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Twitter permanently banned the accounts of conspiracy-theorist website Infowars and its founder, right-wing provocateur Alex Jones, saying they violate “abusive behavior” rules. The move comes a month after Apple, Facebook and YouTube removed Jones and his products from their platforms. Twitter said Jones had posted new messages within the past 24 hours that violated its policies, which prohibit direct threats of violence and some forms of hate speech but allow deception or misinformation. Jones will be prevented from personally registering or using any other Twitter accounts in the future. [Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed News]
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“This is about the closest I’ll probably ever have in my life to an ‘I am Spartacus’ moment,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ, as he broke Senate rules by releasing 12 pages of so-called “committee confidential” emails from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s work at the George W. Bush White House. Booker’s unconventional move on Day 3 of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings prompted Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, to accuse him of “conduct unbecoming of a senator”; Booker, who called the proceedings a “sham,” said, “I understand the penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate.” [Chris Cillizza / CNN]
“It wasn’t me.” A day after a senior administration official described President Trump as amoral, impetuous, petty and ineffective in an anonymous essay, the denials from the upper echelon of the administration — including Vice President Mike Pence — started to roll in. Here are 13 people who might be the author of the smoking op-ed. And here’s what it takes to remove a president from office. [Eileen Sullivan / The New York Times]
Spotify has quietly signed direct licensing deals with some independent artists, sidestepping the major record labels. The streaming service offers artists a bigger financial cut and ownership of their recordings, and the deals are not exclusive, leaving artists free to license their songs to other streaming companies, like Apple Music and Amazon. By industry standards, these deals are modest — with advance payments of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars — but the likes of Universal, Sony and Warner see the Spotify initiative as a potential threat. [Ben Sisario / The New York Times]
While you wait for next Wednesday’s Apple event — which promises new iPhones, iPads and an updated Apple Watch — look inside the world of Eddy Cue, the company’s Services chief, which means he leads Apple’s sprawling internet initiatives, from its music and video businesses to its maps service. [Aaron Tilley / The Information]
Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand, Goop, has agreed to pay $145,000 in civil penalties for “unsubstantiated” health claims about $66 jade “vaginal eggs” and other products sold on its website. The settlement came after an investigation by the California Food, Drug and Medical Device Task Force, which is made up of prosecutors from 10 counties; Goop said it settled solely because of the advertising claims and not because the items — still for sale on Goop’s website — were defective. [Julia Belluz / Vox]
About 16 percent of U.S. teachers are working second jobs to make ends meet after devoting 60 hours a week to the classroom. While some teachers are moonlighting as Instagram influencers, others are now baristas, Amazon warehouse employees, movie-theater managers and fast-food grill cooks. They’re entering the gig economy in off hours and struggling to stay awake during school days. [Brian Ulrich and Jaime Lowe / The New York Times Magazine]
TRUMP WATCH: “What was Nike thinking?”
ELON WATCH: “I am a business magnet” (Musk, already raising eyebrows for working too much and acting weird for a public-company CEO, also smoked [legal] weed live on the Joe Rogan show last night.)
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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
