RENTON, Wash. — Russell Wilson is sticking around with the Seattle Seahawks as the highest paid player in the NFL. Wilson posted a video on social media early Tuesday saying, "Seattle, we got a deal," shortly after agreeing to a $140 million, four-year extension with the Seahawks, his agent Mark Rodgers...
TSA’s Social Media Highlight Weird Stuff in Travelers’ Bags
WASHINGTON — David Johnston stands over a table full of peculiar items confiscated at Dulles International Airport: a glittery clutch with brass knuckles as a clasp. A perfume bottle shaped like a grenade. A rusted circular saw blade. A pocket-sized pitchfork. None of those is quite right. Then Johnston sees...
Facebook Says Service Hindered by Lack of Local News
NEW YORK — Facebook's effort to establish a service that provides its users with local news and information is being hindered by the lack of outlets where the company's technicians can find original reporting. The service, launched last year, is currently available in some 400 cities in the United States....
Beto O’Rourke Wants to Be Your Favorite GOP Democrat
AUSTIN, Texas — Former Texas Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke jumped into the 2020 presidential race Thursday, shaking up the already packed field and pledging to win over voters from both major parties as he tries to translate his political celebrity into a formidable White House bid. After months of ignoring...
Can Zuckerberg Really Make a Privacy-Friendly Facebook?
SAN FRANCISCO — After building a social network that turned into a surveillance system, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he's shifting his company's focus to messaging services designed to serve as fortresses of privacy. Instead of just being the network that connects everyone, Facebook wants to encourage small groups of people to...
Elderly, Conservatives Shared More Facebook Fakery in 2016
WASHINGTON — Sharing false information on Facebook is old. People over 65 and ultra conservatives shared about seven times more fake information masquerading as news on the social media site than younger adults, moderates and super liberals during the 2016 election season, a new study finds. The first major study...
Fed Workers Share $0.00 Shutdown Pay Stubs on Social Media
OGDEN, Utah — Federal workers received pay stubs Friday with nothing but zeroes on them as the effects of the government shutdown hit home, deepening anxieties about mortgage payments and unpaid bills. All told, an estimated 800,000 government employees missed their paychecks for the first time since the shutdown began three...
California Inferno Gives Rise to Family-Reuniting ‘Angels’
SAN FRANCISCO — They have become known as the Angels of Paradise. But there is nothing ethereal about them. They are online sleuths who know how to find people, and they have been putting their skills to use in the aftermath of California's catastrophic wildfire. In the dark days that...
Should You Need to Pass a Social Media Check to Get a Gun?
ALBANY, N.Y. — Should hateful tweets keep you from getting a gun? That's a question many have asked after suspects in several horrific mass shootings were found only later to have left social media hints of violence that went unheeded for years. Now a New York lawmaker has introduced a...
Law Enforcement Faces Dilemma in Assessing Online Threats
BOISE, Idaho — Their anger is all over social media for the whole world to see, with rants about minorities, relationships gone bad or paranoid delusions about perceived slights. The perpetrators of mass shootings often provide a treasure trove of insight into their violent tendencies, but the information is not...