The planned voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti aboard a 50-foot sailboat didn’t start off well for two Honolulu women. One of their cellphones was washed overboard and sank to the bottom on their first day at sea.

From there, things got worse. Much worse.

About a month into their trip, flooding from a storm crippled their engine. The 57-foot mast was damaged. And then, as they drifted thousands of miles in what turned out to be a five-month ordeal in the middle of Pacific, the water purifier conked out and sharks started attacking the boat.

Every day for 98 days straight, the women sent out a distress call to no avail.

Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta now being investigated by Mueller

Jordan Sekulow, executive director for the American Center for Law and Justice, on Robert Mueller’s investigation into Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is facing a fresh round of calls from conservative critics for his resignation from the Russia collusion probe, amid revelations that have called into question the FBI’s own actions and potentially Mueller’s independence.

This week’s bombshell that a controversial anti-Trump dossier was funded by the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign has Republicans asking to what extent the FBI – which received some of the findings and briefly agreed to pay the same researcher to gather intelligence on Trump and Russia – used the politically connected material.

Hill investigators also are looking into a Russian firm’s uranium deal that was approved by the Obama administration in 2010 despite reports that the FBI – then led by Mueller – had evidence of bribery involving a subsidiary of that firm.

Critics question whether Mueller’s own ties to the bureau as well as fired FBI director James Comey now render him compromised as he investigates allegations of Russian meddling and collusion with Trump officials in the 2016 race.

“The federal code could not be clearer – Mueller is compromised by his apparent conflict of interest in being close with James Comey,” Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., who first called for Mueller to step down over the summer, said in a statement to Fox News on Friday. “The appearance of a conflict is enough to put Mueller in violation of the code. … All of the revelations in recent weeks make the case stronger.”

Outgoing New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie, a former federal prosecutor and Trump ally, also suggested Friday that Mueller consider stepping aside.

“If the facts that you just laid out are true, then somebody with Bob Mueller’s integrity will step aside and should — if in fact those facts, as you laid them out, are true,” Christie said on “Fox Friends,” in response to various conflict-of-interest allegations.

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The special counsel’s office declined Fox News’ request for comment.

This is not the first time Mueller has faced calls to step down.

Congressional Republicans over the summer raised concerns over Mueller’s relationship with Comey, whom Trump ousted from the FBI in May. Reps. Franks and Andy Biggs, both Republicans from Arizona, had called for Mueller’s resignation for that reason.

President Trump has called Mueller’s relationship with Comey “bothersome,” though hasn’t said much about Mueller’s role lately even as he seizes on the latest revelations about the Fusion GPS dossier to try and turn the tables on Democrats in the Russia scandal.

“It is now commonly agreed, after many months of COSTLY looking, that there was NO collusion between Russia and Trump. Was collusion with HC!” he tweeted Friday.

Congressional Republicans over the summer raised concerns over Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s, at left, relationship with former FBI Director James Comey, at right.

 (AP)

But the Wall Street Journal editorial board cited the dossier development in calling for Mueller’s resignation on Thursday, saying the “troubling question is whether the FBI played a role” in aiding a “Russian disinformation campaign.”

“Two pertinent questions: Did the dossier trigger the FBI probe of the Trump campaign, and did Mr. Comey or his agents use it as evidence to seek wiretapping approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Trump campaign aides?” the editorial board wrote, before turning to Mueller’s role: 

“The Fusion news means the FBI’s role in Russia’s election interference must now be investigated—even as the FBI and Justice insist that Mr. Mueller’s probe prevents them from cooperating with Congressional investigators. Mr. Mueller is a former FBI director, and for years he worked closely with Mr. Comey. It is no slur against Mr. Mueller’s integrity to say that he lacks the critical distance to conduct a credible probe of the bureau he ran for a dozen years. He could best serve the country by resigning to prevent further political turmoil over that conflict of interest.”

Another potential issue is Mueller’s supervision of a bribery probe involving a subsidiary of Russia’s Rosatom, which eventually got approval from the U.S. to buy a Canadian mining company that controlled a swath of American uranium reserves. At the time of the probe, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller as special counsel, was a U.S. attorney and Mueller was FBI director. Republicans want to know how that deal was approved despite the evidence gathered in the bribery probe.

