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Ex-Twitter execs to face GOP questioning on Hunter Biden

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Ex-Twitter execs to face GOP questioning on Hunter Biden

WASHINGTON (AP) — Home Republicans are anticipated to query former Twitter executives concerning the platform’s dealing with of reporting on Hunter Biden, the president’s son, fulfilling a celebration promise to analyze what they’ve lengthy asserted is anti-conservative bias at social media firms.

Three former executives will probably be showing Wednesday earlier than the Home Oversight and Accountability Committee to testify for the primary time concerning the firm’s resolution within the weeks earlier than the 2020 election to initially block from Twitter a New York Publish article concerning the contents of a laptop computer belonging to Hunter Biden.

The witnesses Republicans subpoenaed to testify are Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s former chief authorized officer; James Baker, the corporate’s former deputy basic counsel; and Yoel Roth, former head of security and integrity.

Democrats have a witness of their very own, Anika Collier Navaroli, a former worker with Twitter’s content material moderation group. She testified final yr to the Home committee that investigated the Capitol riot about Twitter’s preferential therapy of Donald Trump till the then-president was banned from Twitter two years in the past.

The listening to is the GOP’s opening act into what lawmakers promise will probably be a widespread investigation into President Joe Biden and his household, with the tech firms one other distinguished goal of their oversight efforts.

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“People deserve solutions about this assault on the First Modification and why Massive Tech and the Swamp colluded to censor this details about the Biden household promoting entry for revenue,” Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the committee chairman, mentioned in a press release asserting the listening to.

The New York Publish first reported in October 2020, weeks earlier than the presidential election, that it had acquired from Trump’s private lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, a replica of a tough drive from a laptop computer that Hunter Biden had dropped off 18 months earlier at a Delaware laptop restore store and by no means retrieved. Twitter blocked individuals from sharing hyperlinks to the story for a number of days.

Months later, Twitter’s then-CEO, Jack Dorsey, known as the corporate’s communications across the Publish article “not nice.” He added that blocking the article’s URL with “zero context” round why it was blocked was “unacceptable.”

The newspaper story was greeted on the time with skepticism as a consequence of questions concerning the laptop computer’s origins, together with Giuliani’s involvement, and since high officers within the Trump administration had already warned that Russia was working to denigrate Joe Biden earlier than the White Home election.

The Kremlin had interfered within the 2016 race by hacking Democratic emails that have been subsequently leaked, and fears that Russia would meddle once more within the 2020 race have been widespread throughout Washington.

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Simply final week, attorneys for the youthful Biden requested the Justice Division to analyze individuals who say they accessed his private information. However they didn’t acknowledge that that information got here from a laptop computer that Hunter Biden is presupposed to have dropped off at a pc restore store.

The problem was additionally reignited just lately after Elon Musk took over Twitter as CEO and commenced to launch a slew of firm info to impartial journalists, what he has known as the “Twitter Recordsdata.”

The paperwork and information largely present inner debates amongst workers over the choice to quickly censor the story about Hunter Biden. The tweet threads lacked substantial proof of a focused affect marketing campaign from Democrats or the FBI, which has denied any involvement in Twitter’s decision-making.

Nonetheless, Comer and different Republicans have used the Publish story, which has not been independently verified by The Related Press, as the premise for what they are saying is one other instance of the Biden household’s “affect peddling.”

One of many witnesses on Wednesday, Baker, is anticipated to be the goal of much more Republican scrutiny.

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Baker was the FBI’s basic counsel throughout the opening of two of the bureau’s most consequential investigations in historical past: the Hillary Clinton investigation and a separate inquiry into potential coordination between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential marketing campaign. Republicans have lengthy criticized the FBI’s dealing with of each investigations.

For Democrats, Navaroli is anticipated to counter the GOP argument by testifying about how Twitter allowed Trump’s tweets regardless of the misinformation they often contained.

Navaroli testified to the Jan. 6 committee final yr that Twitter executives usually tolerated Trump’s posts regardless of them together with false statements and violations of the corporate’s personal guidelines as a result of executives knew the platform was his “favourite and most-used … and loved having that type of energy.”

The Jan. 6 committee used Navaroli’s testimony in considered one of its public hearings final summer time however didn’t determine her by identify.

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Related Press author Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

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Scholz confirms 5 dead at Magdeburg Christmas market attack

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Scholz confirms 5 dead at Magdeburg Christmas market attack

A 50-year-old man was arrested at the scene of the attack in Magdeburg on Friday evening, but as of Saturday, the reason behind his actions remained unclear.

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At least five people, including a toddler, have been killed and dozens injured after a car ploughed into a crowd at a busy outdoor Christmas market in Magdeburg, a city in eastern Germany.

Authorities are describing the incident as a “deliberate attack.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser are at the scene of the attack in Magdeburg. Faeser has confirmed that federal police are actively supporting the investigation into the tragedy.

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SZA Finally Releases Long-Delayed ‘Lana’ Album, Featuring Kendrick Lamar, Lil Yachty and Benny Blanco

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SZA Finally Releases Long-Delayed ‘Lana’ Album, Featuring Kendrick Lamar, Lil Yachty and Benny Blanco

SZA‘s long-awaited the deluxe edition of her Grammy-winning 2022 album “SOS,” which is titled “Lana,” has finally arrived. The album has been through a long series of false alarms — it seemed imminent back in February, when she released the song “Saturn” — and bears artwork similar to the insect-and-forest imagery featured during her tours last summer, but it’s finally here. Variety‘s full review of the album will appear this weekend.

