SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) — A political party in North Macedonia on Saturday demanded authorities ban social networks whose content incites violence and self-destructive behavior after several young people were seriously injured in connection with the popular “Superman challenge” on TikTok. Health authorities said at least 17 students, ages 10 to 17, were brought to hospitals in the capital Skopje and other towns over the past week with broken bones, contusions and bruises. The children were injured after being thrown into the air by their friends to fly like superheroes and get applause on the internet. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.PlayStation Portal launched in November 2023 as little more than a glorified second screen for PlayStation 5 . Now, a year on from release, it finally has some greater use as a gaming device in its own right, with Sony's announcement that dedicated game streaming is coming to the handheld. The question is, does this mark a tipping point for mainstream adoption of cloud gaming, or is it just a stepping stone to Sony fully reentering the handheld console market? The PlayStation Portal was always an odd piece of hardware—a DualSense controller chopped in half, with an 8-inch screen wedged in the middle. Unlike Sony's previous dedicated handhelds, the PlayStation Portable (or PSP) and PS Vita , Portal was merely a remote viewer, allowing players to stream games from their PS5 over a home network—useful to ease arguments over who got access to the TV or if you wanted to jump back into God of War without getting out of bed, but not really suited for anything else. The restrictions didn't end there—although the Portal could technically be used out of the house, it still required your PS5 being active at home, and there being a high-speed Wi-Fi connection wherever you were trying to play from. The Portal doesn't feature any cellular connectivity itself though, and it wasn't until June 2024 that it could connect to public networks (even then, only 2.4-Ghz ones; support for 5-Ghz came a month later)—so, before this, tethering to your phone and hoping your data package held up was your only option. Realistically, Portal was an at-home-only device in most use cases. Silver Linings Until now. Possibly as a result of the Portal being a surprise success for Sony, the gadget is being updated to support cloud gaming features, independent of a PS5. The update, rolling out across North America, Europe, and Japan, will allow subscribers to Sony's PlayStation Plus Premium service to access “over 120 PS5 games from the PS Plus Game Catalog,” including the likes of Ghost of Tsushima and Spider-Man: Miles Morales . As cloud streaming for Portal is in beta, there are a lot of missing features, though. Users won't be able to play “streaming games purchased on PS Store,”—only those included in the subscription-dependent Premium catalog—and it's restricted to PS5 titles. PS3 and PS4 games are explicitly excluded, which seems slightly odd. Game trials are also locked out, as are some system features, such as party voice chat, 3D audio support, or “in-game commerce.” That last one's probably a good thing to leave out for now—the last thing anyone wants is a dropped connection potentially messing up a DLC transaction involving real money. Sony says games can be streamed at up to 1080p full HD quality at 60 fps, with save data able to be transferred over the cloud, too. "Up to" is key though—you'll need a minimum 5 Mbps of up/download speeds to even establish a cloud gaming session, with 720p quality requiring a minimum 7 Mbps, and 1080p needing 13 Mbps. Realistically, based on similar game streaming services and the Portal's own performance even on an in-home network, expect to need even higher speeds for a viable experience. End of the Console Era? What's particularly interesting here is timing. Portal as it launched was essentially an evolution of the same Remote Play feature that Sony has been offering in various incarnations for decades—PSP used the earliest version of the tech to connect to PS3 back in 2006, followed by PS Vita pairing with PS3 and PS4. Nowadays, almost any device with a screen, an internet connection, and a paired controller can use Remote Play to stream a mirror of your PS5—Portal was just a dedicated bit of kit to do that on. The introduction of cloud gaming may make Portal that bit more feature-rich, but it may also point to a growing trend among console manufacturers to leave the console behind entirely. Take Sony's arch gaming rival Microsoft—its current marketing push is that almost anything “is an Xbox.” A large part of that hinges on accessing Xbox services “with the help of Cloud Gaming,” turning any device with a screen, an internet connection, and a paired controller (sound familiar?) into an Xbox. Nintendo, meanwhile, has allowed certain games to launch on the Switch as cloud-only titles, and although this is usually restricted to titles that are typically too demanding or too large for the Switch to run natively (such as Resident Evil Village or Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy ), it shows even the notoriously conservative Japanese company isn't averse to at least experimenting with games that only exist in the ether. If anything, Microsoft is leaning into the console-free approach even harder. To date, its cloud gaming offering resembled what Sony has just announced for Portal—a curated selection of titles available to Game Pass Ultimate subscribers. That's changing though, with the announcement that players will be able to stream select games that they own, even if they're not included in the current Game Pass line-up. It's a limited selection at present, and