Twitter users have reported a massive global outage with many unable to access the website and its features. According to Downdetected.com, which tracks site traffic, the website became unavailable shortly before midnight GMT (11am Thursday AEDT, 7pm Wednesday EST), with outages most commonly reported on website rather than the app. Within an hour, the website had recorded more than 10,000 user reports of problems accessing Twitter. The London-based internet monitor NetBlocks said “Twitter is experiencing international outages affecting the mobile app and features including notifications”. “The incident is not related to country-level internet disruptions or filtering.” Many users were still able to use the platform, while others were met with an error message that read “something went wrong, but don’t fret – it’s not your fault”. One user in Ireland reported “difficulties logging into Twitter tonight … I’m supposed to be asleep but now I’m watching news stories on the global twitter crash”. Concerns about longer and more regular outages increased when Twitter slashed, by some estimates, up to half of its workforce with little notice under Elon Musk’s tenure. About 7,500 staff were sacked in Musk’s first week. In his second week, about four in five of the firm’s 5,500 contractors were released. The mass layoffs reportedly gutted teams that cover human rights, machine learning ethics, curation, communications and accessibility. In July, before the job losses, Twitter experienced one of its longest outages for years, with the social network unavailable to users on web and mobile for almost an hour. Earlier this month, Musk confirmed he would step down as chief executive once a suitable replacement was found, citing the company’s finances as a reason to delay his promised departure.

Before the holiday travel nightmare, attorneys general begged the Transportation Secretary and Congress to crack down. Southwest Airlines stranding thousands of Americans during the holiday season is not some unexpected crisis nor the normal consequence of inclement weather — and federal officials are not powerless bystanders. Before the debacle, attorneys general from both parties were sounding alarms about regulators’ lax oversight of the airline industry, imploring them and congressional lawmakers to crack down. The warnings came just before Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg appeared on national television insisting travel would improve by the holidays, and before Southwest executives — flush with cash from a government bailout — announced new dividend payouts to shareholders, while paying themselves millions of dollars. Four months before Southwest’s mass cancellation of flights, 38 state attorneys general wrote to congressional leaders declaring that Buttigieg’s agency “failed to respond and to provide appropriate recourse” to thousands of consumer complaints about airlines customer service. “Americans are justifiably frustrated that federal government agencies charged with overseeing airline consumer protection are unable or unwilling to hold the airline industry accountable,” they wrote in August, arguing that Congress must pass legislation empowering state officials to enforce consumer protection laws against the airlines.

Tracing the fallacy of 911 call analysis through the justice system, from Quantico to the courtroom. Tracy Harpster, a deputy police chief from suburban Dayton, Ohio, was hunting for praise. He had a business to promote: a miracle method to determine when 911 callers are actually guilty of the crimes they are reporting. “I know what a guilty father, mother or boyfriend sounds like,” he once said. Harpster tells police and prosecutors around the country that they can do the same. Such linguistic detection is possible, he claims, if you know how to analyze callers’ speech patterns — their tone of voice, their pauses, their word choice, even their grammar. Stripped of its context, a misplaced word as innocuous as “hi” or “please” or “somebody” can reveal a murderer on the phone. So far, researchers who have tried to corroborate Harpster’s claims have failed. The experts most familiar with his work warn that it shouldn’t be used to lock people up. Prosecutors know it’s junk science too. But that hasn’t stopped some from promoting his methods and even deploying 911 call analysis in court to win convictions.

LONDON — For a small but growing network of countries, the world's go-to metric of economic health is no longer fit for purpose. Mostly led by women, Finland, Iceland, Scotland, Wales and New Zealand are all members of the Wellbeing Economy Governments partnership. The coalition, which is expected to expand in the coming months, aims to transform economies around the world to deliver shared well-being for people and the planet by 2040. That means abandoning the idea that the percentage change in gross domestic product is a good indicator of progress, and instead reframing economic policy to deliver quality of life for all people in harmony with the environment. "The need for a new economic model has never been clearer," Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told CNBC. (Liberals are inventing socialism, loooool)

As a winter storm bore down on a broad swath of the US, a staffing crisis was brewing for Southwest Airlines Co. in Denver. Chris Johnson, the carrier’s vice president of ground operations, declared a “state of operational emergency” at the airport after “an unusually high number” of employee absences, according to a Dec. 21 message to ramp workers seen by Bloomberg News.

More than half all New York food stamps applicants are left waiting for their benefits to arrive, as critical administrative bottlenecks at the city’s social services agency worsen amid staff shortages and impending budget cuts, officials said Thursday. The Human Resources Administration (HRA) is promptly processing just 46.3 percent of applications for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, commonly known as food stamps, the agency’s Deputy Social Services Commissioner Jill Berry told councilmembers at a committee hearing on the impact and cause of the bureaucratic delays. That rate of timely processing marked a striking decrease from an already dismal 60 percent during the 2022 fiscal year—down from 92 percent the previous year, according to the most recent Mayor’s Management Report. The annual charter-mandated review characterizes the timely processing of food stamp applications as a “critical indicator” of agency performance because it has a clear and immediate impact on New York City’s poorest residents. HRA officials said the city issues retroactive benefits following delays, but Kathleen Kelleher, a staff attorney in the Legal Aid Society’s Civil Law Reform Unit, said that does not address the immediate need. “People can’t eat retroactively,” she said during public testimony at Thursday’s hearing. Kelleher said she has been working with food stamp recipients for more than 30 years and has never seen a worse situation. She criticized the city’s hiring delays, saying it reveals a lack of urgency.

