Top News Stories –

‘Beauty and the Beast’ Teaser Tops ‘Star Wars: Force Awakens’ in First Day –
The first teaser trailer for Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast was viewed a record 91.8 million times in its first 24 hours — besting previous champ Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as well as Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Age of Ultron (each of them Disney films as well). The second teaser trailer for Force Awakens garnered 88 million views, followed by 61 million views for Captain America: Civil War, 55 million views for the second teaser for Force Awakens, and 34 million views for Avengers: Age of Ultron, according to Disney. [Hollywood Reporter] See Video of the Day

Norway consumer body stages live app terms reading –
Norwegians have spent more than 30 hours reading out terms and conditions from smartphone apps in a campaign by the country’s consumer agency. The average Norwegian has 33 apps, the Norwegian Consumer Council says, whose terms and conditions together run longer than the New Testament. To prove the “absurd” length, the council got Norwegians to read each of them out in real time on their website. The reading finished on Wednesday, clocking in at 31:49:11. [BBC]

Video of the Day –

Beauty and the Beast Official US Teaser Trailer

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

• War in Afghanistan (2015–present)
  • The Afghan Taliban announces that Haibatullah Akhundzada will be its new leader replacing Akhtar Mansour who died recently in a drone strike. Sirajuddin Haqqani and Mullah Yaqoob are named as deputy leaders. (Al-Jazeera)
  • A suicide bomb attack kills at least 10 people and injures four people travelling on a bus for appeals court staff travelling west of Kabul. (Reuters via Yahoo! News)

Business and economy

• Greek financial crisis
  • The Eurozone agrees to a €10.3 billion ($11.48 billion) bailout package for Greece. (The Guardian)

International relations

• Russia–Ukraine relations, War in Donbass
  • Ukrainian pilot and parliamentarian Nadiya Savchenko, who has been detained in Russia since 2014, arrives home following a dramatic prisoner swap with Russia. (Reuters)

Politics and elections

• In the United States, Hillary Clinton is criticized by the State Department’s inspector general for her usage of a private email server while she was secretary of state. The finding also concluded though that former secretary of state Colin Powell also had a private email server, as did former ambassador to Kenya Scott Gration. The inspector referred to the email server usage as “longstanding systemic weaknesses”. (New York Times)

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