The Fourth of July holiday takes on a different meaning for the Highland Park, Illinois, community this year

Information on one in three deals worth $2 billion or more leaked to the media last year, even

Apex Legends' Awakening Collection Event was announced Thursday morning, giving fans plenty of new content to devour.

Novak Djokovic powered into his ninth Wimbledon final as the fiery defending champion feuded with the umpire and spectators before beating Jannik Sinner to reach a record 35th Grand...

The student who interrupted his girlfriend’s graduation ceremony in order to propose to her has come in for criticism online. On Tuesday (July 18), the University of Newcastle released footage of a young woman on the stage waiting to receive her degree. As she was about to have her moment in front of the gathered audience, her partner – who is also a student at the university – ran up to her from the crowd. To her great surprise, the young man then proceeded to pull a ring box from his pocket and drop to one knee, causing her to raise her hands to her face in shock. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Then, as the crowd realised what was going on, they broke into applause and the man waved and smiled towards them, before placing the ring on the woman’s finger. Since the video went viral and earned millions of views around the world, scores of social media users have criticised the young man and claimed that he shouldn’t have stolen his partner’s moment in the limelight. “If my partner proposed to me at my PhD graduation ceremony I would break up with them,” one wrote. One more said: “I actually hate that that guy proposed to his girlfriend at her graduation. Let her have her moment, guy. Ugh.” Another said: “It's very telling that he's presumably a fellow graduand, but he proposed during *her* graduation moment and not his own. His graduation is about just him and now her graduation is about him too. Urrghhh.” “Feel sorry for the woman who was proposed to at her graduation ceremony,” one commented, adding: “The double embarrassment of having her special moment usurped by her fiancé, and now thousands on social media calling him out and inevitably adding further tension to their engagement. I hope she’s ok…” “Man if someone proposed to me at my GRADUATION, I would drop kick them to the moon. That is MY moment, and I will NOT have MY work upstaged,” another added. Others, though, saw the whole thing as an overreaction. One wrote: “The level of posting about the graduation proposal is SO unhinged. thousands of people telling you online to dump your fiancé and ripping into one of the happiest days of your life is probably significantly more upsetting than getting proposed to on your graduation!” Another summed up the situation by saying: “I see there are over a thousand retweets, the vast majority of which are highly negative and abusive, of an innocuous tweet from a Uni about someone who proposed at graduation. So many very angry, unhappy and bitter people on this app that use it to feel better about themselves.” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

A former Rockstar Games developer has moved to shut down a blog that had revealed some insider information about game development at the company in the 2000's following feedback from Rockstar North via email. Former Rockstar North technical developer Obbe Vermeij opened up in a blog about the development secrets behind Grand Theft Auto 3, GTA: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas and GTA IV. Vermeij, who worked for Rockstar between 1995 - 2009, revealed the development of a GTA 2.5 (to follow the 2D GTA 2) as well as a zombie survival-horror successor-of-sorts to GTA: Vice City, based off of the code of that game. However, before the blog could continue, a post discussing the games was deleted yesterday after Vermeij was contacted by Rockstar: "Today (22 Nov 2023) I got an email from R*North," wrote Vermeij. Apparently some of the OG's there are upset by my blog. I genuinely didn't think anyone would mind me talking about 20 year old games but I was wrong. Something about ruining the Rockstar mystique or something. Anyway, This blog isn't important enough to me to p**s off my former colleagues in Edinburgh so I'm winding it down." Vermeij added further clarity to the situation on X and stated that Rockstar North did not force him to close the blog down, just that it was disliked by former colleagues. There is no telling as to what specifically Vermeij's former colleagues found umbrage with, but Vermeij discussed a lot about the development of early GTA games as well as the cancelled Agent PS3 exclusive and the aforementioned zombie project in a post entitled 'Distractions: Agent & Z.' Rockstar Norther spent a while pogressing the idea of their zombie game - Z. The game, (pronounced zed), would've been built using code from Vice City, based on a push from artists at the company who were fascinated with zombies. Z would've been sent on a Scottish Island with the player repelling constant attacks from the undead, using vehicles to explore. Why didn't it go ahead? Well those working on Z - according to Vermeij - found the idea depressing and focused work on GTA: San Andreas instead. Vermeij also talked about aspects behind the development of GTA 3 and Vice City, and touched on the potential of a GTA 3 LAN game to add multiplayer to the open-world map, an idea that would gestate until it was realised fully in GTA IV. It's a shame that Vermeij has closed his blog posts on the GTA games, as it was genuinely interesting, and the posts that remain aren't as perhaps 'gossipy' in that they don't reveal unknown information, but they still touch on deeper aspects of game development at Rockstar. For those who are interested, you can find it here. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

