Reporter's Notebook: North Korea's UN am Los Angeles

President Trump announced Wednesday night his administration would allocate $448 million in federal aid to communities in Florida affected by last year's Category 5 Hurricane Michael, all while blasting Democrats standing in the way of his policies, at a raucous "Make America Great Again" rally in Panama City Beach. "In the wake of the terrible storm, this extraordinary community pulled together and showed the world your unbreakable spirit," Trump told supporters. "Today, I'm doing the most allowed by law to support the people of Florida. Because of the severity of the storm -- Category 5 -- we will have the federal government pay for 90 percent of the cost in many circumstances." The White House has blamed "Democrat obstruction" for a stoppage in recovery work, with about 120 projects being deferred. The president's opposition to more hurricane aid for Puerto Rico has sparked a standoff with congressional Democrats that has blocked some assistance to the island and elsewhere, including the Florida Panhandle. "The money is coming immediately," the president added. "No games, no gimmicks, no delays, we're just doing it." The president repeated his claim that Puerto Rico had received $91 billion to help it recover from 2017's Hurricane Maria, which he called "the most money we've ever given to anybody. We've never given $91 billion to a state. We gave Puerto Rico $91 billion ... and they don't like me." Producing a bar graph printout from his suit coat pocket, Trump showed the amount of aid given to Puerto Rico compared to other disaster-hit states. "I didn't want to spend on a big board because that costs the government too much money," he joked before complaining that leaders on the island territory "want more money. They got $91 billion, the largest amount of money ever given for a hurricane to a state ... and that's the way it is." "I think that the people of Puerto Rico are very grateful to Donald Trump for what we've done for them," the president said. "That was a bad storm." The White House has said the $91 billion figure includes about $50 billion in expected future disaster disbursements that could span decades, along with $41 billion already approved. Actual aid to Puerto Rico has amounted to about $11 billion so far. DONALD TRUMP JR. SUBPOENAED BY SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE In response to the president's remarks, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., issued a statement accusing Senate Republicans of being "more committed to hurting our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico than healing communities everywhere. "Meanwhile, the President has doubled down on Republicans’ callousness, deliberately delaying assistance payments to Puerto Rico and inflicting more needless suffering on the Americans who are still reeling from his Administration’s disastrous response to the hurricanes," Pelosi added. "And so, hard-hit communities from the Florida panhandle to the Midwest are stuck waiting for the GOP-controlled Senate to pass a bill to help them. We are now just weeks away from another hurricane season and Republicans continue to delay and play politics. When disaster strikes, all Americans deserve to know that their government is there for them." The rally, the fourth held by the Trump campaign this year, began hours after the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress. That vote came after the president invoked executive privilege in order to prevent lawmakers from seeing the full unredacted report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian activities during the 2016 election. Trump slammed Democrats in his speech for wasting time and resources on the Russia investigation, which he said led to nothing. HOUSE DEMS SUBPOENA FULL MUELLER REPORT FOLLOWING VOTE TO HOLD BARR IN CONTEMPT “Instead of wasting time, energy, taxpayer dollars on partisan stunts, hoaxes and witch hunts, Democrats should be focused on building up our country," the president said. "No collusion, no obstruction, no anything ... Two years on a witch hunt, almost $40 million, 20 Trump haters … after two years, nothing!” Mueller’s report concluded that the two-year-long investigation into the Trump campaign found no evidence of collusion between Trump’s associates and the Russian government. The report did not, however, come to a conclusion on the separate question of whether Trump obstructed justice as president. House Democrats have subpoenaed the full unredacted report, as well as the underlying evidence Mueller used to come to his conclusions, but the Department of Justice has denied those requests. “It is a disgrace. We have to focus on infrastructure, we have to focus on lowering medical prices and medicine, always focus on our military and our vets, which we’ve done,” the president said. “It's time to stop this nonsense.” SESSIONS SIDES WITH BARR OVER FBI 'SPYING' ON TRUMP CAMPAIGN Trump has said the Democrats' attempts to see the full report were merely an effort to damage him politically ahead of next year's election. The administration also has rejected efforts by Democrat-led House committees to investigate Trump's business dealings or tax returns as well as the West Wing's security clearance procedure. The president took several shots at rival Democrats in the 2020 White House race Wednesday night, calling them "some real beauties" and mock-pleading: "Let's just pick somebody, please, and let's start this thing." He joked that he would like to see South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg negotiating trade deals with China, saying, "That will be great." "We have a choice between Sleepy Joe [Biden] and Crazy Bernie [Sanders], and I'll take any of them," said Trump at another point in the rally, before adding: "Democrats are now the party of high taxes, high crime, open borders, late-term abortion, witch hunts and delusions. The Republican Party is the party for all Americans. We want to make America great again, that's what we're doing." Trump also highlighted the American economy, calling it “the envy of the world.” TOP DEM CLAIMS MUELLER REPORT SHOWS RUSSIA 'ARTIFICIALLY' PLACED TRUMP IN WHITE HOUSE “Our growth number came in for the first quarter, which is almost always the lowest quarter of the year historically, 3.2 percent, crushing expectations,” he said. The president added that since the election, his administration has created nearly 6 million new jobs, including 500,000 manufacturing jobs and nearly 700,000 construction jobs. Trump said had he promised those numbers during the 2016 campaign, the mainstream media would say he exaggerated them. Trump also noted the unemployment rate has reached its lowest point in 49 years and told supporters not to worry about this week's talks between U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators, including his threat to increase tariffs on nearly all Chinese imports at the end of the week. "They [China] broke the deal" in talks meant to de-escalate a year-long trade war, he said. "We won't back down until China stops," Trump said. "The era of economic surrender is over." Prior to the rally at the Aaron Bessant Park Amphitheater, Trump visited Tyndall Air Force Base, which took a serious hit from Hurricane Michael. The White House said almost all 700 structures on the base were damaged, roughly one-third were destroyed and 11,000 base personnel evacuated. Almost every building appeared damaged in some way, including a collapsed hangar. After touring the base, Trump promised officials, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, that it will be rebuilt "better than ever." Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-rally-panama-city-beach-florida

