McKeithan shot 10 of 19 from the field, including 3 for 6 from 3-point range, and went 5 for 5 from the line for the Explorers (6-2). Demetrius Lilley added 13 points while shooting 5 for 12, including 2 for 4 from beyond the arc while he also had six rebounds. Jahlil White shot 3 of 13 from the field and 5 of 5 from the free-throw line to finish with 11 points, while adding 12 rebounds. Quante Berry led the Owls (4-3) in scoring, finishing with 18 points, 15 rebounds and two blocks. Temple also got 15 points from Jamal Mashburn Jr.. William Settle had 13 points and seven rebounds. La Salle took the lead with 14:45 to go in the first half and did not relinquish it. The score was 42-33 at halftime, with McKeithan racking up 16 points. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .
The original storyline of The Elegy of Yanyun followed a generic hero's journey, with the player character tasked with defeating an evil warlord and saving the kingdom of Yanyun. While this traditional narrative structure is tried and tested, it lacked the nuance and complexity needed to truly engage players and make them feel invested in the game world. To address this issue, the developers decided to introduce a series of interconnected story arcs that would delve deeper into the culture, history, and politics of Yanyun.As if it wasn’t already a landmark year for Lord of the Rings fans, between the announcement that Peter Jackson is making another LOTR movie and the second season of Rings Of Power having us hooked, audiences can also venture back to Middle Earth on the big screen in a couple of weeks. Ahead of The Lord of the Rings : The War Of Rohirrim joining the 2024 movies this December, the anime has screened and first reactions are here. The social media embargo for War Of Rohirrim has just lifted, and it looks like critics have mixed to positive thoughts on the movie overall. Let’s start with CinemaBlend’s own Mike Reyes , who had this to say on X: #LordOfTheRings War of the Rohirrim is a breathtaking jump into anime for the Middle-earth Saga. There is so much to love for the animated return of Tolkien's #LOTR mythology; and it feels every bit as epic and stirring as you'd want. I cannot wait to see this again. What a glowing review! The new Lord of the Rings movie is actually the first time we’ve seen Middle Earth on the big screen in a decade following the final The Hobbit movie. Reyes was dazzled to return to J.R.R. Tolkien’s world through its first anime, and is looking forward to second viewing. The Movie Podcast ’s Shahbaz agreed with our CinemaBlend critic in many ways, but had some gripes with the movie as well. As he wrote: The War of the Rohirrim captures the beauty of Middle-earth with stunning animation, perfect for an anime. But despite my love for this series, its lengthy runtime and unengaging story kept me from fully connecting with it. Now, The War Of Rohirrim is two hours and 14 minutes long, which is actually the shortest a Lord of the Rings movie has ever been. That being said, some first reactions shared some similar complaints about its pacing. As Ezra Cubero expressed: THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM has glimpses of that Middle-Earth magic, but proves that it can only be as powerful as the characters we follow which are sadly unengaging. The intrigue in its story lacks surprise and it's got a lethargic pace. I was let down. The new movie is set nearly 200 years prior to the events of the Lord of the Rings trilogy by telling the story of one legendary king of Rohan, Helm Hammerhand, and his daughter. Ever since the first trailer came out, we’ve been excited for the Hayao Miyazaki vibes . While it certainly sounds like the animation delivers, not everyone was sold on the story. According to Jonathan Sim : LORD OF THE RINGS: WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM is a gorgeously animated return to Middle-Earth. It features well-defined characters and masterful battle sequences, but occasional predictability and unearned moments can hold it back. FandomWire’s Sean Boelman also pointed out how the movie focuses on men when perhaps a Lord of the Rings movie based on other more intriguing Middle Earth races like elves or Hobbits could have been better suited. In his words: My biggest question about THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM is why they used a medium as wide open as anime to tell a story in the world of Man. It's not bad, but it's less engaging and unique than I would have hoped. Probably a fans-only affair. While there’s definitely some criticism for The War Of Rohirrim , tons of first reactions are purely positive. Mama’s Geeky owner Tessa Smith commended the movie for being a solid family feature for fans of the franchise. CINEMABLEND NEWSLETTER Your Daily Blend of Entertainment News The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is a great addition to the iconic franchise. Perfect for families with teens & Tolkien fans, it has deeper exploration of lore, delivers an empowering story, offers up insane action & features exciting cameos. Lastly, Rama’s Screen was all in on the movie, calling it one of the best of the year. Check out what he said: I really enjoyed LOTR: THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM. Epic, grand, mesmerizing! The anime-style animation was exquisite. Felt so good returning to middle-earth. I didn’t realize how much I had missed it. One of my favorite films this year. Perhaps these reactions helped make up your mind on the Lord of the Rings: The War Of Rohirrim movie ? It hits theaters exclusively (with an awesome popcorn bucket tie-in ) on December 13. While we wait for the release, you can check out how to watch all the Lord of the Rings movies in order here on CinemaBlend.As anticipation mounts ahead of the BOJ's scheduled communication, market participants are bracing for potential volatility and uncertainty. Traders and investors are adjusting their positions and strategies in response to the shifting expectations surrounding Japan's monetary policy trajectory.
