Consider yourself warned: Instagram rolled out an update Tuesday, and the photo-sharing app may be about to eat up a lot more of your time.

More substantial than other recent makeovers touting new filters, this change will transform Instagram into a stream of real-time updates from around the country. Following in the footsteps of Twitter and Facebook, Instagram wants to be a source for your news.

Instagram has historically not been a good venue for news — it’s more a source for brunch envy and jealousy of your friend’s Tulum vacation. But within minutes of looking at the Explore tab of the updated app, I saw Patriots fans staked out outside of NFL offices in support of Tom Brady, tributes to James Horner and new album releases.

Instead of painstakingly searching for images of the U.S. women’s World Cup victory on Instagram after learning about the news elsewhere, Instagram will be its own source of visual news.

“This is our North Star — what we’ve been shooting for all along,” Kevin Systrom, Instagram co-founder and CEO, told Wired in an interview. “It’s a real-time visual pulse for what is happening in the world.”

The update also makes it easier to find quality content from other users. A rotating banner at the top of the explore page offers to usher me to curated collections of beautiful rock formations, extreme athletes, trending places, and even shows me a collection of NBA players to follow.

Additionally, new search features will begin to ease the headache of looking for information on Instagram. Users can now search by location, and searching for a hashtag now shows high-quality “top posts” in addition to the most recent posts, meaning the days of searching for the hashtag #nyc and finding only hundreds of spammy, unrelated posts are hopefully on their way out.

In short, the new features will draw users away from looking only at the feed of people they follow and redirect them to more easily connect with users — and advertisers — around the world.

More clicks on centralized, curated content will likely make way for more formats in which advertisers can place targeted content. Instagram announced three weeks ago that it was working to include more action-oriented formats for its advertisers. Instead of merely a pretty photo, users will be able to buy or learn more about advertised products. Using parent company Facebook’s data, Instagram also announced it will focus more on letting advertisers reach users based on demographics and interests.

Instagram’s move follows that of other social media giants. In January, Snapchat announced a publishing partnership with the likes of CNN, ESPN and Vice. Facebook caused a recent stir by announcing its Instant Articles feature, and its News Feed feature has been a longtime source of news and trends for its users. But perhaps the new Instagram features compete most directly with Twitter, the hashtag pioneer itself.

At a time when Twitter feeds have progressively filled with more photos, Instagram’s new features put the two services head to head in competition. Already, both companies have a similar number of users. Instagram announced it had 300 million users in December, while Twitter reported 302 million worldwide users this month.

As Twitter deals with a CEO change and identity crisis, it will be interesting to see how the two companies compete.

Lauren Leatherby is an intern on NPR’s Washington Desk.

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The Senate voted 60-37 today to advance President Obama’s trade agenda — setting up a big victory for the White House and a painful loss for labor unions.

This latest Senate vote clears away procedural hurdles for legislation granting Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) to Obama. That power allows the president to negotiate trade pacts and then put them on a so-called fast track through Congress. With TPA in place, Congress would take a simple yes-or-no vote on any trade deal, with no room for amendments.

For decades, presidents have asked Congress for this power, saying that other countries don’t want to approve agreements with the United States unless they know any package is final. This trade-negotiation power has expired, and Obama wanted it renewed so that he could complete a deal with 11 Pacific Rim countries.

That trade deal, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), is still being worked out. Its progress has been slowed by Obama’s lack of fast-track authority.

But now, Obama is on course to get that power so he can complete TPP. The Senate still needs to take a final vote on TPA, but passage now requires just a simple majority. Given today’s 60 votes in favor of clearing procedural hurdles, passage seems virtually certain when the Senate votes — probably on Wednesday.

The House has already approved fast-track authority.

So barring some amazing turnaround, Congress will send TPA legislation to Obama shortly, and he will sign it into law.

Unions have been putting up a fierce fight to stop TPA, which they say leads to secretive trade deals that benefit corporations but harm workers. After the vote, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, a union supporter, took to the Senate floor to say the vote was “shameful” because it would open the door to more trade deals.

In contrast, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, praised the vote, and said, “America is back in the trade business.”

Even though TPA seems a virtual certainty, there’s still a bit more drama to play out. It involves trade-related legislation that Democrats support. To win Democratic votes for TPA, Republican leaders in the House and Senate have pledged to allow votes on legislation renewing Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), a program to help displaced workers, as well as a bill to extend trade preferences to sub-Saharan African nations. McConnell also promised to move quickly to complete legislation that would step up enforcement of trade laws.

Those bills, supported by the White House and by the great majority of Democrats, have been stalled amid procedural maneuvering to get TPA done. It now appears they will move forward.

Moving forward with a full trade agenda has been a key goal for the White House. But the battle to do so has created a lot of hurt feelings between the Obama administration and trade opponents, who include union members, environmentalists and consumer advocates.

Those opponents are now regrouping for the next fight. Once fast-track authority is in place, Obama will be able to compete negotiations for TPP. Then Congress will have to vote on it, likely this fall. Robert Weissman, president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, put out a statement saying that once “people see what is actually in the agreement, they are going to force their representatives in Washington to vote that deal down.”

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