Pakistan v Ireland in the ICC Women’s World Twenty20 – in-play clips, radio & text – Live – BBC Sport

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Image: Pixabay

Black Friday officially launches in the U.S. on Nov. 23, which means all the deals you could hope for are soon to be splayed across the internet. But we’re here to give you a sneak peek of what’s going on sale. 

If you’re a gamer — or need to shop for one — there are going to be tons of deals on systems, games, and everything in between from top retailers like Walmart, Amazon, Best Buy, and more. Think big brand names like Alienware, Nintendo, Xbox, Razer, and Logitech. It’s a lot to sift through, but don’t worry — that’s our job.

We’re here to make digging through the deals a little easier, so keep checking back to see some of the best gaming deals as they are made available. We’ll be updating this post with everything we can find.

But if you’re not the patient type, there are already a bunch of Black Friday deals live for you to shop (especially for PC gamers.) 

Check out all the best Black Friday gaming deals below:

Early Black Friday deals

Laptops on sale:

Desktops on sale:

Accessories:

Deals starting on Black Friday

Systems and VR:

Laptops and desktops on sale:

Accessories:

Games:

Image: Photo composite: Walmart

Rome – An informal refugee camp in Rome which opened at the height of the crisis in 2015 was evacuated on Tuesday, sending several vulnerable people onto the streets as winter sets in.

Located in an empty parking lot near one of Rome’s main train stations, the Baobab camp would normally host around 300 people, mostly transiting for a few days or months. 

While the eviction had been expected for weeks, around 150 people were still at the camp on Tuesday morning when police vans surrounded and closed the area.

Some residents loaded suitcases and plastic bags with their belongings onto police vans before being driven away to a police station for identification.

While the Rome municipality offered places in reception centres to some of the refugees, not everyone will have a place to go after bulldozers finish clearing their tents.

“We have been negotiating with the municipality for the past week,” said Andrea Costa, one of the activists running the camp. “We thought they’d take a few more days as we were promised 120 places. Up to this morning, the number of people relocated was 65.”

According to the Rome municipality, 75 people were assigned alternative accommodation this past week, meaning at least dozens have nowhere to go.

Originally set up to deal with the high number of arrivals to Italy, in recent years Baobab had become a transit place for refugees who fell out of the reception system, were never offered a place, or were sent back to Italy under the Dublin regulation – which allows European countries to return asylum seekers to the country where they first registered. There were also a handful of homeless people, including Italians, at the camp.

Said* (not his real name), an Egyptian man in his fifties who has lived in Italy for 20 years, dragged his few belongings on a shopping trolley down the street leading out of the camp. Some of the bags contained goods he sells without a license on the streets of Rome.

He has been homeless for the past 10 years after personal difficulties, and said he was heading to the municipality’s social services to see if they could find a temporary solution.

“There’s no place for all of us, not just from Baobab. You go there and they tell you, come back tomorrow,” he said.

Baobab is one of many informal settlements in the capital, which hosts 3,500 of at least 10,000 refugees and migrants living mostly in abandoned buildings without basic infrastructure, according to an MSF report published earlier this year.

While some may have been denied international protection, others are simply waiting for their application to be examined and would have the right to housing.

“It is absurd that the municipality is not able to find a place [in reception centres] for a few hundred people, it is absurd to continue to fan citizens’ fears,” Costa said. “Rome won’t be a better place tonight.”

Costa added that a team of volunteers, lawyers and medics was ready to meet the migrants and refugees upon their release from the police station.

While lacking basic infrastructure, Baobab was run by volunteers who took care of daily food distribution and provided language classes, legal assistance, and medical help through NGOs.

Salvini’s threat

It is the twenty-second time the camp is dismantled since it was opened.

The Italian railway company, which owns the land, had recently started building a fence around the camp as part of a plan to turn the area into a public park. 

“It has been weeks that [far-right Interior Minister] Matteo Salvini and others in the governing coalition attack Baobab directly as one of those examples to persecute ‘accomplices’ of the migrants,” Costa told Al Jazeera.

