Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the long-known-about sequel to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, has finally been announced. We discuss what we want to see out of Respawn’s upcoming next-gen sequel. Plus: lamenting the very serious reason for the latest Xbox exclusive to get delayed, I gush over Ninja Gaiden as the entire series hits Xbox Game Pass, and more!
Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, to our YouTube channel, or grab an MP3 download of this week’s episode. In honor of my 10th anniversary at IGN, check out one of my favorite pieces in my decade here: Podcast Unlocked 201, featuring original Xbox creator Seamus Blackley, Xbox 360-era boss Peter Moore, and current Head of Xbox Phil Spencer:
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
JERUSALEM — Government ministers from Israel and the United Arab Emirates signed a free-trade agreement on Tuesday that, once ratified, would be the widest-ranging deal of its kind between Israel and an Arab country and the latest example of deepening ties between the Jewish state and some Arab governments.
The text of the deal has yet to be published and is still subject to review by the Israeli Parliament and formal ratification by the Israeli government, a process that will take at least two weeks. But officials said that once confirmed, the agreement would loosen restrictions on almost all trade between the two countries and could increase its annual value 10-fold within five years.
The speed at which the deal took shape — it was sealed less than two years since the establishment of formal ties between Israel and the Emirates — highlights the readiness with which Israel is now being accepted by some Arab leaders after years of diplomatic isolation.
For decades, Israel was ostracized by all but two Arab countries, with the others mostly avoiding formal diplomatic relations with it because of the lack of resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
That changed in 2020, when Israel, in four agreements brokered by the Trump administration, established diplomatic relations with Bahrain and the U.A.E., re-established them with Morocco and improved relations with Sudan.
The agreements reflected a shift in priorities by those countries, which now consider the creation of a Palestinian state of less immediate importance than building a united front against the threat of Iran and establishing better trade and military ties with Israel.
The trade deal signed Tuesday in Dubai by the Israeli and Emirati economy ministers — Orna Barbivay and Abdulla bin Touq al-Marri — is the most substantive consequence of those agreements.
The deal will lead to the removal of tariffs on 96 percent of goods traded between the two countries within five years, both ministries said.
Bilateral trade was worth $885 million in 2021, the Israeli economy ministry said. The free trade agreement may allow the annual value of trade to rise to $10 billion within five years, the Emirati economy ministry said.
The Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, described the deal as “historic,” and said that the negotiations, which began around the time of Mr. Bennett’s visit to the Emirates last December, led to “the fastest F.T.A. to be signed in Israel’s history.”
Mohamed Al Khaja, the Emirati ambassador to Israel, called it “an unprecedented achievement.”
According to the Israeli government, the deal will enhance the trade of medicine, medical equipment, food, plastic goods and fertilizer, as well as Israeli jewelry.
The deal will also improve bilateral cooperation over intellectual property rights, copyright and patents, particularly in the technology and agriculture sectors. It could also help Israeli and Emirati companies compete for government contracts in either country, the Israeli statement said.
The deal follows several other milestones in the relationship between Israel and its new Arab partners.
Mr. Bennett and several of his ministers have met their counterparts in the U.A.E. and Bahrain — visits that were once considered unthinkable — and some ministers have also visited Morocco. Those warming ties have also bolstered Israel’s relationship with Egypt, its oldest Arab partner. Egypt and Israel sealed a peace deal in 1979 but avoided establishing a warm relationship until the recent thaw between Israel, the Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.
In a sign of improving ties between Israel and Egypt, Mr. Bennett met in March in Egypt with both Mohammed bin Zayed, the Emirati leader, and the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi — another summit that would have been hard to imagine before 2020.
Israel has also signed provisional defense agreements with the Bahraini and Moroccan defense ministries, making it easier for their armies to coordinate and trade military equipment. And in a highly symbolic meeting in March, the foreign ministers of Israel, Egypt, Bahrain, Morocco, the U.A.E. and the United States gathered in southern Israel, at the retirement home of Israel’s founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion.
Jews living in the Emirates are also observing their religious traditions increasingly openly. Community leaders estimate that the number of resident observant Jews in Dubai has doubled, to 500, in the last year, and at least five kosher restaurants have opened in that time.
