The AquaDom, the world’s largest cylindrical aquarium, burst on Friday morning in Berlin, releasing more than 264,000 gallons of water (a million liters) onto the premises, which also house a hotel, museum, and cafes. On Twitter, the Berlin police said that there had been “unbelievable maritime damage.” Videos and photos posted to social media by hotel guests on Friday show absolutely jaw-dropping damage, with dead fish, bent support beams, and broken glass clearly visible. German authorities and rescue personnel said that there had been no human casualties, although two people had been injured by glass shards.

Judge is the one that offered the manslaughter charge suggestion to the jury

The EU has threatened Twitter owner Elon Musk with "sanctions" after several journalists covering the firm had their accounts abruptly suspended... ...EU commissioner Vera Jourova warned that the EU's Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom. "Elon Musk should be aware of that. There are red lines. And sanctions, soon," she tweeted.

The National Labor Relations Board has directed its Los Angeles regional office to pursue charges of unfair labor practices against USC, the Pac-12 and the NCAA.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Southern California city agreed to pay $1 million and end a discriminatory housing policy aimed at evicting criminals that disproportionately drove Black people and Latino renters from their homes, federal prosecutors said Wednesday in announcing the first settlement of its kind. The city of Hesperia, San Bernardino County and its sheriff’s department engaged in a pattern and practice of discrimination that violated the Fair Housing Act and Civil Rights Act, according to a consent order. “Hesperia’s ordinance was a blatantly racially discriminatory solution to a problem that didn’t exist,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said. “This meant evictions of entire families for conduct involving one tenant or even guests or estranged family members. It meant evictions of the survivors of domestic violence. It meant evictions in the absence of concrete and real evidence of criminal activity.” The “historic” settlement was the first in a case challenging so-called “crime-free” housing ordinances and should send a message to an estimated 2,000 cities nationwide that have similar policies in place that are often discriminatory, Clarke said.

Notorious Capitol rioter Tim Gionet, better known by his Twitter name "Baked Alaska," was suddenly filled with regret over his life decisions after watching former President Donald Trump hawk digital trading cards in a video in which he also declared himself a better president than George Washington.

Objections from the land’s rightful owners — including U.S. citizens — are going unacknowledged by the administration.

Donald Trump announced the launch of his own exclusive digital trading cards — which are also non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — on his Truth Social account.

I can confirm what Cauterucci was unable to: All of the items she featured in her Slate story were sold by Arizona’s newly independent senator.

Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday teased a "MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT" on Truth Social, saying, "America needs a superhero." The post was coupled with a photograph of Trump with chiseled abs, adorning a superhero costume. After declaring in November his intention to run for president again in 2024, it was unclear what more Trump would announce. And on Thursday, the former president made the big reveal: a series of digital trading card NFTs, each selling for $99. "This is Donald Trump, hopefully, your favorite president of all time. Better than Lincoln or Washington," Trump said in an infomercial-styled address, before detailing the project. 

For a fleeting moment this month, a deal to protect 2 million “dreamers” and rationalize our asylum system appeared within reach. Two senators with a history of bipartisan compromises were earnestly haggling over details. Much of the bill text was written. The talks were endorsed by influential right-leaning opinion-makers, and even encouraged by the conservative Border Patrol union. But now the framework that Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) were negotiating appears dead. Democratic leaders have privately informed numerous stakeholders that it isn’t going to happen in the current Congress because of Republican opposition, according to sources familiar with the discussions. At least one GOP leader has declared the same.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced Wednesday morning arrests for five people over clashes the previous day at the encampment protesting a future Atlanta police and fire training center that opponents have dubbed "Cop City." The five are all charged with domestic terrorism in addition to other charges, the GBI said. In a release, the bureau said a joint task force went to the site on Tuesday to "remove barricades blocking some of the entrances" to the site, and were met by some of the protesters who allegedly "threw rocks at police cars and attacked EMTs outside the neighboring fire stations with rocks and bottles." Gov. Brian Kemp issued a statement on the arrests saying, "We will not stop or slow down when it comes to bringing domestic terrorists to justice in Georgia," and that the arrests "should serve as a strong reminder of that to anyone threatening our communities." A group representing the protest movement emailed news organizations Tuesday and said officers were using tear gas and pepper balls on those who have been camping at the site, who call themselves forest defenders. 

