Archaeologists in Switzerland have uncovered the ruins of a Roman-era amphitheater — possibly the youngest on record — where spectators likely watched gladiator fights and animal hunts with bated breath.

The oval-shaped amphitheater was built in an abandoned Roman quarry that had been in use until late antiquity. This clue, combined with the discovery of a coin dating to between A.D. 337 and 341 at the site, indicates that the amphitheater dates to the fourth century A.D., which would make it the youngest amphitheater in the Roman Empire, Jakob Baerlocher, an archaeologist at the site and head of excavations in Kaiseraugst, Switzerland, told Live Science.

A few other clues point to a fourth century A.D. date, including the composition of the amphitheater's building materials, such as its stone blocks and mortar, which are "reminiscent of that of the late antique fort wall," Baerlocher told Live Science in an email.

Archaeologists discovered the amphitheater while monitoring construction work for a new boathouse on the Rhine River in December 2021. The amphitheater — in Kaiseraugst, a municipality named for the ancient Roman city of Augusta Raurica, which sits near Switzerland's modern-day borders with France and Germany — is the third Roman amphitheater discovered to date in Augusta Raurica, according to a translated statement from the Department of Education, Culture and Sport in the Swiss canton of Aargau, which announced the find on Jan. 19.

(CNN)The lot of three items put up for auction earlier this month by former first lady Melania Trump failed to reach its desired monetary threshold of $250,000 for an opening bid.

When the auction for the three items -- a custom, wide-brimmed white hat worn by Trump during an official White House state visit, a watercolor of Trump wearing the hat and a non-fungible token (NFT) of the illustration with animation -- ended Wednesday night, there appeared to only have been five total bids on the auction items, each around the minimum requirement of 1,800 Solana tokens, the cryptocurrency selected by Trump as the only way for interested buyers to pay.

While the minimum requirement of Solana tickets was met, the $250,000 threshold wasn't met because over the last two weeks, almost the entirety of the auction, the crypto market has taken a massive dive, with values of various currencies falling 20, 30 or even 40%, as was the case with Solana (SOL.)

As a result of the lack of interest in Trump's items, an inflated opening bid amount and a plunging market, the "Head of State Collection" -- as Trump dubbed her lot -- appears to have sold for about $170,000, $80,000 below the anticipated opening bid. CNN reached out to Trump's spokesperson for comment on the auction.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and dozens of other Democrats on Wednesday called on President Joe Biden to show his cards on student loan forgiveness and release a legal memo his administration prepared about his powers to cancel student debt.

The new request for the documents by 85 House and Senate Democrats comes as progressives are once again ramping up their pressure campaign to convince Biden to cancel large amounts of student debt ahead of the midterm elections.

“Publicly releasing the memo outlining your existing authority on cancelling student debt and broadly doing so is crucial to making a meaningful difference in the lives of current students, borrowers, and their families,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Biden that was shared with POLITICO. “It has been widely reported that the Department of Education has had this memo since April 5, 2021 after being directed to draft it.”

The letter was led by Warren and Schumer, and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Katie Porter (D-Calif.).

Sitting among some of the most influential Black women in America last month, Vice President Kamala Harris confessed to a stifling sensation that had fallen over her while in office. She was struggling to escape the D.C. bubble, Harris confided to the group, which had gathered in person and virtually for the private audience, according to multiple attendees.

Harris has grumbled at times about the customs of a town where she remains a relative newcomer. She is prone to lament the Beltway’s obsession with familiarity, the routine groupthink of its thought leaders; and the intense interest in collecting scraps of palace intrigue, according to more than a dozen aides and people familiar with her conversations. She’s repeatedly instructed her aides to stay focused on the work. At the same time, she’s allowed that her instinct to ignore the superficial elements of politics has created more work for her team, which is forced to operate aggressively in that world.

Gathered in her ceremonial office in D.C. this December, as some of these themes were sounded again, the women agreed that Harris needed to make her way around the morass.

“She wholeheartedly wants to get out,” said Ebonie Riley, a senior vice president at National Action Network who was at the meeting. “She said she was ‘Zoom’d out,’ she would love to be in-person engaging.”

About a week after announcing his executive order making masks optional in schools throughout Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) said on a radio show that school districts statewide had rushed to comply.

“The reality is it’s about 25 out of our 130 school systems across Virginia who aren’t recognizing the rights of parents today,” Youngkin told conservative host John Fredericks on Monday, adding that the noncompliant districts were prioritizing “bureaucrats and politicians over the rights of parents.”

But a Washington Post analysis shows that the majority of Virginia public school districts — enrolling more than two-thirds of the state’s students — have opted to disobey Youngkin’s mask-optional order. As of Wednesday, two days after the order was supposed to take effect, 69 districts, or 53 percent, are still requiring masks for all students inside schools. Cumulatively, those districts enroll 846,483 students, or about 67 percent of the state’s public school student population. The divide falls along partisan lines, although not perfectly: Almost every district that opted to make masks optional is in a locality that voted for Youngkin in the 2021 gubernatorial election.


The widespread defiance suggests Youngkin will have enormous difficulty in enforcing his mask-optional mandate, which is already the subject of two lawsuits: one from parents in Chesapeake, and one from seven school boards that oversee some of the state’s largest, most prominent school districts. A hearing on the second suit is scheduled for next week. Youngkin has said he will use every tool at his disposal to carry out his order as those cases wind through the court system, and his spokeswoman did not rule out disciplining disobedient districts by yanking their state funding.

(CNN)A federal judge appeared unconvinced on Wednesday that Donald Trump should be allowed to testify at a trial of a US Capitol riot defendant who is arguing the former President could be a helpful witness.

Judge Reggie Walton said that having Trump and his allies testify would not necessarily help Dustin Thompson's defense, which plans to argue that Trump and others goaded his supporters to storm the Capitol. Thompson is accused of entering the Capitol and stealing a coat rack.

"I just (didn't) see what more you get having them come into court to testify," Walton said during the hearing, pointing out the defense could play videos of what Trump and others said at a rally that preceded the attack.

A Justice Department prosecutor agreed with Walton during the hearing.