A busy summer transfer window saw one of the biggest names in the Women’s Super League switch sides, while a Japanese World Cup standout is set to play English top-flight football for the first time. Here, we pick five players to look out for in the WSL as the new campaign gets under way. Alessia Russo (Arsenal) Arsenal tried and failed – with a rumoured world-record bid – to reach an agreement with Manchester United to sign England forward Russo during the January transfer window, but the Gunners finally landed their coveted target on a free transfer in July. Russo hit 10 goals in the WSL last season as United finished runners-up to champions Chelsea and was boss Sarina Wiegman’s first-choice centre forward for the World Cup, where she netted three times for the runners-up. With Beth Mead and Vivianne Miedema also set for imminent returns from their respective anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries, head coach Jonas Eidevall will boast an intimidating wealth of options in attack. Hinata Miyazawa (Manchester United) While Brazil international Geyse, a Champions League winner last season with Barcelona, will likely be seen as the most direct replacement for Russo, boss Marc Skinner will also be buoyed by the arrival of Japan international Miyazawa from WE League side MyNavi Sendai. Versatile Miyazawa’s five goals in four games at the World Cup were good enough to secure her the tournament’s Golden Boot, and her breakthrough performance also landed the 23-year-old nominations for both the Ballon d’Or and FIFA Best Women’s Player of 2023. With United playing more matches this season after securing a Champions League berth for the first time, Miyazawa adds pivotal depth to Skinner’s squad. Mary Fowler (Manchester City) While Fowler is not a new face at Manchester City, where she signed a four-year deal last June, the forward may find herself under a much brighter spotlight this season after helping Australia reach a first-ever semi-final in a Women’s World Cup. Fowler was instrumental in ensuring the Matildas secured safe passage out of the group stage even without prolific striker and skipper Sam Kerr, who returned for the knockouts following a calf injury. The 20-year-old netted in Australia’s 4-0 group stage victory over Canada, teed up Caitlin Foord with a brilliant through ball in her side’s last-16 victory over Denmark and scored a perfect penalty against France in a nervy quarter-final shootout – the longest in Women’s World Cup history – to solidify her status as one to watch. Catarina Macario (Chelsea) Macario became one of the many victims of the ACL injury crisis plaguing women’s football whilst playing for Lyon in June 2022 and has yet to return to action – but that did not stop WSL title-holders Chelsea from signing the 23-year-old to a three-year deal in July. Though still in the early stages of her career, the American forward, who joins the Blues after two seasons with Lyon, has already accomplished something her decorated new boss Emma Hayes has not: winning a Champions League trophy. Macario, who can play as a central striker or an attacking midfielder, scored 23 goals in 33 games for Lyon in 2021/22 and could prove a key component of Hayes’ European plans once deemed fit to return. Daphne van Domselaar (Aston Villa) Aston Villa boss Carla Ward was in search of a new goalkeeper after former first choice Hannah Hampton, whose contract had expired, also joined Hayes’ ranks over the summer. Villa, who finished fifth last season, have signalled their intent to take on the league’s top sides with a busy transfer window and were delighted after beating big European challengers to secure the services of Netherlands goalkeeper Daphne van Domselaar from FC Twente for the next three years. The three-time Eredivisie Vrouwen winner, who joins Villa from FC Twente, was also the Netherlands’ first-choice shot-stopper at the World Cup. Read More Can anyone stop dominant Chelsea? – WSL talking points ahead of new season Aston Villa women ‘dreading’ WSL opener due to ‘wet kit’ design error Women’s football sees ‘wild’ record transfer spending ahead of new WSL season Changes on and off the pitch as a new era approaches for Women’s Super League Jose Mourinho ruing ‘worst start’ of his career after Roma thrashed 4-1 at Genoa Barcelona and Spanish refereeing committee under investigation for ‘active bribery’

Thousands of people have protested in North Macedonia’s capital, Skopje, over allegations that patients at a state cancer hospital missed life-saving treatment because staff were stealing the expensive drugs to sell on the black market

