Spain refuses to apologise for conquering Mexico five hundred years ago

April 4, 2019 | News | No Comments

Spain’s government has refused a demand from Mexico’s new president that it apologise for conquering the country five hundred years ago.

Firing the first shots in what threatens to become a diplomatic row, the Left-wing Mexican leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced on Monday that he had sent letters to Spain’s King Felipe VI and Pope Francis urging them to apologize for crimes committed against the indigenous peoples of what is today Mexico.

“There were massacres and oppression. The so-called conquest was waged with the sword and the cross. They built their churches on top of the temples,” Mr López Obrador said in a video message.

He filmed the clip at a Mayan monument near the site of the first battle in which Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés fought indigenous people 500 years ago this month.

Starting from the Tabasco coast and assisted by some indigenous groups who threw in their lot with the invaders, Cortés led a squadron of soldiers eastwards to victory in Tenochtitlan – today’s Mexico City – two years later in 1521. The Aztec empire was destroyed and the indigenous populations were converted to Catholicism.

At a speech to supporters later on Monday, Mr López Obrador said he wanted to reconcile Mexico, the Spanish crown and the Vatican by “together reviewing the history of that military invasion and three centuries of colonisation”.

Mr López Obrador said it was time to bury the Spanish interpretation of the events of 500 years ago as “a meeting of two cultures”, adding that “thousands of indigenous people were murdered”.

Hours after the Mexican leader’s message was posted on social media, the Spanish government issued a statement saying it “deeply regretted” that Mr López Obrador had made public the contents of the letter he had sent to Spain’s king – “the contents of which we reject in the most strenuous terms”.

“The arrival of Spaniards in what are now Mexican lands 500 years ago cannot be judged in the light of contemporary thinking. Our peoples have always been able to interpret our shared past without anger and with a constructive perspective,” the Spanish government’s reply read, adding that “there is a great store of affection” between Spaniards and Mexicans.

Historians from both countries were quick to add nuance to Mr López Obrador’s interpretation of the conquest as a battle between evil Spaniards and innocent Mexicans.

“It’s a distortion of historical reality, a manipulation and a political use of history”, Dr Alfredo Ávila from the National Autonomous University of Mexico told the newspaper El País.

“It was a military conquest with all the damage that comes with that, but in the three centuries of subjugation there were times of both cooperation and of resistance,” said Professor Carlos Martínez Shaw of Spain’s history academy.

A month away from a general election, Spanish politicians offered divergent responses. Ione Belarra, a spokeswoman for the Left-wing Podemos, said the Mexican president was right to ask Spain’s king to apologise for the conquest of Mexico, adding that her party is offering the “recovery of democratic and colonial memory that rehabilitates victims”.

But for the leader of Spain’s conservative opposition Popular Party, Pablo Casado, the Mexican demand constitutes “a scandalous degree of ignorance and a genuine offence to Spain and its history”.

Sign up for your essential, twice-daily briefing from The Telegraph with our free Front Page newsletter.

By Tncse

Canada's Wonderland's Yukon Striker Will Be World's 'Longest, Fastest And Tallest Dive Roller Coaster'

April 4, 2019 | News | No Comments

VAUGHAN, Ont. — Canada’s Wonderland says the amusement park north of Toronto will feature a record-setting roller coaster when it opens for the 2019 season.

It’s called the Yukon Striker, which Canada’s Wonderland bills as the “longest, fastest and tallest dive roller coaster in the world.”

The park says it will be the first such dive coaster in Canada and the 17th at the centre in Vaughan, Ont., placing it among the world’s top three amusement parks with the most roller coasters.

Yukon Striker will zip along more than 1,100 metres of mountainous track and include a 90-degree, 75-metre drop into an underwater tunnel.

Canada’s Wonderland says the Yukon Striker will claim several world records, including the longest, tallest and fastest dive coaster at 130 kilometres per hour.

The ride will be part of the park’s Frontier Canada section, which will depict the Yukon backcountry during the Klondike Gold Rush era of the late 1890s.

By Tncse

General Motors' Pullout Will Scar Cities At The Street Level

April 4, 2019 | News | No Comments

This week General Motors announced the closure of assembly plants including Oshawa (Ont.), Lordstown (Ohio) and Detroit-Hamtramck (Mich.) by the end of 2019, eliminating 6,200 jobs in the Great Lakes manufacturing region. While the sustained lows of the DOW industrial average could indicate GM is bracing itself for the possibility of a looming recession, the upcoming closures are part of a long cycle of the manufacturing sector flexing its mobility in the interest of profits over the long-term security of workers and the cities they call home.

GM executives announced that some workers on the U.S. side of the border will be given the option to relocate to other GM facilities. Plans are underway to increase production at GM’s Flint assembly where the company’s line of trucks is produced. GM has suggested that Flint, formerly known as “Vehicle City,” is one of the locations U.S. workers may opt for relocation. Ohio was one of the remaining Midwestern strongholds resisting anti-union legislation, though workers from the Lordstown assembly will be redirected into a right-to-work state to compete for jobs with laid-off Detroit-Hamtramck workers.

