Fire turns Yosemite National Park smoky, hurts businesses

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Fire turns Yosemite National Park smoky, hurts businesses

2018-07-17 13:35 Last Updated At：13:35

A deadly wildfire near Yosemite National Park shrouded the popular destination in smoke and left some tourist-dependent businesses hurting Monday, but visitors still braved trails, campgrounds, lodges and restaurants in the California park, officials said.

Amenities were open and visitors posted photos on social media as they hiked in smoky conditions, but the growing flames shut down a key route into the park at the peak of tourist season. A stretch of State Route 140 has been closed since the weekend, and drivers have been urged to find alternate ways into the park.

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Flames from the Ferguson Fire burn down a hillside in unincorporated Mariposa County Calif., near Yosemite National Park on Sunday, July 15, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

A deadly wildfire near Yosemite National Park shrouded the popular destination in smoke and left some tourist-dependent businesses hurting Monday, but visitors still braved trails, campgrounds, lodges and restaurants in the California park, officials said.

A plane battling the Ferguson Fire passes the setting sun in unincorporated Mariposa County Calif., near Yosemite National Park on Sunday, July 15, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Amenities were open and visitors posted photos on social media as they hiked in smoky conditions, but the growing flames shut down a key route into the park at the peak of tourist season. A stretch of State Route 140 has been closed since the weekend, and drivers have been urged to find alternate ways into the park.

A fire transport drives along Highway 140, one of the entrances to Yosemite National Park, on Monday, July 16, 2018, in Mariposa, Calif. The road remains closed as crews battle a deadly wildfire burning near the west end of Yosemite National Park. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Businesses along the highway in Mariposa, a town popular with park visitors, have taken a hit, though the flames haven't reached them.

A fire truck, part of a procession carrying the body of firefighter Braden Varney, makes its way along Highway 140 on Monday, July 16, 2018, in Mariposa, Calif. Varney died when his bulldozer overturned as he battled the Ferguson fire. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Danette Moreno, 64, said she, her husband and their dog left their home in Mariposa Pines shortly after midnight Sunday and went to a shelter. The couple retired to their home about five years ago from the Los Angeles area and said they had seen three fires in that time, but this was the first time they had to evacuate.

Charles Phillips waits for a procession carrying the body of firefighter Braden Varney on Monday, July 16, 2018, in Mariposa, Calif. Varney died Saturday while battling the Ferguson fire when his bulldozer overturned. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Crews retrieved the body of heavy fire equipment operator Braden Varney, 36, on Monday after he died in steep, rugged terrain, Cal Fire Deputy Chief Scott McLean said. Firefighters took turns keeping vigil near Varney's body and saluted as it was taken to a coroner's office in a procession that included firetrucks and sheriff's vehicles.

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A deadly wildfire near Yosemite National Park shrouded the popular destination in smoke and left some tourist-dependent businesses hurting Monday, but visitors still braved trails, campgrounds, lodges and restaurants in the California park, officials said.

Amenities were open and visitors posted photos on social media as they hiked in smoky conditions, but the growing flames shut down a key route into the park at the peak of tourist season. A stretch of State Route 140 has been closed since the weekend, and drivers have been urged to find alternate ways into the park.

Businesses along the highway in Mariposa, a town popular with park visitors, have taken a hit, though the flames haven't reached them.

Danette Moreno, 64, said she, her husband and their dog left their home in Mariposa Pines shortly after midnight Sunday and went to a shelter. The couple retired to their home about five years ago from the Los Angeles area and said they had seen three fires in that time, but this was the first time they had to evacuate.

Crews retrieved the body of heavy fire equipment operator Braden Varney, 36, on Monday after he died in steep, rugged terrain, Cal Fire Deputy Chief Scott McLean said. Firefighters took turns keeping vigil near Varney's body and saluted as it was taken to a coroner's office in a procession that included firetrucks and sheriff's vehicles.

"All the campgrounds and the hotels are open — the shuttles are running," Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman said. "We have limited visibility, but aside from that, the park is open and fully operational."

Time-lapse video by the Yosemite Conservancy, a group that supports the park, shows billowing smoke enveloping and completely obscuring Half Dome, an iconic rock formation. Park webcams showed other landmarks, such as the El Capitan rock formation, concealed by thick plumes of smoke.

Businesses along the highway in Mariposa, a town popular with park visitors, have taken a hit, though the flames haven't reached them.

Gopal Das, the owner of a Quality Inn, said at least 50 people have called to cancel their reservations since Sunday.

"We'll lose that revenue," Das said. "Since it's a fire hazard, it is something beyond everybody's control, and that means we won't be able to charge them for late cancellations. It could result in thousands of dollars in losses."

