A new change to your Instagram settings may keep you from seeing content from The Washington Post and other news organizations and creators.
Instagram has stopped “proactively” recommending political content posted on accounts that users don’t choose to follow. To do that, Instagram has automatically set the “political content” control to “limit” on user accounts.
The limits also affect users with Threads accounts tied to their Instagram accounts.
The change has triggered an uproar among some users who feel as if Instagram is unnecessarily limiting political discourse in a year that pivotal elections are being held in U.S. and other countries.
Here’s how to get around Instagram’s political limits in just a few steps.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and eight states filed a lawsuit to prevent supermarket giants Kroger and Albertsons from merging.
The grocers claim the union would lower prices and allow them to compete with retail giants like Amazon and Walmart, while regulators said the merger would eliminate competition, accelerate already rising grocery prices and hamper grocery worker unions.
The Post’s Jackson Barton breaks down what the merger might mean for shoppers and employees.
Read more at the link in our bio.
Manizha Talash stands to be one of the most compelling — and unlikely — athletes at the Paris Olympics later this month.
She was the first known female breakdancer in Afghanistan but fled the country after the Taliban returned to power in 2021. With breakdancing making its Olympic debut in Paris, Talash will be stepping onto the world stage.
Talash represents a chance to dance freely, to serve as a symbol of hope to girls and women back in Afghanistan and to send a broader message to the rest of the world.
Read the full story by tapping the link in @washingtonpost ’s bio.
President Biden is “absolutely not” dropping out as the Democratic presidential nominee, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday.
Earlier, Biden and Vice President Harris called in to a campaign meeting to give staff members a pep talk. The activity comes as Biden and aides seek to tamp down continuing Democratic angst over his debate performance last week.
Read our ongoing election coverage at the link in @washingtonpost ’s bio.
Democrats were panicking. Donors were despondent. And some elected officials were privately wondering whether their leader should step aside.
Campaign officials touted their record fundraising on debate day. White House officials promised that Biden would bounce back at his upcoming North Carolina rally. And Jen O’Malley Dillon, the campaign chair, told nervous donors at the Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta on Friday that “nothing fundamentally changed in the race.”
By Tuesday, however, the business-as-usual calm the Biden team sought to impose had backfired, with some Democrats complaining of being gaslit.
Read more at the link in @coveringpolitics ’s bio.
Three years after President Biden hoped July 4, 2021, would mark the country’s independence from covid, the coronavirus is still here as new variants drive yet another summer uptick.
If you’re hearing about more people testing positive or getting sick, it’s no surprise, as data shows another wave forming, especially in the West.
Covid infections are growing in nearly all states.
Read the latest with the coronavirus at the link in our bio.
The first presidential debate of the 2024 election saw President Biden noticeably stumbling at times, while former president Donald Trump based many of his answers around falsehoods that went unchallenged by the debate moderators.
Trump, 78, and Biden, 81, are making history as the two oldest major-party candidates in the United States to seek the presidency. They are also both at least 16 years older than the median age of world leaders.
Here’s what some young voters had to say about the candidates’ performance in the debate and how it will affect their vote in November.
Lexington, Miss. is home to roughly 1,500 people and a small police force. Last year, the Justice Department launched an investigation into the practices of that police force, largely thanks to the efforts of one woman: civil rights attorney Jill Collen Jefferson.
Jefferson has filed lawsuits alleging false arrests, excessive force and worse by the police department in Lexington. And in June of 2023, she found herself in the same position as many of her clients: arrested by the police, in the back of a police cruiser.
Read more about Jefferson’s work at the link in our bio.
Reteti Elephant Sanctuary is creating innovative ways to care for community and rewild orphaned elephants threatened by climate change.
Read more about @r.e.s.c.u.e by tapping the link in @washingtonpost ’s bio.
The crowd of about 30 demonstrators that gathered at the Boston Common park in late April had a message to share. They were energetic and loud. They came armed with slogans, which they plastered on colorful poster boards and yelled in rhyming chants as passersby gawked. After about 40 minutes of demonstrating, they marched to the offices of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority to deliver their agenda.
And two months later, they got what they wanted. On Wednesday, the agency emailed the campaign organizers to inform them that Boston’s public transit network, the T, had acceded to their single demand.
The MBTA, in the face of public pressure, stuck large, cartoonish googly eyes on the front of several of its trains.
Read the full story by tapping the link in our bio.
When Einav Zangauker’s son was dragged into Gaza on Oct. 7, she trusted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would do everything possible to bring him home.
For two months, she barely ventured outside, refusing to meet with public figures, paralyzed by the fear that voicing her anguish could endanger her son’s release.
“I thought, Netanyahu is ‘Mr. Security,’ he’s delivered Israel through many wars,” she recalled. “I thought, I believe in him and I need to give him a chance.”
Her patience has long since run out. After months of failed diplomacy aimed at freeing the more than 100 captives still held by Hamas — “dozens” are still alive, Israeli officials say, though no one knows exactly how many — Zangauker has been at the forefront of swelling anti-government protests, uniting disillusioned hostage families and their supporters. They believe Netanyahu is torpedoing a deal to return their loved ones and end the war in Gaza — and must be driven from power.
Read the full story by tapping the link in our bio.
Anecdotal reports about a global rise in head-lice cases have prompted warnings from some experts about a popular, universal activity among children and teenagers: taking selfies.
The itchy parasites are typically spread through direct head-to-head contact. And getting close for group selfies — which often means pressing two or more heads together to fit into a cellphone frame — could give head lice an opportunity to crawl from one head to another.
Selfies “serve as a significant transmission source,” said Federico Galassi, a researcher with the Pest and Insecticide Research Center in Buenos Aires.
At the link in bio, read more about claims of a lice resurgence, plus how to avoid the creatures and what to do if you have them, via @washingtonpost .
Illustration: Emily Sabens/The Washington Post