Despite the Oshawa Unifor local’s collective bargaining process with GM in 2016 — resulting in concessions on pensions in exchange for long-term investments to secure jobs — Canadian workers will not be relocated to GM’s two remaining Ontario sites in St. Catherines and Ingersoll.

When manufacturing jobs are relocated or eliminated, people suffer the consequences of unemployment. However, the loss of manufacturing also takes a deep toll on the cities manufacturers leave behind, producing neighbourhood disparity reflected in economic and subsequent racialized segregation and municipal disinvestment. We need only to look to the past to see how.

Auto towns: a cycle of boom and bust

Flint, once home to 220,000, offers a strong if overstated example. Today, Flint’s 102,400 remaining residents have sustained decades of automotive plant closures, the Great Recession and a $5.5-billion dollar reduction in state tax revenue once directed toward civic maintenance.

Worn from the impacts of automotive corporate disinvestment beginning in the 1970s and 30,000 job losses, residents of Flint have most recently endured further state disinvestment that contaminated the majority African American city’s water supply. The majority of Flint residents were without safe household drinking water for upwards of four years.

Since the water crisis, residents have been effectively restricted from moving away from Flint for lack of economic mobility due to racialized income disparity, and major decreases in property values resulting from surrounding vacant and blighted homes, ill-maintained infrastructure and deeply underfunded public services. The upcoming reorganization of GM workers to the Flint truck assembly plant is indicative of the increasing precariousness of once-stable manufacturing jobs, and the 21st-century re-emergence of the company town, caught in a cycle of boom to bust, to re-occupied homes in disinvested neighbourhoods.

In 1979, Detroit’s Chrysler-owned Dodge Main facility was shuttered. GM secured a land deal with the City of Detroit and State of Michigan and bought the plant in 1981. The purchasing agreement enacted eminent domain on 465 acres of Poletown, a densely populated neighbourhood of working-class Eastern European immigrants and African American autoworkers surrounding Dodge Main. In exchange for GM’s US$1 land purchase, the city demolished 1,500 homes, 16 churches, a hospital, 144 businesses and a school.

The demolition displaced 3,500 residents to enable GM’s development of the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly, coldly referred to as the Poletown Plant by residents. Razing Poletown was a futile effort that destroyed a neighbourhood in a nostalgic attempt to reproduce economic stability that was never secure to begin with.

The future of Oshawa

GM’s 100 years in Oshawa without a doubt provided a foundation for the city’s growth and regional economic stability within the Golden Horseshoe. Unlike Flint and Lordstown, Oshawa’s diversity of manufacturing in aerospace and robotics industries, food processing and chemical production will provide relative economic stability even with the loss of GM.

Laid-off GM employees who remain in Oshawa will have to find new employment in non-automotive industries within the city or relocate for work, though the city’s property market will not be implicated the way Lordstown, a strictly automotive economy, will be. To be clear, Oshawa’s housing market will continue to attract attention from prospective buyers priced out of buying in Toronto. The relative economic mobility afforded to those who sell their homes in Oshawa offers no room for comparing Oshawa with the deeply devalued housing markets in Detroit or Flint.

With Oshawa’s portfolio of manufacturers, the GM closures offers workers in this sector an opportunity to collectively organize for increased job security and community benefits that could secure a more equitable future for workers. In Detroit, for example, the 2016 implementation of a community benefits ordinance (CBO) ensured developers proactively negotiate with community members on terms of agreement before city council will approve development or major land sales. An Oshawa CBO agreement could include negotiating for corporate investment in public amenities, or the employment of impacted community members in a new development.

Unite auto workers across borders

These closures around the Great Lakes Region demonstrate a climate of fairweather manufacturing deeply unaccountable to organized labour and past government collaboration. The combination of state financial and corporate disinvestment that has increased unemployment and left municipal infrastructure crumbling or demolished is a devastating coupling of state and corporate partnership not to be overlooked.

To prevent further losses in the manufacturing sector, automotive workers need to demand legislation that socializes ownership of the sector and enables the cross-border organization of workers that reflects the multinational scale of the automotive industry. This requires provincial and federal cooperation with autoworkers and related unions, and would grow our public assets through the accumulation of manufacturing facilities, technology and property. After all, modern automotive production requires a regional manufacturing sector to build a car — not a single city or country.

Although decisions made by corporations like GM tend to be multinational in scope, the expansion of North America’s automotive manufacturers globally impacts workers most in their own communities, in Canada, the U.S., Mexico and overseas.

Strong government intervention that acknowledges the important role of manufacturing in building economically and socially sustainable communities is what workers need to cease the devastating effects of capital disinvestment in their cities, neighbourhoods and workplaces.

Have you been affected personally by this or another issue? Share your story on HuffPost Canada blogs. We feature the best of Canadian opinion and perspectives. Find out how to contribute here.

