It’s the most wonderful time of the year — for deals!

Black Friday is upon us, and ya’ll knew Walmart was gonna give us reason to hold onto our turkey leg hats as we dive after some of the best deals.    

Feeding right into our gadget-loving hearts, we see plenty of worthwhile snags in the tech department (hint: now’s definitely a good time to be in the market for a gaming system or TV.) There are also some great steals on everything from home goods and appliances, to kids toys and so much more.  

SEE ALSO: All the best Black Friday 2018 sales, right in one place

To make sure you don’t miss a thing, we’re rounding up the best of the best bargains Walmart is throwing at us this year. 

Not the waiting type? Is just the thought of sitting on your computer on Black Friday thirsting for deals against thousands of other grabby online shoppers giving you anxiety? 

Good news: there are a bunch of early deals that you can take advantage of right now, if you’re looking to beat the rush. 

Check out all of the best Walmart Black Friday deals below (and make sure to keep checking back, as we’ll keep updating as deals become available):

Early Black Friday Deals

Laptops, tablets, and monitors:

Gaming systems:

TVs on sale: 

Deals starting on Black Friday

TVs:

Laptops and tablets: 

Security systems:

Fitness watches: 

Headphones and wireless speakers:

Prepaid phones for sale: 

Phone cases:

Gaming deals:

Toys and drones: 

Vacuums for sale: 

Small kitchen appliances: 

Home items for sale: 

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Black Friday 2018 deals by store

Black Friday 2018 deals by category

• Gaming deals: Xbox One X, PlayStation 4, Nintendo, Alienware laptops, and more

• Laptop deals: Lenovo Yoga, Alienware, Dell, HP, Asus, and more

• TV deals: OLEDs from Best Buy, Amazon, Walmart, and more

Gaza Strip – When Palestinians ventured out of their homes on Tuesday, following Israel’s latest round of air raids on Gaza, they noticed an extraordinary scene near the bombed-out remains of the al-Rahma building.

Hanging in the bedroom of a partially destroyed apartment was a wedding dress, covered in dirt and punctured with shrapnel.

As crowds grew and looked on in amazement, little did they know that the dress carried a five-year story of love, tragedy and determination.

In 2013, Fadi al-Ghazali, a 22-year-old from Gaza, met Yara al-Zoubi, a 21-year-old from the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun on Facebook, a woman who he says he immediately fell in love with.

“I knew she was my soulmate from the first moment,” Fadi told Al Jazeera.

“She has seen things the human mind cannot imagine. I had also survived all three wars on Gaza in 2008, 2012 and 2014. So, I understood her.”

Despite facing geographical and political obstructions, the couple were determined to meet each another.

“Our dream was to get together, a dream that everyone mocked because I live in the besieged Gaza Strip and she was living in war-torn Syria,” he said. “It was impossible.”

Within a short time, Fadi proposed to Yara, and his family in turn contacted hers to arrange their engagement.

“I asked her parents for their blessing and they welcomed me into the family with open arms.”

Everything we needed was ready; the house, the furniture, the wedding dress … We were only waiting for my birthday to be the luckiest couple people to ever walk this earth.

Fadi al-Ghazali, groom

‘A miracle’

Fadi spent the next five years working as a confectioner to pay for their wedding and furnish their home.

Meanwhile, after several requests, Yara was finally granted an approval by Egyptian authorities to enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing.

A territory of more than two million people, Gaza has been under a devastating Israeli-imposed blockade for the past 11 years, which has severely restricted the movement of Palestinians in and out of it.

Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from the enclave in 2005 but, citing security concerns, maintains tight control of its land and sea borders.

Egypt also restricts movement in and out of Gaza through its border.

“It took a miracle to get my fiancee out of Syria, let alone into Gaza,” Fadi said. “We achieved the impossible.”

“When she arrived at Rafah, I was so happy that I felt like I was flying, and people were amazed by our story that they celebrated us all the way to our home,” he said.

Yara’s family was unable to make it to Gaza for the wedding due to Israeli and Egyptian restrictions on freedom of movement in the occupied Palestinian Territories.

According to Fadi, Yara carried her $2,000 wedding dress all the way from Syria.

Following Yara’s arrival, the excited couple spent the next few days shopping for their wedding which was expected to be held on November 18 to coincide with Fadi’s 22nd birthday.

“Everything we needed was ready; our home, the furniture, the wedding dress … We were only waiting for my birthday to be the luckiest couple people to ever walk this earth,” he said.

The bride stayed at Fadi’s mother’s place, while the groom waited in their future home as they were both anxiously looking forward to their wedding day.