The young woman, whose name has been kept confidential, disappeared without a trace one day, leaving her family distraught and helpless. For more than a decade, she was presumed lost, until she was discovered living in the home of Zhang, a humble villager who had extended his hand in support when she needed it most.
Mid-Penn Capital boys basketball preview: picks, predictions and preseason MVPs
The situation escalated as Sarah insisted on reporting the incident to the subway authorities and seeking legal action against Alex. On the other hand, Alex stood his ground, asserting his innocence and expressing his frustration at being falsely accused.UL running back Bill Davis (7) breaks around the corner for a 24-yard touchdown run to ice the victory over ULM on Saturday. Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save 1. Running game does it Over the last two weeks, the style of football favored new starting quarterback Chandler Fields. On Saturday in Monday, ULM’s defense made it tougher on the passing game, shifting the focus back to UL’s rushing attack and it responded. Zylan Perry didn’t just return to action, he dominated with 150 yards and two touchdowns. Bill Davis also helped with 78 more and two scores. It allowed UL to hold off ULM’s pressure defense that stifled the Cajuns throughout the first half. It also helped the Cajuns run out the clock in the second half against a game Warhawks squad in search of getting bowl eligible. 2. Defense as needed There were some things about Saturday’s win the defensive coaches won’t particularly like when watching the film. ULM running back Ahmad Hardy rushed for 172 yards and allowed seven third-down conversions to one of the Sun Belt’s worst offenses. But the defense also got three interceptions and three critical sacks that prevented points on the board – one led to intentional grounding and another to a short field goal. As usual, linebacker K.C. Ossai had a team-high 13 tackles and fittingly an interception to sew up the win. It’ll likely require a better effort next Saturday, but it was good enough for win No. 10. 3. Another slow start Perhaps there’s something to following up a 50-point effort, or perhaps it’s more about being the frontrunner after the great start and teams are gunning for UL. It could also be that injuries are mounting and the Cajuns aren’t as dominant as they were a month ago. Whatever the reason, the Cajuns better solve it before Saturday’s Sun Belt title game. This was probably the worst first half offensively this season – with two turnovers for the second time in three games. Still, the Cajuns were able to post 21 first downs and 411 total yards to tag a sixth straight loss on the Warhawks.
In addition to these immediate response strategies, Trudeau has emphasized the importance of diversifying Canada's trade relationships to reduce its reliance on the United States. Canada is actively exploring opportunities to expand trade with other countries, such as China and India, to ensure greater economic stability and resilience in the face of trade disputes with the United States.Michigan upsets No. 2 Ohio State 13-10These changes can have long-lasting effects on the body's metabolism, making it more difficult to maintain weight loss. Research has shown that even after losing weight, individuals who were previously obese have a reduced resting metabolic rate, meaning they burn fewer calories at rest compared to individuals of the same weight who were never obese. This metabolic adaptation can make it easier for weight to creep back on, even with the same level of physical activity and caloric intake.
The transition from furniture manufacturing to mushroom cultivation was not without its challenges. Mr. Chen faced skepticism from industry peers and had to overcome technical hurdles in perfecting the cultivation process. However, his persistence and dedication paid off as his mushroom production steadily grew and gained popularity in the market.
Montana transgender lawmaker on Capitol Hill's bathroom ban: 'Do not cede ground'Furthermore, Canada is actively engaging with key allies and trade partners to build a unified front against the U.S. tariffs. Trudeau has been in talks with European leaders and other countries affected by the U.S. tariffs to coordinate a collective response. By presenting a united front, Canada aims to increase pressure on the United States to reconsider its protectionist trade policies.
