How the Facebook outage affected the developing world, which depends on WhatsApp for health services and to shield communications from totalitarian governments. / NBC News, People Related: Telegram says it added 70 million new users while Facebook was down. / The Guardian The Facebook outage forced small business owners to realize that
In a brief glimmer of hope, Facebook and all of its services were down for nearly six hours yesterday. / Associated Press Facebook says the outage was caused by a configuration change, and here's a fascinating observation of how the services disappeared from the web. / The Verge, Cloudflare According
An explosive new report on the vast offshore systems used by the powerful—including 14 current country leaders—to hide billions of dollars. / The Washington Post Litigation over the opioid crisis now shifts to major pharmacy chains, which are accused of dispensing opioids while ignoring monitoring protocols. / NPR The whistleblower
The US death toll from Covid has now surpassed 700,000 people. / Associated Press "Each year, our moon moves distinctly, inexorably farther from Earth—just a tiny bit, about an inch and a half, a nearly imperceptible change." / The Atlantic The FCC wants to curtail SIM hijacking by
Despite telehealth’s expansion in the past year and a half, it has largely failed to reach the 57 million people in rural parts of the country. / STAT Covid-19 is killing rural Americans at twice the rate of people in urban areas. / NBC News Britain’s government-funded furlough
"Today's actions are already writing the opening chapters of the next pandemic's history." We're already not doing enough to prepare for whatever's next. / The Atlantic YouTube says it's extending its ban on Covid vaccine misinformation to cover many
Amid rising demand, oil prices climbed above $80 a barrel on Tuesday, hitting their highest level in three years. / BBC News Britain's gas crisis is now seen as a Brexit crisis. / CNN If the race to electric between Ford and General Motors is tight, "the longer-distance
The FBI says there was a record increase in murders—a nearly 30% jump—in the US last year. / USA Today See also: Originally stolen from a Wisconsin shop, a single handgun has been linked to 27 shootings in Chicago, including two homicides. / Chicago Tribune Using a technique called "
Germany is set for weeks or even months of coalition talks after the center-left Social Democrats claim victory. / BBC News See also: Who is Olaf Scholz, and what kind of Germany would he lead? / The Economist Arizona finishes its "audit" of the 2020 election—President Biden actually
China returns two Canadians in exchange for a Huawei executive, resolving a 1,030-day standoff with the United States. / The New York Times A good article from The Continent's archives on "the un-Hollywood fate of Paul Rusesabagina," who just received a 25-Year prison
