What you might have missed this weekend

Busy holiday weekend? Here are six stories you may have missed while you were ushering in 2016.

• Armed protest continues at Oregon wildlife refuge

Armed anti-government protesters took over a remote national wildlife refuge in Oregon on Saturday, part of a protest against prison sentences given to a pair of ranchers who set fire to federal land.

The armed occupation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is being led by Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy's two sons. Bundy was involved in a high-profile standoff over grazing rights last year.

One of them, Ryan Bundy, told reporters on Sunday that "the end goal here is that we are here to restore the rights to the people here so that they can use the land and resources -- all of them."

So far, federal authorities are keeping their distance, hoping to defuse the situation without violence.

• Saudi Arabia severs ties with Iran

Long-simmering tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran boiled over the weekend, as the kingdom and several of its allies severed ties with Tehran after attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in the Islamic Republic. According to the Associated Press, the attacks were in response Saudi Arabia's execution of Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and 46 other alleged terrorists on Saturday — the largest mass execution carried out on Saudi Arabian soil since 1980.

Within hours, Sudan and the tiny island kingdom of Bahrain said they would sever ties with Iran; the United Arab Emirates announced it would downgrade its relationship.

Al-Nimr was a central figure in the Arab Spring-inspired protests by Saudi Arabia's Shiite minority until his arrest in 2012. He was convicted of terrorism charges but denied advocating violence.

• Bill Clinton hits the trail

After mostly remaining on the sidelines this presidential cycle, Bill Clinton is setting foot on the presidential campaign trail in New Hampshire, where he is scheduled to stump for his wife, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, twice on Monday.

And the former president has already drawn the attention of Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, who has threatened to make his sexual history an issue for Hillary Clinton.

On Sunday, the former secretary of state shut down a heckler who invoked her husband's former indiscretions.

"You are very rude and I'm not going to ever call on you," Clinton snapped at the heckler, Katherine Prudhomme, at a town hall event in Derry.

• Trump’s first TV ad evokes San Bernardino terror

Donald Trump released his the first television ad of his presidential campaign late Sunday, and it features Republican frontrunner's familiar, fearmongering themes.

The 30-second spot, which will begin airing in Iowa and New Hampshire Tuesday, starts with a shot of President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before quickly moving to images of the San Bernardino, Calif., shooters.

“The politicians can pretend it’s something else,” a male voiceover says, “but Donald Trump calls it radical Islamic terrorism — that’s why he’s calling for a temporary shutdown of Muslims entering the United States, until we can figure out what’s going on.”

The ad — entitled “Great Again” — then repeats a line from one of Trump’s previously-released radio ads, vowing he will “cut the head off ISIS and take their oil.” And it reiterates Trump’s first campaign promise: to “stop illegal immigration by building a wall on our southern border that Mexico will pay for.”

At the end, a refrain from a Trump stump speech is played: “We will make America great again!”

• Report: Browns 'so done' with Johnny Manziel

There's a good chance — no matter who the next head coach is — that Johnny Manziel has taken his final snap in a Cleveland Browns uniform.

Sports Illustrated's Peter King reports that the team is fed up with the troubled quarterback after he did not show up for a required concussion examination on Sunday. Manziel, who was reprimanded earlier this year after lying to Browns officials after he was seen was spotted partying in Austin, was spotted in Las Vegas on Saturday.

• Colombians burn Steve Harvey in effigy

Colombians rang in the new year with the traditional burning of effigies. Among them: Miss Universe host Steve Harvey, whose infamous gaffe at the end of the 2015 pageant erroneously crowned MMiss Colombia Ariadna Gutierrez-Arévalo as the winner before the "Family Feud" host corrected his mistake.

According to Uproxx.com, the customary burning — which is done at the stroke of midnight — is "believed that the act wards off bad luck in the coming year.

Harvey wasn't alone. The “real” Miss Universe, Miss Philippines Pia Wurtzbach, was also set aflame during the celebrations.

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