The Miami Heat’s challenging Game 7 loss will be tough to swallow for quite some time. The biggest ” what if ” for Coach Erik Spoelstra and his staff won’t just be about Jimmy Butler’s pull-up triple with less than 10 seconds to go on the clock. The question will also be reserved for Max Strus’ momentum-changing overturning three-pointer in the third quarter.
The controversial call came nearly a minute into the third frame. Strus knocked down a corner three-ball to cut Boston’s lead to 56-54. After the Celtics went on a run, League officials at the NBA replay center in Secaucus, New Jersey, elected to overturn the ball because Strus’ heel was out of bounds on the ball. The call left Spoelstra “in shock” as Miami’s points were taken off the board.
“I was in shock,” Spoelstra said. “I was asking [assistant coach] [Chris Quinn] about that. The fact that it happened three to four, five minutes in-game time, that does change the context of how you’re playing. We were starting to gain some momentum. You feel like it’s a seven-, eight-point game, and you look up, and it’s a 13-point game, and there’s no other explanation for it other than it’s gone back to the league offices. You feel like if it happens like that, it should happen immediately, and you can adjust accordingly.”
Although the call was a major source of frustration, Spoelstra repeatedly reiterated that the overturned play wasn’t the reason Miami lost.
“Look, that’s not the reason we lost,” he said. “We still had plenty of opportunities. We just couldn’t get control of the game. A lot of that was Boston. We didn’t stop grinding, and we gave ourselves a shot at it at the end. We just couldn’t make enough plays during the course of the game. It felt like most of the game we were grinding from an eight-to-10-point deficit.”
However, because of the nature of the game and how high-profile the controversial the call was, Spoelstra knows it will be discussed at future League meetings.
“I’m sure they will look at that, and we’ll probably be the case study for it,” Spoelstra said. “I’m OK if it happens the way it used to. They would look at it at the next foul or break and look at it and notice it, but it was probably 10 minutes of real-time — somebody check on that.
“I’m not crying or whining. Come on; we got beat. This was two competitive teams going at it. We had a crack at it at the end. Even as uneven as the game seemed, we had a crack at it. Our guys are never going to, like, not think we have a chance at it.”
After Strus’ three was waved off, Miami still had a chance to win in the waning seconds after cutting a seven-point deficit to two with just over a minute to go. Butler’s potential game-winner was shot, and Boston iced their 100-96 win with two free throws from Defensive Player of the Year winner Marcus Smart.
In the aftermath, Spoelstra had no issue with the best player on the Heat taking the possible game-winner, calling it a clean look and “better than anything we could have designed.”
Butler played all 48 minutes of the win-or-go-home Game 7 tilt, finishing with 35 points and nine rebounds.
“My thought process was go for the win,” Butler said. “Which I did. Missed a shot. But I’m taking that shot. My teammates liked the shot that I took. So I’m living with it.”
As tough as it is for Miami, their season is finished. Boston and the Golden State Warriors take center stage for Thursday’s Game 1 of the NBA Finals. The Warriors will host Game 1 of the series at the Chase Center in San Francisco.
The Miami Heat’s challenging Game 7 loss will be tough to swallow for quite some time. The biggest ” what if ” for Coach Erik Spoelstra and his staff won’t just be about Jimmy Butler’s pull-up triple with less than 10 seconds to go on the clock. The question will also be reserved for Max Strus’ momentum-changing overturning three-pointer in the third quarter.
The controversial call came nearly a minute into the third frame. Strus knocked down a corner three-ball to cut Boston’s lead to 56-54. After the Celtics went on a run, League officials at the NBA replay center in Secaucus, New Jersey, elected to overturn the ball because Strus’ heel was out of bounds on the ball. The call left Spoelstra “in shock” as Miami’s points were taken off the board.
“I was in shock,” Spoelstra said. “I was asking [assistant coach] [Chris Quinn] about that. The fact that it happened three to four, five minutes in-game time, that does change the context of how you’re playing. We were starting to gain some momentum. You feel like it’s a seven-, eight-point game, and you look up, and it’s a 13-point game, and there’s no other explanation for it other than it’s gone back to the league offices. You feel like if it happens like that, it should happen immediately, and you can adjust accordingly.”
Although the call was a major source of frustration, Spoelstra repeatedly reiterated that the overturned play wasn’t the reason Miami lost.
