The contested eastern city of Severodonetsk is still controlled by Ukraine, the Luhansk regional governor said Sunday morning in his latest update on Telegram.
“The enemy is not succeeding,” said Serhiy Haidai, adding that Russian forces remain stuck in the Hotel Myr on the eastern outskirts of the city. “Moreover, they are experiencing losses there because our [troops] are constantly shelling them there and knocking them out of the hotel. For now, they are hiding there, but they cannot proceed further.”
He rejected Russia’s claims that it captured the whole city. “Our boys are holding the line of defense. Severodonetsk is ours,” he said.
Haidai also said that Russian shelling of the Lysychansk-Bakhmut highway, southwest of Severodonetsk, has decreased after the Ukrainians managed to push the enemy back farther east “by a few kilometers.”
Severodonetsk is one of the last big cities under Ukrainian control in Luhansk province, and its capture would enable Russia to trumpet a victory after weeks of battlefield attrition. Only an estimated 10,000 people, one-tenth of its prewar population, remain in the city, and they have taken shelter in basements from Russian bombardment.
Arsenal defender Gabriel Magalhaes has, on Sunday, provided his take on the prospect of fellow countryman Gabriel Jesus making the move to north London in the summer.
Speculation surrounding a potential Gunners swoop for hitman Jesus has of course been rampant in the media for several weeks now.
This comes with Mikel Arteta and co. understood to have identified the versatile Manchester City star as a prime target to reinforce the club’s frontline ahead of the 2022/23 campaign.
Both Alexandre Lacazette and, potentially, Nicolas Pepe are in line for summer departures from the Emirates, making additions both on the right and through the middle an absolute necessity.
Jesus, capable of lining out in both positions, and with just a year left on his Man City contract, would, in turn, make plenty of sense as a high-profile addition to Arsenal’s ranks.
LEEDS, ENGLAND – APRIL 30: Gabriel Jesus of Manchester City celebrates with team mate Phil Foden after scoring their sides third goal during the Premier League match between Leeds United and Manchester City at Elland Road on April 30, 2022 in Leeds, England. (Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)
And one such member of Mikel Arteta’s squad who appears to share such a viewpoint, as alluded to above, comes in the form of Gabriel Magalhaes.
Speaking to the media whilst on international duty with Brazil, stopper Gabriel was drawn on the mounting links between Arsenal and namesake Jesus.
And the Arsenal standout, whilst assuring that there is ‘nothing certain’ when it comes to a transfer, went on to reveal his opinion that the striker ‘would help a lot’ at the Emirates.
“We joke about it in the dressing room, but there’s nothing certain. I’m sure that he is a great player and, if he comes to Arsenal, it would help out a lot.”
Gabriel Magalhães on Gabriel Jesus:
🗣 “We joke about it in the dressing room, but there’s nothing certain. I’m sure that he is a great player and, if he comes to Arsenal, it would help out a lot.” https://t.co/hIM8IiOO7D
While celebrating Mother’s Day on May 9, Priyanka and Nick revealed that their road to parenthood hasn’t been an easy one.
In a joint Instagram post, they shared that their little one had to spend “100 plus days in the NICU” before she was finally able to go home.
“Every family’s journey is unique and requires a certain level of faith,” they wrote at the time. “And while ours was a challenging few months, what becomes abundantly clear, in retrospect, is how precious and perfect every moment is.”
The Midway actor later described fatherhood as “pretty wild” while visiting The Tonight Show on May 17, adding, “You know, our little girl is home and what a gift.”
And, as it turns out, Nick’s older siblings have also given him another special gift: lots of parenting advice. “Yeah, it turns out everybody I know is a newborn care specialist,” he joked. “Doctor, all these Ph.D.s I didn’t know they had.”
The Lakers started working out players that could be added to their roster if they don’t get drafted in this year’s NBA Draft because Los Angeles has no picks t use.
One of those players is Drew Peterson out of University of South California. The 22-year-old shooting guard peaked in his final year in college as he averaged 12.4 points, 6.2 rebounds and 3.3 assists in 33 minutes per game.
Playing college basketball in California, he was close to the Lakers and attended some of the games they played. He was asked about the experience of working out for the team.
“Obviously, I know Lakers are a historical franchise,” Peterson said. “Playing at SC I’m right down the road from same road with the arenas. I’ve gone to my fair share of Laker games and it’s really cool getting to work out and see all the facilities and see all the history behind all this. Playing for Lakers is a dream for anybody. So, it’s really cool to get this experience.”
