Two weeks ago we welcomed a new group of students to the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Even though we do not have as many students starting at the campus in spring, we still do what we can to make them welcome, and we have been adding more programming for these mid-year admits every year.

Do you know where your cats are? If they’re lounging on their cat tree, batting a toy around the living room or curled up on your lap, great! If they’re wandering outside, please find them and bring them inside — before someone gets killed.

For many conservatives, the results in this week’s Iowa Republican caucuses are deeply discouraging.

Surely, you’ve heard of the SAT, a standardized test once widely used by colleges and universities to figure out whether a student applicant is up to the challenges of higher education. Or maybe you haven’t heard of them because our academic betters feared they weren’t fair to the disadvantaged, as worrisome as the whole idea of merit, and they have been disappearing from the scene.

Fountains of lava erupted from the Sundhnúkur volcanic system in southwest Iceland on Jan. 14. As the world watched on webcams and social media, lava flows cut off roads and bubbled from a new fissure that invaded the outskirts of the coastal town of Grindavík, burning down at least three houses in their path.

Over the past few days, extremely cold Arctic air and severe winter weather have swept southward into much of the U.S., breaking daily low temperature records from Montana to Texas. Tens of millions of people have been affected by dangerously cold temperatures, and heavy lake-effect snow and snow squalls have had severe effects across the Great Lakes and Northeast regions.

As he exits the stage before any votes are cast, Chris Christie deserves credit and thanks for repeatedly saying what Republican primary voters need to hear.

Congress is back in session with a long list of unfinished business. Topping the health-care agenda is legislation that aims to lower the cost of prescription drugs and make their prices more transparent. Although these proposals have rare bipartisan support, lawmakers should proceed cautiously. Some well-intentioned measures could backfire or prove ineffective.

Like the drowning scorpion slipping under the water next to the stung and dying frog, Donald Trump could not help himself to violate an explicit court order and make a political speech when Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron extended him the privilege to say a few words about his civil fraud trial after Trump’s defense lawyer concluded his closing argument Thursday.

In Iowa, officials used federal COVID money to build a new baseball stadium near the famed “Field of Dreams” diamond. Michigan politicians directed more than $25 million in pandemic cash toward tourism and marketing efforts. In New Mexico, officials spent $16 million in COVID funds to run a lottery for people who got vaccinated.

Once again, the federal government faces a shutdown of important services — only this time there are two precipices from which the nation will plunge if Congress doesn’t act. Under a complex short-term spending measure adopted in November, funding for some departments will run out on Jan. 19 while for other departments the deadline is Feb. 2. For Americans dependent on government services and federal paychecks, Congress must again pull the country back from the brink.

Articles asking us to feel sympathy for families barely scraping by on healthy six-figure incomes may be staples of the financial press, but it’s rare that they come packaged as real-world case studies attached to flesh-and-blood individuals.

Donald Trump was in federal court Wednesday as his lawyers laid out his preposterous argument that presidents are immune from federal prosecution for actions taken in office unless impeached and convicted in the Senate. Whatever the three-judge appeals panel decides, the case will most likely end up before the Supreme Court, which must reject this ridiculous notion.

During arguments Tuesday, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit expressed appropriate skepticism about Donald Trump’s claim of immunity from charges that he attempted to overturn the 2020 election. But what happened afterward may have been even worse for Trump than the hearing itself: The former president refused to rule out violence if the appeals court’s decision goes against him, as he appears to think it will.

The last two legislative sessions in Florida have been frenetic. If there was a cultural grievance Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed as he vied to become president, lawmakers were ready to cement it into law.

Faced with looming deadlines to produce a federal budget, the top Republican in Congress, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and the top Democrat, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, agree that Pentagon funding for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1 should be $886 billion.

Interest rates are heading down. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of this year (at least).