Facebook rolls out new policies ahead of inauguration day

Facebook is rolling out new policies ahead of inauguration day to prevent violence. Repeat offenders won't be able to stream live video through Wednesday.

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  • Weir leads by 2 at Cologuard Classic, Mickelson 9 back

    Mike Weir went on a back-nine birdie binge to take control of the Cologuard Classic. Phil Mickelson waded into the mud for the second straight day and will have to dig out of a deep hole if he’s going to make history. Weir shot a 5-under 67 to build a two-shot lead in the Cologuard Classic on Saturday, leaving Mickelson with a lot of ground to make up to win his third straight PGA Tour Champions start.

  • Why QAnon are pinning their last desperate hopes on Trump emerging as president on March 4

    QAnon's most devout followers believe bizarrely that former President Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 19th President on March 4, 2021.

  • Princess Diana wasn't allowed to call Prince Charles by his first name until they were engaged

    It's been 40 years since Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer announced their engagement with a televised interview.

  • Trump supporters and right-wing reporters wouldn't stop heckling CNN's Jim Acosta during second day of CPAC

    A crowd of Trump supporters and right-wing reporters were filmed following Jim Acosta around CPAC while chanting "CNN sucks!"

  • Merkel says she won't take AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine because she's too old, as 1.4 million jabs are left unused

    The German chancellor said she wasn't eligible because the vaccine isn't approved for people over 65 in Germany.

  • Explainer: What is love? Beijing desires unconditional loyalty from Hong Kong

    Chinese officials have signalled that Beijing plans sweeping electoral changes for Hong Kong, possibly as soon as next week, when China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), opens in Beijing. WHAT IS BEIJING PLANNING? Xia Baolong, director of China's Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, has said the electoral system in the global financial hub needs to be changed to allow only "patriots" to govern.

  • 10 death row inmates in Oklahoma could get new trials

    As many as 10 death row inmates in Oklahoma, more than one-fifth of the state’s prisoners condemned to die, could escape execution because of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling concerning criminal jurisdiction in Indian Country. The inmates have challenged their convictions in state court following the high court’s ruling last year, dubbed the McGirt decision, that determined a large swath of eastern Oklahoma remains an American Indian reservation. The decision means that Oklahoma prosecutors lack the authority to pursue criminal charges in cases in which the defendants, or the victims, are tribal citizens.

  • Prince Harry knew he and Meghan Markle had something 'pretty special' by their second date. Here's a complete timeline of their relationship.

    The couple's royal love story began in 2016 when they were set up on a blind date by a mutual friend.

  • South Dakota AG May Have Been Reading Right-Wing Biden Conspiracies While Killing Man With His Car

