Social media meltdown
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It's not just you – Facebook and Instagram (and others) were down. A massive oil spill in California is killing wildlife and shutting down beaches. And William Shatner is going to space.
👋 Hey! It's Laura. And it's a Monday, for sure. Here's the news!
But first, BRB, booking a trip. 💎 A woman found a 4-carat yellow diamond at a state park in Arkansas. And she gets to take it home!!
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📰 "Seven Days of 1961": It was the "deadliest place" for Black people in the USA. That didn’t stop these high school students from changing history.
Major outage knocks out Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp
Everybody OK out there? Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp all went down in a major outage Monday. The social network and the Facebook-owned platforms stopped working around 11:30 a.m. EDT Monday. The outage, one of the longest in Facebook’s history, marooned billions of users who rely on the social media giant and its apps for everything from connecting with friends to running their businesses and logging into websites. The social network and the Facebook-owned platforms stopped working around 11:30 a.m. EDT Monday, according to the site Downdetector.com. At around 5:40 p.m., some users were able to access the platforms, but not all functions were back. Facebook's stock fell by nearly 5% on Monday.
To boldly go where no 90-year-old has gone before 🚀
Space: the final frontier, and Star Trek’s Captain Kirk is rocketing there, for real this time. Jeff Bezos’ space travel company, Blue Origin, announced Monday that sci-fi actor William Shatner, 90, will blast off from West Texas on Oct. 12, becoming the oldest person in space. He’ll join three others – two of them paying customers – aboard a Blue Origin capsule in the company’s second launch with a crew. Bezos was on the debut flight in July, along with his brother and the youngest and oldest to fly in space. Shatner will break that upper threshold by six years. The up-and-down space hop will last 10 minutes and reach about 66 miles high.
What everyone's talking about
Florida's first lady Casey DeSantis diagnosed with breast cancer.
'I'm sick and tired of old men': Billie Eilish slams Texas abortion ban.
Seth Rogen, others back a strike that could bring Hollywood to a halt.
Former NASCAR driver attacked ex-wife, man with a hatchet before he was shot.
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Massive oil spill kills wildlife, shuts down beaches in California
Cleanup crews along Southern California's coast deployed skimmers and attempted to corral oil-slicked ocean waters Monday while wildlife experts scrambled to protect birds and fish from an enormous oil spill that threatened to close beaches for months. The spill left a sheen over miles of ocean and gobs of thick black oil along the shoreline at Huntington Beach, about 30 miles south of downtown Los Angeles, drawing an outcry from environmental groups demanding an end to offshore drilling. More than 125,000 gallons of oil spilled from a pipeline about 4 miles offshore and will wash up for days. Officials said the spill affects about 6 miles of shoreline. Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley said dead birds and fish washed up on the shore, and oil "infiltrated the entirety" of some wetlands.
Devastating images show disastrous oil spill along Southern California coast.
NYC teacher vaccination mandate takes effect
New York City's 148,000 school teachers and staffers must be vaccinated against COVID-19 effective Monday as the nation's largest public school system became one of the first to mandate inoculation. Mayor Bill de Blasio said 95% of all teachers and staffers had been vaccinated as of Monday. Unvaccinated employees will be placed on unpaid leave and not allowed to work this week, de Blasio said. The mandate allows for medical and religious exemptions.
They left their kids to fight a pandemic with no end. Would they do it again?
Real quick
Biden calls for Senate to vote on debt limit increase this week.
Andrew Yang leaves Democratic Party, registers as independent.
Urban Meyer apologizes for viral video of woman dancing on him.
This Iowa couple said 'I do.' 77 years later, they had their wedding photos taken.
Florida man pleads guilty in Jan. 6 fire extinguisher assault on Capitol Police.
Supreme Court (mostly) returns to the courtroom
Consider it another milestone on the nation's journey back to normal: The Supreme Court returned to in-person oral arguments Monday for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Seventeen months after the high court convened by telephone for the first time in its 230-year history in response to the pandemic, the justices filed back into the courtroom and their seats as they kicked off a term fraught with controversial issues such as abortion, gun rights, religion and the death penalty. Most of them, anyway. Because Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh tested positive for the coronavirus last week, he took part remotely. Kavanaugh remained symptom-free Monday, the court said, and there was no indication of illness as he peppered attorneys with questions through a speaker.
Supreme Court rules against giving D.C. a vote in the House.
Challenge to gun ownership ban for felons declined by Supreme Court.
Supreme Court declines case challenging 'sex offender' ID cards.
A break from the news
🤑 Vroom-vroom! Our favorite robot vacuum is on sale at Best Buy.
🏖 Some beach, somewhere: Check out our favorite Florida beach bars.
🛒 20 most popular things our readers bought from Amazon last month.
🗣 Let's play! USA TODAY launched something really fun. It's a new and improved Crossword App! Check it out.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Facebook, Instagram outage, California oil spill, William Shatner, COVID-19 vaccine mandate. It's Monday's news.