By Tncse

Irish jihadi bride Lisa Smith evacuated from Baghuz named as ex-soldier who served on Taoiseach’s private plane

April 4, 2019 | News | No Comments

A former Irish soldier who once worked on the official plane of the Irish Taoiseach has been captured by US-backed forces in Syria under suspicion of joining Isil.

Lisa Smith, a 37-year-old woman from Dundalk, was a member of the Irish Defence Force until 2011 but quit after converting to Islam and then moved to Syria in 2015 following the collapse of her marriage, according to Irish media reports.

She is reported to have been detained along with her two-year-old son by forces in northern Syria in recent days as US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces close in on the last scraps of territory held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

Members of Ms Smith’s family told the Irish Independent newspaper that Ms Smith had got in touch last month asking for money to aid her escape to Turkey, prompting them to reach out to the Irish government for help. “I just want to get her home,” the relative said.

The relative also identified Ms Smith to Irish police as the woman interviewed in Syria by ITV News on March 3 who had spoken with an Irish accent but claimed to be British, her face hidden by a niqab.

The paper said Ms Smith, who spent two years in the Irish Air Corps during Bertie Ahern’s tenure as Taoiseach, had met and married a British man in Syria who is believed to have died around two months ago.

In the ITV interview, Ms Smith said that Isil’s caliphate was “not over yet” but that supplies were running out in the groups last stronghold.

“The people don’t have food. They’re struggling, everything is expensive, so I don’t know how they’re going to keep living," she said.

"Morale is low, I suppose. Some are strong, it’s like any roller coaster of people. Some want to leave, some don’t. Some are hungry, some are not hungry. Some are tired, not tired."

She had previously spoken of converting to Islam in 2011, revealing she was previously a party girl who “did it all – the drink, drugs, smoking, everything”.

In her ITV interview last week she said explained her desire to join Isil: "No music, no smoking, no fighting, no drinking, no prostitution… you want a clean life like this, that is what you want, but sometimes it is not like this," she said.

The Irish Government said the it was “aware of reports of an Irish citizen detained in northern Syria” but declined to formally confirm her identity.

The Irish police confirmed it was aware of an Irish woman “who left Ireland 3 or 4 years ago having become radicalised. She was previously a member of the Irish Defence Forces”, but declined to confirm she was in custody.

The reported detention of Ms Smith emerged amid cross-party criticism of Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, after Kurdish officials confirmed that the three-week-old baby of the teenage British jihadi bride, Shamima Begum, had died this week.

Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, blamed Mr Javid’s decision to remove Ms Begum’s citizenship for the child’s death, accusing him of breaking international law and condemning the decision as “callous and inhumane”.

Phillip Lee, a Tory MP said the decision had been driven by populism and that the British government had failed in its moral responsibility to both mother and child.

“I was just troubled by the decision. It seemed driven by a sort of populism, not any principle I recognise,” he told the BBC’s Today programme.

The news of the death came as Ms Begum’s father Ahmed Ali offered an apology to the British public for his daughter’s decision to flee the country and join the terror group.

Speaking from his home in the village of Dovroy, in north-eastern Bangladesh, he told the BBC: "She has done wrong, I apologise to everyone as her father, to the British people, I am sorry for Shamima’s doing. I request to the British people, please forgive her."

Mr Ali said added he only visited London three or four months at a time and had no idea how his daughter had become radicalised. He urged the British government and public to "take her back and punish her if she had done any mistake".

Calm had fallen in the seige to take the last pocket of Isil’s Caliphate last night. Thousands of fighters and non-combatants remain inside the village of Baghuz, complicating plans to finally defeat the group, an SDF commander told The Sunday Telegraph.

Madani Ibrahim, an SDF field commander, said that intelligence gathered from surrendering Isil members this week suggests there are up 2,000 fighters and 6,000 women and children still living in the tiny triangle of land still controlled by the group.

"It there were no civilians it would take us three hours to finish all of this area. But there are civilians there and we don’t want to make any mistakes, because the world’s media will focus on the collateral damage," he said at a command post within sight of the Isil camp.

By Tncse

Get 15% off Everything on UK eBay: Nintendo Switch Console for £237.99

April 4, 2019 | News | No Comments

Want more deals? Join the IGN Deals Newsletter.

If you buy something through this post, IGN may get a share of the sale. For more, read our Terms of Use.

Like me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter for the latest deals.

Today’s Best Deals

PAGE UPDATED: 14:12PM. I’ll be updating this page with the best deals as soon as they come out, so make sure to check back more than once.

LIVE from 10AM: 15% off Everything at eBay UK Using Code: PRESENTS

Missed out on Black Friday deals? eBay UK has discounted everything by 15% on orders over £20 starting from 10AM this morning and ending at tomorrow midnight. We hand-picked the best deals, all of which beat Black Friday prices. For instance, during Black Friday sale Nintendo Switch standalone console was priced at £249.00. Today you can get it at just £237.99. Don’t forget to enter the code PRESENTS at checkout.

