Tariq Ramadan, a prominent Islamic scholar, has been released on bail after being held in detention for nearly 10 months over charges of sexual assault, his lawyer said.

A Paris Court of Appeal granted the 56-year-old Swiss academic bail on Thursday even as the investigation into the case continues.

“Where would I flee to,” he asked during his hearing, his first public appearance since the arrest in February.

His bail was set at 300,000 euros ($340,000) and it requires him to hand over his passport and report to police once a week.

Ramadan, who is accused of rape on two separate counts, has long denied having sexual relations with the plaintiffs.

One accuser is a disabled woman identified in media reports as “Christelle” and the other is a feminist activist, Henda Ayari.

That changed last month when Ramadan admitted that encounters did take place but that the acts in question were consensual.

In the court on Thursday, Ramadan said he did not intend to become a fugitive from the law, adding his multiple sclerosis meant he couldn’t walk properly.

“I will remain in France and defend my honour and my innocence,” he told the judges in what was his fourth bid to secure freedom.

“I would like you to make your decision from your conscience, not because my name is Tariq Ramadan and I’m demonised in this country.”

His lawyer Emmanuel Marsigny told Reuters news agency, “Ramadan’s release… demonstrated that the rape accusations against him were lies.”

Ramadan also faces criminal complaints of rape by women in the United States and Switzerland.

Once hailed as a religious reformer, Ramadan’s career has been brought to a halt since his arrest earlier this year.

He portrayed his accusers as liars bending media attention in the case to their benefit, asking: “Who has instrumentalised the ‘Me Too’ movement?”

“I have never raped, I am not a rapist. It’s true that I made a mistake,” he said.

But Ayari’s lawyer Francis Szpiner said the two “women were regularly threatened”.

Ramadan, whose grandfather founded Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, was a professor at Oxford University until he was forced to take leave when the rape allegations surfaced at the height of the #MeToo movement late last year.

His supporters have strenuously rejected the allegations, characterising them as part of a concerted effort to defame the academic.

SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies

Referees at some grassroots football matches are planning to use the rock, paper, scissors game at kick-off to show support for a suspended official.

They are angry at the decision to ban David McNamara after he used the same method in place of a coin toss.

McNamara accidentally left his coin in the dressing room before the televised WSL match between Manchester City and Reading on 26 October.

A coin toss to decide kick-offs is a requirement under the laws of the game.

One referee told BBC Sport why he would use rock, paper, scissors at the start of a junior match this weekend.

“I will be doing it to show support. It will probably serve as a light-hearted way to introduce myself to both captains,” said the Derbyshire-based ref, who asked to remain anonymous.

“Others will do so as well but not admit it publicly for fear of reprimand.

“I’ll have a coin just in case anyone is unhappy but I don’t see it being an issue. Rock, paper, scissors is an equally fair way of doing things.

“The suspended ref has shown initiative and thought quickly on his feet. The whole thing is a bit ridiculous and massively out of proportion.”

The BBC is aware of several others who, in protest at the Football Association’s suspension of McNamara, plan to use RPS – as the rock, paper, scissors game is now being described among the referee community.

It is unclear how many officials at amateur matches will follow suit, with estimates ranging from dozens to hundreds.

Another referee pointed to the challenges they face and referred to Sunday’s incident where Daniel Sweeney suffered a broken jaw when he was attacked following an amateur match in the Republic of Ireland.

“All current research shows a decline in the number of refs – I suspect because of the abuse and assaults they can suffer,” he said.

“Yet here the FA is punishing a perfectly able and qualified ref for the most menial of things. Why would you want to take up the whistle?”

Former referees’ boss Keith Hackett has questioned the suspension, and has written a letter of complaint to FA chief executive Martin Glenn.

“It’s an injustice. I think he has been treated very harshly,” said Hackett, who was a referee for 40 years and led the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) for six years until 2010.

“He’s under time pressure and gone out to the middle and forgotten the coin. I know refs in a similar situation who put a whistle in one hand behind their back and said: ‘Which one?’”

McNamara accepted a charge of “not acting in the best interests of the game” but is understood to be surprised by the subsequent sanction.