Riportare legalità, ordine e sicurezza, quartiere per quartiere.
Dopo #Baobab arriveranno a Roma altri sgomberi: 4 edifici pericolanti e 23 interessati da iniziative giudiziarie.
Non ci fermeremo, questo è solo l’inizio, qui come in tutta Italia.#dalleparoleaifatti pic.twitter.com/ShR5lbMq7h

— Matteo Salvini (@matteosalvinimi) November 13, 2018

In September, Salvini sent an official letter to local authorities across the country asking them to speed up evictions of occupied buildings, starting with around 90 housing occupations located in the capital. Most of these house low-income families and pensioners on the waiting list for social housing.

The new directives would allow local governments to bypass a circular by the former interior minister that asked them to find alternatives for residents before proceeding with evictions. 

“Enclaves where the state and legality are absent are no longer tolerated. We promised it, we are doing it. And it’s just the beginning,” said Salvini in a tweet, as bulldozers razed the tents activists and refugees had just rebuilt after a gust of bad weather destroyed the camp last week.

Watch: Scotland v USA – build-up & team news – Live – BBC Sport

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If you’ve ever had the urge to rock your Bitmoji IRL, you’re in luck.

Snapchat will open an in-app store where you can buy swag personalized with you and your friend’s Bitmoji avatars. The feature is only available in Snapchat’s iPhone app in the United States.

In the store, which will appear in Snapchat’s main settings menu on November 15th, you’ll find a ton of random items, including sweatshirts and t-shirts, mugs, phone cases, and shower curtains. Each one can be personalized with a different Bitmoji or a Friendmoji, which also features your friends’ avatars.

The new Bitmoji section of Snapchat’s store comes as the app moves deeper into in-app commerce. The app has been experimenting with shoppable ads in Stories, and has a partnership with Amazon to make it easier to find products using the Snapchat camera. 

The app’s store, which up until now has sold an assortment of Snapchat-branded items like a dancing hotdog plushie, is a bit separate from those efforts, as the in-app store is buried within the app’s settings menu. But it will help Snap further capitalize on the popularity of its cartoon avatars. 

Bitmoji was the most downloaded app of 2017, according to Apple, beating out the main Snapchat app for the number one place. Snap also started making Bitmoji more accessible from outside apps via its developer tools.

Separately, Snapchat announced another new Bitmoji feature that will soon be coming to the app: Bitmoji Stories. The feature, which are beginning to roll out this week, adds a new Bitmoji-themed Story to Snapchat’s Discover page. The Stories themselves look a bit like a comic strip, and will be personalized based on your activity in Snapchat. They’ll also feature your friends’ Bitmoji.

Finally, Snapchat is adding new “Friendship Profile,” which the company says is the “fastest way to find the highlights of your friendship.” The profiles offer a quick overview of everything you’ve ever saved in a private chat or group conversation on Snapchat.

Though it’s not actually showing anything new — all of your old saved content has always technically been accessible — it makes it significantly easier to find older posts. Snapchat has let you save specific messages in its app for years, but it’s emphasized ephemerality more than the saving feature. Friendship Profiles, however, makes group messages in particular feel more like those on iMessage or other platforms.

Palermo, Italy – Renegade General Khalifa Haftar is believed to have extended an olive branch to the rival United Nations-backed government of Fayez al-Serraj, saying he will not seek to topple the Tripoli executive until new elections are held in divided Libya.

Despite Haftar having said he would not participate in the conference, photos released by the Italian government on Tuesday showed him with Serraj and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte embracing and smiling in a three-way handshake.

It was the first time the two rival Libyan leaders had met face to face since May.

“Using a metaphor, General Haftar told Mr Serraj that you don’t change horses in the middle of the river, meaning that Mr Serraj will retain his post until the elections,” said Rocco Casalino, the spokesperson for Italian Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte.

“We interpret this as a conciliatory statement as we aim at reaching an agreement on a broader security framework for the country in view of elections next year,” said Casalino.

General Haftar, who leads a self-styled army from Benghazi, has repeatedly threatened to attack Tripoli and take control of the capital, where about 30 percent of Libyans live.

The general, believed to be backed by Russia, Egypt and France, blames the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) and Tripoli-based institutions of being at the mercy of rival militias. He has also called for a fair redistribution of the oil wealth in the energy-rich country.

Peace until elections?

