Japan has appointed a "Minister of Loneliness" in an attempt to reduce loneliness and social isolation among its residents as the country deals with rising suicide rates, Tomohiro Osaki reported for the Japan Times.

Archaeologists have unearthed a unique Roman ceremonial carriage from a villa just outside Pompeii, the city buried in a volcanic eruption in 79 AD. The almost perfectly preserved four-wheeled carriage, made of iron, bronze and tin, was found near the stables of an ancient villa at Civita Giuliana, about 700 metres north of the walls of ancient Pompeii and close to where the remains of three horses were unearthed in 2018, including one still in its harness.

Continuing a trend of European businesses moving independently to protect the Amazon, France’s BNP Paribas announced it will no longer finance companies that buy cattle or soy produced on deforested or converted Amazon lands after 2008. The measure also applies to deforested lands in Brazil’s Cerrado region, a threatened tropical savanna eco-region covering 20% of Brazil that has lost half its land to agricultural clearing.

This pandemic shifted how we work, and for most organizations, it has completely changed how they function. There has been a push to make work from home permanent from some staff. Out of 1022 professionals surveyed, 30% said they would resign from their position if they had to return to their office after the pandemic. Scary yes, but don’t rush the process.

AT&T has agreed to a $12 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit over its throttling of "unlimited" mobile data plans. As usual, refunds to individual customers amount to a fraction of what the customers paid for the hobbled service.

Germany s economy minister says the country beat its target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 40% last year compared to 1990 levels. Peter Altmaier said figures show Germany's emissions of planet-heating gases were 42% lower in 2020 than three decades ago, confounding warnings that the country couldn't meet its goal

Apple Car rumors may have taken a backseat to augmented reality headset ambitions over the last year, but recent reports show the ambitious project to put Apple technology on the road is alive and well. New today is news of a prominent hire at Apple: Porsche’s Vice President of Chassis Development.

On a chilly January morning, the Rev. Mary Davisson climbs up the stern ramp of the Tonsberg, an enormous ship bobbing in the murky waters at the Port of Baltimore. Davisson, the executive director and port chaplain of the Baltimore International Seafarers' Center, has spent much of her nearly two-decade career helping foreign crew members arriving in port, whether it is giving them a lift into town to buy personal items or just enjoying a coffee with them.

Elon Musk teased his latest philanthropic endeavor on Thursday: a contest meant to encourage more-innovative carbon-capture technologies. "Am donating $100M towards a prize for best carbon capture technology," Musk tweeted, adding that he would provide "details next week."

Once upon a time when the web was young and trustworthy sites for downloading Windows software were hard to find, TUCOWS emerged and quickly became a top destination for folks looking for the latest versions of freeware and shareware applications, eventually adding support for Linux, Mac and a handful of other operating systems.

President Donald Trump is preparing to issue around 100 pardons and commutations on his final full day in office Tuesday, according to three people familiar with the matter, a major batch of clemency actions that includes white collar criminals, high-profile rappers and others but -- as of now -- is not expected to include Trump himself.

Be warned: this is ugly stuff.

With two weeks left in Donald Trump’s presidency, Mick Mulvaney has resigned from the administration. “I can’t do it. I can’t stay,” he told CNBC. That’s newsworthy in the most banal sense; Mulvaney is the rare Trump official to last four years in a chaotic administration.

United States congressman Duncan Hunter pleaded guilty last year to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds. In March, he was sentenced to 11 months in federal prison. What made his story especially comical was how brazen the fraud had been. Among the items listed in the indictment were European vacations for his family, stays at luxury hotels, plane tickets for his family’s pet rabbits, and $1,302 in Steam games.