'American Horror Story' Gets Another Witch
Today in show business news: Emma Roberts has joined the Ryan Murphy family, CBS hires a Bad Teacher, and a glimpse of the next Vince Vaughn movie.
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The U.S. government admitted for the first time Wednesday that it intentionally droned American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, and that it unintentionally droned three other Americans, including al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son. Attorney General Eric Holder admitted it in a letter to Congress, ahead of President Obama's long awaited speech on Thursday, which could finally lay bare the truth about the administration's targeting killing program.
Today in show business news: Emma Roberts has joined the Ryan Murphy family, CBS hires a Bad Teacher, and a glimpse of the next Vince Vaughn movie.
Tesla no longer owns the federal government a dime. On Wednesday the company announced it had repaid the outsanding balance of $451.8 million, with interest, on its 2009 Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing loan from the Department of Defense. That means taxpayers earned a very, very small $12 million profit on the loan.
The mayor of Moore provided an estimate of the total cost stemming from Monday's tornado: $2 billion — a sum that's about a quarter the size of Oklahoma's state budget. It would make the Moore tornado the third-most costly in American history.
For two days John McCain and Ted Cruz have been fighting on the Senate floor over the rules for negotiating a budget, but, like so many fights, it's also about so much more. Cruz is being annoying about the budget, but worse, he just doesn't get the Senate.
Twitter has added two-step verification to increase its security after all the recent hacks into high profile media accounts, but you should go sign up for it right this minute — because everyone's vulnerable to password attacks these days, even if the new cellphone hiccup seems cumbersome.
Yesterday we wrote about Joseph Gordon-Levitt's attempt to promote his directorial debut, which he also wrote, in character on Twitter. His Twitter persona as porn-addicted Jersey guy Jon Martello seemed strained. Now we have the trailer to see if he can pull off the persona on screen.
The Chairman of the House Oversight Committee would like a do-over. Rep. Issa plans to demand the IRS's Lerner return to his committee to testify, arguing that she waived her ability to plead the Fifth once she offered an opening statement. According to a lawyer we spoke with, he's almost certainly wrong.
Behind the Candelabra, premiering Sunday on HBO, is a strangely sweet and refreshingly honest depiction of a gay relationship, rococo and ridiculous as the setting might be.
Modern Farmer on the yogurt industry's waste, The Associated Press on Portland's anti-fluoridation proposal, The Atlantic Cities on how to handle cargo in American cities, New York on what this summer holds for climate policy, and The New York Times on America's energy import strategy.
One week after CBS gave the world an upfront first look at Williams's TV comeback in The Crazy Ones (doing his manic schtick, with Buffy as his hot young daughter), word comes that FX is bringing Crystal on board for a pilot called The Comedians, wherein he'll play a veteran comedian (himself, with a hot-but-not-in-the-Buffy-way young sketch-show partner). Whose return will be more illustrious?
While it houses a lot of cooky ideas that never see the light of day, the "top-secret" innovation hub birthed Google Glass and Google's driverless cars. So as outlandish as some of the following ideas may sound, they're all in the works or they suddenly aren't, per Businessweek's new cover story — yes, even the balloons — and, hey, maybe they'll come true, too.
Well-to-do opponents of New York City's long-awaited Citibike program have notched several significant victories against New York's Department of Transportation over the past week — after a month-plus of delirious outrage, a small journalism scandal, and destructive vandalism.
As much masochistic fun as it may be to follow the cicada sex invasion via Twitter's ever popular Vine app, the brave backyard directors chronicling the East Coast's ongoing insect phenomenon don't seem to be enjoying the process too much — many of them are just resorting to violence against the little guys, who die almost instantly upon their return to earth anyway.
Paul Ryan is writing a campaign book, and though it's not officially a campaign book, it seems to be exactly the kind of campaign book that exists merely to preview a presidential candidacy.
If you thought 9/11 conspiracy theorists were bad, or the Sandy Hook and Boston bombing truthers were reckless, Obama's meteorological manipulation — perhaps by way of George Soros — all to distract a country from three Washington scandals, well, that might be a new level of ridiculous.
Nearly every day of every year, even in tornado-prone areas, tornadoes don't strike. If you live in Moore, Oklahoma, 99.99 percent of the time, there's no threat that you'll be killed by a tornado. The question, as it so often does, becomes: How much do we spend to save a life? Here's a look at prevention techniques, and the politics therein.
Jose Canseco apparently just live-tweeted the police arriving at his Las Vegas home, then said he has been accused of rape, then proceeded to publicly name his apparent accuser to his more than 500,000 followers, with bikini photos, and the woman's phone number, and talk shows, and cats... then proceeded to delete the whole thing. Except her name.
What sort of dining experience is the right sort of dining experience for the diner who's seen it all, done it all, eaten it all, and is just so weary over simply sitting in a nice restaurant and eating? Dinner while hanging from a rope, for $500 each, for the pleasure of dining really, really alfresco.
The New York Times' Bill Keller suggests we should "Bring Back Ken Starr" to get to the bottom of the IRS scandal, because "the scandal circus on Capitol Hill is a terrible distraction."
On Thursday, the president plans to deliver a speech focusing drone attacks and military detention — a pretty sweeping agenda for a simple policy speech, one that might signal a sea change in America's counterterrorism efforts, and Obama's foreign policy legacy.
What was already a years-long rivalry between two great players has now transformed into a full-fledged war of words with racial undertones fueling the No. 1 ranked golfer in the world heading into golf's major summer tournaments. Here's how Garcia's apology tour is going, and how Tiger Woods is reacting.
