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A whistleblower's sharp testimony — following hard on the heels of a massive global service outage — has raised hopes among Facebook's many critics on the Hill and in the industry that Congress will place new restraints on the company.

The big picture: The outage showed how dependent on Facebook the world has become. The whistleblower showed how the company's own research documents its harms and outlined ways lawmakers could limit them.

South Dakota has become the world's foremost tax haven — right up there with the Cayman Islands, and ahead of old-fashioned locations like Switzerland. That's one of the clear messages from the Pandora Papers leak of confidential financial information about the world's richest individuals.

Why it matters: The hundreds of billions of dollars sequestered in South Dakota trusts generate no taxes and are effectively off limits to anybody who might have a legitimate claim on them.

The Department of Education announced Wednesday that it would temporarily relax rules governing a student loan forgiveness program, making it easier for service members, teachers, nurses and other public servants to qualify for debt relief.

Why it matters: In total, the department estimates that its overhaul of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program will bring over 550,000 borrowers closer to debt forgiveness.

Benjamin List and David MacMillan won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their development of asymmetric organocatalysis, an "ingenious tool" to build molecules, the Nobel Foundation announced Wednesday.

Why it matters: Catalysts are used to accelerate chemical reactions and are crucial to producing many commercial products, especially pharmaceuticals. Before List's and MacMillan's discoveries, researchers believed that there were just two types of catalysts available: metals and enzymes.

Democrats' push to extend health coverage to millions of very low-income people in red states has a lot working against it: It's expensive, it's complicated, it may invite legal challenges, and few national Democrats stand to gain politically from it.

Yes, but: The policy is being framed as a test not only of Democrats' commitment to universal health coverage, but also their commitment to racial equity.

Rent prices are rising rapidly across the country, and the number of people seeking rental apartments has returned to pre-pandemic levels or higher, according to home-search websites.

Why it matters: As COVID-era restrictions expire — including moratoriums on evictions — and available housing stock continues to dwindle, expect once-desperate landlords to sit in the catbird seat as renters fork up.

Google unveiled a suite of sustainability features focused on giving consumers more information so they can choose to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

Driving the news: The product rollout this morning will immediately be noticeable if you use Google Maps, utilize the company's flight search tools, search for companies to invest in or simply query the search engine about the causes of global warming.

President Biden told reporters Tuesday evening that he discussed Taiwan with China's President Xi Jinping in their phone call last month.

Why it matters: Beijing's growing aggression toward Taipei is drawing fresh concerns of a war in the region. Asked by a reporter Tuesday for comment on the provocation, Biden said he had "spoken with Xi about Taiwan," per a pool report. "We agree, we will abide by the Taiwan agreement," Biden said.

President Biden told reporters Tuesday night that it's a "real possibility" Senate Democrats could change the chamber's filibuster rules to overcome Republican obstruction to raising the debt ceiling, per a pool report.

Why it matters: Overhauling the rules could help Democrats "stave off a potential, calamitous default roughly two weeks before a critical fiscal deadline," the Washington Post notes.

Northwestern Italy has been hit by record rainfall from a complex of thunderstorms, triggering flooding and mudslides, per AP.

By the numbers: 29.2 inches of rain fell in 12 hours on Monday in Rossiglione, Genoa province, just south of Milan. That's a new, all-time European record, meteorologists noted Tuesday.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to his own platform to reject claims made by a former employee in testimony before Congress Tuesday.

Why it matters: Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen urged Congress earlier Tuesday to regulate the tech giant, accusing Facebook of putting profit before user wellbeing.

In the days before the Pandora Papers exposed details of his foreign real estate holdings, King Abdullah II of Jordan retained a white-shoe law firm from the U.S. with an eye toward potential defamation claims, records show.

Why it matters: The records provide a glimpse into how some of the world's most powerful people have braced for fallout from a massive media investigation. It's exposed the ways the ultra-wealthy manage — and, in some cases, conceal — their substantial assets.

President Biden knows his administration messed up with French President Emmanuel Macron and is scrambling to make amends, three sources familiar with the internal deliberations told Axios.

Why it matters: The White House's secret deal with Australia last month left the French feeling betrayed and blindsided, and furious about the loss of a $60 billion submarine contract. Secretary of State Tony Blinken visited Macron on Tuesday; national security adviser Jake Sullivan is on his way to Paris too.

Donald Trump's post-office online engagement is hitting new lows, according to exclusive data from SocialFlow provided to Axios. It helps explain why the former president recently asked a federal judge to have Twitter restore his signature account.

Why it matters: Trump has tried press releases styled as tweets, launched his own "platform" and held campaign-style rallies, yet the numbers suggest his social media megaphone has no true replacement.

A Missouri man with intellectual disabilities was executed Tuesday for killing three people during a 1994 robbery at a convenience store, per the New York Times.

Why it matters: Pope Francis, lawmakers and activists called for Ernest Lee Johnson's life to be spared because of his low IQ showing he had the intellectual capacity of a child.