
ChatGPT Maker OpenAI Is Staying Private So It Can Make ‘Strange’ Decisions
OpenAI Inc. Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman said he’s not interested in taking the artificial intelligence startup public
1970-01-01 08:00

The 8 Best Sci-Fi Movies on Netflix Right Now
From dystopian nightmares to paranormal action thrillers, Netflix has got something to scratch every type of sci-fi fan's itch.
1970-01-01 08:00

One of Dolphins' only weaknesses could be fixed with a massive star signing
Minnesota Vikings running back Dalvin Cook could find a new home fast with the Miami Dolphins should the perennial Pro Bowler be released.If the Minnesota Vikings were to move on from Dalvin Cook, don't be shocked if his hometown Miami Dolphins quickly sign him in his NFL free agency.Wh...
1970-01-01 08:00

Container shipping freight rates are too low, says Hapag Lloyd CEO
FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Global container shipping freight rates have reached unsustainable levels and must rebound, the chief executive of Germany's Hapag
1970-01-01 08:00

Jennifer Coolidge harbours brutal intentions for one White Lotus character
Jennifer Coolidge has revealed what she'd like to happen to one White Lotus character if the decision was in her hands. Warning: Spoilers ahead. The actress played the iconic Tanya McQuoid in seasons one and two of the hit HBO series, before falling to her death (quite literally). Tanya's fate was revealed in the finale when she fell off a yacht and banged her head on a dinghy. She ultimately drowned in the Ionian Sea and fans were distraught. Well now, Coolidge has lifted the lid on what she's like to happen with Greg, her spiteful on-screen partner. "My hope for Jon [Gries] is that he’s not finished with Greg," Coolidge told a Variety 'Actors on Actors' conversation with actor Jeremy Allen White. "I hope there’s some comeuppance for evil Greg. I think he should, I don’t know, end up in a meat-grinding machine." Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter She went on to speak about her "horrible ending" as Tanya. "Mike [White Lotus creator] did tell me that I was going to have a horrible ending. But he said it more like, ‘I’m sorry, Jennifer, but you’re going to have to die,'” she candidly shared. While it was difficult for Coolidge to part ways with Tanya, she did acknowledge that "Mike was looking for a big Italian opera ending, and it was big and dramatic, so he wanted me to die for many reasons." Coolidge continued: "I also think Tanya’s a lot. Maybe people would get sick of her on another season. Maybe people would be like, ‘Oh, my God. Get rid of Tanya!'" "But if Tanya could come back in any form, maybe she could come back as a seagull and poke Greg’s eyes out." 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.
1970-01-01 08:00

