep and violently hitting his head on the desk. However, that specific video is fake and AI-generated. 





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