Explainer-Tonga’s volcanic eruption may harm environment for years, scientists say

Tonga's massive underwater volcanic eruption could deliver long-lasting damage to coral reefs, erode coastlines and disrupt fisheries, say scientists studying satellite images and looking to the past to project the future of the remote region: ACID RAIN Since the initial eruption, the volcano has been releasing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide — two gases that create acid rain when they interact with water and oxygen in the atmosphere. With Tonga's tropical climate, “there is likely to be acid rain around Tonga for a while to come,” said volcanologist Shane Cronin at the University of Auckland.

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  Images capture Tonga before and after eruption

  Reuters Videos
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  Explainer-Scientists struggle to monitor Tonga volcano after massive eruption

  Reuters

Non-Americans Are Calling Out Things Americans Say That Scream, "I'm An American," And Wow, I Guess I'm Gonna Stop Talking For A While

A while ago, Reddit user TheOmnipotentKoi asked the internet, "Non-Americans of Reddit, what's something someone can say that indirectly screams 'I'm an American?'" Non-Americans shared tons of hilarious things Americans say all the time — and it's so accurate, it hurts. Let us know in the comments below!

UTA Drops Lara Logan After Comments Comparing Anthony Fauci To Josef Mengele

Lara Logan no longer is represented by UTA, after her comments in November in which she compared Dr. Anthony Fauci to Dr. Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor who performed cruel medical experiments on Jewish prisoners. Seth Oster, spokesperson for the agency, confirmed a Mediaite report that the agency severed ties with Logan. As she made a guest appearance on Fox News Primetime on Nov. 29, Logan said, “This is what people say to me, that he doesn't represent science to them.

Pakistan says trial of Chinese traditional medicine for COVID-19 successful

Pakistani health authorities on Monday announced the completion of a successful clinical trial of Chinese traditional herbal medicine for treating COVID-19, as the South Asian nation enters a fifth wave of the pandemic driven by the Omicron variant. The Chinese medicine, Jinhua Qinggan Granules (JHQG) manufactured by Juxiechang (Beijing) pharmaceutical Co Ltd, is already being used in treatment of COVID-19 patients in China. "Since it was tried on patients with different variants of COVID-19, we expect it to be effective on Omicron as on other variants," Professor Iqbal Chaudhry, director of the International Center for Chemical and Biological Science (ICCBS) where trials were conducted, told reporters.

Free Covid Tests Roll Out This Week. Here’s How to Get One.

Here is how the Biden administration plans to roll out the program. Johns Hopkins University reported more than 527,000 new cases. The seven-day daily average is over 807,000, according to The Wall Street Journal's analysis of Johns Hopkins data.

Trump claims he couldn't have lost the 2020 presidential election because his Arizona rally boasted thousands of attendees and had 'cars that stretch out for 25 miles'

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday continued efforts to raise doubt over his election loss. During an Arizona rally, Trump pointed to the crowd size and heavy traffic to justify his opinion. It remains unclear whether Trump plans to run again for president in 2024.

Grandstanding fears as Norwegian mass killer seeks parole

Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik goes to court, Tuesday, after 10 years behind bars, claiming he is no longer a danger to society and attempting to get an early release from his 21-year sentence. The far right terrorist has shown no remorse since slaying 77 people in a bomb and gun massacre in 2011, and families of victims and survivors fear he will grandstand his extreme views during the hearing, which experts say is unlikely to deliver him an early release. Randi Rosenqvist, the psychiatrist who has followed up Breivik since his 2012 jailing, says “I can say that I do not detect great changes in Breivik's functioning,” since his criminal trial when he bragged about the scale of his slaughter, or his 2016 human rights case, when he raised his hand in a Nazi salute.

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  Fears circulate as Norwegian mass killer seeks parole

  Yahoo News Video
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  Mass killer Breivik's parole hearing to begin on Tuesday in Norway

  Reuters

A megachurch pastor in Oklahoma apologized for a demonstration during his sermon 'being too extreme and disgusting' when he rubbed spit on a churchgoer's face

Oklahoma pastor Mike Todd apologized for rubbing his spit on a person's face during a service. A pastor at a megachurch based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, apologized on Twitter for rubbing his spit on a member of his church as captured in a viral video. Pastor Michael Todd, who is one of the lead pastors at Transformation Church, said in a video that his demonstration during a sermon was "disgusting" and a "distraction" after watching back footage from the service.