“The whole reason for independent counsels is to have the public trust, the professionalism and the diligence of the investigation, but they have to guard against actual conflicts of interest and apparent conflicts of interest,” said former high-ranking Justice Department official James Trusty, who served under the Bush and Obama administrations. “There may be some tipping point, though, separating facts from rumors, and we may be close to the tipping point.”

Special Counsel Robert Mueller with security guards in June 2017.

 (Reuters)

Earlier this week, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, called for a separate special counsel to investigate the Uranium One deal.

GRASSLEY CALLS FOR SPECIAL COUNSEL TO INVESTIGATE URANIUM ONE DEAL 

Grassley, however, stopped short of suggesting he didn’t trust Mueller.

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“There might be reasons to wonder his involvement because of his involvement with the previous administration during this period of time. There’s no way that I can make any accusations against Mr. Mueller because he is a man of high ethical standards,” Grassley told “Fox Friends” on Thursday.

Other Republicans have sought to protect Mueller from interference.

There are currently two pieces of legislation in the Senate, with bipartisan sponsorship, that would ensure a judicial check on the executive branch’s ability to remove a special counsel. Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., are behind the bills, along with Democratic senators.

SENATORS INTRODUCE BILL TO PROTECT SPECIAL COUNSEL FROM FIRING

Comey’s attorney, David Kelley, also has disputed the characterizations of the Mueller-Comey relationship interviews in the past.

“Bob and Jim have a congenial relationship as former colleagues. Both served long legal careers that involved overlapping time spent within the Department of Justice, and that’s pretty well documented. But beyond that, they’re not close, personal friends,” Kelley told the Washington Post this summer. “They’re friends in the sense that co-workers are friends. They don’t really have a personal relationship.”

Kelley told Fox News on Friday that he stands by those comments.

Mueller, meanwhile, has been criticized by Republicans for the makeup of his investigative team, which includes several Democratic donors.

“As these various Russian related allegations swirl, I think Mueller increasingly regrets his decision to pick a staff in which half of the prosecutors had either given to, or participated, in Democratic causes,” Trusty said. “That was an unforced error.”

Brooke Singman is a Politics Reporter for Fox News. Follow her on Twitter at @brookefoxnews.

The best preserved of the seven Pueblo ruins that date to the 13th century called Cave Canyon Towers is photographed at Bears Ears National Monument June 11, 2017 in Cedar Mesa, Utah. (Photo by Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

President Trump informed Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) Friday that he will shrink Bears Ears National Monument, a 1.35 million-acre protected area in southeast Utah that is prized by many tribal leaders but opposed by several state and federal Republican officials.

“I’m approving the Bears Ears recommendation for you, Orrin,” Trump told the senator in a phone call Friday morning, according to Hatch’s office, just before Hatch stepped onstage for an event on women in technology in Utah.

In late August, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recommended paring back the boundaries of Bears Ears and asking Congress to make less-restrictive designations within it, “such as national recreation areas or national conservation areas.” The monument, which contains tens of thousands of cultural artifacts, has become the most prominent symbol of controversy surrounding the 1906 Antiquities Act.

In the report, Zinke proposed cutting the size of between four and six national monuments established by Trump’s predecessors, and changing the way another six would be managed.

Former president Barack Obama designated the monument in December 2016, invoking his authority under the Act on the grounds that looting and recreational activities posed a threat to the ancient rock art and artifacts there.

The Salt Lake City Tribune first reported the news of Trump’s call to Hatch.

Trump did not specify exactly how he would change the boundaries, according to Hatch spokesman Matt Whitlock, though Interior officials have privately indicated that the administration plans to shrink it by hundreds of thousands of acres.

“I was incredibly grateful the President called this morning to let us know that he is approving Secretary Zinke’s recommendation on Bears Ears,” Hatch said. “We believe in the importance of protecting these sacred antiquities, but Secretary Zinke and the Trump administration rolled up their sleeves to dig in, talk to locals, talk to local tribes, and find a better way to do it. We’ll continue to work closely with them moving forward to ensure Utahns have a voice.”

Native American tribal groups that supported the Bears Ears had the opposite reaction.

