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Charles Robert Smith, a White man accused of fatally shooting three and injuring several others last month in Annapolis, Maryland, is now facing hate crime charges, according to a grand jury indictment.

The Loch Ness Monster has left people scratching their heads for years, with many claiming they spotted the beast itself. Now, it's got its own "eel hypothesis," a paper dedicated to the theory that such sightings could have been eels. Researchers looked at data from Loch Ness to understand the number of eels there and their average measurements, as per IFL Science. They discovered that the eels were on the smaller side, compared to the estimates of the Loch Ness Monster, said to be roughly 1-2 metres according to one sighting. Another suggested it could be 15-20 metres. "However, this is not quite the ‘monster postulated," the authors told the outlet."Indeed, the probability of finding a 6-meter [20-foot] eel in Loch Ness is essentially zero – too low for the software used to provide a reliable estimate." "Thus, while large eels may account for some eyewitness sightings of large, animate objects rising to the loch surface, they are unlikely to account for 'sightings' of extraordinarily large animals, which may instead be accounted for by wave phenomena, the occasional stray mammal, or other reasons." Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter It comes after several sightings last year were shot down by an academic who said they were simply whale penises. Michael Sweet, a professor in molecular ecology at the University of Derby, candidly, and informatively, added: "Whales often mate in groups so while one male is busy with the female the other male just pops his d*** out of the water while swimming around waiting his turn. "Everyone’s gotta have a bit of fun, right?" 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.

Robert Sales uses PHW to stay fit.

Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford has named two rival players from Manchester City as the Premier League's top performers over the last half-decade. Man City beat Man Utd in last season's FA Cup final.

Tesla Superchargers may be the undisputed champion of EV charging networks in the US at

A planet with conditions on the surface resembling Earth has been discovered a relatively short distance from us. In fact, it’s just 31 light-years away, which is the space equivalent of 'down the road'. Scientists are always excited when it comes to the discovery of new exoplanets, and this is no different. The planet, named Wolf 1069 b, is the sixth closest exoplanet to Earth has been found and the findings were published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter It orbits the red dwarf - which is named Wolf 1069. As such, the planet has been given the name Wolf 1069 b. The planet was discovered during a study called CARMENES which is a long-term study based around finding exoplanets. Encouragingly, scientists believe that the planet sits in the habitable zone around its sun where water can exist in liquid form. The study was undertaken by a team led by astronomer Diana Kossakowski of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy. Kossakowski said: "When we analyzed the data of the star Wolf 1069, we discovered a clear, low-amplitude signal of what appears to be a planet of roughly Earth mass. "It orbits the star within 15.6 days at a distance equivalent to one-fifteenth of the separation between the Earth and the sun." It comes after a new planet was discovered with a surprisingly fluffy composition - like candy floss. The exoplanet, WASP-193b, was discovered 1,232 light-years away and while it's nearly 50 percent bigger than Jupiter, it's light and fluffy making it as dense as the sweet treat. According to a team led by astronomer Khalid Barkaoui of the University of Liège in Belgium, the planet orbits a Sun-like star named WASP-193. This star is around 1.1 times the mass and 1.2 times the radius of the Sun and is very close to the Sun in temperature and age. The planet orbits the star around once every 6.25 days. 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 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

The number of households living in temporary accommodation in England has hit its highest level since at least 1998, according to official data.

It’s been a pretty productive offseason for Mike Tomlin’s team. The Pittsburgh Steelers enter training camp with all of their 2023 draft picks in the fold.They were a team that got off to a forgettable 2-6 start in 2022, only to win seven of their final nine contests to finish 9-8. T...

VIDEO: Seiya Suzuki made a great play and White Sox fans were broken

By Charlotte Van Campenhout and Rishabh Jaiswal AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -A fire blazed on a ship off the Dutch coast with

There has been a 116% increase in DIY cosmetic dentistry over the past five years, new research has found, with social media driving up demand. Bupa Dental Care found that 20% of people who have attempted at-home treatments on their teeth had done so with teeth whitening kits, 13% had used plaque scraping gadgets, and 11% had purchased braces online. The research, which surveyed over 2,000 consumers in the UK – nearly 20% of whom were found to have tried dentistry products at home – was done in collaboration with Censuswide, a global insight-driven research company. Shockingly, it also found that 16% of those people were influenced by hacks on TikTok and other social media sites to create their own teeth-whitening concoctions with hydrogen peroxide. The chemical can cause mouth infections or other wider health complications, if not used correctly, Bupa said. “DIY dental treatment can seem like a big cost saving initially,” Chris Hanford, a Bupa Dental Care dentist, said: “However, such treatment can cause irreversible damage that can not only lead to pain but end up being more complex and costly to fix. “The problem is that dental treatment at home is not professionally prescribed or supervised – and there’s the added risk of buying counterfeit whitening kits.” One respondent, who experienced negative side effects from DIY dentistry, said: “It doesn’t last and constantly costs more money on top of what has already been paid.” Dr Safa Al-Naher, director and principal dentist at Serene, said: “The marketing for online braces – clear and called aligners – is really good. It’s also a really attractive prospect to people who want a quick fix. This is the day and age of Amazon, it’s one click and you get it.” But the consequences of DIY dental treatments vary. The research found that 74% of people who’d done it needed emergency treatment to fix their issues. One in six people out of the group reported that they now have damaged tooth enamel, brittle teeth, tooth and gum sensitivity, weakened and brittle teeth bruising or damaged dental bone. “Any at-home teeth-whitening can cause damage to tooth enamel, give rise to tooth decay, as well as gum and tooth sensitivity – particularly if they’re used too frequently. Poorly planned or ill-fitting braces can cause anything from wobbly teeth or gum recession to damaged bone,” Hanford adds. It’s why Al-Naher is “very worried and concerned” about the rise in at-home cosmetic dentistry. “I have personally seen many cases that have come through to me, some disastrous. It is a false economy ultimately, as you spend your money on these products initially and then you spend more money again to get them fixed,” he said. “This discourages people from taking care of their teeth on a regular basis, visiting their dentists every six to 12 months.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live What is ‘beer tanning’ and why are experts warning against it? Christian Cowan: Designing is like dreaming Deborah James’s daughter launches anniversary clothing line for Bowelbabe Fund