The Tobruk-based House of Representatives, Libya’s parliament, has aligned itself with the general’s request and over the past weeks, has pursued, together with the High Council of State, Libya’s rival parliament, the removal of Serraj and the Presidential Council he presides over.

But Haftar’s comments to his rival this morning, if confirmed, may signal that Haftar is willing to wait for elections next year, as planned by the UN, to bring political stability in the North African nation.

It is not clear what Haftar has asked the international community in exchange, but diplomatic sources said pressure from Russia and Egypt made him join the talks at Palermo.

Italy is trying to achieve a binding security agreement in Palermo, possibly a unified police and army. 

“Elections are for the UN-led process to decide. Creating a climate of security is an essential step for any further process,” an Italian government source told reporters in Palermo.

It remains to be seen whether that would be achieved under a strongman like Haftar or a civilian authority.

Meanwhile, Turkish delegates walked out of the summit in protest on Tuesday, alleging that Haftar and Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi had hijacked the conference, although it did not clarify how.

Ankara later said in a statement that “any meeting excluding Turkey would be counterproductive”.  

General Haftar had earlier protested at the presence of delegates from Turkey, Qatar and members of the Muslim Brotherhood in previous negotiations on Libya.

More players needed

However, Russia, Egypt and France are aware that a solution to the Libyan conflict cannot be achieved by counting only on Haftar’s leadership.

Libya is profoundly divided along tribal and ethnic lines, and a stable solution to the seven-year civil war may need to involve more than a few internationally sponsored actors.

So far, Haftar’s hold on eastern Libya has been strong and has granted a relative security in the region. But he does not enjoy the same support from militias and tribes in the west, who have loosely aligned themselves to Serraj’s GNA.

In Tripoli, militias have increasingly used their power to blackmail and pillage the sovereign institutions and banks, plunging the Libyan capital into a vortex of violence.

Southern Libya, where state and security institutions have collapsed, has become a safe haven for criminal gangs and foreign militias who disrupt security in the greater Sahel region.

Italy is also concerned with securing Libya’s borders to end the inflow of migrants that depart from its shores to reach Europe, as demanded by Conte’s domestic supporters.

Libya is caught in a spiral of violence, division and political chaos since 2011, when its former leader Muammar Gaddafi was deposed and later assassinated.

England’s all-time leading goalscorer Wayne Rooney says it will be “strange” playing at Wembley in his farewell appearance for the country.

Rooney, 33, retired from international football in 2017, but will win his 120th and final cap in a friendly against the United States on Thursday.

England’s record appearance-maker Peter Shilton criticised the move saying caps should not be “given out like gifts”.

Rooney said he will be “proud” of running out at Wembley again.

He added: “It is something I am looking forward to. I had my first training session on Monday and it was strange getting in amongst the players at training.

“To run out at Wembley again will be something I will be proud of and it will be a special moment.”

‘People don’t have to agree with it’

Former Manchester United and Everton striker Rooney ended his international career with 119 caps and a record 53 goals.

But the Football Association said the match against the US was an opportunity to “honour” the 33-year-old’s “record-breaking international career”.

Former goalkeeper Shilton won 125 caps said he was “surprised” England boss Gareth Southgate had allowed the one-off return.

Rooney, who now plays for MLS side DC United, will appear as a second-half substitute in the game and said his only regret in a Three Lions shirt will now be fulfilled.

He said: “Things happen that are good and bad in football, you have to accept that. It would have been nice to win something.

“I appreciate my time in the England squad. There were great memories and I made great friends. The only regret was maybe not having that last game to say thanks to the fans.

“I think as a country obviously we haven’t done anything like this before. Of course it’s something different and I’m not asking people to agree with it.

“I think what is important, as well as that the game is going to go ahead and that I’m going to take part.”

‘Retirement decision right’

This summer, without Rooney, England achieved their best showing at a World Cup by reaching the semi-finals out the tournament in Russia before suffering a semi-final defeat in extra time against Croatia.

“My decision to retire was the right decision,” said former skipper Rooney.

“I could see the younger players and I felt it was the right time for me to stop playing and for younger lads to step in and be given that opportunity.”

Asked what his proudest moment was, Rooney replied: “The goal against Switzerland to break the record was a hugely special moment for me.”