still requires a subscription to the highest tier of Game Pass to access the feature, but it means players could conceivably buy and play Xbox games without ever actually owning an Xbox console. Blue Sky Thinking We've been here before though—cloud gaming has been a pipe dream at least as far back as 2010, when OnLive took a stab at it. That never quite delivered, and even as internet connection speeds have increased, ostensibly making cloud gaming more viable, it's never really felt even close to taking off. Even now, in the case of Microsoft's "everything's an Xbox" approach, the reality is still far from ideal , with latency issues proving the need for dedicated hardware to run games on. Connection speeds and delivery technology aside, people like owning their games, too, even if it's just as a digital download locally installed on their machine rather than a physical disc or cartridge. It's a nut Google was never able to crack with Stadia , which asked players to purchase individual games at full price, on top of a subscription for 4K streaming quality. We all know what happened to Stadia . Although it eventually made good , refunding customers everything they spent on purchasing games or hardware such as controllers, it was a loud and embarrassing failure, not just for Google but for cloud gaming as a concept. But Stadia's collapse didn't kill the sector entirely—cloud gaming services such as Amazon Luna and Nvidia's GeForce Now still champion the idea, and Netflix continues to quietly push its gaming credentials, even if it's largely focused on mobile and indie games packaged with its core video streaming offering. Yet, if even Google, with as close to infinite money as it's possible to imagine, can't make cloud gaming take flight, it's tough to imagine how anyone can. Perhaps the new development for PlayStation Portal will be different. Google really never knew what it was doing with Stadia, Luna doesn't appear to have a clear direction beyond existing as part of the Amazon monolith, and Netflix shutters development studios before they can ever even announce a game . Conversely, after 30 years as a market leader, Sony more than has its priors when it comes to gaming; if it thinks cloud gaming's time has come, maybe players will finally show up. In the Back Pocket Then again, it may all be a stopgap measure. Bloomberg reports Sony is in early-days development on a new portable console that will play PS5 games, with the implication being that it would do so natively, rather than via cloud gaming. If true, there's a certain sense to the move. For one thing, there's the looming specter of Nintendo Switch 2 (or whatever it ends up being called). With the original Switch having racked up more than 143.4 million units sold (PS4's lifetime sales, for comparison, were " more than 117 million "), it's not a huge stretch to imagine Sony wanting a slice of that pie for its PlayStation business. Portability has been key to the Switch's success, and that's largely down to having games locally available—beyond those few aforementioned cloud gaming releases, most Switch games can be played anywhere, with or without an internet connection. The Portal, a black mirror unless it's online, can't hope to offer anything close to the same experience. Then there's the Steam Deck , which has been a game changer for portable gaming. Although manufacturer Valve has been quiet on exact numbers sold (saying only that it has sold "multiple millions" of units), the number of rival handheld gaming PCs such as the ASUS ROG Ally X or Lenovo Legion Go that have cropped up show there's a significant audience for high-end portable gaming. Even Microsoft has admitted its working on its own long-rumored handheld Xbox. While it's years away from release, and despite Microsoft's own big push for cloud gaming, the planned hardware likely won't be cloud-focused. Microsoft Gaming honcho Phil Spencer has said "I think being able to play games locally is really important." While the rumors of a new dedicated Sony handheld console are unconfirmed, it's hard to imagine it would be cloud-only when or if it did arrive. That makes the new direction for PlayStation Portal a whisper in favor of cloud gaming, rather than a full-throated endorsement of it. Note also how cautious this move is. Sony isn't going to risk “doing a Stadia” by going whole hog on cloud gaming—it remains merely an added extra, a bonus feature for those already most invested in the PlayStation ecosystem. For those players, it's likely a welcome move, giving them more to do with their second screen in a manner not too different to streaming from their PS5. Yet, just as the popularity of PlayStation Portal as a device blindsided Sony, so too could this baby step toward the cloud prove unexpectedly successful. Even with the litany of caveats in place—the limited selection of titles, the restricted functions, the always-online necessity—a $200/£200 Portal and a PS Plus Premium sub is still cheaper, short term, than an actual PS5 (let alone a PS5 Pro ), and could prove a gateway drug for many. If this expanded vision for PlayStation Portal finds its niche, the future of gaming could soon look very different.mega ace88 。