The laws of the game state that a coin toss must take place at kick-off to decide in which direction ball will be first kicked.

Yet unlike a whistle, watch and cards, a coin is not listed as a compulsory item of the match official’s equipment.

FA women’s refereeing manager Joanna Stimpson told The Times earlier this week that McNamara’s lack of a coin was “very unprofessional”.

She called it a “moment of madness” – a comment Hackett has described as unacceptable.

He said the official was under “time pressure” and that rather than a suspension “should have received a phone call and been given some operational advice”.

The FA declined to comment further than its statement issued earlier in the week, which said that McNamara had been suspended for 21 days, and would return to duty on 17 December.

Privately it is thought the FA views the McNamara case as “unique” but that it has a duty to treat WSL matches in a similar way to the Premier League and he failed to carry out his duties.

The potential need to deal with similar actions by other referees is considered “hypothetical” at this stage.

Ref Support UK, a charity which offers advice and information to the estimated 28,000 referees in the country, said those around McNamara’s level might only be paid around £45 a match, plus expenses.

“Most Sunday league referees probably get £20,” said chief executive Martin Cassidy.

His organisation has advised McNamara to appeal against the length of his suspension and has called for the equipment rule to be altered so that coins are included.

“This is a punishment that does not fit the crime,” he added.

Asked about referees planning to use rock, paper, scissors this weekend, he said: “We cannot condone any action that could lead to a referee being charged by their county FA.

“However, we know there is a strength of feeling and a willingness from people up and down the country to show solidarity.”

Baby’s first screen time

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), parents should wait until a child is at least two years old before exposing them to digital media— in other words, plopping an 8-month-old in front of a passive screen like TV or tablets to occupy them is probably not optimal. Moreover, the jury is still out on whether “educational” apps are truly beneficial for babies, so experts suggest exercising common sense when it comes to setting boundaries for digital programming.

But some studies have found that not all screen time is detrimental. Specifically, screen time that encourages parent/infant bonding and interaction may actually be beneficial to early development. Some activities like interactive video calling, where babies communicate with a parent or another human virtually, have been found to help babies learn.

To establish healthy tech practices as a family, the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests a “balanced approach” to media in the home. Consider what your daily tech use is and be mindful of what your infant is being exposed to, as by 9 months old, babies are already imitating gestures and mimicking adult behavior. Be a role model when using technology: Put away smartphones during meal time, treat devices with care, and interact with digital assistants like Alexa using a polite and respectful tone — use phrases like “Please” and “Thank you” — to demonstrate behaviors you’d like to instill upon your children as they grow up.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – As a lawyer, Liew Vui Keong helped one of his clients appeal successfully against a death sentence.

Now, as Malaysia’s minister in charge of law, he is working to get the death penalty abolished in it entirety.

The legislation could be introduced in parliament before the house finishes its current sitting in the middle of next month.

“We have made a decision and I don’t think we are going to make a U-turn,” Liew, the de facto law minister, told Al Jazeera. He said studies showed that capital punishment was not an effective deterrent.

“The [only] question is whether we can do it in this session [of parliament] or the next.”

Abolition of the death penalty was part of the election manifesto of the coalition that took power in May, the country’s first change in government in six decades.

With the repeal, it joins only a handful of countries in the Asia-Pacific that have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, and hands a reprieve to the 1,281 people who were on death row as of October 29.

A moratorium on all executions – Malaysia hangs those found guilty of capital crimes – is already in force.

Death row inmates are held in solitary confinement from the time of their conviction, and allowed out of their cells for just an hour each day, according to those allowed to visit them.

Many have been there for years as their appeals make their way through the courts; a process lawyers say can take at least a decade.

About one-quarter have been found guilty of murder.

Balancing feelings

Some families, including relatives of murdered activist Bill Kayong and deputy public prosecutor Kevin Morais, have already said they don’t support the abolition.

Last week’s death of an 11-month-old baby, suspected of being abused in the care of a babysitter, has also prompted calls to maintain the death penalty for the most serious crimes.

“This is where I have to balance the feelings of the family of the victims who were murdered,” Liew told Al Jazeera. “The Pardons Board can sit now to decide whether they want to commute that particular person to either life imprisonment or imprisonment for life.”