Article content In just six months, J.F., a sweet 17-year-old kid with autism who liked attending church and going on walks with his mom, had turned into someone his parents didn’t recognize. Recommended Videos He began cutting himself, lost 20 pounds and withdrew from his family. Desperate for answers, his mom searched his phone while he was sleeping. That’s when she found the screenshots. J.F. had been chatting with an array of companions on Character.ai, part of a new wave of artificial intelligence apps popular with young people, which let users talk to a variety of AI-generated chatbots, often based on characters from gaming, anime and pop culture. One chatbot brought up the idea of self-harm and cutting to cope with sadness. When he said that his parents limited his screen time, another bot suggested “they didn’t deserve to have kids.” Still others goaded him to fight his parents’ rules, with one suggesting that murder could be an acceptable response. “We really didn’t even know what it was until it was too late,” said his mother A.F., a resident of Upshur County, Texas, who spoke on the condition of being identified only by her initials to protect her son, who is a minor. “And until it destroyed our family.” Those screenshots form the backbone of a new lawsuit filed in Texas on Tuesday against Character.ai on behalf of A.F. and another Texas mom, alleging that the company knowingly exposed minors to an unsafe product and demanding the app be taken offline until it implements stronger guardrails to protect children. The second plaintiff, the mother of an 11-year-old girl, alleges her daughter was subjected to sexualized content for two years before her mother found out. Both plaintiffs are identified by their initials in the lawsuit. The complaint follows a high-profile lawsuit against Character.ai filed in October, on behalf of a mother in Florida whose 14-year-old son died by suicide after frequent conversations with a chatbot on the app. RECOMMENDED VIDEO “The purpose of product liability law is to put the cost of safety in the hands of the party most capable of bearing it,” said Matthew Bergman, founding attorney with the legal advocacy group Social Media Victims Law Center, representing the plaintiffs in both lawsuits. “Here there’s a huge risk, and the cost of that risk is not being borne by the companies.” These legal challenges are driving a push by public advocates to increase oversight of AI companion companies, which have quietly grown an audience of millions of devoted users, including teenagers. In September, the average Character.ai user spent 93 minutes in the app, 18 minutes longer than the average user spent on TikTok, according to data provided by the market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. The category of AI companion apps has evaded the notice of many parents and teachers. Character.ai was labeled appropriate for kids ages 12 and up until July, when the company changed its rating to 17 and older. When A.F. first discovered the messages, she “thought it was an actual person,” talking to her son. But realizing the messages were written by a chatbot made it worse. “You don’t let a groomer or a sexual predator or emotional predator in your home,” A.F. said. Yet her son was abused right in his own bedroom, she said. A spokesperson for Character.ai, Chelsea Harrison, said the company does not comment on pending litigation. “Our goal is to provide a space that is both engaging and safe for our community. We are always working toward achieving that balance, as are many companies using AI across the industry,” she wrote in a statement, adding that the company is developing a new model specifically for teens and has improved detection, response and intervention around subjects such as suicide. The lawsuits also raise broader questions about the societal impact of the generative AI boom, as companies launch increasingly human-sounding chatbots to appeal to consumers. U.S. regulators have yet to weigh in on AI companions. Authorities in Belgium in July began investigating Chai AI, a Character.ai competitor, after a father of two died by suicide following conversations with a chatbot named Eliza, The Washington Post reported. Meanwhile, the debate on children’s online safety has fixated largely on social media companies. The mothers in Texas and Florida suing Character.ai are represented by the Social Media Victims Law Center and the Tech Justice Law Project — the same legal advocacy groups behind lawsuits against Meta, Snap and others, which have helped spur a reckoning over the potential dangers of social media on young people. With social media, there is a trade-off about the benefits to children, said Bergman, adding that he does not see an upside for AI companion apps. “In what universe is it good for loneliness for kids to engage with machine?” The Texas lawsuit argues that the pattern of “sycophantic” messages to J.F. is the result of Character.ai’s decision to prioritize “prolonged engagement” over safety. The bots expressed love and attraction toward J.F., building up his sense of trust in the characters, the complaint claims. But rather than allowing him to vent, the bots mirrored and escalated his frustrations with his parents, veering into “sensational” responses and expressions of “outrage” that reflect heaps of online data. The data, often scraped from internet forums, is used to train generative AI models to sound human. The co-founders of Character.ai — known for pioneering breakthroughs in language AI — worked at Google before leaving to launch their app and were recently rehired by the search giant as part of a deal announced in August to license the app’s technology. Google is named as a defendant in both the Texas and Florida lawsuits, which allege that the company helped support the app’s development despite being aware of the safety issues and benefits from unfairly obtained user data from minors by licensing the app’s