According to Peterson, the Lakers could be a good place for him to develop as there are two prime examples of undrafted players making name for themselves with the purple and gold – Alex Caruso and Austin Reaves.
“I watched a lot of Laker games throughout the year,” the 6’9″ shooting guard said. “I grew up in Chicago, so, obviously, Alex Caruso is a well known name to me too, coming from here developed really well and got paid over there really well. So it’s cool to see that.
“I think an important thing for me is getting in a program that really has proven they can develop role guys and stuff like that. I’m willing as one of those guys to buy into whatever situation I need to be. I’m looking to help in any way I can. I want to be in a winning team and I want to be able to do whatever I can to help the team win.
“A team that has experience with developing guys like me Austin Reaves, Caruso, stuff like that it’s really enticing. Hopefully I can put myself in a position to be available to do that. I’m going to work my butt off to be in that position and it’ll pay off.”
Philadelphia, PA – March 21, 2019 – Wells Fargo Center: Mike Breen during a regular season game
(Photo by Ben Solomon / ESPN Images)
Unfortunately, there will be no “Bang!” calls for this Sunday’s Game 7 hoops.
Renowned broadcaster Mike Breen will be unavailable to deliver ESPN’s play-by-play voice for the upcoming do-or-die match between the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat.
Per Andrew Marchand of the New York Post, Breen tested positive from COVID-19 and is feeling fine amid the illness. There are still hopes that he’ll be healthy and active to return once the Game 1 of the 2022 NBA Finals tips-off.
With that, Mark Jones was reported to leave the network’s radio calling and will fill Breen’s position as the temporary lead man of the television crew. He’ll join Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy on the sidelines.
Both Celtics and the Heat are knotted at 3-3 in this Eastern Conference Finals. The winner will take the Golden State Warriors for the championship crown of this season.
In a May 28 Instagram post, the “Gimme More” singer, 40, explained that she skipped the fashion event of the year (which was held on May 2) in favor of a cozy night in at home with her furry friends.
“I was gonna go to Met Gala but instead I got in the tub with my dog and put pjs on,” she wrote in part. “I hate flying !!!”
The singer, who had been under a court-mandated conservatorship from 2008 until last November, has never attended the Met Gala before.
Alongside the caption, Britney reposted a now-silent video of her holding up her pet cat and dancing in a red, cheetah print jumpsuit. Why? She explained, “I’ve never done that before !!!”
While she did not confirm which of her dogs joined her on her self-care moment, Britney recently adopted an adorable puppy named Sawyer back in February 2022. She also owns a Doberman namedPorscha, a Maltese named Lacey, a Yorkie named Hannah and a cat.
Even so, the United States is notable for how much we spend and how little we get. It costs about $538 million to build a kilometer of rail here. Germany builds a kilometer of rail for $287 million. Canada gets it done for $254 million. Japan clocks in at $170 million. Spain is the cheapest country in the database, at $80 million. All those countries build more tunnels than we do, perhaps because they retain the confidence to regularly try. The better you are at building infrastructure, the more ambitious you can be when imagining infrastructure to build.
The problem isn’t government. It’s our government. Nor is the problem unions — another favored bugaboo of the right. Union density is higher in all those countries than it is in the United States. So what has gone wrong here?
One answer worth wrestling with was offered by Brink Lindsey, director of the Open Society Project at the Niskanen Center, in a 2021 paper titled “State Capacity: What Is It, How We Lost It, and How to Get It Back.” Lindsey’s definition is admirably terse. “State capacity is the ability to design and execute policy effectively,” he told me. When a government can’t collect the taxes it’s owed or build the sign-up portal to its new health insurance plan or construct the high-speed rail it’s already spent billions of dollars on, that’s a failure of state capacity.
But a weak government is often an end, not an accident. Lindsey’s argument is that to fix state capacity in America, we need to see that the hobbled state we have is a choice, and there are reasons it was chosen. Government isn’t intrinsically inefficient. It has been made inefficient. And not just by the right:
What is needed most is a change in ideas: namely, a reversal of those intellectual trends of the past 50 years or so that have brought us to the current pass. On the right, this means abandoning the knee-jerk anti-statism of recent decades, embracing the legitimacy of a large, complex welfare and regulatory state, and recognizing the vital role played by the nation’s public servants (not just the police and military). On the left, it means reconsidering the decentralized, legalistic model of governance that has guided progressive-led state expansion since the 1960s, reducing the veto power that activist groups exercise in the courts, and shifting the focus of policy design from ensuring that power is subject to progressive checks to ensuring that power can actually be exercised effectively.
