A former Los Angeles area Taco Bell employee is suing the company and a franchise owner after she claims a Christmas party at the fast-food restaurant descended into a drunken mess that included open sex. Alana Bechiom filed her lawsuit last week in Los Angeles Superior Court. In the suit, she alleges that her supervisor invited her to the Dec. 18, 2022, party at the San Pedro Taco Bell at which she worked. She was encouraged to bring food for a potluck-style buffet, and her contribution was a bowl of guacamole. Once she arrived, Bechiom “discovered that [her supervisor] covered the windows of the restaurant with wrapping paper” and “also covered the cameras for the lobby in the inside of the restaurant,” according to the complaint, the NY Post reports. She claims her supervisor provided alcohol to staffers, several of whom were “overserved.”

Victims of the cookie-cutter shark look as if they have been mutilated by a melon-baller.

The serotine bat does not use its strangely large penis for penetration, but instead as a "copulatory arm" during mating, researchers said.

"By all means, put your heads together to bring new revenue into the company."

It’s a portrayal so undignified that I almost expected ABBA’s “Waterloo” to play over the credits.

The NY Supreme Court just granted an unprecedented temporary restraining order preventing members of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys – UAW Local 2325 from voting on a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

In 1984, ILWU Local 10 refused to unload goods shipped from South Africa. Today, it’s demanding a cease-fire.

Amid lack of acorns and beechnuts in natural habitats, bears have injured 158 people and killed two since April

The motion calling for the closure of the embassy passed with 248 votes in favour and 91 votes against.

An “extremely venomous” 2-metre green mamba snake is on the loose in the Netherlands, police have said, warning residents to stay indoors and under no circumstances attempt to ensnare the serpent. Police in the southern city of Tilburg said they were alerted by the mamba’s owner on Monday evening that “he was missing a snake”. Issuing a wanted poster with a mugshot of the coiled green mamba, police said on Tuesday: “The snake is very dangerous. The green mamba’s bite is extremely venomous. If anyone is bitten, it is important to seek immediate medical attention.”

Beavercreek, Ohio police say the gunman walked in and just started shooting.

There is a subtle yet unmistakable sense of gloom in Kyiv at the moment, and not only because of the dark afternoons and plunging mercury of an eastern European November. A number of internal and external factors have combined to create perhaps the most downbeat mood about the prospects for a swift and decisive Ukrainian victory over Russia since the first weeks of the full-scale invasion. “At the end of last year and beginning of this one, there was such euphoria. Now we see the other extreme, the down, and I guess we will see some ups and downs for some time to come,” said Bartosz Cichocki, who last month finished a four-year posting as Poland’s ambassador in Kyiv. The much-anticipated summer counteroffensive has been thwarted by impenetrable Russian minefields and fortifications. There are rumours of tensions in Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s team, and of a rift between the president and his commander-in-chief, which were reinforced late on Sunday when Zelenskiy fired the head of Ukraine’s military medical forces and called for operational changes in the army. The exhaustion of two years of fighting, the continued loss of life at the front and frustration at the slow pace with which western partners continue to provide weaponry have combined so that for the first time since the early stages of the war, some voices have quietly pondered the possibility of ceasefire negotiations, while accepting they would be risky and could benefit Russia.

Would you rather yell at your chest or pull out your phone?

A WIRED analysis of leaked police documents verifies that a secretive government program is allowing federal, state, and local law enforcement to access phone records of Americans who are not suspected of a crime.

OpenAI’s interim CEO Emmett Shear was a namechecked character in a seminal Harry Potter fanfiction about “rational thinking” written by the AI researcher and influential blogger Eliezer Yudkowsky. The book is hugely popular among effective altruists and the "AI doomer" community, who are very worried that superintelligent AI will bring on an apocalypse for humanity.

Alibaba Group , has scrapped plans to spin-off its cloud business, citing uncertainties created by U.S. export curbs on chips used in artificial intelligence applications.

When access to the internet exploded across the globe, it was considered the greatest democratizing force in history. And in the past decade, it was the province of free political expression, used to push progress, liberty, and rights. But as malignant, authoritarian strains incubate and fester across the planet, governments are attempting to wrest control of it back. In India, that movement is not just well underway, it’s almost entirely implemented. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party, every facet of the internet has come under their control, every public space dominated by high-tech surveillance, every message potentially read by its prying eyes. The party seized control of YouTube, pushing messages of party support while blocking criticism. It’s clamped down on viral videos on X that document a violent, anti-Muslim fervor sweeping the nation. It’s opened encrypted WhatsApp for inspection. Facial recognition litters temples and entire cities. And they can control it all with the flip of a switch. India is the future of the internet under authoritarianism and the Modi government’s playbook is one that repressive regimes, hoping to curb the rights of individuals who oppose them, will all soon adopt. Unless people fight back.

Cartoonist Syd Hoff drew the rich as they are: ridiculous, incompetent, hopelessly out of touch, and boring.

At least nine hominin species once roamed the Earth, so what became of our vanished ancestors?

Javier Milei has won Argentina’s presidential elections in provisional results, wrenching his country to the right with a bombastic anti-establishment campaign that drew comparisons to former US President Donald Trump – all against the backdrop of one of the world’s highest inflation rates.