A study suggests that convincing yourself that food has a higher calorie content may suppress your appetite and help you lose weight. Alia Crum and her colleagues at Yale University gave 46 healthy volunteers the same 380-calories milkshake. However, some participants were told it was a low-calorie choice, whilst others were told it was high in calories. The 'low-calorie' bottle of the shake claimed it to have zero percent fat, zero added sugar and be only 140 calories. Whilst the 'high-calorie' bottle was labelled as 'indulgent' and accounted to 620 calories. The team measured levels or ghrelin before and after volunteers drank the shake. Ghrelin is a hormone released by the stomach when we are hungry. "It also slows metabolism," Crum said, "just incase you might not find that food." Once you have a big meal after you ghrelin rises, your level proceed to drop again, telling your brain that you've had enough to eat and it's time to start metabolising, in order to burn the calories ingested. Meaning that when we have something like a small salad, ghrelin levels don't drop as much, and metabolism isn't triggered in the same way. For a while, scientists believed that ghrelin levels change in response to the nutrients in your stomach. But Crum's study pushed back on that belief. If participants believed they were drinking the high-calorie shake, the body responded as though the participants had consumed more than they actually had. "The ghrelin levels dropped about three times more when people were consuming the indulgent shake (or though they were consuming the indulgent shake)," Crum said. However, it doesn't mean the nutrients doesn't matter, but Crum suggests that the metabolic model may need to be rethought. "Our beliefs matter in virtually every domain, in everything we do," Crum says. "How much is a mystery, but I don't we've given enough credit to the role of our beliefs in determining our physiology, our reality." 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. How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Eddie Howe has insisted the decision not to introduce a ban which could have prevented Newcastle from loaning players from Saudi clubs is no great advantage to them. Premier League clubs this week voted against a move to stop members drafting in players on temporary deals from associated clubs – those who share owners – which had been interpreted as a bid to thwart the Magpies, who had been linked with a January move for Al-Hilal’s Ruben Neves. Newcastle are 80 per cent owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which also has controlling stakes in four Saudi Pro League clubs including Neves’ employers, and the decision means in theory that they could sign loan deals to bolster their squad in the midst of an injury crisis. Howe said: “I found it a bit strange that the focus has been solely on us. Every club has a right to vote how they want to vote and it hasn’t gone through so it’s not just about us. “It was a Premier League vote – we’re not the only club involved in that vote. I think the majority of clubs in the Premier League own other clubs around the world, so it’s not solely on us, I don’t think. “Newcastle as a club had a view. We voted our way in the way we’re allowed to and the vote came out on the side that it did. “Just from my dealings with it, we’re very relaxed on it. It’s not the be-all and end-all for us.” It's not the be-all and end-all for us Newcastle head coach Eddie Howe Howe’s squad has been ravaged by injuries and suspension in recent weeks but midfielder Bruno Guimaraes is available for Saturday’s home clash with Chelsea after serving a one-match ban, as is Kieran Trippier after leaving the England squad for personal reasons. Striker Alexander Isak is close to a return from a groin injury, but Howe is still without the likes of Dan Burn, Sven Botman, Sean Longstaff, Sandro Tonali, Jacob Murphy, Harvey Barnes and Callum Wilson. Asked if he would consider signing a player from a Saudi club in January, Howe said: “It’s not even in our thoughts at this moment in time. “It would only be a reaction to the injuries that we have and whether we need to recruit because the majority of our players would be back in January. At this moment in time, we don’t know.” Howe put the final touches to his preparations for the Chelsea game having watched back his side’s 2-0 defeat at former club Bournemouth on their last outing no fewer than five times in a bid to address what went wrong. He did so with £55million summer signing Tonali, who is serving a 10-month ban for breaching betting rules, showing just how much of a miss he will be on the training pitch. Howe said: “You wouldn’t know from our training sessions that he’s unavailable to play and it’s probably been the best we have seen him in training. I’d love to see him when he comes back into the team because I think he will be a huge player for us.” Read More Manchester United ‘identify candidates’ for Raphael Varane successor Dallas Cowboys cruise to Thanksgiving win over Washington Commanders Jack Draper suffers opening-rubber defeat as Serbia seize control at Davis Cup Man Utd forward Rasmus Hojlund in race to be fit to face Everton Ben Curry has career goal of playing for England alongside twin brother Tom ‘Grass ceiling’ facing black footballers highlighted by new diversity data

The Madden 24 servers are currently live and players can check the Madden server status by following news on Twitter or heading to EAHelp or DownDector.