Inflation running at more than 10%, trailed by pay offers of around 4%, is stoking tensions between unions and employers. Of all the strikes though, it will be the sight of nurses on picket lines that will be the stand-out image for many Britons this winter. "What a tragic day. This is a tragic day for nursing, it is a tragic day for patients, patients in hospitals like this, and it is a tragic day for people of this society and for our NHS," Pat Cullen, the head of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) union, told the BBC on a picket line. The widely admired nursing profession shut down parts of the NHS, which since its founding in 1948 has developed national treasure status for being free at the point of use, hitting healthcare provision when it is already stretched in winter and with backlogs at record levels due to COVID delays.

The U.S. Senate late on Wednesday passed by voice vote a bill to bar federal employees from using Chinese-owned short video-sharing app TikTok on government-owned devices. The bill must still be approved by the U.S. House of Representatives before going to President Joe Biden for approval. The House of Representatives would need to pass the Senate bill before the current congressional session ends, which is expected next week. The vote is the latest action on the part of U.S. lawmakers to crackdown on Chinese companies amid national security fears that Beijing could use them to spy on Americans. The Senate action comes after North Dakota and Iowa this week joined a growing number of U.S. states in banning TikTok, owned by ByteDance, from state-owned devices amid concerns that data could be passed on to the Chinese government.

WASHINGTON, Dec 14 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve will deliver more interest rate hikes next year even as the economy slips towards a possible recession, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday, arguing that a higher cost would be paid if the U.S. central bank does not get a firmer grip on inflation. Recent signs of slowing inflation have not brought any confidence yet that the fight has been won, Powell told reporters after the Fed's policy-setting committee raised its benchmark overnight interest rate by half a percentage point and projected it would continue rising to above 5% in 2023, a level not seen since a steep economic downturn in 2007. Those rises in borrowing costs would come despite an economy that Fed officials projected will operate at near stall speed through next year, with an annual growth rate of 0.5% and an unemployment rate nearly a full percentage point higher by the end of 2023, well beyond the increase historically associated with a recession. "We don't talk about this kind of recession, that kind of a recession. We just make these forecasts," Powell said in a news conference.

The 20-year-old University of Central Florida student had set up @ElonJet as one of of a slew of flight-tracking bots, which use the ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast) system to monitor flight paths. But as of this morning, only @ElonJet had been banned. (That changed shortly after publication of this story, when Twitter suspended Sweeney's personal account — for violating rules "against platform manipulation and spam" — and some two dozen others he ran. By early evening, @ElonJet was back for a brief period, only to be suspended again.) “I'm pretty surprised, especially after he put out a tweet saying he wouldn't do it,” Sweeney told BuzzFeed News, referring to the @ElonJet suspension. “But I guess after the last commotion over the weekend, he's probably not too happy about all that.”

“Boo me will you?”

Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee to a federal court in Texas, spent much of his career trying to interfere with other people’s sexuality. A former lawyer at a religious conservative litigation shop, Kacsmaryk denounced, in a 2015 article, a so-called “Sexual Revolution” that began in the 1960s and 1970s, and which “sought public affirmation of the lie that the human person is an autonomous blob of Silly Putty unconstrained by nature or biology, and that marriage, sexuality, gender identity, and even the unborn child must yield to the erotic desires of liberated adults.” So, in retrospect, it’s unsurprising that Kacsmaryk would be the first federal judge to embrace a challenge to the federal right to birth control after the Supreme Court’s June decision eliminating the right to an abortion. Last week, Kacsmaryk issued an opinion in Deanda v. Becerra that attacks Title X, a federal program that offers grants to health providers that fund voluntary and confidential family planning services to patients. Federal law requires the Title X program to include “services for adolescents,”

A day after a task force recommended a plan with a 3 percent cap on yearly residential rent hikes, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he'd veto that idea if it advances to him. "It's not happening," Frey said Wednesday. "If it moves forward to my desk, I will veto it." Frey's clear opposition, given in response to reporters' questions, underscores the uncertainty facing the prospect of rent control in Minneapolis as the idea enters its next phase on a potential path to the voters.

Here’s what happens when a school rethinks punishment.