Tourists also dealt with road closures last summer, when a fire threatened Mariposa and forced evacuations.

A trickle of people visited the Sierra Artists' Gallery, but it was still better than last year, when Mariposa was a ghost town, said Marjorie D'Esposito, a gallery volunteer.

"Nobody is buying," she said. "I don't think they're really interested in buying artwork right now."

The blaze scorching dry brush along steep, remote hillsides doubled to 14 square miles (36 kilometers) and was largely burning out of control, U.S. Forest Service spokesman John DeYoe said.

Inaccessible terrain and temperatures spiking to 95 degrees (35 Celsius) made it difficult for crews to slow the blaze that started Friday. More fire engines were expected to arrive to try to stop the flames from reaching more than 100 homes and commercial buildings that are threatened, DeYoe said.

Evacuations were ordered over the weekend for the Yosemite Cedar Lodge, which is outside the park, and in nearby communities as flames crept up slopes and the air became thick with smoke.

Danette Moreno, 64, said she, her husband and their dog left their home in Mariposa Pines shortly after midnight Sunday and went to a shelter. The couple retired to their home about five years ago from the Los Angeles area and said they had seen three fires in that time, but this was the first time they had to evacuate.

"My attitude is never 'Why me?'" Moreno told the Merced-Sun Star newspaper. "It's out of our hands."

A firefighter driving a bulldozer died early Saturday as he worked to keep the flames from extending into a nearby community, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.

Crews retrieved the body of heavy fire equipment operator Braden Varney, 36, on Monday after he died in steep, rugged terrain, Cal Fire Deputy Chief Scott McLean said. Firefighters took turns keeping vigil near Varney's body and saluted as it was taken to a coroner's office in a procession that included firetrucks and sheriff's vehicles.

Workplace safety officials are investigating Varney's death and will look for any violations related to his training or the maintenance of the bulldozer, said Frank Polizzi, a spokesman for the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health. Polizzi said his office was told that Varney's bulldozer rolled over.

Varney, who was married with two young children, had worked for Cal Fire for 10 years.

The wildfire that killed Varney is one of several burning across the state and among 56 large blazes that are active in the U.S., most in the American West, a region struggling with drought and heat.

Tabloid publisher says he pledged to be Trump campaign's 'eyes and ears' during 2016 race

2024-04-24 09:25 Last Updated At：09:30

NEW YORK (AP) — A veteran tabloid publisher testified Tuesday that he pledged to be Donald Trump 's “eyes and ears" during his 2016 presidential campaign, recounting how he promised the then-candidate that he would help suppress harmful stories and even arranged to purchase the silence of a doorman.

The testimony from David Pecker was designed to bolster the prosecution's premise of a decades-long friendship between Trump and the former publisher of the National Enquirer that culminated in an agreement to give the candidate's lawyer a heads-up on negative tips and stories so they could be quashed.

The effort was a way to illegally influence the election, prosecutors have alleged in striving to elevate the gravity of the history-making first trial of a former American president and the first of four criminal cases against Trump to reach a jury. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee in this year's race faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments meant to stifle embarrassing stories from surfacing in the final days of the 2016 campaign.

With Trump sitting just feet away in the courtroom, Pecker, the first witness, detailed his behind-the-scenes role in Trump's rise from political novice to the Republican nomination and the White House. He explained how he and the National Enquirer parlayed rumor-mongering into splashy tabloid stories that smeared Trump's opponents and, just as crucially, leveraged his connections to suppress seamy stories about Trump, including a porn actor's claim of an extramarital sexual encounter years earlier.

Pecker traced the origins of their relationship to a 1980s meeting at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and said the friendship bloomed alongside the success of the real estate developer's TV show “The Apprentice" and the program's subsequent celebrity version.

Their ties were solidified during a pivotal August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower involving Trump, his lawyer and personal fixer Michael Cohen, and another aide, Hope Hicks, in which Pecker was asked what he and the publications he led could do for the campaign.

Pecker said he volunteered to publish positive stories about Trump and negative stories about his opponents. But that wasn't all, he said, telling jurors how he told Trump: “I will be your eyes and ears.”

“I said that anything I hear in the marketplace, if I hear anything negative about yourself, or if I hear anything about women selling stories, I would notify Michael Cohen," so that the rights could be purchased and the stories could be killed.

“So that they would not get published, you mean?” asked prosecutor Joshua Steinglass.

“So that they would not get published, yes” Pecker replied.

To illustrate their point, prosecutors displayed a screenshot of various flattering headlines the National Enquirer published about Trump, including “Donald Dominates!’ and “World Exclusive: The Donald Trump Nobody Knows.” The jury was also shown disparaging and outlandish stories about Trump's opponents, including surgeon Ben Carson and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.

