1 It's Indoors Inauguration Day For President Trump
President-elect Donald Trump will officially become the 47th president today at noon Eastern time, but it’s going to look different than it was planned to look as late as Friday. Due to below-freezing temperatures as low as five to 10 degrees wind chill at noon, Trump will be sworn in inside the Capitol Rotunda with a much more limited audience. He has said he’ll deliver his inauguration address inside the Capitol Rotunda as well once he’s sworn in. Because of the changes, “the vast majority of ticketed guests will not be able to attend the ceremonies in person,” the Joint Inaugural Committee announced, adding that “Those with tickets for the Presidential Platform and members of Congress will be able to attend in person.” Capital One Arena, the site of last night’s victory rally, will be opened for roughly 20-thousand people to watch the inauguration live on monitors, and then be there for the Presidential Parade. US Capitol Police said over the weekend that the ticketed outside areas on the West Front of the Capitol will be closed today. The House Sergeant at Arms asked congressional offices to tell constituents who were given tickets to the event that those tickets are now “commemorative.”
2 TikTok Goes Away, Then Comes Right Back
TikTok is gone, long live TikTok. The ByteDance-owned app shut down on Saturday, giving users a message when they tried to log in explaining the reason for the shutdown and mentioning the company’s hope that President-elect Trump would work a deal out to keep them around. Yesterday, TikTok apparently received the assurances they were looking for when Trump announced he would give the company a 90-day stay on the ban going into effect, and the app returned to normal operation with a thank-you message to the president-elect. For now, the only way to avoid the ban going back into effect in 90 days is for ByteDance to sell TikTok, something the company has shown no interest in doing. The disappearance of the app over the weekend stoked the controversy and discontent among its 170-million US users even further. A man is accused of setting the officer of Republican Rep. Glenn Grothman on fire in Wisconsin around 1 am Sunday, while the app was still down. The 19-year-old suspect allegedly told police he was motivated to set the fire by Grothman’s yes vote on the TikTok ban back in April.
3 Israel-Hamas Cease-Fire Begins, Some Prisoners Released
The long-sought ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect yesterday morning, and there were immediate results. Hostages held in the Gaza Strip were freed, as were Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Yesterday also saw more than 550 humanitarian aid trucks enter Gaza with food and fuel. While the ceasefire is holding, tensions are still high in the Middle East.
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