It’s not often we see savings on Apple products directly from Apple themselves, but luckily other retailers regularly slash the prices of the popular wearable. That’s why we’re pretty excited to see this deal from Adorama where the Apple Watch Series 7 is now down from $399 to just $334.99. (opens in new tab)
The Apple Watch Series 7 is the latest installment in the wearable line. It has a 20% larger screen size than its predecessors, the Apple Watch 6 and the SE. Track your fitness, have easy access to notifications and even regulate your sleep schedule; this smartwatch does it all. You can also use the Apple Wallet app to pay for your purchases on the go with the flick of your wrist. Check out the best Apple watch apps for more ideas of how versatile this watch can be when it comes to apps.
This particular sale offers buyers the watch in a funky green aluminum casing with a clover band. It’s important to mention this sale only applies to the GPS version of the watch, meaning you can only use the internet when you’re on Wifi or close to your iPhone. However if you’re wanting a cellular option, Adorama currently has a Series 7 Watch with cellular compatibility that is now under $500. (opens in new tab) If you want regular updates you on all the lowest Apple Watch Series 7 prices, we’ve also got just the page for you.
If you’re outside of the US, you can find the best deals on the Apple Watch Series 7 below wherever you’re based.
Kate Middleton and Prince William put their royal rift aside today as they wished Meghan Markle a happy birthday. The Duchess of Sussex turned 41 today, with the Royal Family taking to social media to wish her a special day, The Sun reported.
Sharing a photo of Meghan on their social media channels, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge wrote: “Wishing a happy birthday to The Duchess of Sussex!”
Minutes later, Prince Charles and Camilla posted: “Happy birthday to The Duchess of Sussex!”
Both posts featured pictures of the duchess beaming in white as she marked the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee at St Paul’s Cathedral this year.
The day saw her and Prince Harry sat at the other side of the aisle from Kate and Wills, with the seating order determined by working royal status.
It marked the first time the couple were seen with The Firm since the frosty Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey in March 2020, shortly before they officially quit royal life.
They have since made a number of bombshell claims about the royals, with fears more could come in Harry’s upcoming tell-all book.
The couple made their latest UK trip with their children Archie, three, and Lilibet, one, from California – where it’s likely they’ll stay for Meghan’s birthday.
However it is not yet known how the family will celebrate, a year on from Meghan’s 40 X 40 campaign which she set up to mark her 40th.
The duchess asked A-listers including Adele and Stella McCartney, as well as members of the public, to donate 40 minutes of their time to “help women re-entering the workforce” for the project.
She promoted the initiative in a glitzy comedy video recorded at her home in exclusive Montecito.
A year on, there has still been no follow-up on the campaign, which also featured comedy star Melissa McCarthy.
This story was originally published by The Sun and has been reproduced with permission.
Pressure will begin to mount on Carlton and coach Michael Voss as teams begin to work out their game style.
Can the Blues adjust and find other ways to win?
Kane Cornes believes the next three weeks will be crucial in answering that question.
Carlton currently has 12 wins with Brisbane, Melbourne and Collingwood to come. In all likelihood, they will need a 13th to play finals, meaning they will have to knock off a top five team.
Cornes looks to recent losses against Adelaide and Richmond as examples of teams going to school on the Blues and shutting down their strengths around the contest.
“The challenge for Vossy is now strategic. Can you win a different way?” corners awning SEN’s Whateley.
“There is now a blueprint on how to beat Carlton. We saw it from Richmond, we certainly saw it from Adelaide and they didn’t have an answer to it.
“What is it? Well, if you match them on-ball and if you stifle their strength around the contest and you break even around the footy and be as ferocious as they have been, if you then go after a couple of their half-backs and you’re able to shut down their run … if Sam Walsh is playing as a high half-forward, let him go and drop off and that will give you the extra behind the ball as Richmond did so well with Nick Vlastuin.
“Walsh had high 30s that night, but Vlastuin had seven intercepts and was really influential. They’re more than happy to let Walsh get 40, but kick it inside 50 four times and have three score involvements. That’s a challenge for him and the club.
“So when they are matched around the footy, what’s their plan B? If you put two disciplined defenders on McKay and Curnow who are going to play back shoulder and not give them an inch and not try and come off and intercept, but just mitigate them.
“Does Voss have another option in his coaching arsenal to get the wins that have been largely reliant on them beating up sides around the footy?
“That’s what I’m looking for. That was probably always going to be Michael Voss’ challenge. The aura, the motivator, the figure that he is was always his strength, but how is he tactically? We’ll get a good look at that in the next three weeks.”