Pecker painted Cohen as a shadow editor of the National Enquirer’s pro-Trump coverage, directing the tabloid to go after whichever Republican candidate was gaining momentum.

“I would receive a call from Michael Cohen, and he would direct me and direct Dylan Howard on which candidate and which direction we should go,” Pecker said, referring to the tabloid's then-editor.

Pecker said he underscored to Howard that the agreement with the Trump operation was “highly, highly confidential.” He said he wanted the tabloid’s bureau chiefs to be on the lookout for any stories involving Trump and said he wanted them to verify the stories before alerting Cohen.

“I did not want anyone else to know about this agreement I had and what I wanted to do,” the ex-publisher added.

Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges related to his role in the hush money payments. He was once a confidant of Trump's, but their relationship deteriorated in spectacular fashion. Cohen is expected to be a star government witness, and he routinely posts profane broadsides against Trump on social media.

Trump's lawyers are expected to make attacks on Cohen's credibility a foundation of their defense, but in opening with Pecker, prosecutors hoped to focus attention on a witness with a less volatile backstory. Besides maintaining that Trump is innocent, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told jurors that Cohen cannot be trusted and has “an obsession with getting Trump.”

Pecker's testimony Tuesday followed a hearing earlier in the day in which prosecutors urged Judge Juan M. Merchan to hold Trump in contempt and fine him $1,000 for each of 10 social media posts that they say violated an earlier gag order barring attacks on witnesses, jurors and others involved in the case.

Merchan did not immediately rule, but he seemed skeptical of defense arguments that Trump was merely responding in his posts to others' attacks and had been trying to comply with the order.

Prosecutors allege that Trump sought to illegally influence the 2016 race through a practice known in the tabloid industry as “catch-and-kill” — catching a potentially damaging story by buying the rights to it and then killing it through agreements that prevent the paid person from telling the story to anyone else.

In this case, that included a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to silence her claims of an extramarital sexual encounter that Trump denies. Prosecutors also described other arrangements, including one that paid a former Playboy model $150,000 to suppress claims of a nearly yearlong affair with the married Trump, which Trump also denies.

In another instance, Pecker recounted a $30,000 payment from the National Enquirer to a Trump Tower doorman for the rights to a rumor that Trump had fathered a child with an employee at Trump World Tower. The tabloid concluded the story was not true, and the woman and Trump have denied the allegations.

As Pecker described receiving the tip in court, Trump shook his head.

Pecker said upon hearing the rumor, he immediately called Cohen, who said it was “absolutely not true” but that he would look into whether the people involved had indeed worked for Trump’s company.

“I made the decision to buy the story because of the potential embarrassment it had to the campaign and Mr. Trump,” Pecker said.

When he told Cohen, Pecker said he thanked him, "And he said that the boss would be very pleased.”

Asked by the prosecutor who he understood the boss to be, Pecker replied: “Donald Trump.”

Explaining why he decided to have the National Enquirer foot the bill, Pecker recalled telling Cohen: “This can be a very big story. I believe it's important that it be removed from the marketplace.”

If he published the story, Pecker said it would be “probably the biggest sale of the National Enquirer since the death of Elvis Presley.”

Jurors viewed an internal Enquirer email and invoice describing the payments to the doorman to kill his story. One document describes the funds coming from the publication’s “corporate” account. An invoice references an “immediate” $30,000 bank transfer payment for “‘Trump’ non-published story.”

Trump's 34 felony counts arise from reimbursements that prosecutors say Trump's company made to Cohen for hush money payments and that were falsely recorded as legal expenses.

The charges are punishable by up to four years in prison, though it’s unclear whether Merchan would seek to put him behind bars. A conviction would not preclude Trump from becoming president again, but because it is a state case, he would not be able to pardon himself if found guilty. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Testimony resumes on Thursday.

Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.

Follow the AP's coverage of former President Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump.

Fire turns Yosemite National Park smoky, hurts businesses

News

Fire turns Yosemite National Park smoky, hurts businesses

A deadly wildfire near Yosemite National Park shrouded the popular destination in smoke and left some tourist-dependent businesses hurting Monday, but visitors still braved trails, campgrounds, lodges and restaurants in the California park, officials said.

Businesses along the highway in Mariposa, a town popular with park visitors, have taken a hit, though the flames haven't reached them.

A deadly wildfire near Yosemite National Park shrouded the popular destination in smoke and left some tourist-dependent businesses hurting Monday, but visitors still braved trails, campgrounds, lodges and restaurants in the California park, officials said.

Businesses along the highway in Mariposa, a town popular with park visitors, have taken a hit, though the flames haven't reached them.

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