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Authorities of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission ( EFCC ) have made changes to its case against Binance before the Federal High Court in Abuja. The case involved a $35.4 million alleged money laundering case against the cryptocurrency company and one of its executives, Nadeem Anjarwalla who had fled the country. This comes a month after the EFCC dropped money laundering charges against Tigran Gambaryan, a Binance executive which brought an immediate end to the prolonged incarceration and conflict between the Nigerian authorities and Mr Gambaryan. At the trial on Monday, the amended six-count charge was read before Justice Emeka Nwite. Binance and Anjarwalla were accused of laundering a total sum of $35,400,000, which was the revenue accumulated by Binance in Nigeria. The EFCC counsel, Ekele Iheanacho SAN, said that following the discharge of Gambayan both parties had agreed at the last adjournment that the Commission would amend its charges. However, the Binance representative and Anjarwalla were absent from Monday’s trial. According to the counts, the funds allegedly involved illegal proceedings which are punishable under Section 18(3) of the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022. Also, they were accused of engaging in the business of a financial institution (other than insurance, stock broking, and pension fund management) without a valid license which contradicts and is punishable under Section 58(5) of the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act, 2020. Moreover, EFCC also filed that Binance and Anjarwalla used their virtual asset services platform to unlawfully negotiate foreign exchange rates in Nigeria despite not being an authorized dealer in Nigeria’s Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market. This was also contrary to and punishable under Section 29(1)(c) of the Foreign Exchange (Monitoring and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act. As there was no representative for the defendants a plea of not guilty was entered on their behalf in line with Section 478 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act. The judge however entered a not guilty plea on behalf of the defendants in accordance with Section 478 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act. The states that if a corporation does not appear by a representative and fails to enter a plea, the court shall order a plea of not guilty, and the trial shall proceed as though the corporation had duly entered a plea of not guilty. The judge then adjourned the case to February 24-25, 2025, for the continuation of the trial and cross-examination. On February 28, 2024, Nigerian authorities detained two senior Binance executives, Nadeem Anjarwalla, a 37-year-old British-Kenyan who serves as the regional manager for Africa, and Tigran Gambaryan, a 39-year-old American who is the head of financial crime compliance at Binance. Anjarwalla later fled the country from detention. Tigran Gambaryan faced money laundering trials from detention in April. Having spent over 8 months in detention, there were calls locally and internationally for an amicable settlement of the case considering the reports about the deteriorating health conditions of the accused. In June, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) dropped tax evasion charges against Tigran Gambaryan and Nadeem Anjarwalla (who fled from detention) and filed a new lawsuit against Binance as the sole defendant. A September video showed Gambaryan struggling to walk to court, prompting outrage from many people, including Binance CEO Richard Teng. On October 11, the judge at Federal High Court in Abuja Emeka Nwite, rejected Tigran’s second bail application, ruling that Mr Gambaryan’s grounds of ill health were not sufficient to release him from detention. Subsequently, he fixed it last Friday (October 18) for continuation but Tigran was absent. He then rescheduled the trial which was later overtaken by a clandestine hearing that ended the case. Tigran Gambaryan, held at the Kuje Correctional Center Abuja since April returned home to his family as a free man last month. Consequently, Binance CEO, Richard Teng has expressed appreciation to the Nigerian government for releasing Tigran Gambaryan. He maintained that Tigran’s health and well-being had remained a top priority for Binance. He added that the crypto exchange company is thankful that he can now receive the medical care and rest he so urgently needs alongside his family. The CEO also added that Binance remains committed to collaborating with global regulators to ensure compliance and transparency in the evolving digital asset space. “We are eager to put this episode behind us and continue working toward a brighter future for the blockchain industry around the world”, Teng said. Also Read: After 8 months of detention, Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan departs Nigeria.Yet another stowaway managed to board a major airline’s plane – renewing serious questions and concerns about airport safety during the busiest travel season of the year. This time, a stowaway tried to hitch a ride on Delta Air Lines Flight 487 at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Christmas Eve. The unticketed passenger was discovered while the plane was still taxiing out for takeoff to Honolulu, Delta Air Lines told CNN. The Transportation Security Administration and the Port of Seattle confirmed the incident to CNN. The incident came less than a month after another stowaway boarded a Delta airplane Thanksgiving week. That unticketed passenger made it all the way from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Paris before she was eventually arrested . People are also reading... Delta Air Lines planes are seen parked at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on June 19, 2024, in Seattle, Washington. And on Christmas Eve, a body was found in a wheel well of a United Airlines plane shortly after it traveled from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and landed in Maui. Hiding in a plane’s wheel well is the most common method used by stowaways , the Federal Aviation Administration said. Stowaways often get crushed when the landing