However, on Monday, Fadi’s family received a call around midnight that the adjacent building to their home was going to be targeted by Israeli air raids.

‘Israel shattered our dreams’

Fadi’s family and bride ran to seek shelter at his aunt’s house, when the al-Rahma charity’s five-storey building, next to Fadi’s home, was destroyed by missiles fired from the sky.

When the family returned to the area the next morning, they found their home in ruins.

“My fiancee and I were shocked. Our dream was shattered by an Israeli strike that raided our home and caused major destruction to it,” Fadi said.

“All of the windows were broken, our furniture and some outer walls were reduced to rubble, and the wedding dress was torn apart.

“All the money that I had been saving up for years is now gone,” he said, adding that the damage amounted to more than 5,000 Jordanian Dinars ($7,000).

According to Fadi, Yara spent the entire night crying and suffered a panic attack when she saw the devastation.

“She told me ‘all my life, I have been running away from war, but it kept following me’.”

Last year, Yara’s hometown of Khan Sheikhoun fell victim to a chemical attack that claimed the lives of at least 83 people, a third of them children.

When local residents heard Yara’s story and saw what happened to her home and dress, the entire community banded together.

A wedding planner, a hotelier, a florist, photographers, tailors and others offered their services for free.

A group of philanthropists gave them gifts to ensure their wedding would happen on time.

However, with Gaza’s future still uncertain and violence a frequent reality, the couple said they were afraid of resuming their wedding arrangements only to wake up and find it all under rubble and destruction again.

Uefa Nations League live: England v Croatia – Live – BBC Sport

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Another week, another Saturday Night Live cold open serving up an is-it-real-or-isn’t-it parody of Fox News.

The last one was a pre-Election Day reminder of the role Fox News played in making the distant and not-at-all-dangerous migrant caravan seem like a threat. This one has more of a Weekend Update feel, if Weekend Update featured morally bankrupt hosts like Jeanine Pirro (Cecily Strong) and Laura Ingraham (Kate McKinnon). The SNL writer’s room is clearly having fun coming up with fake brands that would advertise on Fox.

The sketch ends with McKinnon-as-Ingraham interviewing a man named “Vape God” (Pete Davidson). The segment is riffing on an IRL Ingraham interview that actually happened, and — believe it or not — Davidson’s parody is pretty close to the real thing.

Asia-Pacific leaders have failed to bridge divisions over trade at a summit dominated by a war of words between the United States and China.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Papua New Guinea ended on Sunday without a formal statement for the first time in its history.

“You know the two big giants in the room. What can I say?” said host and Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, adding that a chairman’s statement would be released later on Sunday.

The US and China presented contrasting visions for the future of trade and investment in the region in competing policy speeches on Saturday.

Washington and Beijing have been engaged in an escalating trade war this year, imposing tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods, and have said that the tariffs could be increased.

O’Neill said that the main sticking points that prevented a joint statement related to “the World Trade Organisation and reform of the World Trade Organisation.”

“APEC has got no charter over World Trade Organisation, that is a fact. Those matters can be raised at the World Trade Organisation,” he said.

Sources told the AFP news agency that the US had pressed for the leaders to issue a statement that would amount to a denunciation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and a call for its wholesale reform.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there were “different visions on particular elements with regard to trade that prevented full consensus on a communique document.”

Al Jazeera’s Andrew Thomas, reporting from Port Moresby, said the lack of a communique marked a dramatic end to the summit.

“There are always disagreements behind the scenes at these sorts of summits, but normally by the end, publicly, a document is published that all the leaders can put their names to,” he said. 

“The fact that this APEC summit has not been able to produce a communique, has not been able to produce a common position that all the leaders can agree to, is pretty dramatic.”

Competing visions

In a speech to regional business leaders on Saturday, Chinese President Xi Jinping criticised “America First” protectionism and urged countries to pursue free trade policies.

Xi urged the world to “say no to protectionism and unilateralism”, warning it was a “short-sighted approach” that was “doomed to failure”.

US Vice President Mike Pence later told the summit in Port Moresby that Washington would not change its approach until Beijing changes its own trade policies.

“We have taken decisive action to address our imbalance with China,” he said. “We put tariffs on $250bn in Chinese goods, and we could more than double that number.”

“The US will not change course until China changes its ways.”

Pence also mocked China’s Belt-and-Road initiative, under which China offers loans to poorer countries in the region to improve infrastructure.

He said that the terms of China’s loans were “opaque at best” and “too often they come with strings attached and lead to staggering debt.”

China’s foreign ministry rejected the US criticism that it was leading other developing nations into debt bondage.