The start of that sentence should also date from the time the board makes its decision on the offender, rather than the date at which they were originally convicted, he added.

“The government must not take a blanket approach to deal with death row inmates upon abolition,” the Anti-Death Penalty Coalition of Malaysia, a civil society group formed last month, said in a statement. “The government must review each case individually as some of these crimes do not deserve the death penalty in the first place.”

It’s a view echoed by the Malaysian Bar. Sentences should be proportionate to the severity of the offence committed, its president George Varughese said. 

Nearly three-quarters of those facing execution are people who have been found guilty of contravening Malaysia’s harsh drug laws.

Until earlier this year, anyone found with a certain amount of drugs – 200 grams for cannabis and 15 grams for heroin – was considered a trafficker and faced a mandatory death sentence.

But recent amendments to Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act gave judges the option to sentence an offender to life in prison with 15 strokes of the cane, providing certain conditions were met.

‘I prayed’

Restaurant worker Shahrul Izani Suparman liked to play football and hang out with his friends in his village in Selangor, a state on Malaysia’s west coast.

But when he was 19 he was stopped at a police roadblock and arrested after officers found 622 grams of cannabis hidden in the motorbike he’d borrowed from a friend.

Six years later he was sentenced to death – at that time the only option available to the judge – and transferred to death row where he found himself in a cell close to the “bilik akhir” – the final room – where inmates are taken the night before their execution.

“I prayed,” Sapenah Nawawi, Shahrul Izani’s mother, recalls in an interview through a translator. “I thought if this is what is fated then I accept it. But if my son has a chance to live I hope he does.”

Many of the prisoners had been abandoned by their families who couldn’t handle the social stigma of having a relative convicted to death, Shahrul Izani told her.

He thanked his mother for sticking by him.

In December 2016, with Shahrul Izani’s appeals exhausted, prison officials called the family and asked them to come – all of them – for a special meeting.

Sapenah remembers the drive to the jail was tense. Everyone was worried it might be the last time they would see Shahrul Izani.

But when they sat down with the officials, it turned out the Sultan of Selangor, following a global campaign, had decided to commute his sentence to life in prison.

“When we heard the news we were so happy,” she said. Everyone was in tears.

Sapenah supports the government’s decision to abolish the death penalty.

“A life sentence is good enough,” she said. “It gives people a chance to repent and come out of prison a better person.”

Miscarriages of justice

A year ago, South Korean student Kim Yun-soung was facing the death penalty on a charge of drug trafficking after being found with 219 grams of marijuana in a house south of Kuala Lumpur.

But the aircraft engineering student was freed after the main witness – the arresting officer – admitted lying about who was in the house at the time of the raid.

The police officer insisted in court there had been no one else at the scene of the arrest, but CCTV footage obtained by the defence clearly showed a second person in handcuffs.

“I am so happy and relieved and cannot describe my feelings,” Kim’s grandmother told the local media through tears of joy after he was acquitted.

Research from the Penang Institute, a think-tank, examining 289 capital cases found “inconsistency and a high judicial error rate” when it came to the death penalty in Malaysia.

Using legal publication databases, the institute found on average more than one-quarter of High Court judgements and half of Court of Appeal decisions were overturned by the immediate higher courts, mostly in relation to evidence.

“Decisions made by the high court have more than a one-in-four chance of being overturned,” the October 30 report noted.

The type of offence, the accused’s ethnicity, nationality and even the location of the offence were all found to contribute to the errors, while women were far less likely to be acquitted in drug trafficking cases than men.

Lim Chee Han, one of the report’s authors, said its findings were further evidence of the need for the death penalty’s abolition.

“It’s quite big considering this is a life and death matter,” he told Al Jazeera.

‘A new era’

About 44 percent of death row inmates in Malaysia are foreign nationals with the largest group from Nigeria, followed by Indonesia and Iran.

The Philippines is still reconciling the number of its nationals on death row. The embassy said there are “at least 50”, including a group of nine who were sentenced to death for their part in the armed incursion into a settlement in southern Sabah.

It would like to see the commutation of sentences take into account each individual’s crime.

