Air Canada walks back new seat selection policy change after backlash
Air Canada has paused a new seat selection fee for travellers booked on the lowest fares just days after implementing it.
Actor Jonathan Majors has been ordered to complete a yearlong counseling program but avoided jail time Monday for assaulting his ex-girlfriend in a high-profile case that derailed the once-promising star’s career.
The 34-year-old star of “Creed III” and other films had faced up to a year behind bars after he was convicted of misdemeanor assault by a Manhattan jury in December.
In court Monday, Judge Michael Gaffey sentenced Majors to conditional discharge after noting that both sides in the case agreed the charges did not warrant jail time, given the actor was a first time offender with no prior criminal record.
He said Majors must complete a 52-week, in-person batterer’s intervention program in Los Angeles, where the actor lives. He also has to continue with the mental health therapy his lawyers say he's been participating in. Majors faces a year in jail if found in violation of the terms, which also included a no contact order with his former girlfriend, Grace Jabbari.
Majors, dressed in all black and accompanied by his girlfriend, actor Meagan Good, declined to address the court and left the courthouse without speaking to reporters.
His lawyer, Priya Chaudhry, said the actor did not want to make any public statement that Jabbari could use against him in the civil suit she’s filed against the actor.
Majors, she added, is “committed to growing as a person” and will complete any court-mandated programs “with an open heart” even as he maintains his innocence and plans to appeal.
“He’s lost his whole career,” Chaudhry said in court. “This has been the most challenging year of his life.”
But Jabbari, fighting back tears as she addressed the court, said Majors refuses to acknowledge his guilt and remains a danger to those around him.
“He’s not sorry. He has not accepted responsibility, ” she said. “He will do this again and he will hurt other women. He believes he is above the law.”
Jabbari said Majors had made her believe the two were in a loving relationship, but, in reality, he isolated her from the rest of the world and cut her off from family and friends.
“I was so emotionally dependent on him,” she said. “I became a different person around him — small, scared and vulnerable.”
Rather than acknowledge his actions, Majors has been openly critical of the court proceedings, launching a "high-powered PR campaign” that included a nationally televised interview, added Assistant District Attorney Kelli Galloway as she argued for a sentence of violence counseling for Majors.
Following the December guilty verdict, Majors was immediately dropped by Marvel Studios, which had cast him as Kang the Conqueror, a role envisioned as the main villain in the entertainment empire’s movies and television shows for years to come.
The conviction stemmed from an altercation last March in which Jabbari accused him of attacking her in the backseat of a chauffeured car, saying he hit her head with his open hand, twisted her arm behind her back and squeezed her middle finger until it fractured.
Majors claimed the 31-year-old British dancer was the aggressor, flying into a jealous rage after reading a text message from another woman on his phone. He maintained he was only trying to regain his phone and get away from Jabbari safely.
Majors had hoped his two-week criminal trial would vindicate him. In a television interview shortly after his conviction, he said he deserves a second chance.
But the California native and Yale University graduate still faces Jabbari's civil suit, which she filed last month in Manhattan federal court. In the suit, Jabbari accuses Majors of assault, battery, defamation and inflicting emotional distress, claiming he subjected her to escalating incidents of physical and verbal abuse during their relationship. The two met in 2021 on the set of Marvel's “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” in which Majors played Kang.
Majors’ lawyers have declined to respond to the claims, saying only that they are preparing to file counterclaims against Jabbari.
The actor had his breakthrough role in 2019’s “The Last Black Man in San Francisco.” He also starred in the HBO horror series “Lovecraft Country,” which earned him an Emmy nomination, and as the nemesis to fictional boxing champ Adonis Creed in the blockbuster “Creed III.”
As for Marvel, a looming question remains whether the studio will recast the role of Kang or pivot in a new direction.
Majors’ departure was among a recent series of high-profile setbacks for the vaunted superhero factory, which has earned an unprecedented US$30 billion worldwide from 33 films.
Air Canada has paused a new seat selection fee for travellers booked on the lowest fares just days after implementing it.
An ongoing municipal strike, court battles and revolt by half of council has prompted the province to oust the mayor and council in Black River-Matheson.
Three officers on a U.S. Marshals Task Force serving a warrant for a felon wanted for possessing a firearm were killed and five other officers were wounded in a shootout Monday at a North Carolina home, police said.
A Calgary elementary school principal has been charged with possession of child pornography, authorities announced Monday.
The Vancouver Island Health Authority is downplaying what staff describe as a cockroach infestation in a medical unit of Saanich Peninsula Hospital.
Toronto police say 12 people are facing a combined 102 charges in connection with an investigation into a major credit fraud scheme.
One of the winners of a historic US$1.3 billion Powerball jackpot last month is an immigrant from Laos who has had cancer for eight years and had his latest chemotherapy treatment last week.
Britney Spears and her father Jamie Spears will avoid what could have been a long, ugly and revealing trial with a settlement of the lingering issues in the court conservatorship that controlled her life and financial decisions for nearly 14 years.
The clock is ticking ahead of the deadline to file a 2023 income tax return. A personal finance expert explains why you should get them done -- even if you owe more than you can pay.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.