Hopes for more Fed rate cuts dim as Powell notes hot CPI means ‘we’re not quite there yet’
Hopes for more Fed rate cuts dim as Powell notes hot CPI means ‘we’re not quite there yet’
Cartons of eggs are displayed at a grocery store with a warning that limits will be placed on purchases as bird flu continues to affect the egg industry on Feb. 10, 2025 in New York City.
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A Federal Reserve interest rate cut won’t be coming until at least September, if at all this year, following a troubling inflation report Wednesday, according to updated market pricing.
Futures markets shifted from the expectation of a June cut and possibly another before the end of the year to no moves until the fall, with a minimal chance of a follow-up before the end of 2025.
“The Fed will see January’s hot inflation print as confirmation that price pressures continue to bubble beneath the economy’s surface,” Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica, wrote in commentary that echoed others around Wall Street. “That will reinforce the Fed’s inclination to at least slow and possibly even end rate cuts in 2025.”
Reduced optimism for Fed easing came after the January consumer price index report showed a 0.5% monthly gain, pushing the annual inflation rate to 3%, a touch higher than December and only slightly lower than the 3.1% reading in January 2024. Excluding food and energy, the news was even worse, with a 3.3% rate that showed core inflation, which the Fed tends to rely on more even higher, also rising and holding well above the central bank’s goal.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell, in an appearance Wednesday before the House Financial Services Committee, insisted the Fed had made “great progress” on inflation from its cycle peak “but we’re not quite there yet. So we want to keep policy restrictive for now.”
As the Fed targets 2% inflation and the report showed no recent progress, it also dimmed hopes that the central bank will view further policy easing as appropriate after it lopped a full percentage point off its benchmark short-term borrowing rate in 2024.
Fed funds futures trading pointed to just a 2.5% chance of a March cut; only 13.2% in May, up to 22.8% in June, then 41.2% in July and finally up to 55.9% in September, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch gauge as of late Wednesday morning. However, that would leave the probability still up in the air until October, when futures contracts pricing implies a 62.1% probability.
Odds of a second cut by the end of 2025 were at just 31.3%, with pricing not indicating another reduction until late 2026. The fed funds rate is currently targeted in a range between 4.25%-4.5%.
The issues raised in the CPI report are not happening in isolation. Policymakers also are watching White House trade policy, with President Donald Trump pushing aggressive tariffs that also could boost prices and complicate the Fed’s desire to get to its goal.
“There is no getting away from the fact that this is a hot report and with the sense that potential tariffs run upside risk for inflation the market is understandably of the view the Federal Reserve is going to find it challenging to justify rate cuts in the near future,” said James Knightley, chief international economist at ING.
While the Fed pays attention to CPI and other similar price measures, its preferred inflation gauge is the personal consumption expenditures index, which the Bureau of Economic Analysis will release later in February. Elements from CPI filter into the PCE reading, and Citigroup said it expects to see core PCE fall to 2.6% for January, a 0.2 percentage point decline from December.
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RFK Jr.’s nomination for health secretary advances in Senate, teeing up final vote
RFK Jr.’s nomination for health secretary advances in Senate, teeing up final vote
Washington — The Senate voted to advance Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday, teeing up a final vote on his confirmation later this week.
In a 53 to 47 vote, the Senate voted to clear the final procedural hurdle to Kennedy’s nomination. The vote fell along party lines.
Kennedy’s path to confirmation was once considered among the most fragile of President Trump’s nominees. The 71-year-old faced scrutiny from Democrats and Republicans alike in recent weeks, including during a pair of fiery hearings last month, where he was grilled over his controversial views on vaccines and abortion.
The longtime environmental lawyer and activist launched a White House bid in the 2024 election, though he initially sought the Democratic nomination and has close ties to the party as the nephew of President John F. Kennedy and the son of Robert F. Kennedy. He dropped out of the presidential race to endorse Mr. Trump in August.
Kennedy’s nomination advanced out of committee last week, with the vote coming down to a single Republican. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a medical doctor, had expressed consternation over his nomination because Kennedy has raised doubts about vaccines. Then, moments ahead of the committee vote, Cassidy said he would support him.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nominee for secretary of health and human services, testifies before the Senate Finance Committee in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 29, 2025.
Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images
Outside of the committee, Republican opposition to Kennedy’s nomination has also appeared to dissipate. Sen. Susan Collins, who is among the few Republicans who have voted to oppose any of the president’s nominees, told reporters Monday she planned to support Kennedy’s confirmation.
Democrats have strongly opposed the nominee to lead HHS. Senate ********* Leader Chuck Schumer argued that the support among Republicans comes in response to pressure from the White House.
“The vote on RFK is about one simple question,” Schumer said. “Will Republicans do the right thing for American public health, or will they do whatever is necessary to keep Donald Trump happy, no matter how misguided he is?”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune praised Kennedy in advance of the procedural vote, saying he looks forward to Kennedy being a “partner to Congress on some very important issues,” including chronic disease. And Thune said he’s encouraged that Kennedy has “committed to implementing President Trump’s pro-life policies at HHS.”
“Mr. Kennedy promises to make HHS a collaborative, transparent and science-driven agency under his leadership,” Thune said, adding that Kennedy has committed to an “unprecedented level of collaboration with Congress” and “regular and robust oversight of his agency’s activities.”
Kaia Hubbard
Kaia Hubbard is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital, based in Washington, D.C.
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King tries his arm at American Football
King tries his arm at American Football
King Charles threw an NFL ball on a visit to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
The King was visiting the ground to celebrate its community work, and its status as the ***’s official NFL ground.
British American Football player Efe Obada was on hand to show his passing skills, and presented the King with a ball used in the Super Bowl last weekend.
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Fox News Crucified EA and Mass Effect for the Most Ridiculous Reason
Fox News Crucified EA and Mass Effect for the Most Ridiculous Reason
Let’s be honest; we all know that video games have been prone to controversies. The entertainment sphere has often found itself facing tons of lawsuits and disputes. While gaming is mainstream, it still manages to rile up emotions in the community at times.
Mass Effect is one of the most legendary video game franchises. (Image via EA)
However, one of the most ridiculous controversies we’ve ever seen in the gaming industry was related to Mass Effect and the game’s “sex scenes.” It was clear that Fox News didn’t have a shred of an idea of what was actually happening and exaggerated everything it could to bring a bad light to EA and BioWare.
Fox News’s horrendous criticism against Mass Effect
The original Mass Effect suffered due to Fox News’ false narratives. (Image via EA)
It all started back in 2008 when Fox News decided to run a segment that claimed that Mass Effect featured full nudity and sex. According to the news outlet, the game’s publisher, EA, was projecting the title towards kids despite the mature rating.
The segment’s host and all of the misinformed analysts relentlessly bashed Mass Effect and accused the game of promoting misogyny and sex scenes that exposed children to adult content.
However, most of the claims by Fox News were overexaggerated entirely and didn’t reveal what was actually happening. Video game journalist Geoff Keighley joined the panel and flipped the incorrect narrative. However, he was only given a few seconds to counter the critics as they constantly interrupted him.
After Keighley wasn’t given enough time to defend Mass Effect, the show went back to bashing the game. According to one of the critics, the game basically involved Luke Skywalker meeting Debbie Does Dallas (an adult film actress). The news panel also criticized the ESRB and the entire video gaming landscape.
It was clear that Fox News had no idea about the video gaming sphere or the players who enjoyed it. In the end, the news segment ended up receiving more hate than the game itself. Angry gamers bashed Fox News for their bogus reporting, and even EA’s ex-VP of communications demanded the channel to backtrack their statements.
For some reason, Fox didn’t hear any of this and, to this date, has never issued a correction for its ludicrous coverage of the sex scenes in Mass Effect.
Mass Effect 2 dropped same-sex romance thanks to karen Fox News
Mass Effect 2 was also ruined thanks to Fox News. (Image via EA)
Due to Fox News’ bogus reporting on sex-sense in Mass Effect, the game’s sequel took a hit and dropped one of its crucial lore aspects.
While chatting with The Gamer, one of the lead writers for Mass Effect 2, Brian Kindregan, talked about Jack. Apparently, he was originally written as a pansexual character, but the developers decided to change her romance options late in development to only allow heterosexual romance.
Essentially pansexual for most of the development of that romance.
In the game, we can find various references to Jack’s interest in both men and women. This left many wondering why Jack would only romance with a male Commander, Shepard.
According to the writer, one of the major reasons behind these changes was the criticism from various media outlets. He mentioned Fox News’ unfair criticism, which ended up projecting a negative light on the franchise.
While Kindregan didn’t agree with the changes to Jack’s character, it had to be done to reduce the criticism that could be pointed towards the community by news outlets again.
With that said, do you think Fox News should apologize for its bogus reporting against Mass Effect? Let us know in the comments below.
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Trump speaks with Putin, says talks to end Ukraine war will begin “immediately”
Trump speaks with Putin, says talks to end Ukraine war will begin “immediately”
Hegseth addresses Ukraine’s borders
Hegseth says it’s “unrealistic” for Ukraine to return to its pre-2014 borders
04:34
Washington — President Trump said Wednesday that he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and directed members of his national security team to “immediately” begin negotiations aimed at ending Russia’s war with Ukraine.