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By Jack Queen Here is a look at the charges former President Donald Trump faces and his possible

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has been hit by staff shortages, according to a US war think tank, as Ukraine is making gains on the frontline. Russian occupation authorities are “suffering staff shortages” at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), said the Institute for the Study of War on Wednesday. In its assessment on Wednesday of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it reported Ukrainian Enerhodar Mayor Dmytro Orlov said only about 2,000 of the 11,000 total staff who worked at the ZNPP prior to Russia’s occupation of Enerhodar continue to work there. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces have had successes as they continue with their counteroffensive near Bakhmut, in western Zaporizhia Oblast, east of Klishchiivka, Andriivka near Bakhmut, and west of Robotyne. It comes as a Russian missile struck a school in the town of Nikopol in the central Ukrainian region of Dnipropetrovsk on Wednesday, killing at least four people, Ukrainian officials said. Vladimir Putin is set to visit Kyrgyzstan on Thursday, the presidential office of the Central Asian country said, in what would be the Russian leader's first known trip abroad since the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest. Read More Could Putin be arrested? President to leave Russia for first time since international arrest warrant issued Russia loses vote to rejoin UN’s top human rights body despite Putin’s charm offensive with stolen grain Russian authorities seek to fine a human rights advocate for criticizing the war in Ukraine