gear retracts, and oxygen levels plummet as a plane reaches higher altitudes. In the Seattle incident, the stowaway went through a TSA security checkpoint the evening before the flight but wasn’t holding a boarding pass, an airport spokesperson told CNN. The next day, the person “gained access to the loading bridge without a scanned ticket at the gate,” airport media relations manager Perry Cooper said. Once the person was discovered, the Airbus A321neo returned to the gate to remove the unticketed passenger, Delta said. Port of Seattle police officers were dispatched to gate B1 at the airport around 1:05 p.m. for “a report of a suspicious circumstance” on the Delta flight. The person “ran out” of the aircraft before officers arrived, Cooper told CNN Friday. “The aircraft returned to the terminal and the subject departed the aircraft,” the Port of Seattle said. “With the help of video surveillance, POSPD were able to locate the subject in a terminal restroom. The subject was arrested for criminal trespass.” The unticketed passenger didn’t have any prohibited items, the TSA told CNN. “The aircraft was swept by K9 as well as all areas in the terminal accessed by the subject,” the Port of Seattle said. “The aircraft was deplaned and all passengers were escorted by TSA to return to the security checkpoint for rescreening.” CNN has reached out to the Port of Seattle for additional comment. Delta said the flight was delayed by two hours and 15 minutes. After the rescreening, it continued to Honolulu at 3 p.m. “As there are no matters more important than safety and security, Delta people followed procedures to have an unticketed passenger removed from the flight and then apprehended,” the Atlanta-based airline said in a statement. “We apologize to our customers for the delay in their travels and thank them for their patience and cooperation.” TSA said it “takes any incidents that occur at any of our checkpoints nationwide seriously. TSA will independently review the circumstances of this incident at our travel document checker station at Seattle/Tacoma International.” United, Apple rolling out new way to track lost luggage with AirTags ‘Embarrassing’ for TSA and Delta How the person got through airport security is a question many want answered. There are a number of factors at play, according to former commercial airline pilot and aviation analyst, John Nance. “There are multiple causes that come into this, and they probably involve not only a bit of lackadaisical inattention,” Nance told CNN affiliate KING . “It may be training, it may be compliance, but it’s probably all of that.” It’s “embarrassing” for this situation to happen twice to the same airline and TSA, according to former Department of Homeland Security official Keith Jeffries, who was federal security director when he left the DHS in 2022. In his 20 years working with DHS and the TSA, Jeffries said he’s seen these situations multiple times. “It has happened before. It will happen again until they continue to strengthen that vulnerability,” Jeffries said. “The fact that it happened to the same airline, of course, couldn’t be more embarrassing, especially back-to-back, and during the holiday season, when there’s an extra alertness associated with the large holiday season,” Jeffries added. During the holidays, Jeffries explained, there’s typically more staffing at the airports being “extra vigilant.” TSA, airlines and airports have even more people present to ensure things like this don’t fall through the cracks, making these cases “even more concerning,” he said. If there is a “silver lining,” Jeffries said, it’s that Delta did catch the stowaway during the taxi, and they didn’t make it to Hawaii. The stowaway also didn’t have prohibited items when scanned through TSA, which is another plus, he said. “Everybody’s going to have to work together; TSA and the airlines on how they can strengthen both of those vulnerabilities, and in some cases, even work with the airport,” he said. Congress will likely scrutinize these incidents, Nance added. “But there will be no one paying more attention than the airlines themselves,” he said. ___ CNN’s Holly Yan, Pete Muntean, Amanda Musa and Nicole Chavez contributed to this report. 4 tips to help you experience exceptional cruise dining | PennyWise podcast PHOTOS: The top images of 2024 Elise Mertens, of Belgium, serves against Naomi Osaka, of Japan, at the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament, on March 11, 2024, in Indian Wells, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. 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(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda) Kenya Wildlife Service rangers and capture team pull a sedated black rhino from the water in Nairobi National Park, Kenya, on Jan. 16, 2024, as part of a rhino relocation project to move 21 of the critically endangered beasts hundreds of miles to a new home. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga) A pod of Beluga whales swim through the Churchill River near Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, on Aug. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel) A person carrying a handgun and a sign depicting Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump stands outside the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) Atmaram, who goes by one name and was found living on the street a day earlier, eats breakfast at Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, a home for the aged and unwanted, on April 12, 2024, in New Delhi, India. (AP Photo/David Goldman) People help Liudmila, 85, board a bus after their evacuation from Vovchansk, Ukraine, on May 12, 2024. Her husband was killed in their house during a Russian airstrike on the city. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) Prisoners reach out from their cell for bread at lunchtime at the Juan de la Vega prison in Emboscada, Paraguay, on July 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Members of the water safety team move into the impact zone on a jet ski to rescue a surfer under a rainbow during a training day ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics surfing competition in Teahupo'o, Tahiti, on July 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) Children play with the ropes of a ship docked on a beach in Parika, Guyana, on June 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa) A supporter of Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump waits for the start of his campaign rally in Doral, Fla., on July 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) Lava flows from a volcanic eruption that started on the Reykjanes Peninsula in Iceland, Nov. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco di Marco) Muslim pilgrims circumambulate the Kaaba, the cubic building at the Grand Mosque, during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on June 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool) Two men in Russian Cossack uniforms pose for a selfie with the Historical Museum in the background after visiting the mausoleum of the Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin, marking the 154th anniversary of his birth, in Moscow's Red Square, on April 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko) A fisherman carries his catch of the day to market in Manta, Ecuador, on Sept. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa) Ama Pipe, from Britain, center, receives the baton from teammate Lina Nielsen in a women's 4 X 400 meters relay heat during the World Athletics Indoor Championships at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland, on March 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue) Ultra-Orthodox Jews look at part of an intercepted ballistic missile that fell in the desert near the city of Arad, Israel, on April 28, 2024. (AP Photo/ Ohad Zwigenberg) Margarita Salazar, 82, wipes sweat from her forehead in her home during an extreme heat wave in Veracruz, Mexico, on June 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez) People drive along a road littered with fallen power lines after the passing of Hurricane Rafael in San Antonio de los Banos, Cuba, on Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa) Palestinian activist Khairi Hanoon walks with the Palestinian flag on a damaged road following an Israeli army raid in Tulkarem, West Bank, on Sept. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) A polar bear and a cub search for scraps in a large pile of bowhead whale bones left from the village's subsistence hunting at the end of an unused airstrip near the village of Kaktovik, Alaska, on Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson) Vero Almarche, right, hugs her neighbor Maria Munoz, who was born in the house where they are photographed and which was destroyed by flooding in Masanasa, Valencia, Spain, on Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti) Wearing a device that measures his energy consumption, Israel Amputee Football Team player Ben Maman, left, fights for the ball with a young soccer player from a local team during a practice session in Ramat Gan, Israel, on April 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) A member of the Seattle Mariners tosses a ball against a wall during drills at spring training baseball workouts, on Feb. 15, 2024, in Peoria, Ariz. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson) Sara Chen weeps over the grave of her longtime friend, Staff Sgt. Avraham Nerya Cohen, who was killed in action on Oct. 7, 2023, as Israel marks the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel, at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem on Oct. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo) Midwife Diluwara Begum holds a newborn baby girl after helping deliver her on a boat on the River Brahmaputra, in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, on July 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) French sailors on the bridge of the French navy frigate Normandie keep watch during a reconnaissance patrol during NATO exercises in a Norwegian fjord north of the Arctic circle on March 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) An animal runs through grass while fleeing flames as the Park Fire tears through the Cohasset community in Butte County, Calif., on July 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) A gaucho, or South American cowboy, bathes a horse during the Criolla Week rodeo festival, in Montevideo, Uruguay, on March 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico) Sloane Stephens of the U.S. signs autographs after defeating Daria Kasatkina of Russia in their second round match at the Australian Open tennis championships at Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia, on Jan. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte) Children shake hands before they play a chess game at The Soga Chess Club of the internally displaced persons camp in Kanyaruchinya, Democratic Republic of Congo, on July 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa) A mural of former Argentine first lady María Eva Duarte de Perón, better known as Eva Perón, or Evita, depicting her with a saint's halo, adorns a wall inside the Peron Peron restaurant in the San Telmo neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Feb. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko) People gather in front of destroyed buildings hit by an Israeli airstrike in central Beirut, Lebanon, on Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein) A cleric holds up his son as he celebrates Iran's missile strike against Israel during an anti-Israeli protest at Felestin (Palestine) Square in Tehran, Iran, on Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) Buildings cover Gardi Sugdub Island, part of San Blas archipelago off Panama's Caribbean coast, on May 25, 2024. Due to rising sea levels, about 300 Guna Indigenous families are relocating to new homes, built by the government, on the mainland. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix) Actors make final adjustments to their costumes before the start of Ramleela, a dramatic folk re-enactment of the life of Rama according to the ancient Hindu epic Ramayana, in New Delhi, India, on Oct. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup) Christophe Chavilinga, 90, suffering from mpox, waits for treatment at a clinic in Munigi, eastern Congo, on Aug. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa) First-graders attend the traditional ceremony for the first day of school in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Sept. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) Stay up-to-date on what's happening Receive the latest in local entertainment news in your inbox weekly!The Tennessee Titans are showing signs of growing tougher. This time, they shook off eight sacks and three turnovers to stave off a third straight losing season for at least another week. The Titans not only scored the game-winning touchdown on a one-play drive in the fourth quarter, they also came up with back-to-back sacks. The second led to a safety, clinching a 32-27 win over the AFC South-leading Houston Texans. First-year coach Brian Callahan called how the Titans (3-8) responded crucial validation in the NFL where the only grading system is wins and losses. “We finally get a chance against a really good team on the road in the division to show what we’re made of,” Callahan said. “This is the team we think we’re capable of being. It’s the team that I’ve believed in all year long.” Running back Tony Pollard says the Titans have learned some important lessons that only come from fighting through adversity. They’ve had lots of that, which can wear out teams this late in the season. “Eventually, they’ll start turning over,” Pollard said. What’s working The offense. The Titans scored a season high in points and topped their game average with 20 points by halftime. Better yet was quarterback Will Levis both starting and finishing his first win of the season. Levis also completed his first 11 passes and connected with seven different receivers. Levis finished with 278 yards passing and threw two touchdown passes. Pollard also ran for 119 yards as the Titans played keep-away, holding the ball for more than 34 minutes. They finished with four plays of 27 yards or longer with Levis responsible for the three longest. The AP Top 25 college football poll is back every week throughout the season! Get the poll delivered straight to your inbox with AP Top 25 Poll Alerts. Sign up here . What needs help Special teams. Coordinator Colt Anderson has been under pressure, which didn’t ease after the Texans gave up an 80-yard return on the opening kickoff. The Titans then gave up a TD on the first play from scrimmage — only the fourth time that has happened in the NFL since 2000 and first since the Chargers in Week 7 in 2018. It didn’t get better as rookie Jha’quan Jackson fumbled a punt recovered by Houston near midfield in the third quarter. The Titans allowed only a field goal. But special teams allowed the Texans to average 36.8 yards per kickoff return. Punter Ryan Stonehouse had a net average of 45.2 yards as he made up for a 38-yarder that counts as a shank for him with a 62-yarder early in the fourth to help flip the field. Stock up Tight end Chig Okonkwo. The fourth-round draft pick in 2022 scored a 70-yard catch-and-run touchdown that was the longest catch of his career. That one TD catch had more yards than Okonkwo had managed in any of his previous 44 games. It was enough as the game-winning TD. Stock down Levis completed his first 11 passes. He’s completed 67.9% of his passes in his past three starts with five TD passes with only two interceptions with a 107.2 passer rating. Callahan likes those signs of improvement. “We definitely got to get the sack numbers down. ... We can’t give up eight sacks a game and feel like it’s going to be good enough,” Callahan said. The second-year quarterback has to be more aware of pressure to avoid sacks. The Titans offensive line hasn’t helped much, but Levis took a beating, being sacked eight times by Houston. He’s now been sacked 20 times in three straight starts since returning from a sprained AC joint in his right, throwing shoulder. He also had his third pick-6 this season. Injuries The Titans played Houston without starting safety Amari Hooker because of illness. Callahan said they will open the window for CB Chidobe Awuzie to practice in a possible return from injured reserve. Key number 35 — The number of times Levis has been sacked in eight games this season or more than all but three NFL quarterbacks. One of those? Houston’s C.J. Stroud, who was sacked for a safety to clinch Tennessee’s road win. Next steps A road win over the AFC South leader and defending champion could provide the confidence boost the Titans needed. They wrap up a two-game road swing by visiting Washington (7-5), which has lost three straight. The Titans play four of the final five inside the AFC South where their faint hope of reaching the postseason lies even as fans root for a high draft pick. ___ AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

