Widespread internet outages hit Northeast
Internet users throughout the northeast U.S. experienced widespread outages for several hours Tuesday, interrupting work and school because of an unspecified Verizon network issue.
“An internet issue impacting the quality of our Fios service throughout the Northeast has been resolved,” said spokesman Rich Young in an emailed statement Tuesday afternoon. He said service levels “are returning to normal” and the company is investigating what happened.
The service interruptions were unrelated to a cut fiber in Brooklyn, N.Y., which caused problems for people in that area.
There are about 6.5 million Fios internet customers.
People posting on Twitter reported having issues connecting with various online services in the region stretching from Washington, D.C., to Boston.
The outages began at 11:25 a.m. East Coast time and recovery began at 12:37 p.m., according to Doug Madory, director of Internet Analysis at Kentic, a network monitoring company.
1st private space crew paying $55M each to fly to station
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The first private space station crew was introduced Tuesday: Three men who are each paying $55 million to fly on a SpaceX rocket. They’ll be led by a former NASA astronaut now working for Axiom Space, the Houston company that arranged the trip for next January.
“This is the first private flight to the International Space Station. It’s never been done before,” said Axiom’s chief executive and president Mike Suffredini, a former space station program manager for NASA.
The first crew will spend eight days at the space station, and will take one or two days to get there aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule following liftoff from Cape Canaveral.
Axiom’s first customers include Larry Connor, a real estate and tech entrepreneur from Dayton, Ohio, Canadian financier Mark Pathy and Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe, a close friend of Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, who was killed in the space shuttle Columbia accident in 2003.
Each of these first paying customers intends to perform science research in orbit along with educational outreach.
Biden, in first call with Putin, presses on Navalny, treaty
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden had his first call with Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, raising concerns about the arrest of opposition figure Alexei Navalny while pressing the Russian president on his nation’s involvement in a massive cyberespionage campaign and bounties on American troops in Afghanistan, according to two senior administration officials.
Biden has looked to establish a sharp break from the warm rhetoric often displayed toward Putin by his predecessor. But the new president also looked to preserve room for diplomacy, telling the Russian leader that the two nations should finalize a five-year extension of an arms control treaty before it expires early next month, according to the officials, who were familiar with the call but not authorized to discuss it publicly.
Moscow reached out last week to request the call, according to the officials.
Biden told Putin that his administration was assessing the SolarWinds breach and the press allegations that Russia offered the Taliban bounties to kill American troops in Afghanistan. Biden said the U.S. is willing to defend itself and will take action, which could include further sanctions, to ensure Moscow does not act with impunity, according to the administration officials.
A readout of the call from the Kremlin was not immediately available.
Foot of snow blankets parts of Midwest, disrupts travel
OMAHA, Neb. — A major winter storm dumped more than a foot of snow on parts of the Midwest, disrupting travel for a second consecutive day Tuesday and shuttering many schools.
There were closures of several coronavirus testing sites on Monday and Tuesday in Nebraska and Iowa, and both states saw 12-15 inches of snow in places. At least 4 inches of snow was expected through Tuesday across most of an area stretching from central Kansas northeast to Chicago and southern Michigan.
National Weather Service meteorologist Taylor Nicolaisen, who is based near Omaha, Neb., said it’s uncommon for the region to get more than a foot of snow from a single storm, and it has been decades since some cities saw this much snow.
The storm made travel treacherous in places as wind-whipped snow piled up. Interstates were temporarily closed in western Nebraska and in Wisconsin near Milwaukee because of crashes Tuesday morning, and scores of flights were cancelled at airports throughout the region. Officials urged drivers to stay off the roads.
In Wisconsin, the weather service predicted up to 10 inches of snow could fall in the Milwaukee area, with the highest totals along Lake Michigan.
Wind gusts of 15-25 mph were reported across southern Wisconsin, creating drifting snow, reduced visibilities and complicating snow removal efforts, said Andy Boxell, a meteorologist with the weather service’s office in Sullivan, Wis.
In the Chicago area, between between 3 and 5 inches of snow had fallen by early Tuesday. Meteorologist Bett Borchardt forecast snowfall up to 8 inches or more in northern Illinois before the storm was forecast to end Tuesday evening.