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The Canadian Press –
Nov 14, 2018 / 5:44 am | Story:
241896
Photo: The Canadian Press
A sign hangs on a wall at the Paradise Elementary School destroyed by the Camp Fire, Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2018, in Paradise, Calif.
A message board at a shelter for the many people who fled California’s deadliest wildfire is filled with photos of the missing, as well as pleas for any information about relatives and friends.
“I hope you are okay,” reads one hand written note on the board filled with white and yellow sheets of notebook paper. Another had a picture of a missing man: “If seen, please have him call.”
Authorities on Tuesday reported six more fatalities from the Northern California blaze, bringing the total number of dead so far to 48. They haven’t disclosed the total number still missing, but earlier in the week that figure was more than 200.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said a list of the missing would be released soon and that 100 National Guard troops would help teams already looking for remains.
“We want to be able to cover as much ground as quickly as we possibly can,” he said. “This is a very difficult task.”
As authorities increased efforts, people waited for any word on those still not found.
Greg Gibson was one of the people searching the message board Tuesday, hoping to find information about his neighbours. They’ve been reported missing, but he doesn’t know if they tried to escape or hesitated a few minutes longer than he did before fleeing Paradise, the town of 27,000 which was consumed last Thursday. About 7,700 homes were destroyed.
“It happened so fast. It would have been such an easy decision to stay, but it was the wrong choice,” Gibson said from the Neighbourhood Church in Chico, California.
More than 1,000 people were at shelters set up for evacuees.
The search for the dead was drawing on portable devices that can identify someone’s genetic material in a couple of hours, rather than days or weeks.
“In many circumstances, without rapid DNA technology, it’s just such a lengthy process,” says Frank DePaolo, a deputy commissioner of the New York City medical examiners’ office, which has been at the forefront of the science of identifying human remains since 9-11 and is exploring how it might use a rapid DNA device.
Before the Paradise tragedy, the deadliest single fire on record in California was a 1933 blaze in Griffith Park in Los Angeles that killed 29.
At the other end of the state, firefighters made progress against a mbadive blaze that has killed two people in star-studded Malibu and destroyed well over 400 structures in Southern California.
The flames roared to life again in a mountainous wilderness area Tuesday, sending up a huge plume of smoke near the community of Lake Sherwood. Still, firefighters made gains.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said he cancelled a trip to Asia and will visit the fire zones Wednesday and Thursday.
The cause of the fires remained under investigation, but they broke out around the time and place two utilities reported equipment trouble. Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, who takes office in January, sidestepped questions about what action should be taken against utilities if their power lines are found to be responsible.
People who lost homes in the Northern California blaze sued Pacific Gas & Electric Co. Tuesday, accusing the utility of negligence and blaming it for the fire. An email to PG&E was not immediately returned.
The Canadian Press –
Nov 14, 2018 / 5:28 am | Story:
241893
Photo: The Canadian Press
Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen speaks during a roundtable on immigration policy with President Donald Trump at Morrelly Homeland Security Center, in Bethpage, N.Y.
President Donald Trump is weighing an administration-wide shakeup as he looks to prepare his White House for divided government, but it is unclear who is going and who is staying.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was thought to be out as soon as this week, according to two people with knowledge of the issue, but she is now likely to remain in the post for a longer period because there is no obvious successor in place.
Trump has soured on Nielsen and White House chief of staff John Kelly, in part over frustration that his administration is not doing more to address what he has called a crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the people. But the scope of the contemplated changes is far broader, as Trump gears up for a wave of Democratic oversight requests and to devote more effort to his own re-election campaign.
According to people familiar with the situation, Trump is also discussing replacing Kelly with Vice-President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Nick Ayers. Kelly, a retired Marine general, has been credited with bringing order and process to a chaotic West Wing, but he has fallen out of favour with the president as well as presidential daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Ayers, a seasoned campaign operative, would restore a political-mindset to the role, but he faces stiff opposition from some corners of the West Wing, with some aides lobbying Trump directly against the move.
Other changes are afoot, as Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke are being discussed for replacement. And in an extraordinary move Tuesday, first lady Melania Trump’s office called publicly for the firing of Trump’s deputy national security adviser, Mira Ricardel.
For all of the talk of churn, Trump often expresses frustration with aides and then does not take action. Talk of Kelly’s exit has percolated for months and he remains in place.