“I have to say we’re not surprised. We generally expected the president to make the wrong decision,” said Natalie Landreth, an attorney for three of the five Native American nations that petitioned the Obama administration to designate the monument, the Zuni, Hopi and Ute Mountain Utes.

Landreth said tribal leaders have a legal claim “ready to go” and could file it as soon as the president formally announces a decision. “We’re confident he doesn’t have the authority to do this. He can expect to be tied up in court for the next several years and ultimately fail,” she said.

The attorney general for the Navajo Nation also said its legal claim is prepared. Like the tribes represented by Landreth, it anticipated a decision against a monument when Zinke traveled to Utah and the Bears Ears site and met with tribal representatives for just one hour during a three-day trip.

“We’re going to work hard to defend Bears Ears,” said Ethel Branch, the attorney general. “I think the administration has no legal basis for this authority.”

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke rides a horse in the new Bears Ears National Monument near Blanding, Utah during a visit in May. (Scott G Winterton/The Deseret News via AP)

Branch, who’s Navajo, said Bears Ears has a special importance for one of the largest tribes in the United States. “It’s the birthplace of our most prominent leaders. Our people have a close connection to the land. There are plants and minerals we utilize on a regular basis that we harvest from the site. It’s a unique repository for our tribal members,” she said.

The Navajo Nation covers 27,000 square miles in and around Utah, an area larger than Massachusetts. It’s comprised of 110 local government units and regional councils represented by an elected president and other leaders. Though some individual members of the tribe opposed the monument designation, as Zinke and Utah officials have argued, the elected Navajo leaders and most members fully supported it, Branch said.

The Center for Western Priorities in Denver is one of many conservation groups that vowed to join the tribes in suing to block any changes to Bears Ears. “President Trump and his administration will stop at nothing to sell out America’s parks and public land,” said its deputy director, Greg Zimmerman.  

“On the 159th birthday of Teddy Roosevelt, America’s greatest conservation president, President Trump and Interior Secretary Zinke are launching an unprecedented attack on Roosevelt’s legacy,” he said. “This foolish attempt to erase protections for Bears Ears… will meet immediate legal challenges, and it is destined to fail in court.”

Trump’s decision on Bears Ears comes as he is preparing to alter other monuments established by his predecessors. The White House is currently finalizing proclamations that would shrink both Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante, designated by Bill Clinton, and Nevada’s Gold Butte, according to individuals briefed on the process who asked for anonymity because no announcement had been made yet.

Trump is considering changing the proclamations for other national monuments as well, according to a senior administration official.

On Wednesday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross submitted his own report on how to treat nearly a dozen marine national monuments and national marine sanctuaries, which was not released to the public.

President Trump displays an executive order reviewing previous National Monument designations made under the Antiquities Act as Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) applaud. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The review, which overlapped to some extent with Zinke’s, covered the Marianas Trench, Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, Pacific Remote Islands, Papahānaumokuākea and Rose Atoll marine national monuments. It also included the Channel Islands, Cordell Bank, Greater Farallones, Monterey Bay and Thunder Bay national marine sanctuaries and the National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa.

A Commerce Department official said in an email that the report is in the final stages of interagency review, and will be released soon.

Interior officials have questioned some aspects of Commerce’s assessment, according to individuals briefed on the interagency process, including whether the department has overestimated the economic benefits of national monuments and marine sanctuaries, and underestimated comments Commerce received about the benefits of pursuing energy exploration in some areas. These individuals asked for anonymity because the report was still undergoing review.

Read More

Environmental and outdoor groups vow to fight national monument reductions

Two national monuments are no longer up for review, Interior says

Bears Ears is a national monument now but it will take a fight to save it

Among its more controversial contentions was that a single bullet — derisively referred to as a “magic bullet” — struck both Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Connally, who survived the shooting. The theory was crafted in part by Arlen Specter, the longtime Pennsylvania senator who, at the time, was early in his career.

Photo

Lee Harvey Oswald

Mr. Oswald, a former Marine, fired three shots from the nearby Texas School Book Depository, the Warren Commission concluded. He denied that he had shot the president, calling himself a “patsy.”

He was arrested hours later after shooting a police officer and ducking into the nearby Texas Theatre, the Warren Commission concluded.

