FACEBOOK and its associated Instagram, Messengers and WhatsUp applications were off the internet for five to six hours on Monday (Shutterstock).

If you were unable to connect to Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp today, you had plenty of company: hundreds of millions of people.

The popular social media operation, which includes a majority of Americans, went dark for five to six hours on Monday, leaving many people futilely clicking and refreshing, hoping to regain a connection.

According to The New York Times, the error messages began displaying around 11:40 a.m. Eastern time (8:40 a.m. Pacific) and some of those digital systems came back to life and then flickered out, before finally returning.

Facebook and its family of apps include as customers over 3.5 billion people. The cause – and cure – for the outage hasn’t been established, although the company indicated it was likely an internal software glitch, rather than a “ransomware” incident or a denial of service attack.

“Get out of the way,” Biden tells GOP

MITCH McCONNELL (Shutterstock).

With a deadline of Oct. 18 looming to allow the federal government to borrow more money to keep functioning, President Joe Biden told Republicans in the U.S. Senate to “get out of the way” and stop forcing Democrats into a lengthy process, according to the Associated Press.

The debt limit is considered crucial because – according to the AP – the stability of U.S. Treasury notes is key to global business. “They need to stop playing Russian roulette with the U.S. economy,” he said.

Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), the Senate minority leader replied, “I suggest that our Democratic colleagues get moving.”

Also in the news….

• A Trumo-era ban on abortion referrals by family planning clinics was lifted Monday by the Department of Health and Human Services
• The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the District of Columbia was not entitled to have a voting representative in the House of Representatives, upholding a lower court ruling.

Sports: Second baseball season to start

The 2021 Major League Baseball playoffs will start on Tuesday, and could extend all the way into November with the World Series. Here’s the start:

Wild Card Games

Tuesday

• Yankees vs. Red Sox (5 p.m. Pacific time)

Wednesday

• Cardinals vs. Dodgers (5 p.m.)

Division Series

Thursday

• White Sox vs. Astros (1 p.m.)
• Winner of AL Wild Card Game vs. Rays (5 p.m.)

Friday

• White Sox vs. Astros (11 a.m.)
• Braves vs. Brewers (1:30 p.m.)
• Winner of AL Wild Card Game vs. Rays (4 p.m.)
• Winner of NL Wild Card Game vs. Giants (6:30 p.m.)

Weather: Back to the 70s

No, we don’t mean the era of disco, polyester and Jimmy Carter. Daytime highs in the West Orange County area will descend into the 70-degree range under partly or mostly cloudy skies this week. Tuesday’s high will be 79 (63 overnight), followed by 74(62) on Wednesday and 72 (60) on Thursday. In the coastal areas of Huntington Beach, daytime highs will be three to five degrees cooler.