“This means a few thousand participants will join us to help us test some of our new features and functionality that we’re building from the ground up for Battlefield 2042. Do keep in mind that the Technical Playtest is purposefully not intended to be the full experience you will see in the Open Beta, or at launch. It is a development-led environment with only a subset of features, focused on technical performance.”
If you want to take part in the Battlefield 2042 playtest then you need to wait to hear from EA as it’s “invite-only” with only a “small group” of participants taking part.
However, EA did give Battlefield fans some advice on how they can increase their chances of getting an invite.
EA and DICE said: “The Technical Playtest will be in a closed environment and under strict NDA. Only a small group of participants will be able to join. If Playtesting is something that interests you, then we recommend you update your EA Playtesting profile. Registering for EA Playtesting will not guarantee you access to this, or other Playtests.”
Kelly was quarantined when he was transferred to a new prison because of COVID-19 protocols.
NEW YORK — Editors Note: The video in the player above is from July 2019.
R. Kelly’s new lawyers are asking a judge to postpone his Aug. 9 sex trafficking trial in New York City, arguing they haven’t had enough time to prepare because he’s under a mandatory jail quarantine since his transfer from Chicago.
In a letter Monday to U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly, lawyer Deveraux Cannick wrote that Kelly’s 14-day quarantine ending Tuesday has exacerbated what Cannick said was a “herculean effort” to get up to speed after their June 21 hiring.
Cannick argued in the letter that Kelly’s new lawyers haven’t been able to meet with him in person because of the quarantine and that proceeding with the R&B star’s trial as scheduled would rob him of effective and meaningful representation.
Kelly, whose legal name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, was placed in quarantine when he arrived at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on June 22 from Chicago, where he was being held on similar charges. Tuesday will mark 14 days since Kelly’s transfer to Brooklyn.
“Robert is anxious to have his day in court; however not at the expense of his Sixth Amendment rights,” Cannick wrote, saying the request was not a delay tactic.
Federal prosecutors hadn’t responded to Cannick’s request as of Monday night and declined to comment. Donnelly has yet to rule on the filing.
Federal lockups have been quarantining transferred and newly incarcerated inmates since early in the COVID-19 pandemic as part of protocols to prevent the disease’s spread.
Kelly, 54, is accused of leading an enterprise made up of his managers, bodyguards and other employees who helped him recruit women and girls for sex. Federal prosecutors say the group selected victims at concerts and other venues and arranged for them to travel to see Kelly. The Grammy Award-winning singer denies ever abusing anyone.
Cannick said that once Kelly’s quarantine ends and he is cleared to meet with his lawyers, they’ll be forced to jockey for one of a limited number of conference rooms at the Brooklyn jail. If a room is not available, he wrote, they’ll have to meet with Kelly at a table alongside other lawyers and inmates.
“The nature of the evidence here does not lend itself to open frank discussions in such an environment,” Cannick wrote.
Call of Duty Warzone has been given a new update on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One and PC.
Actually, it’s a re-release of an old patch, which was originally supposed to launch on June 30.
Unfortunately, there were issues with the Call of Duty Warzone update, which led to it being pulled.
“Due to an ongoing issue with this mornings update we have made the decision to roll the update back while we work on a fix,” Raven Software explained.
“We will update as soon as the issue is resolved and the update is relaunched.”
In a follow-up announcement earlier today, Raven confirmed that the Warzone update is now available on PlayStation, Xbox and PC.
Interestingly, the Warzone update has an interesting new addition, as the recoil pattern of the XM4 has been smoothed.
“A Warzone update is being (re)released into the wild!” Raven continues. “Thank you for your patience while we resolved the issue.
We slipped in an additional Weapon change/note: XM4 (BOCW) – Recoil pattern smoothed.”
The remaining Call of Duty Warzone patch notes can be seen below.
Weapons…
Assault Rifles
• C58 (BOCW)
– Recoil increased slightly
• FARA 83 (BOCW)
– Recoil increased slightly
• XM4 (BOCW)
– Recoil pattern smoothed
Submachine Guns
• Nail Gun (BOCW)
– Maximum Damage range decreased by 39%
“The Nail Gun (BOCW) is and was meant to be a lethal, highly-mobile, short-range dominator. However, its Maximum Damage range far exceeded the lethal range of Shotguns, which it is intended to contest.
