News Center

The former vice president blasted President Trump for telling the crowd at a rally in Pennsylvania earlier this week that he “deserted” them.

POSTED MAY 22, 2019 9:49 AM

Weather forecasters on Wednesday expected drenching rains to roll into the storm-ravaged U.S. southern and central states, where thunderstorms and tornadoes killed at least three people and triggered widespread flooding. More than 30 tornadoes struck a swath from Texas to Iowa since Monday, according to the National Weather Service, and residents in at least three Oklahoma riverfront communities were urged to evacuate due to flooding. One person was killed and another was injured when a tornado struck the rural town of Adair, Iowa, about 50 miles (80 km)west of Des Moines, at about 1:30 a.m. local time, the weather service said.

POSTED MAY 22, 2019 4:02 PM

“If we were proceeding at the previous speed, it would have taken several months,” said Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, in an interview with Tehran’s Vatan Emrooz newspaper. The 2015 deal cut Iran’s low-enriched uranium by some 97% and capped its stockpile at 300 kilograms (661 pounds). Iran has remained well below that inventory limit for more than a year and had just 203 kilograms on hand during the first quarter, according to monitoring data.

POSTED MAY 22, 2019 6:39 AM

PG&E Corp may set up a $105 million housing fund for victims of 2017 and 2018 wildfires in California, which set records for devastation and were blamed on the utility's equipment, the judge overseeing the investor-owned power producer's bankruptcy ruled on Wednesday. Creditors, which include wildfire victims, are fighting for funds as PG&E navigates bankruptcy stemming from the blazes and as the state plans for increasingly long and dangerous fire seasons its officials attribute to climate change. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali at a hearing approved a motion by PG&E seeking permission to establish the fund for people who lost homes in the fires and were uninsured or have used up or will exhaust their insurance.

POSTED MAY 22, 2019 2:23 PM

CHICAGO (AP) — The agency that licenses and inspects health care facilities in Illinois has started an investigation of a suburban Chicago hospital where doctors treated a baby brought in by a woman claiming to be his mother, a spokeswoman for the agency said Tuesday. The woman was charged weeks later with killing the actual mother and cutting the child from her womb.

POSTED MAY 21, 2019 6:02 PM

The US has hit China where it hurts by going after its telecom champion Huawei, but Beijing's control of the global supply of rare earths used in smartphones and electric cars gives it a powerful weapon in their escalating tech war. A seemingly routine visit by President Xi Jinping to a Chinese rare earths company this week is being widely read as an obvious threat that Beijing is standing ready for action. Xi's inspection tour "is no accident, this didn't happen by chance," said Li Mingjiang, China programme coordinator at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore.

POSTED MAY 22, 2019 6:53 AM

Elizabeth Warren is the only presidential candidate with a plan for comedian Ashley Nicole Black's love life.That's at least according to Black, who wrote on Twitter that she had a chat with the Democratic presidential candidate had called her up — making good on a weekend tweet from Ms Warren offering to help."Guess who's crying and shaking and just talked to Elizabeth Warren on the phone?!?!? We have a plan to get my mom grand kids, it's very comprehensive, and it does involve raising taxes on billionaires," Black wrote on Twitter, referencing Ms Warren's campaign mantra that she has a "plan for that".The phone call — which the Warren campaign confirmed took place to The Independent — follows after Black jokingly tweeted on Sunday about the dozens of policy proposals Ms Warren has released, and that have come to largely define her campaign."Do you think Elizabeth Warren has a plan to fix my love life," Black tweeted then.Ms Warren's account replied: "DM me and let's figure this out."Ms Warrens' campaign provided no details of what the phone call included. But Black, a comedian who has worked on Samantha Bee's "Full Frontal" television show, provided some context piecemeal in her replies."I'm literally shaking," she wrote in response to one user.It's "like you're talking to someone super smart, who actually cares," she wrote in response to another user, who asked how it feels to speak with Ms Warren. "It was amazing."Finally, a hint at the advice: She said I've [got to] focus on what I've got going for me... that's when I started crying LOL".

