Cigna Group is taking a page from billionaire Mark Cuban’s playbook to sell medicines for a set markup,

Paris Saint-Germain have confirmed that Kylian Mbappe has been allowed to return to first-team training after "constructive and positive discussions" regarding his future.

The Hives are back with their first new music in 11 years and they've insisted they wanted their new album 'The Death Of Randy Fitzsimmons' to be 'stupid and childish' so it didn't venture into the territory of 'adult rock'

Two-time NBA all-star swingman Jaylen Brown has agreed to a five-year, $304 million supermax contract extension with the Boston Celtics, his agent Jason Glushon told ESPN.

On Saturday (July 15), Elon Musk revealed that Twitter is struggling with a “heavy debt load” due to advertising revenue dropping 50 per cent. Responding to a user seemingly giving financial business advice to Musk, the billionaire replied explaining that the company is “still in negative cash flow, due to ~50 per cent drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load. Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else.” Back in April, Musk had said Twitter was “roughly breaking even,” as most of its advertisers had returned. However, a New York Times report in early June found that Twitter’s revenue from US advertising was down 59 per cent from the previous year. Since taking over Twitter in October last year, Musk has faced constant scrutiny for his business decisions, cutting roughly 75 per cent of its workforce almost immediately, as well as reinstating users who were previously banned for breaking terms of service. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter In May, Musk hired a new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, an ex-NBCUniversal advertising executive. The new hire was supposed to signal a fresh start for the platform under Musk’s ownership, but it clearly hasn’t worked in bringing previous advertisers back. Twitter has also caused new upset by imposing ‘rate limits’ on how many tweets users can view a day. At the time, Musk had said the restrictions were required to “address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation”. Another challenge that faces Twitter is Meta’s Threads, the new app it launched this week to compete with Twitter. Meta saw over 100 million users sign up in the first two weeks, but is yet to allow advertisers to host on the platform, despite interest. In response, Twitter threatened legal action, with Twitter’s attorney, Alex Spiro, accusing Meta for unlawfully using trade secrets and other intellectual property to create a “copycat” app. 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.

We're all familiar with the different basic tastes - sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami - but now scientists have found a sixth one where the tongue detects ammonium chloride. Research from USC Dornsife has discovered that protein receptors on the tongue not only respond to sour taste but also to ammonium chloride as well. Scientists were very much aware that the tongue responds to ammonium chloride, but haven't been able to specify which exact protein receptors... until now. The protein OTOP1 is responsible for this which can be found in the cell membranes and forms a channel for hydrogen ions moving into the cell. Whenever we taste anything that's particularly sour such as vinegar or lemon juice, OTOP1 is able to detect the acidity found in both of those. Therefore, given that ammonium chloride similarly affects the concentration of hydrogen ions within a cell, research was carried out on whether OTOP1 protein would react to this too. After lab-grown human cells with OTOP1 protein were created and exposed to acid or to ammonium chloride, the team found that ammonium chloride was a "strong activator" of OTOP1. “We saw that ammonium chloride is a really strong activator of the OTOP1 channel. It activates as well or better than acids,” Dr Emily Liman, a professor of biological sciences at USC Dornsife and study author. Now, perhaps you're wondering what ammonium chloride tastes like, one example of where it can be found is in salt liquorice candy which is popular in Nordic countries. “If you live in a Scandinavian country, you will be familiar with and may like this taste,” Dr Liman added. Though the flavour can be of an acquired taste and one that many may not be a fan of - but there is an explanation for this. “Ammonium is found in waste products – think of fertilizer – and is somewhat toxic, so it makes sense we evolved taste mechanisms to detect it,” Dr Liman explained. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter 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.

The U.S. economy is facing headwinds from a possible government shutdown, student debt payments restarting, higher interest rates

Russia is set to benefit from the Israel-Hamas conflict, as Israel’s requests for US military aid risk diverting

When it comes to maintaining an online presence, creators are always looking to be ahead of the curve. Currently, the latest trend that has popped up all over people's For You page is NPC streaming. The basis of this trend is that streamers bizarrely repeat actions over and over again - so what is it all about? Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Here is a breakdown of everything you need to know about the NPC streaming trend. What is NPC streaming? NPC streaming is where the streamers appear animated through their actions, hence being comparable to gaming NPCs, where they often repeat their movements or sayings. In this context, TikTok streamers only interact, speak or perform a specific action when they receive a gift from a viewer, the type of interaction can be dependent on the type of gift. @bobbysie Btw i love ohio final boss and queen Viewers can send a variety of different options such as emotes to the streamer to respond to. For instance, a viewer sends an ice cream and in response, the streamer's reaction would be to pretend to lick it and say “Oh ice cream yum”. Where did this trend begin? Last year, NPC streaming began to rise in popularity, according to Know Your Meme where it all started from Japanese TikToker @natuecoco. She has collaborated with TikToker Satoyu0704 the two of them pretended to be NPCs as they went on to see who could get the most prizes. Over the past year more creators such as Cherry Crush TV and PinkDollReal have been doing popular NPC live streams. Why is this a trend? Perhaps, the reason for the rising popularity of NPC streaming is people's curiosity to see the creator acting like an AI or a character for a video game and want to see if they can keep this act up. Also compared to your average stream, NPC streaming requires increased interaction from the viewer as the streamer is constantly responding to what is being said and sent to them. The trend appears to have celebrity fans, with music producer Timberland reportedly being the #1 viewer on a recent TikTok Live from 19-year-old viral content creator Pinkydoll, according to Pop Crave. Pinkydoll has recently been going viral in July 2023 with her NPC streams where she does things such as popping popcorn with a hair straightener. As a result of Timberland's presence, it caused Pinkydoll to break character. 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 top Twitter executive responsible for safety and content moderation is leaving the company

A crisis at Country Garden Holdings Co., formerly China’s biggest developer, deepened at the start of the week

Manchester City are back in midweek action as they take on Sevilla in the Uefa Super Cup this evening. Pep Guardiola’s men triumphed in the their Champions League final against Inter Milan back in June, securing a treble in the process, and setting up this one-off match against the Europa League winners. Sevilla are City’s opponents tonight after the Spanish outfit won the Europa Leagu, yet again, by beating Jose Mourinho’s Roma. They are well versed in Super Cup games having lost four of these matches of the last nine seasons while tonight’s game will be City’s first appearance in the Super Cup. The Champions League winners have a second chance in three games to collect some silverware after they were beaten on penalties by Arsenal in the Community Shield at Wembley 10 days ago. In the interim they got their Premier League season off to a wonderful start with a victory 3-0 over Burnley and will hope to return to Manchester with another trophy under their belt. Follow all the action and find out the latest odds as Manchester City take on Sevilla in the Super Cup: Read More Super Cup is crucial to Man City’s season but it’s not about the trophy Kevin De Bruyne facing up to four months out and may require surgery Kevin De Bruyne amid Man City trio left out of Uefa Super Cup squad