“We are hoping the law will be more nuanced in terms of the severity of the crime,” Ambassador Charles Jose told Al Jazeera.

Liew said the priority now is to secure cross-party support to ensure the abolition’s smooth passage through parliament. The cabinet has already directed all ministries to get feedback on the repeal.

At least 32 offences across eight different pieces of legislation currently carry the death penalty, and in some cases the sentence is mandatory.

All will need to be amended for the abolition to become a reality.

Liew and his staff look queasy as they recall a recent visit to prison where officers explained how executions are carried out.

The inmate gets 48 hours notice and is moved to “the final room” the night before. 

“It’s just 15 seconds,” Liew said of the time it takes from the hood being placed over the prisoner’s head to their death on the gallows. 

WBC world heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder has warned he will be Tyson Fury’s “worst nightmare” and show he is a “gift from God” on 1 December.

The American, 33, says he is “over prepared” for the Los Angeles bout and feels Fury has shown nerves in adding trainer Freddie Roach to his team.

Roach has said he will be Fury’s cut man and work under trainer Ben Davison.

“They can instruct him, motivate him but there’s only one man in the ring,” said Wilder. “It ain’t no team thing.”

“When you get multiples of trainers, for me that is nervous behaviour.”

‘Tyson will miss uncle Peter’

Former two-weight world champion Ricky Hatton and coach Asgar Tair – who was part of Fury’s team when he beat Wladimir Klitschko in 2015 – will also be in the Briton’s corner at the Staples Center.

Fury has been sparring at Roach’s Los Angeles gym, a sign Wilder feels shows his rival “couldn’t take” the challenge presented by the altitude of his base earlier in camp in Big Bear, California.

Footage from inside Roach’s Wild Card Boxing Gym has shown the Hall of Fame trainer conducting pad sessions with the 30-year-old challenger, though Davison has insisted he is “in charge”.

In a wide-ranging conference call with global media, Wilder explained his belief Fury will be worse off for no longer working with his uncle, former trainer Peter Fury, who guided him to victory over Klitschko.

“It can work for him as four brains are better than one but it can also work against him – too many chiefs in the village,” said Wilder. “All the trainers will have egos.

“Peter knows him in and out. When you don’t have that trainer who knows you who was with you from day one, you see [look for other trainers] who will be the best but they don’t know you.

“Your style is what it is, it was created by someone else. It doesn’t matter who he brings in. Everything he has learned will go out of the window.”

‘You can’t prepare for this nightmare’

Wilder – who has 40 wins from 40 bouts – told reporters that his fight against Fury will make clear who the world’s best heavyweight is, despite Anthony Joshua holding three of the four major titles.

He stated it is his “strong opinion” that Britain’s Joshua cannot beat him, Fury or Cuba’s Luis Ortiz.

‘The Bronze Bomber’ instead said he was energised at the prospect of competing in “the biggest fight in the world” and claims he was ready for the bout “last week”, resulting in his own training now being eased as he is “so ahead of schedule”.

Wilder, who has based himself in his home city of Tuscaloosa, says his sparring partners have given him “great looks” on what to expect from Fury and that his rival cannot find partners of his own to “reflect” the style he will offer.

“They can have tall guys, guys who are strong, fast guys with a real jab but it will never be a full Deontay Wilder,” he added. “You’ll never find that. I have never been by the textbook. I love my style. No one can understand it or figure me out.

“Everyone will realise I am special. I am a gift from God. I’m going to be his worst nightmare.

“This is my coming out party, somewhere I should have been a long time ago. Difficulties in the sport and my life didn’t allow me to have some things.

“In this fight I think a lot of people will wake up. You have denied me and hated on me for so long.

“No one is going to beat me on this special day. I do it for my children. I’m the realest fighter in the world and some people can’t handle real.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has responded to many of the claims in a lengthy investigation from the New York Times, which claimed the social network’s leaders were reluctant to address how Russia manipulated the social network to interfere with the 2016 election.

In a conference call with reporters, Zuckerberg acknowledged that the company was slow to act, but denied that it had hindered investigations by its security team.

“I’ve said many times we were too slow to spot Russian interference,” Zuckerberg said. “To suggest we weren’t interested in knowing the truth or wanted to hide what we knew or wanted to prevent investigations is simply untrue.”

