News this week: Al Franken to quit amid #metoo momentum
Franken, too
Al Franken is the latest high-profile figure to fall after a number of women claimed he groped and sexually harassed him.
The ex-comedian and current Democratic Senator for Minnesota announced he would be stepping down from public office in the coming weeks.
His announcement on Thursday comes a day after 30 of his fellow party members called on him to resign.
Mr Franken said some of the allegations against him "are simply are not true", but added that women "deserve to be heard and their experiences taken seriously".
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He also lamented that Republican Alabama senate candidate Roy Moore - who has been accused of assaulting underage girls - is still in politics.
But Mr Franken is not the only powerful man to have to resign. Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Space, Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose and many more have also been accused of sexual harassment and have been forced to step down.
The groundswell of anger against alleged abusers and support for victims led Time Magazine to name "silence breakers" - the women who have come forward about sexual harassment and abuse - as "person" of the year.
The annual cover featured the faces of five women - actress Ashley Judd, singer Taylor Swift, migrant farmer Isabel Pascual, corporate lobbyist Adama Iwu, and former Uber employee Susan Fowler.
But one face was left off the cover - that of a hospital worker in Texas who feared that coming forward would negatively impact her family. Time Magazine said it included her unidentified arm as a symbol for all the women who have been victims but cannot come forward.
Other news this week
- California wildfires are devastating Los Angeles mansions
- Brexit deal unravels over Irish border
- Bitcoin "bubble" gets bigger, as value soars to $15,000
- A Canadian is taking his fight for cheap beer all the way to the Supreme Court
- Yemen's former president has been killed
- 'I beat type 2 diabetes with 200-calorie drinks'
- Trump declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, and that has people nervous
- Supreme Court gives Trump's travel ban the go-ahead
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