The call between Mr. Trump and Putin is the first known conversation between the two since the president returned to the White House for a second term. It comes a day after Russia released Pennsylvania schoolteacher Marc Fogel, who was serving a 14-year sentence and was designated as wrongfully detained late last year.
“I just had a lengthy and highly productive phone call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “We discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, Energy, Artificial Intelligence, the power of the Dollar, and various other subjects.”
Mr. Trump said he and Putin talked about the “great benefit that we will someday have in working together” and agreed on the need to end Russia’s war with Ukraine. In addition to the pledge to begin discussions on the war in Ukraine, the president and his Russian counterpart said they would visit “each other’s nation.”
The president said he has directed Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, national security adviser Michael Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to lead negotiations on the war. Mr. Trump also said he will call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday “to inform him of the conversation” with Russia’s leader.
“Millions of people have died in a War that would not have happened if I were President, but it did happen, so it must end. No more lives should be lost!” he wrote.
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Melissa Quinn is a politics reporter for CBSNews.com. She has written for outlets including the Washington Examiner, Daily Signal and Alexandria Times. Melissa covers U.S. politics, with a focus on the Supreme Court and federal courts.
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R Kelly’s sex trafficking conviction upheld
R Kelly’s sex trafficking conviction upheld
A federal appeals court has upheld R Kelly’s sex trafficking and racketeering conviction, saying extensive evidence supported keeping the former R&B superstar behind bars for decades.
The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rejected Kelly’s claims that federal prosecutors failed to prove he led a racketeering scheme where he recruited women and underage girls for sex and then violated several victims.
Circuit Judge Denny Chin said prosecutors offered “extensive evidence showing how Kelly ensnared young girls and women into his orbit, endeavoured to control their lives and secured their compliance with his personal and ******* demands through verbal and physical abuse, threats of blackmail and humiliation.”
Writing for a three-judge panel, Chin also said jurors could conclude that Kelly intended to convince victims they would be harmed if they failed to honour his ******* demands.
Lawyers for Kelly did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A spokesman for the US attorney’s office in Brooklyn declined to comment.
Kelly, 58, is serving a 30-year prison sentence after being convicted in September 2021 by a Brooklyn, New York jury on one count of racketeering and eight counts of violating the Mann Act, which forbids transporting people across state lines for prostitution.
His case became among the most prominent MeToo-era prosecutions.
Kelly was previously perhaps best known for his 1996 Grammy-winning hit I Believe I Can Fly.
His full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly.
Wednesday’s decision came as jailed rapper and music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs awaits his scheduled May 5 trial in Manhattan federal court on sex trafficking charges.
Dozens of women and men have filed civil lawsuits accusing him of ******* misconduct.
Combs has pleaded not guilty and maintained his innocence.
Kelly’s trial followed two decades of misconduct accusations, which he had repeatedly denied.
Jurors heard testimony from 45 government witnesses, including several victims, that portrayed in often graphic detail the repression that prosecutors said Kelly and his entourage imposed.
This included requirements that victims refer to Kelly as “Daddy,” get permission to eat or use the bathroom, and write “apology letters” that purported to absolve him of blame.
The appeal included arguments by Kelly that prosecutors failed to prove he intended to expose victims to herpes by concealing his diagnosis before having unprotected sex.
Kelly also argued that four jurors had known too much about the case and were biased against him.
The case is separate from Kelly’s September 2022 conviction by a Chicago jury of child sex crimes.
He was sentenced there to 20 years in prison but the judge added just one year to Kelly’s imprisonment, with the other 19 years overlapping the 30-year sentence.
In October, the US Supreme Court rejected Kelly’s appeal from the Chicago conviction.
Kelly is at the Butner, North Carolina medium-security prison that once housed late Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff.
He is eligible for release in December 2045, at age 78.
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Star Citizen Releases Upgraded Ship Super Hornet Mk II & Valentine's Day Event
Star Citizen Releases Upgraded Ship Super Hornet Mk II & Valentine's Day Event
Today Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games released a ship that many saw coming, the Anvil F7C-M Super Horned MK II.
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You can get up to $500 off the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 right now
You can get up to $500 off the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 right now
For those who are shopping for a powerful laptop but want to look beyond the best laptop brands, why not try the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360? It’s currently available from Samsung with a promotional trade-in credit program that can get you up to $500 off its sticker price of $1,700, so you can potentially pay as low as $1,200 for this device. You’re going to have to hurry if you’re interested in taking advantage of this offer though, as there’s no telling how much time is remaining before it ends.
Why you should buy the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 laptop
The Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 is a 2-in-1 laptop in the convertible category, which means it transforms from laptop mode to tablet mode by flipping its 16-inch AMOLED touchscreen all the way back to below the keyboard, as explained by our laptop buying guide. The device maintains its portability though, as it is incredibly thin and offers excellent battery life. The Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 is also pretty quick in terms of performance, as it’s equipped with the Intel Core Ultra 7 Series 2 processor, Intel Arc Graphics, and 16GB of RAM. It also ships with Windows 11 Home pre-installed in a 1TB SSD, which should provide more than enough storage space for the software and files that you’ll need.
We compared the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 versus Apple MacBook Air 15 as they’re both remarkably thin and light machines. The advantages of the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 over the Apple MacBook Air 15 include its 2-in-1 capabilities, a touchscreen that works with Samsung’s S Pen stylus, the presence of both modern and legacy ports, and a more spectacular display with 2.8K resolution.
If you’re in the market for 2-in-1 laptop deals, you should check out the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360. If you’ve got some eligible devices that you can trade in, you can get up to $500 off its original price of $1,700, possibly dropping its price to $1,200. The boosted trade-in program isn’t going to last forever though, so if you want to enjoy more credit than usual towards buying the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360, you’ll need to proceed with the transaction as soon as possible.
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Hegseth rules out Ukraine NATO membership as part of any ceasefire with Russia
Hegseth rules out Ukraine NATO membership as part of any ceasefire with Russia
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia must include security guarantees for Ukraine, but that they “should not be provided through NATO membership, but must instead be backed by capable European and non-European troops.”
The defense chief spoke not long before President Trump announced in a social media post that he had agreed with Russian President Vladimir Putin to begin negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, during a phone call with the Russian leader on Wednesday. He said he would be calling Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy immediately “to inform him of the conversation.”
In remarks delivered ahead of a closed-door meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group to discuss further aid for Ukraine, Hegseth called Ukraine’s goal of returning to its pre-2014 borders — before Russian forces first invaded and started seizing ground, annexing the Crimean Peninsula — an “unrealistic objective.”
The U.S. defense chief said “as part of any security guarantee, there will not be U.S. troops deployed” to Ukraine.
Trump says he’s spoken with Putin about ending Ukraine war
04:17
Furthermore, he said any peacekeeping troops deployed to Ukraine should not be part of a NATO mission, nor covered by Article 5, the alliance’s mutual defense pact.
Around 50 countries make up the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which has provided support for Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
Hegseth said that, moving forward, Europe should “provide the overwhelming share of lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine,” and urged those in attendance at the Brussels summit to speak to their governments about increasing their defense spending, as the U.S. shifts its focus elsewhere.
Hegseth says U.S. won’t be “primary guarantor of security in Europe”
“I’m also here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States from being the primary guarantor of security in Europe,” Hegseth said, stressing that the U.S. would be focusing on its own border security and China.
“The U.S. is prioritizing deterring war with China in the Pacific, recognizing the reality of scarcity, and making the resourcing tradeoffs to ensure deterrence does not fail. As the United States shifts its attention to these threats, European allies must lead from the front,” Hegseth said.
The Ukraine Defense Contact Group in total has provided Ukraine with over $126 billion in military assistance and weapons, the Associated Press reported. The United States has provided $66.5 billion of that and has chaired the group since its inception. It is unclear who will chair the next meeting.
“We hear you,” the United Kingdom’s Defense Secretary John Healey said in response to Hegseth’s remarks.
Mr. Trump promised that he would quickly end the war in Ukraine when he took office earlier this year, and he’s often complained about it being too costly to U.S. taxpayers.
In his remarks, Hegseth said the U.S. and Europe “can establish a division of labor that maximizes our comparative advantages in Europe and the Pacific respectively,” but that it “will require our European allies to step into the arena and take ownership of conventional security on this continent.”
“The United States remains committed to the NATO alliance and to partnership with Europe,” Hegseth said. “But the United States will no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship which encourages dependency. Rather, our relationship will prioritize empowering Europe to own responsibility for its security.”
Eleanor Watson
contributed to this report.
Haley Ott
Haley Ott is the CBS News Digital international reporter, based in the CBS News London bureau.
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Modi and Macron visit ITER site in southern France
Modi and Macron visit ITER site in southern France
Modi and Macron visit ITER site in southern France
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Valkyrie Connect teams up with hit anime Konosuba for new collab event
Valkyrie Connect teams up with hit anime Konosuba for new collab event
Ateam Entertainment’s Valkyrie Connect is set to collab with hit anime Konosuba
You’ll be able to recruit the erstwhile fantasy heroes Megumin, Aqua and Darkness
The event comes to mark the anime’s third season
As we head into 2025, the summer anime season is right around the corner, where top series return and new ones debut. And one of these is fan-favourite comedy Konosuba, which, if you’re a fan, you can enjoy in new and interesting ways as your fan-favourite characters debut in ATeam Entertainment’****** release Valkyrie Connect.