The Biden administration can’t do much about the right’s hostility to government. But it can confront the mistakes and divisions on the left.
A place to start is offered in another Niskanen paper, this one by Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan. In “The Procedure Fetish,” Bagley argues that liberal governance has developed a puzzling preference for legitimating government action through processes rather than outcomes. He suggests, provocatively, that that’s because American politics in general, and the Democratic Party in particular, is dominated by lawyers. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris hold law degrees, as did Barack Obama and John Kerry and Bill and Hillary Clinton before them. And this filters down through the party. “Lawyers, not managers, have assumed primary responsibility for shaping administrative law in the United States,” Bagley writes. “And if all you’ve got is a lawyer, everything looks like a procedural problem.”
This is a way that America differs from peer countries: Robert Kagan, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, has called this “adversarial legalism,” and shown that it’s a distinctively American way of checking state power. Bagley builds on this argument. “Inflexible procedural rules are a hallmark of the American state,” he writes. “The ubiquity of court challenges, the artificial rigors of notice-and-comment rule-making, zealous environmental review, pre-enforcement review of agency rules, picayune legal rules governing hiring and procurement, nationwide court injunctions — the list goes on and on.”
The justification for these policies is that they make state action more legitimate by ensuring that dissenting voices are heard. But they also, over time, render government ineffective, and that cost is rarely weighed. This gets to Bagley’s ultimate, and in my view, wisest, point. “Legitimacy is not solely — not even primarily — a product of the procedures that agencies follow,” he says. “Legitimacy arises more generally from the perception that government is capable, informed, prompt, responsive, and fair.” That is what we’ve lost — in fact, not just in perception.
MEXICO CITY — The first hurricane of the season formed off Mexico’s southern Pacific coast on Sunday and was growing more powerful ahead of an expected strike along a stretch of tourist beaches and fishing towns.
Hurricane Agatha could make landfall on Monday in the area near Puerto Escondido and Puerto Angel in the southern state of Oaxaca — a region that includes the laid-back tourist resorts of Huatulco, Mazunte and Zipolite.
On Sunday morning, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said the center of Agatha was located about 200 miles (320 kilometers) west-southwest of Puerto Angel, with winds of 85 mph (140 kph).
It was heading to the north-northwest at 2 mph (4 kph) and was forecast to be near major hurricane status before making landfall. A hurricane warning was in effect between the port of Salina Cruz and the Lagunas de Chacahua.
The civil defense office in Oaxaca said the hurricane’s outer bands were already hitting the coast. The office published photos of fishermen hauling their boats up on beaches to protect them from the storm.
The government’s Mexican Turtle Center — a former slaughterhouse turned conservation center in Mazunte — announced it was closed to visitors until further notice because of the hurricane.
The Hurricane Center warned of dangerous costal flooding, as well as large and destructive waves near where Agatha makes landfall and destructive waves.
The storm was expected to bring 10 to 16 inches (250 to 400 millimeters) of rain to parts of Oaxaca state — with isolated maximums of 20 inches (500 millimeters) — posing the threat of flash flooding and mudslides.
Because the storm’s current path would carry it over the narrow waist of Mexico’s isthmus, the center said there was a chance the storm’s remnants could reemerge over the Gulf of Mexico.
In northern Guatemala, a woman and her six children died Saturday when a landslide engulfed their home, but the accident did not appear to be related to Agatha.
Crypto volatility is nerve-wracking, and it may not be over yet. The turmoil may make crypto investors and crypto-related businesses less enthusiastic than when prices seemed ever to be climbing. With the market falling off a cliff, there will be big losses to claim on your taxes, right? Not necessarily. As your United States dollars shake out in the digital world, it is worth asking whether there is any lemonade you can make by claiming losses on your taxes.
First, ask what happened from a tax viewpoint. If you’ve been trading and triggering big taxable gains, but then the floor drops out, first consider whether you can pay your taxes for the gains you have already triggered this year. Taxes are annual and generally based on a calendar year unless you have properly elected otherwise. Start with the proposition that each time you sell or exchange a cryptocurrency for cash, another cryptocurrency, or for goods or services, the transaction is considered a taxable event.
