Commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL have agreed on the framework of a three-year contract extension that will keep him in place until 2027

Canada's Sun Life Financial posted a fall in third-quarter profit on Monday, hurt by a lower income from

Ednaldo Rodrigues, president of Brazil's football federation, insists the multi-time World Cup winners have not given up their pursuit of Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti.

Reading transports us to worlds we would never see, introduces us to people we would never meet, and instills emotions we might never otherwise feel. It also provides an array of health benefits.

The gunman allegedly responsible for the tragedy has been identified as Robert Card, a 40-year-old military veteran with a history of domestic violence

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

A woman who noticed her food and drink was being stolen by her flatmates has revealed the lengths she took to get her own back. TikToker Sarah (@saatj32) opened up about the drastic measures she was forced to take, explaining in a video: "I had to poison my food because my flatmates kept stealing it." She then shared a recording of herself carrying out the act: opening a carton of organic British skimmed milk and pouring in the contents of a salt container. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter "People want to drink my milk and want to put it back," and added how she's going to see "whose who." After pouring in the salt, she can then be seen closing the carton and shaking it to mix the salt, before giving it a whiff and adding even more salt to the mixture. In the caption she wrote: "And I have absolutely no regrets and yes someone drank it." @saatje32 And I have absolutely no regrets and yes someone drank it #university #flatmates #freshers Since then, the video has been viewed more than 277,000 times and racked up hundreds of comments from people sharing similar experiences of sticky-fingered flatmates. One person wrote: "I like this, because when they go low, I go LOWER." "I literally told my one flatmate that I'm gonna put stuff in my food 'cause it keeps being taken. She ended up consuming it as if I didn’t warn her," said another. A third added: "This video is hilarious to me cause I basically have a video of me doing the exact same thing." Meanwhile, others shared what they would have done in the same situation. One said: "Add lemon juice and it will immediately curdle. Instantly ruins everything they’re making and you can deny doing anything." "Just salt? Should have put chicken grease and dyed it blue or sum for evidence," wrote another. 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 celebrated doctor who tested tens of thousands of people for COVID-19 in the pandemic’s early months in a badly-stricken California desert community has pleaded guilty to misbranding cosmetic drugs

Barack Obama continued his yearly tradition of sharing his summer playlist, once again revealing his impressive knowledge of different musical genres

A group of Hong Kong car enthusiasts showed off some of the world’s rarest classics at an event

The body of a Goldman Sachs staffer has been pulled from a New York City waterway nearly three days after he vanished from a concert venue. Twenty-seven-year-old John Castic was last seen at a concert at The Brooklyn Mirage in the Brooklyn neighbourhood of East Williamsburg. The NYPD said earlier this week that Castic, originally from Illinois, left the venue around 3am on Saturday. His father, Jeffrey Castic, told Fox News Digital that his body was found floating in a section of Newtown Creek on Tuesday afternoon less than two miles from where he vanished. “They have found his body and confirmed it’s him,” Mr Castic told the outlet. “It appears to have been death by misadventure. His wallet and phone were found on him.” Castic’s body was first noticed by a passerby who alerted law enforcement. NYPD Harbor units then responded to the scene and recovered his remains. Castic graduated DuPaul University in 2020 and went on to work at different firms before joining Goldman Sachs as a senior analyst in August 2022. “He was so smart but, in the end, he did something dumb, and it cost him,” Mr Castic told Fox. “We think he might have been impaired, we do not know, and it was just a lapse of judgment.” Law enforcement does not suspect foul play at this time, according to The New York Post. Castic’s friend Sara Kostecka told the outlet that the young man was an “amazing friend.” “He is very charismatic, high-energy with a good sense of humor,” Ms Kostecka told the Post. “Whatever happened, he did not deserve this.” Read More Ira Sachs wanted to make 'a film of intimacy.' It got him an NC-17 rating Rex Heuermann’s defence buried in mountain of evidence as he faces court in Gilgo Beach murders case Lori Vallow - update: ‘Cult mom’ smirks in new mug shot after denying murders in bizarre sentencing statement

The Washington DC judge in the election interference case against Donald Trump has responded to his legal team’s request that she recuse herself from the case with a stern warning. The former president’s legal team argued that Judge Tanya Chutkan should leave the case because of statements she had made when sentencing defendants for taking part in the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. The lawyers for the former president argued that Judge Chutkan “agreed with portions” of a sentencing memo for one of the January 6 defendants which “wrongly placed blame on President Trump and complained that he had not been charged”. The defence lawyer for the defendant referred to in the motion said in a sentencing memo that “those voices, including the voice of the then-president himself, had convinced persons such as Mr. Palmer that the election was fraudulent and that they must take action to stop the transition of the presidency. . . . While many of the people who participated in the Capitol riot will be going to prison, the architects of that horrific event will likely never be charged with any criminal offense”. The Trump lawyers added that “although Judge Chutkan correctly noted that she does not have any influence on charging decisions, her ... comments stating ‘you have made a very good point . . . that the people who exhorted you and encouraged you and rallied you to go and take action and to fight have not been charged’ and ‘you have a point, that the people who may be the people who planned this and funded it and encouraged it haven’t been charged, but that’s not a reason for you to get a lower sentence’ reflect her apparent opinion that President Trump’s conduct ... occurred, and supports charges”. “Otherwise, she would not have characterized the point as ‘very good’,” they said. “Judge Chutkan’s statement that ‘I have my opinions’ suggests that in her view—formed almost two years before the initiation of this matter—President Trump should be charged,” the Trump legal team added. After that filing, Judge Chutkan ordered that the prosecution, the legal team of Special Counsel Jack Smith, should file any opposing arguments within three days. She also warned the Trump legal team that they must notify the special counsel’s office before filing that kind of motion or they might risk that later motions be “denied without prejudice”. “Upon consideration of Defendant’s 50 Motion for Recusal, it is hereby ORDERED that the government shall file any opposition no later than September 14, 2023, and the defense shall file any reply within three calendar days from the filing date of the government’s opposition,” the judge wrote in the order on Monday. “All other deadlines set by the court remain in effect.” “Defense counsel is reminded of the requirement to confer with opposing counsel before filing any motion and to indicate whether the motion is opposed ...Future motions that fail to comply with that requirement may be denied without prejudice,” she added. Read More Biden slammed for falsely claiming he visited Ground Zero the day after 9/11 Trump lashes out at Biden over prisoner swap deal with Iran after demanding Jan 6 judge recuse herself - live Putin calls Trump’s laundry list of criminal charges ‘persecution’