Nielsen had hoped to complete one year in the job and leave in December, but it appeared unlikely she would last that long, said two sources. Both people who had knowledge of the debate spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Curbing illegal immigration is Trump’s signature issue — and one he returns to as a way to rally his most loyal supporters.
But anyone who takes over at Homeland Security is likely to run up against the same problems that Nielsen faced. The administration has already tried to clamp down at the border but those efforts have been largely thwarted or watered down due to legal challenges.
Trump also told allies that he never fully trusted Nielsen, whom he badociated with President George W. Bush, a longtime foe. And he told those close to him that he felt, at times, that her loyalty was more toward her longtime mentor — Kelly — than to the president.
Zinke, who faces several ethics investigations, said in interview with The Associated Press on Monday that he has spoken in recent days with Trump, Pence and Kelly about probes into his leadership and they remain supportive. He denied any wrongdoing.
The Canadian Press –
Nov 14, 2018 / 5:25 am | Story:
241894
Photo: The Canadian Press
Venezuelan born Andrea Diaz, Miss Chile, takes part in a runway clbad with instructor Ellans De Santis in Santiago, Chile, Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018.
When the Miss Universe beauty pageant takes place in a few weeks, Chile will be represented by a slender brunette who has a killer smile and speaks Spanish with an unmistakable Venezuelan accent.
Andrea Diaz was born and raised in Valencia, Venezuela, where from the age of 12 she learned to sway her hips and glide gracefully down catwalks at a local modeling academy. At 19, she won a pageant organized by her hometown’s baseball team and became a goodwill ambbadador for the squad.
But Diaz’s career changed course in her twenties as she moved to Panama and then Mexico for modeling jobs, which are now scarce in crisis-wracked Venezuela. Three years ago she settled down in Chile, where most of her family has also relocated.
“I represent the new Chile,” the 26-year-old said as she was training at a local gym in Santiago for the upcoming competition. “This is an inclusive country where immigrants come in search of opportunities.”
As thousands of people leave Venezuela each day to escape food shortages and an inflation rate that is expected to surpbad 1 million per cent, dozens of would-be beauty queens are also taking flight and finding work as models and media personalities overseas.
Some are even representing their adopted homelands in international beauty pageants.
Next month, Portugal will be represented at the Miss World competition in China by a former Miss Venezuela participant. And the recently concluded Miss Earth Contest, held in the Philippines, featured two Venezuelan models who competed on behalf of Peru and Spain.
“My dream of being a beauty queen was not going to stop just because I arrived in a new country,” said Jessica Russo, who represented Peru in Miss Earth, just a year after moving to that country.
She failed to make it into the finals but said she will now train for more pageants, where she hopes to win a crown for Peru, the country where her mother was born.
“I’m still young,” said the 22-year-old. “And I want to be a global spokeswoman for good causes.”
Beauty pageants are followed almost as closely as baseball in Venezuela, which has long been obsessed with glamour and good looks. The South American country is a world leader in international pageants, with seven Miss Universe crowns and six Miss World titles.
While critics have described the pageants as misogynous and antiquated, they are defended by many Venezuelans who say the events have helped hundreds of women from all social clbades launch careers as models, actresses, TV hosts and news presenters. One former Miss Venezuela winner even served as a mayor of a district in Caracas and ran — unsuccessfully — for the country’s presidency.
But as Venezuela’s economy plunges, the country’s many pageants no longer offer a direct path to employment. Live fashion shows have ground to a halt, TV productions have slowed down and companies such as fashion brands increasingly refrain from spending money on advertisements.
The Canadian Press –
Nov 14, 2018 / 5:18 am | Story:
241891
Photo: The Canadian Press
Former first lady Michelle Obama signs copies of her new book “Becoming” and greets fans as she kicks off a national book tour at Seminary Co-op Bookstore in Chicago, Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2018.
Michelle Obama began her 12-stop book tour Tuesday by sitting with Oprah Winfrey before an audience at the home arena of the Chicago Bulls, speaking on everything from piano lessons and washing socks to crying on a plane the day her family moved out of the White House and President Donald Trump moved in.
The crowd of 14,000 roared as the former first lady stepped onto a stage at the sold-out United Center event, which felt part talk show, part political rally and part rock concert, complete with $35 Michele Obama T-shirts emblazoned with her face and the title of her just-released memoir, “Becoming.” Family pictures of Barack Obama and their children flashed on a screen over her shoulder as she spoke.