Talks between the U.S. and China are expected to begin Thursday and extend into Friday at least, the date the U.S. is expected to impose a new round of tariffs against China. President Trump Opens a New Window. said on Wednesday that China Opens a New Window. “just informed” the White House that a team -- including Vice Premier Liu He -- is coming to the U.S. to strike a trade deal. “We’ll see, but I am very happy with over $100 Billion a year in Tariffs filling U.S. coffers...great for U.S., not good for China!” the president wrote in a tweet. Although the Chinese were set to bring a 100-person delegation to the U.S. this week, the trade talks were thrown into limbo after Trump threatened on Sunday to slap an additional 25 percent tariff on $325 billion worth of Chinese goods. The U.S. already imposes a 10 percent tariff -- which is set to rise to 25 percent on Friday, Trump said in a tweet -- on $200 billion of goods and a 25 percent tariff on $50 billion of tech products. Trump, however, said on Wednesday that real reason for the pullback was hope among the Chinese that they could hold off on negotiations on the chance that a Democrat wins the 2020 presidential election. White House officials have stressed that both sides are eager to wrap up talks; last week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told FOX Business that although they still had “more work to do,” enforcement mechanisms were “close to done.” “If we get to a completed agreement it will have real enforcement provisions,” he said at the time. Source: https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trump-says-chinas-vice-premier-is-coming-to-the-us-to-make-a-deal

Binance, one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency Opens a New Window. exchanges, announced it has been a victim of a massive security breach. The exchange said late Tuesday that hackers have run off with over 7,000 bitcoin Opens a New Window. worth an estimated $41 million after they used a “variety of techniques, including phishing and viruses,” to tab into its systems. While the thieves only got a hold of around 2 percent of Binance’s bitcoin holdings and all other cryptocurrencies were “unharmed,” the exchange said it will need to suspend all deposits and withdrawals for at least one week. “We beg for your understanding in this difficult situation,” the company said, adding that it will continue to enable trading so that users can adjust their positions if they wish. The company also said hackers managed to obtain some user information during the attack and warned they "may still control certain user accounts and may use those to influence prices.” The hack comes amid a recent rally for bitcoin, which climbed 9 percent over the past week. However, the company noted that it will cover the incident in full and no users’ funds will be affected. “The hackers had the patience to wait, and execute well-orchestrated actions through multiple, seemingly independent, accounts at the most opportune time,” Binance said in a statement. “It was unfortunate that we were not able to block this withdrawal before it was executed.” Source: https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/hackers-stole-41-million-bitcoin-worlds-largest-crypto-exchange