Defining Dishes is an IndyEats column that explores the significance of food at key moments in our lives. From recipes that have been passed down for generations, to flavours that hold a special place in our hearts, food shapes every part of our lives in ways we might not have ever imagined. As a teenager growing up in Hungary, the summer school holidays were usually spent at home because my parents were still working. They would leave us a list of house chores we needed to do before they left for work in the morning, and it included cooking our own meals, so I learned at an early age that I really enjoy cooking. I love cooking traditional Hungarian food, but I was also keen to experiment with other recipes and there was one day when I was looking for something to cook for that evening, just anything. My friends and I would go to the local library regularly, and on this day, I went and found an old cookbook in the food section. It looked about a hundred years old, it was falling apart, some pages were missing and others were stuck together. But I browsed through it and found a cake recipe involving plums soaked in rum that I thought sounded delicious. The recipe was incomplete because of the state of the book, but I wrote it down in my notebook anyway because it sounded good and I really wanted to try it. I resolved to make it for our dessert that evening. I went to the supermarket and went to search for all the ingredients for the cake. What I wasn’t expecting at the time was how expensive they would be – thinking back now, it makes sense that rum, plums and vanilla would not come cheap, but I was young and didn’t really know the price of things like that. It turned out to be quite an expensive shop, particularly for a 16-year-old using her own pocket money, but I didn’t mind too much as I was convinced it would be great! I got home and started getting ready to cook. It was around this time that I realised just how incomplete the recipe was. It confused me – for example, it seemed to call for just milk and eggs in the batter, there was no flour. But I pressed on and told myself that the recipe writers surely knew what they were doing. I mixed everything in a bowl and it was very, very liquidy, almost like water, which worried me. I poured the batter into a pan and into the oven it went. Now, the recipe said it would only take 20 minutes to cook. But as much as I wanted to trust the recipe, this part made me doubtful because of how liquid the batter was. So I waited and waited, but it remained stubbornly liquid. I wasn’t even sure if it would be edible. After an hour and a half of waiting, I used the toothpick method to see if it was cooked. I inserted the toothpick into the middle of the cake and when I removed it, it was sticky but no batter was left on it, so it looked like it might be OK to take it out. By this time, I had used so much electricity and energy that I was anxious to get it out of the oven. I took it out and left it on the kitchen counter to cool down. I told myself: “Maybe it will be solid by the time I come back.” It did smell amazing because of the vanilla and rum and plums, almost like Christmas cake that filled the house. But to be honest, I had a bad feeling about it. It looked horrendous, the most disgusting-looking cake I had ever seen. At least it looked solid, so I thought OK, that seems fine-ish. After a while, I figured it had cooled down enough so I tried to get it out of the tin. I had used a cake tin that you push up from the bottom to release the cake. While I was pushing the bottom, I don’t know what happened, but the cake slipped and the whole thing just fell onto its face on the floor. I remember standing there for a moment and thinking, I just spent a bloody fortune on this cake and it’s fallen in the dirt on the floor. I rushed to my room in tears, I just couldn’t deal with it. I was so sad. My 18-year-old brother had been in his room the whole time and heard me slamming my door. He must have wondered what happened because I heard him come out of his room and go downstairs to the kitchen. I stayed in my room for a little while feeling sorry for myself, before pulling myself together and heading back out to go and clean up the mess I made. I went down the stairs and I kid you not, saw the funniest scene before my eyes. My brother was on his knees in the kitchen, literally eating the cake from off the floor. I said: “What the hell are you doing?” He told me it smelled and tasted amazing, he couldn’t resist. It reminded me of the Friends episode “The One with All The Cheesecakes”, because there is a scene where Rachel and Chandler are eating cheesecake off the floor in their hallway. It was hilarious that it was happening to me in real life. I didn’t join my brother on the floor, but I did try a little bit of the cake once we picked it up from the floor. It was really tasty even though it wasn’t quite done, but it wasn’t the total failure I thought it was going to be. He offered to get me more eggs so I could try and recreate it again. The next time I made it, I made some adjustments and it turned out bloody amazing. Now, after a lot of experimenting and tweaking the original recipe, I’ve kind of mastered it. It is still expensive to make, so I decided I would only make it for celebrations and for Christmas. I even entered my recipe in an online competition. One of the prizes was a Jamie Oliver cookbook and my dad absolutely adored him. I enlisted his help to submit my entry because I didn’t have a laptop at the time, and it turned out to be a fun thing for us to do together. Some time later, I checked my email and found out I won the competition! Both Dad and I were stunned because I was worried my recipe was too complicated and nobody would want to make it. When we received the book prize, Dad was definitely more pleased than I was. It was a great thing for both of us to do. I genuinely believe that making this cake taught me the power of not giving up. That lesson has followed me throughout my life ever since. I am now an archaeologist living in Glasgow, but it hasn’t been an easy journey. I have had to persist with things even if they don’t go according to plan and keep motivating myself to get here. I think this random cake I picked out of an old book in a library has helped shape my attitude towards life. I’m also really glad my brother ate it off the floor because if he hadn’t, I would never have learned those lessons and maybe, I would be in a very different place today. Evelin Eros is a Hungarian archaeologist living in Glasgow. She makes her rum cake every Christmas and for other special occasions. Read More The dish that defines me: Mallini Kannan’s baked honey-soy salmon The dish that defines me: Frank Yeung’s prawn wontons The dish that defines me: Alex Outhwaite’s Vietnamese bun cha ‘It started with a radish’: Chef Simon Rogan reflects on restaurant L’Enclume at 20 The true story – and murky history – of Portuguese piri piri oil ‘My depression stopped me doing what I loved most in life – cooking’

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Celebrity gossip rumours suggest controversial rapper Kanye West has married again, but who is his partner and are they actually legally married? West is in a relationship with Australian architectural designer Bianca Censori, who is in her late twenties, and the pair have been photographed together making headlines in the process. Some outlets have suggested that the pair are married after Censori was spotted wearing a large ring on her left hand. She was photographed leaving a Los Angeles restaurant in the company of West, 45, along with a larger entourage including the fashion designer Mowalola Ogunlesi. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter A few days later, Ogunlesi shared images of Censori on Instagram modelling a very revealing outfit crafted from what appears to be black tape. Once again, a ring could be spotted on the fourth finger on the left hand of Censori as she held her phone to take a picture in one of the images posted. It’s believed the pair may have been romantically linked since as early as late 2022 after Kanye released a track with the title Censori Overload. Reports about their relationship emerged in January 2023, along with reports that they had held “some sort of wedding ceremony” but no official marriage certificate has emerged. It hasn’t stopped either of them from wearing wedding bands, with West reportedly sporting the ring to symbolise his “commitment to her”. West’s former wife, reality star Kim Kardashian, filed for divorce from the rapper in January 2021 and it was finalised in November 2022. The pair share four children together. 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.