Max Verstappen extended his lead over Lewis Hamilton in the driver’s standings to 18 points after victory at the Styrian Grand Prix. The Dutchman looked untouchable in Austria after an electric start from pole position in a fairly uneventful race at the Red Bull Ring.
Verstappen crossed the line in Austria with a mighty +35.743-second lead over Hamilton, despite the Briton trying his hardest to find a way to close the gap at the Red Bull Ring.
“I mean, you never know of course how it’s gonna end up,” said Verstappen, when asked if it felt like an easy victory.
“But straightaway I felt good balance in the car, and it was good to manage the tyres basically from the start.
“Felt like to the end I had a little bit of tyres left, of course, they pitted one lap earlier than us, so we reacted to that and then we just kept on going, trying to hit our lap times, it worked really well for us.”
Hamilton and Mercedes looked to bounce back in France but, despite a vast improvement from the previous two races, a clever strategy call from Red Bull saw Verstappen extend his lead at the top of the standings to 12 points heading into two rounds at Austria.
And now with an 18 point lead, the Dutchman is keen to keep up the momentum.
He said: “Yeah, it’s looking really good, so we just have to keep on going, keep pushing really hard and then I’m confident that we can do a very good job again.”
It’s been eight months since the first expansion DLC for Doom Eternal launched on other systems and now it’s finally here on Switch. If that feels like a long time, consider that the main game took nine months to come to Switch: if anything, things are getting better! Sort of.
The Ancient Gods Part One is a standalone campaign that follows on from the events of Doom Eternal. Without spoiling anything that happened in that game, basically your mission didn’t end with your actions there, and now Hell’s demons are lining up an attempt to take over every dimension so they can invade Earth again.
The ensuing plot is typical Doom stuff, in that it’s hokier than half a Hokey Cokey marathon, but if you got a kick out of all the nonsense that went on in Doom Eternal you’ll enjoy where the game takes it here, especially its cliffhanger ending (this is the first of a two-part DLC story, you see).
Although The Ancient Gods Part One can be chosen from the main menu of Doom Eternal and doesn’t require you to have even started the main game, let alone beaten it, we strongly suggest you play through the main Doom Eternal campaign first: not only for plot purposes, but because this is pretty difficult stuff. There are no tutorials, no easy-going opening areas with a couple of weak enemies, nothing like that.
Instead, from the second the first of its three lengthy chapters kicks off, you’re immediately thrown into a huge battle with loads of enemies, some of whom are upper tier gits. It may be a standalone expansion but it very much feels like a campaign that assumes you’ve already beaten the main one and that you’re perfectly comfortable taking on hordes of its more difficult enemies right off the bat. So if you haven’t played the main Doom Eternal campaign yet (or you’re a bit rusty… it’s been eight months, after all), do that first.
Not that it’s the same old bad guys you’ll be taking on, of course. The Ancient Gods adds a couple of new enemies to the mix, but truth be told they’re probably the weakest part of the experience because they can be extremely annoying to take out.
Turrets, for example, have a small purple eye that emerges from the top every now and then to fire at you. When you start firing back the eye goes away, and there’s really only one weapon that does decent damage to it so if that’s out of ammo, expect an annoyingly long standoff (which doesn’t really fit the Doom Eternal tone, where you’re supposed to be constantly moving around).
Spirits are similarly annoying, though at least they’re more inventive. These big swines can possess other demons, making them far more powerful than normal. Once you defeat the demon, you’ve got a limited window of time to attack the Spirit – again, with a very specific weapon – otherwise they’ll possess another demon and it’s back to square one. At least here if you don’t have the weapon you need you can just kill every demon in the room, because without anyone to possess the Spirit just goes away.
These new enemies aside, it’s more or less business as usual in The Ancient Gods. While the pace can be a little slower this time thanks to the way the newcomers have to be defeated, for the most part fans of the main campaign will be perfectly happy with another roughly 5-8 hours of gameplay to rip and tear their way through. Just don’t play it without taking on the main game first.
Starting Sunday, repeat offenders may be given citations for violating camping ban
by: KXAN Staff
Posted: / Updated:
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Phase 2 of the City of Austin’s four-tiered public camping ban went into effect Sunday, meaning repeat offenders of the ban may soon be issued citations.