The New York Times report, which was based on months of investigation and dozens of interviews, had said that Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, and the company’s Chief Security Officer, Alex Stamos, had clashed over how to deal with Russian interference. Tensions between the two had been previously reported, but the latest report went much farther, stating that Sandberg had admonished Stamos for investigating the issue without prior approval and for his discussions with Facebook’s board.

The report also detailed Facebook’s work with Definers, a public relations and consulting firm whose staffers directed inflammatory coverage of Apple and other Facebook rivals. 

Zuckerberg repeatedly said that he had only learned of Facebook’s work with Definers from the NYT report and that Sandberg was also previously unaware of the relationship. When asked who was aware, Zuckerberg simply said “someone on our comms team must have hired them.” As COO, Facebook’s corporate communications team is under the purview of Sandberg.

“As soon as I read it, I looked into whether this is the type of firm we want to be working with, and we stopped working with them,” he said. “We certainly never asked them to spread anything that wasn’t true.”

Facebook had previously published a blog post stating that “our relationship with Definers was well known by the media” but that the company had ended its contract with the firm. 

The occasion for the press call was Facebook’s latest transparency report, which details how the company enforces its community standards that govern content on the platform. In addition to new stats on takedowns of fake accounts, spam and other problematic content, the company plans to create an “independent body” to handle appeals of content decisions, Zuckerberg said.

Watch the best moments from day seven of the ICC Women’s World Twenty20 as India beat Ireland to reach the semi-finals and New Zealand end their losing streak with a 54-run win over Pakistan.

WATCH MORE: Ireland well beaten as India take ‘team hat-trick’

Image: Christophe Morin/IP3/Getty Images

Facebook spent much of Thursday attempting to quell the fire caused by the New York Times’ report about executive inaction and politicking on Facebook’s many crises over the past three years. 

It also chose Thursday to publish its latest note from Mark Zuckerberg about some of the “toughest issues” Facebook is addressing. Thursday’s note, the second in this series, addressed “Content Governance and Enforcement.”

“Just as a free society will always have crime and our expectation of government is not to eliminate all crime but to effectively manage and reduce it, our community will also always face its share of abuse,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Our job is to keep the misuse low, consistently improve over time, and stay ahead of new threats.”

Zuckerberg’s first note, published in September, covered how Facebook was combatting election interference. The second note now includes Zuckerberg’s outline for challenges in content management; how Facebook will continuously define the content that is and is not allowed on Facebook, how it will police that content with both human reviewers and artificial intelligence, how it will mitigate the dissemination of what Zuckerberg calls inflammatory “borderline content,” Facebook’s approach to government regulation, and systems for “independent oversight and transparency.”

To that end, one of the most significant announcements was the creation of an “independent body” to review content decisions. Zuckerberg wrote:

In the next year, we’re planning to create a new way for people to appeal content decisions to an independent body, whose decisions would be transparent and binding. The purpose of this body would be to uphold the principle of giving people a voice while also recognizing the reality of keeping people safe.

The body will take some important content monitoring decisions out of the hands of Facebook. Zuckerberg wrote that Facebook is mulling over how to select members of the body, what their scope and processes will be, and more. 

Zuckerberg told reporters on a call Thursday that “The basic approach is if you’re not happy after your appeal, then you can appeal to this board or higher body.”

The independent body is very much in the preliminary stages at this point, though Facebook hopes to have it established by the end of 2019. 

Zuckerberg also shared some statistics, challenges, and other priorities of content reviewing. He wrote that content “nuances” account for a surprisingly high amount of what Facebook considers violating content.

“Today, depending on the type of content, our review teams make the wrong call in more than 1 out of every 10 cases,” Zuckerberg wrote. “It’s important to remember though that given the size of our community, even if we were able to reduce errors to 1 in 100, that would still be a very large number of mistakes.”

The note also addresses how Facebook will approach challenges algorithmic bias, the idea that sensationalist news is some of the content people engage the most with, proactive content removal, regulation, and more. 

Facebook is clearly looking at this prismatic problem from many sides, and attempting to improve in earnest; it will even issue quarterly “transparency reports” now to show its progress on content reviewing.