Miyan Williams rushed for two touchdowns and No. 3 Ohio State beat Indiana 23-3 for its 23rd consecutive season-opening victory

A defiant Stephen Kenny is refusing to contemplate his position despite seeing the Republic of Ireland’s Euro 2024 qualification hopes ripped apart by the Netherlands. Three days after a 2-0 defeat by Group B leaders France in Paris left them facing the point of no return, Ireland went down 2-1 to the Dutch in Dublin to effectively slip out of contention for a top-two finish. Kenny, who was adamant in the build-up to the game that he still expected to be in charge for next month’s double-header against Greece and Gibraltar whatever happened on Sunday evening, remained just as determined in the wake of a heart-breaking defeat. Asked about his future, he said: “Listen from my point of view, I’m not thinking about that now. I’m just very disappointed that we can’t finish in the top two in the group. I’m just very, very disappointed with that and it’s gut-wrenching that we can’t, you know? “I think France are the best team in the world, up a level. Holland are probably not at the level of France, but they’re still… Argentina beat them in the World Cup on penalties. “They have a lot of world-class players, but it’s still one that when you take the lead like we did, you are capable of winning. But we didn’t defend well enough overall to do that.” Kenny’s men could hardly have got off to a better start when, having already caused panic in the Dutch defence, they were awarded a fourth-minute penalty for handball by Virgil van Dijk. Adam Idah, who had only previously scored one senior international goal – and that against Gibraltar in June – dispatched the resulting spot-kick with the confidence of a man with a far more impressive record and the locals among a crowd of 49,807 dared to believe. However, a defensive lapse allowed Denzel Dumfries through on goal and when he went down under keeper Gavin Bazunu’s challenge, Cody Gakpo was equally decisive from 12 yards. Ireland gave as good as they got before the break, prompting Ronald Koeman to send on Wout Weghorst and Tijjani Reijnders before the restart, and it was Weghorst who scored what proved to be the winner within 11 minutes when he converted from Dumfries’ knock-down. Asked about the pressure on his shoulders, Kenny said: “There is pressure on, pressure from ourselves because we were desperate to go into the October window still very much in the hunt. “We were desperate to do that, so there’s that pressure from within ourselves, so we’re disappointed with that, really disappointed with that. “From our point of view, we’ve Greece and Gibraltar to prepare for in October, which is only a few weeks away, and Holland, so we have to finish the group strongly and see if we have a play-off [via the Nations League] in March then. We’re not sure about that.” Koeman admitted he was far from happy at the break, but delighted with the way his players responded to his half-time message. He said: “The start was really poor. We expected high pressing from the Irish team, but we lost many balls in our possession and we did not have control in the game. “After 20, 25 minutes, it was a little bit more calmed down and the decision at half-time to change the system to play four at the back was a good decision. “After half-time, we controlled the game. Only in the last 10 minutes, maybe they brought the same pressing, but they did not create any chance to score and we defended well in the last part of the game, and finally I think it’s a fair result.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Wout Weghorst winner all but ends Republic of Ireland’s Euro 2024 hopes Manu Tuilagi laughs off adversity after 14-man England grind out win Liam Livingstone makes innings he was ‘crying out for’ as England level series

Luka Modric has extended his contract with Real Madrid for another year. The LaLiga club announced on Monday that Croatia playmaker Modric, 37, would remain with the Spanish giants until at least the end of June 2024. Modric – who joined Real from Tottenham in 2012 and has gone on to win the Champions League five times as well as three LaLiga titles – would have been out of contract this summer and so could have left on a free transfer. A statement from Real Madrid read: “Real Madrid and Luka Modric have agreed to extend the player’s contract, which remains linked to the club until June 30 2024.” Modric – who helped Croatia reach the 2018 World Cup final and won the Ballon d’Or that year – had been linked with following former team-mate Karim Benzema in making a big-money move to Saudi Arabia. Following the announcement of his new contract at Real Madrid, Modric wrote on Twitter: “Home Sweet Home. #Modric2024”. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

The cost of shipping fuel along the Rhine river has surged as low water levels curb barges’ carrying

Arsenal defender Rob Holding has claimed Liverpool have the 'craziest' fans in the Premier League and has opened up on the Gunners' 2-2 draw at Anfield in April.

Manchester City and Leipzig have reached the knockout stage of the Champions League with two matches to spare