Head straight to eBay and use code PRESENTS to get 15% off everything

Alternatively, check my hand-picked deals below:

HOT: Nintendo Switch Neon Red/Neon Blue console – was £279.99, now £237.99
HOT: Nintendo Switch Console Pokémon Lets Go Pikachu Bundle with Poke Ball Plus – was £334.85, now £284.85
HOT: Nintendo Switch Console Pokémon Lets Go Eevee Bundle with Poke Ball Plus – was £334.85, now £284.85
HOT: Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4) – was £49.85, now £42.37
HOT: Red Dead Redemption 2 (Xbox One) – was £49.85, now £42.37
Nintendo Classic Mini NES – was £49.99. now £42.49
Sony Playstation Classic Mini – was £89.99, now £76.49
PS4 Pro 1TB Console & Red Dead Redemption 2 bundle – was £349.99, now £299.99
Nintendo Switch Super Mario Odyssey bundle – was £320.00, now £272.00
Xbox One S 1TB Battlefield V Deluxe Edition – was £199.99, now £170.00
Nintendo Switch Diablo III Limited Edition bundle – was £334.99, now £284.74
Sony PlayStation VR (PSVR) V2 with Camera, VR Worlds and Astro Bot – was £189.99, now £161.50
LEGO Super Heroes Flying Fox Batmobile Airlift Attack Playset 76087 – was £49.99, now £42.50
Forza Horizon 4 Xbox One – was £26.85, now £22.83
Mario Rabbids Kingdom Battle Gold Nintendo Switch game – was £25.99, now £22.10
Bang & Olufsen BeoPlay H9i Over-Ear headphones – was £324.99, now £276.24
DELL G5 15.6″ Intel Core i5 GTX 1060 gaming laptop 1TB HDD and 128GB SSD – was £899.00, now £849.00
Oculus Rift Virtual Reality headset – was £349.99, now £299.99

Editors notes: If you’re unsure whether a deal from eBay is good or not, you can find the product on Amazon and head over to CamelCamelCamel, which is an Amazon price tracker with price history charts that will show you the highest, average and lowest price of an item. Minimum spend is £20 and the maximum discount is £50. T&Cs apply.

Red Dead Redemption 2 Online Beta Now Live

Rockstar Games will begin inviting players into the online beta starting from 27th November, 2018. Those who buy/bought the Ultimate Edition of Red Dead Redemption 2 are able to play from 27th November 1:30PM UK time. From today, everyone who played the game on October 26th (launch day) will join them. On Thursday, those who played the game between October 26th and 29th (launch weekend) will be allowed to play until eventually, all players who own Red Dead Redemption 2 can join in.

IGN Exclusive: Red Dead Redemption 2: Ultimate Edition (PS4) for £83.40

Use our exclusive discount code IGN4 to instantly receive a redeemable digital key in your email for Red Dead Redemption 2: Ultimate Edition (Xbox One) for £73.22 and play the online beta as soon as it starts at 1:30PM. To put this deal in perspective, an Xbox One Digital Key for Red Dead Redemption 2: Ultimate Edition is currently listed for £89.99 at Amazon.

PS4 users, follow the steps (in order) below:

Purchase £50 PS Network Card for £45.44 w/ code IGN4
Purchase £25 PS Network Card for £22.97 w/ code IGN4
Login to PS4 here and redeem Network Card codes
Add £14.99 to your wallet and purchase Red Dead Redemption 2 from the PS Store for a total of £83.40.

Editors notes: You can also use our exclusive Cyber Week discount code IGN4 at SCDKey up until the end of November to get 4% off Digital PC and Xbox One games, Xbox Live and PlayStation Plus subscriptions, and more.

Amazon Exclusive: Red Dead Redemption 2 with Collectible SteelBook PS4 / Xbox One for under £50

If you can wait a couple of days to play the beta, then grab one of the cheaper alternatives below:

Red Dead Redemption 2 with Collectible SteelBook (PS4) – was £59.99, now £49.99
Red Dead Redemption 2 with Collectible Steelbook (Xbox One) – was £59.99, now £49.99

Today’s Best Deals

Get £15 Cashback at GAME with TopCashaback, Including Call of Duty: Black Ops 4

How does it work?

100% cashback up to £15 at GAME, means that TopCashback will refund 100% cashback up to £15 spends at GAME.
E.g. spend £49.99 on ‘CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS 4’ and get £15 cashback. Purchases over £15 will receive a maximum of £15 cashback.
The 100% cashback up to £15 at GAME offer end date is 02/12/2018 23:59.

How to receive cashback?

Sign up on the right of this page, once signed up you’ll be redirected to TopCashback’s offer page
On the offer page you will see the offer information, hit the “Get Cashback” button, you’ll then be redirected to GAME’s website .
Once on GAME’s website make your purchase as normal.
After you’ve made your purchase, you should see your cashback pending in your account within 1 week. Once payable you can withdraw the cashback to your bank account.

Half Price Audible Membership for 4 Months

4 Month Audible Membership for £3.99 per Month (usually £7.99 per Month)

Love books? With Audible it’s easy to tune into audiobooks wherever you are. By streaming or downloading books onto the free Audible app you will be able enjoy your favourite titles on the go, in your car or even at the gym. You can opt-out of this deal at any time.