“Look, that’s not the reason we lost,” he said. “We still had plenty of opportunities. We just couldn’t get control of the game. A lot of that was Boston. We didn’t stop grinding, and we gave ourselves a shot at it at the end. We just couldn’t make enough plays during the course of the game. It felt like most of the game we were grinding from an eight-to-10-point deficit.”
However, because of the nature of the game and how high-profile the controversial the call was, Spoelstra knows it will be discussed at future League meetings.
“I’m sure they will look at that, and we’ll probably be the case study for it,” Spoelstra said. “I’m OK if it happens the way it used to. They would look at it at the next foul or break and look at it and notice it, but it was probably 10 minutes of real-time — somebody check on that.
“I’m not crying or whining. Come on; we got beat. This was two competitive teams going at it. We had a crack at it at the end. Even as uneven as the game seemed, we had a crack at it. Our guys are never going to, like, not think we have a chance at it.”
After Strus’ three was waved off, Miami still had a chance to win in the waning seconds after cutting a seven-point deficit to two with just over a minute to go. Butler’s potential game-winner was shot, and Boston iced their 100-96 win with two free throws from Defensive Player of the Year winner Marcus Smart.
In the aftermath, Spoelstra had no issue with the best player on the Heat taking the possible game-winner, calling it a clean look and “better than anything we could have designed.”
Butler played all 48 minutes of the win-or-go-home Game 7 tilt, finishing with 35 points and nine rebounds.
“My thought process was go for the win,” Butler said. “Which I did. Missed a shot. But I’m taking that shot. My teammates liked the shot that I took. So I’m living with it.”
As tough as it is for Miami, their season is finished. Boston and the Golden State Warriors take center stage for Thursday’s Game 1 of the NBA Finals. The Warriors will host Game 1 of the series at the Chase Center in San Francisco.
“It is imperative that this Council lend its full weight to ongoing regional efforts to defuse the situation and bring an end to the M23 insurgency, once and for all,” said Martha Pobee, an Assistant Secretary-General for the UN’s political affairs and peace operations, covering Africa.
Call to disarm
Civilians are paying a heavy price in the violence, she said, citing information from the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA. Some 75,000 people were displaced in fighting last week in North Kivu province, while another 11,577 have crossed the border into Uganda.
Two peacekeepers with the UN’s Mission in the country, MONUSCO, suffered minor injuries in the hostilities, while at least 16 Congolese soldiers were killed and 22 wounded.
The UN and key regional and international partners have unanimously called for the M23 to lay down their weapons and join the process for disarming and demobilizing combatants.
Ms. Pobee told ambassadors she was encouraged that the DRC and Rwanda have decided to refer to a verification mechanism under the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), known as the EJVM, to investigate reports of human and material damage caused by explosive ordinance originating from across their respective borders on 23 May.
Dialogue indispensable
The head of the African Union has also called the leaders of two countries to press for calm and a peaceful resolution of any disagreements.
“Indeed, every effort should be made to ensure the parties make full use of existing mechanisms, such as the EJVM, which play an essential role in maintaining the climate of trust and cooperation that remains essential to effectively tackle the common security challenges facing the DRC and its neighbors,” Ms. Pobee told ambassadors.
“Continued dialogue between the concerned governments remains indispensable to avoid a further escalation of violence in eastern DRC.”
Video player
Prevent another crisis
The UN’s Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region, Huang Xia, addressed the Council by videoconference.
Speaking in French, he said the situation today was reminiscent of the M23’s operations nearly a decade ago, when the group seized the city of Goma, capital of North Kivu province.
He urged ambassadors to do everything to avert escalation and another crisis which would have immeasurable humanitarian and political consequences for the region.
Mr. Huang said eradication of armed groups in the eastern DRC requires a comprehensive approach, particularly in the context of the M23 resurgence and persistent insecurity.
However, he was convinced the “military option” alone will not be enough, underlining his Office’s ongoing efforts towards engagement.
He also stressed the importance of continued high-level dialogue among regional leaders, and emphasized the need to continue mobilization of bilateral and regional mechanisms, including the ICGLR and the Nairobi Conclave political process.
The UN envoy is embarking on a mission to all concerned countries in the region starting tomorrow, delivering a message that is threefold and simple.