New York Stock Exchange Opens a New Window. Chief Operating Officer John Tuttle told FOX Business the exchange is looking forward to Uber’s market debut on Friday. He stated that there are many things investors and companies look at when trying to determine the best time for a company to go public. “They're looking at consumer confidence, unemployment and other metrics which are all still strong, so that's why we've seen Uber come public this week and why we've seen a strong pipeline of companies in Q2,” he said during an interview on "Cavuto: Coast-to-Coast Opens a New Window. " Wednesday. The ride-hailing company is on track to price its initial public offering (IPO) Opens a New Window. at the midpoint of its target, between $44 to $50 a share, or about $80 billion to $90 billion in valuation. The Wall Street Journal also reported Uber executives have discussed with their underwriters, as well as Lyft’s, what went wrong with its rival’s listing in an effort to prevent it from happening with Uber. But Tuttle said market conditions and individual business models are more of a factor for whether or not investors decide to jump into recent technology IPO Opens a New Window. s. “If we look more broadly at Q2, Lyft was one transaction. But we can look at other technology deals like Jumia, Pinterest, Tufin, PagerDuty and others who have all performed quite well in the weeks, and in some cases months, following their listing. So, investors are looking at these companies on a case-by-case basis,” Tuttle said. When asked about thoughts on current market conditions, Tuttle told FOX Business, he believes market fundamentals remain strong and the bull market has proven “resilient.” “I am actually excited because I think this economic environment has created an opportunity for many companies to come to market... It's important that these companies come to market because we're allowing investors the opportunity to participate in these companies' success, whether they are investing for their own accounts or their children's college or for their retirement, etc. So when these conditions are right, it's a good opportunity for all parties involved,” he said. Uber had a $3 billion operating loss last year and an additional $648 million interest expense. Revenue growth slowed from 106 percent in 2017 to 42 percent to 2018 and from 18 percent to 20 percent in 2019. Last year, Uber reported revenue of $11.3 billion. Source: https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/excited-for-uber-to-come-to-market-this-week-nys

Meet the newest royal! Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, introduced their newborn baby boy in St George's Hall at Windsor Castle on May 8, 2019. Source: https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/life/people/2019/05/08/duchess-meghan-and-prince-harrys-baby-revealed-see-adorable-photos/1139048001/

May continues to bring a wild potpourri of violent weather across a large portion of the nation: Tens of millions of people are in the path of the storms. A day after at least a dozen tornadoes ripped through Texas and Oklahoma, more rounds of severe storms slammed portions of the South on Wednesday. Still more storms were forecast for Thursday "The severe weather threat on both Wednesday and Thursday will shift away from the wide-open spaces of the High Plains to the more heavily populated areas on the lower Plains & the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys," AccuWeather warned. Over 13 million people live where severe storms are possible Wednesday, the Storm Prediction Center said. The storm threat area on Thursday will be in the Deep South, mainly in Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana. Meanwhile, ongoing bouts of drenching rain continue to pelt waterlogged portions of the region, exacerbating relentless flooding. The Houston area was particularly hard hit on Tuesday, as nearly 10 inches of rain soaked the metro area, inundating homes and roads. The heavy rain prompted flash flood emergencies in some communities because of rapidly rising floodwaters. The storms soaked parts of Texas that have been repeatedly hit by flooding in recent years, including the deadly and devastating floods from Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The sodden weather wasn't confined to Texas. "There is ongoing flooding from Texas to Wisconsin ... and more rain over the next three days will make flooding worse in some locations," the National Weather Service said. Evacuations were under way in portions of Kansas, where flooding is forcing people from their homes, closing roads and prompting schools to call off classes. More than 20 million people live where flooding is possible this week, the weather service said. Flooding is likely to continue along a portion of the Mississippi River and perhaps others over the central United States into June as rounds of excessive rain continue, AccuWeather said. In Missouri, almost a dozen levees already have been breached or threatened in recent days. Chris Gamm, presiding commissioner for Pike County, Mo., told USA TODAY that some communities along the Mississippi River have been flooded for two weeks. The county’s levees all blew out over the weekend, he said. “The governor is going to see if there is some emergency relief we can get from federal and state people,” he said. “Apparently they can’t employ emergency resource assets until the water goes down and they can see the damage. But some areas have been underwater for two weeks.” “There are several thousand acres of farmland that are already covered. It’s pretty drastic," Gamm said. Wintry North, West Snow was also expected overnight Wednesday and into Thursday in northeastern Minnesota, far northern Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where a few inches of snow could accumulate, the weather service said. "Snow is also likely in the West, and accumulating snow could be heavy for higher elevations," weather service meteorologist Jennifer Tate said. Heavy snow is expected to fall over the central Rockies where 1 to 2 feet of new snow is likely through Friday evening. Up to 30 inches of snow is possible for the San Juan mountains of southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico. Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/05/08/weather-update-floods-tornadoes-and-snow-wreak-havoc-millions/1140147001/