Photo

Jack Ruby

Two days after the presidential assassination, Mr. Oswald was being transferred from a city jail to a county jail when Mr. Ruby stepped out from a crowd and shot him at close range, as millions of people watched on live television.

He died in jail in 1967.

Second shooter, grassy knoll and the ‘magic bullet’

Americans have long expressed skepticism over the official explanation that Mr. Oswald and Mr. Ruby had each acted alone. A recent poll by FiveThirtyEight and SurveyMonkey found that 33 percent of Americans believed one person was solely responsible for the assassination, while 61 percent believe others were involved.

A New York Times/CBS News Poll in 1988 found 13 percent of Americans believed Mr. Oswald acted alone.

Skeptics often say it would have been impossible for Mr. Oswald to fire fast enough to hit both Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Connally, or for the same “magic bullet” to strike both men. (Mr. Connally said he thinks he was struck by a separate bullet.)

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The proposed explanation would be a second shooter on what has become known as the “grassy knoll,” an area ahead and to the right of the motorcade.

Umbrella Man

It was a beautiful day in Dallas, not a cloud in the sky. So why was one man holding up an umbrella?

The man, who can be seen in the Zapruder film and in other images, became the object of fascination. Could he have been signaling messages to gunmen? Was his umbrella rigged with some kind of weapon?

Josiah Thompson, a researcher, gave the mysterious figure a name that would stick: Umbrella Man.

“The only person under any umbrella in all of Dallas, standing right at the location where all the shots come into the limousine,” he said in a 2011 Op-Doc by Errol Morris. “Can anyone come up with a non-sinister explanation for this? Hmm? Hmm?”

As it turns out, Umbrella Man could. Louie Steven Witt came forward and testified in Washington in 1978, explaining that his umbrella was meant to protest the Nazi-appeasement policies of Joseph P. Kennedy, the president’s father. The elder Kennedy supported the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who often carried an umbrella as an accessory, and he hoped the president would get the message.

Mexico City

Mr. Oswald visited Mexico City for six days shortly before the assassination. He said he was there to obtain visas from the Cuban and Soviet Union embassies.

But some people suspect Mr. Oswald worked with other people there to plan the attack, and his exact actions during his time there remains mysterious. Experts think the documents released on Thursday could focus on meetings he had there.

Continue reading the main story

The Twitter and RT feud escalated on Thursday, with both companies trading accusations of dirty dealings during the election.

Twitter said it will no longer sell ads to the news outlets RT or Sputnik, citing U.S. concerns that they are propaganda arms of the Kremlin.

RT, formerly Russia Today, blasted Twitter for its criticisms, especially over its use of the platform during the election, and said Twitter had tried to partner with the media outlet.

“The goal of this disclosure is to provide the facts: that RT has never been involved in any illegal activity online, and that it never pursued an agenda of influencing the US election through any platforms,” RT’s deputy editor in chief, Kirill Karnovich-Kalua, said in a post online.

RT released a pitch presentation from Twitter inviting it into a media program to cover the U.S. elections. The mission of the proposal was “to deliver an unbiased point view [sic] of the U.S. Elections with an edge utilizing the powerful technology of Twitter to distribute the message in real time,” according to the screenshots of the offer RT posted.

Twitter has said RT only paid for ads promoting anti-Hillary Clinton articles during the election. U.S. intelligence reports have also accused RT of working on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin to sink Clinton’s chances of winning.

“Early this year, the U.S. intelligence community named RT and Sputnik as implementing state-sponsored Russian efforts to interfere with and disrupt the 2016 Presidential election, which is not something we want on Twitter,” Twitter’s public policy team wrote in a blog post on Thursday, justifying its decision to “off-board” ads from all accounts belonging to RT or Sputnik. “This decision is restricted to these two entities based our internal investigation of their behavior as well as their inclusion in the January 2017 DNI report. This decision does not apply to any other advertisers.”

“This decision was based on the retrospective work we’ve been doing around the 2016 U.S. Election,” the post says.

Asked about any effort to work with RT on election coverage, Twitter declined to comment.

Twitter said it would donate all the money it has ever made from RT’s ads, $1.9 million since 2011, and direct it to researchers who study the use of Twitter in “civic engagement and elections.”