“The Nail Gun’s (BOCW) generous range and mobility allowed it to consistently dispatch foes at the same speed or faster than Shotguns at almost twice their effective range. While the Nail Gun’s (BOCW) pick rate has remained relatively low, we believe it would have been much higher were it more easily accessible.”
– Vertical Recoil Control decreased from 15% to 10%
– Horizontal Recoil Control decreased from 15% to 10%
“We are satisfied with the overall direction of adding Recoil Control to BOCW Barrels. However, we would like the effectiveness of a Weapon to grow with the wielder as they improve.
“We felt with the magnitude by which recoil was being reduced, there was hardly any room left to master the control of these Weapons. We want Weapons to reward you for learning their reload timings, recoil patterns, and bullets to kill.
“Your proficiency with a Weapon should be a journey that is worked toward with an equivalent payoff. When we make Weapons too effective and too easy to control, there is no journey of mastery and we can become disinterested with these Weapons much quicker – which we feel can be a disservice.
“Even after these changes, we understand that there may still be incredibly effective and easy to control Weapons when enough Recoil Control is applied through attachments. We will continue to target these Weapons as they arise to ensure that they strike a satisfactory balance between upside and downside.”
Author: Liam Martin
Read more here >>> Daily Express
There are five different cycling disciplines at the Olympics. Here’s what you can expect in each this summer.
The men’s and women’s road races kick off the cycling program at every Summer Olympics, yet the pair of races that will depart from Musashinonomori Park and finish at Fuji Speedway in late July could not be more different.
The men’s race should be a wide-open affair with dozens of potential winners, many of them coming off a grueling slog at the Tour de France. The women’s race will amount to the four-woman Dutch team taking on everyone else.
All eyes will be on the races, too. They offer two of the first gold medals for an Olympics that has been delayed an entire year by the COVID-19 pandemic, and that many in Japan still believe should not happen. And they come on the heels of the Tour, which Olympics partner NBC will have been broadcasting daily on its networks for much of the previous month.
“Everybody in the world is trying to figure out how to beat the Dutch girls,” said Jim Miller, the high performance director for USA Cycling. “The only way to deal with them is isolate and reduce their numbers, but they’re super strong. They have three world champions and their fourth rider will be at some point. All are super fast, capable of going long — any scenario.
“It’s the Dutch’s race to win or lose,” Miller added, “and every other nation is going to race off how they control the race.”
That doesn’t mean it’s a foregone conclusion that 2012 Olympic champion Marianne Vos, 2016 gold medalist Anna van der Breggen, world champ Annemiek van Vleuten or recent La Course by Le Tour de France winner Demi Vollering will continue an era of Dutch dominance. But the men’s road race and the other cycling disciplines — the time trial, mountain biking, BMX freestyle and racing and the track program — should prove a whole lot more difficult to handicap.
That includes the women’s time trial, where three-time Olympic champion Kristin Armstrong has retired. She now coaches Chloe Dygert, the American standout who is coming back from a catastrophic crash at last year’s world championships.
And the men’s time trial, where the form of riders coming off the Tour usually plays a big role in who captures gold. Geraint Thomas of Britain is example No. 1 — he dislocated his shoulder during a crash in Stage 3, and how the the Ineos-Grenadiers leader recovers on the roads of France will have a big impact on how he performs on the roads of Japan.
MOUNTAIN BIKING
Organizers shuffled the Olympic program to insert mountain bike between the road races and time trials, effectively moving the event from one of the last of the entire Summer Games to the opening weekend of competition.
In the men’s race, defending champion Nino Schurter of Switzerland will go for his fourth consecutive Olympic medal. Swiss teammate Mathias Fluckiger, Britain’s Tom Pidcock and Mathieu van der Poel — who wore yellow during the Tour de France but will switch to the dirt for the Olympics — should contend for the podium.
Loana Lecomte has dominated the World Cup season, but French teammate Pauline Ferrand-Prevot and the American team of Haley Batten, Kate Courtney and Chloe Woodruff promise to be in the mix at the course in the Shizuoka Prefecture.
