Senator: Twitter’s actions on Russia-linked accounts lacking
Senator: Twitter’s actions on Russia-linked accounts lacking
WASHINGTON (AP) — Twitter’s explanations of its actions against Russia-linked accounts are “deeply disappointing,” the Senate intelligence committee’s top Democrat said Thursday after a closed-door session with company executives, and he suggested the social media giant doesn’t understand the seriousness of Congress’ investigation into Russian election interference.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia said that the information Twitter shared with the committee’s staff “was frankly inadequate on almost every level.”
After meeting with staff of both the House and Senate intelligence committees, Twitter said it had taken action to suspend about two dozen accounts that were linked to fake Russia-tied Facebook accounts that were pushing divisive social and political issues during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The company said in a blog post that it found 22 accounts corresponding to about 450 Facebook accounts. The company said it also found an additional 179 related or linked accounts and took action on some of them that it found in violation of its rules.
Warner said that Twitter’s findings were merely “derivative” of Facebook’s work, and “showed an enormous lack of understanding from the Twitter team of how serious this issue is, the threat it poses to democratic institutions.”
Job in jeopardy, HHS chief promises to repay charter costs
WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after President Donald Trump’s rebuke, health secretary Tom Price promised Thursday to reimburse taxpayers for his cost on charter flights taken while on government business. He issued a public apology as he fought to keep his job.
“I regret the concerns this has raised regarding the use of taxpayer dollars,” Price said in a statement. “I was not sensitive enough to my concern for the taxpayer.”
The Health and Human Services secretary said he’ll swear off charter flights — “no exceptions” — and repeated his promise to fully cooperate with ongoing investigations.
Price also said he hopes to keep his job, but at the White House, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders wouldn’t go that far.
“We’re going to conduct a full review and we’ll see what happens,” Sanders told reporters.
IS reclusive leader rallies followers in purported new audio
CAIRO (AP) — The leader of the Islamic State group urged followers to burn their enemies everywhere and target “media centers of the infidels,” according to an audio recording released Thursday that the extremists said was by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The reclusive leader of IS, who has only appeared in public once, also vowed to continue fighting and lavished praise on his jihadis for their valor in the battlefield — despite the militants’ loss of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in July.
The recording was released by the IS-run al-Furqan outlet, which has in the past released messages from al-Baghdadi and other top figures of the extremist group. The voice in the over 46-minute-long audio sounded much like previous recordings of al-Baghdadi. His last previous purported message was released in November, also in an audio recording.
“You soldiers of the caliphate, heroes of Islam and carriers of banners: light a fire against your enemies,” said al-Baghdadi, a shadowy cleric who has been surrounded by controversy since the Sunni terror group emerged from al-Qaida in Iraq, its forerunner.
Russian officials said in June there was a “high probability” that al-Baghdadi had died in a Russian airstrike on the outskirts of the Syrian city of Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital. U.S. officials later said they believed he was still alive.
27 years later, arrest is made in killer-clown case
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — On a May morning in 1990, Marlene Warren answered her front door in an upscale Florida suburb to find a clown in an orange wig, red nose and white face paint handing her carnations and foil balloons.
“How pretty!” she exclaimed.
The clown then pulled a gun, shot Warren in the face and drove away. She died two days later.
Now, almost three decades later, authorities say they have arrested the clown: a woman who was said to be having an affair with Warren’s husband and, years after the killing, married him.
Detectives said advances in DNA technology, combined with evidence gathered decades ago, show Sheila Keen Warren, now 54, was the killer.