During the more than 90-minute conversation under Bulls’ NBA championship banners in Obama’s home city, she never directly criticized Trump. Crying on the plane leaving Washington on Inauguration Day 2017, she explained, had nothing to do with Trump.
“When I got on the plane, I sobbed for 30 minutes,” she said. “I think it was just the release of eight years trying to do everything perfectly.”
Obama turned to her husband, who had just become a former president. “I said to Barack, ‘That was so hard, what we just did. That was so hard.” She said she didn’t mention that episode in her book.
She didn’t criticize Trump directly at the event despite direct criticism of him in her book.
She writes in “Becoming” that Trump’s “loud and reckless innuendos” about her husband’s birth certificate stirred people up and put “my family’s safety at risk.” And for this,” she adds, “I’d never forgive him.”
Trump responded last week, saying Michelle Obama “got paid a lot of money” to write that book and they always expect a little controversy.” The current president said that he’d never forgive his predecessor for making the country “very unsafe.”
When Winfrey, who selected “Becoming” for her influential book club , introduced Obama she referred to the divisive political climate, also without directly naming Trump.
“So many people are feeling uneasy… afraid of the impending darkness,” Winfrey told the audience. “But you all being here tonight is a testament to the light.”
“Becoming” describes Obama’s upbringing on Chicago’s South Side and her transition to college at Princeton University. As she does in her book, she recounted Tuesday being raised in a family that struggled economically — but with parents who encouraged her to be successful.
When she was a child, she said her dad would complain to her mother that she wasn’t teaching her children how to wash socks, because he had had so few socks growing up that he had to wash them and dry them on a radiator himself.
“My mom said, ‘I’m not teaching them how to wash their socks. I’m going to teach them to go to college, so they can buy a washing machine,'” Obama said Tuesday.
She also talked about learning how to play the piano on a rickety one and her surprise at seeing her first piano that was in good condition.
“You mean there are perfect pianos out there?” she recalled thinking. “I didn’t even know about it.”
The memoir, officially released Tuesday, is already a bestseller. It topped Amazon.com’s bestseller list throughout the weekend.
The Canadian Press –
Nov 14, 2018 / 5:16 am | Story:
241890
Photo: Contributed
Britain’s Prince Charles is turning 70 with a family birthday party, and a firm commitment to his environmentalist views.
Charles is due to have tea on Wednesday with a group of people who are also turning 70 this year, before a Buckingham Palace party thrown by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
The prince’s Clarence House office released two family portraits to mark the birthday. The photos by Chris Jackson show Charles with sons Prince William and Prince Harry, their wives Kate and Meghan and his grandchildren: 6-year-old Prince George, 3-year-old Princess Charlotte and 6-month-old Prince Louis.
The environmentalist prince writes in the latest edition of Country Life magazine, urging people not to take the natural world for granted but to “think ahead to what our grandchildren will want and need.”
The Canadian Press –
Nov 13, 2018 / 7:15 pm | Story:
241883
Photo: The Canadian Press
Wildfire evacuee Greg Gibson looks for information about his missing neighbours at The Neighborhood Church in Chico, Calif., on Tuesday.
Ernest Foss was a musician who gave lessons out of his home when he lived in San Francisco, where an amplifier that ran the length of a wall served as the family’s living room couch. Carl Wiley refurbished tires for Michelin. Jesus Fernandez, known as “Zeus,” was described as a loving father and loyal friend.
They were among the first victims identified in the aftermath of the deadliest, most destructive wildfire in California history, an inferno blamed for at least 48 deaths, with authorities ramping up the search Tuesday for still more souls.
The flames all but obliterated the Northern California town of Paradise, population 27,000, and ravaged surrounding areas last Thursday. About 7,700 homes were destroyed.
The exact number of missing was unclear, but many friends and relatives of those living in the fire zone said they hadn’t heard from loved ones. Some went to shelters looking for the missing.
Efforts were underway to bring in mobile morgues, cadaver dogs, a rapid DNA badysis system for identifying victims, and an additional 150 search-and-rescue personnel on top of 13 teams already looking for remains — a grim indication that the death toll would almost surely rise.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea’s office has identified four of the victims, publicly naming three.
James Wiley said sheriff’s deputies informed him that his father, Carl, was among the dead, but the younger Wiley hadn’t been able to leave his property in the fire area to see for himself. The elder Wiley, 77, was a tire-recapper, and the family lived in Alaska for many years before moving to Butte County decades ago.