“My message to the countries in the region is as follows,” he said. “The region doesn’t need a new crisis; let’s keep the channels of dialogue open at all levels, including at the community level; and help preserve the progress achieved in the recent years thanks to the various cooperation mechanisms.”
Liverpool are open to offers for three players this summer, it has been reported.
The headline news coming out of Liverpool following their Champions League final defeat is that Sadio Mane is eyeing an exit from the club. This comes with Mane having just one year left to run on his current deal.
Outside of Mane though, it appears another three players could be sold by the Merseysiders this summer.
As per Goal: “Divock Origi is leaving for AC Milan, while offers will be heard for Takumi Minamino, and for Nat Phillips and Neco Williams, who enjoyed successful loan spells in the Championship during the second half of the season.”
🚨 NEW: Offers will be heard for Takumi Minamino, Nat Phillips and Neco Williams this summer. #awlive [neil jones – goal]
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Phillips featured 17 times for AFC Bournemouth as they secured a swift return to the Premier League, finishing 2021/22 with the best defence in the Championship.
Neco Williams was also involved in a promotion-winning campaign, featuring 14 times, scoring twice and assisting two for Championship winners, Fulham.
And given both Bournemouth and Fulham will now be looking to sure up their squad as they prepare to try and stave off relegation, it may be fairly easy for Liverpool to offload said players to the newly-promoted teams.
As for Minamino, he is a useful squad player for the Reds, but doesn’t really have the quality to be playing regularly for a side such as Liverpool.
We’ve ranked the best 75 individual season teams ever, which is featured in our SLAM’s TOP 75 NBA Teams of All Time special issue. This week, we’re unveiling which squads made it on our top 10. To find out who else made it on the list, read here.
7. 1990-91 Chicago Bulls
Coach: Phil Jackson
Record: 61-21
Roster: BJ Armstrong, Bill Cartwright, Horace Grant, Craig Hodges, Dennis Hopson, Michael Jordan, Stacey King, Cliff Levingston, John Paxson, Will Perdue, Scottie Pippen, Scott Williams
Even if you’re old enough to remember this team, it’s nearly impossible to remember the baggage that Michael Jordan carried into the 1990s. Emerging from the NBA’s greatest decade, the era in which Doc, Magic and Bird took the League from afterthought to marquee act, Jordan was clearly the guy poised to take the League to the next level. He already owned an MVP award and a handful of the most eye-popping stat lines since Oscar Robertson had averaged a triple-double. Jordan was the present and the future. He was a phenomenon.
The problem was that, by the standards of his immediate predecessors, he just wasn’t a winner.
The ’90-91 season would be Jordan’s seventh in the League; by the time Bird and Magic tipped off their seventh seasons, both had a pair of championship rings. And of course, Jordan’s hated rival in Detroit, Isiah Thomas, had just led the Pistons to their second straight title, dispatching MJ and the Bulls along the way. It’s not that Jordan appeared to lack any of the qualities necessary to lead a team to a title; it’s simply that he hadn’t yet managed to do it. The narrative is the narrative. You’re not a winner until you win.
As so often happens, Jordan and the Bulls taking that last step to glory was less a question of dramatic change than it was evolution. Fourth-year forward Scottie Pippen was already one of the League’s best two-way players—he was an All-Star the season before—and he nudged his averages upward across the board (17.8 ppg, 7.3 rpg, 6.2 apg, 2.4 spg) despite playing slightly fewer minutes. Jordan himself posted his lowest ppg (still an NBA-best 31.5) in five years. As much as anything, the Bulls’ two most important players were more efficient, more dialed in, focused on a singular goal.
It wasn’t only Mike and Scottie, of course: Horace Grant averaged 12.8 ppg and 8.4 rpg, Bill Cartwright was a sturdy veteran post presence, and guards BJ Armstrong and John Paxson knew their roles. Together, they cruised to and then through the playoffs, rolling the Knicks, the Sixers and—most satisfyingly—the Pistons en route to a Finals date with the Lakers. When James Worthy and Byron Scott went down with injuries, any chance of a competitive series was lost, but it likely wouldn’t have changed the outcome. Showtime was done, and so was that silly narrative about Michael Jordan.