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  Tulsa Megachurch Pastor Under Fire For Rubbing Spit Into Man's Face During Sermon

  HuffPost
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  Tulsa pastor who prayed to end Covid rubs spit on parishioner’s face during service

  The Independent

Two Simple Lifestyle Changes Helped This Trainer Pack on Muscle and Lose Weight

You would be forgiven for assuming that former Men's Health UK cover model and fitness polymath Joe Wicks would be in shoot-ready shape 24/7, 365. On the flipside, placing more of an emphasis on progressive overload, Wicks has also utilized one of the most recognized methods in strength training and weightlifting, capitalizing on an increase in training frequency, volume and intensity over time.

Disney World Ends a Big Perk: That May Be Good for Disney Stock

Walt Disney learned a powerful lesson over the past few years when it comes to its U.S. theme parks. The company can keep making the proposition worse for customers by raising prices and taking away perks and people will still come; Families want vacations at Disney World and when you're already shelling out thousands of dollars for tickets and hotel accommodations, what's a little more money. That's why you hardly heard a complaint when the company turned its FastPass+ -- something that visitors to its Florida Parks got for free -- into Genie, a paid system offering roughly the same thing.

Germany says Russia will pay price if it moves on Ukraine

KYIV (Reuters) -Germany's foreign minister said on Monday she hoped tensions with Russia over Ukraine could be solved by diplomacy, but she warned that Moscow would suffer if it does attack its neighbour. Minister Annalena Baerbock was speaking in Kyiv on a tour that next takes her to Moscow after talks between Russia and Western states on the Kremlin's deployment of tens of thousands of troops along Ukraine's border ended with no breakthrough last week. The United States https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-concerned-russia-prepping-ukraine-invasion-if-diplomacy-fails-official-2022-01-14 said last week it feared Russia was preparing a pretext to invade Ukraine, which Moscow denies.

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  Russia denies looking for pretext to invade Ukraine

  Yahoo News Video
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  Britain says it is supplying anti-tank weapons to Ukraine

  Reuters

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter says Trump 'is done'

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter is predicting the end of Donald Trump's hegemony in the GOP, saying the former president "is done." "Trump is done," Coulter, a onetime Trump booster turned critic, wrote in an email to The New York Times. Coulter's comments came in an article published in the Times on Sunday about the mounting tensions between Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) amid speculation of a potential showdown for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Representative Matt Gaetz's ex-girlfriend granted immunity in sex trafficking probe

Prosecutors granted immunity to an ex-girlfriend of Representative Matt Gaetz before she testified last week in front of a federal grand jury hearing evidence in the investigation of the congressman, according to a source familiar with the matter. Gaetz has been under investigation to determine if he violated sex trafficking laws and obstructed justice in that probe. Gaetz has previously denied all wrongdoing, and has said he has never paid for sex nor had sex with an underage girl.

In tiny Wyoming town, Bill Gates bets big on nuclear power

Then in November, a company started by Bill Gates, TerraPower, announced it had chosen Kemmerer for a nontraditional, sodium-cooled nuclear reactor that will bring on workers from a local coal-fired power plant scheduled to close soon. The demonstration project comes as many U.S. states see nuclear emerging as an answer to fill the gap as a transition away from coal, oil and natural gas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Many residents in Kemmerer, where the population of 2,700 is little-changed since the 1990s, see the TerraPower project as a much-needed economic boost because Rocky Mountain Power's Naughton power plant will close 2025.

Body of the British woman who went missing in the Tonga tsunami has been found, brother says

Angela Glover went missing after a tsunami hit Tonga on Saturday. Her brother told British media on Monday that her husband had found her body. An underwater volcano erupted near Tonga on Saturday, triggering a tsunami.