POSTED MAY 21, 2019 4:16 PM

During Tuesday’s broadcast of The View, co-host Meghan McCain seemed a bit irritated and annoyed with her colleagues for not taking her viewpoints on politics seriously enough, insisting at one point that she comes to the show every day to give a “different perspective” even though it is an “unpopular one.”With the show hitting the air just moments after a House Judiciary Committee hearing adjourned following former White House counsel Don McGahn defying a congressional subpoena, the hosts jumped right into a debate over impeachment and whether the president attempted to obstruct justice.This prompted outspoken liberal co-host Joy Behar to take aim at the Republican Party as a whole for circling the wagons around Trump, insisting that if Richard Nixon were president today he “would have gotten away with everything just like this corrupt president is getting away with.” She went on to say that Republicans taking Trump’s side should all “be thrown into jail” to raucous applause from the audience.McCain eventually pushed back, saying Behar should hold Democrats who aren’t currently pushing for impeachment to the same standard before telling her colleague (and frequent sparring partner) that she recognized she’s “clearly frustrated,” but that Behar’s rhetoric is “dangerous.”“Well, you know, it’s what you call hyperbole,” Behar said, causing McCain to say that it “doesn’t sound that way to the Republican at the table.”Adding that it felt a “little aggressive,” McCain brought up that there were 10,000 people at Trump’s Monday night rally in a Pennsylvania town as proof of Trump’s popularity. Behar and co-host Sunny Hostin, meanwhile, joked that the president must have “imported” the rally attendees due to the town’s small population of 4,000 people.“Fine,” McCain huffed, rolling her eyes, demonstrating clearly that she was “clearly frustrated.”Howard Stern Defends Meghan McCain on ‘The View’: ‘Give the Woman a Chance!’Co-host Whoopi Goldberg then jumped in to suggest that ignoring subpoenas should equal jail time, drawing cheers from the audience. This appeared to get on McCain’s nerves. “I’ll wait until everyone is done applauding,” she said.McCain insisted she was simply trying to talk about the political ramifications of impeachment and congressional investigations, portraying herself as taking the only truly principled stand.“The other thing I would like to make clear is I come here every day trying to show a different perspective and basically when I walk out of my apartment, it’s an unpopular one but it’s important to explain what’s going on in Montoursville and why people would travel to see [Trump],” she declared. “He’s still incredibly popular in states that matter and I’m trying to give you a warning shot of how you can blow this.”In the following segment, the hosts had a wider discussion about Democrats challenging Trump in 2020, and Behar picked back up on McCain’s purported concern about Dems seemingly blowing it against the president.“I’m fascinated also that you’re so concerned about the Democrats,” Behar said. “Are you—do you want a Democrat to win?”Noting that in her “fantasy, Paul Ryan is president,” McCain added that she “can’t get behind any of these Democrats,” prompting Behar to point out: “You seem worried about the Democrats because you bring that up.”This caused the panel to highlight that McCain likes Joe Biden, resulting in the ex-Fox News host to say “everyone knows” that because he helped her through her father’s cancer fight. She then seemingly wanted to continue to push the discussion before ultimately shutting down.“I’m not changing your minds this morning, and honestly, I’ve said all I have to say,” McCain concluded.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

POSTED MAY 21, 2019 12:58 PM

For years, analysts have maintained that Apple needs to move past the iPhone and look for additional revenue streams. Consequently, many analysts over the years have proposed that Apple would be well advised to make a blockbuster acquisition and snatch up a company like Netflix or Tesla.Interestingly enough, it turns out that Apple actually did make an effort to acquire Tesla six years ago at a valuation of $240 a share. Incidentally, Tesla's share price has been reeling lately and is currently hovering in the $200 range. Word of Apple's efforts to acquire Tesla was brought to light by analyst Craig Irwin of Roth Capital Partners who revealed the interesting tidbit on CNBC (via Electrek) earlier today."Around 2013, there was a serious bid from Apple at around $240 a share," Irwin said."This is something we did multiple checks on," Irwin added. "I have complete confidence that this is accurate. Apple bid for Tesla. I don't know if it got to a formal paperwork stage, but I know from multiple different sources that this was very credible."Notably, there have been rumblings over the years regarding Apple's interest in Tesla, but this is the first time we've seen a report that Apple was legitimately trying to make a serious play for the electric automaker.You might also recall reports from a few years back which revealed that Elon Musk, sometime in mid-2013 -- sat down for a meeting with Apple's mergers and acquisitions chief Adrian Perica and, rumor has it, Tim Cook himself.Apple, of course, has been busy working on its own car initiative -- known as Project Titan -- for the past few years, though it remains to be seen if anything concrete ever manifests from its efforts. Early reports hinted that Apple was set on designing and building its own car, though a plethora of technical challenges ultimately resulted in a few rounds of layoffs and employees being shifted over to other projects. Last we heard, Apple's Project Titan is still ongoing but is now focused on autonomous systems as opposed to designing a car from the ground up.Interestingly, and somewhat uncharacteristically, Tim Cook confirmed this during an interview a few years ago. "We're focusing on autonomous systems," Cook said in 2017. "It's a core technology that we view as very important."Lastly, with Morgan Stanley recently noting that Tesla shares may sink to $10/share in a worst-case scenario, it will be interesting to see if Apple might swoop in and pick up the company at a huge discount.

POSTED MAY 21, 2019 12:30 PM

The fifth Guatemalan child to die after illegally crossing the border since December, Carlos Vasquez’s death at a Border Patrol station raises new questions about the length of time minors are being detained, as well as the conditions provided to them while in custody.

POSTED MAY 21, 2019 4:57 PM