Names and faces
President Donald Trump on Tuesday called porn star Stormy Daniels
“horseface” as he labeled her legal efforts against him a “total con!” The online name-calling came a day after a federal judge dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed against the president by Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. “‘Federal Judge throws out Stormy Danials lawsuit versus Trump. Trump is entitled to full legal fees.’ FoxNews Great, now I can go after Horseface and her 3rd rate lawyer in the Great State of Texas. She will confirm the letter she signed! She knows nothing about me, a total con!” Trump tweeted, misspelling the actress’s name. Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, responded by calling Trump a “disgusting misogynist” and an “embarrassment to the United States.” “Bring everything you have, because we are going to demonstrate to the world what a complete shyster and liar you are,” Avenatti tweeted minutes after Trump. “How many other women did you cheat on your wife with while you had a baby at home?” Avenatti wrote. The defamation lawsuit came after Trump tweeted about a composite sketch of a man Daniels says threatened her in 2011 to keep quiet about an alleged affair. He called it a “total con job.” The judge on Monday said Trump’s tweet was a “hyperbolic statement” protected under the First Amendment. Monday’s ruling does not affect a separate lawsuit Daniels, who claims to have had an affair with Trump in 2006, is bringing against the president regarding a 2016 nondisclosure agreement she signed.
Writer Anna Burns won the prestigious Man Booker Prize for fiction Tuesday with Milkman, a vibrant, violent story about men, women, conflict and power set during Northern Ireland’s years of Catholic-Protestant violence. Burns is the first writer from Northern Ireland to win the $66,000 prize, which is open to English-language authors from around the world. She received her trophy from Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, during a blacktie ceremony Tuesday at London’s medieval Guildhall. Milkman is narrated by a young woman dealing with an older man who uses family ties, social pressure and political loyalties as weapons of sexual coercion and harassment. It is set in the 1970s, but was published amid the global outpouring of sexual misconduct allegations that sparked the Me Too movement. Other finalists included American writer Richard Powers for his arboreal novel The Overstory; Canadian novelist Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black; British author Daisy Johnson’s Everything Under; American novelist Rachel Kushner for The Mars Room; and British writer Robin Robertson’s The Long Take.