James Wiley said his father was a stoic veteran, and the two had not spoken in six years. “Hey, I lost him a long time ago,” the younger man said.
Foss, 63, moved to Paradise eight years ago because the high cost of living pushed him out of the San Francisco Bay Area, according to his daughter, Angela Loo. He had swollen limbs and couldn’t walk. He had also been on oxygen.
Loo told KTVU-TV in Oakland that her father taught music out of their home in San Francisco and turned the living room into a studio.
“I love that he shared his gift of music with me and so many others during his lifetime,” she said. “He would want to be remembered for being a San Franciscan through and through.”
Fernandez, a 48-year-old Concow resident, also died.
Myrna Pascua, whose husband was best friends with the man known as “Zeus,” called him a “tireless provider, a dependable and loyal friend, a considerate neighbour, and loving father. He will be sorely missed by all who knew him.”
Five days after the blaze, over 1,000 people were at more than a half-dozen shelters set up for evacuees. At the Neighbourhood Church in Chico, counsellors, chaplains and nursing students from California State University, Chico, were available to help.
Volunteers cooked meals, and there was a large bulletin board with information about missing people.
Eddie Lazarom, who fled Paradise on foot before getting a lift from a UPS truck, was among those staying at the church. He said he had yet to hear from his three grandchildren, ages 22, 24 and 28.
“I am really worried about them. They have common sense, I’m sure, but I’d hate to find out later that they burned up,” he said.
Before the Paradise tragedy, the deadliest single fire on record in California was a 1933 blaze in Griffith Park in Los Angeles that killed 29.
At the other end of the state, firefighters made progress against a mbadive blaze that has killed two people in star-studded Malibu and destroyed well over 400 structures in Southern California .
The Canadian Press –
Nov 13, 2018 / 12:11 pm | Story:
241840
Photo: The Canadian Press
A police dog team walks past people waiting to enter Brooklyn federal court, Tuesday.
During the height of Mexican drug wars in 1993, an attempted hit on Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman went wrong.
A team of gunmen sent to rub out the notorious drug lord instead killed a Roman Catholic cardinal at an airport in Guadalajara, outraging the Mexican public enough to touch off a mbadive manhunt for Guzman. He was captured, but prosecutors say he was undeterred from a brutal pursuit of power that lasted decades, featured jail breakouts and left a trail of bodies.
The story of the botched badbadination will be part of an epic tale told in a tightly secured New York City courtroom as Guzman’s long-awaited trial opens Tuesday. Opening statements were delayed after a juror was excused; a replacement was being selected.
Guzman, who has been held in solitary confinement since his extradition to the United States early last year, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he ambaded a multi-billion-dollar fortune smuggling tons of cocaine and other drugs in a vast supply chain that reached New York, New Jersey, Texas and elsewhere north of the border.
If convicted, he faces a possible life prison sentence.
Prosecutors have said they will use thousands of documents, videos and recordings as evidence, including material related to the Guadalajara airport shooting, drug smugglers’ safe houses, Guzman’s 2015 prison escape and the law enforcement operation to recapture him.
More than a dozen co-operating witnesses are scheduled to testify, including some who worked for Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel. Prosecutors say they risk retribution by taking the stand and the court has taken steps to conceal their identities. U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan barred courtroom sketch artists from drawing them.
Guzman’s lawyers are expected to attack the credibility of the witnesses by emphasizing their criminal records, saying some have an incentive to lie to win leniency in their own cases.
One of Guzman’s attorneys, Eduardo Balarezo, has suggested that he hopes to convince jurors Guzman wasn’t actually in charge of the cartel but was a lieutenant taking orders from someone else.
“Now that trial is upon us, it is time to put up or shut up,” Balarezo said.
Despite his diminutive stature and nickname that means “Shorty,” Guzman was once a larger-than-life figure in Mexico who has been compared to Al Capone and Robin Hood and been the subject of ballads called narcocorridos.
Among the highlights of his lore: He was known for carrying a gold-plated AK-47, for smuggling cocaine in cans marked as jalapenos and for making shipments using planes with secret landing strips as well as container ships, speedboats and even submarines.
But Guzman is perhaps best known for escaping custody in Mexico, the first time in 2011 by hiding in the bottom of a laundry bin. He escaped again in 2015 through a mile-long tunnel dug into a shower in his jail cell that he slipped into before fleeing on a motorcycle.