The album features Kendrick Lamar on the track “30 for 30” (SZA appears on two songs on his recent “GNX” album) and production from Lil Yachty and Benny Blanco on one song each. Her collaborators on the other songs are largely “SOS” producers and writers like Michael Uzowuru, ThankGod4Cody, Rob Bisel, Carter Lang and others.

She previewed the album with a video for the song “Drive,” featuring Ben Stiller, on Thursday night. “Lana”‘s full tracklist appears below:

     1     No More Hiding – produced by Michael Uzowuru
 
      2     What Do I Do – produced by Benny Blanco, Carter Lang and ThankGod4Cody
 
      3     30 for 30 feat. Kendrick Lamar – produced by J White
 
      4     Diamond Boy (DTM) – produced by Carter, Scum, Solomonophonic, Declan and Michael Uzowuru 
 
      5     BMF – produced by Carter Lang, Blake Slatkin, Omer Fedi
 
      6     Scorsese Baby Daddy – produced by Michael Uzowuru and Tyler Johnson
 
      7     Love Me 4 Me – produced by Rob Bisel, Carter Lang and Nick Lee 
 
      8     Chill Baby – produced by Lil Yachty, Sad Pony, Cade, Calvin Dickinson, iseeyou and Julian Fried
 
      9     My Turn – produced by ThankGod4Cody, Rob Bisel
 
      10    Crybaby – produced by ThankGod4Cody, Carter Lang and Declan 
 
      11    Kitchen – produced by ThankGod4Cody
 
      12    Get Behind Me (interlude) – produced by Michael Uzowuru 
 
      13    Drive – produced by ThankGod4Cody and Billy Lemon
 
      14    Another Life – produced by Michael Uzowuru and Dylan Wiggins 
 
      15    Saturn – produced by Carter Lang, Rob Bisel, Solomonophonic and Monsune

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SZA’s forthcoming stadium tour with Kendrick Lamar presents a prime opportunity to release new material — she’s been touring behind “SOS” since it was released two years ago.

The latest round of teasers began a week ago, on the two-year anniversary of “SOS,” with a short video trailer that included a snippet of one of the album’s tracks. The video depicts SZA in a nature setting, pulling down her baggy camo pants to pee by a creek. She looks directly into the camera before taking a tissue out of her pocket to wipe herself up as the words “Lana” appear across the screen. She lyrics to the song go, “You know we got a real history/That’s the reason I can’t choose me/You know that dick been good to me/You make it hard for me to choose me.”

While SZA has been talking about a deluxe edition of “SOS” since that album’s release, she explained the album and its to Variety in August of last year: “[‘Lana’] is outtakes [from ‘SOS’] and new stuff, too — I added a couple of songs. It’s like a whole new project. It’s called ‘Lana’ — my name but, it’s the first tattoo that I ever got, when I was 13. It was 10 bucks a letter and I only had 40, so that that became my nickname for no reason. ‘Lana’ is really just the B-side of SOS.”

The album seemed imminent in February when she released “Saturn,” but just a few weeks later, SZA became frustrated by fans leaking songs and posted that she would be “starting ‘Lana’ from scratch” because “y’all leaked three songs from the deluxe.” She continued, “At this point, y’all can keep the throwaways and leaks. I’ll be starting ‘Lana’ from scratch. Do not ask me about it again,” adding a few minutes later, “I’ll round up the leaks y’all already got and u can have those. Seems like a fair deal. ENJOY.” That tweet was deleted shortly afterward. In a subsequent series of tweets, she said the deluxe edition of SOS will now feature “the leaks and outtakes” and “Lana” will be its own album. “Lana deserves more time and music no one’s ever heard before,” she wrote. However, she seems to have reverted to her previous plan.

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Malaysia agrees to resume 'no find, no fee' hunt for flight MH370, 10 years after plane disappeared

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Malaysia agrees to resume 'no find, no fee' hunt for flight MH370, 10 years after plane disappeared

Malaysia’s government has agreed in principle to accept a second “no find, no fee” proposal from a U.S. company to renew the hunt for flight MH370, which is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean more than 10 years ago, Transport Minister Anthony Loke said Friday.

Loke said Cabinet ministers gave the nod at their meeting last week for Texas-based marine robotics firm Ocean Infinity to continue the seabed search operation at a new 15,000-square-kilometer (5,800-square-mile) site in the ocean next year.

MALAYSIA ANNOUNCES RENEWED PUSH TO FIND MH370 DECADE AFTER DISAPPEARANCE: ‘SEARCH MUST GO ON’

“The proposed new search area, identified by Ocean Infinity, is based on the latest information and data analyses conducted by experts and researchers. The company’s proposal is credible,” he said in a statement.

The Boeing 777 plane vanished from radar shortly after taking off on March 8, 2014, carrying 239 people, mostly Chinese nationals, on a flight from Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, to Beijing. Satellite data showed the plane deviated from its flight path to head over the southern Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have crashed.

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Flight officer Rayan Gharazeddine scans the water in the southern Indian Ocean off Australia from a Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion during a search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, March 22, 2014.  (AP Photo/Rob Griffith)

An expensive multinational search failed to turn up any clues, although debris washed ashore on the east African coast and Indian Ocean islands. A private search in 2018 by Ocean Infinity also found nothing.

Under the new deal, Ocean Infinity will get $70 million only if significant wreckage is discovered, Loke said. He said his ministry will finalize negotiations with Ocean Infinity in early 2025. The firm has indicated that January-April is the best period for the search, he said.

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“This decision reflects the government’s commitment to continuing the search operation and providing closure for the families of MH370 passengers,” he added.

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Ocean Infinity CEO Oliver Punkett earlier this year reportedly said the the company had improved its technology since 2018. He has said the firm is working with many experts to analyze data and narrow the search area to the most likely site.

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