BEIJING China's largest private property developer Country Garden Holdings is seeking to add a 40-day grace period for

The MLB little league classic takes centerstage on Sunday night, with the Philadelphia Phillies taking on the Washington Nationals in Williamsport.Baseball is a kid's game played by adults, and for one night a year we remember that fact at the Little League Classic.The Washington Nation...

By Nell Mackenzie, Kirstin Ridley, Maiya Keidan and Carolina Mandl LONDON/TORONTO (Reuters) -Odey Asset Management's prime brokers, including Goldman Sachs

Five years ago, scientists managed to recreate what is known as superionic ice, in lab experiments for the first time. Superionic ice is believed to form within Uranus and Neptune as familiar materials are subjected to extreme pressures and heat, with iron atoms forming hot, black, heavy ice. But just last year researchers at several universities in the United States discovered a new phase of superionic ice. The discovery helps broaden our understanding of why Uranus and Neptune have off-kilter magnetic fields with multiple poles. Different to forms of water on Earth, the oxygen atoms in superionic ice are locked in a solid cubic lattice, while the ionised hydrogen atoms are loose, flowing through the lattice. This gives superionic ice conductive properties as well as raising its melting point, meaning the frozen water remains solid at temperatures up to 4704 Degree Celsius (8500 Fahrenheit). In this latest study, Stanford University's Arianna Gleason and colleagues blasted thin slivers of water, sandwiched between two diamond layers, with some extremely powerful lasers. "Recent discoveries of water-rich Neptune-like exoplanets require a more detailed understanding of the phase diagram of [water] at pressure–temperature conditions relevant to their planetary interiors," Gleason and colleagues explain in their paper, from January 2022 X-Ray diffraction revealed the hot, dense ice's crystal structure, and confirmed the ice crystals were in fact a new phase, distinct from the superionic ice that was observed in 2019. This newly discovered superionic ice, Ice XIX, has increased conductivity compared to its 2019 predecessor. The conductivity is important because it helps us understand why certain off-kilter magnetic fields are generated on planets such as Neptune and Uranus. You can read the paper, published in Scientific Reports here. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter 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.

Microsoft says state-backed Chinese hackers have been targeting U.S. critical infrastructure and could be laying the technical groundwork for the potential disruption of communications between the U.S. and Asia in future crises

We’ve all been there. A friend’s wedding is three days away and you don’t have anything to wear. The last thing you want to do is drag yourself around high-street shops, so it inevitably you turn to ASOS. After all, the company is known for its next day delivery and simple free returns service. Though many of us are reliant on the online fast fashion retailer for last-minute holiday purchases or big seasonal shops, a new report shows that ASOS’s pre-tax losses ballooned to almost £300m in the year to 3 September, compared with £31m the previous year, according to the results published on Wednesday (1 November). Despite its huge popularity, the once undisputed queen of online retailers now faces stiff competition from abroad, challenging economic headwinds, and a maturing clientele potentially seeking a more tailored experience. Leading some to ask, is ASOS in SOS? When ASOS was launched in 2000, the online retailer was considered revolutionary. It was like a supersize department store at your fingertips and became the first online retailer that UK customers could visit and find hundreds of dresses for £30 all in one place. But, in recent years, the company has been cutting its stock as it faces severe profit and revenue losses. In July and August, the retailer said it was hit by wet during the summer months, forcing the retailer to cut its stock by 30 per cent. Some experts now say that the holes within ASOS’s business model are becoming apparent. Rick Smith, Managing Director of business recovery firm Forbes Burton tells The Independent that ASOS’s business model of allowing large numbers of free returns makes the company susceptible to financial losses during challenging economic conditions. “The buying culture within their target demographic sees several items returned for each order placed, which can make for slim profit margins,” Smith explains. “ASOS has enjoyed a stratospheric rise since their inception, but have perhaps reached their ceiling now and need to cut their cloth accordingly, especially given the amount of economic headwinds [such as as the cost of living crisis] in play at the moment.” The buying habits of consumers have also shifted in the 23 years since ASOS launched. Smith says that sifting through hundreds of products has become a painstaking and often unenjoyable task for its customers. “Once large online retailers get to a certain size, it can become laborious for customers to scour their whole catalogue,” Smith explains. “The online fashion landscape is evolving now to a point that customers are looking for a more tailored service from websites.” With the rise of shopping on social media, too, young people are increasingly buying individual items from retailers on Instagram and TikTok or instead shopping directly from the brands that ASOS stocks, such as Pull and Bear, Stüssy and Bershka, which all have their own websites. “ASOS’s busy 20-something [target] market doesn’t necessarily have the time to sift through dozens of item pages,” adds Smith. “So curated collections and recommendations based on user input may be one of the changes they eventually look at.” ASOS, which originally stood for As Seen On Screen, initially started trading with the tagline “Buy what you see on film and TV” as it exclusively sold imitations of clothing worn by celebrities. That business model quickly expanded away from the world of replica products: ASOS now offers 850 affordable to mid-range high-street brands and ships to 196 countries. But the company is also now tackling a debt issue, with net debt including leases now at £648.5m, up from £533m the year before. Analysts predict that the online fashion site may need to raise quick cash soon – potentially through the rumoured sale of its Topshop brand, which ASOS acquired when the Arcadia Group went bust in 2021 and closed Topshop’s bricks and mortar stores. Despite the profit slump and predicted future losses, José Antonio Ramos Calamonte, ASOS’s chief executive, said in the report that the company has made “good progress” in “a very challenging environment” and would continue to invest in its brand and stock more fashionable lines of clothing. The company plans to spend £30m more on marketing and said it was going “back to fashion” with its products “geared around fashion and excitement”. As ASOS faces huge losses, it was reported this week that the Chinese-founded retailer Shein has acquired UK company Missguided, with plans to “reignite” the online retailer that was only bought out of administration by Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group a year and a half ago. Despite calls for boycotts from anti-fashion campaigners, Shein is currently valued at around £53bn, having expanded globally and bought many of its rival brands. In 2022, it was the most-googled fashion brand in the world and made a reported £18.9bn in revenue, suggesting that fast fashion is not falling out of favour with consumers who want to find entire outfits on a budget. 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Intrepid athletes have donned snorkels and slithered through slime during the World Bog Snorkeling Championships in Britain

US sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson won a scintillating women's 100 meters in a championship record 10.65 seconds at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, on Monday.

A purported video showed Blueface and Brandon Henry Snell arguing before they started brawling and the latter pulled out a knife

Braedyn Locke threw a 3-yard touchdown pass to lineman Isaac Townsend with 27 seconds left Saturday, capping an 18-point fourth-quarter explosion that gave the Wisconsin a stunning 25-21 come-from-behind win over Illinois

Rudy Farias' father Rudolph Farias III had recently been dismissed from his duties at the time of his death

Declan Rice capped a remarkable rise from the crushing disappointment of being released by boyhood heroes Chelsea as a teenager as he joined Arsenal from West Ham on Saturday for a fee...