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Lakers and Heat on track to run it back and meet again in NBA Finals

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 05:03:28 GMT

Death, taxes, and both LeBron James and Jimmy Butler on a playoff tear.Those tend to be the three NBA inevitabilities this time of the year, as both James and Butler have reminded the basketball world, each now one victory in their respective second-round playoff series shy of advancing to the conference finals.It was only three seasons ago that these two teams met in the self-isolated Orlando bubble with the 2020 NBA championship on the line. Now, there’s a very real chance at an encore. Only 4.7% of teams in NBA history to go down 3-1 in a playoff series ever come back to win, meanwhile both the Sixers-Celtics and Nuggets-Suns series are tied at two games apiece.James, of course, won the title in six games the first go-round, simply over-powering an exhausted Heat team with Anthony Davis’ star power on full display in the series. The Lakers then spent two seasons outside of the championship hunt finding the right pieces for a second run out West. Butler was swept out o...

Video game review: The top 5 ‘Redfall’ tips to help you jumpstart your game

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 05:03:28 GMT

“Redfall” is deceptively simple but the gameplay is surprisingly deep as you fight an army of vampires, cultists and mercenaries. The developers at Arkane Studios Austin throw players into that meat grinder without too much explanation.The campaign can be difficult at first as players’ powers are severely limited, but over time, they level up and amass better weapons. Here are five tips to make that process run a little smoother:1. Choose your hero wisely: “Redfall” offers four playable characters at launch, and each hero offers their own distinct brand of gameplay. Whomever you chose, you’ll be attached to them through the campaign, so it’s best to choose wisely. Players can’t switch their hero on the fly and continue the story. Each hero is tied to their own campaign, and if you decide to play multiplayer, the host is the only one that retains the narrative progress.That means if you beat a boss with your buddy and she’s the host, you’ll have to do the same on your account for tha...

Explore an uninhabited California island for one day or 10

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 05:03:28 GMT

You don’t have to travel to the South Pacific to entertain dreams of desert islands. There’s a chain of  uninhabited islands — Santa Cruz, Anacapa, Santa Rosa, Santa Barbara and San Miguel — just off the coast of California, all easily reachable for a day’s jaunt, an overnight or more. No shipwrecks or Robinson Crusoe shenanigans required.The five islands of Channel Island National Park are accessible only by boat, with ferries from Ventura Harbor Village available to transport the 100,000 or so guests who visit each year. No hotels — this isn’t Catalina, after all — but each island has campsites where you can pitch your pop-up tent or sleep under the stars. If you’re willing to truly unplug and spend an overnight away from it all, you’ll experience a quiet solitude unlike any other.Start your adventure at the Channel Islands National Park Visitors Center in Ventura Harbor Village, where Island Packers offers island access cruises of one to three hours, depending on which island you...

Passenger charged with hiding camera in cruise ship restroom

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 05:03:28 GMT

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A passenger on a Caribbean cruise has been arrested after a hidden camera with video of dozens of people, including children, was discovered in a public restroom, officials said.Jeremy Froias was arrested last Wednesday in Puerto Rico and charged with video voyeurism and attempted possession of child exploitation material, according to court documents.According to a criminal complaint filed in San Juan federal court, Froias boarded Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas in Miami on April 29 for a seven-day cruise. The ship was set to make land calls at Sint Maarten, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas before returning to Miami this past Saturday.A day after the voyage began while the ship was in international waters, Froias put a hidden Wi-Fi camera in a public restroom on the ship’s top deck between a surfing simulator and a bar, officials said. A day after that, another passenger spotted the camera and alerted the ship’s crew.“The matter was immedia...

Review: In ‘Still,’ Michael J. Fox movingly tells his story

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 05:03:28 GMT

I’ve always liked Michael J. Fox and always will. I suspect most people feel the same way. That’s surely partly because, as Marty McFly in “Back to the Future” and Alex P. Keaton in “Family Ties,” Fox was a fixture of so many childhoods. But there’s also a way that Fox remains forever boyish — a charming pipsqueak, a plucky kid with a touch less confidence than he lets on. His sheer geniality and universal appeal has remained indomitable, even in the face of a degenerative brain disorder. “I’m a cockroach,” Fox says in Davis Guggenheim’s glossy, entertaining and often affecting documentary, “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie.” In Guggenheim’s film, Fox recounts his life, career and arduous battle with Parkinson’s disease, with which he was diagnosed at age 29. The documentary, debuting Friday on Apple TV+, does this through candid on-camera interviews with Fox along with narration read by the actor. And while there’s footage here of ...