‘Covid killed my taste buds – then my business’
A cooking teacher who lost her sense of taste and smell and “never fully recovered” after catching Covid last summer has decided to shut her business because she can no longer gauge the quantity needed or quality of ingredients in her dishes. Raisa Ali, 51, said to continue teaching people how to cook Indian food would be like “the blind leading the blind” as her sense of taste and smell have never been the same since she caught Covid in July 2022. The mother-of-three, who lives in Kingston, south London, knew “something was missing” after her husband Akbar, 52, and her students found she was being heavy-handed with the spices but could not tell the difference. Raisa made the difficult decision to close her Sweet Sultry Spice cooking school after teaching a class how to make the Indian spice mix garam masala and realising that, while she knew the recipe from memory, she could not smell the pungent ingredients. Covid has “killed the joy of cooking” and dried up her source of income, but Raisa has now accepted what happened and is looking for a fresh start. Raisa, who has three sons, twins Zain and Zakir, 16, and Yusuf, 19, said: “I can’t dwell on this anymore and just have to move forward. “My main mode of cooking and learning and teaching has been to follow my nose. “I used to make my students take whiffs of everything at every stage. “I decided to close the school because when I lost my sense of taste and smell, my passion died. “Covid killed the most important part of food for me.” Raisa started giving cooking classes in her kitchen after completing a nutrition course in 2018 and taking advice from a friend. “I did a one-year nutrition course and started working online, trying to build a small business, but it wasn’t going anywhere and I was feeling very isolated,” she said. “A friend of mine came over and said ‘you’re doing it all wrong, why don’t you just open a cooking school’. “I was scared but she was like ‘feel the fear and just do it anyway.” She soon found herself giving two or three classes per week to groups of around five people for between £60 and £70, teaching them to cook Indian cuisine. “People would come over to my house and they wouldn’t leave – it was great,” said Raisa who moved to the UK in 2008 after her husband was transferred to the country for work. “It was a really great experience and then when it went away, I just thought now what am I going to do?” Just when her budding business started taking off, bringing in between £500 and £800 per month, Covid struck. “Suddenly Covid’s happening and from one day to the next the business totally died,” she said. “The income that I had was gone and everything that I had built was gone. “I spent that first year (2020) feeling sorry for myself.” Then while travelling back to her native California, in July 2022, Raisa caught Covid and spent two weeks in bed. “I spent the first two weeks in bed and then started to recover slowly,” she said. “When I came back, I had brain fog, I couldn’t smell things properly and I couldn’t taste things properly.” She noticed her taste buds were not firing on all cylinders after eating some tortilla chips which tasted like “cardboard”. “I’m eating them and thinking, I don’t understand, what is this?” she said. “And it has just never come back properly.” While Raisa started to recover after spending two weeks in bed, some of her symptoms lingered for months. Once lockdown rules lifted, Raisa went back to giving cooking classes, but it was not the same. In January 2023, while teaching a group how to make garam masala from scratch, Raisa’s sense of smell was put to the test. “When they could smell it across the room then I knew, at that point, that this wasn’t going to work for me because it would be like the blind leading the blind,” she said. “I remember telling my customers, look I’m telling you everything from memory and my past experience because I don’t have have my sense of taste and smell. “Isn’t that depressing?” On another occasion, she was cooking a chicken dish and a student asked about the ingredients but Raisa could not “taste anything”. “It turned out it was black pepper but I couldn’t even taste it,” she said. Her husband and children also started picking up on strong flavours which appeared relatively mild to her. “I knew something was missing because when I cooked things for my husband he would say ‘oh, you put a lot of this in’,” Raisa said. “But I could not tell the difference.” Even to this day, Raisa says she has not fully recovered her sense of taste and smell. “If I would sum it up, Covid killed the joy,” she said. “I just feel like I don’t want to bother anymore because I feel like my drive is gone. “So I decided, either I can be upset about it or I can reinvent myself again.” Raisa has decided to see her Covid nightmare as a positive step towards new beginnings. “If you are cooking something, you have to be able to smell and taste the ingredients and I knew I couldn’t do that so I decided it was time for a complete shift,” she said. She has not been to see a doctor about her long-lasting symptoms as she believes there are many other people who are “far worse off” and that the NHS already has “too much on its plate”. She is now looking to explore other business opportunities which do not rely on having a sense of taste and smell. “Sustainable living” is one area in which Raisa is particularly interested, but what this will look like in practice remains to be seen. “I want to get rid of my carbon footprint,” she said. “I don’t need to prove anything to anyone, it’s just what I want to do.” For more information about next steps, follow Raisa on Instagram. Read More Covid Inquiry could see unredacted Johnson WhatsApp messages despite legal clash I decide what’s relevant, says Covid inquiry chair in Boris WhatsApp row Covid Inquiry head making ‘no comment’ on legal row over Johnson messages Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live
1970-01-01 08:00

Coinbase Sued by SEC for Breaking US Securities Rules
The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Coinbase Global Inc. in federal court in New York on Tuesday, alleging
1970-01-01 08:00

USMNT rumors: Adams to Forest, Marsch to Celtic, Gutierrez to United
Today's USMNT rumors include Tyler Adams being linked with Nottingham Forest, Jesse Marsch in contention for the Celtic job and Brian Gutierrez on Manchester United's radar.USMNT rumors: Tyler Adams to Nottingham ForestTyler Adams needs to get out of Leeds United who will be playing in...
1970-01-01 08:00

Man shows off 'cool' snail he's found – unaware it could kill him in an instant
Think of a snail and you’ll most likely picture a dull, brown pest, feasting on your old neighbour’s lettuces or creeping lazily up your front door. Whereas, in actual fact, they are one of the deadliest animals to humans on earth. Obviously, not the kind you get in UK gardens, but freshwater snails. This is because they harbour dead parasites, most notably parasitic flatworms known as flukes. Indeed, a terrible disease transmitted by flukes, and known as “snail fever”, causes as many as 200,000 deaths a year, according to research published by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2000. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter And yet, these freshwater menaces aren’t the only grim reapers of the mollusc family – cone snails can administer a venom that’s so toxic, it can kill up to 700 people. The problem is, it doesn’t look like your typical sea predator: no glistening set of razor-sharp teeth, and no tell-tale fin. Instead, its lethal sting is concealed within its sleek brown and white patterned shell, and shoots out like a harpoon when its prey is near. This means that to the unsuspecting onlooker, the cone is just a pretty little beach ornament. And this is precisely what one Reddit user's parents thought when they chanced upon one while on holiday. The Redditor shared a video to the platform, presumably sent to him by his mum and dad, which he captioned: “Parents wanted to show the cool snail they found while on a vacation to Egypt." Reddit - Dive into anything from OopsThatsDeadly Commentators were quick to point out the identity of the deceptively deadly creature. “I saw these in a nature doc once and they have forever haunted my dreams since,” one wrote. “I struggled to keep my eyes on the video because I thought for sure it would start sticking its barb out when they messed with it,” admitted another. “Very patient snail,” added a third. “They're even sticking their fingers in its house and everything. Could've ended them.” 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.
1970-01-01 08:00

Dragons’ Den Star Weighs £1 Billion Sale of Vitamin Maker Vitabiotics
Vitabiotics Ltd., the UK vitamin company led by ex-Dragons’ Den investor Tej Lalvani, is in the early stages
1970-01-01 08:00

