Grandparent scam: London, Ont., senior beats fraudsters not once, but twice
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
After announcing he wants out of his deal to buy Twitter, Elon Musk spent the weekend in Idaho at the Sun Valley Conference.
He spoke on stage, essentially off the record, but a source in the room told CNN's chief media correspondent Brian Stelter that Musk tripled down on his decision to try to back out of the deal and claiming it's all about the bots.
"Musk originally said he was going to fix the bot problem," Stelter said on Reliable Sources on Sunday. "The same problem that he now says is stopping him from doing the deal."
New York Times reporter Lauren Hirsch said there has been an interesting confluence of events since news of Musk's offer first broke. The stock market "basically dropped off the cliff," including shares of Tesla, which Musk was presumably relying on to fund much of the deal.
That may be part of the reason Musk has seemingly been casting doubt that his purchase offer would come to fruition — almost from the moment he made it. "He would kind of throw daggers out there and then walk away and we never quite knew what his intention was," Hirsch said.
At least until Friday, when Musk's lawyer sent Twitter a letter saying he is pulling out of the deal because the social media platform is "in material breach of multiple provisions" of the original agreement.
Twitter is fighting back, pledging to take Musk to court.
And some have questioned if Musk's concerns about the bots are just an excuse to exit the deal.
Washington Post national correspondent Philip Bump said it's hard to say what his true motives are but did concede that Musk is an "eccentric character."
"I'm sort of fascinated by the repercussions of his announcement that it very quickly became entangled in American politics," Bump said.
Twitter was perceived by some as a "leftist elitist organization" that was now going to be taken over and reshaped by a libertarian conservative.
One potential beneficiary of a Musk Twitter takeover, former President Donald Trump, who was famously banned from the platform following the January 6 violence at the Capitol, recently went on stage at an Alaska political rally and labelled Musk a "bulls--t artist," calling his decision to withdraw from the Twitter deal "rotten."
One of the big questions now is what will happen to Twitter, from its employees to its advertising revenue to its share price.
The saga has been going on since April, and employees still don't know who their boss is going to be, Insider's chief media correspondent Claire Atkinson said.
"If you're considering advertising on the platform, you want to know 'Is this product suitable?'" Atkinson said. "And what are their rules?"
Stelter said that bots are no doubt a problem for Twitter, though it's still unclear just how prevalent they are. But Musk may be more affected by them than the average user.
"I suspect what's going on here is, Musk has a very different experience on Twitter than the average user," Stelter said. "He is overwhelmed by BS replies and spam."
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
The deaths of four people on a farm near the Saskatchewan village of Neudorf have been confirmed a murder-suicide.
Genetic analysis has shed light on a long-standing mystery surrounding the fates of U.S. President George Washington's younger brother Samuel and his kin.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is officially selling a copy of the Bible themed to Lee Greenwood’s famous song, 'God Bless the USA.' But the concept of a Bible covered in the American flag has raised concern among religious circles.
The Parole Board of Canada has granted full parole to one of three men convicted in the brutal murders of three McDonald's restaurant workers in Cape Breton more than 30 years ago.
Rainfall warnings of up to 90 millimetres and other alerts have been issued for six Canadian provinces, according to the latest forecasts.
Ontario released its annual sunshine list Thursday afternoon, noting that the largest year-over-year increases were in hospitals, municipalities, and post-secondary sectors.
A bus carrying worshippers headed to an Easter festival plunged off a bridge on a mountain pass and burst into flames in South Africa on Thursday, killing at least 45 people, authorities said.
Calgary police have shut down a number of bridges into and out of the downtown core as officers deal with a distraught individual.
B.C. conservation officers recently seized a nine-foot-long Burmese python from a home in Chilliwack.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
The Ontario government is introducing changes to auto-insurance, but some experts say the move is ill-advised.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
Newfoundland’s unique version of the Pine Marten has grown out of its threatened designation.
A Toronto man is out $12,000 after falling victim to a deepfake cryptocurrency scam that appeared to involve Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It started small with a little pop tab collection to simply raise some money for charity and help someone — but it didn’t take long for word to get out that 10-year-old Jace Weber from Mildmay, Ont. was quickly building up a large supply of aluminum pop tabs.
There’s a group of people in Saskatoon that proudly call themselves dumpster divers, and they’re turning the city’s trash into treasure.
Ontario is facing a larger than anticipated deficit but the Doug Ford government still plans to balance its books before the next provincial election.