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Groton Daily Independent
Saturday, Nov. 114, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 125 ~ 50 of 66
audition.
McCarthy said Seagal was the only person in the room when she showed up to read for her part, she
said. After declining his invitation to sit next to him on a couch, McCarthy, who said she purposefully wore a loose- tting garment to the audition so the focus would be on her acting instead of her body, said Seagal asked her to remove her clothes. When McCarthy countered that she was told the part didn’t require her to be naked, she said Seagal told her that it involved “off-camera nudity.”
“I know you must have a beautiful body underneath there. Can you lower it so I can see your breasts,” she recalled Seagal saying.
A representative for Seagal didn’t immediately return a request for comment Friday, but a Seagal spokes- man has denied McCarthy’s accusations to The Daily Beast. McCarthy told the same story to Movieline in 1998.
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Associated Press writer Patrick Mairs in Philadelphia and TV Writers David Bauder in New York and Lynn Elber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Paci c trade deal closer but leaders won’t endorse it yet By TRAN VAN MINH and ELAINE KURTENBACH, Associated Press
DANANG, Vietnam (AP) — Trade ministers from 11 Paci c Rim countries said they reached an agreement Saturday to proceed with the free-trade Trans-Paci c Partnership deal that was in doubt after President Donald Trump abandoned it. However, an immediate formal endorsement by the countries’ leaders meet- ing in Vietnam appeared unlikely.
A statement issued in the early hours Saturday said an accord was reached on “core elements” of the 11-member pact. The compromise was delayed by last-minute disagreements that prevented the TPP leaders from meeting to endorse a plan on Friday.
“Ministers are pleased to announce that they have agreed on the core elements of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Paci c Partnership,” the 11 nations said in a statement.
A news conference was scheduled for later Saturday morning Vietnam time.
Japan’s delegate to the talks, Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, told reporters that disagreements that cropped up Friday had been resolved in ve hours of talks that stretched late into the night.
“We have con rmed there was no mistake about us having reached a basic agreement,” Motegi said.
Asked by reporters if the deal had the support of Canada, whose Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not show up for the meeting planned for Friday, Motegi said “yes.”
“Canada did agree, and that means the ‘top’ also agreed,” he said. Japanese media reported that the Japanese and Vietnamese co-chairs of the ministerial meetings would hold a news conference Saturday on the sidelines of the summit of the Asia-Paci c Economic Cooperation forum, which wraps up later Saturday.
Canada’s Minister for International Commerce Francois-P Champagne said in a tweet Saturday that “after lots of work, big progress on the ‘Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Paci c Partnership.’”
Trudeau said days earlier that Canada would not be rushed into an agreement.
New Zealand’s Trade Minister David Parker told reporters that leaders who gathered for Friday’s meeting expecting a nal report on the talks were surprised by Trudeau’s absence. Late Thursday, there had been “no distance between the parties,” he said.
Despite enthusiasm for sticking with the plan following the U.S. withdrawal under Trump in January, criticism over various issues persists. Detractors of the TPP say it favors corporate interests over labor and other rights. Trudeau said days before arriving in Danang that he would not be rushed into signing an agreement that did not suit Canada’s interests.
Aspects of the trade pact have raised hackles also over a requirement that companies be allowed to sue governments for lack of enforcement of related laws.
The proposed basic agreement reached in Danang said that the ministers maintained “the high stan- dards, overall balance and integrity of the TPP while ensuring the commercial and other interests of all