‘Time to thank the fans’

Rooney’s season in America came to an end with defeat in the MLS play-off but he has ruled out a return to Europe in the off-season and said he plans to finish his career in America.

Asked about scoring on his farewell appearance, he said: “It’s not important. It would be nice, but the main thing is to run out at Wembley one last time and have the opportunity to thank the fans for the years they’ve supported me.

“It is a huge honour in your career, the biggest honour to play for your country and represent them in major tournaments.

“If Harry Kane handed over the captain’s armband then great but the important thing is not wearing the armband, wearing number 10 or playing 90 minutes – it is to pull the shirt on again and that will be a special moment.”

Rain will be the antidote to the worst of this California fire season.

Most years, some rains would have already arrived. But California’s grasses, woodlands, and forests remain profoundly parched — with some areas even matching or exceeding records for dryness after record-breaking summer heat and persistently dry autumn winds. 

While rains won’t completely stomp out California’s fires, it will significantly reduce the likelihood of vast areas of land continuing to catch fire. This year’s sustained dryness, however, is a foreshadowing of future parched, rainless falls. 

“It’s been pretty bleak this year,” Paul Ullrich, a climate scientist at the University of California, Davis, said in an interview. 

There’s no immediate rainfall on the horizon this week that might douse the expansive flames of either the deadly Camp and Woolsey fires, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Though, some weather models show perhaps a little rain falling in Northern California next week.  

But the bigger picture about dry California autumns — which means a longer, more potent fire season — is growing increasingly clear.

“What we’re seeing is a harbinger of things to come as this century progresses,” Sasha Gershunov, a research meteorologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said in an interview. 

Specifically, recent research provides strong evidence that California is going to see a shorter, more concentrated rain season. That means more rain packed into December through February, but critically, less rain during the fall and spring. 

“There is a big concern going forward when it comes to future fire seasons in California,” said Ullrich.

During the fall, the winds pick up in California, which fan the flames. This will always be a problem — it’s an ingrained and expected part of the region’s climate. But now, the winds are blowing over dryer vegetation, and the results have been historically destructive and deadly. 

Making matters worse, concentrated deluges during rainy winters (like that of 2017) means vegetation will flourish after the rains, only to be dried out by drought, hotter summers, and arid falls.

“A really wet season loads the gun for the following year, giving more vegetation to burn,” Neil Berg, a  climate scientist and associate director at the UCLA Center for Climate Science, said in an interview. “That is something we call whiplash.”

“Living in extremes — it’s going to become one of the pressing problems of our time,” added Berg.

There are two main drivers of California’s condensed rainy season, and accordingly, drier falls. 

One is simple physics: As it grows hotter on Earth due to climate change, the atmosphere absorbs more water. So “whenever you have rainfall, you have more rainfall,” but there’s less moisture available in spring and fall, said Ullrich.

Second, the weather systems that bring storms to the Golden State — propelled by strong, higher atmospheric winds called the jet stream — are getting pushed farther north. That means more of California will be will be subjected to drier, desert-like conditions, explained Gershunov.

“We can expect a longer dry season,” Gershunov said.

Although the rains haven’t shown up much this fall, that certainly doesn’t mean the entire season will be a wash. About 12 to 15 percent of California Octobers see negligible rain, noted Ullrich. So this may be just be a dry start to an average (or above-average) rainy season.

“But it would be extremely anomalous if we had no rainfall for the next month,” Ullrich said.

When the rains do come, the only hope is that they’re normal. 

Heavy rains drive terrible mud slides down burned land — and there’s now a lot of freshly burned terrain. And like anywhere, too much rain at once means flooding. 

Unfortunately, with the extreme and historically unprecedented levels of carbon collecting in our atmosphere, temperatures are expected to continue rising this century. 

California should expect less rain in the fall, more land torched by fire, but more deluges during the winter. 

“The rains are usually so welcome, but not in their extreme form,” said Berg.

[ullrich]

Prague, Czech Republic – Opposition parties in the Czech Republic say Prime Minister Andrej Babis should step down amid reported allegations of ordering associates to kidnap his son last year in a bid to obstruct a fraud investigation.