Konosuba, an isekai anime (basically the trapped-in-another-world genre), sees perennial loser Kazuma team up with self-absorbed goddess Aqua, deranged explosion mage Megumin and equally erratic knight Darkness to destroy a ****** King. Lauded for its comical tone, you’ll be able to recruit the aforementioned Megumin, Aqua and Darkness to join your lineup in Valkyrie Connect!
Darkness herself debuts as the headlining character for this event, collect Collab Coins in order to summon her and use her high defence and resistance to status ailments to your advantage. Meanwhile, Aqua and Megumin will join the summoning pool with options to nab them as guaranteed on certain Steps.
Ex-plosion
Naturally, both Aqua and Megumin come with their signature moves, boasting healing magic alongside other useful spells, and the flashy Explosion respectively. Suffice it to say if you’re a fan of the series I’m sure these live up to their anime incarnations in everything but being extremely annoying.
You’ll also want to keep an eye on Vanir’s Trader, where you can exchange tickets to obtain costumes and other collab-exclusive items. And of course, there’s a fun little storyline to go along with the event that sees the Konosuba crew dragged into the world of Valkyre Connect.
It seems that anime really is fertile ground for gaming, for better or for worse. If you don’t believe me you only need to look as far as our list of the top 15 best anime mobile games to see what I mean!
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Trump dismisses hot inflation report as ‘Biden inflation’ after another call to lower interest rates
Trump dismisses hot inflation report as ‘Biden inflation’ after another call to lower interest rates
Donald Trump on Wednesday morning dismissed a higher than expected inflation report as “Biden inflation” after making another call to lower interest rates.
The US president reacted to the release of the data showing headline consumer prices rose more than forecast by posting “BIDEN INFLATION UP!” on Truth Social.
The post came just an hour after another post earlier Wednesday morning that read “Interest Rates should be lowered, something which would go hand in hand with upcoming Tariffs!!!”
“Lets Rock and Roll, America!!!” the president added in a post that wasn’t clear if he was talking about the Federal Reserve’s short-term rate, the 10-year Treasury yield, home mortgage rates, auto loans, or all of the above.
About halfway in between the two posts, at 8:30 a.m. ET, the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was released showing that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 3% over the prior year in January, an uptick from December’s 2.9% annual gain in prices.
The rapid back-and-forth from the president on the interconnected issues of interest rates, tariffs, and inflation came after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told lawmakers Tuesday “we do not need to be in a hurry” on rates.
Wednesday morning’s pickup in inflation could make lower rates less likely when it comes to the Fed’s benchmark federal funds rate.
Markets already didn’t see a high chance of another Fed cut until this fall or even next winter, with the probabilities falling even lower on Wednesday morning.
Trump’s mention of tariffs also came after the president announced new 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum earlier this week and promised new reciprocal tariffs will be unveiled as early as today.
The Wednesday morning focus on interest rates also came after an Oval Office appearance Tuesday afternoon when Trump predicted that Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency would eventually find close to $1 trillion in cuts and cut the federal deficit in half.
President Donald Trump is joined in the Oval Office Tuesday by tech billionaire Elon Musk (not pictured) and Musk’s son X Æ A-Xii as they discussed Musk’s effort under the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images) · JIM WATSON via Getty Images
Musk then added that the effects of those cuts — alongside other actions like trimming regulations — would have a stark effect and mean zero inflation and a lowering of interest rates.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO asked reporters in the room to imagine a scenario where next year “they’re going down the grocery aisle and the prices from one year to the next are the same and all the debt payments have dropped.”
Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
Every Friday, Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman and Ben Werschkul bring you a unique look at how U.S. policy and government affects your bottom line on Capitol Gains. Watch or listen to Capitol Gains on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
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Iga Swiatek’s vision for her tennis future: ‘Getting back to my roots’ from 2022 season
Iga Swiatek’s vision for her tennis future: ‘Getting back to my roots’ from 2022 season
Just over a year ago, Iga Swiatek was fresh from a confounding loss. Unseeded Czech teenager Linda Noskova had ended Swiatek’s bid for a first *********** Open title in the third round, with the big-hitting 19-year-old coming from a set down to overpower the then-world No. 1.
Swiatek knew her opponent had played brilliantly, but she was confused by her own form. She had been playing well ahead of the first major of 2024, but then “saw my tennis being worse and worse every day,” she said in an interview from her home in Warsaw a fortnight ago.
The 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 loss was not the only such defeat of 2024, a tumultuous year for Swiatek. She won her fourth French Open title and third in a row, but lost early in two of the other Grand Slams. She split with her coach of three years, Tomasz Wiktorowski, with whom she won all but one of her majors, and she ended the season with a one-month doping ban during which she relinquished her world No. 1 ranking to Aryna Sabalenka, after being found to have inadvertently ingested a banned substance via contaminated medication.
On the court, her still-rare defeats had started to take increasingly similar shape. Swiatek would move out in front, and her opponent would raise their level. She would keep trying to dominate them, with little response to what was coming back over the net. Her groundstrokes would break down, particularly on her forehand. She would try and hit harder and miss more and then the match would be over.
“Sometimes I felt like my decisions weren’t really perfect on the court. I started playing, you know, too flat,” she said.
In response, Swiatek hired Wim Fissette, who previously coached Kim Clijsters, Angelique Kerber and Naomi Osaka to Grand Slam titles. Fissette is her first coach from outside Poland, and their partnership has already shown promise for Swiatek’s tennis future. She got within a point of the *********** Open final after a ruthless run to the semifinals, where she lost to eventual champion Madison Keys in a deciding tiebreak. But her progress is less about revolution than evolution; as much about going back in time as it is looking forward.
Swiatek, 23, has already won five Grand Slam titles, four of them at the French Open. She has spent 125 weeks at world No. 1 — a tally bettered by only six players ever. She is a global superstar, with huge commercial deals with brands like Lancome, Visa and Porsche. The incremental adjustments going on inside her tennis time machine aren’t always visible through that lens, as she moves from tournament to tournament, now alighting in Doha, Qatar where she is attempting to win the Qatar Open for the fourth time in a row.
“I see my game every day,” she said. “It’s hard to see the changes because they’re little. I know. They only seem big on a ******* horizon.”
Swiatek’s tennis breakthrough came in 2020, when she won the French Open for the first time ranked world No. 54. But it’s her 2022 season, in which she first became world No. 1, that defines her.
When Ash Barty announced her shock retirement, Swiatek reached the top of the rankings by surprise. She promptly blew away any suggestion of being an unworthy usurper by going on a 37-match winning streak from February to June 2022. It took in six titles, and was the joint-longest run on the WTA side since Steffi Graf’s between 1989 and 1990. Swiatek’s streak ended in the Wimbledon third round, but she then won the U.S. Open to offer a rejoinder to those who tried to characterize her as someone who could only thrive on clay.
Iga Swiatek’s Roland Garros dominance is unparalleled in recent WTA history. (Tim Clayton / Corbis via Getty Images)
2022 introduced the wider tennis world to Swiatek’s extraordinary capacity for winning sets 6-0 and 6-1 (there were 45 such sets in her 76 matches that year). These “bagel” and “breadstick” scorelines became so commonplace that “Iga’s Bakery” entered tennis parlance, with Swiatek winning 67 of her 76 matches for a win percentage of 88.2, up from 70.6 the previous year. She is yet to better that figure.
Swiatek found the right balance of knowing when to attack and when to retreat, and used her topspin forehand to devastating effect. It can feel unnatural for a world No. 1 to not always be the aggressor, but Swiatek’s phenomenal movement and intensity meant that even when she was against a more powerful opponent she would very rarely be outmanoeuvred.
“We are working in a different way a little bit, in terms of getting back to my roots,” Swiatek says of how she and Fissette are moving her tennis forward.
“I feel like I can really be a great defensive player, but use my chances to be proactive, as I did a little better in 2022. So with Wim we’re working on my footwork a lot, just movement and being able to get back up from really defensive, tough positions to to still win a point.”
Swiatek and Fissette started working together in October, but last month’s *********** Open was their first Grand Slam together. Swiatek racked up set scores of 6-3, 6-4, 6-0, 6-2, 6-1, 6-0, 6-0, 6-1, 6-1 and 6-2 to reach the semifinals, at times by overpowering opponents but more often by picking the moment to take over a rally. After losing just one game in beating former U.S. Open champion Emma Raducanu to reach the fourth round, Swiatek in a news conference described her performance as “kind of perfect,” adding that “I felt like the ball is listening to me.”
“I feel like in Australia it has been working really well,” she said in the video interview, now with a bit of distance from the event. “And I felt the control over the ball and a lot of confidence because I knew that I had kind of nothing to lose … I can only go forward and use what Wim has brought to the team. Obviously with more time on the practice court also some changes in my game are going to come.
“You know, over the past few years, I learned how to be an aggressive player. And the player that uses the first chance in the rally to go forward … I always have to remember what is really my biggest weapon.”
