Yankees star Aaron Judge recently showed off his class in a short but funny exchange with Seattle Mariners' Teoscar Hernandez.New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge can do it all. He hit two homers in Monday's win over the Seattle Mariners and also robbed one on defense.The Mariners ...

FRISCO, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 20, 2023--

Alex Murdaugh appeared before a judge in a South Carolina courtroom on Thursday for the first time since he was hauled away after being sentenced to life in prison for the brutal murders of his wife Maggie and son Paul earlier this year. The disgraced attorney was shackled and handcuffed but smiled as he entered the courtroom in Beaufort County and shuffled to the defence table wearing a bright orange jumpsuit. He once again stands before Judge Clifton Newman, who oversaw his murder trial back in March, but now faces a slew of financial fraud charges. Judge Newman is expected to set a date for Murdaugh to stand trial on charges for stealing from the estate of his dead housekeeper Gloria Satterfield and from his family friend Jordan Jinks. Murdaugh is accused of stealing insurance payments meant for the family of his housekeeper, Satterfield, who died after a fall at the Murdaugh family property in 2018. Former Palmetto State Bank CEO Russell Laffitte and former attorney Cory Fleming – both former friends of Murdaugh’s and alleged co-conspirators in his financial crimes – are also due in court on the same day. Fleming is expected to be sentenced on Thursday after pleading guilty to 23 counts, which included conspiring and working with Murdaugh to steal from clients and friends. Laffitte – who was convicted of federal charges in November – is also appearing for a status conference in his state case. Murdaugh is facing more than 100 state and federal charges over his alleged financial crimes – many of which he admitted to on the witness stand at his murder trial. The hearing on Thursday will focus on the state charges. A court hearing on the federal charges is scheduled for 21 September. Murdaugh previously agreed to plead guilty to federal charges he stole millions of dollars from clients, according to court records. The court appearance comes just over a week after Murdaugh’s defence attorneys filed a bombshell motion requesting a new trial based on allegations of inappropriate behaviour by Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill. Read More Alex Murdaugh to face court for first time since murder trial sentencing as jury tampering update looms – live Another twist in the Alex Murdaugh double murder case. Did the clerk tamper with the jury? Alex Murdaugh’s friend pleads guilty to helping steal from dead maid’s family

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With new research emerging, more questions have been raised about weight-loss injections, how they work, and the risks involved. Here are some of your questions answered. What are weight loss injections? Championed by some celebrities, including Elon Musk, weight loss injections were originally created to treat people with type 2 diabetes and other weight-related health issues. They are a type of prescription-based medical treatment that interferes with your metabolism, regulates your appetite and as a result encourages weight loss. The drugs belong to a class of medications known as glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, or GLP-1 RAs, which mimic the GLP-1 hormone, released in the gut after eating some food. The only FDA-approved stomach injections to help with weight management are semaglutide — sold under the brand names Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus — and liraglutide — sold under Saxenda. But others are in development. Helen Knight, programme director of the Centre for Health Technology Evaluation at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) said: “We know that management of overweight and obesity is one of the biggest challenges our health service is facing with nearly two-thirds of adults either overweight or obese. It is a lifelong condition that needs medical intervention, has psychological and physical effects, and can affect the quality of life. “But in recent years Nice has been able to recommend a new line of pharmaceutical treatments which have shown that those people using them, alongside changes to their diet and exercise, have been able to reduce their weight.” How do they work? According to Nice’s independent appraisal committee, drugs like semaglutide should only be prescribed to patients as an alternative for weight management — alongside a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity in adults. They should also have a BMI of at least 35.0 kg/m2 (this is medically classified as obese), and especially, to people with a BMI of 30.0 kg/m2 to 34.9 kg/m2, have non-diabetic hyperglycaemia (blood sugar that is above normal but below those needed to diagnose diabetes) or are at high risk of other weight-related conditions such as strokes and heart attacks, due to other factors such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Using semaglutide as an example, a typical dose for weight loss is 2.4 milligrams, administered weekly as under-the-skin self-injections. How are they going to be rolled out? Nice formally recommended liraglutide, orlistat and semaglutide as medicines suitable to use for weight loss earlier this year. And with such drugs also available through online pharmacies by private prescription, a growing number of people have tried the jabs. If they are prescribed alongside a reduced-calorie diet, increased physical activity, and behavioural support, after a year, people taking them can lose up to 15% of their body weight, with results visible within the first month, according to the Nice clinical trials. Some weight loss injections are available on the NHS, but they are only prescribed under certain circumstances. Following an announcement of a £40 million two-year pilot on June 7, the government have said more people living with obesity will have access to the newest and most effective obesity drugs to help cut NHS waiting lists. What are the possible side effects? Europe’s drug regulator The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is investigating whether patients using some weight loss and obesity jabs are at risk of suicidal thoughts and thoughts of self-harm, which highlights some of the controversy surrounding the phenomenon. The EMA safety committee said it is looking at cases among people who use a semaglutide or liraglutide-containing medicine for weight loss – where “signals” were raised by the Icelandic Medicines Agency. “A signal is information on a new or known adverse event that is potentially caused by a medicine and that warrants further investigation,” the EMA said. “The case reports included two cases of suicidal thoughts, one following the use of Saxenda and one after Ozempic. One additional case reported thoughts of self-injury with Saxenda. “The semaglutide-containing medicine Wegovy and the liraglutide-containing medicine Saxenda are authorised for weight loss, together with diet and physical activity. “Suicidal behaviour is not currently listed as a side-effect in the EU product information of these medicines.” If you have a history of medullary thyroid cancer, gallbladder disease, or even pancreatitis, you should avoid taking weight loss injections like semaglutide. People who do take the prescription drug for weight loss sometimes experience dizziness, fatigue, and gastrointestinal issues — the most common side effects among patients — such as diarrhoea, constipation and gassiness. They are also at risk of getting headaches and stomach conditions including vomiting, bloating and nausea. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Journalist and author Yomi Adegoke on the real-life consequences of social media What is group B strep? Charity says pregnant women ‘in the dark’ Britney Spears: I worked my ass off to get my memoir written