The prime minister was probed by Czech and European Union authorities in 2017 over hiding ownership of a farm and conference centre – Capi hnizdo (Stork Nest) – so that it would qualify for a two-million-euro subsidy ($2.25m) meant for small businesses.

In January, the EU’s anti-fraud office said it had found “irregularities” in payments related to the subsidy. 

On Monday, a report by local news outlet Seznam quoted Andrej Babis Jr. – the prime minister’s 35-year-old son who had been under investigation along with his father for subsidy fraud – as saying that  he was forced by the husband of his doctor-turned-ruling-party politician into hiding last year to prevent him from testifying in the case.

In comments captured in video, Babis Jr said that he was told to choose from “taking an extended holiday” in the Russia-annexed Crimea or be admitted to a mental facility after unknowingly signing documents critical to the decade-old case.

The report on Monday sent shockwaves in the Czech parliament, with leaders from a group of six opposition parties agreeing on Tuesday to file a motion to hold a vote of no-confidence that could threaten to upend Babis’s already-vulnerable coalition government.

In a joint statement, the opposition also called on the prime minister to resign from his post until an impartial investigation could be carried out. 

Following last year’s elections, Babis struggled to form a government as other parties refused to enter a coalition with him due to the scandal. He has staunchly denied all wrongdoing and has repeatedly said that it was being used as a political tool by his opponents to see him thwarted.

The prime minister rejected the allegations in Monday’s report, saying that the journalists invaded his son’s home in Switzerland and used a hidden camera to interview Babis Jr., who he said has a serious mental disorder. 

“The facts are clear. My son is mentally ill. He takes medication, he has to be supervised, and he lives with his mother in Switzerland,” the prime minister said in a Facebook post.

“My son was not kidnapped, he left the Czech Republic voluntarily. The police investigated this matter and concluded that kidnapping had never happened.”

Babis Jr’s doctor, Dita Protopopova, who was recently elected to a district level posting in the capital, Prague, as a member of the ruling party, resigned on Tuesday as a result of the investigation. Police told local media that they would look into the findings of the video and question the reporters. 

Representing 92 seats in the Czech Republic’s Chamber of Deputies, the opposition would require nine votes from the current government coalition in order for a vote of no-confidence to succeed.

Both the Social Democrats and the Communists, which comprise the coalition along with Babis’s Action of Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO) Party, said they would need to hear more from the prime minister’s party directly before deciding on a course of action.

“We will have to deal with ANO. We have a whole range of questions,” Social Democrat leader and Interior Minister Jiri Hamacek told reporters on Tuesday in relation to case, adding that he could no longer predict the future of the government.

The Czech communist party, which played the deciding vote in establishing Mr. Babis’s government earlier this year, said it would support an extraordinary session in parliament to look further into the accusation.

Susanna Dinnage has been named as the new chief executive of the Premier League, replacing Richard Scudamore.

Dinnage joins from media organisation Discovery, where she was the global president of the Animal Planet channel.

Scudamore, 59, is stepping down next month after 19 years at the helm.

“I am excited at the prospect of taking on this fantastic role. The Premier League means so much to so many people,” said Dinnage, who will begin her new job early in 2019.

“It represents the pinnacle of professional sport and the opportunity to lead such a dynamic and inspirational organisation is a great privilege.

“With the support of clubs and the team, I look forward to extending the success of the league for many years to come.”

Dinnage will become just the third person to lead the Premier League, after Scudamore and his predecessor Rick Parry.

Prior to joining Discovery in January 2009, Dinnage worked for 10 years at Channel Five and she started her career at MTV.

“We are very pleased to appoint such a capable leader to this important role,” said Bruce Buck, Chelsea’s chairman and chair of the Premier League’s nominations committee.

“We had a very strong field, but Susanna was the outstanding choice given her track record in managing complex businesses through transformation and digital disruption.

“She is a leading figure in the broadcasting industry, a proven business executive and a great developer of people. She is ideally suited to the role and we are confident she will be able to take the Premier League on to new heights.

“Richard Scudamore, having provided exceptional stewardship for almost 20 years, will leave us at the end of the year in great shape and with an excellent executive team and board able to fully support Susanna.”

Scudamore was the Premier League’s executive chairman but the top-flight clubs had already agreed to split his role. The search for a non-executive chair will now begin, the league said.