Former Twitter execs to testify on blocking of Hunter Biden story

WASHINGTON — Former Twitter employees are expected to testify next week before the House Oversight Committee about the social media platform’s handling of reporting on President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.

The scheduled testimony, confirmed by the committee Monday, will be the first time the three former executives will appear before Congress to discuss the company’s decision to initially block from Twitter a New York Post article on Hunter Biden’s laptop in the weeks before the 2020 election.

Republicans have said the story was suppressed for political reasons, though no evidence has been released to support that claim. The witnesses for the Feb. 8 hearing are expected to be Vijaya Gadde, former chief legal officer; James Baker, former deputy general counsel; and Yoel Roth, former head of safety and integrity.

The hearing is among the first of many in a GOP-controlled House to be focused on Biden and his family, as Republicans wield the power of their new, albeit slim, majority.

The New York Post first reported in October 2020 that it had received from former President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, a copy of a hard drive of a laptop that Hunter Biden had dropped off 18 months earlier at a Delaware computer repair shop and never retrieved. Twitter initially blocked people from sharing links to the story for several days.

Months later, Twitter’s then-CEO Jack Dorsey called the company’s communications around the Post article “not great.” He added that blocking the article’s URL with “zero context” around why it was blocked was “unacceptable.”

The Post article at the time was greeted with skepticism due to questions about the laptop’s origins, including Giuliani’s involvement, and because top officials in the Trump administration had already warned that Russia was working to denigrate Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election.

“This is why we’re investigating the Biden family for influence peddling,” Rep. James Comer, chairman of the Oversight committee, said at a news event Monday. “We want to make sure that our national security is not compromised.”

The White House has sought to discredit the Republican probes into Hunter Biden, calling them “divorced-from-reality political stunts.”

‘In God We Trust’: Public schools in West Virginia may soon be required to display the phrase “In God We Trust” in every building if a bill passed by the state Senate on Monday becomes law.

The bill was introduced by Republican Sen. Mike Azinger, who said he wants to give kids in schools something to look up to and let them know it’s OK to “say God” in school.

The bill heads to the West Virginia House of Delegates. It requires public K-12 schools and public institutions of higher learning to display the U.S. motto on durable posters or in frames placed in a “conspicuous place” in each building.

Bolsonaro request: Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has filed a request for a six-month visitor visa to stay in the U.S., indicating he may have no immediate intention of returning home, where legal issues await.

The application was first reported by The Financial Times, citing Bolsonaro’s immigration lawyer, Felipe Alexandre.

Contacted by The Associated Press, the lawyer’s firm, AG Immigration, confirmed the report.

Bolsonaro left Brazil for Florida on Dec. 30, two days before the inauguration of his leftist rival, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The ceremony proceeded without incident, but a week later thousands of Bolsonaro’s die-hard supporters stormed the capital and trashed the top government buildings demanding that Lula’s election be overturned.

Bolsonaro is being investigated for whether he had any role in inciting that uprising. It is just one of several probes targeting the former president and that pose a legal headache upon his eventual homecoming, and which could strip him of his eligibility in future races — or worse.

Storm in Madagascar: Flooding and landslides caused by the passage of tropical storm Cheneso across Madagascar caused 30 deaths, left 20 people missing and affected tens of thousands across the Indian Ocean island nation, according to a provisional assessment Monday.

The storm made landfall in the northeast of the island Thursday and affected close to 89,000 people, Madagascar’s National Office for Risk and Disaster Management said.

Madagascar’s meteorological agency said the storm saw winds gusting up to over 100 mph and unleashed torrential rains.

Colonel Faly Aritiana, of the risk and disaster office, said there had been house collapses and landslides in which people have become trapped.

Many roads have been cut by rising waters, landslides or collapsed bridges.

Nearly 33,000 people have had to leave their homes in the Boeny region.

France pension strikes:

France’s national rail operator is recommending that passengers stay home Tuesday to avoid strikes over pension reforms expected to cause major transport woes but largely spare high-speed links to Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Labor unions that mobilized massive street protests in an initial salvo of nationwide strikes earlier this month are hoping for similar success Tuesday to maintain pressure on government plans to raise France’s retirement age.

Positions are hardening on both sides as lawmakers begin debating the planned change. France’s prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, insisted this weekend that her government’s intention to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 is “no longer negotiable.”

Opponents in parliament and labor leaders are determined to prove her wrong.

Peru protests: Pressed by Peru’s embattled president to take action in response to weeks of deadly protests, Congress narrowly agreed Monday to reconsider a proposal to move the 2026 national elections up to this October.

Lawmakers approved the reconsideration with 66 votes in favor, the bare minimum required in the 130-member assembly, and well short of the two-thirds needed for final approval of earlier elections without a popular referendum.

Lawmakers rejected a similar proposal on Friday — one that would have a new president and Congress take over on Jan. 1, 2024.

If earlier elections are approved, it would be would be the first concrete step to answer demands of protesters, who lack allies among the lawmakers.

They’ve been taking to the streets for weeks, demanding the president’s removal and the dissolution of Congress.

SANTI DONAIRE/AP A woman races past burning shacks during a fire before an eviction by police officers Monday in Almeria, Spain. A migrant camp that was set to be demolished Monday in Nijar, a town in southern Spain, caught fire. More than 400 people live there, many working as temporary laborers in farming estates. Firemen later extinguished the blaze.