Donald Trump

The alternative social network MeWe had 12 million users at the end of 2020. Barely three weeks into 2021 — and two since a right-wing mob attacked the U.S. Capitol — the company says it's now passed 16 million.

CEO Mark Weinstein says this popularity is a testament to the reason he launched MeWe in 2016 as an alternative to Facebook. MeWe markets itself as privacy forward. It doesn't harness users' data to sell ads or decide what content to show them.

Updated at 6:58 p.m. ET

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the sole article of impeachment for incitement to insurrection against former President Donald Trump will be delivered to the Senate on Monday and a trial against the Republican will begin the week of Feb. 8.

"The Senate will conduct a trial on the impeachment of Donald Trump," Schumer said Friday on the Senate floor. "It will be a fair trial. But make no mistake, there will be a trial."

The Biden administration continued its swift sweep of the leadership at the Voice of America and its parent agency on Thursday. It pushed out VOA's director, a Trump ally named Robert R. Reilly who had been appointed just last month.

According to two people with knowledge, Reilly and his deputy, former State Department official Elizabeth Robbins, were escorted from the building. Robbins has told colleagues she is on "administrative leave."

President Biden plans to sign an order on Friday that will toss a plan that would have made it easier to fire top career civil servants and hire political appointees into high-ranking positions — a practice known as "burrowing."

Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading immunologist who became a household name for his work on the White House coronavirus response team, described working under the Biden administration as "liberating" from past fears of retribution from his previous boss: former President Donald Trump.

Two weeks ago, Facebook indefinitely suspended former President Donald Trump from its social network and Instagram, after a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the risks of allowing Trump to keep using the social network were "too great."

Now, Facebook wants its newly formed independent oversight board to weigh in and decide whether it should reinstate Trump.

Updated at 5:50 p.m. ET

A federal judge has refused to restore the social media site Parler after Amazon kicked the company off of its Web-hosting services over content seen as inciting violence.

The decision is a blow to Parler, an upstart that has won over Trump loyalists for its relatively hands-off approach to moderating content. The company sued Amazon over its ban, demanding reinstatement.

Former President Donald Trump did not declare martial law in his final minutes in office; nor did he reveal a secret plan to remain in power forever. President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were not sent to Guantánamo Bay. The military did not rise up and arrest Democratic leaders en masse.

Instead, Biden took the oath of office and became the 46th U.S. president on Wednesday.

For some supporters of QAnon, this was an earth-shattering turn of events. Or rather, nonevents.

China imposed sanctions Wednesday on 28 former Trump administration officials, including outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

In a statement released just minutes after President Biden took office, China's foreign ministry said it had decided to sanction those "who have seriously violated China's sovereignty and who have been mainly responsible for such U.S. moves on China-related issues."