“The assistance provided by China has been warmly welcomed by our partners in this region and beyond,” Wang Xiaolong, a foreign ministry official, told a news conference.

“No country either in this region or in other regions has fallen into a so-called ‘debt trap’ because of its cooperation with China. Give me one example,” he said.

SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies

Formula 3 driver Sophia Florsch has fractured her spine in a high-speed crash at the Macau Grand Prix in China.

The 17-year-old German’s car lost control going into a bend before flying through the air and crashing backwards into fences.

A statement from her team, Van Amersfoort Racing, said Florsch was conscious and in a stable condition.

“I am fine but will be going into surgery tomorow morning,” Florsch posted on social media on Sunday.

“Thanks to everybody for the supporting messages. Update soon.”

Japanese driver Sho Tsuboi, who Florsch first crashed into, has been taken to hospital with back pain.

Two photographers and a marshal are also in hospital, according to the race organisers.

Photographer Minami Hiroyuki has concussion, while marshal Chan Cha In suffered a fractured facial bone and lacerations.

The other photographer, Chan Weng Wang, has a liver laceration.

The race was immediately red-flagged before restarting an hour later.

Taliban officials have held three days of talks with the US special representative for Afghanistan in Qatar, aimed at renewing the Afghan peace process, a Taliban official said.

The talks, which ended on Sunday, were comfirmed by other individuals close the group, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the negotiations.

The Taliban said its dialogue process with Washington was aimed at securing a timetable for the withdrawal of all US and NATO troops from Afghanistan to pave the way for an intra-Afghan dialogue.

Last week, a five-member Taliban delegation attended talks in Moscow for the first time at an international conference to discuss the Afghan peace efforts.

“A second phase (of discussions) should be held among Afghans (themselves) on how to bring about peace and form a government in Afghanistan,” Sohail Shaheen, a Qatar-based spokesperson for the Taliban, told reporters in Moscow last week.

The armed group has reported that in meetings with US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, it is also seeking the release of its prisoners and the removal of international travel restrictions on senior Taliban leaders.

In a lengthy statement issued earlier this month, the Taliban had demanded the lifting of sanctions against the group’s leaders, the release of prisoners and the recognition of their office in Qatar.

At the request of the US, a Taliban office was established in Doha in 2013 to facilitate peace talks but it was shut shortly after opening when it came under pressure over a flag hung outside the premises, the same flag that was flown during the Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

Then Afghan President Hamid Karzai subsequently halted peace efforts, saying the office in Doha was presenting itself as an unofficial embassy for a government-in-exile.

The flag has since been taken down and the office has been empty with no official announcements about a possible reopening. Talks with the Taliban have since been taking place elsewhere in Doha.

Another individual close to the talks, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, said Khalilzad wants to reach a settlement within six months, a timescale the Taliban said was too short.

Khalilzad also proposed a ceasefire, which the Taliban rejected, the individual said, adding that there was no agreement on the release of prisoners, opening the Taliban office or lifting a Taliban travel ban.

It was reported that Khairullah Khairkhwa, the former Taliban governor of Herat, and Mohammed Fazel, a former Taliban military chief, attended the marathon talks.

Khairkhwa and Fazel were among five senior Taliban members released from the US prison at Guantanamo Bay in 2014 in exchange for US soldier Bowe Bergdahl, who was captured by the Taliban after walking off his base in Afghanistan in 2009.

US President Donald Trump harshly criticised the 2014 prisoner exchange, and in a speech last August pledged to send in additional US forces and redouble efforts to defeat the Taliban.

But that strategy has had little if any impact on the ground, with the Taliban keeping up a steady tempo of attacks and an affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group carrying out massive bombings targeting the country’s Shia minority.

The Trump administration now appears focused on reaching a political settlement with the Taliban, beginning with the holding of direct talks. The Taliban have long refused US demands to negotiate with the Western-backed government in Kabul, which the rebels view as a puppet regime.

A third individual with knowledge of the discussions said the Taliban pressed for a postponement of next year’s presidential elections and the establishment of an interim government under a neutral leadership.

Abdul Sattar Sirat, an ethnic Tajik and Islamic scholar, was suggested as a candidate to lead an interim administration.

Pakistan has meanwhile released a number of high-level Taliban prisoners, including the movement’s co-founder, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. The releases are widely seen as a US-directed move aimed at encouraging the Taliban to participate in talks.

Khalilzad has been touring the region in recent days, and reportedly met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday. He is expected to press Ghani to cobble together his own negotiating team, which could prove difficult given the deep divisions within the government.