For the third time in a week, officials from the IRS appeared before Congress to apologize for/not offer many new details on how and why the agency improperly targeted conservative groups for scrutiny — though one witness indicated others may have received the same treatment.
The latest wacky plan is to hire former contestants to judge the competition. And while Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and Jennifer Hudson might be worth tuning in for, Fox should accept the natural death of a show that had a long and fabulous life and let Idol die gracefully.
Dana Milbank on how the government criminalizes reporting, Sharon Stapel on homophobia in America, Jarrod Shanahan on why we believe in conspiracies, Ma Jian on the brutality of China's one-child policy, and Emily Bazelon on who to blame for tax-dodging corporations.
Despite all the glowing reviews of the HTC One, it's still not beating Samsung's Galaxy S IV in the high-end, non-iPhone smartphone market, and HTC is currently falling apart — at least in part because of "disastrous" sales that wiped the HTC First (aka the Facebook phone) on its way out of the market.
Today in celebrity news: Justin Bieber has a pretty strict social contract, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Swift have a hang, Madonna's daughter goes on a date with Finn from Homeland, and Ellen buys her Oprah house.
Amazon Publishing is launching Kindle Worlds, a publishing platform that lets authors sell fan fiction based on properties like Gossip Girl. Amazon Publishing retains the rights to the works and will set the prices. So much for those 50 Shades problems.
Worried that government can't be proactive? Good news out of Texas. The state's legislature has sent Governor Perry its "Merry Christmas" bill, authorizing schools to refer to the holiday in non-generic terms. Perry is expected to sign it.
A first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the first book in J.K. Rowling's phenomenally selling 7-part series, has been acquired for 150,000 pounds (or $227,421) at a London charity auction held by Sotheby's and organized with the English PEN writers' association.
It's time we took some advice from George Gershwin and stopped bickering over the right and wrong way to say words: Let's call the whole thing off on this GIF pronunciation battle.
In the past five years Drew Magary has given the world The Postmortal, a novel about a pre-apocalyptic world, Men with Balls, a "professional athletes handbook," and now Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir of Twenty-First-Century Parenthood. It's not the typical parenting memoir.
New details of the Justice Department's investigation of a leak to a Fox News reporter demonstrate the scale of the inquiry: phone records, access badge information for the media, a CD of phone recordings. All to investigate a leak of incorrect information.
Eric Garcetti will be the new mayor of Los Angeles after only parts of the city went to the polls last night. The turnout was depressingly low for America's second largest metropolis.
From the big new trailer heading into Memorial Day weekend and the feature stories accompanying it, you can rest assured that this blockbuster is not going to be all emotions and Malick-y visuals after all. No, this is a Superman movie that takes its aliens seriously.
The injured are still being treated, victims are slowly being identified, and now residents face the long process of obtaining government assistance to get back to some sort of normal — and it's likely, despite FEMA's early "Waffle House index," that insurance won't cover all the damage. Not nearly. Here's the state of the town, on Day Three.
Jon Stewart last night couldn't resist telling the story of Canada's Rob Ford, the mayor of Toronto who might have a crack habit based on video viewed by news organizations.
How did the CIA become the hero in the Benghazi talking point controversy? And if the CIA is part of Team Obama, why hasn't it enjoyed as much scrutiny as everyone else involved? One reason is the political skills of David Petraeus, as behind-the-scenes emails continue to reveal.
In the least surprising move of this political season, former Congressman Anthony Weiner officially threw his hat into the ring to be the Mayor of New York.
Your favorite public broadcasting network is looking for someone to record their "this... is NPR" voiceovers. You could be that person! Although, come to think of it, the following people have voices made of gold, so they might deserve the job.
Teenagers really are over Facebook. In a deep report published on Tuesday, Pew Research explains that teenagers departing the social network's blue confines are looking for something more... authentic. Which, ironically, was the initial draw of Facebook, and has become something of a calling card for Tumblr and Twitter. Somewhere, Marissa Mayer is smiling.
Tornadoes in Moore, Oklahoma, are neither new nor uncommon. Monday's massive twister may be the worst the city has seen, but it's also the 22nd since 1890. We put the data for all of them on a map.
Mitch McConnell said he wouldn't block the bipartisan immigration overhaul on Tuesday, and Patrik Leahy said he will hold off — "with a heavy heart" — on a controversial amendment to green cards to spouses of gay couples. But the path to passage is surprisingly clear, even amidst the Obama administration's scandals.
Every single one of Tumblr's 178 employees will get money from the $1.1 billion Yahoo deal, which means that if the site hadn't let go of its three editorial team members last month, they too would have received $371,000 — each.
Today in entertainment news: Reese Witherspoon's first sci-fi movie seems to be a go, Leo DiCaprio reteams with an old friend, and Steven Spielberg is adapting a video game.
Arrested Development Day is fast approaching, and, aside from their structure, we still don't know much about Netflix's 15 new episodes. But a new interview with the show's set decorator — and photos from the scene — published in House Beautiful Tuesday give us some tiny spoilers. Perfect for over-analysis.
As of Tuesday evening, all students at Briarwood Elementary School and AgapeLand Learning Center have been accounted for; police said seven of nine children confirmed to have died in the storm's path went to Plaza Towers Elementary. And as the recovery efforts in Moore continue, know that there are teachers at all three schools who were there when America's kids needed them most. These are their stories.
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