The proposed media deal from Twitter appears to be a standard offer of technology and consulting services to help publishers post more to the service. Twitter has many high-profile media partnerships, including one with Bloomberg, which is building a 24-hour live news channel on the platform. Twitter benefits from the advertisers that sponsor publishers and from the residual ads bought to boost messages.

RT is active on almost every platform, including Facebook. The New York Times recently wrote an in-depth report on how YouTube had been a close RT partner for years. An Ad Age report looked at how top brands still have ads appearing on RT, even PG, which has been promising greater scrutiny of the venues for its digital ads.

Only recently has fear that foreigners used social media to divide Americans during the election turned a critical spotlight on RT and its fellow Russian site Sputnik.

Leaders of Facebook, Twitter and Google will testify on Capitol Hill next week about the illicit activity they have uncovered so far. They are worried about the possibility of federal regulators crafting new laws to regulate political advertising on their platforms. Three Senators have already introduced a bill to require more disclosure from digital political ads.

Twitter said this week that it will start naming advertisers and showing what ads they are running as part of a new transparency push.

Facebook is expected to take similar transparency measures in the coming weeks, disclosing all election ads and the groups behind them.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Twitter-shares-climb-after-company-declares-12308205.php

By Marissa Lang

Updated 11:50 am, Thursday, October 26, 2017

Twitter slightly beat Wall Street’s expectations for its third-quarter earnings with $590 million in revenue but also reported that it overstated its monthly users by as much as two million in previous quarters. Twitter said it added four million additional monthly users during the third quarter and grew daily users by 14%, a much-needed improvement from the zero new users added during the previous quarter.

Media: Wochit

For nearly three years, Twitter has been miscounting how many people use its product. It turns out, the social media company been doing even worse than it seemed.

Every quarter for the past 11, Twitter overestimated its monthly users by about 1 to 2 million people, executives said Thursday in the company’s third-quarter earning call with investors.

The company announced Thursday that it had fixed the error, adjusting its previous estimate of 328 million monthly users down to 326 million. But thanks to a jump of 4 million new users — largely from the United States — last quarter, Twitter still hit the mark in earnings.

About 330 million users log onto the social network every month, executives said, right in line with Wall Street projections.

Twitter also announced that it expects to turn a profit by the end of the year. This is in part due to the fact that the company saw its lowest quarterly loss in three years last quarter, about $21 million, and is spending far less than it has ever on stock-based compensation for employees.

 

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10 facts you didn’t know about Twitter:

So March 21, 2006 may be the official birthday of Twitter, but if you couldn’t even use it until July 15, 2006, how does that even make sense?

10 facts you didn’t know about Twitter:

So March 21, 2006 may be the official birthday of Twitter, but if you couldn’t even use it until July 15, 2006, how does that even make sense?

Founders

The San Francisco-based company was founded by Jack Dorsey, then an undergrad at New York University, Noah Glass (fired in 2011), Biz Stone and Evan Williams. At the 2007 South by Southwest Interactive conference in 2007, Twitter usage tripled from 20,000 a day to 60,000, and the little bird that could was off and running.

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Founders

The San Francisco-based company was founded by Jack Dorsey, then an undergrad at New York University, Noah Glass (fired in 2011), Biz Stone and Evan Williams. At the 2007 South by Southwest Interactive

… more

Photo: BRYAN THOMAS, STR

Usage

As of March of 2016, Twitter had 310 million active users, more than the population of the United States. It employs about 4,000 people.

Usage

As of March of 2016, Twitter had 310 million active users, more than the population of the United States. It employs about 4,000 people.

Photo: Damian Dovarganes, STF

Space

T.J. Creamer was the first astronaut to tweet from the International Space Station on Jan. 22, 2010.

Space

T.J. Creamer was the first astronaut to tweet from the International Space Station on Jan. 22, 2010.

Photo: HOGP

Fail whale

 Yiying Lu designed the once-famous “fail whale,” often seen in Twitter’s early years when the service was over capacity. The whale went away in 2013 without so much as a “Bye, Felicia.”

Fail whale

 Yiying Lu designed the once-famous “fail whale,” often seen in Twitter’s early years when the service was over capacity. The whale went away in 2013 without so much as a “Bye, Felicia.”

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

Used for what?

