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Updated, with additional comment: Jim Acosta told viewers this morning that he would be leaving CNN, departing after the network took his morning show off the schedule as part of an anchor shuffle.

“I’m grateful to CNN for the nearly 18 years I’ve spent here doing the news,” Acosta said. “People often ask me if the highlight of my career at CNN was at the White House, covering Donald Trump. Actually, no, that moment came here when I covered President Barack Obama’s trip to Cuba in 2016 and had the chance to question the dictator there, Raul Castro, about the island’s political prisoners as the son of a Cuban refugee. I took home this lesson — it is never a good time to bow down to a tyrant.”

He added, “I have always believed it’s the job of the press to hold power to account. I’ve always...

Writer-producer Matt Nix, writer-producer Aaron Rahsaan Thomas, and writer Ephraim Salaam and others are gathering this evening at WME for Brady United Against Gun Violence’s Show Gun Safety Summit.

The event will focus on how content creators can “model gun safety on screen to positively change attitudes and behaviors about guns, helping save lives,” the organization said.

It’s part of an increased effort by Brady United to the entertainment community via a culture and gun safety initiative. Their Show Gun Safety campaign has included a meeting of entertainment figures at the White House last spring, a partnership with USC’s Norman Lear Center’s Hollywood, Health and Society and a list of best practices.

Jessica Yellin will moderate the panel, with attendees also including Brady President Kris Brown and WME’s Dani Potter.

Brady also is planning another event at CAA on Nov. 9, with activists Fred Guttenberg, whose...

President Joe Biden today gave a speech marking the signing of a gun safety bill passed in the aftermath of recent mass shootings.

But even as lawmakers, gun reform advocates and victims’ families gathered on the South Law ceremony said that the new legislation would be meaningful, some also said it falls short of laws that were in place in the past, like an assault weapons ban, or even a ban on purchases of those firearms for those under 21. And some said it more loudly than others.

Biden’s speech was interrupted by Manuel Oliver, whose son Joaquin was killed in the 2018 Parkland, Fl shootings. Oliver could be heard shouting, “I have been trying to tell you this, for years,” and Biden then said, “Let him talk. Let him talk.” Oliver, who founded the group Change the Ref and is calling for much greater measures, was then escorted away.

In his speech,...

When Mark Barden received the first “thinking of you” text on Tuesday afternoon, he assumed the well-wisher had the anniversary of some other horrific school shooting on their mind. Late May is ripe with them: This week marks the four-year anniversary of a shooting spree at a high school Santa Fe, Texas, that left 10 dead, and eight years since a University of California, Santa Barbara student murdered two fellow students outside a sorority house in Isla Vista, California. “They do just seem to stack up,” Barden sighed.

Barden would soon find out,...

In the initial hours after the horrific Texas school massacre, in which 18 children and one adult was killed, CNN’s Jake Tapper noted that politicians’ expressions of thoughts and prayers “has sadly become a cliche at this point.”

But even calling it a cliche seems like a cliche, because the mass shootings, and school massacres in particular, keep happening.

Ed Lavandera, covering the shooting for CNN, was able to give some insight to a reunification center that had been set up for parents at Ross Elementary, as he recalled the same set up for Sandy Hook Elementary. “You could hear the yelling and screaming of the parents who were there,” he said.

Later in the evening, one local reporter at the scene of the Texas shootings, Leigh Waldman of Ksat-tv in San Antonio, wrote on Twitter, “We just heard screams inside the civic center. Yet another family hearing the worst news possible.

It’s been just over a week since four students were killed and seven people were injured after 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley allegedly opened fire at Oxford High School in Michigan. Sandy Hook quashed the idea that any particular school shooting has the power to inspire Congress to enact common-sense gun reform, but one would think Republicans could at least refrain from going out of their way to glorify guns in the immediate aftermath of these tragedies.

They’d be wrong.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) on Tuesday night posted a photo...

A new documentary undermines the National Rifle Association’s myths of gun control as antithetical to American values and traces the movement to loosen its grip

The modern iteration of the National Rifle Association as a political force opposed to any measure of gun safety was familiar to Fred Guttenberg even before his 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, was killed along with 16 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, on 14 February 2018.