May was an incredibly challenging month for the cryptocurrency market as a majority of tokens booked heavy losses as a bear market was confirmed, but not every project dropped back to pre-bull market lows.
Chain (XCN), a protocol designed to help organizations launch their own blockchain network or connect with other more established networks, managed to rally more than 120% since May 19.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that since hitting a low of $0.0712 on May 11, XCN reversed course to hit a record-high at at $0.176 on May 31.
XCN/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
Three reasons for the strong showing from XCN include multiple exchange listings, launching on BNB Smart Chain (BSC) and several notable partnerships, including a long-standing collaboration with the Stellar Foundation.
Exchange listings pump up the volume
In March 2022, Chain deployed a new smart contract for its token and rebranded from CHN to XCN. Following the rebrand, XCN listed at KuCoin and subsequent listings on Huobi, Gate, Bitrue and Hotbit were accompanied by sharp upticks in trading volume.
Several of the supporting exchanges have also launched perpetual contracts for the XCN token including Gate, Huobi, ByBit and Poloniex, which has helped generate an increased awareness for the project and initially led to a spike in trading volume.
XCN is also part of a cross-chain integration with BNB Smart Chain and this allows for inexpensive token transfers and trading on PancakeSwap where holders can earn yield for providing liquidity to the exchange.
Following the integration with the BSC, the price of XCN rallied from $0.0712 on May 11 to $0.14 over the next week.
Since 2014, Chain has had several notable partnerships and funding rounds, including an initial fundraise of over $40 million from Khosla Ventures, Pantera Capital, Capital One, Citigroup, Fiserv, Nasdaq, Orange and Visa.
In 2018, the project was acquired and became part of the commercial arm of the Stellar Foundation known as Interstellar. Chain was reacquired in 2020 as part of a ledger-as-a-service platform called Sequence.
It’s possible the recent developments with the Stellar protocol, including its partnership with MoneyGram to create a stablecoin-based platform for money transfers, could have positive effects on the price of XCN due to their close ties.
In April 2022, Chain also announced a strategic partnership with Alameda Research which established the private equity and quantitative cryptocurrency trading firm as Chain’s primary market maker. While none of these partnerships appear significant enough to explain XCN’s current gains, it is notable that the altcoin’s price action has diverged from the wider crypto market for nearly an entire month.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
He also appeared to be wearing a period costume featuring an oversized button-up shirt and high-waisted trousers.
“omg” commented his Riverdale co-starVanessa Morgan, while photographer Damon Barker joked, “I can smell you from here.”
Another follower quipped that the actor seemed to be serving up a pandemic-inspired vibes, writing, “Jesus I didn’t realize we’d been in lockdown this long.”
No word on whether Cole’s scraggly makeover is for a new film or TV project, however he did recently say he was ready to move on from Riverdale and “wrap it up with a bow.”
“I’m not a creative force behind [the show],” he told GQ magazine in March. “I actually have no creative control. We show up, receive the scripts often the day of, and we’re asked to shoot.”
The awards for the 2021/22 Champions League were handed out on Tuesday, May 31.
Real Madrid saw off Liverpool in this year’s final to clinch a record 14th Champions League trophy, with the Spanish giants now having double the silverware of their closest rival, AC Milan.
As a result of their victory over Liverpool, it was not too surprising to see Real dominate the Champions League Team of the Season.
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Karim Benzema, Vinicius Junior, Luka Modric and Thibaut Courtois were named in the XI along with four Liverpool stars, Antonio Rudiger of Chelsea, Kevin De Bruyne of Manchester City and Kylian Mbappe of PSG:
👕 UEFA’s Technical Observer panel has selected its 2021/22 UEFA Champions League Team of the Season 🙌#UCLpic.twitter.com/I8t9T6uM5R
— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) May 31, 2022
Elsewhere, Real Madrid saw Karim Benzema named Player of the Tournament and Vinicius Junior Young Player of the Tournament.
Benzema also finished 2021/22 with the most Champions League goals:
The only award not given out on Tuesday was the Champions League Goal of the Season.
Instead, a 10-man shortlist was shared by UEFA on Tuesday and fans can vote for their favourite strike here.
Among the goals were Alex Telles’ volley vs Villarreal and Lionel Messi’s sensational solo effort vs Manchester City.
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