List of All Articles with Tag 'am'

Three popular video game influencers will swap controllers for the commentary box at The Hundred presented by Compare The Market next month.

A Shohei Ohtani trade seems unlikely at the MLB trade deadline, but let's pretend. What's the best trade offer every NL East team could offer?Shohei Ohtani seems reluctant to play on the east coast, instead preferring to sign with a low-key team out west. The San Francisco Giants, Seat...

Three former military officers told Congress they saw unexplained flying objects and one of them claimed the US

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau placed greater emphasis on portfolios such as housing and the Treasury Board in an

Ubisoft is said to have scrapped plans to make a sequel to the mythological game 'Immortals Fenyx Rising'.

'World of Warcraft' developer Blizzard has teamed up with Mila Kunis in an initiative to raise money for war-torn Ukraine.

A professional cuddler who makes a living giving clients hugs has said people travel from all over the globe to receive the cuddle therapy she offers which is “far less intimate than a massage” and helps people from “all walks of life”. Natasha Wicks, 44, from Coventry, West Midlands, says that despite criticism, cuddling is scientifically proven to release happy hormones like dopamine and that a lot of her clients are “the big spoon in life” and go to her for emotional support that they do not have at home. As such, many of her clients are caregivers and most of them join Natasha for two-hour hugging sessions, costing £70 an hour. The sessions vary depending on what the client wants, some having “emotional hugs”, others talking more and some wanting to “sit at opposite ends of the sofa with our legs and feet entwined”. Natasha became a cuddle therapist in 2015 and, while she has had comments online from people criticising the practice, she said that her family and friends were unsurprised when she first started giving professional cuddles. She said: “They all said to me that I give the best cuddles so it’s not surprising that I’d start doing it as a job. “It’s very much what I do, I help people and want to make people feel better. It’s a natural thing when someone is going through a tough time to want to give them a hug. “Cuddle therapy might not be as widely accepted in society but it’s far less intimate than other things like massages which are seen as normal.” Prior to becoming a cuddler, Natasha originally trained as a CBT therapist and counsellor. She said: “There’d be situations where I would be talking to someone and they’d really need a hug, but obviously, you’d have professional boundaries in place and it wouldn’t have been appropriate. “It was just a really natural thing. One client had finished her final session and we had agreed that she wasn’t my patient anymore so we hugged goodbye. She said to me that she’d wanted to do that for a long time and I thought ‘me too’.” Looking into cuddle therapy, which she said was increasing in popularity in 2014, Natasha took a training course. By 2015, she was a qualified cuddler and started taking on new patients for cuddle sessions. Natasha provides a minimum session of one hour but said most people go for at least two hours, sometimes longer if they are receiving more than one type of therapy. She said: “I always give people a hug on the doorstep when they arrive and then they’ll come in and relax, and we’ll have an initial chat about what brings them here. After that, I’ll put on some ambient music and we’ll have a cuddle on my cuddle sofa. “It can be daunting coming into a stranger’s house and I can tell the difference in them from arriving to leaving. The first hug they might be angled away from me but when we’re hugging goodbye, I can get my head in between their neck and shoulders and you can almost feel that a weight has been lifted from them.” There is not one type of person that visits Natasha for cuddles, but she says that a lot of her clients are caregivers. She said: “There’s all sorts of people who come for a cuddle, from people who have moved away from home for the first time and just want a mum hug all the way to people in their 80s. “I’m inclusive of all genders and all ages. I get a lot of clients who are the carers of their family and they are so busy looking after other people, and probably giving the hugs and support to other people, that they don’t have that for themselves. “A lot of people that come to see me are generally people are the big spoon in the life – they take care of others and don’t want to show a vulnerable side to people because they don’t want people to worry that they can’t cope. “I get a lot of carers, a lot of NHS staff, a lot of mums, a lot of people that are in a world where they have to be the strong one in the situation and they just want to be able to come here and let their guard down.” Natasha’s priority is to make people feel at ease when they arrive as she said it can be “nerve wracking” turning up at someone’s house for a hug. Setting out clear boundaries prior to meeting, the therapist has said that the patients she has welcomed into her home have all been respectful. She added: “I always say to people that when your body relaxes, your tummy might crumble and mine might too, but that people don’t need to worry about it. Sometimes people fall asleep and they might snore or fart, it’s just natural things that happen. It’s happened twice where someone has got an erection and that’s fine, I have boundaries and we’ll just change position. “I want people to feel reassured that, as soon as they get in, they feel comfortable.” Despite the unconventional therapy, when Natasha first took on cuddle clients, she said her family were completely “unsurprised” and the step from CBT therapy to cuddle therapy was a “natural evolution”. While Natasha focuses her time on a holistic approach for treating people, she noted that there is also neuroscience behind cuddles. According to the 44-year-old, physical touch activates the brain’s orbitofrontal cortex and cuddling releases oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin. Now, Natasha also does EMDR therapy and is a mental health swim host, and has clients travel from all over the globe to receive her hugs. She said: “Working from Coventry is brilliant because I’m only nine minutes on the train from Birmingham Airport and people come to visit me from all over. I get a client from Belgium, someone from Ireland and people from all over the UK who come to see me. “I wanted to find a sofa bed that just looked like a big comfy sofa for cuddle sessions. I’d started off with a big L shaped sofa but after about five years, it was sagging a bit, there’d been a lot of healing done on that sofa and it was time for a new one. “Now I have a sofa bed in my living room that I use as my cuddle sofa. It’s in the living room and it’s used for everyday life, watching TV with my partner, having people round and also for my work.” Breaking down the taboo around cuddle therapy, Natasha hopes more people will embrace the alternative treatment. She added: “As it’s become more popular, more people are becoming qualified as cuddlers and I think that’s great. “I’ve had comments online before of people thinking it’s weird or not understanding but there are other things we accept in society that are much more intimate than cuddles, like massages. “It’s not weird, it’s actually a really lovely thing to be able to make another soul feel better for a while.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live New warnings about ‘concerning’ rise in at-home cosmetic dentistry What is ‘beer tanning’ and why are experts warning against it? Christian Cowan: Designing is like dreaming