Carlton’s game plan has been built around clearance and contested footy dominance, as well as their aerial power inside 50.
They will need both areas to shine on Sunday afternoon when they take on Brisbane at the Gabba.
The employer is calling for prospective tenants’ rights to be better protected.
Melbourne employer Luke Hilakari is calling out real estate agents for asking invasive and irrelevant questions about one of his staff members.
Hilakari, secretary for The Victorian Trades Hall in Melbourne, says that he was contacted by an agent who asked him to fill in a referee check for a prospective tenant, reports Guardian. While the form included questions about income and probation status, Hilakari was also asked questions like “would you consider renting to this person?” along with queries as to whether the staff member was hard-working and punctual.
“These questions are deliberately and unnecessarily invasive,” Hilakari said, per Guardian .“In a reference check for someone getting a job you wouldn’t ask that many questions. “[They] are completely unnecessary to rent a house.”
Hilakari posted his experience on Twitter.
We must change the Residential Tenancies Act.
I was a reference for an employee & the agent asked q’s like:
– Total salary – Do they come to work on time – Are they hard working
These q’s are none of the agents business & no boss should have the power to spike where u live.
The employer is calling for changes to Victoria’s Residential Tenancy Act to prohibit real estate agents and landlords from requesting applicant information that is really none of their business.
While amendments were made to the Residential Tenancy Act in Victoria in March 2021, and certain requests for information were regulated; including marriage status, sexual orientation, and former tenancy disputes, Hilakari’s experience had shed light on the many invasions of privacy that are still going on unchecked.
In reply to Hilakari’s tweet, one Twitter user wrote: “Before even inspecting a property I had to do a full tenancy application including 100 point check, payslips, employment check, car rego, etc. They now have my data and the property wasn’t suitable.”
“It’s not even them”, another person added. “They hand it off to third party aggregator sites. Gives the agent’s plausible deniability for hacks and leaks and an extra revenue stream from kickbacks when the aggregators onsell the data — to credit agents, to harvesters, to insurers.”
Hilakari indicated that he ended up acquiescing to the request as he was concerned his staffer would be denied the property if he didn’t. “[I] did not want to provide one bit of data, but I felt like I had no choice,” he said. “[The employee] I was worried, and I was worried, that if I didn’t answer [they] wouldn’t get the property.”
The story comes after news that Australian rent prices have gone up more than 70 percent in the last 12 months due to a scarcity of vacant properties.
There was every reason to expect a close election.
Instead, Tuesday’s resounding victory for abortion rights supporters in Kansas offered some of the most concrete evidence yet that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has shifted the political landscape. The victory, by a 59-41 margin in a Republican stronghold, suggests Democrats will be the energized party on an issue where Republicans have usually had an enthusiasm advantage.
The Kansas vote implies that around 65 percent of voters nationwide would reject a similar initiative to roll back abortion rights, including in more than 40 of the 50 states (a few states on each side are very close to 50-50). This is a rough estimate, based on how demographic characteristics predicted the results of recent abortion referendums. But it is an evidence-based way of arriving at a fairly obvious conclusion: If abortion rights wins 59 percent support in Kansas, it’s doing even better than that nationwide.
It’s a tally that’s in line with recent national surveys that showed greater support for legal abortion after the court’s decision. And the high turnout, especially among Democrats, confirms that abortion is not just some wedge issue of importance to political activists. The stakes of abortion policy have become high enough that it can drive a high midterm-like turnout on its own.
None of this proves that the issue will help Democrats in the midterm elections. And there are limits to what can be gleaned from the Kansas data. But the lopsided margin makes one thing clear: The political winds are now at the backs of abortion rights supporters.
A surprisingly decisive outcome
There was not much public polling in the run-up to the Kansas election, but the best available data suggested that voters would probably split fairly evenly on abortion.
In a Times compilation of national polling published this spring, 48 percent of Kansas voters said they thought abortion should be mostly legal compared with 47 percent who thought it should be mostly illegal. Similarly, the Cooperative Election Study in 2020 found that the state’sregistered voters were evenly split on whether abortion should be legal.
The results of similar recent referendums in Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee and West Virginia also pointed toward a close race in Kansas — perhaps even one in which a “no” vote to preserve abortion rights would have the edge.
As with the Kansas vote, a “yes” vote in each of those four states’ initiatives would have amended a state constitution to allow significant restrictions on abortion rights or funding for abortion. In contrast with Kansas, the initiatives passed in all four states, including a 24-point victory in Louisiana in 2020. But support for abortion rights outpaced support for Democratic presidential candidates in relatively white areas across all four states, especially in less religious areas outside the Deep South.