    TwitterSouth Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg acknowledged during his interviews with police investigators last year that he was reading political articles—including a conspiracy theory-laden piece about Joe Biden—on his phone just before he struck and killed a pedestrian with his car.Ravnsborg is currently facing three misdemeanor charges, calls from Gov. Kristi Noem to resign, and impeachment proceedings for killing 55-year-old Joseph Boever on the side of a highway last year.Ravnsborg, who was returning from a political dinner on Sept. 12, initially told police after striking Boever that he thought he’d hit a deer and eventually left the scene of the incident. The following morning, however, Boever’s body was found. In videos released this week, interrogators can be seen informing the attorney general last September that Boever’s glasses were found inside his vehicle, revealing that the victim’s “face came through your windshield,” contradicting Ravnsborg’s claims that he was unaware he hit a man until the next day.The newly released videos also show investigators going through the top attorney’s phone records and revealing that Ravnsborg was scanning through websites while driving at night, settling on one article in particular just before he hit Boever.“At 10:20:49, you were on the Dakota Free Press site,” one investigator told the attorney general, in a clip first flagged by Media Matters research fellow Timothy Johnson. “These are all on your work phone. A minute later, you were on the RealClearPolitics website.”South Dakota AG Jason Ravnsborg was reading Joe Biden conspiracy theories at John Solomon's Just The News website while driving when he slammed into a man, killing him and hitting him so hard the man's face came through the windshield. (Ravnsborg claimed he thought he hit a deer) pic.twitter.com/Lz9dWb7SBa— Timothy Johnson (@timothywjohnson) February 26, 2021 “And then, about a minute later, this article was pulled up through the Just The News,” the interrogator continued, referencing the site founded by pro-Trump columnist John Solomon.The investigator, meanwhile, went on to note that the article in question was “about Joe Biden and something to do with China” and that Ravnsborg was on that link up to a minute before the accident, further asking the attorney general if he remembered reading this while driving.Ravnsborg contended that he remembered “looking at those” but that he then “set his phone down,” prompting the investigator to point out that this activity on his phone occurred only a minute or so before he called 911 to report the accident.“So the concern being is that before the time of impact, there was a time period that went by before you called 911,” the investigator pushed back. “You had to realize what was going on, come to a stop, get your bearings back about you, get out and look at the damage a little bit, figure out what the hell is going on, figure out where you are, call 911.”“So it’s reasonable to say that a minute or two minutes passed from impact to when you were on the phone with 911, right? That would be reasonable,” the interrogator concluded.The article in question, meanwhile, appears to have been a Just The News write-up of a right-wing documentary claiming that then-nominee Biden and his family had a long history of self-enrichment in China. During the final months of the 2020 election, President Donald Trump and his media allies attempted to make controversies surrounding Biden’s son Hunter a focal point of the campaign.The interrogators continued to grill Ravnsborg on his phone usage during the time of the fatal collision. While the attorney general insisted that he didn’t “remember reading the article” and that he believes he set his phone down before hitting Boever, the authorities expanded on the article’s content in more detail and showed he clicked the link to it. “It’s about some conspiracy with Joe Biden in China,” one investigator noted. “I guess I would say I glance at headlines a lot. I don’t read articles while I’m driving,” Ravnsborg replied, adding, “I’ve never heard of Just the News.”Fox News Parts Ways With John Solomon, Architect of Trump’s Ukraine ConspiraciesSolomon, meanwhile, has been a major player in the pro-Trump media ecosystem for years now. Following a long journalistic career that included stops at The Washington Times, Newsweek/The Daily Beast, and Washington Post, Solomon became the go-to “investigative reporter” for Fox News host Sean Hannity, who repeatedly amplified Solomon’s questionable reporting on the so-called liberal “deep state” plot against Trump.After his work was slapped with the “opinion” tag following newsroom complaints during his time at The Hill, Solomon eventually branched out on his own, founding the right-wing website Just The News in late 2019. He also came under scrutiny during Trump’s first impeachment hearing, when it was revealed that he had been in frequent contact with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Giuliani’s Ukrainian associates. The Hill’s editor-in-chief announced that Solomon’s columns on Ukraine, which helped fuel Giuliani’s Ukrainian dirt-digging efforts on Biden, would be placed under review.Solomon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

  • Pakistan expert: Religiosity aiding spike in militancy

    Militant attacks are on the rise in Pakistan amid a growing religiosity that has brought greater intolerance, prompting one expert to voice concern the country could be overwhelmed by religious extremism. Pakistani authorities are embracing strengthening religious belief among the population to bring the country closer together. Militant violence in Pakistan has spiked: In the past week alone, four vocational school instructors who advocated for women’s rights were traveling together when they were gunned down in a Pakistan border region.