Bumble Inc. is building on the success of the popular friend-finding mode on its dating app and launching

President Joe Biden on Tuesday responded to a reporter’s query about House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s claim that the GOP could soon open an impeachment inquiry into the president by laughing as he exited a White House event. Mr Biden was caught cracking a smile and chucking on his way out of the East Room after delivering remarks on his administration’s efforts to increase the availability of mental health treatment. Earlier in the day, Mr McCarthy had said that an impeachment probe would provide the House with “the strongest power to get the rest of the knowledge and information needed” before they can attempt to oust Mr Biden, which many in his conference have been pushing to do since before he took office. It’s not known whether the House will actually initiate an impeachment inquiry into Mr Biden, but multiple prominent Republicans have become increasingly vocal in their promotion of conspiracy theories and false claims about alleged criminality on the part of the president. Mr McCarthy told Fox News host Sean Hannity late Tuesday that the House Oversight Committee’s widely panned probe into Mr Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was “rising to the level of an impeachment inquiry” even though the younger Mr Biden does not hold and has never held public office. Republicans have spent years alleging that Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, was the reason Mr Biden carried out Obama administration policy as vice president when he pushed Ukraine’s then-president, Petro Poroshenko, to oust a prosecutor whose firing had been demanded by the US, EU, IMF and other entities that were backing financial aid for Ukraine. The false allegations were what motivated then-president Donald Trump to attempt to blackmail Mr Poroshenko’s successor, Volodymyr Zelensky, into announcing sham investigations into the Bidens, leading to Mr Trump’s first of two impeachment trials. Read More Trump begs Congress to help save him from his legal troubles Trump, January 6 and a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election: The federal investigation, explained Why was Donald Trump impeached twice during his presidency?