In 2009, the San Antonio company Pear Analytics did an analysis of a two-week period on Twitter. They found that the tweets broke down this way: 40 percent babble (the company prefers the term “social grooming”), 38 percent conversation, 9 percent pass-along, 6 percent self-promotion, 4 percent spam and 4 percent news.

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Used for what?

In 2009, the San Antonio company Pear Analytics did an analysis of a two-week period on Twitter. They found that the tweets broke down this way: 40 percent babble (the company prefers the term

… more

@Pontifex

Pope Benedict XVI was the first pope to use the service in 2012. Pope Francis I has more than 9 million followers.

@Pontifex

Pope Benedict XVI was the first pope to use the service in 2012. Pope Francis I has more than 9 million followers.

Photo: L’Osservatore Romano, SUB

Famous tweets

Some famous people have famous Twitter accounts (*cough* Donald Trump *cough*.) On Christmas Day 2014 the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who has 5.33 million followers, tweeted “On this day long ago, a child was born who, by age 30, would transform
the world. Happy Birthday Isaac Newton b. Dec 25, 1642.” He heard about it.

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Famous tweets

Some famous people have famous Twitter accounts (*cough* Donald Trump *cough*.) On Christmas Day 2014 the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who has 5.33 million followers, tweeted “On this day

… more

Photo: Twitter

Selfie havoc

On March 2, 2014, at teh Oscar ceremony, host Ellen deGeneres tweeted out a selfie that shut down twitter for 20 minutes.

Selfie havoc

On March 2, 2014, at teh Oscar ceremony, host Ellen deGeneres tweeted out a selfie that shut down twitter for 20 minutes.

Photo: John Shearer, John Shearer/Invision/AP

Not everywhere

Twitter is banned in Iran, China and North Korea, and countries such as Egypt have been known to shut it down in times of unrest.

Not everywhere

Twitter is banned in Iran, China and North Korea, and countries such as Egypt have been known to shut it down in times of unrest.

Photo: Richard Drew, STF

All this, announced before Wall Street trading began Thursday morning, sent Twitter shares climbing as much as 12 percent — and largely overshadowed Twitter’s recent efforts to transparently address issues of harassment and hate speech that have plagued the service for years.

The company last week became the first social media company to reveal how it monitors content and attempts to protect users from trolling and abuse in announcing several changes to its content policies.

Those changes included banning nonconsensual nudity, unwanted sexual advances and tweets that encourage or advocate violence. The company also announced several new policies meant to address issues like violent groups, hateful imagery and how people whose accounts have been suspended are notified.

The announcement was widely seen as a response to the latest round of intense criticism facing the company, following a boycott started by several influential female users who said they would sign off the service to show solidarity with actress Rose McGowan, whose account was suspended when she tweeted a personal phone number in a series of tweets accusing Harvey Weinstein of rape and sexual abuse.

“We’re committed to making Twitter safer, and we continue to improve and leverage our technology to reduce the reach of abusive tweets,” the company wrote in its letter to shareholders. “This quarter, we further refined our machine-learning algorithms in order to better identify and act on accounts demonstrating abusive behavior. Moving forward, we’re focused on addressing this issue from a policy, enforcement, and product perspective, and we’ll be taking a more aggressive stance on our abuse rules and on how we enforce them.”

These issues, however, did not come up in Thursday’s call with investors.

That may be because several of these changes would be enacted during Twitter’s fourth quarter. Or it may be because, so far, it is not clear how or whether they will impact the company’s bottom line.

One big change that did come up during the call Thursday was Twitter’s decision to allow some randomly selected users longer tweets — effectively doubling the company’s 140-character rule.

CEO Jack Dorsey said though brevity remains an important feature of Twitter, the new character count may make the service more inviting to people who struggle to contain messages to that length, a lasting relic born of the days when tweets were sent via text message and character count was limited.

“We saw a bunch of patterns where people were abandoning tweets in certain languages because they could not express themselves within the character limit,” Dorsey said in the earnings call. “We’re still watching how this impacts the service overall. Want to make sure we’re maintaining our sense of brevity … but also make sure we’re addressing these constraints.”

Dorsey said Twitter would release its findings about whether the new character limit has been a success in coming weeks.

Marissa Lang is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mlang@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Marissa_Jae

Image copyright
Getty Images

Former US President George Bush Senior has apologised for any distress caused after an actress accused him of sexual assault.