Roller coasters are synonymous with a fun and exhilarating time at a theme park - but one artist has designed an "Euthanasia Coaster" that is specifically intended to kill its passengers. Julijonas Urbonasis is the man behind the 2010 project which has been described as a thought experiment or conceptual art. The "hypothetic death machine in the form of a roller coaster, engineered to humanely – with elegance and euphoria – take the life of a human being," according to his website. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter How it works is that the sheer speed of the roller coaster along with number of loops would result in "oxygen deficiency in the brain," which would ultimately kill those who are on board the ride. So it appears, there's no chance of surviving the ride if you're on it. @criminologyandcoffee Would you ride the Euthanasia Coaster? #euthanasiacoaster #julijonasurbonas #rollercoaster However, there may be a way, according to Urbonas - with the Lithuanian artist explaining that it requires sporting some anti-gravity gear. "A possible usage is the 'hacked' thrill ride, which was suggested to me by an aeronautic engineer who happened to visit the coaster's scale model during an exhibition," he told LadBible back in 2021. "She said, 'Your machine could be hacked, you know.' "After my confusion, she explained, 'Using anti-g trousers that prevent pilots from blackout and fainting, I believe I would survive the ride and turn it into the most extreme thrill ride.'" While a scale model of the ride was built, according to Snopes but building the roller coaster in real life is not the aim for Urbonas - instead, the purpose of the design is "to convince the public that it can be built." "I have quite the list of people who would like to be scientific objects if the project would advance towards realisation. Most of them are elderly from the US. But I don’t want to go this far," Urbonas said in a 2018 interview with Arterritory 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.