Get 50% off an Audible Membership for 4 Months. Join Audible for just £3.99/month. Offer available until 14th December 2018.

3 Months of Amazon Music Unlimited for 99p (usually £23.97)

Amazon Music Unlimited is usually £9.99 a month, or £7.99 a month if you’re an Amazon Prime member, which means you’ll be saving a load of money with this Amazon Black Friday deal. Amazon Music Unlimited has 40 million songs in its arsenal, with new releases everyday from today’s most popular artists. By nature, the streaming service is compatible with Amazon’s smart speaker devices.

Get 3 Months of Amazon Music Unlimited for 99p. This is a limited time offer. The promotional offer of 3 months for £0.99 is valid from November 15, 2018 through January 2, 2019 and redeemable towards an Amazon Music Unlimited Individual Monthly Plan.

Free Currys PC World Voucher with Huawei Mate 20 Pro, P20 Pro or P20

Receive a complimentary Currys PC World gift card worth £40 when you purchase the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, P20 Pro or P20 on a pay monthly contract. To claim the voucher you will have to enter your email here before purchasing the contract. The further information on how to get your reward will be communicated to you via email and your contact details will not be stored or used for any other purpose. After you have competed this step, chose a mobile contract deal that is right for you.

Enter your email here for £40 Currys PC World voucher

Huawei Handset Deals at Carphone Warehouse:

Huawei Mate 20 Pro
Huawei P20 Pro
Huawei P20

Save on Amazon Devices

Even though Black Friday and Cyber Monday already ended, major retailers such as Amazon are still keeping some of their most popular items on sale. Check out the list of the best deals on Amazon devices.

Amazon Echo Speakers and Bundles:

Echo Dot (3. Gen.) – was £49.99, now £24.99
Echo (2. Gen.) – was £89.99, now £54.99
Amazon Echo Input, Black with Ultimate Ears MEGABOOM 3 Wireless Bluetooth Speaker, Night Black – was £204.98, now £169.99
Amazon Echo Input, Black + Ultimate Ears BOOM 3 Wireless Bluetooth Speaker, Night Black – was £164.98, now £129.99
Echo Dot 3rd Gen with Amazon Smart Plug Bundle – was £74.98, now £34.98
Echo with Amazon Smart Plug Bundle – was £114.98, now £64.98

Get up to 25% off TVs at Amazon

You can chose anything from 24-inch HD to 65-inch 4K Ultra HDR smart TVs, and more. Head to Amazon to view the full selection that includes popular brands, such as Hisense, Toshiba and Philips. If you want to have a look at more TV deals, check our roundup of the best Cyber Week TV deals here.

Hand-picked deals:

Philips 75″ 4K Ultra HD Smart TV with HDR Plus (2018 Model) – was £2,500.00, now £1,999.00
Philips 65″ 4K Ultra HD Smart TV with HDR Plus (2018 Model) – was £800.00, now £599.00
Philips 50″ 4K Ultra HD Smart TV with HDR Plus (2018 Model) – was £450.00, now £399.00
Hisense 65″ 4K Ultra HD HDR Smart TV (2018 Model) – was £699.00, now £569.00
TCL 50″ 4K Ultra HD HDR TV (2018 Model) – was £499.00, now £379.00
TCL 43″ 4K Ultra HD HDR TV (2018 Model) – was £499.00, now £329.00
Toshiba 32″ HD Ready Smart TV with Freeview Play and Built In DVD Player (2018 Model) – was £269.00, now £229.00

The Best Broadband Deals in November

If you’re in the market for a broadband deal, whether it is superfast fibre. brodband and TV bundles or just standard broadband, then check the best Black Friday offers on them below:

Compare the best Broadband deals using our comparison site
FIBRE Vodafone Superfast 2 Broadband (63MB average speed) with £50 voucher – £25 a month for 18 months, £25 a month thereafter. £0 setup costs. 18 month contract applies. Offer ends 29/11/2018.
NOW Broadband: Fab Fibre and Anytime Calls 3 (36MB average speed) with £50 voucher (Argos, John Lewis, Tesco) – £23.50 per month for 12 months, £9.99 setup cost.

IGN Exclusive: CyberGhost VPN for Only £1.60 per Month

Recently, VPNs are becoming increasingly popular because they can ensure your security and privacy when browsing the web. CyberGhost VPN is also a great VPN to access American Netflix from the UK and paying £1.59 per month on top of your current Netflix subscription to get all of the Netflix content you get in America is definitely worth it. This exclusive deal for IGN readers makes it the cheapest VPN available right now which is compatible with Netflix.

Read our guide on how to get American Netflix content in the UK.

IGN Exclusive: CyberGhost VPN 4-year subscription deal – £1.60 per month, £19.20 billed annually (80% off).

Alternative VPN Deal

IGN Exclusive: PureVPN 1-year subscription deal – £2.33 per month, £27.96 billed annually (73% off).