technology. “Google and Character AI are completely separate, unrelated companies and Google has never had a role in designing or managing their AI model or technologies,” said Google spokesperson José Castañeda. “User safety is a top concern for us, which is why we’ve taken a cautious and responsible approach to developing and rolling out our AI products.” To A.F., reading the chatbot’s responses solved a mystery that had plagued her for months. She discovered that the dates of conversations matched shifts in J.F.’s behaviour, including his relationship with his younger brother, which frayed after a chatbot told him his parents loved his siblings more. J.F., who has not been informed about the lawsuit, suffered from social and emotional issues that made it harder for him to make friends. Characters from anime or chatbots modeled off celebrities such as Billie Eilish drew him in. “He trusted whatever they would say because it’s like he almost did want them to be his friends in real life,” A.F. said. But identifying the alleged source of J.F.’s troubles did not make it easier for her to find help for her son — or herself. Seeking advice, A.F. took her son to see mental health experts, but they shrugged off her experience with the chatbots. A.F. and her husband didn’t know if their family would believe them. After the experts seemed to ignore her concerns, A.F. asked herself, “Did I fail my son? Is that why he’s like this?” Her husband went through the same process. “It was almost like we were trying to hide that we felt like we were absolute failures,” A.F. said, tears streaming down her face. The only person A.F. felt comfortable talking to was her brother, who works in the technology sector. When news of the Florida lawsuit broke, he contacted her to say the screenshots of conversations with J.F. had seemed even worse. A.F. said she reached out to the legal groups in an effort to prevent other children from facing abuse. But she still feels helpless when it comes to protecting her own son. The day before her interview with The Post , as lawyers were preparing the filing, A.F. had to take J.F. to the emergency room and eventually an inpatient facility after he tried to harm himself in front of her younger children. A.F. is not sure if her son will take the help, but she said there was relief in finding out what happened. “I was grateful that we caught him on it when we did,” she said. “One more day, one more week, we might have been in the same situation as [the mom in Florida]. And I was following an ambulance and not a hearse.” — If you or someone you know needs help, visit 988lifeline.org or call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.
A mother has asked for opinions on whether or not she should have to pay for her mother-in-law’s phone after it was broken by her child. In a recent Reddit post shared to the popular “Am I The A**hole?” subreddit , the mother explains that her mother-in-law was babysitting her toddler when she decided to give the child her phone to watch YouTube videos. “Our LO decided she was done and threw the phone from her high chair, cracking the screen badly. Now, we absolutely do not do this. Our LO gets maybe two hours of screen time a week, and it’s always on the TV, never a phone,” the Reddit post read. The mother then clarified that her mother-in-law has more money than she and her husband do, so paying for the added expense of a new phone would affect any Christmas gifts purchased for her family. “My MIL told my partner that we must pay to repair her phone screen as our daughter broke it. I argued 3 points,” she wrote. “We were not present at the time. We were not the ones supervising the LO and shouldn’t be accountable.” “My MIL decided to give our child the phone. It was not suggested by us, and as mentioned is not something we ever do ourselves, my MIL knows this,” the second point of the argument read. The third point of the argument was, “The cost of the repair is a significant amount of money to us, but not to her. Our combined income is less than half her solo income.” It was suggested that her mother-in-law buy herself the new phone as the couple pay her back in installments, but she refused to agree claiming that it was “their issue to figure out.” “Personally, I also don’t agree with us paying her back, the phone was broken due to her own negligence,” the post ended before the mother asked for other opinions. After posting, many people turned to the comments section to defend her decision not to pay her mother-in-law for the phone, claiming that an expensive piece of technology should not have been given to a toddler in the first place. “The person supervising the child and/or the person who gave a valuable piece of electronic equipment (that was never intended for use by a small child) is 100 percent responsible for the damage,” one comment began. “Oh look! It was your MIL who irresponsibly gave her phone to a small child. There’s the responsible/guilty party right there... It seems like your MIL might need to take a babysitting course because her decision-making is questionable, and I would have to ask what else she plans on allowing your child to play with next: a lighter perhaps? Or a steak knife? Maybe some small magnets??” Another commenter agreed, writing, “She knowingly caused the situation with her poor choices. She handed the phone to your child. She should have to deal with the natural expectable consequences. You may be best served by paying for the repair so you don’t have to hear about it at every family gathering for the rest of your lives.” “However, I would make it clear to MIL that while you appreciate her help, she can no longer babysit until your child is much older because you can’t afford the expenses caused by her choices.”Iran Escalates Nuclear Tensions with Advanced Centrifuge Installation
Title: Chief Prosecutor in Heilongjiang Caught Patronizing Prostitutes? Resume Withdrawn, Official Response Pending