It’s a pattern that suggests abortion rights would have much greater support than Joe Biden did as a candidate in a relatively white state like Kansas — perhaps even enough to make abortion rights favored to survive.
It may seem surprising that abortion supporters would even have a chance in Kansas, given the state’s long tradition of voting for Republicans. But Kansas is more reliably Republican than it is conservative. The state has an above-average number of college graduates, a group that has swung toward Democrats in recent years.
Kansas voted for Donald J. Trump by around 15 percentage points in 2020, enough to make it pretty safely Republican. Yet it’s not quite off the board for Democrats. Republicans have learned this the hard way; look no further than the 2018 Democratic victory in the governor’s race.
Even so, a landslide victory for abortion rights in Kansas did not appear to be a probable outcome, whether based on the polls or the recent initiatives. The likeliest explanations for the surprise: Voters may be more supportive of abortion rights in the aftermath of the overturning of Roe (as national polls imply); they may be more cautious about eliminating abortion rights now that there are real policy consequences to these initiatives; abortion rights supporters may be more energized to go to the polls.
Abortion rights supporters may not always find it so easy to advance their cause. They were defending the status quo in Kansas; elsewhere, they will be trying to overturn abortion bans.
Whatever the explanation, if abortion supporters could fare as well as they did in Kansas, they would have a good chance to defend abortion rights almost anywhere in the country. The state may not be as conservative as Alabama, but it is much more conservative than the nation as a whole — and the result was notclose. There are only seven states — in the Deep South and the Mountain West — where abortion rights supporters would be expected to fail in a hypothetically similar initiative.
A shift in turnout
If there’s any rule about partisan turnout in American politics, it’s that registered Republicans turn out at higher rates than registered Democrats.
While the Kansas figures are still preliminary, it appears that registered Democrats were likelier to vote than registered Republicans.
Overall, 276,000 voters participated in the Democratic primary, which was held on Tuesday as well, compared with 451,000 who voted in the Republican primary. The Democratic tally amounted to 56 percent of the number of registered Democrats in the state, while the number of Republican primary voters was 53 percent of the number of registered Republicans. (Unaffiliated voters are the second-largest group in Kansas.)
In Johnson County, outside Kansas City, Mo., 67 percent of registered Democrats turned out, compared with 60 percent of registered Republicans.
This is a rare feat for Democrats in a high-turnout election. In nearby Iowa, where historical turnout data is easily accessible, turnout among registered Democrats in a general election has never eclipsed turnout among registered Republicans in at least 40 years.
The superior Democratic turnout helps explain why the result was less favorable for abortion opponents than expected. And it confirms that Democrats are now far more energized on the abortion issue, reversing a pattern from recent elections. It may even raise Democrats’ hopes that they could defy the longstanding tendency for the president’s party to have poor turnout in midterm elections.
For Republicans, the turnout figures may offer a modest silver lining. They might reasonably hope that turnout will be more favorable in the midterms in November, when abortion won’t be the only issue on the ballot and Republicans will have many more reasons to vote — including control of Congress.
In addition, he said the existing operator had done a “really good job” with the Windsor Castle Hotel.
“It’s a big pub with a good bistro, a strong local following and diversified earnings, which will continue to grow,” Mr Cornforth said.
Harvest Hotels are not the only ones seeing value in pubs in regional towns.
Rich Listers the Laundy family and Merivale boss Justin Hemmes have also been buying hotels outside the major capital cities in places such as Wagga Wagga and Narooma.
So has private equity-backed Black Fox Property, which purchased the Australian Hotel in Ballina on the NSW North Coast in June for $9.5 million. Byram Johnston, the former CEO and chairman of funds administrator Mainstream Group, bought the 150-year-old Tarana Hotel near Lithgow in central-western NSW for $5 million in May.
Also looking towards the regions is syndicator Nick Quinn who along with his investment partners – Wagga Wagga publishes Sean O’Hara and Michael Ireson – were the vendors of the Windsor Castle Hotel. The trio purchased the Manning River Hotel in Taree on the NSW Mid North Coast for about $20 million last month.
The acquisition of the Windsor Castle Hotel – a two-storey venue at 78 Lawes Street in East Maitland that comes with 30 gaming machine entitlements, a public bar, large bistro, beer garden, drive-thru bottle shop and accommodation rooms – takes Harvest Hotels ‘ portfolio to eight venues worth about $210 million and held in two funds.
In May, The Australian Financial Review‘s Street Talk column reported that Harvest Hotels was pitching a third fund at investors targeting venues in Adelaide and seeking to raise about $50 million.
