Having already beaten the powerful Kansas City Chiefs while getting off to their best start in 12 years, the Detroit Lions came to Baltimore with a 5-1 record, a solid grip on first place in the NFC North and with high expectations of knocking off another AFC contender

A coalition of environmental groups and conservationists is suing the state of Utah for failing to protect the Great Salt Lake from the brink of "ecological collapse," according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday.

China Tuesday renewed calls for the Philippines to remove an ageing ship from a reef which Manila uses to press its stake in the Spratly Islands in defiance of Beijing's claim...

The finance and central bank chiefs of the world’s largest economies will debate the risks of Russia’s prolonged

Since Instagram’s text-based alternative to Twitter, Threads, rolled out last week, a handful of memes and conspiracy theories have surfaced around the app’s unusual ‘at symbol’-like logo – from the inaccurate suggestion it was predicted by The Simpsons (it wasn’t), and now, to claims it’s actually linked to the devil (it isn’t). The baseless theory - seemingly backed by Twitter owner Elon Musk himself, if his public tweet likes are anything to go by – suggests the swirly icon secretly contains the number ‘666’, often referred to as “the number of the beast” and considered a link to the Antichrist. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Claiming they “can’t stop seeing it”, one Twitter user asked: “Does anyone else think the Threads logo just looks like 666? The first 6 is forward and white, then the second one is smaller and backwards, and the third one is the black space inside.” “How to put 666 ‘the number of the beast’ into a logo,” wrote another, in a tweet liked by Musk. Several other accounts have branded Threads “satanic” over the supposed link. In fact, the baseless claim became so popular that Instagram boss Adam Mosseri shared a thread on Friday explaining the real meaning behind the logo. “The Threads logo, in Instagram Sans, is inspired by the @ sign, which stands for someone’s username, the individual, and voice. “It’s a single unbroken line, inspired by the loop seen in the app when a thread is started,” he wrote. When one user commented that it “would have been entertaining” if Mosseri jokingly confirmed the conspiracy to be true, the exec replied: “It was tempting, but I feel like that kind of sass would just blow up in my face.” Sensible. Of course, this is just one fact which dispels this conspiracy theory as nonsense and baseless, but one lesser-known bit of historical trivia also exposes just how outlandish the claim is. All the way back in 2005, it was reported that a newly discovered fragment of the oldest version of the New Testament – the second part of the Bible – from the third century gave a different number entirely for the number of the beast. Found in historic dumps near Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, the text from the Book of Revelation indicates it’s not 666 which is the fiendish number we should all be fearing, but the far less aesthetically pleasing 616. Professor David Parker, Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism and Paleography at the University of Birmingham, said: “This is an example of gematria, where numbers are based on the numerical values of letters in people’s names. “Early Christians would use numbers to hide the identity of people who they were attacking: 616 refers to the Emperor Caligula.” This is in contrast to the far more popular 666, which is understood to have referred to Emperor Nero. 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.

Kris Bryant hit one of Colorado’s three home runs and Austin Gomber won his fourth straight outing as the Rockies beat the New York Yankees 7-2

Pakistan’s army said it will no longer show “restraint” with groups attacking its property and vowed action against

England captain Jos Buttler won the toss and chose to field first in its Cricket World Cup match against India

Ukrainian troops have dug in along the eastern front as Russian forces made minor gains in their attempts to take a key city along that line. Under the Russian army chief Valery Gerasimov, a general known for his appetite for heavy, vehicle-driven assaults, Russian forces have been attempting to double-envelope the city of Avdiivka in Donetsk Oblast. Footage posted by Ukrainian drone pilots two days ago confirmed that Russian troops had made advances seven kilometres northwest of Avdiivka. But to the immediate west of Avdiivka, more footage showed at least 20 Russian armoured vehicles piled up after being struck by Ukrainian counter battery fire. The Russian assault on the eastern Ukrainian city has been costly for the attacking forces. Ukrainian General Valery Zaluzhny said last week that they believed Russia had lost over 100 tanks and 250 armoured vehicles in the past six weeks through their Avdiivka assault alone. Read More World’s attention must ‘stay on Ukraine’, warns ex-Nato chief 'You’ll die in this pit': Takeaways from secret recordings of Russian soldiers in Ukraine Dead, wounded or AWOL: The voices of desperate Russian soldiers trying to get out of the Ukraine war Kyiv hit by biggest Russian drone attack since war began

Baumgartner's attorneys argued in court that she lacks sufficient time and funds to find a new home

Tottenham are monitoring Conor Gallagher's contract talks with Chelsea and believe he would prefer to join them if granted permission to leave. Bayern Munich, Brighton, Newcastle and West Ham are also interested.

President Joe Biden fell on stage at the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation on Thursday