Facebook likes to say it was “too slow” to address the problems it’s now grappling with, including how Russia set out to manipulate conversation on the social network in the lead-up to the 2016 election. The question is whether the tens of thousands of employee-strong initiatives Facebook is undertaking now is enough to eradicate the rot that it allowed to creep in in the first place.

Croatia gained a dramatic late winner to beat Spain in the Nations League – a result which keeps alive England’s hopes of winning the tournament.

It means all three countries can finish top of Group A4, with England taking on Croatia in the last match on Sunday.

Two goals from Tin Jedvaj, including one in the 93rd minute, gave the World Cup finalists the victory in Zagreb.

Andrej Kramaric scored the hosts’ opener, with Spain’s goals coming from Dani Ceballos and Sergio Ramos.

Whoever wins at Wembley will finish top of the group and advance to June’s finals, to have a chance of becoming Nations League champions and also to earn a place at Euro 2020.

However, if Sunday’s game ends in a draw, then Spain will finish top.

A goalless draw on Sunday would mean England finish second, with Croatia relegated. A score draw, however, would take Croatia above England on the head-to-head record – by virtue of having scored more away goals in the matches between the sides – and drop the Three Lions into the second tier.

It is set to be a thrilling conclusion to the group after a hugely entertaining clash in Zagreb, with Croatia still in contention despite losing 6-0 to Spain in their opening match back in September.

Ivan Perisic nearly gave the hosts a sixth-minute lead in Zagreb but his effort was pushed on to the post by Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea.

In a breathless second half, Kramaric was left unmarked to slot past De Gea, but Croatia’s lead only lasted two minutes before Ceballos finished off a beautifully worked team goal, which also involved Iago Aspas and Isco in the build-up.

Jedvaj scored his first goal for his country when he headed in at the back post from Luka Modric’s fine cross, but the Spaniards again equalised – through Ramos’ penalty after Sime Vrsaljko’s handball.

A Spain win would have guaranteed them top spot and Chelsea forward Alvaro Morata, on as a second-half substitute, had the ball in the net but was offside.

If it had finished as a draw then Croatia’s hopes of finishing top would have been over, but there was a late twist as Marcelo Brozovic’s low shot was parried by De Gea but into Jedvaj’s path and he won it for the home country.

‘Football has not been fair to us’ – what they said

Spain coach Luis Enrique said: “It shows it was a very difficult group. We still have a chance. The group was, as we expected, very difficult with two of the best teams in the world.

“I am obviously worried about the things we have to improve. I am quite happy with this match, but the result is undeserved and I think football today has not been fair to us.”

Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic said: “We were rewarded for a magnificent match.”

Black Friday is (almost) here, with Cyber Monday right on its heels — and we are pretty pumped about it.

Does “The Cyber Five” ring a bell? It’s what people in the know (hey, that’s us) call the five-day span of madness from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. While Black Friday *used* to be the one big savings day (back in the ancient days when people actually, you know, went to the store to shop), there is now nearly a week of savings: Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. (If you’re wondering what to do on Sunday, check out Shop For Good Sunday.)

And the deals seem to start earlier every year.

Cue the heavy breathing, creepily sitting in a dark room alone with your laptop, and frantically scrolling through each of your favorite retailer’s deals sections to make sure you don’t miss anything.

Or you could just stick with us. We’ll let you know where the best deals will be, where to go for updates, what apps to sign up for, and even how to be automatically alerted when a price drops. This Black Friday, you can actually enjoy online shopping instead of treating it like the internet version of World War Z.

Read on for tips and tricks on how to save the most money during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Before the official start date of Black Friday (which is now more like 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving because no one has any chill), it’d be wise to make a list ahead of time of items you’ll be making a beeline for. 

Our master Black Friday ad scan list will be extra handy with this. With the the help of our friends at BlackFriday.com, we’ve been able to hunt down Black Friday 2018 ads from all of your favorite retailers (Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Macy’s and Kohl’s, to name a few) making it easy for you to see exactly what will be on sale so that you’re locked and loaded when prices drop. This will save you from wasting time trying skim websites on your own, and can prevent getting frantically overwhelmed.