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Earlier this year, Apple launched Apple Music Classical as a standalone music app that comes included in the price of Apple Music. It was an unusual move for a streaming platform perhaps more associated with Drake and Taylor Swift. And building it was a major undertaking, given the vast complexity of classical music libraries and the difficulties in navigating them. Apple Music Classical continues to grow. In its latest move, Apple announced a new partnership between Apple and the London Philharmonic Orchestra with the release of a live recording of Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust coming on 3 November. This is just one of the partners Apple Music Classical has. From day one, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra was a partner. The content from that orchestra is extensive, with recordings dating back to 1929. Some of it is unique to Apple and this exclusive content alone has already been streamed millions of times. Recently, senior staffers at the app talked exclusively to The Independent. Apple Music Classical came about because Apple realised that classical artists and fans were really not being served well by streaming. As part of its mission to use its engineering knowhow to fix this, it bought Primephonic, widely recognised as the classical streaming platform that succeeded where others had failed. It took more than a year of work before Apple was happy with what it had created and its release to a highly positive response. Now, classical music lovers don’t have to clamber past Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift to get to Bach and Rachmaninoff. Classical music provides challenges other kinds of music don’t, or at least not to the same extent. Instead of playing an album, artist or track, classical lovers have favourite composers, orchestras, soloists and so on. The search parameters are mind-boggling. Apple is well-equipped, with more classical music than anywhere else on the planet, and Primephonic’s brilliant data metrics were a starting point from which Apple’s engineers and expertise transformed the experience. Want to listen to Vivaldi’s Spring from the Four Seasons? Apple has 1,243 versions for you to choose from. If that sounds overwhelming, Apple has a solution: careful navigation with sophisticated search. Just as Apple Fitness+ has a mantra that everybody is welcome, no matter their fitness level or knowledge, Apple Music Classical is designed for seasoned devotees and newcomers alike. “If you didn’t know much about the world of classical, Apple Music Classical offers a structure so you can get into it. It’s centuries of music, right, so where do you start? It gives you an opportunity to get some perspective on it, explains Mariana Pimenta, who works in operations at Apple Music Classical, saying: “We don’t expect everybody who downloads it to be a professional musician, and we want everyone to experience classical music. Our goal is to bring as many people as possible to this service.” Marina Boiko is an editor. She goes on, “The story of classical is a great place to start and we’ve made sure there’s enough beginner-friendly content, such as playlists of periods or genres.” Not all traditional classical listeners will be especially tech-savvy, but that may not be a problem, as Guy Jones, global head of classical editorial, explains. “Lots of classical fans are new not just to technology but to streaming. The whole point of this product is to bring classical to streaming. It’s the musical genre that wasn’t really being streamed because the experience was previously so bad. The technical side of things may be less of a problem, especially as Apple’s guidelines around human interface design are baked into our product, but the challenge is more in explaining that streaming opens up opportunity and accessibility. “When I was first getting into classical music, I had to buy CDs. I had to choose carefully what CD I wanted to buy each month. The ability now to just pick a random composer and ask, ‘Do I like this composer?’ That ability to let you dip your toe in the water, I think that’s the real power of something like Apple Music Classical, and not just for beginners, for the experts too.” The absence of the Primephonic app while Apple Music Classical was being developed was down to getting it right, Carlos Anez Gomez, from the metadata team, says. “It took us time, but it paid off because we needed to take care with every single point and I think we managed to do it, both in human terms and the algorithms: we made a great balance between computer work and human work. Where Primephonic had a relatively small catalogue, Apple Music Classical has a huge number of albums, for example.” Boiko adds, “No one knows everything that has ever been recorded in the history of classical music. And in that sense, we put a lot of emphasis on the discovery element, especially when it comes to the underrepresented composers.” Each work has its own place, called the work page in Apple Music Classical, where you can find all the recordings, so it’s easy to compare different versions. Primephonic’s unique data continues to be essential. “The structured metadata, that’s the uniqueness of it,” Boiko says. “It makes it easy to find things even if you don’t know what you want. That structure, it’s what classical music apps needed and didn’t have. There are many ways not to get lost because you can search by ensemble, by orchestra or even by instrument.” The work page is important, then. As Gomez says, “People discovering music can check this work page and say, ‘Aha, there is a new piece by a certain composer and I have a work page which will give me all the information that I need.’ I discover music every day going through this.” Another key element is the playlist. Boiko goes on, “Playlists are structured in different ways. So, genre playlists are the best way for you to start listening to classical music. The story of classical is a narrated cycle, that guides you through all the centuries of music. “Then there are more specific playlists. You can listen to duets and trios and quartets or quintets and then it gives you an overview of all this chamber music and maybe something that you wouldn’t necessarily find on other platforms.” Jones explains the importance of the human touch. “I don’t think it’s widely known that at Apple it’s human curators behind the playlists. The assumption is that it’s all algorithms now. But for classical that’s a particularly important point, because it’s such a huge genre. People talk about classical like it’s one block and it’s really a thousand years of music from pretty much every country in the world. Our job is breaking classical into smaller chunks, to give people the agency to discover what they like, and to go down their own rabbit holes and feel more confident exploring.” How does Apple Music Classical find a way to appeal to everyone? Jones explains, “It’s a really hard thing to do, to cover that broad spectrum. It’s a constant tightrope walk because you have very knowledgeable people with clear ideas about what they think the genre is as well as trying to please newcomers. We strike that balance in terms of our editorial strategy by being as authentic and genuine as possible and conveying our passion for classical. For those hardcore classical nerds a big part of the product is the browse and the search as much as it is the editorial, I think for the newcomers, they use the editorial a lot more if they don’t know what to search for.” As it grows, there’s a lot more for Apple to do, and the team are working on changes and improvements. Here’s a last word from each of them about why the app matters. Gomez says, “People will discover that along with any classical library that they can have their access quickly to any recording they have.” As Boiko says, “It’s a lot of music. I think there’s not one person that wouldn’t find something they would love here.” Boiko has a different take on the importance of Apple Music Classical: “Maybe the listeners will have emotional responses to it. And at the end of the day music is there to make our lives better. It definitely enriches our lives.” Finally, Jones comments, “The thing about human curation is we are ultimately making a human decision. And so, for instance, if you choose a recommended recording for Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, you’re instantly upsetting everyone who has a strong opinion about their favourite. That’s what comes with the human aspect: this is our opinion, our recommendation, but you have the other recordings there to explore if you want them.” Read More Apple is about to add a host of new features to the iPhone The Apple Watch feature everyone has been waiting for has finally arrived Apple’s plans for the future of AirPods might just have been revealed Apple TV+ and other subscriptions are about to get a lot more expensive What to expect Apple’s surprise, spooky upcoming launch Apple announces surprise event: ‘Scary fast’

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DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 9, 2023--