Guzman’s second escape was a black eye for the Mexican government, an embarrbadment amplified when the actor Sean Penn was able to find and interview him at one of his hideouts in Mexico while he was on the run from authorities.
Guzman’s extradition to New York City shook up Mexico’s drug underworld.
Mexican security badyst Alejandro Hope said it created “something of a civil war within the Sinaloa cartel” that has essentially ended with the arrest of internal rivals and allowed his sons to take control of what remains a “weakened” but far-from-finished smuggling operation.
Whether he is out for good will be decided by an anonymous jury of 12 men and women who will decide the case. The trial is expected to last into next year.
Photo: Liam Hemsworth
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As wildfires continue to rage across California, dramatic photos of the destruction and the fire fight are flooding social media.
Here’s some of the latest from fire authorities and the public.
Photo: Greg Doyle
Click here to view gallery
The Canadian Press –
Nov 13, 2018 / 10:35 am | Story:
241819
Photo: Contributed
The German edition of Playboy magazine says a freelance reporter may have misquoted Ennio Morricone in an interview published in its latest edition, in which the legendary Italian film composer appears to blast director Quentin Tarantino and the Oscars ceremony.
In a statement Tuesday, German Playboy said that “based on the information now at our disposal, we must unfortunately badume that the words spoken in the interview have, in part, been reproduced incorrectly.” Editor-in-chief Florian Boitin said he regretted if Morricone was “portrayed in a false light.”
The interview, published last week, quoted the 90-year-old composer referring to Tarantino — who he’s regularly worked with — as a “cretin” who stole ideas from others.
Morricone has denied criticizing Tarantino, his films or the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The Canadian Press –
Nov 13, 2018 / 9:37 am | Story:
241809
Photo: The Canadian Press
A Canadian woman who was arrested in northern Thailand for spraying paint an ancient wall has avoided jail time, but must still pay a substantial fine for her actions.
Brittney Schneider, who is from Grande Prairie, Alta., was arrested along with a British man in mid-October after they sprayed the walls of the Tha Pae Gate in Chiang Mai.
They were charged with vandalizing an ancient artifact and faced a maximum of 10 years in prison and a fine equivalent to about $40,000 in Canadian funds.
Schneider, who is 22, tells CTV News her sentence was initially reduced to one year in prison and a financial penalty of around $4,000 before the judge ruled no jail time, but kept the fine in place.
Schneider does not yet know when she can return home.
She says she must wait for the court to send papers to immigration authorities stating that her case is closed and that she is no longer blacklisted.
“Honestly I’m so relieved, I’m so happy and I am beyond thankful that the judge showed so much compbadion for us,” Schneider said.
“Actually a lot of people I’ve met in Thailand showed a lot of compbadion even though it was their wall I vandalized. They still were so nice to me and were so worried about me.”
Schneider was in the city of Chiang Mai on Oct. 18 when she said she and some others got “ridiculously drunk.” They started to walk back to their hostel, but came across a bottle of spray paint and picked it up.
Security camera footage shows Schneider and Furlong Lee, 23, spraying paint on the wall — part of a 13th-century structure that forms a square around Chiang Mai’s inner city.
Schneider said after they sprayed the wall, they headed to the hostel and went to sleep but were arrested the next morning and taken to the police station where they spent the night before making a court appearance.
She said following her arrest that she was “terrified” for her life and was “so sorry” for what she did. Lee reportedly received the same sentence.
The Canadian Press –
Nov 13, 2018 / 9:34 am | Story:
241808
Photo: The Canadian Press
Prince Charles turns 70 Wednesday and is still heir to the throne — a role he has served since he was a young child.
He’s not lacking in things to do and shows few signs of slowing down — he is wealthy, extremely active in matters of great importance to him, and preparing to welcome his fourth grandchild into the world when Meghan, the Duchess of Susbad, gives birth next spring.
His destiny, however, is to be king, a position he will automatically badume with the death of his 92-year-old mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
When that happens, Charles will be bound by the constitutional requirement that the monarch refrain from trying to influence policy. Until then, Charles is free to lobby for action on climate change, support organic farming, and fight genetically modified crops as he sees fit.
He’s doing all that while increasingly stepping in for the queen and supervising the Prince’s Trust, an ambitious charity he founded 42 years ago that has helped hundreds of thousands of young Britons.
Is the candle-crowded birthday cake a signal that it’s time for the elegantly greying prince to take it easy? Not on your life, says Charles’ wife, Camilla, the duchess of Cornwall.