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  Brother laments British woman who died in Tonga tsunami

  Reuters Videos
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  Tonga volcano eruption triggers evacuation warnings

  Reuters Videos

COVID Patient Flown to Texas After Minnesota Doctors Decided to Pull Plug on Ventilator

A Minnesota woman whose husband neared death from COVID appealed to the courts to force his hospital to halt their plans to pull the plug on the man's ventilator. Scott Quiner, 55, a reportedly unvaccinated man who had been battling COVID in Mercy Hospital's ICU in Coon Rapids since November, was set to have his ventilator shut off on Jan. 13, according to a petition filed in court one day before the deadline by his wife, Anne Quiner. Quiner said the decision by the hospital would “end my husband's life” and appealed to the Anoka County Court for a restraining order against the hospital.

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  Minnesota COVID-19 patient flown to Texas after judge orders doctors to keep him on ventilator

  The Hill
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  A judge ordered a Minnesota COVID-19 patient be flown to Texas so he'd stay on a ventilator after hospital planned to disconnect him

  Business Insider

Philippine dictator's son defeats bid vs. presidential run

The son of former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos defeated on Monday a bid to disqualify him from the May 9 presidential race but still faces other petitions from human rights victims and others who have raised alarm over atrocities under his late father's rule. The Commission on Elections rejected a petition arguing that Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. should be barred from public office for having been convicted of failing to file income tax returns from 1982 to 1985 and stating in his candidacy papers that he had never been found guilty of a crime. Marcos Jr.'s name will be included on the ballot, which will be printed soon, despite the pending petitions, Jimenez said.

Woman Absolutely Destroys Camaro While Fleeing Police

What did the Camaro do to deserve such abuse? According to a Facebook post made by Texarkana Texas Police Department, a woman who ran from cops absolutely destroyed the Chevy Camaro she was driving. Everything went down on the night of January 11 when an officer spotted an orange Camaro with black stripes backed into a parking stall in front of the Magnuson Hotel.

The world's 10 richest men have made so much money during the pandemic that a one-time 99% tax on their gains could pay for all COVID-19 vaccine production and more: Oxfam

The 10 richest men have more than doubled their wealth in the COVID-19 pandemic, Oxfam calculated. Oxfam issued a new report on inequality in which it advocated more taxation for the rich. "Billionaires have had a terrific pandemic," Oxfam's executive director, Gabriela Bucher, said.

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  Musk and Bezos among world's 10 richest men who doubled their wealth in pandemic

  Yahoo Finance UK
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  The world’s richest 10 men doubled their fortunes to $1.5 trillion during the pandemic, says Oxfam

  MarketWatch

China won't 'bully' neighbours over S. China Sea, foreign minister says

China will not use its strength to "bully" its smaller neighbours including the Philippines, its foreign minister said on Monday, as he highlighted the importance of settling disputes in the South China Sea peacefully. "Stressing only one side's claims and imposing one's own will on the other is not a proper way for neighbours to treat each other and it goes against the oriental philosophy of how people should get along with each other," Wang Yi, the Chinese government's top diplomat, told a virtual forum organised by China's embassy in Manila and a local advocacy group. His remarks come less than two months after the Philippines condemned China's blocking of a military resupply ship in the South China Sea, which prompted a warning from treaty ally the United States that an attack on Philippine vessels would invoke its mutual defence commitments.

College dorm roof collapses under the weight of snow in Western NC, photos show

The roof of a college dormitory in Western North Carolina partially collapsed on Sunday, Jan. 16, as heavy snowfall battered the region — which school officials said was likely to blame. Several dozen students were in the building at the time, according to reports, but no one was hurt. Jones is one of five residence halls on the campus, which sits in Transylvania County about 35 miles outside of Asheville.

'I'm not saying I'm there for him yet' — Fox host Laura Ingraham says she may not back Trump in 2024

Fox News host Laura Ingraham. Ingraham declined to say whether she would support a Trump 2024 run in an interview with Northern Virginia Magazine. "I'm not saying I'm there for him yet," Ingraham told the magazine.

Birju Maharaj, legend of India's kathak dance form, dies

Birju Maharaj, a legend of classical Indian dance and among the country's most well-known performing artists, died Monday. Maharaj was suffering from a kidney ailment and was undergoing dialysis and likely died of a cardiac arrest, his granddaughter Ragini Maharaj told the Press Trust of India news agency. Known as Maharaj-ji by his many fans, he was considered an icon of the kathak form of Indian classical dance and was a recipient of the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award.