The Wall Street Journal, citing a person familiar with the gathering, said Khalilzad met with Taliban officials in Doha for the second time in four months. US officials could not immediately be reached for comment as the State Department has refused to comment on reported talks with the Taliban.

US Secretary of Defense James Mattis thanked Qatar speaking ahead of a meeting in Washington on Tuesday and said: “In Qatar, we recognised a long-time friend and military partner for peace and stability in the Middle East and a supporter of NATO’s mission in Afghanistan, and here I must note Qatar’s recent highly successful delivery of materials from Hungary to NATO’s mission in Afghanistan is proof of your global reach.”

Ireland coach Joe Schmidt laughed off New Zealand counterpart Steve Hansen’s claim that the Irish are now World Cup favourites after victory in Dublin.

The world’s number two side won 16-9 in Dublin to claim their first victory over the All Blacks.

“I guess they are favourites,” said Hansen, whose side have won the past two World Cups.

New Zealand-born Schmidt described Hansen’s comments as “a little bit of banter”.

The World Cup in Japan starts in September 2019.

“So for us to be favourites when they have been the world number one team for nine years, and continue to be the world number one team?” said Schmidt.

“We were at home, and they were coming off a long series of games where they have travelled around the world a number of times.

“The crowd were phenomenal tonight. And that’s a lot of things stacked in our favour.

“So we’ll take tonight, and leave 11 months’ time for 11 months’ time.

“The World Cup? We’ve got to work hard to make sure we’re ready for the USA [next week],” said Schmidt.

Could Schmidt succeed Hansen?

Schmidt is expected to decide this month whether he will agree to a contract extension with Ireland beyond the World Cup.

It remains unclear whether two-time World Cup-winning coach Hansen will stay after the tournament, and Schmidt has been suggested a possible successor.

“I’ve huge respect for Steve, Fozzy (Ian Foster) and Scott MacLeod, their coaching staff,” said Schmidt.

The All Blacks will retain their number one ranking despite Saturday’s defeat.

“As I said earlier in the week this was number one versus number two in the world,” said Hansen.

“So as of now they are the number one team in the world. If you want to make them World Cup favourites, go ahead.”

He said his players were “gutted” by defeat at the Aviva Stadium, but added: “This will be very useful as this team hasn’t suffered many [defeats] over the past three years.”

When a crew member aboard Star Trek‘s USS Enterprise is accused of sabotaging the futuristic ship, a noble Captain Jean-Luc Picard comes the accused traitor’s defense, delivering a grave message to his exploration corps:   

“Have we become so fearful, have we become so cowardly, that we must extinguish a man because he carries the blood of a current enemy?” Picard asks a spaceship tribunal.

It’s a seminal moment in Star Trek: The Next Generation history, and in the background of Picard’s speech — like most every scene aboard the Enterprise — is the omnipresent drone of the starship’s powerful engine. 

Curiously enough, this science fiction sound has expanded well-beyond the outer fringes of the galaxy: Today, common Earthlings listen to hours-long loops of the Enterprise’s incessant, deep, industrial hum. Many use it to sleep, others to work or concentrate. It’s a type of (perhaps unconventional) white noise: light ambient hums that muffle perturbing or bothersome sounds.

One particular Star Trek engine ambient soundtrack — which are all looped and created by musician and sci-fi enthusiast Spike Snell — has garnered over 3.4 million listens on YouTube, though there are a variety of Snell’s sci-fi recordings online. Snell originally began experimenting with long loops of spaceship sounds while living in a “shack in the woods.”

“I started obsessing a little bit on that deep rumbling noise as it felt like one of the key aspects of many sci-fi shows,” Snell said over email. “I had never imagined at that point so many others would be interested in it or other similar sounds.”

They are. A couple of years after posting the ambient space drones online, Snell started looking at the metrics. People were listening for hours at a time. 

“I realized it was striking a heavy chord globally,” Snell said. 

Snell said people give constant feedback, often folks commenting on YouTube. The spaceship engines, they say, give them relief from sleeplessness. 

“Sometimes I print out the very best comments and put them on my fridge to remind myself that I’m not wasting all my time with this project,” Snell said. 

Spaceship slumber

White noise of all sorts really does help people sleep through the night. 

“It distracts your brain,” Michelle Drerup, a psychologist who specializes in sleep disorders at the Cleveland Clinic, an academic medical center, said in an interview. “The white noise really creates a masking effect.”

Some people just leave a fan on. An air conditioner can do the trick. And there are countless apps that produce the sounds of waves, or rain. 