Heather Lind said the 93-year-old former president had “touched me from behind from his wheelchair” and told a “dirty joke” while posing for a photo.

Ms Lind made the allegation on social network Instagram, in a post which has since been deleted.

A spokesman for Mr Bush said the incident was an attempt at humour.

“President Bush would never – under any circumstance – intentionally cause anyone distress, and he most sincerely apologises if his attempt at humour offended Ms Lind,” a statement supplied to outlets including the Daily Mail and People magazine said.

Both websites preserved the contents of Ms Lind’s post before it was deleted.

Mr Bush served one term as US president from 1989 to 1993, and is the father of George W Bush, who served two terms in the office between 2001 and 2009.

He suffers from a form of Parkinson’s disease.

Image copyright
Getty Images

The incident allegedly took place during an event for the television show Turn: Washington’s Spies, in which Ms Lind is one of the main cast members.

In her Instagram post, Ms Lind said she was spurred to make the claim after seeing a photo of Barack Obama shaking Mr Bush Senior’s hand at a recent fundraiser for hurricane victims, which she said had “disturbed” her.

“He sexually assaulted me while I was posing for a similar photo. He didn’t shake my hand. He touched me from behind from his wheelchair with his wife Barbara Bush by his side,” she wrote, according to the Daily Mail’s transcript of the deleted post.

“He told me a dirty joke. And then, all the while being photographed, touched me again,” she added.

• ‘MeToo’ and the scale of sexual abuse
• How the Harvey Weinstein scandal unfolded

Ms Lind finished her post with the hashtag #metoo, which has seen widespread use by victims of sexual assault to share their experiences in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein Hollywood scandal.

“What comforts me is that I too can use my power, which isn’t so different from a president really,” she said.

“I am grateful for the bravery of other women who have spoken up and written about their experiences.”

Authorities were searching Wednesday for a gunman who shot and killed a Grambling State University student and his friend after an altercation on the Louisiana college’s campus.

Lincoln Parish Sheriff Mike Stone said the suspect and victims knew each other “to some extent” and stressed that the shooting wasn’t random or an act of terrorism.

“There are no indicators that this incident bears any resemblance to any of the random acts of violence or domestic terrorism that have been experience around our country in recent weeks,” Stone said in a statement.

The suspect remained at large hours after the shooting, but classes at the historically black college were held as usual.

Fats Domino, the genial, good-natured symbol of the dawn of rock and roll and the voice and piano behind enduring hits like “Blueberry Hill” and “Ain’t That a Shame,” died Tuesday at the age of 89. Mark Bone, chief investigator with the Jefferson Parish coroner’s office in Louisiana, confirmed his death to the Associated Press.

A contemporary of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis, Domino was among the first acts inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and was reportedly only second to Presley in record sales thanks to a titanic string of 11 top 10 hits between 1955 and 1960.

Those hits, which also included “I’m Walkin’,” “Blue Monday” and “Walking to New Orleans,” sounded like nothing that came before. Thanks to his New Orleans upbringing, Domino’s signature songs fused Dixieland rhythms, his charming, Creole-flecked voice, and his rolling-river piano style. His hits, most co-written with his longtime producer and partner Dave Bartholomew, became rock standards, covered by Led Zeppelin, Cheap Trick, Randy Newman, Ricky Nelson, and John Lennon, among many others. Lennon, who remade “Ain’t That a Shame” (first called “Ain’t It a Shame” on Domino’s recording) on his 1975 Rock Roll album, said the song had special meaning for him: It was the first tune he ever learned to play, on a guitar bought for him by his late mother. “It was the first song I could accompany myself on,” he said in 1975. “It has a lot of memories for me.”

“After John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Fats Domino and his partner, Dave Bartholomew, were probably the greatest team of songwriters ever,” Dr. John told Rolling Stone in 2004. “They always had a simple melody, a hip set of chord changes, and a cool groove. And their songs all had simple lyrics; that’s the key.” Domino himself, who preferred to let his music rather than image do the talking, was typically modest about his accomplishments: “Everybody started callin’ my music rock and roll,” he once said, “but it wasn’t anything but the same rhythm and blues I’d been playin’ down in New Orleans.”

