Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri said on Wednesday it is "well on track" to deliver the goals set out in

One of Jordan Henderson’s former Premier League stars has questioned whether his support for LGBT+ rights was “genuine” after he left Liverpool for Saudi Arabia. Thomas Hitzlsperger, the highest profile professional footballer to come out as gay in 2013, expressed his disappointment at Henderson’s decision to join Al Ettifaq in a £12m deal. He said: “So Jordan Henderson finally gets his move to Saudi Arabia. Fair play to him, he can play wherever he wants to play. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “Curious to know though how the new brand JH will look like. The old one is dead! I did believe for a while that his support for the LGBT+ community would be genuine. Silly me…” Henderson had gained a reputation for being an ally of the LGBT+ community after putting out various statements condemning homophobia in recent years. The England vice-captain previously expressed shock over Qatar's human rights record before the World Cup. He wrote in a Liverpool match day programme in 2021: “I do believe when you see something that is clearly wrong and makes another human being feel excluded you should stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them. “You also have a responsibility to educate yourself better around the challenges they experience. That's where my own position on homophobia in football is rooted.” That reputation is now in tatters. Same-sex relationships are illegal in Saudi Arabia, while the gender expression of trans people is also criminalised. Sentences include a maximum penalty of death. There is evidence of the law being enforced in recent years, according to campaign group Human Dignity Trust, and LGBT people are regularly subjected to discrimination and violence. Hitzlsperger, who played for Aston Villa, West Ham and Everton, as well as gaining 55 caps for Germany, is one of several in the footballing world to slam Henderson for moving to a Saudi club, which many see as tacit acceptance of the kingdom’s stance on LGBT+ rights. Liverpool LGBT+ fan group Kop Outs joined the chorus of disapproval after Henderson announced the deal. The organisation tweeted that when Henderson met Paul Amann, founder of Kop Outs, in August 2021, Jordan “said if there's ever anything I can do to help, just ask”. “So the ask is to stand by your words as a professed ally & champion of #LGBT+ rights, of women's rights and of basic human dignity. Don't go to Saudi.” Nonetheless, Henderson looks unlikely to be the last Premier League footballer to move to Saudi Arabia, after huge investment from the kingdom in sports such as football and golf as part of a move to burnish its previously faltering global reputation. Cristiano Ronaldo started the influx at the start of the year. Henderson is joining state-owned Al-Ettifaq, the club managed by his former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard. The 33-year-old had initially rebuffed the approach but it seems it was too lucrative to turn down, with reports he will triple his current £200,000-a-week salary. 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.

Two clients of Chinese trust company Zhongrong International Trust Co. said the firm delayed payment of maturing wealth

A US scheme to sell decommissioned lighthouses is helping people restore the once-mighty sentinels.

Insane!

Climate change-denying social media accounts are exploiting the deadly wildfires in Hawaii to push conspiracy theories that high-energy lasers were...

IndyCar driver Linus Lundqvist will replace the injured Simon Pagenaud for Saturday’s Indy Grand Prix

In schools, trends come and go like clockwork, whether they be related to a toy like fidget spinners or pranks they have seen on the internet. One teacher has opened up about a new and “annoying quirk” that has young people calling themselves “coin boys” and constantly flipping quarters. The anonymous teacher took to Reddit to complain about freshmen they teach participating in the “coin boys” trend. The hilarious post explained: “The newest thing here is a flock of self-proclaimed ‘coin boys’ who carry a quarter on hand at all times and constantly flip it. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “They have their entire personality revolve around coins, coin flips, and chance. When we went around doing an ice-breaker, 4 or 5 of the kids said some variation of ‘I live by the coin and die by the coin’ as their fact.” In the post, the teacher said one of the “coin boys” said he was going to flip a coin that would decide if he was going to do the assigned piece of work or not. The teacher explained: “When I assigned the first assignment of the school year, one of the coin boys was bold enough to say ‘heads I do it, tails I don’t.’ “I told him if he flipped the coin he would be getting a call home on the first week of HS. He flipped it anyway and it came up heads (thank god for that at least). “But then the other coin boy in that class flipped his coin and it came up tails. He said the coin has spoken and he’s not doing it. I say very well, enjoy your 0 and your call home— what a great way to start off the school year and your high school career.” Their post proceeded to go viral across social media, with many finding the post absolutely hilarious and pledging to “stand with the coin boys”. The teacher said they had looked up the trend online but hadn’t seen anything else about it, theorising that it must be a local group of friends who made it up. But, thanks to the viral post, it may have the opposite effect. 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.

The CEOs of some of America's biggest companies are in China this week to take the pulse of one of their top markets after the country reopened following nearly three years of pandemic restrictions.

Kassy Castillo and Leonardo Dionicio have decided to stick with each other as they gear up for the finale

The world record for the most expensive cheese has been broken. The cabrales blue cheese of northern Spain earned the title of the world’s most expensive cheese after a 2.2kg wheel was sold at auction for €30,000. It also won best cabrales of the year at the principality’s 51st annual competition. “We knew we had a good cheese but also that it is very difficult to win,” Guillermo Pendás, who made it for his family’s Los Puertos factory, told EFE, Spain’s state news agency. Mr Pendás mother Rosa Vada, who owns the Los Puertos factory, said the cheese had been matured in a cave at an altitude of 1,400 metres, at a temperature of 7C, where it spent “a minimum of eight months”. The cheese was sold to restaurant owner Iván Suárez, who owns El Llagar de Colloto in Asturias. Mr Suárez said “the passion for the land” and “recognising the work of the cheesemakers” made him buy the cheese. When asked for the address of her factory, Ms Vada said: “Póo [high place] de Cabrales. The town is so small they don’t name the streets. It’s best to ask.” The usual price of cabrales is €35 to €40 a kilo. The cheese is made using raw cow’s milk or a mixture of cow’s, sheep’s and goat’s milk and matures in caves in the Cabrales area in the Picos de Europa national park. Mature cheeses are taken down the mountain from the caves on foot. The previous Guinness World Record price was set at €20,500 in 2019 for a cheese also bought by Mr Suárez. Read More Man crushed to death by thousands of cheese wheels Woman wins famous UK cheese rolling race despite being knocked unconscious Nacho cheese floods highway after scores of cans tumble from truck

Two ex-employees of Wirecard Asia Holdings Pte were handed prison terms in Singapore for their roles in conspiring