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Swiatek’s run to the Melbourne semifinals was her deepest run at a hard-court major since her title in New York. It’s a curious lean spell because outside of the majors, Swiatek has excelled on the surface. In 2023, Swiatek won 42 out of 50 hard-court matches for an 84 percent win-rate, while last year she went 34-6 (85 percent). Even Sabalenka, world No. 1 and hard-court extraordinaire, can’t match those win percentages, and Swiatek has won 12 of her 22 WTA Tour titles on the surface.
“It’s just physics,” Swiatek says. “On clay, it’s going to be a bit easier because my topspin will jump higher and my movements will be maybe better than what other girls can bring with the sliding and changing direction. But on hard courts, I feel like I’m a good player as well.
“It was the same with Rafa (Nadal). Everybody always talked about clay, but like he’s the GOAT (greatest of all time) basically on every surface. Also winning Wimbledon twice. Not every player can have these results on even one surface. This is something that people are focusing on, and I am talking about this as well, because clay is where I have the most fun, but I love hard courts as well. And I feel like I have my weapons and I can use them.
“I want to be an all surface player for sure.”
2024 dented Swiatek’s ambitions to be an all-surface player. Outside of winning a fourth French Open, she went out in the third round at the *********** Open and Wimbledon, and the quarters at the U.S. Open.
Iga Swiatek’s technical improvements on her serve have helped her become even more assertive. (Quinn Rooney / Getty Images)
Going back to some of the most disappointing defeats of last year in order to learn from them has been part of her evolution process. Thinking back to the Noskova loss in Melbourne, as well as the ones to Yulia Putintseva and Jessica Pegula at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, Swiatek admits: “There are matches where I know what went wrong and I even knew that on the court. But I had trouble implementing my tactics and doing what we actually agreed with the coach.”
She was “pretty confused” by the defeat to Putintseva, in which the Kazakh produced a practically flawless hour of tennis in a display overshadowed by discourse about Swiatek and grass. Putintseva at one point made just one unforced error in 11 games, but Swiatek also did not appear to have any answer to change the flow of the match. This stands in contrast to a fundamental of Swiatek’s game from three years ago, which she says she is working with Fissette to restore: “My plan B with running, to really make my opponents think twice of how to play, because I want them to be aware that the ball is going to come back.”
While Wimbledon remains a key ambition, she is realistic about how difficult this will be if she continues to win the French Open with such regularity, given the tight turnaround between the two. Swiatek tends to play a huge amount during the clay-court season because of her similarly excellent record at the events prior to Roland Garros, last year winning the two clay-court WTA 1,000 titles (one rung below a Grand Slam). It’s easy to take this Nadal-like domination of the surface for granted, but it is exceptional, and takes a toll.
A month after last year’s Wimbledon and having suffered the disappointment of ‘only’ winning a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics, also held at Roland Garros, Swiatek spoke at the Cincinnati Open about the relentlessness of the schedule.
“I think we have too many tournaments in the season,” she told Sky Sports after beating Mirra Andreeva to reach the semifinals, where she lost to Sabalenka.
“It’s not going to end well. It makes tennis less fun for us. I love playing in all these places, but it’s pretty exhausting and I think most of the WTA players would tell you that, especially when you’re playing at a high level.
“I don’t think it should be like that because we deserve to rest a little bit more. Maybe people are going to hate me (for saying that).”
At the U.S. Open shortly after, Swiatek appeared burnt out, as did many players in the wake of an Olympic Games that made 2024 an even more exhausting schedule than usual. “For sure, sometimes I have this feeling like I need to, I don’t know, please people,” she says. “Or I don’t know, play tennis to entertain. And it’s not easy to do that when I don’t feel 100 percent on the court. But most of the time I really enjoy this and most of the time I have a lot of energy from the fans.”
Like an increasing number of players on the tour, Swiatek has been open about her mental health. In Poland, especially among her parents’ generation, it has often been a taboo. Swiatek has been determined to challenge that: “I think the most important thing is knowing that there are specialists out there that can help you. So I just want people to be aware of that because I know that many of us struggle no matter what our job and our situation is.
“It’s been an important topic over the past years. And in the future, for sure, it will be — also with with us constantly being on social media where people judge us and they comment stuff that they wouldn’t really say to our face. This is also something that I think kids at school struggle with. So people need to be aware that they can use help.”
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From very early on in her career, Swiatek has placed a huge amount of importance on her state of mind, allowing a psychology and mental coach to play a central role in her training. In 2019, when starting out as a teenager on the WTA Tour, the Polish psychologist and former sailor Daria Abramowicz started becoming a regular attendee at her matches. Six years on, Abramowicz is still a crucial member of the Swiatek team.
To find calm at high-pressure moments, Swiatek likes to be at one with nature — finding a quiet park or beach during a Grand Slam. Sometimes she finds other outlets — ahead of the *********** Open in 2021, she watched and reflected on a documentary about Princess Diana to better understand the pitfalls of sudden fame.
A big part of the work Abramowicz has done with Swiatek has been to deepen the player’s relationships with relatives and friends, the people who can provide emotional stability — “the human anchor,” as Abramowicz calls it.
This came in especially useful in September last year, when Swiatek was given a provisional suspension after testing positive for a trace concentration of the banned substance trimetazidine (TMZ). The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) ultimately issued a one-month doping ban, after ruling that Swiatek’s ingestion of TMZ was not intentional. They accepted her explanation and evidence that she had taken a contaminated dose of melatonin, which she had used to help her sleep to combat jet lag.
But for a couple of months, Swiatek was in limbo. She was informed of the positive result on September 12, exactly a month after testing positive in an out-of-competition sample on August 12 ahead of the Cincinnati Open. Swiatek appealed the provisional suspension within 10 days of the original notice and the appeal was successful, so her provisional suspension was not publicly disclosed. This is in line with the TADP (Tennis Anti-Doping Programme) regulations, and is the same mechanism by which the men’s world No. 1 Jannik Sinner’s two provisional suspensions, imposed after he twice tested positive for the anabolic steroid clostebol, were not disclosed.
Swiatek missed three events while the process was ongoing, leading her to lose the No. 1 ranking. She explained her absence from the first of them, the China Open in September, by citing “personal matters.” Some felt let down by the obfuscation when her ban was made public in November, having believed that Swiatek was taking some time out having appeared so mentally and physically exhausted at the U.S. Open, her most recent event.
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“For sure, it wasn’t easy to keep everything inside,” she says.
“On the other hand, I had my support team and my family as well. So I think it’s important for your closest ones to be there when you need them.
“Also, I know that it would be tricky if the info got out to the public earlier because without the proper explanation and actually without the whole process that happened afterwards, of me proving that I’m not guilty… I think without this, people will judge me straight away.”
Swiatek says that “the most difficult thing was just not knowing what’s going to happen with me for some time, not having my own fate in my hands. It was a tough lesson because I’m a control freak”.
Swiatek is also someone who comes across as eager to please, and her discomfort at the indiscretion, and the resulting perceptions of her, has been obvious.
After losing to Keys 10-8 in that Melbourne tiebreak, Swiatek had none of the confusion and concern that came with her defeat to Noskova.
“This year it was different,” she said in a news conference. “For sure it gives me a positive vibe for the rest of the season.” In Melbourne, she was back to hitting her prodigious forehand with lots of spin, and again seemed to be finding the right balance between knowing when to attack and when to rely on her phenomenal athleticism and anticipation. Her smoothed-out serve has gained speed and potency since 2022, but it is still a work in progress.
Iga Swiatek’s partnership with Wim Fissette has already looked fruitful for her development. (Robert Prange / Getty Images)
Part of the positivity she feels is down to Fissette: “He has had a huge impact in terms of what kind of atmosphere I have in the team. And also, you know, the support he has given me to be more confident, and just more committed sometimes to the shots that haven’t been working 100 percent previously.”
To thrive on the court, she needs to feel content off it too. To unwind, Swiatek builds Lego and reads books — she’s currently reading R. F. Kuang’s fantasy novel, “Babel.” She loves listening to music, from harder rock like AC/DC and Guns N’ Roses to bands like Pink Floyd, Florence and the Machine and poppier acts like Taylor Swift and ABBA. She says that if she could be anything but a tennis player she would be a musician.
“But I think I have no talent, so it would be tough,” she deadpans.
Maybe something to do with math would be more natural to Swiatek. That was her favourite subject at school, and a few years ago Abramowicz noticed how Swiatek became both calmer and more focused if she spent the hours before her matches working on homework, especially math. Once she’d graduated from high school, Abramowicz had Swiatek work on crossword puzzles or sudokus as a cognitive warm-up.
A natural introvert, Swiatek does not first appear to be someone who might relish all the off-court commitments with sponsors that a sporting superstar has to manage. But she says that while she “totally just cuts off” from this sort of thing during tournaments, outside of them it’s a different story.
“I love having photoshoots and I can feel a bit different sometimes doing a photoshoot for Lancome or all these brands that are really elegant,” she says. “Usually sweating on the court is a different feeling than being in a beautiful dress and smiling for the camera. So I really enjoy that.”
Looking ahead, Swiatek hopes that, unlike last year, the *********** Open will provide a platform for the rest of the season. Graf, one of her role models like Nadal, feels optimistic on her behalf.
