The Cricket's Daily 3: The (alleged) sins of an Oscar contender's past

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Here's what's happening today in pop culture:

• Actor-filmmaker Nate Parker, whose "The Birth of a Nation" wowed Sundance audiences and is being primed for an Oscar run, is facing a public firestorm over a 1999 accusation of raping a fellow student while he was at Penn State. (He was acquitted.) The latest in the story: The victim, according to her brother, committed suicide in 2012. [The Hollywood Reporter]

• Robert Downey Jr. is working on rebooting "Perry Mason," Raymond Burr's long-running series (1957-1966) about a wily defense attorney, into an HBO series. [The Huffington Post]

• John McLaughlin, the conservative commentator who turned political punditry into a televised bloodsport with his long-running "The McLaughlin Group," has died at the age of 89. [AP, via Los Angeles Times]