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Tough.

At least 110 people have been injured after tennis ball-sized hail rained down on a region of northern Italy overnight Wednesday.

The country has struggling with a surge in food prices after bad weather damaged crops.

Claire Richards, one of the five-member girl group Steps, has opened up about experiencing an eating disorder in the Nineties, before she joined the band. The singer, 45, said she went on a restrictive diet that only allowed her to eat 900 calories a day, with her meals comprising of just “fish fingers, peas and baked beans”. Appearing on Vicky Pattison’s The Secret To podcast on Thursday’s (20 July) episode, Richards claimed she was told she had to lose weight even though she was a UK size 10 to 12 at the start of her career in the music industry. She added that Kate Moss’s “heroin-chic” thin look was what people aspired to at the time when it came to body image, which in turn encouraged her dieting. “It happened when I was in TSD,” Richards said, referring to her first band, The Scan-Dolls. “They did it to all of us because we were all quite curvy girls. I was probably a [size] 10 or a 12 and wasn’t big at all. “But in the music world, and at that time, that whole Kate Moss, heroin-chic, was a thing and they wanted everyone to be really, really skinny. “So, we were all put on a diet. That diet was interesting because we were encouraged to eat fish fingers, peas and baked beans and have like a 900-calorie diet.” After she auditioned for Steps, Richards claimed she was still under pressure to lose weight. “The audition for Steps was [in] 1997 and by that time I had cut my hair really short, stupidly, and I was wearing this stripey catsuit which I wore in the video for ‘Last Thing on My Mind’,” she explained. “And I always used to tie a hoodie around my waist because I was really conscious of my bum because I thought I had a massive bum… They sat me down, did my audition and they said, ‘Oh, we really like you. We want you to be in the band, but you’re going to have to lose weight’. “It set me on a pathway of not really eating for four-and-a-half years.” Richards said that the years spent worrying about her body image damaged her confidence so much that she has never managed to fully regain it. “I think I’m much better than I was,” she reassured listeners, but added: “But I don’t think I ever will get rid of it completely because it’s played such a massive part of my life for such a long time. “I think I probably was anorexic. You know, I manged to kind of stop what I was doing to myself, but that went from not eating at all, to overeating.” The “It’s The Way You Make Me Feel” singer said she went from being “dangerously thin” to weighing 16.5 stone (104kg) at her heaviest. Richards has previously spoken out about her struggle with disordered eating and expressed how anxious she was about image filters that are popular on the internet today. Last May, she appeared as a guest on Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Spinning Plates podcast and said: “I’ve gone from being dangerously thin to obese and I honestly do believe it’s all part of the same… if it’s an eating disorder, it’s one extreme to the other. “There is a massive lack of understanding, generally, and I think especially on the overweight side of it. I think people just look at anybody who’s overweight [and think] that they’re lazy and have got no discipline. “I’m not lazy and I definitely have discipline but I found myself in that position,” she continued. “I struggle everyday and I’ve managed to maintain a good size now for a long time but it’s a battle everyday and people just don’t understand that psychological side of it generally.” For anyone struggling with the issues raised in this piece, eating disorder charity Beat’s helpline is available 365 days a year on 0808 801 0677. NCFED offers information, resources and counselling for those suffering from eating disorders, as well as their support networks. Visit eating-disorders.org.uk or call 0845 838 2040. Read More Bye bye swimwear round, hello body positivity: How beauty pageants became less ugly Prince Harry and Meghan weren’t allowed to fly Air Force One with Biden after Queen’s funeral, report says ‘Just awful’: Man accused of ‘selfish’ behaviour after proposing to girlfriend at their graduation Should I keep my windows closed or open during a heatwave? Why am I so lethargic in the heat? 6 hacks for handling the heatwave at a festival

By John Kruzel WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Democrats on Thursday sought to make the case for legislation to mandate a binding ethics

President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the National Security Agency warned Thursday of growing threats posed by artificial

The House on Thursday passed a Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill to renew funding for the agency for the next five years.