“She’s definitely set herself apart the last few years and I think with her start to the year, she’ll come back strong,” the 22-time Grand Slam singles champion said in a phone interview last week.
For Swiatek, coming back strong means “being on tour and enjoying playing, also taking care of the people that are around me. To have a good atmosphere so that we can all just be happy on tour, you know? So this is what I hope for.” In Doha, it meant a third-round match — against Noskova, her conqueror in Melbourne little over a year ago. Swiatek lost the first set despite hitting more winners than unforced errors, with Noskova serving brilliantly for the duration of the match.
Swiatek broke the Czech’s serve early in the second set, and broke again after Noskova responded immediately with a break of her own. Then, after trading breaks in the third set, she stole another at 4-4 and served out the match, to set up a quarterfinal against Elena Rybakina. Noskova took the match to her, but Swiatek held firm, using the Plan B she described, showing Noskova that the ball was going to come back.
The time machine whirrs into life again.
(Top photos: Getty Images; Illustration: Dan Goldfarb for The Athletic)
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With Bloodborne’s 10th Anniversary Looming, Expecting a Remaster Announcement at PlayStation’s State of Play Isn’t Wrong
With Bloodborne’s 10th Anniversary Looming, Expecting a Remaster Announcement at PlayStation’s State of Play Isn’t Wrong
Undoubtedly Bloodborne is one of the most popular action-adventure titles of all time. However, except the PlayStation fans, no one could ever relish this title. This FormSoftware masterpiece depicts the crumbling city of Yharnam, which was influenced by Gothic Victorian architecture and is plagued by a blood-borne illness known as Yharnamites.
This popular Soulslike game was released on March 24, 2015. | Credit: FromSoftware.
Since Bloodborne has become more and more popular over time, fans have been pleading with FromSoftware, Sony, and everyone else who will listen for a sequel, remaster, or even just a PS5 patch.
Now, with the PlayStation State of Play knocking on the door and this highly popular title is about to complete a whole decade in the gaming industry, fans can now dream about a remaster for sure. And the recent axing of two long-standing mods might be an indicator of that.
A 2021-made 60 FPS mod of Bloodborne was taken down by Sony
Sony took down a popular 60-FPS mod of Bloodborne. | Credit: FromSoftware.
Putting the accusations of coping aside, let’s take a look at the recent developments in the Bloodborne IP community. Sony has taken down two fan-made projects under the DMCA in the past week alone. The first, and possibly more convincing, piece of evidence is that Sony ordered the removal of a mod that allowed the game to be played at 60 FPS.
I’ve now released my 60fps patch for Bloodborne, you can find it here [Hidden Content]
— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) February 9, 2021
It was launched four years ago, which makes the fans wonder why now, considering the well-liked patch has been there for so long. The patch allowed users with a customized PlayStation 4 and a backup copy of Bloodborne to play at a higher frame rate.
Given that Bloodborne is likely to receive a remake, remaster, port, or patch that enables players to reach 60 frames per second, it is reasonable to assume that the message was sent out at this time to ensure that this option isn’t accessible from outside sources.
Even Sony axed a PSX Bloodborne demake
You could even play this game on PSX/PS1. | Credit: FromSoftware.
The previous week’s second DMCA notice was directed at an old video and a PSX demake of the game. The roughly five-hour demake, which was published on Itch.io three years ago, reimagines several aspects of the original game and includes some new material. The page for the game now reads, “This game’s files have been suspended for copyright (or trademark) claim,” and links to a DMCA notice.
Lance McDonald, the developer of the 60fps mod, coined what he dubbed a “copium theory” as a result of these repeated takedowns: “So that Google searches for ‘Bloodborne 60fps’ and ‘Bloodborne remake’ won’t clash with our fan projects when they announce a 60fps remake, Sony DMCAed the 60fps patch and the Bloodborne demake video.”
March marks Bloodborne‘s tenth anniversary, which you may have noticed if you’ve recently looked at a calendar. There is a growing body of evidence. The timing and the swift removal of two previous initiatives with dubious SEO-focused names suggest that, at the very least, an announcement may be imminent. And there aren’t any better occasions than tomorrow’s PlayStation’s State of Play.
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Google Family Link is the best free app for parents – and it just got a great school-time upgrade
Google Family Link is the best free app for parents – and it just got a great school-time upgrade
Google has just upgraded its helpful Family Link service for parents
It now lets you reduce distractions on your kids’ phone during school hours
Family Link has also been given a big redesign to make it easier to use
Google’s Family Link lets you remotely manage your children’s devices and is one of the tech giant’s most unsung tools. If you’re a parent and haven’t used the service yet, now is a very good time to give it a spin because it’s just received three big upgrades.
The first and arguably biggest update to Family Link is a feature called ‘School time.’ This currently helps to reduce distractions on your child’s smartwatch during school hours – and from “next week,” Google says it’s rolling out support for this on Android phones and tablets.
This means you’ll be able to silence notifications and schedule limited Android phone functionality during your child’s school hours. This doesn’t necessarily have to mean a complete phone or tablet blackout during those periods, though – you can set a ‘break’ in the schedules, for example, if you’re happy for them to browse the web during lunch or recess.
You can also choose the specific apps that are silenced or restricted – for example, keeping school-specific ones available. And even when your child’s phone or tablet’s functionality is restricted, they’ll still have access to important features like being able to call emergency services.
(Image credit: Google)
The second new Family Link feature, which will only be available “in the coming months,” is the ability to restrict who your kids call and text from their Android phones. Google says you’ll be able to add approved contacts from Family Link to your child’s phone, which means they’ll only be able to interact with those approved contacts. The downside is that this will only work with Google Messages and dialer apps on Android phones and not with third-party apps.
The final change to Google Family Link is a fairly sizable redesign. A new Screen Time tab brings together all your management tools, and Google says it’s also streamlined its Controls tab to make it easier to block particular websites or approve app downloads.
If you have more than one child, juggling multiple accounts should also be easier. You can now swipe between their profiles and manage all of their devices from a single page, with the more advanced tools tidied away on a separate screen.
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If you’re a parent on Android, you should try Family Link
(Image credit: Google)
We’re big fans of Google Family Link on TechRadar, and these upgrades definitely sound helpful – particularly the arrival of ‘School time’ on Android phones and tablets. The tool is mainly aimed at under-13s, but you can use it for teens, too (if you’re prepared to deal with the inevitable friction).
Talking about his experiences with the app, TechRadar’s Global Editor in Chief Marc McLaren previously said: “I wouldn’t say Google Family Link was a better parent than me or my partner, but it was a close-run thing for a time. It works brilliantly, taking away some of the stress of parenting in the digital age.”
“Being able to set limits for individual apps has been a massive help as my daughters have entered their early teenage years and have finally been allowed on TikTok and Snapchat; without it, I suspect they’d both spend roughly 20 hours a day scrolling through their feeds, rather than the two hours they’re given” he said.
Family Link also has a handy Location feature that shows you where your kids are on a map. The whole service naturally only works well if both parent and child are on Android (the ‘parent-managed contacts’ feature requires Android 14), so it isn’t so great if your family is on a mix of Android and iOS. But overall, it’s well worth exploring – and you never know, your kids might like it, too.
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Why Amy Tan Decided Not to Shred Her Archive
Why Amy Tan Decided Not to Shred Her Archive
Many authors dream of having their notes, drafts and scraps preserved forever in a prestigious literary archive.
But not Amy Tan. Until recently, she had left written instructions for everything except photographs to be shredded after her death, lest she be subjected to the posthumous ordeal of scholars “going through the equivalent of my underwear drawer.”
Now, she’s changed her mind. The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, has acquired her archive — 62 boxes of photographs, notebooks, letters and literary manuscripts, from childhood writing to drafts of best-selling novels like “The Joy Luck Club.”
So why the change of heart? In a recent telephone conversation, Tan listed acceptance of “posterity,” coaxing by her longtime editor, and, well, the need to clear out space in her garage.
“I do consider it a great honor to have my archive there,” she said of the Bancroft, which also holds papers from Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Maxine Hong Kingston, Joan Didion and other prominent California writers. “My 22-year-old mind is thrilled: Accepted into Berkeley!”
Tan, born in Oakland in 1952 to ******** immigrant parents, shot to literary fame in 1989 with “The Joy Luck Club,” an intergenerational tale inspired in part by the discovery that her mother had left three previous children behind in China. At the time, Tan — a former graduate student in linguistics at Berkeley — was working as a business writer, publishing short stories here and there.
The book, which became a 1993 Hollywood movie, sold nearly six million copies in the United States. It was followed by six other novels, including “The Kitchen God’s Wife” and “The Bonesetter’s Daughter.”
Tan, who lives in Marin County, said that early in her career, she was wary of being pigeonholed as a “hyphenated ******** American writer,” discussed in terms of themes — immigration, mothers and daughters — rather than her art. Today, she said, she’s more accepting of her role as a boundary expander.
“The fact is, I was among the first of Asian American writers to be published and widely read, and also eventually lifted out of the ethnic literature pile and placed under the rubric of American literature,” she said.