Related: ‘We really are just kids’: inside a film about the Parkland teen activists...

Fred Guttenberg, the father of Jaime Guttenberg, a 14-year-old who was killed during the school shooting in Parkland, Florida in 2018, recalled his experience meeting Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who refused to shake his hand, in 2018. Guttenberg, who has since become an activist, has spoken about the importance of gun control and preventing further […]

The post Exclusive Video: Fred Guttenberg Says Brett Kavanaugh ‘Lied’ About Refusing To Shake His Hand appeared first on uInterview.

Fred Guttenberg, a gun control activist whose daughter was a victim of the Parkland mass shooting, discussed the new documentary The Price of Freedom, which is premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival on Wednesday, in his new uInterview. “My daughter was destined to do amazing things, beyond just being beautiful and a beautiful dancer, she […]

The post Video Exclusive: Gun Control Activist Fred Guttenberg Vows To ‘Dismantle’ The NRA appeared first on uInterview.

A federal judge has overturned California’s assault weapons ban, a law that has been in place for more than three decades. Governor Gavin Newsome, a Democrat, has said he will appeal, calling the judge’s decision a “direct threat to public safety and innocent Californians.”

U.S. District Court Judge Roger Benitez wrote in an order filed on Friday that the state’s ban on assault weapons is “unconstitutional.” The decision is the result of a lawsuit filed by gun advocacy groups who are trying to change the state’s strict gun laws.

When MSNBC’s Brian Williams promised “exclusive video” of the meeting between House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and former President Donald Trump, the result was a clip from Jerry Maguire.

The scene was a famous one. “You complete me,” Maguire, played by Tom Cruise, tells Dorothy Boyd, played by Renee Zellweger.

“You had me at hello,” she responds.

After the clip played, Williams’ guest, Baratunde Thurston, chuckled and another guest, Bill Kristol, smiled and shook his head.

“Obviously we have rolled the wrong clip and we were sold a bill of goods here,” Williams said.

The clip took off on social media. Fred Guttenberg, the gun reform advocate whose daughter was killed in the Parkland shooting massacre, tweeted it out, and it has drawn more than 1.3 million views.

“Someone of course is going to be in big trouble,” Williams added of the faux mix up.

Williams point was that “you...

The Bentonville Film Festival set the lineup for its sixth edition Tuesday, with the festival co-founded by Geena Davis unveiling its spotlight and competition program of indie feature films, shorts and episodic titles.

The fest is set to run August 10-16 in the Arkansas city and is being engineered as a hybrid event because of coronavirus concerns, with digital screenings, panels and events to run alongside some on-the-ground premieres and conversations.

This year’s lineup includes four Spotlight pics including the U.S. premiere of Misbehaviour, starring Keira Knightley and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, which tells the true story of protest and controversy at 1970 Miss World contest, and Parkland Rising, a documentary that looks at the students of Parkland, Fl, who started an international movement to call attention to the need for better gun laws.

As per usual, this year’s lineup focuses on underrepresented voices in film. Of the 68 titles, more...

We’ve seen Elisabeth Moss take on corporate male toxicity in Mad Men, a ghost of a man in The Invisible Man, Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale and punk rock in Her Smell. This weekend we’ll see her as a horror author who tries not to unravel as she goes through her creative process in the Josephine Decker-directed Shirley.

The film, which is adapted from Susan Scarf Merrell’s 2014 novel of the same name, bowed at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and is based on the real-life horror author Shirley Jackson and her husband Stanley Hyman.

“We were not making a film that we ever thought, ‘Oh, we’re making a film about the real Shirley Jackson’,” Decker told Deadline at Sundance. “In fact, the script really meshed up a bunch of timelines in the real Shirley Jackson’s life, so it absolutely was a fiction.

