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Elon Musk Takes Over Twitter in 44billion dollar Deal

Elon Musk has officially taken control of Twitter after finalising a $44bn deal to buy the social media network.

In one of his first decisions at the helm of the social media giant, Musk fired three top executives including CEO Parag Agrawal, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, local time, citing three anonymous sources.

Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and Vijaya Gadde, the top executive for legal policy, trust and safety, were also let go, the newspaper reported.

The Tesla CEO’s purchase caps a six-month saga that saw Twitter initially resist Musk’s purchase offer and then sue the billionaire after he signalled he would walk away from the deal due to concerns about spam accounts.

Musk’s interest in the platform has become a lightning rod for the debate around free speech in the digital age, with critics expressing fears his control of the platform could mean open slather for hate speech and misinformation.

Elon Musk, who describes himself as a “free speech absolutist”, has criticised Twitter’s moderation policies and objected to censorship that goes beyond the requirements of the law.

In a lengthy message posted on Twitter before the purchase deadline on Friday, Musk, who earlier changed his Twitter bio to “Chief Twit,” denied any intention to turn Twitter into a “free-for-all hellscape”.

“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” he said

[labarinet]

World Dirtiest Man Dies Age 93: Few months after first Birth in Decades

An Iranian hermit nicknamed the “world’s dirtiest man” for not taking a shower for more than half a century has died at 94, state media has reported.

Irna news agency reported that “Amou Haji”, an endearing nickname for an elderly person, died on Sunday in the village of Dejgah in the southern province of Fars.

Haji, covered in soot and living in a cinder-block shack, was reported by local media not to have bathed with water or soap in more than 60 years. Villagers said he had experienced “emotional setbacks in his youth” that led him to refuse to wash, theguardian.com reports.

In 2014, the Tehran Times reported that Haji would eat roadkill, smoke a pipe filled with animal excrement, and believed that cleanliness would make him ill. Photos showed him smoking multiple cigarettes at once.

But a few months ago, villagers had persuaded him to wash for the first time, Irna reported. After Haji’s death, the unofficial record could go to an Indian man who also had not bathed for much of his life.

In 2009 the Hindustan Times reported that Kailash “Kalau” Singh, from a village outside the holy city of Varanasi, had not washed for more than 30 years in an attempt to help end “all the problems confronting the nation”.

He would reject water in favour of what he called a “fire bath”. “Every evening as villagers gather, Kalau … lights a bonfire, smokes marijuana and stands on a leg praying to Lord Shiva,” the paper said.

Singh was reported to have said: “It’s just like using water to take a bath. Fire bath helps kill all the germs and infections in the body.”