Starting Sunday, people violating the ban on public camping will first receive written warnings. If the person has been previously warned, police may issue a citation.
Prop B was approved by Austin voters on May 1 making it a criminal offense — a Class-C misdemeanor punishable by a fine — if you sit, lie down, or camp on public property in downtown Austin or on the University of Texas-Austin campus. It also prohibits panhandling at specific hours and locations.
The first 30 days of the City’s implementation of the camping ban, Phase 1, sought to educate people experiencing homelessness about the rules of the ban. Representatives from multiple city departments visited encampments across the city, providing resources on alternate options and safe housing.
Phase 2 is expected to last 28 days.
How will the City of Austin enforce the new camping ban?
Phase 1 – Effective May 11, a 33-day period of community engagement and education will begin. During this time, the Austin Police Department will provide verbal warnings to those found camping — in addition to resource information. This excludes instances that are of imminent safety or health concern.
Phase 2 – Starting June 13, APD will begin issuing written warnings and initial citations. This period will also last for 28 days.
Phase 3 – Starting July 11, APD may initiate arrests and/or begin clearing out encampments in areas that have not been cleared following citations. The City of Austin did not immediately say how long Phase 3 will last.
Phase 4 – During Phase 4, citations and arrests will continue as needed. APD will work with City of Austin homeless outreach teams to help provide further information on resources, when available.
These four phases will end in August at which point the Austin Police Department will reassess its effectiveness.
Author: KXAN Staff
This post originally appeared on KXAN Austin
For the purposes of historical comparison, it’s also worth noting that the pattern of the dominance chart currently looks much like it did during the earlier part of 2017.
As the markets have gone into meltdown since May 12, Bitcoin (BTC) dominance has fluctuated dramatically, bucking 2021’s prevailing trend. Before the sell-off started in earnest, BTC dominance had been falling pretty steadily from around 70% in January to a low of under 40% by the time the crash was underway. At that point, BTC dominance was at its lowest since the summer of 2018. It has since recovered to above 43%.
If the same pattern is underway this time around, then the market is likely to be at the equivalent of summer 2017 when the alt season was just ramping up, and still some months away from Bitcoin’s price peak of around $ 20,000 in December 2017.
Of course, while the patterns draw some interesting parallels, BTC dominance doesn’t necessarily tell that much about price. But it does offer insights into how the flagship asset is performing in relation to the rest of the markets, underpinning certain trends. So, what are the likely scenarios for BTC dominance, and what would it mean for the markets?
Follow the money flow
The money flow model is one potential predictor of where the markets could go. The model states that money flows from fiat into Bitcoin, and then down from large caps, through mid-caps to small-cap altcoins before redirecting back to BTC and, ultimately, back to fiat.
This model is interesting because it pretty much sums up what happened in 2017, except that the cycle played out twice as BTC surged toward the end of the year. So, if the 2017 scenario repeats itself, BTC dominance could continue to rise until the flagship asset sees another price peak, then fall as alt season accelerates once again.
Along with the eerie similarities of the dominance charts, the behavior of the alt markets also offers some indication that they could be performing according to historical cycles. In early May, Cointelegraph reported that altcoins had flipped their previous cycle high to support — a move that last happened in 2017.
If the cycle repeats, it could still launch the alt markets to stratospheric new heights in 2021. While the performance observed during May may not offer much reassurance in this regard, there’s also nothing yet to indicate that BTC and the broader markets won’t perform according to long-term trends. Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of exchange FTX and Alameda Research, told Cointelegraph:
“If we enter a prolonged bear market, I would expect BTC dominance to rise, as it did in 2018–2019; but the correction we’ve seen so far isn’t enough to trigger that.”
But wait…
For individual investors looking to follow the money flow, there is one big consideration. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Robert W. Wood, managing partner at Wood LLP, warned: “The elephant in the room for diversification is taxes.” He added: “Up until 2018, many investors could claim that a swap of one crypto for another was nontaxable under section 1031 of the tax code. But the law was changed at the end of 2017.”
Indeed, Omri Marian, director of the Graduate Tax Program at University of California, Irvine School of Law, confirmed that crypto-to-crypto transactions are likely to trigger tax obligations, explaining to Cointelegraph:
“Any reading of one crypto asset for another is a taxable event. So whatever the profit motivation is, a cryptoassets investor must account for the fact that rebalancing of the portfolio may have a tax cost.”