What it costs to live on the new, convenient Metro lineBy JOHN MARSHALL TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Snoop Dogg has nearly as many ties to football as he does to rap music. The entertainer coached youth football for years and created the Snoop League, an after-school program for inner city Los Angeles youths. Snoop has been a guest analyst on football broadcasts and his son, Cordell Broadus, played Division I football. When Snoop took his latest step, becoming the sponsor of a bowl game, he had a demand: Find a way for all players in the game to receive name, image and likeness (NIL) money. “This was Snoop’s idea,” said Kym Adair, executive director of the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl presented by Gin & Juice. “He was having conversations with people he knows in the college football world and I got a call that said he wants us to be the first bowl to make this commitment and that’s what we did.” The beneficiaries are Colorado State and Miami (Ohio), who will conclude their seasons Saturday at Arizona Stadium in the Arizona Bowl. The bowl is classified as a 501(c)(3), so all revenue goes to charity. And, being one of the few bowls not tied to ESPN, it opens the door for unique sponsorship opportunities. The bowl was previously sponsored by Barstool Sports and the digital media company used its own cast of characters on the broadcast, which was streamed on its digital platforms. Snoop Dogg takes over this year. The rapper/entertainer is the latest celebrity to sponsor a bowl, following the footsteps of Jimmy Kimmel and Rob Gronkowski at the LA Bowl. And, Snoop being Snoop, he wanted to put his own spin on his own bowl. “College football fans are exhausted by the constant talk around NIL, conference realignment, coach movement, transfer portal and super conferences,” “So it’s time that we get back to the roots of college football — when it was focused on the colleges, the players and the competition, the community, the fan experience and the pageantry.” With that will be an NIL component. The bowl can’t pay players just for playing in the bowl, but both teams participated in football clinics on Friday and will get paid for their services. Other bowls have given single players NIL opportunities, but this is believed to be the first to offer it to every player on both teams. “I love the fact that the Arizona Bowl is unique and tries new things, and obviously having Snoop here is unique,” Colorado State coach Jay Norvell said. “The NIL component, it’s the future. It’s what football has become now. We think it’s fantastic for our kids and then the interaction with the kids is the hidden gem of the whole thing.” The NIL component of the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl comes a month after a similar effort in The Players Era Festival basketball tournament in Las Vegas. The eight-team tournament said it paid out $9 million in NIL money to participating players for activities outside the competition. It also offered $50 million in NIL opportunities over the next three years for services and activities compliant with NCAA regulations. Are the Players Era Festival and Arizona Bowl the start of a new future? It is not out of the question in big-time college athletics, where schools are already preparing for with players next year. “Revenue sharing between the players and the athletic departments is already on the horizon, so whether that takes the place of these types of arrangements or they’re completely separate has yet to be determined,” Adair said. “We’re just trying to be flexible, ahead of the curve and make an impact any way we can.” Just the way Snoop wants it. ___ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up . AP college football: and

BitMart Unveils Black Friday Campaign with 200,000 USDT Reward Pool and Exclusive Crypto DealsBy Connor Smith With much of Wall Street out for the holidays, the stock market was getting hammered by weak trading volume. The Dow was down 423 points, or 1%, with only a couple of hours left in the week's final session. The S&P 500 was off 1.4%. The Nasdaq was the big loser, down 1.8%. Though nearly 470 of S&P 500 names were falling, chip stocks and Big Tech were leading the selloff. The Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF was down 2.5% and the iShares Semiconductor ETF was off 1.3%. The index's two worst performers were Super Micro Computer and Tesla.AP News Summary at 3:08 p.m. EST

Outrage as 'EU's largest party' makes major U-turn on Falkland Islands mapIs Outlook down? Thousands of Microsoft 365 users report outage issuesNEW YORK (AP) — Thousands of Microsoft 365 customers worldwide reported having issues with services like Outlook and Teams on Monday. In social media posts and comments on platforms like outage tracker Downdetector, some impacted said that they were having trouble seeing their emails, loading calendars or opening other Microsoft 365 applications such as Powerpoint. Microsoft acknowledged “an issue impacting users attempting to access Exchange Online or functionality within Microsoft Teams calendar” earlier in the day. In updates posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, the company’s status page said it identified a “recent change” that it believed to be behind the problem — and was working to revert it. Microsoft shared that it was deploying a fix — which, as of shortly before noon E.T., it said had reached about 98% of “affected environments.” Still, the company’s status page later added , targeted restarts were “progressing slower than anticipated for the majority of affected users.” As of midday Monday, Downdetector showed thousands of outage reports from users of Microsoft 365 , particularly Outlook .