Total returns of 17 per cent and a cash yield of 8 per cent were on offer, Harvest Hotels said, as it looked to acquire a $250 million portfolio within five years.
The sale of the Windsor Castle Hotel was brokered by JLL pub specialists Ben McDonald and Kate MacDonald.
“This transaction highlights the market’s willingness to pursue assets underpinned by robust trading fundamentals in key growth locations,” Mr McDonald said.
The sale follows JLL selling the leasehold to the Glenquarie Tavern in Macquarie Fields for $28 million last month – NSW’s largest ever leasehold transaction – and after the real estate firm listed The Oaks Hotel in Neutral Bay with price expectations of more than $175 million.
Amazon Luna is now available on Samsung Gaming Hub. The games streaming service joins others already available through Samsung’s platform such as Xbox’s TV app, Nvidia GeForce Now and Google Stadia.
Samsung Gaming Hub only launched at the end of June. The platform is available on Samsung’s 2022 smart TVs and monitors, and allows gamers to get their gaming fix without a console. Its big coup was being the exclusive home to the Xbox TV app, letting Xbox fans play without the need for an Xbox Series X/S (though they will need an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription).
Amazon Luna is the last of the big streaming services to join Samsung’s platform. According to Samsung (opens in new tab)the platform now offers over 1000 games to stream.
Luna launched earlier this year. It offers subscribers various “channels” to choose from, which basically involve bundles of games from its total of over 250 titles. Free games are also available on the Prime Gaming channel, including Controller Ultimate Edition, Myst, Garfield Kart and Steel Assault.
Luna is also available on PCs and Macs, Chromebooks, Fire TV devices, as well as iOS and Android mobile devices.
You can play Luna using any supported Bluetooth controller using its passthrough tech.
MORE:
Xbox Game Pass Family Plan to launch this year
Sony beefs up PlayStation Plus to take on Xbox Game Pass
Xbox Series X restock news: where to buy an Xbox Series X console
For a group of parents visiting DisneyWorldtheir trip became that much more excruciating when their families got stuck on the ‘It’s a Small World’ ride.
A video shared by TikTok user @hazeysmom22 revealed visitors were stuck on the notoriously annoying ride for over an hour after one of the boats began sinking.
When operating normally, ‘It’s a Small World’ takes visitors on a scenic boat trip around a miniature version of the world populated by animatronic dolls dressed in costumes from different cultures. Throughout the trip, robots sing a loop of the Sherman Brothers’ song ‘It’s a Small World’.
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Disney World visitors got stuck on the ‘It’s a Small World’ ride for an hour. (Tik Tok)
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The TikTok user called the experience “torture.”
“[Staff] didn’t realize for like 45 mins, everyone was stuck on a boat so we sat there for about an hour stuck with the song on repeat!!”
The ride has been an integral part of the Disney World experience since the 1970s and has garnered a significant amount of hate over the decades.
One TikTok commenter wrote, “I have such a deep hatred of this ride after an incident in the CA park when I was 12. I’m 31 now.”
Another said, “No joke, this legitimately happened to me when I was a kid in the late 80s! They never turned the music off, I can’t hear that song without cringing!”
A TikTok video showed young babies were also stuck. (Tik Tok)
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“My dad got stuck on this ride for hours when he went to Disney World for spring break in the early 70s,” said one TikTok user. “To this day, I can’t stand to hear the song.”
This isn’t even the first ride sinking this year.
According to the new york post, this is the park’s third sinking incident in two years. A few weeks ago, video footage showed guests climbing out of a car on Splash Mountain because it started sinking.
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Lonely Planet unveils the Ultimate Australia Travel List
It’s barely been three days since the Tour de France Femmes wrapped up atop the Planche des Belles Filles. Is that too early to start thinking about next year’s race?
Maybe, but one person who 2023 on their mind already is yellow jersey winner Annemiek van Vleuten, and the 39-year-old has some notes.
Naturally, as the Olympic time trial champion, she would like to see a race against the clock included. But aside from that, one thing she has been vocal about is her desire for her to race up an iconic Tour climb like Alpe d’Huez.
“Actually I would hope, because next year will be the last year [for Van Vleuten, who is retiring], that we can maybe have Alpe d’Huez,” she told the press after her win. “Being Dutch, that would be super cool to have that back. Also, in the history of the Tour de France Femmes it was also a big battle on the Alpe d’Huez. So it would be really cool to have that back.”
Such mountains would give, and possibly take away. Some have argued that the Dutch rider’s style of racing and strength in the high mountains would seem to create a certain inevitability around her taking the win, yet the Tour can not truly be the Tour without such icons.