SNC-Lavalin stock soars as it looks to U.S. for growth, and M&As — eventually

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 05:03:28 GMT

MONTREAL — SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. sees the United States as ripe with growth potential in energy and infrastructure, key areas that helped the company swing to a profit last quarter — and sent its stock skyward.In the three months ended March 31, SNC rode its engineering services and nuclear divisions to net earnings nearly 15 per cent higher than a year earlier. The former segment boosted its backlog 25 per cent to a record $4.8 billion, while nuclear tacked on almost $1 billion more, lengthening its order list by 23 per cent.The fresh figures Tuesday pushed up the company’s share price by $3.90 or 12.2 per cent to close at $35.88 on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The jump marked a nearly 47 per cent increase from a year earlier.SNC hopes to seize on its recent successes with further growth via mergers and acquisitions, particularly south of the border — but not immediately — said CEO Ian Edwards.“We continue to achieve record-high backlog in this growing market. Our posit...

Discord forces members to change usernames, discord erupts

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 05:03:28 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The social app Discord, a favorite of gamers, inadvertently stirred internal strife after announcing last week that it will force its millions of members to pick new usernames. Now the question is whether that the change will escalate into all-out warfare that could include players threatening one another in order to seize control of popular names.The issue may sound trivial compared to real-life concerns such as mass shootings and killer storms. But it’s a big deal for people who rely on the mid-sized social network to recruit fellow gamers, swap virtual weapons and organize strategy in multiplayer games. A Reddit thread on the change drew more than 4,000 comments, the vast majority of them angry or at least unhappy. Discord, which says it has 150 million monthly active users, has no plans to reconsider the new policy, according to a spokesman.WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH DISCORD USERNAMES?Discord users have long been free to choose any name they wanted, even one...

S&P/TSX composite closes flat Tuesday, U.S. markets move lower

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 05:03:28 GMT

TORONTO — Canada’s main stock index was flat Tuesday, reversing minor losses from earlier in the day, while U.S. markets moved lower. The S&P/TSX composite index was up 0.58 points at 20,585.73.In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 56.88 points at 33,561.81. The S&P 500 index was down 18.95 points at 4,119.17,while the Nasdaq composite was down 77.37 points at 12,179.55.Markets started the day down as they reacted to new data overnight showing that China’s economic rebound continues to disappoint, said Ian Chong, associate portfolio manager for First Avenue Investment Counsel Inc. Exports grew at a slower pace and imports shrank faster, and analysts said Chinese exports are expected to weaken this year. The new data “raises concerns about how China’s economic recovery post-COVID lockdown may not be as strong or as resilient as hoped,” said Chong.“I think that kind of started the day off on a weak footing.” Oil, which has been sensitive to Chinese econo...

What is Title 42 and how has US used it to curb migration?

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 05:03:28 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — This week marks the end of coronavirus restrictions on asylum that have allowed the U.S. to quickly expel migrants at the southern border for the last three years. The restrictions are often referred to as Title 42, because the authority comes from Title 42 of a 1944 public health law that allows curbs on migration in the name of protecting public health. The end of Title 42’s use has raised questions about what will happen with migration at the U.S.-Mexico border. The Biden administration is preparing for an increase in migrants.A look at what Title 42 is and why it matters: HOW DID IT START?In March 2020, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an order limiting migration, saying it was necessary to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Schools and businesses were closing their doors and hospitals were filling with patients. President Donald Trump was looking for ways to curtail immigration — his signature political issue.The order authorized Cu...

Perimeter guards absent as 2 men escaped Philadelphia prison

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 05:03:28 GMT

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — There were no corrections officers assigned specifically to watch the housing unit of a Philadelphia prison when two inmates escaped Sunday night, and no armed perimeter guards were on duty as the men broke through the prison’s fence, a correctional officers union official told The Associated Press on Tuesday.Days later, authorities are still searching for the two men — including one who is facing charges in four murders. The men were gone for nearly 19 hours before officials knew they were missing from the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center.The city’s prison department is so understaffed that they have not had the armed perimeter guards on duty during that specific nighttime shift for eight or nine months, said David Robinson, president of the public service employees union’s District 33 Council that represents the correctional officers.When the prison is fully staffed, two corrections officers would be assigned to each housing unit. But wit...