Middle East latest: Syria's forces withdraw from Homs, a key link between the capital and coastC3.ai Unusual Options ActivityThe measure must clear the full Senate in the first week of January to reach Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk, otherwise it must go through the entire legislative process again after a new General Assembly convenes Jan. 8. The bill, House Bill 5164, would eliminate an existing requirement to publish name changes with a local newspaper. It would also reduce the state residency requirement of people wanting to change their name from six months to three months. “There are residents in our state who do not feel safe when they are an adoptee; they’re transgender; they’re an immigrant; they’re a survivor of domestic violence, survivor of sexual exploitation and human trafficking,” Sen. Ram Villivalam, the bill’s sponsor and a Chicago Democrat, said in an interview. “So they would like to change their name, and in doing so, we need to remove as many barriers as we can to ensure their health and safety.” The goal of the bill is to decrease threats to people who have endured domestic abuse, discrimination and other threats to their safety. Villivalam said 24 states have already eased this requirement. Planned Parenthood, Equality Illinois and Brave Space Alliance are pushing for the change. But the Senate’s top Republican, Sen. John Curran, R-Downers Grove, pushed back against the bill. He argued that impounding the records, meaning restricting access to them, should have a higher threshold. Individuals are allowed to petition the court to impound records if they believe public disclosure would put them in harm’s way. That process allows individuals to self-attest to hardships and says they may — but are not required to — submit documentation. “Why make it permissive, rather than a requirement, to attach relevant documents to the petition,” Curran said during a November committee meeting. But Mike Ziri, the director of public policy at Equality Illinois, said impounded records don’t disappear from court records and are not sealed, but rather are selectively available to the involved parties. “So it's not a complete sealing. There will still be access to parties and by the clerk, as well,” Ziri said. “In my experience, working with communities, folks who say they've experiencing hardship and heartache, they're not making that up, and they want protection for very good reasons.” The Republicans who hold a minority in the state senate questioned whether noncitizens with a criminal record could change their names to evade legal consequences as a result of the lowered requirements for a name change. “Is this creating a loophole for people who are here, who are criminals and part of things involved in the trafficking, involved in all of these nefarious activities that we've been reading about?” Sen. Sue Rezin, R-Morris, said. Ziri said that the self-attestation was for impounding the court records of name changes, not to get the name change itself. Illinois law states that people on the sex offender registry, arsonists and people on the murderer and violent offender against youth list are barred from seeking name changes. The exceptions are marriage, religious reasons, human trafficking or gender identity. He also said a name change still requires the signature of a judge, and the process can take months. “Changing your name does not allow you to escape the criminal record. That was legislation that was passed two years ago,” Ziri said. “That's on top of the other requirement state police already have to check the criminal records with the name change granted months later.” Villivalam said this bill takes Illinois “another step forward” in ensuring the health and safety of residents. “Now, more than ever — given the rise in hate and discrimination across the board — people you know feel targeted. So the legislative work that we can do to reassure them on their safety and health is part of our job,” Villivalam said in an interview. “As people continue to feel the hate, feel the discrimination, get targeted, we need to continue to take these steps to make sure they feel healthy and safe.”

Players Era Festival organizers betting big NIL is future of college tourneys

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