It is possible, even probable, that Van Vleuten would run away so emphatically with the win that it would make a mild mockery of the rest of the bunch. Much as she did on stage seven this year. But Van Vleuten’s dominance of her, while more predictable than some would like, is elevating the level of those who are coming up behind her.
To put it simply, she deserves a shot at Alpe d’Huez.
The iconic Dutch corner. Photo: Gruber Images
Van Vleuten has unequivocally confirmed her retirement at the end of 2023. Her career spans 14 years and myriad achievements of a stature that most riders can only dream of. She is also the master of the comeback. From her horror crash in the road race in Rio to standing on the podium in Tokyo with silver in the road race and gold in the time trial.
Even during the Tour de France, she went from battling a stomach bug that left her barely able to pack her own suitcase to attacking after 60km and winning by a margin of 3 minutes and 26 seconds on the first of two back-to-back mountain stages.
Such is her longevity that she has won Flanders twice, ten years apart. She is a two-time world road race champion and two-time time trial world champion.
She says the span of her career and her age are the keys to her success. At the Tour de France Femmes, when faced with questions around just how she manages to do as she does, her message from ella to fans and colleagues alike was “do n’t try this at home.”
“I’m a bit older than the other girls, so can do a lot of training,” Van Vleuten said after winning stage seven. “I want to make something clear. It’s not that my colleagues don’t train as much as I do. It has something to do with training years.”
When the going gets tough, Van Vleuten thrives. She pulls off crazy and gutsy moves such as riding away from the peloton after 45km at the world championships in Yorkshire in 2019 never to be seen again. Moves which, while they may leave people groaning that she has neutralized the race, are incredible feats of athleticism and must be celebrated as such.
As of last weekend, she is the first woman to do the Giro-Tour double for 22 years and she already threw down the gauntlet for the Vuelta in her post-race press conference on Sunday.
Outside of racing, Van Vleuten has long been a vocal advocate for her sport and is keen to emphasize the need to enjoy riding when racing for a living. Having witnessed 14 years of development within women’s cycling, she is as experienced as anyone in the progress that has been made, and what is still missing.
Her aim for 2023, she has stated, is to play a role in the growth of her team, Movistar, in order to leave a legacy of professionalism.
She, like many others, will have dreamed of flying up the famous switchbacks of Alpe d’Huez one day, possibly wearing yellow, definitely on her way to winning the stage. In the closing season of such a monumental career, it is only fitting that she should be afforded the chance to live out that dream.
When she retires she will leave a legacy, and a gaping hole at the top of the sport. The competition to fill that hole will be fierce. That’s the Annemiek effect, she brings up the quality of the entire platoon as they strive to solve the conundrum of how to beat her.
She has blazed a trail for those riders who might be just one or two switchbacks behind her. They will have plenty of time to catch up to her elevation de ella after 2023 but for now it is still the Age of Annemiek and to watch her own de ella the race on the closest thing to a stadium our sport has would be a fitting end to a fantastic career.
NSW Transport Minister David Elliott says he will nominate for the deputy leadership of the Liberal party to support an “under the pump” premier after the position was vacated by embattled former minister Stuart Ayres.
Elliott is set to take on Treasurer Matt Kean in the contest for the role after the former trade minister resigned on Wednesday over his potential involvement in the John Barilaro trade job fiasco.
Transport Minister David Elliott is seeking to become deputy Liberal leader in NSW.Credit:Brook Mitchell
Skills and Science Minister Alister Henskens and Metropolitan Roads Minister Natalie Ward are also contenders for the position, which will be decided in a party room vote next Tuesday.
The transport and veterans affair minister – who is also one of the government’s most outspoken ministers – on Thursday said he was “very sad to see” that Ayres had to stand down in the circumstances and was only reluctantly offering to take his place.
“He’s been a superior servant to the party, he’s a great member for Penrith, and he’s been a wonderful minister for Western Sydney… It’s one of those occasions where I don’t put my name forward, or I don’t canvasses support, out of excitement or enthusiasm,” Elliott said on radio station 2GB on Thursday morning.
“The premier’s under the pump at the moment. The easiest thing for people to do at the moment, I think, is to walk away or to keep their head down because, you know, the premier is dealing with a number of difficult issues.
“But that’s just not my style. If a mate needs a hand, I’m putting mine up to give him that assistance.”
Premier Dominic Perrottet’s government has faced rolling crises since Barilaro was appointed to a plum $500,000-a-year trade posting in late June. Perrottet lost two ministers to scandal this week alone: former fair trading minister Eleni Petinos amid bullying allegations, as well as Ayres.
