Italy have healed their shattered confidence after last week's capitulation against New Zealand by throwing their unhappy memories "into the fire" ahead of their must-win Rugby World Cup clash with...

Carson Beck passed for 269 yards, Daijun Edwards, Dillon Bell and Cash Jones ran for second-half touchdowns, and No. 1 Georgia rallied from 11 points down to beat South Carolina 24-14

Robert Wadlow was considered the tallest teenager at the age of 17

Hi, it’s Lisa, your Pursuits correspondent in Dubai. We’re heading into a bustling few months in the Gulf,

Joe Rogan said, 'China has so much influence on America, it's crazy how different the playing field is between what we're allowed to do'

Millions will be watching as 26 countries go head to head to be crowned champions of the Eurovision Song Contest this weekend – but not everyone calls themselves a fan. The notoriously weird and wonderful event still divides opinion right down the middle – when it comes to Eurovision, you’re either all in or not. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter We pitched two writers against each other, one who loves Eurovision and one who can’t stand it. So, whose side are you on? Kate Plummer: Why I hate Eurovision What would happen if you brought together all the kinds of musicians who X Factor judges consider passing at the audition stage of the competition - but ultimately decide not to? What would happen if you asked cruise ship singers to come together and belt out hours of 'tunes' that resemble copyright-free hold music at best, or something your 10-year-old niece cooked up on GarageBand at worst? The answer, of course, is the gaudy Eurovision Song Contest, that homage to naffness, that yearly nightmare that we are forced to endure. "But it's fun!" the doltish masses cry. "Look at their outfits," the square-eyed cretins say. Save it. Like most organised fun and forced merriment (see hen dos, school reunions and anything to do with sport), Eurovision is absolutely awful. But unlike hen dos, school reunions and anything to do with sport, there is no escaping the tyrannical grip of its regime. It man spreads over the course of Saturday night telly, it bleeds into every pub, bar and group chat of excitable friends organising their cursed viewing parties. This year, it will even be screened in cinemas. Where is my respite? I didn't even vote for Brexit but surely the yearly congregation of the worst representatives of Europe is a dividend we could have gained from leaving the bloc? The 2023 contest is being held in the UK city of Liverpool this week, building up to the grand final on Saturday. Acts from 37 countries are taking part. So will I be tuning in to see which act has become this year's meme and what 'funny moments' have gone viral on social media? Absolutely not. After all, 66 contests and over 1,600 songs, there's a reason the only Eurovision act anyone can name is Abba... Eurovision is completely naff. Count me out. Harry Fletcher: Why I love Eurovision There aren’t many things that every single member of the family can sit down to watch together and genuinely look forward to. Eurovision is one of them. It’s a big event in our household, with family members spread around the country heading back up north to watch together. Why do we love it? The sheer strangeness is certainly a factor. The likes of Käärijä, representing Finland in 2023 with the bizarre 'Cha Cha Cha', are doing a good job keeping it weird and wonderful. But the sheer quality of the entries is more impressive year on year. The overall standard has increased inexorably and the quality of the songwriting in the strongest entries is always staggering. Crafting a good Eurovision song is an art form, and there are still entries from more than 10 years ago that pop into my head occasionally. Eurovision also has to be the most welcoming, accessible major event in the UK calendar. It’s for absolutely everyone; it’s a comfortable space, completely free of cynicism. With Eurovision, you take away all the nastiness that comes hand in hand with X Factor and other formats that invite people to sing before live audiences. Here, there’s none of the sneering at contestants or gawking at eccentric members of the public. Instead, with Eurovision it’s a celebration, and an invitation to be as weird as you like when representing your country. Eurovision can always be relied on to bring out the best in Twitter, too. When so much of social media is increasingly devoted to negativity and hate, it feels like a throwback to nicer times when it functioned more as a public forum for fans during events like Eurovision. The contest has changed a lot since I started watching around 15 years ago. There was an endearingly cheap feel about the contest back then, but the production values are outstanding these days. It’s far less of a niche interest than it used to be too; with the event coming to the UK this year, it’s attracted more and more attention. More eyes on this wonderfully odd event, which celebrates diversity, gives us genuinely brilliant songs every year and gives us something wholesome to get stuck into on social media can only be a good thing. 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.

