- Pharrell Williams to co-chair Met Gala exploring Black dandyism
- Wall Street indices hit fresh records as Chinese shares tumble
- Taiwan's president to deliver key speech for National Day
- Sea row on the menu as ASEAN leaders meet China's Li
- Injured Kane won't start England's Nations League clash with Greece
- Discord seen as online home for renegades
- US forecasts severe solar storm starting Thursday
- Mozambique starts tallying votes in tense election
- Zelensky moves to court European leaders in drive for military aid
- Ratan Tata: Indian mogul who built a global powerhouse
- Rodgers rejects 'false' suggestions of role in Saleh dismissal
- One dead as storm Kirk tears through Spain, Portugal, France
- Indian business titan Ratan Tata dead at 86
- Lebanon facing 'catastrophic' situation as 600,000 displaced: UN
- US warns Israel not to repeat Gaza destruction in Lebanon
- Musk's X returns in Brazil after 40-day showdown with judge
- Call her savvy? Harris unleashes unconventional media blitz
- Lucian Freud 'masterpiece' fetches £13.9 million at London sale
- SoFi Stadium to hold next two CONCACAF Nations League finals
- McIlroy and DeChambeau set for PGA-LIV 'Showdown' in Vegas
- Fed minutes highlight divisions over rate cut decision
- Steve McQueen debuts new WWII film at London festival
- Run blitz edges India and South Africa closer to World Cup semi-finals
- Zelensky to court European leaders in drive for military aid
- Israel captain says 'difficult' to focus on football in time of war
- Macron to host Ukraine's Zelensky after meeting Ukrainian troops
- Root says 'many more to get' after England Test runs landmark
- India pile up World Cup high to rout Sri Lanka
- One year later, Israeli hostage family learns of loss
- Texans receiver Collins, Pats' safety Peppers out for NFL clash
- Biden-Netanyahu talk as Hezbollah, Israeli forces clash
- Musk's X available again in Brazil after 40-day ban
- Reddy stars as India crush Bangladesh to clinch T20 series
- Nobel winners hope protein work will spur 'incredible' breakthroughs
- What are proteins again? Nobel-winning chemistry explained
- Arch rivals Ghana, Nigeria drawn together in CHAN qualifying
- AI steps into science limelight with Nobel wins
- Trump lauds India's Modi as 'total killer'
- Wall Street, Europe rise as Chinese shares tumble
- Hunkering down for Hurricane Milton at Disney -- but first, a few rides
- Reddy, Rinku power India to 221-9 in second Bangladesh T20
- Overshooting 1.5C risks 'irreversible' climate impact: study
- Time running out in Florida to flee Hurricane Milton
- Demis Hassabis, from chess prodigy to Nobel-winning AI pioneer
- The long walk for water in the parched Colombian Amazon
- Biden-Netanyahu to talk as Hezbollah, Israeli forces clash
- France vows to step up drugs fight after police vehicles torched
- Air France says jet flew over Iraq during Iran attack on Israel
- Activists target Picasso work to protest Israel arms sales
- Let 'Emily in Paris' remain in Paris, Macron says
The Big Sort: Twitter ticks check out
Elon Musk's long promised move to strip free blue ticks from Twitter users swung into action on Thursday, dividing the have-paids from the have-nots.
Like some kind of fable in which the chosen few ascend to a higher plane, accounts with a Twitter Verified check began rising above the rest -- a rapture that left most of us behind.
Casualty number one: The Pope, the faith of whose 18.8 million will be tested by the absence of a blue badge on the @Pontifex account.
But across the religious board, the Dalai Lama remained at one with his.
"Verified account," beams a pop-up box when you hover over His Holiness's tick.
"This account is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number."
Musk, whose chaotic takeover of Twitter has seen his $44 billion investment shrivel, earlier pledged to get rid of what he described as a "lords & peasants system," in which journalists, celebrities and politicians were given a mark that supposedly meant their accounts could be trusted.
He offered instead to sell the blue badge to anyone who would pay $8 a month, in a move he said last year would "democratize journalism & empower the voice of the people."
On Thursday high-profile accounts, as well as those of many reporters at AFP and other news organizations, appeared to have had the checkmarks removed.
"I'm naked!" quipped one reporter when she discovered the once-coveted tick had gone.
But it wasn't just the chatterati and the hoi polloi who found themselves uncovered.
Bona fide celebrities with huge followings were going about the Twitterverse unclothed.
- Horror for Stephen King -
Singer Selena Gomez and her 67 million followers: out of tune.
Basketball wizard Steph Curry (17.3 million): out of bounds.
But almost as if there was some grand plan, some scheme to bring order and balance to the universe, each action appeared to have an opposite reaction.
Musical megastar Rihanna: still lifting up her 108.3 million followers.
Los Angeles hoops legend LeBron James and his 52.7 million followers: swish.
The Great Sorting appeared to have no respect for families, with one particularly famous US clan divided.
Ivanka and Don Trump Jr. still revelled in their blue badge, but Eric Trump no longer had his, and neither did his dad, former president Donald Trump.
(The account -- which Twitter says he can use again -- in any case remains preserved in petulant aspic with a January 8, 2021 posting: "To all those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.")
No area of celebrity life seemed unaffected by the removal of the ticks.
Even Harry Potter creator JK Rowling was reduced to slumming it with the rest of us, her 14 million followers left to divine for themselves whether it was really her or Lord Voldemort at the keyboard.
But everything was maybe not as it seemed in the world of literature.
Fellow wordsmith Stephen King, who had previously vowed he would never cough up, even telling Musk that Twitter should instead be paying him to post, appeared horrified to discover that he still had his blue check.
"My Twitter account says I've subscribed to Twitter Blue. I haven't," he fumed.
"My Twitter account says I've given a phone number. I haven't."
H.E.Young--AMWN