Donald Trump signaled his claims about the 2020 presidential election being rigged against him will feature prominently in

Rudy Giuliani will not contest claims from two Georgia election workers who have accused the former attorney to Donald Trump of smearing them with false and defamatory statements surrounding the 2020 presidential election. A late-night federal court filing from Mr Giuliani’s attorneys on 25 July states that he “concedes solely for the purposes of this litigation” that he made false statements about Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss that “carry meaning that is defamatory”. He also conceded that his statements meet the “factual elements of liability” for their claims that amounted to “intentional infliction of emotional distress”. The two women were subject to relentless abuse fuelled by false claims that they manipulated votes, damage that Mr Giuliani has refused to concede stemmed from his statements. “Giuliani’s stipulation concedes what we have always known to be true,” attorney Michael J Gottlieb Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP said in a statement. “Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss honorably performed their civic duties in the 2020 presidential election in full compliance with the law; and the allegations of election fraud he and former-President Trump made against them have been false since day one.” “While certain issues, including damages, remain to be decided by the court, our clients are pleased with this major milestone in their fight for justice, and look forward to presenting what remains of this case at trial,” he added. The two-page filing from Mr Giuliani’s attorneys indicates he will continue to argue that spurious claims about voter fraud in the state were protected speech. A spokesperson for the former New York City mayor indicated that the concession was in an effort to bypass a fact-finding portion of the case, which would involve the public disclosures of emails, text messages and other communications involving his claims. US District Court Judge Beryl Howell had threatened Mr Giuliani with sanctions and put him on the hook for $90,000 in legal fees following claims that he failed to preserve evidence related to the case. His latest filing came as a response to an order from the judge demanding an explanation. Ted Goodman, political adviser to Mr Giuliani, said in a statement shared with The Independent that he “did not acknowledge that the statements were false but did not contest it in order to move on to the portion of the case that will permit a motion to dismiss.” “This is a legal issue, not a factual issue. Those out to smear the mayor are ignoring the fact that this stipulation is designed to get to the legal issues of the case,” he added. In their testimony to the House select committee investigating the events surrounding the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, Ms Freeman and Ms Moss revealed the depth of abuse they endured, forcing them from their jobs and making them feel unsafe after the former president and Mr Giuliani promoted debunked conspiracy theories involving them. They later filed a defamation suit against Mr Giuliani as well as right-wing outlet One American News Network, which settled with the women last year. A report from Georgia’s State Election Board following a year-long investigation also dismissed bogus claims of election fraud and cleared the allegations against the women. The fraud claims were “unsubstantiated and found to have no merit,” the investigation concluded, reporting on the work of the FBI, the Georgia Bureau of Investigations and investigators from the Secretary of State’s office vetting the alleged fraud Earlier this month, Bernie Kerik – a former New York City Police Department commissioner who worked with Mr Giuliani to support bogus voter fraud claims – was directed by the judge to provide “a document-by-document privilege log of any withheld record that provides sufficient information to ‘enable other parties to assess the claim’ that ‘the information is privileged or subject to protection as trial preparation material.’” He also was ordered to show why those records and other statements should be withheld. But a joint filing on 24 July from attorneys for Mr Kerik and the two election workers reveals that the parties reached an agreement to receive those documents – which were also sought in the unrelated federal investigation surrounding Mr Trump and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. The former president’s campaign withdrew its claim of privilege over those documents, and Mr Kerik’s legal team has handed over thousands of documents to prosecutors investigating the former president’s mindset and decision making as he baselessly stated that the 2020 election was “stolen” and “rigged” against him despite a lack of evidence. Read More Giuliani team that tried to find evidence of 2020 fraud hands over hundreds of documents to January 6 probe Trump, January 6 and a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election: The federal investigation, explained Trump news – live: Trump begs Congress to help save him from legal troubles as Jan 6 indictment decision looms All the lawsuits and criminal charges involving Trump and where they stand

US aviation regulators announced two new steps to tighten the process of approving airliner designs, actions required by