  • ‘The Walking Dead’ Has New Villains Thanks to Maggie Greene’s Return

    Eli Ade/AMCNegan better watch his back, because Maggie Greene is back in town. On Sunday night, The Walking Dead returned to close out its super-sized penultimate season with six more episodes—and kicked things off by giving Maggie a chance to explain what she and her son, Hershel, have been up to, and why it’s been so long since she touched base with Team Family. But the real question of this week has less to do with where Maggie’s been, and more to do with who the hell she’s managed to antagonize. It seems we’ve got a new villain on our hands, and they apparently have it out for her.It’s a rough week for Maggie: First, she comes face-to-face with Negan, who’s now at large in Alexandria after Carol sprung him from prison. Then, the onetime leader of Hilltop expressed her desire to return home there with her son and a group of survivors only to find out that the place has been reduced to a pile of rubble and bodies. And then, Maggie has to hear from Carol that Negan was actually with the Whisperers when they leveled Hilltop. “Alpha needed to die, and Negan was our best chance,” Carol explained. “We were gonna lose everything; Negan’s the reason we didn’t.”Maggie seems sympathetic, but she’s understandably not thrilled.But the group must press on—so Maggie, Daryl and Kelly head out for the settlement where Maggie’s been staying, along with her friends from the camp, Elijah and Cole. After a long day of walking (and murdering some walkers to take refuge in a storage container) Maggie reveals to Daryl that, like her old friends, she’s borne witness to a lot of tragedy over the past couple years.When Maggie first left Hilltop, she’d set out with a woman named Georgie, whose group helped nascent communities learn the farming and engineering skills required to make it in the apocalypse. “But it’d always go sideways,” she said. The group had been helping a community in Knoxville, Maggie continued, but when Georgie left to check out another community, things collapsed and she and Hershel ran. When Daryl asked what happened to the village Georgie had built, Maggie simply replied, “Not now.”“It’s actually good to say some of it out loud. Just can’t say all of it,” she said. “I almost came home after Knoxville; maybe I should have. Maybe I should have.” After the collapse, Maggie said, she brought Hershel to a place that used to belong to her grandmother on the coast—a place, she said, where she and Glenn had talked about visiting after her sister, Beth, died in Season 5. One night, she and Hershel stayed up late talking about his family. “He asked how his daddy died,” she said. “I knew he would; I knew it was coming. I told him that a bad man killed him. He wanted to know if that man got what he deserved. He wanted to know if that man was dead.”“The truth is I left home because I couldn’t have Negan taking up any more space in my head,” Maggie said. “And when I realized I didn’t want to bring Hershel back to that, the next morning we met a whole community of people who needed us as much as we needed them. And it felt like it was meant to be. But that’s over, too.”Daryl emphasized that things remain up in the air with regard to Negan—a thread that will certainly return later this season and, perhaps, beyond. Because the next morning, Maggie and the group arrive home—only to find it burned to the ground.Turns out, there’s a group called the Reapers hunting people down one by one in the woods now. We see several people Maggie had been staying with shot down before a man comes for Maggie—only to be surrounded by her group. But the man, dressed in military fatigues, refuses to answer any of Maggie’s questions. Instead, he tells her, “Pope marked you”—and then proceeds to blow himself up.There is no group called The Reapers in the Walking Dead comics; there isn’t even a group that seems particularly analogous, from what we’ve seen so far. It’s fascinating, given that we’re just on the verge of truly meeting the Commonwealth—another yet-unexplored community that appears to be the show’s endgame—that the show has now introduced another group to content with. They could be, as The Wrap posits, affiliated with the Civic Republic—villains of the spin-off World Beyond. But so far, it’s hard to guess at who these people are or what they really want.Lauren Cohan returned to Walking Dead during what would have originally been its season finale last year, after a brief trip to ABC for the now-defunct Whiskey Cavalier. Despite how long this series has floundered, both before and especially after her absence, Cohan’s presence feels like a refreshing return to form for the zombie drama—especially as it shuffles toward its final season. (She was always, and remains, one of the most emotive and compelling performers in the cast.) Nothing will ever fully atone for Glenn Rhee’s poorly executed, excruciatingly graphic death in Season 7. But it’s still somehow a little sentimental to see his son walk into Alexandria hand-in-hand with his mother. That said, however, in light of this week’s brief scare—which found Maggie racing through the woods looking for her son after finding the camp burned to the ground—I will say this: If Hershel dies, as so many children on this series have, we riot.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

  • TikTokers tried to prove that snow in Texas was 'fake' as weather conspiracy theories ran wild online

    From "fake snow" to Bill Gates, conspiracy theories about the Texas storm are spreading. Right-wing pundits and politicians aren't helping.

  • The 'WandaVision' mid-credits scene teased an unexpected showdown that shakes up where the show is headed

    Episode eight concluded with a scene that gave insight into Tyler Hayward's secret plan all along and teased what's to come on the Marvel series.

  • Low tide leaves Venice canals almost empty

    Traditional gondolas and boats could be seen almost beached in the canals as water levels reached a peak of -48 cm, creating an unusual landscape in the lagoon city.Venice, beloved around the world for its canals, historic architecture and art, has always lived in a fragile balance between low and high tides, that usually create variations of around 50 cm in sea levels.Flooding is a constant enemy of the art city built on a collection of small islands within a saltwater lagoon off the north-eastern coast of Italy, with every new incursion damaging its medieval and Renaissance palaces.

  • Prince Harry Tells Friend James Corden He Left the Royal Family Because It Was Destroying His Mental Health