With so little known about both long COVID and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, it doesn’t really matter which a patient has, experts say—at least not right now. While the symptoms of both can be treated, there’s no specific drug for either because the cause—or causes—remain up in the air.

The legendary television host talks about his friendships with Muhammad Ali and Groucho Marx, interviewing Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis, and finding a new audience on YouTube.

Paré died Christmas Eve in Edmonton, her family said in a Sunday news release. Paré was born in 1927 in Irma, about 176 km east of Edmonton. She raised four children and had a successful catering career for 18 years before forming the Edmonton-based Company’s Coming Publishing Limited in 1980 with her son, Grant Lovig. The company started as an experiment with the April 14, 1981, debut of a single cookbook, 150 Delicious Squares, that quickly became a success with books available in grocery stores and bookshops across the country. Other titles such as Muffins and More and Company’s Coming for Christmas have become a staple in many Canadian kitchens.

Busloads of migrants were dropped over Christmas weekend near Vice President Kamala Harris' residence in Washington amid freezing temperatures, having traveled from the southwest border in Texas, immigrant aid groups said on Sunday.

Thousands of residents were without power near Tacoma, Washington, after three electrical substations were vandalized, local authorities said on Sunday, adding that it was not yet clear if the Christmas Day incidents were linked.

A South Korean tour group’s van became stuck in the snow outside a house in Williamsville, N.Y. They spent the weekend with the homeowners — who luckily had a well-stocked kitchen. Alexander Campagna and his wife, Andrea, lifelong residents of Buffalo, were ready to wait the blizzard out. They had stocked the fridge and planned for a quiet holiday weekend indoors at their home in suburban Williamsville, N.Y., as long as the power stayed on. Then, on Friday at 2 p.m., with the storm already swirling and snow rapidly piling up, making roads impassable, there was a knock at the door. Two men, part of a group of nine tourists from South Korea that was traveling to Niagara Falls, asked for shovels to dig their passenger van out of a ditch. And so an unlikely holiday weekend began, with the Campagnas welcoming the travelers, along with their driver, as house guests. They became “accidental innkeepers,” said Mr. Campagna, a 40-year-old dentist. The Campagnas, well aware of the dangers the storm presented, immediately invited the travelers in, “knowing, as a Buffalonian, this is on another level, the Darth Vader of storms,” Mr. Campagna said. The visitors — seven women and three men — filled the three-bedroom house, sleeping on couches, sleeping bags, an air mattress and in the home’s guest bedroom. The other travelers included parents with their daughter, an Indiana college student, and two college-age friends from Seoul. Three of them spoke English proficiently. They spent the weekend swapping stories, watching the Buffalo Bills defeat the Chicago Bears on Christmas Eve and sharing delicious Korean home-cooked meals prepared by the guests, like jeyuk bokkeum, a spicy stir-fried pork dish, and dakdori tang, a chicken stew laced with fiery red pepper. To the surprise and glee of the Korean guests, Mr. Campagna and his wife, who are both fans of Korean food, had all the necessary condiments on hand: mirin, soy sauce, Korean red pepper paste, sesame oil and chili flakes. There was also kimchi and a rice cooker. “It was kind of like fate,” Mr. Choi said, remarking on the luck of arriving at the Campagnas’ doorstep with their fully stocked kitchen and unhesitating hospitality. He said the hosts were “the kindest people I have ever met.”

A chance encounter led to the capture of a suspected kidnapper, Nalah T. Jackson, and the discovery of missing Columbus twin Kason Thomas. (I told you that story about the cops finding the baby just so I could tell you this one.)

Domenick Nati told Insider that the problem has forced him to cancel his Christmas plans as no Ubers are available where he lives in Virginia.

Sgts. Shawn Anderson and Richard El of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department found baby Kason Thomass in the parking lot of a Papa John's.

“I was not at all concerned when I came here, but now I am,” K said. “I would definitely not recommend people move here for a job in tech based on my experience.”

“Baby, It’s Cold Outside”—a song written by a Jewish composer that has become a secular Christmas anthem—played a small but crucial role in the rise of modern Islamic fundamentalism.

Deccan, 24th December 2022: In Vaikunth Cemetery near the Deccan area, at around 2.30 am on Friday, two transgenders were spotted doing black magic. Police have arrested the two in this case. The names of the arrested accused are Lakshmi Nibaji Shinde and Manoj Ashok Dhumal. A dead body was cremated at Vaikunth crematorium around 1 am on Friday. A few hours later, Shinde and Dhumal came near the pyre. The two of them were doing something similar to black magic with the materials they had brought with them, such as black dolls, photos of some people, lemons, needles, and turmeric. One of the workers of the crematorium witnessed the incident and informed the police. After that, the police reached the spot and caught both of them red-handed. The police are currently investigating the incident. A case has been registered against the accused under section three of the Maharashtra Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and other Inhuman, Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act, 2013.

"So I've been following this bee lady on Instagram. She's so cool and brave, and she goes in front of these hives of bees and says 'they're very calm today'," Pratt said. "'I'm going to use my bare hand to sift through the bees and look for the queen'."

According to a recent report, sexual violence by New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) officers has become an everyday practice of policing. In fact, on average, there is a complaint of sexual violence filed against an NOPD officer every 10 days. Further, the report shows that officers are often allowed to resign without any investigation: of the 254 NOPD officers who left their job between 2019-2021, 90 percent had been reported for misconduct in the previous year. The report comes on the heels of recent national headlines – former NOPD officer Rodney Vicknair pled guilty in November to sexually assaulting a 15-year-old rape victim.