Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha‘apai, an underwater volcano off the coast of Tonga, has erupted several times in the last 13 years, but the most recent, on January 15, was likely its most destructive. The blast has had global consequences: more than 6,000 miles away, waves caused by the eruption drowned two people in Peru. But the effect of the volcanic blast on Tongans living closer to ground zero isn’t yet known, though it’s feared that the ensuing tsunami may have killed many people and displaced many more from their homes. That’s because Tonga has been suddenly cut off from the internet, making it that much harder to coordinate aid or rescue missions. In a highly interconnected world, Tonga is now completely dark, and it’s almost impossible to get word out. Getting the country back online is vital—but it could take weeks. Internet traffic plunged to near-nothing around 5:30 p.m. local time on January 15, according to data from web performance firm Cloudflare. That connection hasn’t yet been restored, says Doug Madory of Kentik, an internet observatory company, who has been monitoring the country’s web traffic. The reason Tonga fell offline isn’t yet known for certain, but initial investigations have suggested that the undersea cable connecting its internet to the rest of the world has been destroyed by the blast. “Tonga primarily uses a single subsea cable to connect to the internet,” says Madory. The Tonga Cable System runs 514 miles between Tonga and Fiji, bringing internet service to the two island nations. Previously, that connection has been backed up by a satellite internet connection. “I guess they’re not able to do that this time, because of some technical failure preventing them from being able to switch over,” says Madory. He believes that the wave resulting from the volcano explosion could have taken out the satellite dishes.

I dunno if this breaks the rules, but you can order covid tests here now.

Gary Chambers, a Democrat, said he hopes the new spot will force a conversation about legalization of the drug.

It was pretty jarring earlier this month when the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court took the bench for the first time since the omicron surge over the holidays. All were now wearing masks. All, that is, except Justice Neil Gorsuch. What's more, Justice Sonia Sotomayor was not there at all, choosing instead to participate through a microphone setup in her chambers. Sotomayor has diabetes, a condition that puts her at high risk for serious illness, or even death, from COVID-19. She has been the only justice to wear a mask on the bench since last fall when, amid a marked decline in COVID-19 cases, the justices resumed in-person arguments for the first time since the onset of the pandemic. Now, though, the situation had changed with the omicron surge, and according to court sources, Sotomayor did not feel safe in close proximity to people who were unmasked. Chief Justice John Roberts, understanding that, in some form asked the other justices to mask up. They all did. Except Gorsuch, who, as it happens, sits next to Sotomayor on the bench. His continued refusal since then has also meant that Sotomayor has not attended the justices' weekly conference in person, joining instead by telephone. Gorsuch, from the beginning of his tenure, has proved a prickly justice, not exactly beloved even by his conservative soulmates on the court. At his first sitting in 2017, he sought to dominate the argument and repeatedly suggested that a complex case, involving conflicting provisions, was really very simple. "Wouldn't it be easier if we just followed the plain text of the statute?" he asked over and over. "What am I missing?" A lot, said his colleagues, both liberal and conservative.

It will be Microsoft's largest acquisition ever.

Three new species join the “acrobats of the skunk world.” Scientists found three new species of spotted skunks, who do handstands spraying.

Build Back Better, President Biden’s signature legislation, would be the fifth large federal outlay since the $2.2 trillion CARES Act of March 2020, followed by the $900 billion COVID relief package in December 2020, the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of March 2021, and the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure act passed in November (only $550 billion of which was new money). Even at the truncated BBB level of $1.8 trillion, those outlays over the past two years would total $8 trillion. There are three main arguments against the additional spending. One is macroeconomic, that all this stimulus has supposedly contributed to inflation, a claim the Prospect has effectively refuted. The second is purely ideological; Republicans oppose social spending per se, and Joe Manchin is averse to America becoming an “entitlement society.” But the third argument is worth a closer look. Almost a year after ARPA was enacted, nearly half the money is unspent, so why approve more? Government capacity is often the Achilles’ heel of progressive calls for greater outlays.

The year is, once again, shaping up to be a rough one, but it’s not all spilled animal guts and beloved celebrity deaths: Daniel Radcliffe is set to play none other than “Weird Al” Yankovic in the upcoming pseudo-biopic, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. The film will be coming to The Roku Channel via Funny or Die and Tango. We say “pseudo-biopic” because, c’mon, this is Weird Al we’re talking about here—it’s safe to say this will be less Walk the Line and more Walk Hard, judging by everyone already involved in the project. And thank God for that. “When my last movie UHF came out in 1989, I made a solemn vow to my fans that I would release a major motion picture every 33 years, like clockwork. I’m very happy to say we’re on schedule,” Yankovic says in a press release, adding that he is “absolutely thrilled that Daniel Radcliffe will be portraying me in the film. I have no doubt whatsoever that this is the role future generations will remember him for.”