Amazon Black Friday Deal: Amazon Music Unlimited for 99p

3 Months of Amazon Music Unlimited for 99p (usually £23.97)

Get 3 Months of Amazon Music Unlimited for 99p. This is a limited time offer. The promotional offer of 3 months for £0.99 is valid from November 15, 2018 through January 2, 2019 and redeemable towards an Amazon Music Unlimited Individual Monthly Plan.

Save 25% off Selected Laptops

In the market for a new laptop? It’s your lucky day, as early Black Friday deals can save you up to 25% off makes such as Acer, Lenovo, HP and more.

Hand-picked deals:

AORUS X7 DT v8 17.3” FHD Gaming Laptop – (Intel i7-8850H, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD + 1TB HDD, NVIDIA GTX1080 Graphics Card) – was £2999.00, now £2,549.99
GIGABYTE AERO 15X 15.6” FHD Gaming Laptop – (Intel Core i7-8750H, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, NVIDIA GTX1070 Graphics Card) – was £2199.00, now £1,799.98
ASUS ZenBook 13 UX331UA-EG005T 13.3″ Full HD Laptop – (Intel Core i5-8250U, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) – was £899.99, now £699.99
ACER Aspire 7 15.6″ FHD Gaming Notebook – (Intel Core i5-7300HQ, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Graphics) – was £749.99, now £599.99
ASUS VivoBook 15.6″ Full HD Laptop – (Intel Core i5-8250U Processor, 4GB RAM + 16GB Intel Optane Memory, 1TB HDD, NVIDIA MX130 Graphics Card) – was £599.99, now £499.99

Save up to 57% off Norton Security Antivirus Get Norton Antivirus for great value during Black Friday, The Norton Security Deluxe antivirus package will provide protection for up to 5 devices against viruses and ransomware, as well as encrypt the data you send and receive on public WiFi. It is reduced for Black Friday from £69.99 to £29.99.

Norton Security Deluxe Antivirus (1 Year, 5 Devices) – was £69.99, now £24.99
Norton Security Premium Antivirus (1 Year, 10 Devices) – was £79.99, now £34.99
Norton Security Basic Antivirus (1 Year, 1 PC) – was £29.99, now £24.99
Norton Security Standard Antivirus (1 Year, 1 Device) – was £49.99, now £19.99

By Tncse

Tufts Remains Unmovable Force Atop NFCA Division III Top 25

April 4, 2019 | News | No Comments

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Unbeaten two-time defending national champion Tufts University continues to be the pacesetter atop the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Division III Top 25 softball rankings.

Tufts (38-0) extended its victory streak to 40 games, dating back to the final two games of the NCAA Championship Series last May, and holds the No. 1 spot for the 11th week this season and 14th consecutive week. The Jumbos have now won 71 of their last 72 and have received every first-place vote going back to last April. They have been ranked first in 15 of the last 18 polls and 20 of the last 24.

The next three teams remain unchanged for the third straight week, with Texas-Tyler (37-1), East Texas Baptist (31-2) and Luther (35-3). Trine (33-2) joins them in the top five, replacing Virginia Wesleyan (29-6), which dropped five spots to 10th after two losses as the top seed in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference tournament.

Last year’s Division III runner-up Salisbury (30-6) won four straight to move up two places to sixth, while Emory (31-7) gained two spots to seventh and Wisconsin-Whitewater (32-6) surged five places to No. 8.

Rowan (34-4) finally stopped its steady climb up the rankings, but remains in the top 10 at No. 9, and won its first New Jersey Athletic Conference tournament contest on Tuesday behind Beth Ann Hyland’s one-hit gem.

Washington (33-11) University had the biggest fall this week, eight places to a tie with Hope (27-7) for 20th, while Alfred (31-3) kept up its winning ways for the second-best gain (four spots) to 18th.

Overall, 12 teams in rankings have win streaks of 12 or more games.

No. 23 Fontbonne (27-9) and No. 25 Wisconsin-Eau Claire (25-16) join Ramapo (25-11-1) and William Paterson (27-9-1) in the receiving votes category as the newcomers this week.

Birmingham-Southern, Simpson and Wisconsin-La Crosse, meanwhile, are the three teams that dropped out this week.

The NFCA Division III Top 25 Poll is selected by eight NCAA Division III head coaches representing the eight NCAA regions. Current records are listed, with first-place votes in parentheses.

For the complete poll, click HERE

By Tncse

Shoppers Drug Mart Gets License To Sell Medical Marijuana Online

April 4, 2019 | News | No Comments

Click:1P 2 200kA Surge

TORONTO — Shoppers Drug Mart has been granted a licence to sell medical marijuana online.

Health Canada’s list of authorized cannabis sellers and producers has been updated to reflect that the pharmacy can sell dried and fresh cannabis, as well as plants, seeds and oil.

A website has been set up by the company, which says that patients “with a valid medical document will soon be able to purchase a wide selection of medical cannabis products” from Shoppers.

A spokeswoman for Shoppers’ parent company Loblaw Companies Ltd. says it’s too soon to say when people will be able to start making orders.

