Just wanted to take a second to point out that BreakingNews has a new vertical tonight — @BreakingPol, which we’ve been keeping a close eye on tonight.
Around 89 percent of Syrians approved a new constitution, proposed by President Bashar al-Assad, in a referendum on Sunday, state television said on Monday.
Constitutional reforms are aimed at quelling the growing rebellion against the Assad family’s 42 years in power, but Assad’s opponents and the West have the dismissed the reforms and the referendum as a sham.
Turnout in the referendum was 57.4 percent, state television said.
Live blog: The conflict in Syria - latest news, photos and videos
Latest story: New Syria constitution wins 89.4 percent approval - report
Will Assad use this as an excuse to continue the anti-rebel crackdown? Seems like it so far.
What if you were the first person on the beat of a major news story, and you beat everyone by like an hour? That was the situation of Aja Dior M. (Twitter handle @AjaDiorNavy), who was the very first person to post about the death of Whitney Houston last Saturday. Yes, she broke it. But as you can see in this graph above, a total of 16 people touched the tweet at first. When AP finally broke the news nearly an hour later, that’s when it went viral. It wasn’t until hours later that the media noticed that she had scooped them. Why is that? Gilad Lotan of SocialFlow argues that her network wasn’t built out in a way that would encourage the spread of this info beyond a small group. “We’ve seen this many times before,” he writes. ”The combination of the right timing, network and topicality make or break an information cascade.”
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules that Prop 8 is unconstitutional
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has issued its long-awaited opinion on whether Proposition 8 violates the civil rights of gay men and lesbians.
Proposition 8 was a 2008 California ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage. In August 2010, a federal judge struck down the ban, which was left in place during the appeals process.
Photo: Activists on courthouse steps earlier this morning. (Terry McSweeney/ABC7 San Francisco)
Trying to get the decision, which will publish over here. Will post when we can access it.
New York Giants win Superbowl
Final score:
New York Giants - 21
New England Patriots - 17Photo: New York Giants running back Ahmad Bradshaw (44) runs through a hole in the line during the first half. (Mark Humphrey / AP )
Down to the last play. That was a good one.
Just posted to the university’s website:
Shortly after noon today, a Virginia Tech police officer stopped a vehicle on campus during a routine traffic stop in the Coliseum parking lot near McComas Hall
During the traffic stop. the officer was shot and killed. There were witnesses to this shooting.
Witnesses reported to police the shooter fled on foot heading toward the Cage, a parking lot near Duck Pond Drive. At that parking lot, a second person was found. That person is also deceased.
Several law enforcement agencies have responded to assist. Virginia State Police has been requested to take lead in the investigation
The status of the shooter is unknown. The campus community should continue to shelter in place and visitors should not come to campus.
Our thoughts are with the Virginia Tech campus.
kohenari asks: Does it qualify as “Breaking News” when someone confirms that a person who hasn’t been a suspect for thirty years still isn’t a suspect?
» SFB says: Considering they’re re-opening the case all of a sudden based on the words of a guy who says Robert Wagner should be a suspect, I can see why AP put it out as breaking. By opening up the investigation, it made it seem like they were suddenly making him a suspect; this officially clears things up. — Ernie @ SFB
Anthony de Rosa, social media editor at Reuters, suggests that the wire itself is at fault. “If Twitter is beating the wire, the wire is not doing its job, assuming that Twitter information is accurate,” he says.
The challenge lies in developing a verification system that can move at the speed of Twitter. “Our first responsibility is to be accurate. Twitter may be fast but it’s not always right,” de Rosa says. Reuters is looking at ways to develop a system that is both accurate and fast — because if it doesn’t, it’ll be left behind, he says. “If we or anyone else ignores Twitter, they’re not going to be competitive.”
Important part bolded for emphasis. Here’s our take on the matter from earlier.
The arrest came after James Murdoch was questioned over phone hacking allegations stemming from the now-closed newspaper “News of the World.”
Edit: It appears Sky News has removed their tweet. Here is a screen grab of what it looked like originally.
Edit 2: The business news account for Sky News on Twitter was likely compromised, according to a producer.
In 2007, I was...
I started tumblr when I was at one of the lowest points of...
Exclusive: How the Syrian Electronic Army hacked the...
soon
Yahumblr.
Google found the...
There is increasing confirmation that Gaddhafi has indeed been captured. Al Jazeera English is reporting that Libyan TV is reporting his capture.
Will be curious as to see what comes of all this. No offense to the NTC, but we’ve been burned before.
BREAKING NEWS: Steve Jobs has died, Apple reports.
CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP. :( Sad day, all.
Breaking News? More like broken news. Bummer. Hope their technical issues get cleaned up soon. EDIT: Fixed!
Journalists were given a 20-minute tour of the crash site on Saturday where a plane dived into the crowd at the Reno air race one day before. The crash killed nine people and injured over 50.
The large crater we mentioned in our last post is very obvious here.
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