BMX FREESTYLE
The new discipline for the Tokyo Games should be a medal bonanza for the U.S., which features two of the world’s top five men (Justin Dowell and Nick Bruce) and women (Hannah Roberts and Perris Benegas). The X Games-style trick competition at Ariake Urban Sports Park, which has been added to the Olympic program in a bid to attract a new and younger audience, is the only cycling discipline in Tokyo that will be decided by judges.
BMX RACING
The U.S. also should factor into BMX racing, which debuted at the London Games in 2012. Gold medalist Connor Fields and silver medalist Alise Willoughby return five years after their success in Rio to lead a team that could sweep the top step.
Worth watching is whether the lack of competition over the past two years gives an off-the-radar rider a chance to snare a medal. More than any other discipline, the pandemic has wreaked havoc with BMX events around the world.
TRACK CYCLING
Britain has dominated events in the velodrome during the past two Olympic cycles, and despite a scandal that caused major changes to the team structure, Jason Kenny and Co. should be hard to beat at the track in the small city of Izu.
Kenny, who has come out of retirement, has six gold medals and a silver on his resume, and another gold would break a tie with Chris Hoy for most among British cyclists. Kenny’s wife, Laura, will try to add to her own four gold medals.
Returning to the program is the Madison, an event for two-rider teams that was dropped for the London Games because there was no equivalent event for women. Now, the men will be joined by the women in the Madison for the first time.
[embedded content]
Author: DAVE SKRETTA AP Sports Writer
This post originally appeared on CBS8 – Sports
On June 25, the FDA added new warnings for both vaccine providers and recipients over cases of heart inflammation from the Pfizer and Modern Covidvaccines. The warnings came after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) met and confirmed a “likely association” between myocarditis and pericarditis and the Pfizer and Moderna jabs, both of which use mRNA.
The FDA says symptoms of myocarditis and pericarditis don’t typically crop up right away, but tend to begin “within a few days following receipt of the second dose”.
The federal agency also urged recipients who’ve experienced myocarditis or pericarditis in the past to tell their vaccination producer.
For providers, the FDA says there’s “increased risks of myocarditis and pericarditis, particularly following the second dose”.
John Greenwood, president of the British Cardiovascular Society and a consultant cardiologist at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, told The BMJ: “Myocarditis is not an uncommon condition and it can be associated with many different viruses.
DON’T MISS
“In our hospital, for example, we may have one or more patients per week suspected of having it.”
He added: “For the vast majority of people myocarditis is a benign, self-limiting condition and can be easily treated with NSAIDs. For a very small number of people the heart muscle can become impaired.”
Up to 16 June the MHRA had received 53 reports of myocarditis and 33 reports of pericarditis (including one death) after use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The latest weekly yellow card reporting figures show that there have been 42 reports of myocarditis (and one death) and 77 reports of pericarditis after the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and three reports of myocarditis and one report of pericarditis after the Moderna vaccine.
A total of 275 cases of myocarditis were reported in Israel between December 2020 and May 2021 among more than five million vaccinated people.
Most of the cases were in men aged 16-19, usually after the second dose. After the reports the European Medicines Agency started a review, which is expected to report in July.
All vaccines can cause side effects, although not everybody gets them.
Most are mild or moderate and go away within a few days of appearing.
GOV.UK notes the very common side effects that may affect more than one in 10 people:
injection site: pain, swelling
tiredness
headache
muscle pain
chills
joint pain
diarrhoea
fever
It also advises: “If you get any side effects, talk to your doctor, pharmacist or nurse. This includes any possible side effects not listed in this leaflet. If you are concerned about a side-effect it can be reported directly via the Coronavirus Yellow Card reporting site or search for MHRA Yellow Card in the Google Play. When completing a report please include the vaccine brand and batch/Lot number if available.”
This can be used, for instance, to store data on what’s in your shopping cart as well as tailoring other content that pops up on your screen when you revisit a site.
However, cookies can also be used to track users across multiple websites for marketing purposes – a contentious and controversial issue for data privacy advocates.
Google had been planning to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome from 2022.
But in a new blog post, the Mountain View firm has revealed it instead will block tracking cookies in late 2023.
