Yahoo

Photo Illustration by Lyne Lucien/The Daily Beast/Photos GettyOn Tuesday, President Trump hosted Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in the Oval Office for a closed-door meeting, during which the leader of the free world spent an inordinate amount of time complaining about lost Twitter followers, according to a source familiar with the conversation.The Twitter chief, for his part, tried to reassure the president that the company’s staff merely wants his follower count to be as bot-free as possible.This is what the most powerful person in the world was preoccupied with Tuesday.A large percentage of the meeting, which included senior White House officials such as Trump’s social media director Dan Scavino, was spent addressing the subject of @realDonaldTrump’s follower count. The president stated his belief that he had lost some of his roughly 59 million followers in anti-Trump, anti-conservative Twitter purges, according to a source familiar with the meeting. Dorsey, according to this knowledgeable source, had to explain to the president that like other Twitter users, @realDonaldTrump periodically loses followers when the site deletes fake or bot accounts. Dorsey even said he himself had lost followers as a result of Twitter’s efforts to delete fake accounts.During this private gathering in the West Wing, Dorsey assured Trump that the company wants him, and everyone else on Twitter, to have only real followers, according to the source.Trump also said he’s heard from other prominent conservatives about problems with Twitter, though he declined to name names.The summit with Twitter’s CEO is unlikely to assuage the president’s concerns about tech giants and social media, of which he has many. Two people close to Trump previously told The Daily Beast that Trump has repeatedly griped to associates about how his predecessor, President Obama, has had more Twitter followers than he has, even though-by Trump’s own assessment-he is so much better at Twitter than Obama is.The Washington Post first reported that the president devoted much of the White House meeting to grumbling about his Twitter followers. Earlier in the day, Motherboard broke the news that Trump and Dorsey were meeting on Tuesday. Dorsey also used the meeting to promote Twitter’s efforts to fight opioid addiction, which include using a special emoji to promote National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. It is unclear how interested Trump was in discussing those efforts, at least compared to his time spent inquiring about the alleged purging of his followers.Beyond confirming that the meeting had indeed occurred, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not respond to The Daily Beast’s follow-up questions as of press time.The discussion came a few hours after early morning tweets from the president accusing Twitter of playing “political games” with his follower count and calling for congressional intervention against the company. “Constantly taking people off list,” Trump tweeted. “Big complaints from many people.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here

LA News Anchor Warns Parents After Her Kid Choked on Easter Candy

Black Widow and Captain Marvel represented at the "Avengers: Endgame" premiereMonday night

UPDATE 1:35 PM PT - The executive director of Team Prime Time tells The Blast, “We only became aware of the litigation initiated by Kelli Tennant through public media channels last night, Monday, April 22nd.” They add, “Out of respect for Kelli, and her tireless efforts to improve the lives of the thousands of at-risk […] The post Charity Event Spotlighted in Luke Walton Sexual Assault Lawsuit Tried to Scrub Photos of Him With Accuser From Site appeared first on The Blast.

A British father whose entire family were killed in the suspected terror attack in Sri Lanka has paid tribute to his "talented and thoughtful" children and his "brilliant, loving" wife. Ben Nicholson said his wife Anita, 42, son Alex, 14, and daughter Annabel, 11, had been killed as they sat at a table for breakfast in the Shangri-la Hotel in Colombo on Easter Sunday. "Mercifully, all three of them died instantly and with no pain or suffering," Mr Nicholson said. They were on the second floor of the luxury hotel when two suicide bombers walked in and blew themselves up as part of eight co-ordinated attacks which killed 310 people.  Billy Harrop, 56, a retired firefighter, and his wife Sally, originally from ­Manchester, were also killed, while a British teenage brother and sister were also killed in the attack. Ben Nicholson with his son Alex and daughter Annabel Daniel Linsey, 19 and his younger sister Amelie, 15,were having breakfast with their father Matthew at the luxury Shangri-La Hotel. Mr Linsey, 63, an American city fund manager, returned to the family home in central London, on Monday  to be with his British wife Angelina, 51, and his other two sons - aged 12 and 21 - who were not on the holiday.  In a statement released by the Foreign Office, Mr Nicholson said: "I am deeply distressed at the loss of my wife and children. Anita was a wonderful, perfect wife and a brilliant, loving and inspirational mother to our two wonderful children. The holiday we had just enjoyed was a testament to Anita’s enjoyment of travel and providing a rich and colourful life for our family, and especially our children. Read more | Sri Lanka attacks "Alex and Annabel were the most amazing, intelligent, talented and thoughtful children and Anita and I were immensely proud of them both and looking forward to seeing them develop into adulthood. They shared with their mother the priceless ability to light up any room they entered and bring joy to the lives of all they came into contact with." Waisale Serevi, a retired professional rugby player and member of the World Rugby Hall of Fame, told The Telegraph that he and Mr ­Nicholson would coach aspiring young players in Singapore together. Mr Serevi said Alex had dreamed of being a professional player and he had coached him at a rugby camp only weeks ago. Mr Nicholson said he was "deeply distressed" by the loss of his family Mr Serevi said: “Ben is a really nice guy. Alex wanted to be a professional rugby player and he said thank you for the drill, I will use it, and he said I want to play like you, and I said to Alex, nothing is impossible in life, you can do it. “And he was smiling and I hugged him and wished him well and I said all the best to you. Little did I know it was the last time we would meet.” Hospital staff have described the harrowing moments after the bomb blast in which Mr Nicholson wandered the streets and hospitals desperately trying to find his loved ones in the aftermath of the blasts.  "I saw him covered in blood like this, walking up and down just there," Pushpa Zoysa, who is in charge of the emergency triage at the National Hospital in Colombo, told Mail Online. "He just kept asking about his family members." Anita Nicholson was killed along with her two children Credit: Facebook The Nicholson family were based in Singapore and in the country for a family holiday at the time of the attack.  Mr Nicholson is a partner at Kennedys Legal Solutions while his wife was a former legal adviser to the UK Treasury. According to her LinkedIn profile, she was currently managing counsel at the mining and metals company Anglo American. Mr Nicholson also thanked the medical teams at General Hospital, Colombo "for treating Anita, Alex and Annabel with great dignity and me with kindness and sympathy" as well as "the Sri Lankan people I have encountered in Colombo following this catastrophe".   "Anita, Alex and Annabel leave behind a large extended family and many close and cherished friends who are now grieving this tragic loss," he said. "We shall all miss them dearly. We are all grateful for the many expressions of support and good wishes.”

As the world celebrated the one-year birthday on Tuesday of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s third child, Prince Louis, idle gossip began to grow regarding another royal baby birthday. Did Meghan Markle secretly already give birth? And, if so, how long before she and Prince Harry announce the news? With mounting clues supporting the theory […]