Kouri Richins has been arrested and charged for poisoning and killing her husband, Eric, in 2022

A new immigration law passed by Florida governor Ron DeSantis, described by observers as one of the harshest in the country, has caused a massive decline in the Sunshine State’s labour force since it took effect, according to some business owners. The Republican leader and 2024 presidential campaign’s signature immigration law, which took effect 1 July, makes it a third-degree felony for unauthorised immigrants to knowingly use false ID’s for employment, and business that knowingly employ unauthorised immigrants or who avoid using the E-Verify system can lose their licenses or face up to $1000 in fines. The law also requires hospitals that accept Medicaid to check for immigration status, and invalidates drivers licenses issued to unauthorised immigrants from other states. In Miami’s booming construction industry, some companies are reporpting up to a 25 per cent decline in workers, The Wall Street Joural reports. “We’ve seen some fallout on job sites, particularly as it relates to hourly labor as a result of this new law,” Tom C Murphy, co-president of Coastal Construction, a company with more than 30 active projects across the state, told the paper. There at least 400,000 undocumented immigrants working in the state, according to Samuel Vilchez Santiago, the American Business Immigration Coalition’s Florida director. “We are in dire need of workers,” he told the Associated Press last month. “So there is a lot of fear from across the state ... that this new law will actually be devastating.” Migrant groups protested the new law in June, while the governor’s office told the AP in a statement, “Any business that exploits this crisis by employing illegal aliens instead of Floridians will be held accountable.” Mr DeSantis, despite governing a state known for its vibrant immigrant populations from Latin America, has positioned himself as a hard-line anti-immigrant crusader as he runs for president. In late June, he visited the US-Mexico border, where he blamed security issues on the Biden administration and proposed a return to most of Donald Trump’s most controversial immigration policies. That includes detaining migrant families with children beyond the customary 20 days, finishing the US-Mexico border wall, and ending the long-standing practice of releasing migrants into the US ahead of their court dates on potential immigration charges, which are usually civil violations rather than criminal ones more typically associated with prison. Read More Pete Buttigieg takes down Ron DeSantis over ‘strange’ anti-LGBT campaign video with ‘oiled-up bodybuilders’ 'Parental rights' group Moms for Liberty plans nationwide strategy for school board races in 2024 Florida's new DeSantis-backed laws address immigration, guns and more Giuliani grilled by prosecutors about ‘shouting match’ in fight to overturn election Former sheriff who nabbed 'Green River Killer' to run for Washington governor Senegalese President Macky Sall says he won't seek a third term in 2024 elections after protests

African leaders hoping to mediate in the Ukraine war met Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg Saturday.