Granted producer license already

She says the company is still working through a “technical issue” with Health Canada.

The company was granted a medical marijuana producer licence in September, after initially applying in October 2016.

Shoppers has said that it has no interest in producing medical cannabis, but the licence is required in order to sell the product to patients.

Under the current Health Canada regulations for medical pot, the only legal distribution method is by mail order from licensed producers direct to patients.

By Tncse

Founder of Austrian far-right movement probed over suspected links to New Zealand mosque gunman

April 4, 2019 | News | No Comments

A prominent Austrian far-Right leader barred from entering the UK last year is facing investigation over suspected links with the gunman held for the New Zealand mosque attack.

The Austrian government announced on Wednesday that it may ban the far-Right Identitarian movement if any link is proved.

Martin Sellner, one of the movement’s founders and best-known figures, denied any involvement in the attack after his Vienna home was raided by police investigating the suspected links on Monday.

Prosecutors said the investigation had been triggered by a suspicious €1,500 (£1,270) donation to the movement.

They are believed to be investigating the possibility the donation was made by Brenton Tarrant, the main suspect in the terror attacks on two Christchurch mosques in which 50 people were killed.

“I have nothing to do with this terror attack,” Mr Sellner said in a video released on social media.

He admitted he had received an email and a “disproportionately large” donation from some one named Tarrant. He said he sent a reply to thank the donor, but claimed there was no other communication between them.

New Zealand mosque massacre – In pictures

Sebastian Kurz, the Austrian chancellor, has called for any possible links to be “comprehensively and ruthlessly investigated”.

“There can be no tolerance for dangerous ideologies, wherever they come from,” he said on Wednesday.

The Identitarian movement has been described as “the far-Right for hipsters”. The anti-immigration movement is known for stunts such as chartering its own ship to return migrants rescued from the Mediterranean Sea to Africa.

Mr Sellner was planning to speak in the UK last year but he was barred from entering on the grounds that his presence was “not conducive to the public good”.

If any link to the Christchurch attacks were proved it could have serious repercussions for the movement.

Tarrant, the main suspect in the attacks. is believed to be the author of a white supremacist manifesto emailed to prominent figures in New Zealand shortly before the shootings.

In it, he cites the Norwegian far-Right terrorist Anders Breivik as an inspiration, and calls for "revenge against Islam”.

By Tncse

The First Poster for Toy Story 4 Is Here

April 4, 2019 | News | No Comments

The first poster for Toy Story 4 has popped up, and it’s a little more downbeat-looking than today’s teaser trailer.

Featuring a lone Woody giving a (goodbye?) hat-tip against a plain background, it definitely lends some credence to the idea that the film might be a little melancholy, after Tim Allen said he “couldn’t even get through the last scene” during recordings.

Woody voice actor Tom Hanks has said that the ending is “impactful”, and called the movie a “moment in history”.

Those intense voice lines seem to have arrived quite late, after writers Rashida Jones and Will McCormack dropped out of production, and the original script was reportedly mostly thrown out.

Toy Story 4 is set to hit theaters on June 21, 2019.

429 Mashing buttons will get you nowhere!

Error 429 Mashing buttons will get you nowhere!

Mashing buttons will get you nowhere!

Guru Meditation:

XID: 711197532

Varnish cache server

Joe Skrebels is IGN’s UK News Editor, and he is quite afraid of how much he’ll cry at this. Follow him on Twitter.

By Tncse

Gillaspy, Gutierrez Touchtone Named Louisville Slugger/NFCA Division II National Player and Pitcher of the Week

April 4, 2019 | News | No Comments

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Missouri Western senior Tiffany Gillaspy and St. Mary’s (Texas) senior Vianna Gutierrez Touchtone were named Louisville/Slugger NFCA Division II National Player and Pitcher of the Week, respectively, for games played over March 16-22.

Gillaspy, a native Johnston, Iowa, batted .529 and slugged 1.059 to help the Griffons win all 10 games last week. The senior infielder was 18-for-34 at the plate with four doubles, four home runs and a triple. She knocked in 15 runs, scored 12 times and did not strikeout in 35 plate appearances.

“Being named national player of the week is a huge honor, especially with the week we just had as a team,” said Gillaspy. “I have so much confidence in my team and I can’t wait to see where the season takes us.”

Gillaspy recorded a hit in nine games, which included three, three-hit outings and a total of six multi-hit contests. She posted a pair of 3-for-4 efforts with a RBI and two runs scored in a doubleheader sweep of Southeastern Oklahoma State. The MIAA Hitter of the Week launched two home runs, knocked in three and scored twice versus Concordia-St. Paul and also went 3-for-4 with a double, three RBI and two runs against Wayne State College.

“When she is seeing the ball, she is unbelievable,” head coach Jen Bagley Trotter said. “This past week, I don’t think she was seeing anything else.”

Gutierrez Touchtone went 3-0 in the circle with a pair of complete-game shutouts and a third in which she combined on a no-hitter against Newman with teammate Veronica Garcia. Striking out 21 in 17 innings, she did not allow a run and held her opponents to a .050 batting average (3 hits).