Another exercise I like is asking everyone to write down their intention or objective for the meeting. This isn’t something that will be shared publicly, but the practice of thinking about one’s objectives before a meeting begins can be grounding.

His latest novel wrestles with the sins of certain types of storytelling

Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker said Monday that he and two other hostages were able to escape after he threw a chair at their captor.

The Buffy creator, once an icon of Hollywood feminism, is now an outcast accused of misogyny. How did he get here?

Sell it to a rich golf resort owner? Put it in the incinerator? Cities are grappling with what to do with scores of toppled Confederate statues.

Scientists are struggling to monitor an active volcano that erupted off the South Pacific island of Tonga at the weekend, after the explosion destroyed its sea-level crater and drowned its mass, obscuring it from satellites. The eruption of Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcano, which sits on the seismically active Pacific Ring of Fire, sent tsunami waves across the Pacific Ocean and was heard some 2,300 kms (1,430 miles) away in New Zealand. "The concern at the moment is how little information we have and that's scary," said Janine Krippner, a New Zealand-based volcanologist with the Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program. "When the vent is below water, nothing can tell us what will happen next." Krippner said on-site instruments were likely destroyed in the eruption and the volcanology community was pooling together the best available data and expertise to review the explosion and predict anticipated future activity. Saturday's eruption was so powerful that space satellites captured not only huge clouds of ash but also an atmospheric shockwave that radiated out from the volcano at close to the speed of sound.

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group attacked the United Arab Emirates in what it said was an operation using missiles and drones, setting off explosions in fuel trucks that killed three people and causing a fire near the airport of Abu Dhabi, capital of the region's commercial and tourism hub.

After a local campaign erased nearly $41 million in medical debt for more than 36,000 Oklahomans, the fundraising is coming to an end. That’s not because debt isn’t rising; it’s just out of reach. Tulsa couple Mona and Mark Whitmire started the effort in partnership with the national nonprofit RIP Medical Debt just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit Oklahoma. It targets debt that has been sold by medical providers to debt collectors. The nonprofit buys the debt for pennies on each dollar owed and then cancels it. But the work ended because the organization couldn’t access any more medical debt. The nonprofit bought all it could from debt buyers. This has happened in other areas of the country, and the national nonprofit then seeks to buy debt directly from hospitals before those institutions sell to outside collections. RIP Medical Debt Executive Director Allison Sesso says it approached area hospitals for that possibility but didn’t get any traction. “The Tulsa campaign is suspended because they can’t get to the debt,” Sesso said.

Amberly Sanchez had a job as an accountant at a real estate company in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when she was laid off due to the pandemic. Then an electrical fire destroyed her apartment building, forcing her and her 16-month-old daughter Avery to stay in a $400-a-week motel. She’d lost everything, from parenting essentials — crib, baby clothes, toy car — to her own mother’s ashes. This spring, she applied for welfare. Sanchez, who is 33, expected more than financial assistance from the state — in part because she was distantly aware of the history of welfare reform, a federal law that passed 25 years ago this summer. Given that legislation’s emphasis on putting welfare recipients to work, she said, she thought that welfare officials would push her to get a new job: “In fact, I really hoped they’d help me with that.” Instead, the New Mexico Human Services Department caseworker who called the next day fixated on an unexpected question: Who was baby Avery’s biological father? You can’t get public assistance if you don’t name your child’s father, the caseworker said. “She was really adamant about it,” Sanchez said. “It was all she wanted to talk about: the dad.”

There’s a popular subreddit called r/HermanCainAward — named for the late Republican presidential candidate and friend of Donald Trump who refused to wear a mask or social distance during the pandemic's early days and died of Covid-19. That subreddit highlights the deaths of people who died while unvaccinated, thereby giving those who are vaccinated the thrill of schadenfreude. Some people defend the site with the claim that it can help prove to the public that vaccines are the best way to stay alive, but I think they really exist as a way for people to use shame as some sort of weapon to get people vaccinated. Ben Chapman, the Republican chairman in Costa Mesa, California, tweeted some emails he received that celebrated his friend Ernby's death. “More bigotry and hate coming from the woke big-government mob,” he said. While I typically don't agree with anything Republicans like Chapman say, this time I must.

Crypto.com said it stopped all deposits and withdrawals while it investigates 'unauthorized activity' on some accounts.

Earlier today a group calling themselves Spice DAO announced that they had won an auction and were now the owners...