Enough is enough. Abramorama has unveiled an official, full-length trailer for the documentary Parkland Rising, which is launching with a live stream event in early June in just a few weeks. Directed by two-time Emmy award-winning filmmaker Cheryl Horner McDonough, Parkland Rising is an inspiring look at the students of Parkland, who have started an international movement to call attention to the need for better gun safety laws. The film encourages everyone to stand up and get involved. From executive producers Katie Couric and will.i.am, the film features Jaclyn Corin, Matt & Ryan Deitsch, Emma Gonzalez, Fred Guttenberg (Father of Jaime Guttenberg), Lauren and David Hogg; with music by Ajr, Black Eyed Peas, Sammy Brue, Bob Dylan, Michael Franti, and Pearl Jam. This is different than the doc film After Parkland, which focuses more on emotions. This ones focuses on change - and how we can make that change happen with solidarity.

After Donald Trump’s third State of the Union address, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stood up and methodically ripped each page of her copy of the speech in half.

Like Pelosi’s pointed clapping at the 2019 Sotu, her small act of #Resistance was guaranteed to go viral. NowThis had video within minutes. It’s already a Gif. It’s also a completely hollow, feckless gesture that perfectly encapsulates Pelosi’s view of what politics is: a battle of symbolic power where the only casualties are expensive stationery.

The visual is great.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told actress and activist Alyssa Milano that he was a fan of Who’s the Boss? and Commando, while she told him that his stance on gun reform “has made you almost like this caricature of a villain.”

“That is why this meeting was so important to me — I wanted to look at you in the eye and know that you really are a human with a heartbeat,” she told him.

The occasion was an unusual, livestreamed and Twitter-inspired meeting Tuesday at Cruz’s Capitol Hill office to talk about efforts to bring gun legislation to the floor of the Senate. During the session, which lasted more than an hour, much was made of the fact that they were sitting down for a thoughtful conversation at all, even if legislative views remain unchanged.

From the right, there was Cruz, who often bashes Hollywood and has...

On Valentine’s Day 2018, a 19-year-old ex-student took an Uber to his old high school; he walked across the campus and into a three-story building, where he killed 17 people and injured 17 more. It was the sixth of 24 shootings in U.S. schools last year, but the incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, became the catalyst for a nationwide movement. The school’s students rallied more than half a million people to Washington, D.C., for the March for Our Lives and galvanized support for some 67 new gun laws.

On Valentine’s Day 2018, a 19-year-old ex-student took an Uber to his old high school; he walked across the campus and into a three-story building, where he killed 17 people and injured 17 more. It was the sixth of 24 shootings in U.S. schools last year, but the incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, became the catalyst for a nationwide movement. The school’s students rallied more than half a million people to Washington, D.C., for the March for Our Lives and galvanized support for some 67 new gun laws.

On Valentine’s Day 2018, a 19-year-old ex-student took an Uber to his old high school; he walked across the campus and into a three-story building, where he killed 17 people and injured 17 more. It was the sixth of 24 shootings in U.S. schools last year, but the incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, became the catalyst for a nationwide movement. The school’s students rallied more than half a million people to Washington, D.C., for the March for Our Lives and galvanized support for some 67 new gun laws.

On Valentine’s Day 2018, a 19-year-old ex-student took an Uber to his old high school; he walked across the campus and into a three-story building, where he killed 17 people and injured 17 more. It was the sixth of 24 shootings in U.S. schools last year, but the incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, became the catalyst for a nationwide movement. The school’s students rallied more than half a million people to Washington, D.C., for the March for Our Lives and galvanized support for some 67 new gun laws.

On Valentine’s Day 2018, a 19-year-old ex-student took an Uber to his old high school; he walked across the campus and into a three-story building, where he killed 17 people and injured 17 more. It was the sixth of 24 shootings in U.S. schools last year, but the incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, became the catalyst for a nationwide movement. The school’s students rallied more than half a million people to Washington, D.C., for the March for Our Lives and galvanized support for some 67 new gun laws.

On Valentine’s Day 2018, a 19-year-old ex-student took an Uber to his old high school; he walked across the campus and into a three-story building, where he killed 17 people and injured 17 more. It was the sixth of 24 shootings in U.S. schools last year, but the incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, became the catalyst for a nationwide movement. The school’s students rallied more than half a million people to Washington, D.C., for the March for Our Lives and galvanized support for some 67 new gun laws.

On Valentine’s Day 2018, a 19-year-old ex-student took an Uber to his old high school; he walked across the campus and into a three-story building, where he killed 17 people and injured 17 more. It was the sixth of 24 shootings in U.S. schools last year, but the incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, became the catalyst for a nationwide movement. The school’s students rallied more than half a million people to Washington, D.C., for the March for Our Lives and galvanized support for some 67 new gun laws.

Happy Death Day came out in theaters on Friday the 13th in October 2017 to a pretty good response from fans who enjoyed the movie. So when its sequel, Happy Death Day 2U, was set to come out, Valentine’s Day 2019 seemed like another fun day to market a horror flick. But Valentine’s Day doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. On February 14, 2018, the Parkland, Florida shooting took place at Stoneman Douglas High School, and 17 people lost their lives. So when the movie began to market its release, Fred Guttenberg, the father of 14-year old Jaime Guttenberg who was killed in the shooting, took to twitter to voice his opinion on the matter.

Here’s what Guttenberg had to say:

My daughter and 16 others were killed on February 14th. Universal Studios is releasing a move a movie called Happy Death Day 2 U? I get the pun on Valentines Day,...

Universal Pictures will not open its upcoming horror movie “Happy Death Day 2U” in theaters in and around Parkland, Florida as the February release coincides with the first anniversary of the Parkland school shooting tragedy. The studio is also moving up the movie’s release nationwide from February 14 to February 13 as to entirely avoid the Parkland anniversary.

The Blumhouse-backed “Happy Death Day 2U” is the sequel to the 2017 surprise horror hit “Happy Death Day,” written and directed by Christopher Landon and starring Jessica Rothe and Israel Broussard. Prior to Universal changing its release plans, the sequel’s theatrical date was called into question by Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was one of 17 students killed when a gunman opened fire at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, 2018.

“My daughter and 16 others were killed on February 14th,” Guttenberg wrote on Twitter. “Universal Studios is releasing a movie called ‘Happy Death Day 2U...

Universal Studios has announced a new release date for the upcoming horror sequel Happy Death Day 2U. Initially, the movie was set for a theatrical premiere for Valentine's Day next month, hitting the big screen on Feb. 14. However, this date happens to fall on the one-year anniversary of last year's tragedy at the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was one of the victims of the tragedy, had taken to social media to voice his concerns over the planned release date, saying the movie's title is insensitive to those still grieving the lives lost on that day. Now aware of the issue, Universal Pictures has issued a statement confirming they have changed the official release date for Happy Death Day 2U, bumping it up a day earlier to Feb. 13.

"When Universal Pictures became aware last week that the one-year anniversary of the tragic events in Parkland,...

Happy Death Day 2U is set to premiere in theaters on Valentine's Day next month, continuing the story set in the original movie from 2017. However, that could change if Fred Guttenberg's social media campaign to move the release date is successful. On Feb. 14 of last year, Guttenberg's daughter was slain in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland, Florida. For Guttenberg, having a movie with a title like this release on the 1-year anniversary of the massacre is too painful, and the grieving father has taken to social media to voice his concerns.

"For my family and 16 others, February 14th will always be death day and this movie will make this painful day worse," Guttenberg stressed on Twitter. In another tweet sent directly to Jason Blum and Blumhouse, Guttenberg promises he will do everything he can to "help make [the] movie successful," so as long as it premieres on a different date.

Updated with reactions from Parkland students, parent: In a stand-up set that leaked online, disgraced comedian Louie C.K. delivered an extended riff about 20-somethings that included jabs at the survivors of the Parkland High School shooting and those who identify as gender non-binary.

The comedian, who left the scene a year ago after admitting to masturbating in front of several female comedians without their consent, was quickly torched on Twitter for what was perceived as a sharp turn toward a right-wing world view.