“There’s not a criteria,” Drerup said, adding that different sounds just work for different people. After listening to the starship drone, she said, “it would meet the general definition” of white noise used for sleeping. 

“It [the Star Trek drone] may be very reasonable for people,” agreed Shalini Paruthi, who practices sleep medicine at St. Luke’s Hospital in Missouri. 

“If you can drown out some noise and make simple, monotonous, boring noise, that actually decreases the brain stimulation and allows the brain to sleep better.”

Image: bob al-greene/mashable

So however weird, or unconventional, the hum of the spaceship engines can lull some people to sleep. And sleep, as you’re likely well-aware, is simply vital.

“Getting at least seven hours every night, consistently, is super important for optimal health,” emphasized Paruthi.

Whether they realize or not, everyone wakes up throughout the night, interspersed between deep sleep. Paruthi called these “normal physiological wakings” and said they typically occur four to seven times a night, depending on the person. Many of us just promptly go right back to sleep — and don’t realize we had ever even stirred, said Paruthi.

These awakenings are a bit like “safety checks,” explained Paruthi. Our brains awake and scan the environment, looking for changes or potential danger. 

Evolutionarily, these awakenings make good sense — when we were a less domesticated species, and there were threats in the night. 

“Safety checks were probably more important during sleep hundreds of years ago, but it’s something that’s still there,” said Paruthi.

Some of our brains, however, are more sensitive to any changes in sound, like traffic outside our houses, or other outside noise. These people may need a noise-masking effect. Like a low volume spaceship. 

Image: BOB AL-GREENE/MASHABLE

But in some cases, even the drone from an advanced starship can’t put everyone to sleep. 

Insomnia — which generally means difficulty falling asleep or going back to sleep after waking up — is the most common sleep problem. 

If it takes more than half an hour to go to sleep, or you try white noise for a couple weeks with no success, that could be a sign that there’s something medically awry, said Drerup. Then, visiting a sleep doctor would be a good idea. It could be allergies, a breathing problem, or something else. 

Snell, the maker of the Star Trek soundtracks, also uses white noise to sleep. Snell once listened to the starship Enterprise while sleeping, but now prefers something more mundane, and certainly less galaxy-inspired.

“By far my preference is to sleep with a large box fan right next to my head,” Snell said.

Argentina’s ARA San Juan submarine disappeared a year ago about 430km off the country’s Atlantic coast with 44 crew members on board.

The 66-metre vessel was located on Friday by a remote-operated submersible from Ocean Infinity, a US-based seabed exploration company, in the waters off the Valdes Peninsula in Argentine Patagonia, about 600km from the port city of Comodoro Rivadavia.

Relatives of crew members have demanded a quick recovery of the remains of their loved ones and an investigation into the sinking to prevent similar tragedies.

However, the government said on Saturday that it was unable to raise the vessel due to the country’s lack of “modern technology”.

The submarine, which has imploded and broken into pieces due to water pressure, is lying at a depth of 907 metres, making a recovery mission extremely challenging.

The depth at which the German-built diesel-electric vessel was located is in the lower reaches of what is known as the twilight – or dysphotic – zone (200 to 1,000 metres) where light is almost non-existent.

Such a minuscule amount of light penetrates beyond a depth of 200 metres that photosynthesis is no longer possible, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States.

Pressure at a depth of 907 metres reaches more than 90 bar. The human body, without a reinforced atmospheric suit, can withstand a maximum of four bar of pressure.

Exploration from about 609 metres requires special equipment, predominantly unmanned.

Lacking technology and funds

Officials showed images of the submarine on a seabed with its hull totally deformed. Parts of its propellers were buried and debris was scattered over up to 70 metres.

Any move to recuperate the vessel would be an extremely logistically challenging undertaking based on the submarine’s distance from the coast, its depth and the kind of seabed upon which it is resting.

Argentina lacks adequate technological capabilities for the operation.

Navy commander Jose Luis Villan urged “prudence”, saying that a federal judge was overseeing the investigation and would be the one to decide whether it was at all possible to recover a part or the entirety of the ship.

Ocean Infinity CEO Oliver Plunkett said his company “would be pleased to assist with a recovery operation”. But Argentina would struggle to afford the help.

The country is currently facing a currency crisis and double-digit inflation that has led the government to announce sweeping measures to balance the budget and concretise a financial deal with the International Monetary Fund.

The last precedent of submarine recovery took place in Russia in 2001. The 18,000-tonne Kursk vessel was lifted in a 15-hour operation costing the Russian government up to $80m. 

Recovering the ARA San Juan would likely cost a lot more, as the Kursk was lying almost nine times closer to the surface, at a depth of about 115 metres.