That is a result of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service’s shot heard ‘round the world in Notice 2014-21 when the IRS announced that crypto is property for tax purposes. Not currency, not securities, but property, so most any transaction means the IRS wants you to report gain or loss.
Before 2018, many crypto investors claimed that crypto-to-crypto exchanges were tax-free. But that argument was based on section 1031 of the tax code. It was a good argument, depending on the facts and the reporting. But that argument went away starting in 2018. Section 1031 of the tax code now says it applies to swaps of real estate only.
The IRS is auditing some pre-2018 crypto taxpayers and, so far, doesn’t appear to like the 1031 argument, even before 2018. The IRS even released one piece of guidance saying that tax-free crypto exchanges don’t work. We may need a court case to resolve it if the IRS pushes it that far. After all, it only applies to 2017 and prior years, so it’s of diminishing importance.
But regardless of whether you use crypto to pay someone, swap crypto, or outright sell it, do you have gains or losses? For most people, gains or losses would be subject to short-term or long-term capital gains/losses based on the basis (what you paid for the crypto), holding period, and the price at which the cryptocurrency was sold or exchanged. Yet some people may have ordinary gains or losses, and that topic is worth revisiting. Are you trading in crypto as a business?
Most investors want long-term capital gains rates on gains if they buy and hold for more than a year. However, ordinary income treatment could be helpful for some, at least for losses. Securities traders can make a section 475 mark-to-market election under the tax code, but does that work for crypto? It’s not clear. To qualify, one must argue that the crypto constitutes securities or commodities.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has argued that some cryptocurrencies are securities, and there may be arguments for commodity characterization, too. It’s at least worth considering in some cases. However, in addition to establishing a position that a digital currency is a security or commodity, you would need to qualify as a trader in order to make a mark-to-market election. Whether one’s activities constitute “trading” as opposed to “investing” is a key issue in determining whether one is eligible to make a mark-to-market election.
The IRS lists details about who is a trader, usually characterized by high volume and short-term holding, although sometimes investing and trading might look rather similar.
If crypto turns out to be eligible for mark-to-market and if you qualify and elect it, you could mark to market your securities or commodities on the last business day of the year. Any gain or loss would be ordinary income, and gains, too. A benefit would be that the cumbersome process of tracking the date and time that each crypto was acquired and identifying the crypto you sold would not be required.
For most people, this election, if available, likely won’t make any sense, but as with so much else in the crypto tax world, much is uncertain. In the past, some drops in crypto value have been called a “flash crash,” an event in electronic securities markets where the withdrawal of stock orders rapidly amplifies price declines, and then quickly recovers. In the case of stock, the SEC voted on June 10, 2010, to enact rules to automatically stop trading on any stock in the S&P 500 whose price changes by more than 10% in any five-minute period.
A stop-loss order directs a broker to sell at the best price available if the stock reaches a specified price. Some people use the same idea with crypto. Some even want to buy the crypto back after a sale, and with crypto, you can do that. In contrast, with stock, there are wash sale rules, which restrict selling (to trigger losses) and buying back stock within 30 days. There are no wash sale rules for crypto, so you can sell your crypto and buy it right back without a 30-day waiting period.
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.
The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
Robert W. Wood is a tax lawyer representing clients worldwide from the office of Wood LLP in San Francisco, where he is a managing partner. He is the author of numerous tax books and frequently writes about taxes for Forbes, Tax Notes and other publications.
Rocksteady’s last game, Batman: Arkham Knight, released in 2015, which means it has been seven years since we played a new Rocksteady game. In video game time, that is an eternity. As a four-player co-op shooter, Suicide Squad is a big departure from its previous single-player action games, but we’re excited to see the studio tackle something new… even if it is taking place in a familiar universe.
Task Force X is either looking at a bird or a plane. There is nothing else it could be.
As we head into Summer Game Fest and all the various Not-E3 summer events, we decided to check in on Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and outline everything we know about the game ahead of its 2023 release.
Release date
Despite the game’s announcement and follow-up trailers boldly proclaiming a 2022 release window, Rocksteady announced earlier this year that it had made the “difficult decision”to push the game to 2023. On Steam, Suicide Squad is listed with a vague 2023 release date. On the PlayStation Store, the section of the page that would typically feature a release date simply displays the word, “Announced”.
Captain Boomerang calls The Flash Barry in one the trailer implying that his identity is widely known.