The performance, which also included a long complaint about the word “retarded” and a smattering of punchlines about Jews, makes the controversy over C.K.’s appearances at New York’s Comedy Cellar earlier this year seem almost quaint. It is coming to light just a week...

The father of one of the kids killed in the Parkland Shooting is tearing into Louis C.K. after leaked audio from the comedian's set included a joke about the massacre. Fred Guttenberg -- who lost his 14-year-old daughter Jamie -- in the attack just shared a message for C.K., saying, "To anyone who knows Louis Ck, please deliver this message for me. My daughter was killed in the Parkland shooting. My son ran from the bullets.

Louis C.K. mocked the Parkland high school shooting survivors and gender pronouns in leaked audio from one of the comedian’s recent comeback sets. The recording reportedly captures the comedian’s nearly hour-long routine at Long Island, New York’s Governor’s Comedy Club on December 16th.

“So what kind of a year did you guys have? I bet none of you had the same year that I had. Ever have a whole bad year?” C.K. asked the audience. “My mom still sends me articles about me, like it’s scrapbooking.

We should have known it was coming. After a quiet Labor Day weekend, the news floodgates opened on Tuesday and the torrent hasn’t stopped.

First came bombshell teasers for Bob Woodward’s new expose of the Trump White House, followed by fireworks from Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court hearings. Then a “senior White House official” broke the Internet with an anonymous op-ed in the New York Times, describing a quiet coups by the “steady-state” that’s thwarting Trump’s amoral and impulsive presidency.

Apart from these headline-grabbers, there was...

Brett Kavanaugh was in no mood to meet a father whose kid was killed during the Parkland shooting -- snubbing his handshake attempt during a Scotus confirmation hearing. Judge Kavanaugh's morning session in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill was put on pause Tuesday, and as Trump's pick for the Supreme Court was getting up to leave ... Fred Guttenberg approached him out of nowhere with his hand extended. He's the father of Jamie Guttenberg,...

Parkland students David Hogg and Delaney Tarr were among those who reacted to the Jacksonville, Fla. shooting on Sunday. According to the Jacksonville police department, there were “multiple fatalities” after a gunman opened fire at a “Madden NFL 19” livestream competition.

Many survivors of the Parkland shooting, including Hogg and Tarr, became activists against gun violence after former student Nikolas Cruz killed 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018. Parkland is roughly 300 miles from Jacksonville.

Using the hashtag #AnotherFLShooting, Hogg said change will not come unless people vote in November. He directed a question to Florida Senator Marco Rubio, asking, “How many mass shootings in your state will it take for you to do something?”

While @50milesmore , @MFOLBoston and I were marching against gun violence in front of Smith and Wesson another shooting occurred in Jacksonville, Fl in yet #AnotherFLshooting . We know change will not come until...

Four days ago, no one had ever heard of a video game called “Active Shooter.” It was an obscure indie first-person shooter that let the player commit a mass killing in a school environment. It was originally scheduled to launch June 6 on Steam, but widespread condemnation led to its removal, along with all of the other titles from its developer, Revived Games. So, what happened, exactly? And why was it such a big deal? Here’s what you need to know to get caught up.

What was ‘Active Shooter?’

It’s a “dynamic Swat simulator” where players could choose to be members of an elite Swat team or the titular active shooter, according to its description on Steam. Depending on what role they picked, players were tasked with either neutralizing the target or hunting and killing civilians in a school setting. A counter in the corner of the screen tallied...

Updated Washington — President Donald Trump gave comments at the White House in the immediate aftermath of the latest school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, saying that is has been going on “for too long in our country.”

“Too many years. Too many decades now,” he said, adding that “we grieve for the terrible loss of life and send our support to everyone affected by this absolutely horrific attack.”

Nine students and one teacher were killed after an assailant opened fire at Santa Fe High School, and 10 others were injured, according to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who spoke to a reporter at a news conference.

A suspect was in custody, and “one or two other people” were “of interest,” Abbott said. The suspect was identified as Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17. He said that the assailant had a shotgun and .38 revolver, and neither were his but authorities were investigating whether they were owned by his father.