When all else fails, just check out our ongoing coverage:

Image: mashable/screenshot

Not all heroes wear capes. (It’s us. We’re the heroes.) Mashable’s Black Friday page is your one-stop shop to pretty much every Black Friday sale you can imagine, with links to all of our deals coverage — whether that be stories on single deals on really big items, item category roundups like Best Black Friday laptop deals, or retailer-specific roundups — as well as a selection of holiday gift guides to give you all the info you need.

We’ll also have a master deals post that has all of that info in one place, organized similarly so that you can compare and shop in whichever way raises your blood pressure the least.

Just think of it as the Black Friday police scanner (but for sale prices across the internet instead of um, crimes). We’ll have all hands on deck and will be updating it as new deals come in, so it’s basically the closest thing to live coverage for the week — you sit back and relax, and we’ll do the work.

On the go and shopping from your phone? It’d be smart to download mobile apps from your favorite stores — Walmart, Target, and Amazon are three biggies that will be clutch. They’ll obviously be plastering their biggest deals across the screen, making things organized and easy to navigate even on a bumpy commute or at a loud relative’s house.

The store maps on both Target and Walmart’s apps will switch over to a Black Friday map version and will show you where to find the physical location of an item in the store, which will be helpful if something has sold out online. Each app also features a barcode scan feature, so if you’re shopping in the store and come across something that’s too big to take home, sold out in the size you want, or that needs to be shipped elsewhere as a gift, just scan the tag and you’ll be taken to the listing online.

The Amazon app even has an “Upcoming” tab, where you can see deals 24 hours before they go live. This will be extra handy for avid Prime members as Amazon doesn’t release an official Black Friday ad scan like most retailers do.

Image: walmart/screenshot

The only assistant you’ll need for the Cyber Five is Amazon Assistant (no, not a human assistant), which you’ll want if you’ll be shopping on your computer instead of your phone. It’s basically the computer version of smartphone notifications, helping you watch Amazon deals like a hawk and make sure you’re not missing out on anything important — especially handy because Amazon doesn’t release a big ad scan to announce deals ahead of time. 

It’s also likely that many retailers will have the same items on sale: Big ticket tech items like smart TVs, laptops, or the infamous Instant Pots are a few you can probably count on. If you’re shopping elsewhere and have clicked on a product that Amazon also carries, an Amazon Assistant banner will come across the top to let you know the price of that product on Amazon. It’s way easier than switching tabs to compare, and helps you be extra certain that you’re getting the lowest price.

Once you’ve placed an order, you can also track your orders on Amazon Assistant (because we all know the feeling of checking the shipping status 20 times a day). Add the Amazon Assistant extension to your browser here.

Image: twitter/screenshot

We’ll be tweeting live updates of new deals and providing links to our deal or retailer roundups for big product categories and whatever else comes up. This will make the weekend go way more smoothly and help you stay organized so that you don’t have to refresh each of your tabs or our master post every 30 seconds.

If you’re really feeling ambitious, you could also turn on mobile notifications to make sure you see every time we tweet out a deal or a new roundup of deals — you know, if you’re not one of those people who refreshes Twitter religiously like we are. You can also like the Mashable Deals page on Facebook if you’d rather get your updates on there. 

Image: mashable/screenshot

This is ace for people who don’t use or check social media regularly but who still want updates for Black Friday and links to our roundups.

We’ll send one out an emails with the following schedule:

• Thursday (Thanksgiving): early deals that have already gone live as well as everything we know that will be going on sale on Friday

• Black Friday: any updates, new deals that waited until Friday to drop, and deals we know about for the weekend

• Cyber Monday: this will have all of the deals we know about for Monday through the rest of the week. 

Checking our Twitter or Facebook will keep you a bit more in the know as those will be updated live, but this is a way more toned-down place to start.

Our newsletter is also just a clutch thing to get in general: Okay, we’re slightly biased, but we really think this is one email you won’t be annoyed with every time it pops up in your inbox. Each week, we’ll give you the rundown on the best deals we found (like Amazon’s daily lightning deals or Macy’s one-day sales) as well as link you to some other stories you’ll wanna read (like gift guides and where to find the best laptops for under $500).