    KOEN VAN WEELPrince Harry has said that he stepped back from royal duties because the British press was “toxic” and “destroying” his mental health.In an extraordinary interview unparalleled in the annals of royal history, Harry gave a candid interview to his close friend James Corden on The Late Late Show while they toured Los Angeles on an open-air double-decker bus. Corden was a guest at Harry and Meghan’s wedding in 2018 and arrived at the evening reception dressed as Henry VIII. Another guest at the wedding, Oprah Winfrey, has taped an interview primarily with Meghan that will be screened next weekend.Oprah Winfrey’s Interview With Meghan Markle and Harry Will ‘Shine a Light on What They Have Been Through’The two men were served afternoon tea, which Corden said he had provided to remind Harry of home, however the tea service was abandoned after the bus braked sharply, depositing the contents of a tea trolley on top of the prince.“Clear it up, Harry,” Corden joked as the prince picked up tea cups and scones.While the 17-minute long package had a humorous tone and was packed with jokes and gags, it also provided the most candid insight yet into why Harry withdrew from royal duties.Asked about his decision to leave royal life, Harry said he was left with no choice because the British press “was destroying my mental health.”He said of the “toxic” situation: “I did what any husband and father would do—I need to get my family out of here.”In what will be perceived as a dig at the royal establishment that refused to accept Harry and Meghan’s proposal of a hybrid public-private role, Harry said: “We never walked away, and as far as I’m concerned, what decisions are made on that side, I will never walk away.”Royal Family ‘Wringing Their Hands’ at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s ActivismHarry said that his life now would continue to be about “public service” and added that he and Meghan were “trying to bring some compassion and try to make people happy and try to change the world in any small way we can.”When Harry said he and Meghan often watched Jeopardy! and Netflix (with whom the couple recently signed a $100 million production deal) in the evenings after putting Archie to bed, Corden asked him about The Crown and its controversial portrayal of his family’s history.Harry, who joked he would like to be played in the series by Damian Lewis, said he preferred it to the tabloid media coverage of the royals because it “does not pretend to be news.”He added: “It’s fictional. But it’s loosely based on the truth.“Of course it’s not strictly accurate, but it gives you a rough idea about what that lifestyle—the pressures of putting duty and service above family and everything else—what can come from that.”He continued: “I’m way more comfortable with The Crown than I am seeing the stories written about my family, or my wife or myself, because it’s the difference between fiction—take it how you will—and being reported on as fact because you’re supposedly news. I have a real issue with that.”Harry also opened up about meeting Meghan and how he knew she was the one on their second date.“We hit it off with each other, and we were just so comfortable in each other’s company,” he said.“Dating me or any member of the royal family is kind of flipped upside down. All the dates become dinners or watching the TV or chatting at home.“We went from zero to 60 in the first two months.”Meghan, who is pregnant with the couple’s second child, made a cameo in the interview via FaceTime when Harry and Corden paid a trip to the house from the ’90s TV show The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.When Corden suggested the couple should buy the house, Meghan said: “I think we’ve done enough moving.”During the visit to the house, Corden and Harry spoke to the owner and jokingly made an offer to buy it, before Harry asked if he could use the toilet.“I’m actually dying for a pee. Can I use your bathroom?” he asked.Showing that family relations are at least still somewhat functional, Harry said his grandmother, the queen, bought his son Archie a waffle maker for Christmas.He revealed Meghan now makes waffles with a “beautiful organic mix” and they eat them for breakfast with toppings including berries and syrup.He also said that both his grandparents know how to use Zoom, but joked that his grandfather slams the laptop shut physically to finish a call.Over to you, Oprah.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

  • J&J’s 1-dose shot cleared, giving US 3rd COVID-19 vaccine

    The U.S. is getting a third vaccine to prevent COVID-19, as the Food and Drug Administration on Saturday cleared a Johnson & Johnson shot that works with just one dose instead of two. Health experts are anxiously awaiting a one-and-done option to help speed vaccinations, as they race against a virus that already has killed more than 510,000 people in the U.S. and is mutating in increasingly worrisome ways. The FDA said J&J’s vaccine offers strong protection against what matters most: serious illness, hospitalizations and death.

  • Brazil's capital goes into lockdown to quell COVID-19 surge

    The governor of Brazil's capital city, Brasilia, decreed a 24-hour lockdown for all but essential services on Friday to curb a worsening COVID-19 outbreak that has filled its intensive care wards to the brim. The drastic step came as right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly downplayed the gravity of the pandemic that has killed 250,000 Brazilians, renewed his attacks on state governors for destroying jobs with lockdowns. "The lockdown will start today and be total, it will be 24-hours a day," said a press aide for the federal district's Governor Ibaneis Rocha.

  • Right-wing extremists 'want to blow up the Capitol' and 'kill as many members as possible' during Biden's first address to Congress, police chief says

    The acting Capitol Police chief said enhanced security measures, like the fence and National Guard troops, would remain in place due to the threats.

  • Donald Trump's niece blasts his 'chutzpah' toward her fraud lawsuit

    Donald Trump's niece accused him on Friday of trying to dodge accountability for defrauding her out of a multimillion dollar inheritance by claiming she took too long to sue. Lawyers for Mary Trump made the accusation in a New York state court in Manhattan, where the 55-year-old psychologist is suing the former president, his sister Maryanne Trump Barry and his late brother Robert's estate. A lawyer for Donald Trump and Robert's estate could not immediately be reached outside business hours.

  • Tim McGraw and Faith Hill are selling their private island in the Bahamas for $35 million, and it's an 80-minute flight from Miami

    The country music couple bought the undeveloped island in 2003 and spent years building a house, beach yurts, and staff quarters.