Top Eight

Top eight stories for today including the U.S. Department of Justice charged three North Korean hackers with having stolen digital wallets of cryptocurrency from banks and businesses; Facebook will restrict users in Australia from sharing or publishing news content on its site in response to a proposed law that would require social media platforms to pay news publishers for content; Two Democrats in the California Senate have teamed up to introduce a bill that would ban fracking, and more.

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National

1.) The U.S. Department of Justice charged three North Korean hackers on Wednesday with having stolen digital wallets of cryptocurrency from banks and businesses worldwide.

The Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice building in Washington. (Courthouse News photo/Jack Rodgers)

2.) The Biden administration said Wednesday it will spend $1.6 billion to expand Covid-19 testing capabilities nationwide and boost the ability to detective variants of the respiratory disease.

FILE - In this Nov. 23, 2020, file photo, licensed vocational nurse Caren Williams, left, collects a nasal swab sample from a traveler at a COVID-19 testing site at the Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles. Data from roadways and airports shows millions could not resist the urge to gather on Thanksgiving, even during a pandemic. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

3.) New York Attorney General Letitia James brought a complaint that accuses Amazon of firing workers who blew the whistle on safety lapses as the Covid-19 pandemic turned the world upside down.

FILE- In this Aug. 3, 2017, file photo, packages pass through a scanner at an Amazon fulfillment center in Baltimore. Amazon's Prime Day starts July 16, 2018, and will be six hours longer than last year's and will launch new products. (Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

4.) A lawyer for the National Football League urged a federal judge Wednesday to reject a twice-revived class action claiming the NFL negligently let teams push painkillers on hurt athletes to get them back on the field, causing permanent injuries.

Regional

5.) Two Democrats in the California Senate have teamed up to introduce a bill that would ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the state as early as 2023.

Pumpjacks operating at the Kern River Oil Field in Bakersfield, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

6.) There is still no clear timeline for when widespread power outages in Texas will be fully resolved, as people in big cities and rural areas alike remain in the dark for a third day and downed power plants struggle to get back online.

Motorist on County Road West drive past a power station Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Odessa, Texas. Many residents and businesses were left without power following a weekend of below freezing temperatures in Midland and Odessa. (Jacob Ford/Odessa American via AP)

International

7.) Facebook will restrict users in Australia from sharing or publishing news content on its site in response to a law being considered that would require social media platforms to pay news publishers for content.

A Facebook employee walks past a sign at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. (Jeff Chiu/AP)

8.) Budget carrier Ryanair failed Wednesday to convince the European Union’s second-highest court that government support for rivals Air France and Scandinavian Airlines broke state aid rules.

A Ryanair jet plane parks at the airport in Weeze, Germany, on Sept. 12, 2018. French authorities seized a Ryanair plane on Nov. 9, 2018, and forced 149 passengers to disembark because of a dispute over subsidies to the Irish airline. The French civil aviation authority announced it had impounded the plane on the tarmac of the Bordeaux-Merignac airport as a “last resort.” (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, file)

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