Google said the move will help those affected by the inbound and sweeping change prepare for it.
Vinay Goel, privacy engineering director for Chrome, said: “We need to move at a responsible pace, allowing sufficient time for public discussion on the right solutions and for publishers and the advertising industry to migrate their services”.
Axiom Verge is a bit of a classic, and has been on various Nintendo systems including the Switch; we adored it in our review. It’s not only an impressive ‘metroidvania’, but the way it implements ‘glitches’ into various aspects of its design is fascinating and has always helped it to stand out.
Axiom Verge 2 is certainly on various wishlists, with creator Tom Happ initially planning it for Fall 2020 before it was pushed to Spring this year. Unfortunately it is being pushed back again, with Happ telling IGN that it “will be better for the additional time.” It’s now due in Q3 this year.
A making of documentary for the first game, previously available on Steam or as a Blu-Ray in the Axiom Verge: Multiverse Edition, has also been made available to view for free on IGN. You can see some gameplay from a Spring showcase of the new game below.
We have a little longer to wait, but the odds are that it may be worth it.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin-Bergstrom International Airport says its tower will be closed for the next hour for disinfection protocols.
The airport put out an alert on Twitter Monday afternoon around 3:45 saying the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily closed the tower, and some flights will be delayed for both arrivals and departures.
“During this time, arrivals and departures will be occurring at a significantly reduced rate,” AUS said on Twitter.
People can either contact their airline for more information on their flight or find the latest flight information online here.
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport tower (KXAN Photo/Todd Bynum)
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport tower (KXAN Photo/Todd Bynum)
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport tower (KXAN Photo/Todd Bynum)
This is a developing story and will be updated as more details become available.
Author: Jaclyn Ramkissoon
This post originally appeared on KXAN Austin
“Amazon did not drop, so they are holding on until tomorrow 8-9am,” reads a PS5 UK Stock tweet. “Typical times are 8:30-8:45am.”
This was followed by some advice on how best to secure a console over on PS5 UK Stock – Instant Updates.
The stock checker account recommends adding the PS5 to your Amazon wishlist, before moving it over to the checkout.
“Amazon releases Digital slightly after Disc – likely drop today or tomorrow,” PS5 UK Stock Instant Update tweets. “Recommend adding #PS5 to your wishlist then moving to basket!”
Previous reports have suggested the Amazon stock drop will be one of the bigger restocks yet.
Amazon will reportedly have around 8,000 disc-based consoles for sale, as well as 2,400 digital units.
With Very and Tesco also tipped to restock the device this week, plus Smyths at the end of the month, fans have a much better chance of securing a console.
To give yourself the best possible chance of securing a console, it’s also worth bookmarking some of the more popular stock checker accounts.
Some of the accounts mentioned above have Discord groups for PS5 customers, while some have live streams and alerts on sites like YouTube.
Customers are generally encouraged to have multiple devices open when trying to purchase a PlayStation 5, and to sign in to retail accounts when available.
Express Online will keep the live blog post updated with all the latest developments on the PS5 stock front, so stay tuned for developments.
Back in February, it was revealed that one of 2020’s biggest gaming hits, Fall Guys, was headed to Switch. It was originally going to launch for Nintendo’s platform this summer, but the folks at Mediatonic have now announced that the game will be delayed.
In a statement shared on the official Fall Guys website, the developer notes that the expected summer release window is “unfortunately just too soon” for the team to make the Switch edition as good as it can be. No new release window has been provided, but you can read the full message on the delay below:
“With so many new opportunities now in our hands, we’ve realised that our previously announced Summer 2021 Switch and Xbox release schedule is unfortunately just too soon for us to include all of the tasty new features we’re working on.
“While we want to launch on these platforms as quickly as possible, we believe the Switch and Xbox releases are really going to be worth waiting for and we’re super grateful for your patience. This delay gives our team some time to add features like crossplay, so when we add new platforms, players will be able to stumble in harmony with their pals, regardless of their platform of choice.”
As you can see, it’s not all bad news – the delay means that the Switch version should launch with features players would want to see like crossplay with other platforms.
Were you looking forward to playing Fall Guys on your Switch this summer? Are you happy to wait a little longer? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