Born in 1928, Antoine Domino was playing piano and performing in New Orleans honky tonks and bars by the time he was a teenager. At 14, he dropped out of high school, taking jobs like hauling ice and working at a bedspring factory as a way to supplement his music. Domino’s career was effectively kicked off at New Orleans Hideaway Club. While playing piano in local bandleader Billy Diamond’s band, Diamond nicknamed Antoine “Fats” — partly in homage to keyboard-playing predecessors like Fats Waller and partly because, as Diamond told one crowd, “I call him ‘Fats,’ ‘cause if he keeps eating, he’s going to be just as big!” Domino was initially hesitant about the nickname, but it stuck.

Later, at the same club, Domino met Bartholomew and Imperial Records head Lew Chudd, who signed Domino to his label. In 1949, Domino cut his first Imperial single, “The Fat Man,” a rewrite of the drug-addiction song “Junker’s Blues” that many consider one of the earliest rock records. Although it didn’t make the top 40, “The Fat Man” was a huge RB hit and established Domino’s sound and image for decades to come. 

From then on, Domino’s hits kept coming. He scored nine gold singles, although he never had a No. 1 record on the pop chart. (Frustratingly, Pat Boone’s vanilla remake of “Ain’t That a Shame” did go No. 1 in pop in 1955.) In his memoir, Chuck Berry wrote admiringly that, in 1955, Domino was making $10,000 a week on tour.

From the start of his career, Domino wasn’t a larger-than-life figure like Presley or Lewis. Married at 20, he was a notorious homebody who eventually had eight children (all of whose names began with the letter “A”). Asked by Rolling Stone in 2007 about riots that took place during early rock and roll shows that featured him and other acts, Domino simply replied, “I don’t know. It wasn’t anything in the music, so it must have been something in the audience.”

Yet Domino’s influence was tangible. In 1968, Paul McCartney wrote the Beatles’ “Lady Madonna” with Domino in mind (Domino would cut his own version that same year). To ensure that bass guitars on his records could be heard above his rumbling piano, Bartholomew would double the bass and guitar parts — a technique later picked up on by Phil Spector for his Wall of Sound. Domino’s dexterous piano style, influenced by pioneering predecessors like Waller and Professor Longhair, also reverberated. “Anytime anybody plays a slow blues,” Dr. John told Rolling Stone, “the piano player will eventually get to something like Fats. It was pre-funk stuff and it was New Orleans and he did it all his way. He could do piano rolls with both hands. He was like Thelonious Monk in that way.”

In 1960, Domino released his last top 10 hit, “Walking to New Orleans.” Soon after, he left Imperial and continued recording for a number of other labels. As with his 1950s peers, he scored few hits from that point on — but more due to changing times than from the scandals or army duty that derailed Presley and Lewis. As Rolling Stone writer Charles M. Young wrote about Domino’s less-than-dark side, “Offstage, he gambled a bit, had a thing for fancy cars and jewelry and was known to cook beans in his hotel room.”

Domino continued to record and tour for decades after his initial success. In 2005, he was back in the news after his Lower Ninth Ward home was flooded to the roof during Hurricane Katrina. After initial reports that he was missing, Domino was eventually rescued and, with his wife Rosemary and one of their children, lifted into a boat. “I ain’t missin’ nothin’,” Domino said after the rescue. “Just one thing that happened, I guess. I’m just sorry it happened to me and everybody else, you know?” In the storm, he lost most of his possessions, including almost all of his gold records.

As disastrous as it was, Katrina also gave Domino a renewed life. Alive and Kickin’, a new album released a year after the storm, became one of his most acclaimed works (RS named it one of the top albums of the year). In 2007, he released Goin’ Home, an all-star Domino tribute album featuring covers by Elton John, Nell Young, Tom Petty, Robert Plant, Willie Nelson, Norah Jones, Lenny Kravitz, and Lucinda Williams.

Of his partner’s contributions to rock history, Bartholomew said Domino is “just like the cornerstone — you build a new church and you lay the cornerstone, and if the church burns down, the cornerstone is still there.”

Fats Domino – “Blueberry Hill”

Fats Domino – “Ain’t That a Shame”

Fats Domino – “I’m Walkin'”

Fats Domino – “Blue Monday”