Grimes has recently opened up about her relationship with ex-boyfriend Elon Musk, who is the father of her three-year-old son X Æ A-XII and one-year-old daughter Exa Dark Sideræl also known as "Y". During the in-depth interview with WIRED, the Canadian musician - whose real name is Claire Elise Boucher - told the interviewer "You get one Elon question," when the Space X, and Tesla CEO and Twitter owner and CTO was mentioned. However, the Oblivion singer covered everything from what she and Musk have learned from each other to her thoughts on the alleged cage fight anticipated to take place between Musk and Meta found Mark Zuckerberg. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Here are some of the biggest talking points from the WIRED interview: What she and Musk learned from each other Grimes described her time with Musk as "the best internship ever," and how "incredible" it was to witness everything he's doing with Space X. "That’s a master class in leadership and engineering and makes you understand how rare it is to have a leader of that quality," she said. She also said she believes she helped Musk to "have more fun," "soften him up" and "build family culture". She added: "And he steals a lot of my memes." On Musk and Twitter Recently, Musk has made headlines with the different choices he's made since he acquired Twitter. The company has consequently gone under some changes, from firing 80 per cent of the entire workforce to changing the name of the social media platform to 'X'. "He didn’t build the culture there. And the cultural fit has obviously been very intense," Grimes said. She noted how Musk has really high standards and the difficulty of his role "to be a great general and do something of that magnitude". The musician went on to say: "Elon has an old-world kind of discipline I really respect. And I think it rubs a lot of people the wrong way. They don’t want to be in that hardcore zone. If you’re not consenting to being in that hardcore zone, I get it." Grimes thinks Musk and Zuckerberg's cage fight will go ahead Grimes was asked for her take on the ongoing beef between Musk and Meta founder Zuckerberg which saw the pair agree via Twitter earlier this year to go head-to-head in a cage fight. She believes the fight will go ahead and commented: "Elon is very strong, but Zuck seems like he’s been training a ton." However she did add that she “would prefer that it didn’t happen”, but she believes it might be a good outlet for “trad masculinity". In one of their Twitter exchanges, Musk challenged Zuckerberg to a “literal d***-measuring contest," a tweet in which Grimes said she would "take credit" for. She further clarified that she didn't tell Musk to write the post, and said: “No, I was like, ‘Why don’t you cut to the chase and get out a ruler.’ I didn’t think he was going to tweet it.” Her children are "little engineers" When asked about Musk bringing their son X into business meetings, Grimes expressed her support given the youngster's interest in rockets. "He knows more about rockets than me," she said, calling him a "little engineer". So much so, Grimes gave an example of her son's "obsession with space," recalling the time he had a "three-day PTSD meltdown," when Starship blew up back in April. Grimes also described her daughter Y as a "little engineer". "She likes industrial shipping. She’s very strange," she added. On Musk's differing views Previously, Grimes and Musk have shared disagreements on Twitter, most notably their different positions on gender with Musk tweeting "'pronouns suck," back in 2020, with people online calling his comment “disgusting” and “transphobic". "I love you but please turn off ur phone or give me a call. I cannot support hate. Please stop this. I know this isn’t your heart," Grimes replied at the time in a since-deleted tweet. Recently, Musk tweeted in June that the words “cis” and “cisgender” are now considered slurs on Twitter. "I don’t want to talk about this too much. But take the trans thing. After that, we had a big, long conversation. I was like, 'I want to dissect why you’re so stressed about this.' "I was like, OK, you don’t hate trans people, you hate woke culture. I get that it can be annoying, and you have concerns about the fertility thing." "He’s just on Twitter, and he’s unhappy with woke people, and the arguments happened," the artist added. 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.

England captain Harry Kane has agreed a deal to make his memorabilia available to purchase exclusively through American company Fanatics. The platform will become the sole distributor of the Bayern Munich striker’s autographs, match-worn shirts and boots and other collectable items. Kane, who is both England and Tottenham’s record goalscorer, is the first British athlete to partner with Fanatics, who have signed deals with a host of big-name American athletes including former NFL star Tom Brady and MLB’s Aaron Judge. The 30-year-old, who was drawn to the company by its links to the NFL, which he has said he one day hopes to play in, said: “I’m thrilled to announce my new exclusive memorabilia partnership with Fanatics, who is the renowned, innovative leader in this space. “This partnership will allow me to share some of my most incredible career memories and experiences with sports fans across the globe. “It’s an honour to join their world-class roster of athletes across all sports – including the NFL, which I am incredibly passionate about. “I am extremely proud to be aligned with a company that is raising the game for sports fans all over the world, and I can’t wait to show what we have in store for fans over the years to come.” The partnership comes after Kane scored his 59th goal for England in Tuesday’s friendly win over Scotland at Hampden Park. He recently told the PA news agency that he is targeting a century of goals for his country. The striker is in the early days of his time at Bayern following his £100million move from Spurs in the summer. He left his boyhood club as their record goalscorer, with 280 competitive goals, 16 more than Jimmy Greaves. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

CUMMING, Ga.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 6, 2023--