The archive also includes photos, documents and other material relating to her family history, including some datebooks kept by her father, an engineer and ******** minister who left China in the late 1940s.
“There are a lot of family photos documenting the ******** American community of the 1940s and ’50s,” Kate Donovan, the Bancroft’s director, said. “To me, it’s an archive that feels very grounded in place.”
The archive was acquired partly through purchase, partly through donation, Donovan said. The purchase price, which is not being disclosed, was paid for with endowment funds, not state money.
Before the acquisition, Tan had intense conversations with Donovan about her concern that the archive would inadvertently expose the intimate thoughts and business of friends and colleagues. (“I wanted to be protective of other people’s privacy,” she said.)
Donovan said that there were no access restrictions on any material. But some could be added for future material as Tan, who held some journals and other material back, adds to the collection.
But at the same time, the collection, like Tan’s fiction, is enriched by private stories shaken loose from other sources.
The collection includes material recently uncovered by researchers for the PBS series “Finding Your Roots,” including love letters Tan’s father had written to her mother while they were having an affair in China.
Tan had known that her mother, who was married to another man, had been tried for adultery, a charge which carried a possible prison sentence. But she had never seen the letters, which were preserved in the court files.
“That to me was thrilling,” she said. “It was him talking about how much he loves her.”
While researching her 2017 memoir, “Where the Past Begins,” Tan found old letters from American government officials, warning her parents that they had overstayed their student visas.
“I never knew until they died that they were under the specter of deportation,” she said. “If that had happened, we would have had to leave with them, and then I never would have become a, quote unquote, American writer.”
The archive also testifies to the more whimsical side of Tan’s career. There are sketches and notebooks from “The Backyard Bird Chronicles,” her recent collection of essays and drawings about nature. (As a child, Tan had wanted to be an artist, but was discouraged by her parents.)
And then there is material relating to the Rock Bottom Remainders, a now-defunct literary-world supergroup featuring Stephen King, Matt Groening, Barbara Kingsolver and others.
Tan — who once described the band as “a contest of sorts to say how bad you were and then to blow people away with how semi-good you really were” — was a backup singer and “lead rhythm dominatrix.”
“She said, ‘I don’t’ supposed you’d want my whip later?’” Donovan said. “I said, ‘I would absolutely want your whip later.’”
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Hegseth rules out NATO membership for Ukraine and says Europe must be responsible for country’s security – CNN
Hegseth rules out NATO membership for Ukraine and says Europe must be responsible for country’s security – CNN
Hegseth rules out NATO membership for Ukraine and says Europe must be responsible for country’s security CNNHegseth speaks to NATO allies about Trump’s plan for Russia and Ukraine CNNWatch Hegseth Rejects US Troops and Future NATO Membership for Ukraine BloombergWatch live: *** defence secretary renews backing for Ukraine after US rules out sending troops The Independent
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The dark side of sports betting and its impact on NBA players: Death threats, racism and Venmo requests
The dark side of sports betting and its impact on NBA players: Death threats, racism and Venmo requests
After every game, when the duties of that night are complete and Jalen Brunson has a chance to unwind, he opens his phone to dozens and dozens of messages on social media.
It doesn’t matter if he scores 40 points or 20 points. It doesn’t matter if the New York Knicks win by 30 points, two points or lose. The bulk of the messages tend to be the same: They threaten him and his family, including his months-old daughter. They call him racial slurs. They demand money.
Brunson could do what he’s paid to do: play well and win basketball games. And yet, the star guard has spent many postgame nights sifting through harsh messages from people who wager money — sometimes large sums — on things they can’t control.
“Genuinely threatened?” Brunson asked himself, pondering for a moment, after the question was posed by The Athletic. “I’ve never felt genuinely threatened, but there has been some really disrespectful s— said. It’s a lot of people who don’t have profile pictures. There is part of me that has thought about airing them out, but s— always comes back around.”
Now that sports gambling is legal in many states and widespread, this kind of abuse has become increasingly common and unavoidable part of players’ lives. It’s an unintended consequence of opening up this revenue floodgate.
In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a federal ban on sports betting at the state level, clearing the way for several states to legalize it. That made it so accessible that people can wager larger sums of money from their phones while sitting within the comfortable confines of their home, a bar or even an arena as they’re inside watching the game in front of them. Per The American Gaming Association, the industry made $10.92 billion in revenue in 2023, and states collected almost $2 billion from tax revenue.
The NBA announced last year that it would allow fans watching games on its streaming app to track betting odds and click through to make bets with the league’s betting partners, FanDuel and DraftKings. (The Athletic has a partnership with BetMGM.)
Under the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement, players can invest in sports betting and fantasy sports companies, but their ownership stake must be less than one percent in any company that takes NBA bets. Players, however, cannot gamble on games in their league.
Last year, Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter was banned from the NBA for what Adam Silver termed “a cardinal sin” of betting on the league’s games. Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier is under federal investigation for possibly manipulating his performance in a 2023 game as part of ******** sports gambling scheme. The league was alerted to suspicious betting surrounding Rozier but “did not find a violation of NBA rules,” a league spokesperson said.
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When legal sports betting really started to take off, and was new to almost everyone — including the players — Brunson got concerned about the messages he was receiving. Couple the eagerness of fans who could freely wager from home with the direct access to athletes through social media, and Brunson admittedly struggled to comprehend what was going on.
The league has processes in place that allow players to report incidents to their teams and/or the league office, an NBA spokesperson told The Athletic. NBA security also monitors social media for threatening messaging and works with teams to identify persons responsible and, if necessary, involve law enforcement. Multiple players who have talked to The Athletic have said they weren’t aware of the protocols in place.
Even then, there isn’t anything that can stop players from receiving these messages directly to their phones, not without making their accounts private or not having social media all together.
“It’s gotten to the point where it’s somewhat comical to me now, but, at first, I was like … What the f—?” Brunson said.
Detroit Pistons center Isaiah Stewart began his NBA career around the same time online sports betting launched in Michigan. At this time, during the COVID-19 pandemic, spectators weren’t allowed in arenas. So, a lot of Stewart’s early interactions with fans came via social media, where people were upset about something he did or didn’t do on the court that lost them a bet.
“No, not at all. That’s their decision,” Stewart said by telephone when asked if there is ever any guilt when someone tells them they lost a bet. “They chose to put money and bet on our games. You find it funny, until there’s a line that they cross when it’s not funny.
“They’ve said a lot of crazy things like from bringing up family, to commenting on my wife, my son.”
When in college at Marquette, Knicks rookie Tyler Kolek said he would receive hateful messages after every game.
“I’ve been told, ‘Go kill yourself,’” Kolek said. “I’ve gotten worse than that, but that’s a common one.”
Washington Wizards guard Corey Kispert — who came into the NBA in 2021 — said he and his teammates receive messages almost nightly, usually after losses. The Wizards have yet to have a winning record since Kispert entered the league.
Kispert said it’s often the same people, all of whom have no profile pictures and no username that suggest who they truly are. Death threats are common.
“No, normally I don’t (report death threats),” Kispert said. “I mean, these people are pretty much anonymous on social media. We just kind of feel like we can let it go. It’s the dark side of it all.”
Milwaukee Bucks forward Kyle Kuzma finds the interactions he receives on social media humorous.
“I don’t really read the messages,” Kuzma said. “It might be on Twitter. I think it’s really funny, honestly, because, yeah, you can win money, but you’re also wasting money, too, at the same time. It’s funny because I said something the other day, and it’s like we get threats and we get called names, and people never think about like maybe they’re bad at picking the parlays?”
For Knicks guard Josh Hart, there rarely is a difference between him getting 10 rebounds in a game or nine. In the majority of instances, one rebound won’t determine if Hart did his job successfully; his job being to help the Knicks win basketball games. However, for @sportsbettor12345 or John Doe in Long Island, Hart only having nine rebounds instead of 10 can potentially be the difference between that person being able to pay their mortgage that month, or even worse.
“I get everything,” Hart said. “People say, ‘I hope you die.’ They wish injury. Racial stuff.”
GO DEEPER
‘I literally can’t stop.’ The descent of a modern sports fan
Hart and his teammates never let someone’s betting anger or need dictate how they perform. Yet, it’s nearly impossible for these 20-somethings who are online to not be impacted one way or another.
Hart, admittedly, has played into someone’s anger before, prior to sportsbooks being open across the country. It was back in college, and while he doesn’t remember the bet that someone lost due to his performance, he recalls the person sending a message with their Venmo attached so that they could get repaid for their financial loss.
It backfired.
“It was in Providence, and someone told me I messed (some bet up), so I sent them $1 on Venmo,” Hart said. “Then I started getting a bunch of Venmo requests, and I was like, ‘All right.’”
The Golden State Warriors’ Trayce Jackson-Davis gets people demanding money regularly.
“’What’s your Venmo, bro? You sold my parlay,’” he said of the messages he gets. “‘You could have grabbed one more rebound or you could have had one more layup.’ That happens all the time. Or people behind the bench will be like ‘Trayce, I need 10 boards from you tonight!’”
New York guard Miles McBride tries his best to ignore any gambling-related messages that he gets. However, McBride added that most of his gambling interactions with fans come during the offseason, when he’s trying to blend in as a normal civilian. People will come up to him and say, “You won me a lot of money!” or “You sold me one time.” And, no matter which side of the track a fan is on, McBride attempts to not feed into it.