Drake's half-eaten pizza is 'being sold for $500,000'
There have been many questionable items for sale in recent months, including bottles of spit and bath water. But now, Lil Yachty has jokingly suggested he's selling Drake's half-eaten pizza for $500,000 (£402,800). Over the weekend, the rapper took to his Instagram story with a snap of the partially eaten pizza. "Selling this drake bit slice of pizza for 500k," the on-screen text read. The post soon made its way over to Twitter, where one person responded: "The fact that someone will actually buy this". "We just hit a peak of the financial bubble," another tweeted, while a third joked: "Make the bread... Or sell that bread". One intrigued investor asked: "Where do I inquire?" Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter It comes after Lil Yachty joined Drake on a live stream on Saturday (3 June) for online betting agency Stake. At one point, the Toronto rapper was left red-faced after attempting to donate $500 (£400) to an online streamer – but his card declined. After entering a verification code to authorise the purchase, the dialogue box disappeared to show the payment hadn't in fact gone through and Drake would have to try and pay again. "Embarrassing," Drake sang in a high-pitched voice, as fellow rapper Lil Yachty smiled at the mishap next to him. Many more viewers turned their attention to Drake's yellow-painted nails. While some were quick to praise the star's decision, others weren't too keen on the colour choice and wished he had opted for a different shade. "I never have an issue with men wearing nail polish itself but my issue is the fact they always choosing ugly colour," one person quipped. Meanwhile, another added: "Why is Drake wearing yellow nail polish…. Ugh." 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.
1970-01-01 08:00

Gemma Collins blasted for promoting headset as ‘magic’ cure for depression
Gemma Collins has been criticised by her followers for using misleading wording in an advert for a “medication free” headset, which is apparently used to treat depression. The TV star and presenter, 42, who is best known for appearing in realty series The Only Way Is Essex, shared a video of her wearing the Flow Neuroscience Headset, telling her followers that she had been using the product for one week and was already feeling “lighter” and “brighter”. In the caption she wrote: “According to Flow’s data it reduces depression in 88 per cent of people. And the NHS are trialling it too.” She finished the caption with “#ad” to indicate that she was asked to promote the product. The Independent has contacted Collins’ representatives about the terms of the advert. In the video, Collins told the camera the product is “literally amazing”. “I am loving life now off of my depression tablets. This has been a real game changer for me,” she said. According to Flow, the headset sends a “small electrical current” to “the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex”, which causes “neurons to fire more frequently, strengthening the neural pathways in the prefrontal cortex”. Collins continued: “Flow is a new medically approved depression treatment. It focuses on the front cortex of your brain. This ultimately helps you to relax and it also helps to remove negative depressive symptoms.” “For people that can’t get access to therapy, or don’t want to be on antidepressants, they have a new option which is Flow.” “Flow actually works faster and better than antidepressants,” she claimed in the video. “It’s like having your own therapist in the comfort your own home and you’re fully in control of your own treatment.” She concluded that using Flow would be “the best thing you do”. Social media users have been criticising Collins’ messaging in the post, arguing that she is promoting the product as a “quick fix” for depression and encouraging people to stop their medications without first consulting a medical professional. “People PLEASE speak to your medical team before stopping any medications,” one person urged in the comments section. Another pleaded to Collins: “Please don’t promote people just abruptly coming off their medication !!” Others remarked that Collins had not linked to any scientific research to support her claims, or given insight into how the product actually works. A representative for Flow Neuroscience told The Independent that it is “very clear” on its website that anyone with depression should “always speak to their doctor first before trying new treatment”. The statement continued: “At a time when society is attempting to remove the stigma associated with mental health – people like Gemma are helping enormously by being open and transparent about their own mental health journey.” “Gemma has struggled for years on antidepressants, and it’s brilliant that she is now having this positive experience using Flow.” The spokesperson added that Collins’ posts are a “reflection of her own personal experience” and the post had not been “edited or scripted” by Flow. Collins has previously said that the side effects of using antidepressants have not worked for her, which drew her to using the headset. Flow’s spokesperson also said that the company’s mission is trying to “increase accessibility” to mental health treatments. At present, the headset does not require a prescription before use and is available to purchase online. The company says that “83 per cent of its users reported improvement in their symptoms within 21 days” and that less than two per cent of its users on its database reported minor side effects, which are “typically mild irritation of the kind and mild headaches”. It added: “We believe the Flow platform is an important tool in this process, but it has never been our intent to present Flow as a quick fix or magic bullet.” Read More Prince Harry court – live: Duke of Sussex stokes political storm by slamming ‘rock bottom’ government Ioan Gruffudd’s 13-year-old daughter ‘files restraining order against him’ Busy Philipps calls out Leonardo DiCaprio for ‘dating’ model who looks like her teen daughter Gemma Collins says she wouldn’t ‘need to’ consider surrogacy Fitness fanatic, 26, diagnosed with stage 4 cancer after feeling dizzy The telltale sign of lung cancer everyone should know
1970-01-01 08:00