Lawyers urge appeals court overseeing 6 states to recognize a constitutional right to film police
CBSN
U.S. government lawyers on Wednesday asked the appeals court overseeing four western and two midwestern states to recognize that the First Amendment guarantee of free speech gives people the right to film police as they do their work in public — a decision that would allow officers to be sued if they interfere with bystanders trying to record them.
Six of the nation's 12 appeals courts have recognized that right, but the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has not — and justices heard arguments in the case of a YouTube journalist and blogger who claimed that a suburban Denver officer blocked him from recording a 2019 traffic stop.
Natasha Babazadeh, an attorney for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, urged a three-judge panel from the court to rule that filming police is a constitutional right and said there has been an increase in the number of lawsuits filed against police by people saying they could not record them in public. The appeals court has jurisdiction over Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah, and the parts of Yellowstone National Park that lie in Idaho and Montana.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden were honored at a state dinner in Paris at the Presidential Elysee Palace on Saturday, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron and first lady Brigitte Macron marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day two days prior and the strength of the countries' long alliance.
President Joe Biden said France was America's "first friend" at its founding and is one of its closest allies more than two centuries later as he was honored with a state visit Saturday by French President Emmanuel Macron aimed at showing off their partnership on global security issues and easing past trade tensions.
The Consumer Federal Protection Bureau last week launched an inquiry into what the agency is calling "junk fees in mortgage closing costs." These additional fees, involving home appraisal, title insurance and other services, have spiked in recent years and can add thousands of dollars to the final cost of buying a home.
Retired Maj. Gen. William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic "Earthrise" photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90.