“I think the first-bucket bet might be the one I notice all the time,” McBride said. “I see guys high-fiving in the stands and it’s just a regular layup. I think it’s funny.”
Earlier this month, with the final seconds winding down on the Orlando Magic beating the Knicks inside Madison Square Garden, New York guard Cam Payne hoisted a 3 that turned what would have been a 103-91 Orlando victory into a 103-94 Magic win. The shot gave Payne eight points on the night.
In the grand scheme of things, Payne taking and making that final 3 had no impact on the game. Yet, for one reason or another, whether it was the point differential, Payne’s point total or the total points scored in the game, the shot came with repercussions from betting fans.
“Everyone is mad at your boy if he doesn’t play well or doesn’t make shots,” Payne said. “They be on me about their little parlays.
“It’s funny that people are out there looking for that instead of just watching the game. It’s just funny to me. We don’t ask you to bet your money.”
The NBA’s — and other sports leagues’ — big-picture approach to lean into the legalization of sports betting has helped create. It’s also impacted in-arena experiences with fans screaming at players and coaches based solely on whether they lost or won a wager. Team security does not confront abusive fans. That responsibility rests on arena security. Fans are often given verbal warnings when first breaking the NBA’s Fan Code of Conduct, which the league promotes at every game. A second and third incident by a spectator could lead to them being kicked out of the arena.
Ultimately, there is only so much the league can do to limit interactions or abuse related to betting. The league can’t police a player’s social media account. And asking players not to check their accounts is unrealistic in the modern world.
Gambling is now part of the fabric of collegiate and professional sports, and there is likely no turning back. After all, the love of money is the root of all evil, and there’s a lot of money in sports gambling.
“That’s what I get upset about,” Knicks guard Mikal Bridges said. “When I lose someone a bet, (I get hate messages). I don’t get anything when I win them a bet.
“Where’s my money at?”
(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; top photos: Ethan Miller, Maddie Malhotra / Getty Images)
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AMD may have a solution for your VRAM hungry games
AMD may have a solution for your VRAM hungry games
Following a rocky road to AMD’s RX 9000 series GPU launch, rumors circulating on the Chiphell forums suggest that AMD is planning to release a Radeon RX 9070 XT graphics card variant equipped with 32GB of GDDR6 memory. If true, this would make it one of the most VRAM-heavy GPUs in AMD’s next-generation lineup, catering to both gamers and AI enthusiasts who require large memory capacities. Reports indicate that this variant could launch by the second quarter of 2025, although AMD has yet to confirm any official details.
The standard RX 9070 XT is expected to feature 16GB of GDDR6 memory, which aligns with previous AMD GPUs in the high-end gaming segment. As pointed out by Techpowerup, to reach the rumored 32GB capacity, AMD would need to use 16 memory modules, each with a 2GB capacity, since there are no GDDR6 memory modules offering higher capacity.
This approach would likely require a dual-sided PCB layout, where memory chips are installed on both the front and back of the graphics card. While this design is not common for mainstream gaming GPUs, it has been used in professional workstation cards that demand higher memory bandwidth and capacity.
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A key factor driving this potential memory upgrade could be the increasing demand for VRAM in gaming and AI workloads. Recent AAA game titles have begun pushing the limits of VRAM usage, with some already requiring 16GB or more at ultra settings. Additionally, AI and machine learning applications, including AI-powered image generation and large language models, benefit significantly from increased VRAM.
If AMD indeed releases a 32GB RX 9070 XT, it could serve as a bridge between gaming GPUs and workstation-class cards, providing an option for users who need extra VRAM without investing in expensive professional solutions.
It is still unclear whether AMD would price this model competitively against Nvidia’s high-end offerings like the RTX 5090 or position it as a niche product for specific workloads. With no official confirmation from AMD yet, these details remain speculative.
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Hearts of Iron IV Goes to Asia With Graveyard of Empires Expansion
Hearts of Iron IV Goes to Asia With Graveyard of Empires Expansion
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Hearts of Iron 4: By Blood Alone, the new DLC for the strategy game, has a confirmed release date as well as new details on focus trees, aircraft, and units
Hearts of Iron 4 PC pcgamesn.com
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Champions League: Man City have Madrid mountain to climb, are PSG better minus Mbappe?
Champions League: Man City have Madrid mountain to climb, are PSG better minus Mbappe?
Erling Haaland scored against Real Madrid for the first time in his career.
And then scored another.
But Manchester City still lost at home to the Champions League holders.
It will have felt all too familiar for Pep Guardiola and his team as they threw away a 2-1 lead with four minutes of normal time to play at the Etihad, being stung first by one of their former players, Brahim Diaz, and then the tireless Jude Bellingham, who steered the ball home from close range in added time.
Oh, and earlier in the game Kylian Mbappe had scored with his shin.
Carlo Ancelotti’s side take a 3-2 advantage into the playoff second leg next Wednesday at the Bernabeu, with a place in the Champions League last 16 at stake.
Elsewhere in Europe’s elite club competition, a rocket from Weston McKennie helped Juventus beat PSV, Borussia Dortmund thrashed Sporting CP in Lisbon and Ousmane Dembele continued his ludicrous start to 2025 with two goals as Paris Saint-Germain beat Brest 3-0.
Elias Burke and Seb Stafford-Bloor analyse the key moments from all the Champions League action on Tuesday night…
Typical City… and typical Madrid?
In the battle between the Champions League’s perennial comeback kings Real Madrid, and City, who have made a habit of getting pegged back this season, it should come as no surprise it ended the way it did.
GO DEEPER
The Briefing: Man City 2 Real Madrid 3 – Bellingham’s late, late winner and another City collapse
After an exceptional assist for Mbappe’s goal, Dani Ceballos went from hero to villain 20 minutes later, tripping Phil Foden just inside the box in the 80th minute. Haaland tucked away the resulting penalty, his 49th goal in 48 Champions League games.
Fortunately for Ceballos, two errors in quick succession from Ederson allowed Diaz, who has a Premier League medal with City from their centurion 2017-18 season, to level the scores at 2-2.
Then, after Vinicius Junior went through and lifted a shot/pass over Ederson’s head, Bellingham gambled to tap in a stoppage-time winner from close range to put Madrid 3-2 up ahead of the second leg in Spain.
For City, it was yet another disastrous late collapse after the Feyenoord and PSG debacles in the league phase. Now, they have given themselves a mountain to climb in overturning the deficit at the hardest place to win at in the Champions League.
Are PSG actually better without Mbappe?
Few would have expected PSG to improve when Mbappe left for Real Madrid last summer. But, judging from their comfortable 3-0 win against Brest and impressive form in 2025, coach Luis Enrique appears to have found a harmony in Paris that he struggled to create when the France superstar was leading the line.
As it’s transpired, Ousmane Dembele, 27, once considered a talent so promising that Barcelona paid a fee rising to £135 million, reported by BBC, to sign him as a 20-year-old from Borussia Dortmund in 2017, has more than filled his shoes after an inspired tactical switch from the coach.
Since Enrique brought Dembele into the central striker role from the wings, the position he has fulfilled since emerging as a talented youngster, his goalscoring production has exploded — and his two goals against Brest were another example. His first demonstrated his confidence, dribbling into the box before whipping a left-footed effort into the near post. His second, a deflected finish with his right foot after reacting quicker to a loose ball than the Brest defenders, highlighted his anticipation as a goalscorer. Scoring with both feet is not an unfamiliar feat for Dembele, who famously does not know which is his stronger foot.
Ousmane Dembéle since the middle of December…
Ridiculous form #UCL pic.twitter.com/pgpgXXY4Nd
— Opta Analyst (@OptaAnalyst) February 11, 2025
It was his third brace of the year to go along with two hat-tricks and 15 goals in total — already more than his entire tally in 2024. This switch has given PSG a fresh attacking verve and resulted in a more balanced unit.
Who knows, it might be enough to push the French champions from a side that was teetering above the elimination zone for much of the league phase to contenders for the trophy.
USMNT midfielder McKennie sprinkles some magic for Juventus
McKennie dedicated his celebration to Harry Potter but it was his wand of a right boot that provided the magic as he opened the scoring for Juventus against PSV.
With the USMNT midfielder lurking on the edge of PSV’s box, the ball broke in his direction, bouncing at a good height to strike. McKennie, who is no stranger to scoring spectacular goals, approached the ball at an angle, allowing him to shift his body weight to the left to get over the shot and control his effort while striking through it.
The result was an unstoppable blend of control and power. His shot flew past Walter Benitez in the PSV net, inches below the crossbar. It’s probably a good thing the ball missed him, too, as it would have taken him with it into the back of the net if he was in the way.
Good luck saving that.