A UFO hunter claims there is a huge spaceship hidden beneath one of the world’s major landmarks because it is “too big to move”. Ross Coulthart, an investigative journalist and UFO expert, said a “non-human” spacecraft is being stashed beneath a purpose-built structure – though he won't tell us where it is. Speaking in an interview, he said: “Some of these objects are not capable of being moved because they’re too bloody big.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “I know exactly where it is. I thought it was b*****ks when I heard it, too.” Coulthart was previously a reporter on the news and current affairs program 60 Minutes on Channel Nine in Australia and has since gone on to write a number of books including In Plain Sight: An investigation into UFOs and Impossible Science. The UFO hunter community’s response to his claims has been a mixture of disbelief and desperation to find out where the landmark is. Some people seem to think it’s in South Korea, while others think it’s likely to be in an air defence military base. Coulthart has already made headlines this year after interviewing a whistleblower, who claimed that the US military had several crashed spacecraft in its possession, along with alien bodies. The Pentagon has said it hasn't discovered any information to substantiate this claim – but Congress is taking it seriously. In a twist that would have made even fans of The X Files raise an eyebrow, the Congressional House Oversight Committee is to hold a hearing on the issue next week after Republican congressmen and women promised to look deeper into the issue. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was asked on Monday if he believes in aliens, in light of the hearing. "I will continue to see," McCarthy said. "But I think if we had found a UFO, I think the Department of Defense would tell us because they would probably want to request more money." "I'd love to see whatever facts and information we have," McCarthy added. "I'm very supportive of letting the American people see what we have, where we go." 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.

As extreme heat dominates news headlines, the gate-keepers of global capital are failing to keep pace with a

The US military killed five al-Shabaab militants in a "collective self-defense airstrike" in Somalia, US Africa Command announced Thursday.

Hundreds of thousands of stolen login credentials for ChatGPT are being listed for sale on dark web markets, security researchers have warned. Cyber security firm Flare discovered over 200,000 OpenAI logins on the dark web – a section of the internet unreachable through conventional web browsers – offering criminals a way to access users’ accounts or simply use the premium version of the AI tool for free. The Independent has reached out to OpenAI for further information and comment. The AI firm previously defended its security practices after a smaller batch of credentials were discovered online. “OpenAI maintains industry best practices for authenticating and authorising users to services including ChatGPT,” a spokesperson said last month. “We encourage our users to use strong passwords and install only verified and trusted software to personal computers.” The listings come amid a surge in interest in generative artificial intelligence from malicious actors, with discussions about ChatGPT and other AI chatbots flooding criminal forums. Research published in March found that the number of new posts about ChatGPT on the dark web grew seven-fold between January and February this year. Security firm NordVPN described the exploitation of ChatGPT as “the dark web’s hottest topic”, with cyber criminals seeking to “weaponise” the technology. Among the topics under discussion were how to create malware with ChatGPT and ways to hack the AI tool to make it carry out cyber attacks. Earlier this month, researchers discovered a ChatGPT-style AI tool with “no ethical boundaries or limitations” called WormGPT. It was described as ChatGPT’s “evil twin”, allowing hackers to perform attacks on a never-before-seen scale. “ChatGPT has carried out certain measures to limit nefarious use of its application but it was inevitable that a competitor platform would soon take advantage of using technology for illicit gain,” Jake Moore, an advisor at the cyber security firm ESET, told The Independent. “AI chat tools create a powerful tool but we are wandering into the next phase which casts a dark cloud over the technology as a whole.” Read More Llama 2: How Mark Zuckerberg’s new ChatGPT rival could lead to ‘obscene’ AI ChatGPT creator withholds latest AI over fears it’s too powerful Meta unveils its ChatGPT rival Llama Elon Musk reveals plan to use AI to reveal mysteries of the universe

Hang in there, Hugh.