“If you’re a journalist and the government wants to kill you – you’re doing it right”. Those are the chilling words of broadcaster Irina Babloyan, who until Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine hosted Russia’s most popular morning radio show. But stalked by the FSB and taken off the air within days of the war starting, the journalist felt compelled to leave Moscow for her own safety. Little did she realise, like so many of Putin’s critics, she would also suffer symptoms of suspected poisoning that left her skin “burning all the time”. Established prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s sole major independent radio station Echo of Moscow was taken off air in March 2022, during the Kremlin’s clampdown on information, and then shut down completely. Events soon took an even darker turn. Late one evening, near her home, Ms Babloyan was out walking with her close friend, opposition politician Ilya Yashin, when he was arrested. He was later sentenced to eight and a half years in prison, over a YouTube livestream about Russian atrocities in Bucha. From that moment, she says Russian police and FSB agents followed her everywhere – even some 350 miles south to Belgorod – and openly sat outside her home, threatening her that “it’s probably better for you to leave”. It was as she began to investigate early reports of Ukrainian children being forcibly taken to Russia that the personal danger to Ms Babloyan intensified. She approached Russian government officials, who told her they were aware of the situation and that the children would remain in the country until the war was over. While she was initially aware of just one “school” housing Ukrainian children in Russia, the findings soon snowballed until she learned from a fellow journalist of dozens more facilities, holding thousands more. Ukraine’s current figures suggest at least 19,000 children have been taken. “I was really shocked and I understood: okay, probably it’s time for me to leave,” Ms Babloyan said, adding: “I was so tired and felt I couldn’t change the situation.” She returned to her home country of Georgia in October, amid another Russian exodus sparked by Putin’s mobilisation order. With Echo of Moscow set to resume programming via its app from Berlin, the journalist planned to move to there – in a journey requiring her to drive to Armenia, before flying from Yerevan to Moldova, and then on to the German capital. On the eve of the long trip, she suddenly “felt something strange going on”. “In a second”, she began to feel nauseous and tired. “I had dinner with friends – I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want to drink, I ordered salad and wine, and didn’t [touch] it at all. I decided to go to bed, went to my hotel and fell asleep.” It was the last time she would sleep for three days. She awoke feeling “much worse”, recalling: “I couldn’t move normally – every single movement was very hard.” She felt a metallic taste in her mouth, with “crazy” pain in her head and “in a strange place” in her stomach, while her hands and feet had turned “wine red”. “I couldn’t move my fingers normally, and I felt like [I was] touching fire in [my] hands and feet,” Ms Boloyan said. Blaming hitherto dormant allergies, she bought some antihistamines, packed a bag and embarked on a four-hour taxi journey to Yerevan. Save for the border crossing, she lay on the back seat for the entire journey, unable to move. “Every single piece of my body was burning. I couldn’t think normally, couldn’t concentrate on anything.” At the airport after a sleepless night in a hotel, filled with anxiety, she arranged a phone appointment with a Russian doctor, who told her the symptoms were probably caused by stress. “I was sitting waiting my flight crying all the time I was talking because they didn’t understand what was going on,” she said. Ms Babloyan spent another sleepless night in Chisinau, the Moldovan capital, before flying to Germany, where finally on the third day, she found she could walk, talk and eat again. “It was not all gone, but it was much better,” she said. Without health insurance, it was December by the time she saw a doctor, who prescribed her antidepressants and told her allergy tests would cost €6,000. Soon after, Ms Babloyan was forced to stop doing her radio show, as “something strange started happening with my skin”, which broke out in hive-like red spots, “burning all the time”. She took the tests for all known allergens, which came back negative. At this point, a Russian friend recommended another doctor, who upon seeing her skin immediately told her she needed toxicology tests for heavy metals – and said she knew of two other Russians, a journalist and activist, who had recently fallen ill in Europe with similar symptoms. The two other cases – Novaya Gazeta journalist Elena Kostyuchenko, in Berlin, and US-based Free Russia Foundation president Natalia Arno, in Prague – were being looked into by Riga-based investigative outlet The Insider. Doctors and poison specialists have since told the outlet that poisoning is the only explanation for Ms Kostyuchenko’s symptoms, and is the most likely reason for Babloyan and Arno’s symptoms. She was tested at the Charité Hospital, where the now-jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was diagnosed in 2020. But she was later told that her toxicology tests had been “lost”, and although doctors also took a sample of her hair, she has still not been told the results. Ms Kostyuchenko is also still in the dark, despite claims by a source to The Insider that law enforcement carried out their own secret analysis of her blood. Having announced an investigation last month into Ms Kostyuchenko’s case, German prosecutors are now treating it as attempted murder. However, Georgia is yet to announce its own probe into Ms Babloyan’s case, and she is currently unable to return to Tblisi and formally trigger an investigation herself. For Ms Babloyan, it was while interviewing Ms Kosyuchenko on her radio show in mid-August that the stark reality truly began to set in. “When you are looking into the face and eyes of a person who felt the same [symptoms] and you understand it was real, it feels scary – very,” she said, adding that she is still “just trying to understand how to live when you know that someone wanted to kill you, and probably will do it again.” The journalist – who still has problems with her skin, and suffers pain in her fingers after opening a bottle or even a door – remains even more determined to offer an objective narrative on Russia’s affairs. “Work is like therapy for me,” she said. “I can’t stop working”, and noted that, as a journalist, if the government “wants to kill you, it means that, what you’re doing – you’re doing it right”. Asked whether she believed she had been targeted for her enquries into potential Russian war crimes, Ms Babloyan replied: “I just think that all Russian journalists and activists are a target for the Russian government. “But it’s hard to understand who’s going to be next because if you are trying to find logic, you can’t find it, and everyone can be a target.” Read More Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska’s interview with Bel Trew | An Independent TV Original Dodging a constant assault of Russian missiles – the war-weary keep fighting in Ukraine’s blood-soaked east Putin’s hit list: from poisoned tea to mysterious falls, the grisly fate of the Kremlin’s enemies Russia shuts down human rights group that preserved the legacy of Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov

Blake Snell will be highly sought after this winter. Could the St. Louis Cardinals be in play?

A European spacecraft around Mars has sent its first livestream from the red planet to Earth to mark the 20th anniversary of its launch

The BBC speaks to families trying to rebuild their lives in one of the country's poorest regions.

The rival presidents found common ground on climate change, military communications and fentanyl.

The U.S. Open is the new standard among majors when it comes to prize money

Mama June gets emotional while talking to Dr Ish in new episode of 'Mama June: Family Crisis'

WASHINGTON U.S. President Joe Biden called Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Thursday to convey that he signed a

Carlos Alcaraz has won the Queen’s Club Championships final for his first ATP title on grass