• Australia's largest state hits record-high COVID-19 cases despite weeks of strict lockdown. 'It's a tinderbox ready to explode,' one official said.
• eToro says crypto made up 73% of trading commissions in the last quarter, as retail customers dived in
• A flight attendant says she was too exhausted to report a passenger who shoved her when a flight was overbooked: report
• US jobless claims climb for first time in 5 weeks, to 353,000

NEW US government documents show just how over-the-top Sean Parker’s extravagant $10 million wedding in the Big Sur forest really was.

The state of California actually fined the Facebook billionaire $2.5 million over it.

That’s because he built a cottage, fake ruins, waterfalls, staircases and a huge dance floor in an ecologically sensitive area near ancient redwoods and a stream with endangered steelhead trout.

He also built a gateway and arch, an artificial pond, a stone bridge, multiple event platforms with elevated floors, rock walls and fake ruined castle walls. And although he was building all of this in a forest, he also planted 125 trees and other plants and flowers, too. The sets and gowns were created by a designer for the Lord of the Rings films.

Parker even created an LLC company, Neraida, to run his wedding, reports The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal.

But he didn’t get permission from the Coastal Commission, which regulates the area. The commission got wind of it all before his unauthorised construction caused too much damage.

Parker, who also co-founded file-sharing site Napster, married singer-songwriter Alexandra Lenas as scheduled last Saturday.

All images California Costal Commission unless otherwise stated