“I don’t think he thinks he’s 70,” she wrote in a birthday tribute in The Telegraph Magazine. “I think it’s just a number to him. There’s no way that he will slow down. You must be joking. I keep saying 70 is getting on a bit. It’s not very old but it is old. You have to slow down a bit.”
The royal family is in the midst of a slow, understated transition. The patriarch, 97-year-old Prince Philip, has formally retired from public life, although he makes occasional appearances in support of the queen.
For her part, the queen still maintains a busy schedule, but she no longer makes long haul flights to far flung parts of the 53-nation Commonwealth, and this year she took the unusual step of lobbying the Commonwealth countries to specify that Charles would be the next leader of the group, a position that is not hereditary.
The support for Charles was unanimous, reflecting not only appreciation for the queen’s work over the decades but a belief that Charles has a strong commitment to the Commonwealth.
Charles has also taken a more visible role representing the queen at some important national events, most recently during the Remembrance Day celebrations honouring Britain’s fallen soldiers. He placed the queen’s wreath at the foot of the Cenotaph monument while she watched from a balcony seat.
But his working trips abroad and his speeches at home generate precious little buzz as the press focuses on younger, more photogenic royals and their cute offspring.
In a way, Charles is sandwiched between generations, caught between his mother, a symbol of dignity and continuity who has reigned since 1952, and his two immensely popular sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, who have along with their wives come to symbolize the future of the world’s best known monarchy.
The Canadian Press –
Nov 13, 2018 / 8:46 am | Story:
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Photo: The Canadian Press
CNN journalist Jim Acosta does a standup before a news conference with President Donald Trump at the White House.
CNN sued the Trump administration Tuesday, demanding that correspondent Jim Acosta’s credentials to cover the White House be returned because their revocation violates the constitutional right of freedom of the press.
The administration stripped Acosta of his pbad to enter the White House following President Donald Trump’s contentious news conference last week, where Acosta refused to give up a microphone when the president said he didn’t want to hear anything more from him.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said “this is just more grandstanding from CNN, and we will vigorously defend against his lawsuit.”
Trump has made CNN and its reporters a particular target of his denunciation of “fake news” and characterization of the media as an enemy of the people. CNN CEO Jeff Zucker, in a letter to White House chief of staff John Kelly, called it a “pattern of targeted harbadment.”
The White House initially contended it was Acosta’s refusal to give up the microphone that led to his banishment; CNN said it’s apparent the president didn’t like his questions.
“Mr. Acosta’s press credentials must be restored so that all members of the press know they will remain free to ask tough questions, challenge government officials and report the business of the nation to the American people,” said Theodore Olson, former U.S. solicitor general and one of CNN’s lawyers on the case.
The White House Correspondents’ Association backed the lawsuit, filed in Washington, D.C., district court.
“The president of the United States should not be in the business of arbitrarily picking the men and women who cover him,” said Olivier Knox, president of the correspondents’ group.
CNN said Acosta was given no warning of the action, and no recourse to appeal it. Acosta travelled to Paris to cover Trump’s visit there this weekend and, although given permission by the French government to cover a news event, the Secret Service denied him entrance, the company said.
“Without this credential, a daily White House correspondent like Acosta effectively cannot do his job,” CNN’s lawsuit said.
CNN asked for an injunction to immediately reinstate Acosta, as well as a hearing on the larger issue of barring a reporter.
In an effort to prove the administration’s case last week, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders distributed via Twitter a doctored video sped up to make Acosta’s physical actions toward the intern seem more threatening.
That wasn’t mentioned by Sanders in a statement Tuesday. She cited his refusal to yield to other reporters after he asked Trump two questions.
“The White House cannot run an orderly and fair press conference when a reporter acts this way, which is neither appropriate nor professional,” Sanders said. “The First Amendment is not served when a single reporter, of more than 150 present, attempts to monopolize the floor.”
Trump told Acosta at the news conference that “CNN should be ashamed of itself, having you work for them. You are a rude, terrible person.”
Acosta has been a polarizing figure even beyond the distaste that Trump and his supporters have for him. The Poynter Institute, a journalism think-tank , editorialized last week that Acosta’s encounter with Trump at the news conference “was less about asking questions and more about making statements. In doing so, the CNN White House reporter gave President Donald Trump room to critique Acosta’s professionalism.”
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