Our daily storm chase around the world

🌋🌩️ The Tonga undersea volcano eruption last year created the most intense lightning storm ever recorded. In a peer-reviewed study published Monday in Geophysical Research Letters, scientists found the January 2022 eruption under the southern Pacific Ocean generated a record 192,000 individual lightning strikes over 11 hours, in a thunderstorm that spread across ~75,000 square miles. And the study puts yet another medal in the Tonga eruption’s trophy case – research previously found it also produced the most powerful atmospheric explosion ever recorded (15 megatons).

🇪🇪 Estonia approved a new law legalizing same-sex marriage. The law, which received 55 votes in the country’s 101-member Parliament, means Estonia will be the 31st country in the world where gay marriage is legal. The central European nation will also be the first ex-member of the Soviet Union to legalize same-sex marriage. Some 53% of Estonia’s population currently supports marriage equality, up from 34% in 2012, per a survey published last month.

🇷🇴 Romanian prosecutors indicted influencer Andrew Tate on charges of rape, human trafficking, and forming a sex trafficking organization. The British-US citizen and his brother Tristan are accused of luring seven women to Tate’s properties in Romania with what prosecutors called a “loverboy" ploy – aka making false promises of a romantic relationship to gain control over another person. Once they came to Romania, the women allegedly were sexually exploited, raped, and forced to make pornographic videos. Tate has consistently denied the charges against him, saying authorities have no evidence against him.