What we know
Suicide Squad is four-player co-op shooter that takes place after the events of the Batman Arkham trilogy of games and is set in Superman’s Metropolis. Following the city being taken over by Brainiac, high-ranking government official Amanda Waller assembes Task Force X, using Arkham Asylum as her base of operations. Waller then recruits Arkham’s most menacing minds to enter the invaded city and kill the members of the Justice League, most of whom appear to be under the control of Brainiac.
Purple eyes are not a good thing in Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League
Task Force X is staffed by Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Deadshot, and King Shark. Waller has ordered them, under threat of blowing up their heads, to kill the Justice League, which is currently composed of Superman, The Flash, Green Lantern, and potentially more. Wonder Woman is also present, but the footage shared in various trailers hints that she is not under the control of Brainiac. In fact, she is briefly seen fighting Superman in the most recent trailer for the game.
We still haven’t gotten a very good look at Wonder Woman, even after three trailers.
A few other characters have been shown, like Gizmo, the Teen Titans antagonist, and Oswald “The Penguin” Cobblepot with his broken glass bottle monocle from the Arkham games. There are a few references to Batman in the trailers even though he hasn’t actually physically appeared. After the events of Arkham Knight, it’s entirely possible that he is dead after enacting the Knightfall Protocol and blowing up Wayne Manor.
It’s not yet clear if Nolan North will be reprising his role as The Penguin.
The gameplay we’ve seen so far places an emphasis on cooperation, movement, and shooting. Harley Quinn uses a hookshot that attaches to floating bat-shaped platforms. Captain Boomerang uses some kind of warping technology to zip around the environment. Deadshot uses a jetpack to fly that can also be used as an offensive weapon. King Shark can jump incredible distances and also scale walls at high speed. Using all these abilities in tandem, the team has been shown fighting Brainiac’s invading alien army.
Amanda Waller is borrowing the likeness and voice of Debra Wilson, who also played Waller in Telltale’s Batman games, The Enemy Within.
The trailer features a few other teases, as well. There is a single shot of a vehicle with a bat symbol on the front shown driving through the city. It’s not the Batmobile, at least not one that has been in the Arkham games, but it does hint at the potential of driving to move around Metropolis.
It looks like someone stole the Bat Signal from Gotham.
What we want
Primarily, the main thing we want from Suicide Squad is a new Rocksteady game. The developer has proven itself multiple times over by creating not only some of the best licensed games ever, but also some of the best games ever. Its Batman Arkham trilogy is an undeniable showcase of technical know-how, game design, and fun storytelling. Our hopes for Suicide Squad is that it meets the high standards the studio has set for itself with its past games.
In the top left of this image, you can see Green Lantern’s symbol.
Rocksteady has confirmed Suicide Squad does take place inside its established Arkham Universe and we hope it acknowledges the groundwork it laid for its Batman games and picks up where Arkham Knight left off. It may be following new characters in a new city, but hopefully it doesn’t undo some of its boldest narrative decisions, like killing the Joker and leaving Batman and Alfred’s fate up in the air with Arkham Knight’s cliffhanger ending.
Superman is always showing off.
In the long term, we’d like to see more members of Suicide Squad be playable characters (Peacemaker is so hot right now) as well as new opponents to fight (what about Aquaman?). We also hope it is fun to play whether you’re alone, or with others.
Gizmo usually fights the Teen Titans. Fighting the Justice League could be considered an upgrade.
Platforms
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is releasing for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. It was never officially announced for PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, but rumors and reporting prior to its official debut say that a last-gen version was in development at one time before they were abandoned and it became an exclusively next-gen title.
PC system specs
The game’s Steam page does not currently offer any details about system specs, but considering it will not be releasing for the previous generation of home consoles, it’s safe to assume it will be demanding.
Trailers
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Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League – Official Cinematic Reveal Trailer
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The third trailer is the most dense and offers the most insight into the game’s story showing off characters like Amanda Waller and Gizmo, as well as the main Suicide Squad cast and the majority of the Justice League. This is the trailer that makes it the most clear that Wonder Woman is not under Brainiac’s control.
Multiplayer details
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is a four-player co-op game, but Rocksteady has assured the game can be played single-player. It’s unlikely the game will offer split-screen, but Rocksteady has neither confirmed nor denied this feature.
It’s important that you check if the eyes are purple before you start throwing punches.
Price and Preorder details
There is currently no way to pre-order the game either through retailers or through first-party platforms. On Steam and the PlayStation Store you can only add the game to your wishlist. There is no store page for the game on Xbox yet.
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