Weston McKennie’s shot flies past Walter Benitez, and gives Juventus the lead against PSV.#JUVPSV
@footballontntpic.twitter.com/AZvhnFdiuH
— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) February 11, 2025
WESTON MCKENNIE NEARLY TORE THE COVER OFF THE BALL WITH THIS GOLAZO pic.twitter.com/zFdXV6hSDE
— CBS Sports Golazo (@CBSSportsGolazo) February 11, 2025
McKennie, who is a huge Harry Potter fan, celebrated with an imitation of the “Expelliarmus” spell from the film and book franchise. He has a lightning bolt tattooed on his finger in tribute to the speedy Gryffindor seeker, and in 2023 he was pictured alongside Matthew Lewis, who plays Neville Longbottom in the films, posing with a USMNT shirt alongside Brenden Aaronson.
In December, club and national team-mate Timothy Weah joined in on the fun, celebrating together with the “Expelliarmus” after McKennie scored against City.
Rooney and Mbappe: masters of the shinned volley against Man City
Wayne Rooney’s brilliant overhead kick in Manchester United’s 2-1 win over City in 2011 will take some beating as the greatest shinned goal ever scored against City (and perhaps anyone), but Kylian Mbappe surely claimed the silver medal with his goal in the second half for Madrid.
Dani Ceballos, who was playing in his first Champions League knockout match for Real Madrid seven-and-a-half years after signing from Real Betis, played a perfectly weighted lofted pass in the danger area between City’s goalkeeper and defence, which Mbappe latched onto.
With an astoundingly similar technique to his second goal against Argentina in the 2022 World Cup final, Mbappe leapt and volleyed across the ball with his right foot while falling away to the left.
pic.twitter.com/Wl6TGCWYvp
— EuroFoot (@eurofootcom) February 11, 2025
While his effort in Qatar flew past Emi Martinez, the connection wasn’t so pure in this instance, the ball looping off his shin, over Ederson, and into the corner.
Rooney, watching from pitchside at the Etihad while working for Amazon Prime, must surely have been impressed.
Why did it take four minutes to award Haaland’s first goal?
Premier League fans are now accustomed to seeing footage of VAR officials in Stockley Park drawing lines to determine whether a player was offside, but things operate differently in the Champions League — and Manchester City fans found out the hard way.
The Etihad Stadium erupted after Haaland put the home side ahead with a left-footed finish from close range after Josko Gvardiol played a chested pass in his direction. Three minutes and 50 seconds later, another cheer went up around the stadium as the Champions League’s semi-automated offside technology confirmed the goal.
Gvardiol was visibly onside when the initial cross was played towards him, but he, and Haaland, had moved beyond the Madrid defence by the time the Croatian made contact. As long as Haaland was in line with or behind Gvardiol, he’d have been onside, but, as evidenced by the time it took for the technology to confirm, it was very tight.
As the name suggests, the technology eliminates the potential for human error, with the offside pictures taken from cameras in real time. It debuted in the Champions League in 2022-23 and was used at the 2022 World Cup. According to the Premier League, which has plans to bring in this technology this season, offside check delays should be reduced by 31 seconds.
In this case, however, the check took so long that Alan Shearer intimated the wait may have had some relation to Jack Grealish being replaced due to a non-impact injury 10 minutes later.
“It certainly doesn’t help when you’ve got elite athletes standing around for almost four minutes,” Shearer said on co-commentary during Amazon Prime’s *** coverage of the match. “It cannot help you, or your body. It’s not acceptable that players are having to wait around for that long.”
Judging by this incident those marginal calls will continue to take time. At least we got the right decision, eh?
Who exactly is Serhou Guirassy?
The Champions League has an unlikely top-scorer this season: Borussia Dortmund’s 28-year-old Guinean Serhou Guirassy. His tenth goal of the competition might have been his best; it was certainly the most important. An authoritative header that looped up and into the far corner, it settled a Dortmund team who, for much of the first half in Portugal, had had to withstand pressure.
That was vital, because Dortmund have endured a torrid season and are naturally fragile. They sit a distant 11th in the Bundesliga and are now coached by Niko Kovac, who was appointed to replaced the sacked Nuri Sahin two weeks ago.
This was Kovac’s first win. More importantly, it was a result (and performance) that Dortmund will feel they can build on in coming weeks — and that sense of a first step taken owes much to Guirassy.
He was signed from Stuttgart in the summer of 2024 after scoring 28 Bundesliga goals from 28 appearances last season. It was the first truly prolific top-flight season of his career, but at times the season he has laboured at the head of a team who do not create nearly enough chances. He can snatch at opportunities and drift out of games. So, while nine goals from 18 league appearances is hardly bad, it’s not quite what it could have been.
But Guirassy is an elegant, technical footballer rather than just a goalscorer. There were times in the first half when his languid skill on the ball seemed to reassure team-mates clearly short on confidence. And, having scored the goal which changed the entire complexion of the game — truly, an exemplary header — he created the second with a perfect cross for Pascal Gross, who kneed the ball in at the back-post to give Dortmund a 2-0 advantage on the night.
With 10 goals this campaign, Serhou Guirassy has now equalled the record for the most European Cup/Champions League goals scored in a single season by a Borussia Dortmund player
He shares that record with Erling Haaland (10 in 2020-21) and Robert Lewandowski (10 in 2012-13) #UCL pic.twitter.com/pShUgla74f
— Opta Analyst (@OptaAnalyst) February 11, 2025
Even before Karim Adeyemi had scored a third from a flowing counter attack to effectively finish the tie as a contest, Dortmund had started to play with a confidence and security that they have lacked for many months. Guirassy alone did not provide that. By full-time, this had become a commendable team performance. But goals so often change a side’s mood and that could not have been more the case for Kovac’s BVB than it was on Tuesday night.
There were plenty of individual contributions to that, but they followed Guirassy’s lead.
Seb Stafford-Bloor
What happens next?
Champions League playoffs
Tuesday’s results
Brest 0 Paris Saint-Germain 3 Juventus 2 PSV Eindhoven 1 Manchester City 2 Real Madrid 3 Sporting CP 0 Borussia Dortmund 3
Wednesday’s fixtures (8pm BST, 3pm ET unless stated)
Club Bruges v Atalanta (5.45pm BST, 12.45pm ET) Celtic v Bayern Munich Feyenoord v Milan Monaco v Benfica
The second legs will be played on February 18/19.
Eight teams will advance to the last 16, to join Liverpool, Barcelona, Arsenal, Inter, Atletico Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, Lille and Aston Villa.
The draw for the last 16, quarter-final and semi-final will take place on Friday February 21.
(Top photo: Carl Recine/Getty Images)
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The iPad mini 7 is back on ***** for $100 off
The iPad mini 7 is back on ***** for $100 off
The iPad mini 7 is once again on ***** for . This applies to every design variation, so the 128GB standard model is now $400 and the 512GB Wi-Fi/cellular version is $850. However, not all of the colors have been blessed by the discount fairy. Most colorways get a discount of some kind, but it may not apply to all of the hardware variations.
Apple’s latest and greatest diminutive tablet easily found a place on . It’s a solid refresh without any real tradeoffs when compared to the full-sized tablet. It supports the Apple Pencil Pro, the A17 Pro chip is plenty powerful and the overall design is comfortable to hold. It’s an iPad mini.
Apple
We called it a “solid and necessary update to the best small tablet on the market” . We came away impressed by the stereo speakers, which sound much better than one would expect. The display is nice, despite maxing out at a 60Hz refresh rate, and the camera array takes surprisingly decent shots, even in low light. It’s great for everyday computing tasks and, of course, for playing .
This model doesn’t include an M-series chip, though the A17 Pro is plenty powerful. Also, the battery life isn’t going to be winning any awards. We struggled to squeeze ten hours of it. This model also lacks Face ID, which could be an issue for some users. Beyond these minor nitpicks, however, this is a near-perfect teensy tablet.
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Novo Nordisk initiated by Morgan Stanley on equal weight coverage
Novo Nordisk initiated by Morgan Stanley on equal weight coverage
Morgan Stanley (MS) initiated equal weight coverage on healthcare company Novo Nordisk (NVO), citing the potential in the global obesity market.
While Novo’s stock dropped slightly, the firm sees opportunities in obesity treatment but warns market expectations may be too high. Questions remain about pricing and government negotiations, affecting both Novo and its competitors, including Eli Lilly (LLY).
Madison Mills and Seana Smith break down the details on Catalysts.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Catalysts here.
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Kingdom Come 2 Mods Are Coming, Get A First Peek With Henry Holding A Fish
Kingdom Come 2 Mods Are Coming, Get A First Peek With Henry Holding A Fish
Warhorse Studios has announced that a big new feature is coming to Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, as official modding support is headed to the medieval RPG on PC via Steamworks.
The developer said fans can “stay tuned” for more information on official modding support for the game, but for now, the studio teased, “Bohemia is about to get even more exciting.”
The studio also released an image of Henry riding a horse, wielding a fish instead of a sword and riding a horse that looks more like a purple Zebra. This appears to be a taste of what’s to come in terms of how fans will be able to modify the game to their liking with whatever they can dream up.
Kingdom Come 2’s official modding support will seemingly be limited to PC, at least right away. Whether or not mod support comes to the console editions of the game remains to be seen.
Kingdom Come 2 launched earlier in February and had a massive debut on Steam; it also sold 1 million copies in its first 24 hours.
For more, check out GameSpot’s glowing Kingdom Come: Deliverance II review. Additionally, we have a guides hub that offers information spanning from campaign length to quest chains.
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