Shane Brunette, CEO of CryptoTaxCalculator, put it into practical terms, telling Cointelegraph: “If an investor switches between BTC and altcoins, the capital gain/loss would be realized in this financial year, regardless of whether or not they’ve ‘cashed out’ to fiat.” Furthermore, he clarified that “The activity would reset the length of time the investor has been holding the asset which would impact the eligibility to claim a long-term capital gains discount.”
So, be mindful that following the money flow may come with its own set of costs, and as a result, there are no guarantees that the pattern may repeat, as new variables may have an effect.
The unknown quantity
The most critical difference between 2017 and now is the presence of institutions in the markets. At least, that’s true for Bitcoin and, to some extent, large-cap altcoins such as Ether (ETH). Large swathes of the alt markets, including almost all low-cap coins and memecoins like Dogecoin (DOGE), are dominated by retail traders and investors.
Examining the dominance charts, BTC seemed to get a boost at the end of 2020 as institutional interest in cryptocurrencies started to pique. Its dominance continued to rise until around January.
But there’s some evidence that institutions could be behind the recent boost to BTC dominance. On May 21, it emerged that whales had bought $ 5.5 billion worth of BTC while prices were below $ 36,000; two days later, crypto hedge funds MVPQ Capital, ByteTree Asset Management and Three Arrows Capital all confirmed they were dip buyers.
So, there’s a chance that Bitcoin’s sudden dominance recovery may not come down to regular market cycles but instead be influenced by institutional whales scooping up discounted BTC.
Risk-off, but how far?
The question is: To what extent will the involvement of institutions make a difference to BTC dominance patterns compared with what was seen in 2017? Perhaps the most critical difference between institutions and retail investors is that institutions are far more likely to follow prevailing market conditions and go risk-off accordingly. Therefore, BTC dominance is rising as investors choose to step away from risk-on alts.
However, based on the “buying the dip” reports, it seems there’s no reason to assume that investors are going as far as going risk-off from crypto itself — at least for now. Furthermore, bullish sentiments continue to swirl around, undeterred by the market chaos of recent weeks as seen by the reports that interest in BTC appears to still be on the rise.
Therefore, there’s still every chance that if interest in BTC continues to hold, and no major bad news comes in to destroy the sentiment around crypto, the money flow model may still play out once again. For now, if history holds firm, some further increases in BTC dominance will take place before investors once again start to expand into large-cap altcoins.
Author: Cointelegraph By Nikolai Kuznetsov
This post originally appeared on Cointelegraph.com News
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A man known for illegally dumping used tires is accused of doing the same thing again.
Harris County Precinct 1 Deputy Constables’ office said they arrested Darrell Walson Monday, but it’s not his first illegal dumping offense. Watson is said to have a history of illegal dumping convictions dating back to 2009.
According to the deputy constables’ office, Watson appeared in video from cameras in the 5200 block of Mayle Street on March 16. He is also believed to be responsible for the tires that were dumped two days later at the same location, as well as weeks prior in February.
Authorities said the videos show people dumping tires from a U-Haul van onto the sides of the street on three different days. In all, investigators said they discovered 176 used tires from 18-wheelers at Mayle Street.
Watson was recognized in the video “because of (investigators) prior experience with him,” the deputy constables’ office wrote. They report that Watson plead guilty on Feb. 21, 2021 to a charge of illegal dumping.
They add he was wearing an ankle monitor at the time of the most recent incidents.
“Mr. Watson clearly has no intent of stopping his illegal activity,” said Constable Alan Rosen. “A judge let him off easy last time with deferred adjudication. Watson has proven he is a repeat offender and that a slap on the wrist won’t stop him from creating these dangerous eyesores in our neighborhoods.”
According to the statement, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office accepted the charge on the case as a state jail felony of commercial dumping.
If convicted, Watson could get 10 years in prison.
It was only four words, but four words that said a lot about Jose Mourinho’s current attitude towards his Tottenham squad. “Same coach, different players.” That was the sour response the Spurs boss gave to BBC Radio 5 Live’s Juliette Ferrington, after the reporter noted to Mourinho his previous knack for developing teams excellent at holding on to leads.
Spurs haven’t got that quality. At all. They’ve lost 11 points in the last 10 minutes of Premier League matches alone this season, dropping 15 from winning positions overall.
The 2-2 draw with Newcastle at St James’ Park on Sunday was the latest match in which Spurs led for a long period but failed to win, as the north Londoners squandered a chance to move beyond Chelsea into fourth.
Mourinho said post-match: “There are mistakes which I probably shouldn’t even call mistakes because they are related to qualities that players have.”
It’s hardly the first time the 58-year-old, who bemoaned his team’s “instability” in the north east, has hit out at his own players. He’s done it time and time before throughout his managerial career, most notably at Chelsea, Manchester United and Real Madrid.
It is all part of Mourinho’s managerial psyche, one that worked so well for him a decade and longer ago but more recently has seen his abilities questioned – has he still got it? Has the game moved beyond the defence-minded tactician?
Earlier this season Spurs looked braced for a Premier League title challenge, Harry Kane and Son Heung-min surprisingly thriving off of Mourinho’s sit-and-counter tactics, but they’ve generally been on the slide since December.
A run of five straight wins across February and March made it look as though Spurs had turned a corner, only for them to lose to Arsenal in a terrible derby performance and crash out of the Europa League in humiliating fashion, losing 3-0 to Dinamo Zagreb in Croatia after amassing a 2-0 first-leg lead.
And now the Newcastle debacle. The Premier League is the only way for Spurs to qualify for next season’s Champions League and they still have to face Manchester United, Everton, Manchester City and Leicester in the last eight games. It’s an almighty task for them to do so, especially when they’re this defensively vulnerable.
Mourinho looks as though he might be heading for the same fate Frank Lampard suffered at Chelsea back in January, even though he can win the Carabao Cup against City at Wembley on April 25, which would be the club’s first trophy since 2008.
Yet a League Cup triumph may not be enough to save him from Daniel Levy’s axe if Spurs finish outside of the top four given the manner of their decline.
One of the major contributing factors to Lampard’s sack by Chelsea was the change in atmosphere at Stamford Bridge, the dressing room environment having begun to turn toxic – albeit not for the first time in recent years. It’s no new trend for the Blues.
The manager’s criticism did not go down well with some members of the Chelsea squad and Lampard was even likened to Mourinho, who does not shy away in publicly condemning players when he feels it necessary to do so.
Clearly, the 14-match unbeaten run embarked on by Thomas Tuchel before the 5-2 loss to West Brom on Saturday, shows there was more Lampard could be getting out of the squad.
The same is very much true with Mourinho. Spurs are significantly better than their recent performances suggest, and in Kane have a man who has scored 29 goals and produced 16 assists in 41 games this season.
His brace at Newcastle – to take him to 45 direct goal contributions this term – still wasn’t enough to get Spurs over the line and it’s no wonder there’s speculation about his future with links to Manchester City and United. How much longer will he put up with such mediocrity?
And what must he think when Mourinho is turning the barrel of the gun on his own players? Kane may well even agree in some respects and there is truth to the fact that to an extent, the Portuguese can’t legislate for the individual errors that have hurt his side. Davinson Sanchez had a howler at Newcastle.
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But Kane, Son and Gareth Bale – for a few weeks, at least – aside, Spurs have had too many underperforming players of late and that is on Mourinho’s head. He has a squad good enough for the top four, even if he’d no doubt like to make more tweaks.
He said it himself in the Amazon All or Nothing documentary in conversation with Kane. “You have better players than I had at Manchester United. The club has a lot [of potential] to explode.”
How Mourinho has changed his tune. The public pointing of the finger at his own players isn’t going to help matters whatsoever and is likely only to alienate players at a time when harmony is desperately needed.
Especially ahead of a League Cup final in which Spurs are going to need a totally united effort to get the better of the best team in Europe. It seems pretty far-fetched right now to suggest Spurs can beat City, even if it is only one 90-minute game.
It’s maybe just as fanciful to talk right now about top-four prospects. Chelsea may only be two points ahead but the fixture schedule awaiting Mourinho and co. doesn’t bode well – neither do some of their recent performances.
And if Mourinho ends up out of a job by the start of next season, the bulk of the blame lies at his own feet – not just the players he is questioning. Lampard can relate.