“I’m kind of in shock,” said Gutierrez Touchtone. “I’m very honored. It’s hard coming back from an injury and surgery; to come back and perform like this is pretty amazing if you ask me. I think every athlete has their doubts after they get a pretty serious injury like I had last year when I tore my ACL and meniscus. With the help of my physical therapist and my family, I was able to get through it. Time was my friend. I had a lot of time.”

A native of San Antonio Texas, Gutierrez Touchtone twirled a one-hit shutout with seven strikeouts in a 7-0 win over Newman and closed out the series with five innings of no-hit ball with six strikeouts against the Lady Jets. The righty also earned a five-inning two-hit shutout with eight punchouts versus Texas A&M-Kingsville and went on to be the Heartland Pitcher of the Week.

“We knew going into this year that we wanted to lean on Vianna,” said head coach Donna Fields. “If she could be strong on the mound then we could continue to develop our young pitching staff. She is also very vital for us offensively. Our lineup is that much stronger offensively when she is on the mound. Vianna is a very hard worker and determined athlete. This recognition is a great honor for her.”

Player of the Week
March 25 – Tiffany Gillaspy (Missouri Western)
March 18 – Tiffany Hollingsworth (Humboldt State)
March 11 – Stephanie Mark (Northwest Missouri State)
March 4 – Jayne MacDonald (Cal State East Bay)
Feb. 25 – Ashley Walker (Winona State)
Feb. 18 – Nicole Nobbe (Cal State San Bernardino)

Pitcher of the Week
March 25 – Vianna Gutierrez Touchtone (St. Mary’s)
March 18 – Hannah Perryman (Missouri-St. Louis)
March 11 – Caitlyn Calhoun (Valdosta State)
March 4 – Courtney Poole (North Georgia)
Feb. 25 – Shea Coats (Oklahoma Christian)
Feb. 18 – Caitlyn Calhoun (Valdosta State)

Selected Top Performances
Columbus State’s Kailey Boone batted .727 (16-22) with three doubles, two home runs, five RBI and eight runs scored to garner Peach Belt Player of the Week honors… Henderson State’s Michelle Sorensen was 2-0 with a save and tossed a no-hitter (6K, 1BB) versus Northwestern State to take home GAC Co-Pitcher of the Week honors… SAC Player of the Week, Sarah Kenley of Lenoir Rhyne, batted .444 with five doubles, two home runs and nine RBI… Megan Miller of Saint Martin’s batted .750 (6-8), which included a game-two cycle, two doubles, a triple and home run, on her way to a GNAC Player of the Week accolade… Lone Star Player of the Week, Katelyn Conlee of Tarleton State, hit .643 (9-14) with four doubles, a walk-off home run and eight RBI… Rollins’ Hailee Keisling took home Sunshine State Player of the Week honors after batting .619 (13-21) with eight RBI and six runs, and did not strikeout… PSAC East Pitcher of the Week, Savannah Nierintz of Kutztown, went 3-0 with a 0.40 ERA and two complete games in three appearances last week… Concord’s Lacey McDougall was selected Mountain East Player of the Week after batting .588 (10-17) with two home runs, one of which was a grand slam, and 12 RBI…Taylor Menhardt of Ashland batted .643 (9-14) with four doubles, a triple, home run, three RBI and six runs scored to earn GLIAC Player of the Week recognition… Florida Tech’s Rachel Pence was tabbed Sunshine State Pitcher of the Week after going 3-1, allowing a run and posting a WHIP of 0.69… Gulf South Player of the Week, Michal Robertson of Alabama Huntsville, batted .786 (11-14) with two doubles, three long balls, eight RBI, five runs and two stolen bases… Cameron’s Tara Martinia launched three home runs with 10 RBI and nine runs scored… West Texas A&M’s Allie Smith batted .538 with two doubles, a home run and 10 RBI in four games… Cal State Chico’s Haley Gilham tossed a pair of complete game shutouts against then-No. 3 Cal State Monterey Bay, surrendering just seven hits, striking out 12 in 14 innings to garner CCAA Pitcher of the Week accolades… RMAC Player of the Week, Western New Mexico’s Mariangela Garcia hit .579 with 11 hits, three doubles, a triple, home run, seven RBI and two stolen bases… Dixie State’s Aryn Feickert tossed a perfect game against Academy of Art striking out seven in five innings, while Paige Crawford of Hawai’i Pacific twirled a no-hitter with seven strikeouts to earn PacWest Co-Pitcher of the week recognition

By Tncse

Recent News

Category: News

Auto towns: a cycle of boom and bust

The future of Oshawa

Unite auto workers across borders

Today’s Best Deals

Red Dead Redemption 2 Online Beta Now Live

Today’s Best Deals

Half Price Audible Membership for 4 Months

The Best Broadband Deals in November

Amazon Black Friday Deal: Amazon Music Unlimited for 99p

Granted producer license already

Error 429 Mashing buttons will get you nowhere!

Guru Meditation: