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Sports

Kevin Durant trade news, ultimatum to Joe Tsai, reaction, updates, Brooklyn Nets, Ben Simmons

Could Kevin Durant be heading down a similar path to Ben Simmons? (Photo by Adam Hunger/Getty Images)

Things got ugly for Ben Simmons in Philadelphia and if Kevin Durant is not careful, he could be heading down a similar path in Brooklyn — if he is not already.

But could that be all part of the Nets superstar’s master plan?

Well, Durant certainly got the NBA world talking earlier in the week then he issued an ultimatum that left Nets owner Joseph Tsai in a tricky situation.

Durant, who requested a trade in June, reportedly told Tsai he needs to choose between the 12-time All-Star and the pairing of head coach Steve Nash and GM Sean Marks.

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A subsequent report from The New York Post laid out Durant’s specific grievances with the team, including a lack of consultation over the Nets’ firing of assistant coach and director of player development Adam Harrington.

But not everyone in the NBA world seems to think that Durant actually wants Nash or Marks fired from the organization.

That is certainly the opinion of Fox Sports’ Nick Wright, who said on ‘The Herd’ with Colin Cowherd that Durant’s ultimatum is all about achieving one “single goal”.

“I don’t think Kevin Durant actually wants those guys fired,” Wright said.

“I think he just wants to be traded. I think if he wanted Sean Marks and Steve Nash fired, he would have gone to Joe Tsai a month ago when he did the trade demand and quietly and privately said: ‘Listen, if you don’t fire these guys, I’m going to demand a trade’.

“I read this differently than most. I read this as Kevin Durant asking for something he knew he would not get in order to make it untenable for them to bring him back because he was starting to get concerned they were actually going to bring him back.

“This was him upping the ante to a level that is pretty unprecedented. It’s why I think Durant understood Joe Tsai is not going to do it and they also, I don’t believe, can ask Steve Nash to now coach Kevin Durant. I think it was a really smart move if his single goal is to be traded and I think that is his single goal.

Could Kevin Durant be heading down a similar path to Ben Simmons? (Photo by Adam Hunger/Getty Images)
Could Kevin Durant be heading down a similar path to Ben Simmons? (Photo by Adam Hunger/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images

You see, it is not like Durant has much leverage in this situation, as NBA front office insider John Hollinger explained in a recent article for The Athletic.

Hollinger pointed towards two numbers in particular to prove that point — 34 and four — Durant’s age and how many years he has left on his contract.

“Throwing both his coach and GM under the bus — in many cases for moves that came with a wink and nod from Durant’s camp — certainly makes it less likely the Nets will find it tenable to reunite everyone in the fall,” Hollinger wrote.

“Of course, this gambit offers no guarantees. The trade offers in front of the Nets today aren’t any different from the ones they rejected yesterday, and it’s not clear how or if Durant’s latest demand will compel action.”

What it could do though is lead to a similar situation to the one Simmons found himself in Philadelphia last year, although there are a few key differences as Hollinger also pointed out.

“Seemingly the sharpest arrow left in Durant’s quiver is pure hardball: a holdout, one that would cost him a chunk of his $44 million 2022-23 salary for every day he sat out,” he wrote.

“It would, ironically, be a near carbon-copy of the situation a year ago in Philadelphia with Durant’s occasional teammate Ben Simmons.

“Here’s the thing: The Nets are working on a different timeline than the Sixers were.”

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Hollinger is right. Philadelphia had to move relatively fast to capitalize on Joel Embiid’s prime and as such was more inclined to reach a swift resolution in the Simmons drama.

The same cannot be said for the Nets though, as Hollinger argued.

“If anything, they would seem to have the opposite motivation,” he wrote.

“Yes, Brooklyn’s first choice would be to run it back with Durant, Simmons and Kyrie Irving (or a suitable replacement). But in the absence of Durant, wouldn’t the Nets’ second choice be to tank the season and try again in 2024? And wouldn’t a Durant holdout do anything more than accelerate the Nets toward that endgame?

“Brooklyn’s best-case scenario may be waiting until midseason, when this summer’s free agents are eligible to be dealt with. It seems less likely they’d let a year of Durant’s contract wither on the vine at his age and wait until next offseason… but it ca n’t totally be ruled out either given the tanking incentive.

Durant has told Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai that he must choose between keeping Durant or head coach Steve Nash and general manager Sean Marks, The Athletic reported on August 8, 2022. (Photo by ELSA / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP)Source: AFP

What was consistent among a host of voices in the NBA media landscape was a sense of uncertainty, not knowing what exactly was coming next, again similar to the Simmons saga.

“The whole situation is a mess, but the kind of mess Brooklyn might happily sweep under a rug and ignore, if only it could,” The Ringers Rob Mahoney wrote.

“It’s impossible to replace Kevin Durant. Hell, it’s hard enough just to set a fair return for Durant in a trade, much less one suitors can realistically meet. Every ask sounds ridiculous because Durant is a genuinely ridiculous player.

“That might be the only reason he’s still a Net some six weeks after requesting a trade—and maybe the real reason KD is stirring the pot with this ultimatum in the first place. Does he really want Marks and Nash gone? Or is he just looking to send a shock through the Nets’ system?”

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The Athletic’s Alex Schiffer, meanwhile, pointed towards Durant’s strong endorsement of Marks after the Brooklyn’s four-game sweep at the hands of Boston as proof of just how confusing it all is.

“If Durant wanted Nash out but didn’t feel like putting him on blast to the media 10 minutes after the season ended, he could have discussed Nash’s future with an ‘I don’t know’ or ‘Now’s not the time for that’ . But he didn’t,” Schiffer wrote.

Schiffer agreed one “plausible explanation” is that this is Durant trying to force Brooklyn’s hand, to make the situation so untenable that the Nets back down.

Durant wants out of Brooklyn. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images

The Heat have been heavily linked to Durant since he first requested the trade but are unlikely to have the assets to make it work, at least in a traditional two-team deal.

The Miami Herald’s Anthony Chiang though Durant’s ultimatum was an important point in the drama, even if it still left “plenty of questions unanswered”.

“But in the wake of The Athletic’s report that Durant doesn’t want to work with Nash or Marks, the question is: Will this force the Nets to trade Durant prior to the start of training camp in late September to avoid any awkward tension and drama between the two parties? he wrote.

“That sort of deadline could take away some of the Nets’ leverage as the window to trade Durant before training camp shrinks as each day passes.

“The Nets could also decide to take Durant into training camp if a good enough offer doesn’t present itself, which would force Durant to decide whether to skip practices as he waits to be dealt or play through it.”

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NBA insider Brian Windhorst though was not so sure it would pay off, should Durant’s ultimatum have been a ploy to try speed up a trade out of Brooklyn.

“Doing it now is a manoeuvre, a manoeuvre that I don’t think worked because as I talk to teams out there, they don’t think this increased his trade demand. They think this hurt his trade value,” Windhorst said on ‘NBA Today’.

Windhorst brought up Tsai’s tweet earlier in the week as proof of it, in which the Nets owner claimed: “Our front office and coaching staff have my support. We will make decisions in the best interest of the Brooklyn Nets.”

“I want to point to the second half of the Joe Tsai tweet,” Windhorst said.

“I think it’s obviously important to look at the first sentence which is that he’s not going to fire Sean Marks and Steve Nash. But the second sentence is really the sentence that the league paid attention to it. And it seems benign when he says ‘We make decisions for the best interest of the Brooklyn Nets.’

“But I’m going to decode that for you. What he’s basically saying is despite what Kevin Durant is trying to do here, we’re not going to change what our expectations are for a trade and if you are not traded, we expect you to be reporting to camp to continue the four years you have left on your contract.”

At this stage though, we are no closer to either party getting what they want, with Schiffer putting it best in his summation of the drama.

“During’s ultimatum,” he wrote, “opened a chest’s worth of questions while the clock to training camp continues to tick more loudly”.

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Categories
Business

Here’s why Trivago CEO believes travel will be even more expensive

Here's why Trivago CEO believes travel will be even more expensive

Aussies are keener than ever to hop on a plane and escape what has been a pretty rough past few years.

Almost 57 per cent of Aussies are planning a getaway in the next 12 months which is up 49 per cent from December, according to Finder’s Consumer Sentiment Tracker.

However, travel at the moment comes with a heftier than usual price tag.

KAYAK’s data shows the average return economy international flight price in Australia based on flight searches in July (between July 1-18) was approximately $1761 – an increase of about 14 per cent compared to the same period in May (between May 1-18) .

Meanwhile, the consumer price index (CPI) July report shows plane tickets have soared 27.7 per cent on a year-over-year (YoY) basis.

And sadly it is a tendency likely to stick around for a bit longer, according to Angus Kidman, travel expert at Finder.

“Sale fares are definitely higher than they were pre-pandemic. Tiger used to regularly offer $9 domestic fares,” Mr Kidman said.

“We won’t see that again. Jetstar has offered a handful of $22 fares this year, but only outside of peak periods and for a tiny number of seats.”

He said Virgin’s floor in sales is now generally $49, and for Qantas it’s rare to see any sub-$100 flights.

“I don’t expect we’ll see much change to that in 2022. The arrival of new competitor Bonza may create a little price pressure, but many of its routes are regional and I’m expecting that it will be charging well over $100 for a seat most of the time.”

‘On the rise’

Trivago (TRVG) CEO Axel Hefer believes “costs will continue to go up”, attributing it to staffing shortages and labor costs.

“You see a fundamental shortage of people in travel and hospitality, and the reason is that a lot of companies have actually reduced their staffing during the pandemic,” Mr Hefer told Yahoo Finance.

“[Companies] are now struggling in very tight labor markets to staff up again. So they will have to pay up, and that cost will be passed on.”

Flight cancellations

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics quantified that 88,161 flights have been canceled so far this year, with many being attributed to staffing issues.

Virgin Australia, Qantas, and Air New Zealand were all named among the global airlines with the current highest cancellation rates, while Singapore Airlines was noted as the carrier with the lowest cancellation figure.

The new data, compiled by aviation analytics company Cirium, looked at flight data from 19 major airlines in the three months to July 26 which revealed Virgin Australia to have one of the highest cancellation rates at 5.9 per cent.

Air New Zealand and Qantas were also named in the top five airlines with high cancellation rates, at 3.7 and 3.3 per cent respectively.

Singapore Airlines, which remains the top international carrier in Australia, was dubbed the most reliable airline, with a 0.8 per cent cancellation rate.

Notably, of all 19 studied carriers, Virgin boasts the smallest international network, possibly skewing the data, according to Australian Aviation.

Australia’s worst month for flying

Australian airlines recorded their “worst ever” month in June for flight delays and cancellations with a total of 5.8 per cent of all flights canceled – nearly three times more than the long-term cancellation average.

There were 63 per cent of all flights arriving on time in June, with 61.9 per cent departing on schedule, the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE) report found.

BITRE said these figures mark “the worst” the industry has seen since records began in November 2003.

The report looked at delays and cancellations across all major Australian airports in the month of June.

The severe disruption was fueled by staffing shortages, staff sicknesses, mid-year school holiday travel surges and severe weather events, including flash flooding throughout NSW.

Qantas recorded the highest percentage of cancellations at 8.1 per cent during the month, followed by QantasLink, Virgin Australia, Jetstar, Virgin Australia Regional Airlines and Rex Airlines.

Qantas recorded just over half of their airlines arrived on time in June, at 59 per cent, while Virgin achieved the highest level of on time departures among the major domestic airlines at 60 per cent.

A Qantas spokesperson told NCA NewsWire the flight delays and cancellations were not the kind of performance that they were delivering pre-Covid.

“A rise in Covid and other illnesses among airline crew as well as the tight labor market led to flight disruptions for all domestic airlines in June,” they said.

“We had rostered additional crew on standby which helped lessen the impact of Covid-related crew absences and meant 85 per cent of our domestic flights for the month departed within an hour of schedule.”

“Flight cancellations in July were lower than they were in June, call center wait times are now better than they were pre-Covid and our mishandled bag rates are close to what they were before the pandemic.”

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Categories
Entertainment

Anne Heche car accident update: ‘Not expected to survive’ as family release statement

Anne Heche car accident update: 'Not expected to survive' as family release statement

Anne Heche’s family have released a statement following her horror car crash last week, saying she’s “not expected to survive.”

The 53-year-old US actress has been in a coma since the accident in Los Angeles last Friday.

“Unfortunately, due to her accident, Anne suffered a severe anoxic brain injury and remains in a coma in critical condition,” a representative said in a statement on behalf of Heche’s family, obtained by People. “She is not expected to survive.”

Heche’s rep added that the actress was being kept on life support to “determine if her organs are viable”.

“It has long been her choice to donate her organs,” Heche’s rep said.

Heche’s family went on to thank wellwishers for their support over the last few days, before talking about the star’s legacy.

“We want to thank everyone for their kind wishes and prayers for Anne’s recovery and thank the dedicated staff and wonderful nurses that cared for Anne at the Grossman Burn Center at West Hills hospital,” the statement said.

“Anne had a huge heart and touched everyone she met with her generous spirit. More than her extraordinary talent, she saw spreading kindness and joy as her life’s work — especially moving the needle for acceptance of who you love.

“She will be remembered for her courageous honesty and dearly missed for her light.”

It comes after police confirmed earlier today that Heche tested positive for cocaine and possibly fentanyl at the time of her crash.

Los Angeles Police Department sources told TMZ that the actress’ blood test results came up positive for both substances.

However, the law enforcement insiders cautioned that fentanyl may have been administered to Heche at the hospital to help manage her pain after the accident, so they will do more testing to determine whether the fentanyl was in her system at the time of the crash, Page Six reports.

the Six Days Seven Nights actress, who dated Ellen DeGeneres in the ’90s, has been in an “extreme critical condition” at the medical center following the collision in Mar Vista, which also destroyed a house and displaced a woman and her dogs.

“She has a significant pulmonary injury requiring mechanical ventilation and burns that require surgical intervention,” Heche’s rep said earlier this week.

“She is in a coma and has not regained consciousness since shortly after the accident.”

Meanwhile, DeGeneres gave a surprisingly curt response yesterday when asked by a photographer about her former girlfriend.

When asked on Thursday if she’d checked in on Heche since the crash, DeGeneres said simply: “No, have not. We’re not in touch with each other, so I wouldn’t know.”

When asked if she wanted to send Heche any well-wishes, DeGeneres again kept it brief. “Sure… I don’t want anyone to be hurt,” she said.

DeGeneres and Heche were arguably Hollywood’s most visible same-sex couple for the three years they were together, from 1997 to 2000.

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Categories
Technology

The top 10 worst movie tie-in video games ever

The top 10 worst movie tie-in video games ever

While definitely not as common as they used to be, movie tie-in video games are generally viewed as the absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of video game entertainment.

These are video games created often in short time frames, with limited development cycles, budgets, and anything else that you need in order to make a decent video game.

But, as with anything, some are worse than others.

So here, we have compiled the top 10 (in no particular order) worst of the worst, the rock bottom, the absolute dredge of them all for you to enjoy.

10. E. T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982, Atari)

While older than most people reading this, this game is often credited as having caused the video game market of 1983 to crash. The game itself was boring and bland, featuring awful graphics (even for its time) and repetitive tasks.

Rumor has it that Atari only gave developers five weeks to develop the game for the Christmas season, which would explain the lack of… well, gameplay in the video game. A huge number of these games were returned, Atari fell into bankruptcy, and, as the legend goes, the remainder of the stock was buried in a New Mexico landfill somewhere.

9. Tomorrow Never Dies (1999)

Remember golden eye 64? Remember how much fun it was to stay up late into the night with three of your best friends, getting mad at each other over picking Oddjob, or someone who grabbed the Golden Gun first? Those were good times. What if the next game released in the 007 franchise was worse in every conceivable way?

Tomorrow Never Dies did away with the first-person view, instead choosing a third-person view. The game only featured a story mode, lacking any multiplayer whatsoever. If they had named this game anything else, it probably would have been fine, but coming hot off the heels of the success that golden eye 64 was, it led many to see this as a downgrade in every way.

8. Marvel’s Avengers (2020)

Crystal Dynamics has done some good work in gaming, don’t get me wrong, but avengers fails in a lot of ways that don’t make sense. The launch of avengers had some serious game-breaking bugs tethered to it, and while most of them have been ironed out over its lifespan, one of the game’s core problems hasn’t been – how content dry and unrewarding it is to play.

The game has a decent story mode, but once you complete it, the only way to progress is to complete multiplayer missions, which are the same boring, repetitive missions that every other games-as-a-service game has. The multiplayer is not fun, and that’s the biggest advertising point of the game. Please just make another Legacy of Kain game, Crystal Dynamics.

7. Saw 2: Flesh and Blood (2010)

“Hey, what if we took a movie that was relatively unique in the horror genre for its interesting puzzles and turned it into a boring action video game?” said the developers of Saw 2: Flesh and Blood. I may be paraphrasing.

The puzzles are boring, the dialogue is boring, you’re having to repeat puzzles often because they do not explain how the puzzles work, and the majority of downtime in between puzzles are filled with quick-timed events. Low amounts of checkpoints means that you’re often having to redo several rooms multiple times.

6. Cat Woman (2004)

Not unlike the movie of the same name, cat woman did extremely poorly with critics and players alike.

Genuinely awful voice acting combined with seemingly malfunctioning camera controls and a mash-one-button-until-you-win combat style made this game an easy one to pass up.

5. Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game (1995)

In the games industry, there’s an unfortunate expectation that a video game made to tie in with a movie is gonna suck. So what happens when a movie is made based on a video game – that is then turned into a video game itself? It’s like an inception of bad video games.

This soulless shell of a game lacks even the most basic things that Street Fighter II had, namely its charm. Seeing Dhalsim stretch-punch or Ryu throw Hadoukens is timeless, but seeing digitized versions of the actors playing these characters doing the same is just painful.

4. James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game (2009)

Picture this: you’ve just seen Avatar in theaters, and it was a wondrous journey through what cinematic effects can look like in 2009. You can’t get over how cool the fight scenes were, how beautiful the landscapes were, or how intricate the sex-hair thing was. So you rush to your local store and immediately spy a copy of Avatar: The Game. Surely it must look just as good, right?

While the game does tackle events prior to the movie, expanding the lore of the world a bit, the graphics looked awful – I can think of a few late-gen PS2 games that looked nicer – the gameplay was bland and repetitive, made worse by the linear paths you have to walk in the game.

3. Evil Dead: Hail to the King

I cannot imagine watching Evil Dead 2having a wonderful time, and then picking this game up and trying to play through it. Hail to the King lacks pretty much everything that made Evil Dead 2 or Army of Darkness work, instead attempting to emulate some action-horror games that had come out before it.

Fixed camera angles are fine in some games, but the game has to be built around them for it to work. This game has problems with enemies swarming you, and you are unable to deal with them due to the camera perspectives.

2. Every Shrek Game That Isn’t Shrek SuperSlam

I don’t really have the energy to go into why all but one of the Shrek games are bad. In short, they’re poorly paced, have game-breaking bugs, are boring and feature repetitive gameplay. Instead, I want to focus on why SuperSlam is a great game.

SuperSlam is technically a bad game, in terms of gameplay and execution. It’s a broken platform/arena fighter, with several characters able to commit to ‘infinite’ combos that generally just make it unfun – in theory.

What makes it fun is that an entire competitive esports community has formed around the broken game, figuring out how the game works within how broken it is. To this day, tournaments are held online, with new players joining in to try to win.

1. Aliens: Colonial Marines (2013)

This one is a pain for me, personally. Alien is such a cool series, with a lot of lore and a lot of good horror sequences – Alien: Isolation is arguably my favorite movie tie-in game because of how oppressive and well-done the horror in that game is. Enter Colonial Marines: a game with broken AI, to the point where Aliens will crab-walk right past you while they try to figure out their pathing, or get caught in level geometry because the developers couldn’t figure out hitbox collision. The graphics were extremely bland for their time, especially when you compare it to the alpha footage that leaked before release, which looked incredible.

What’s worse, however, is the vast number of promises that the developers gave prerelease that were simply not true. It was a giant mess from beginning to end, and Alien fans the world over were truly disappointed.

Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF.

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Categories
Entertainment

Marilyn Manson steps out in rare outing with wife Lindsay Usich

Marilyn Manson steps out in rare outing with wife Lindsay Usich

Marilyn Manson has been spotted during a rare outing in Hollywood with his much younger wife.

The 53-year-old heavy metal singer, whose real name is Brian Warner, stepped out with his long-term partner Lindsay Usich, 37, for dinner in the Californian city.

It’s understood the pair began dating in 2012, before tying the knot in 2020.

Manson, who is reportedly two years sober, cut a vastly different figure for the couple’s date night, where he was photographed sans his signature gothic make-up.

He wore an all-black casual outfit, while Usich wore an emerald green dress with a black jacket.

Manson has rarely been spotted publicly amid multiple sexual abuse allegations leveled against him over the past year, all of which he has denied.

It comes after Manson’s damning texts to Johnny Depp were exposed in documents seen by Daily Beast, which contained pages of evidence excluded from Depp’s trial against ex-wife Amber Heard.

In a 2016 text, Manson allegedly wrote of his wife, “I got an amber 2.0” and also “Lindsay just puled an amber on me… please delete.”

Depp responds, “I been reading A LOT of material on that and sociopathic behavior… it is f***ing real my brother!! My ex-c**t is goddamn TEXTBOOK!!!” according to the document.

Then Manson, in an apparent reference to an incident where the police were called to Depp and Heard’s shared Los Angeles apartment in 2016, wrote, “I got a serious police amber type scenarios with L’s family.

“I’m f***ing stressed. I don’t know if you are back but I need asylum somewhere because I think the cops might be headed my way,” the filing states.

Manson’s former partner, US actress Evan Rachel Wood, has led claims against the goth rocker, including that he forced her to have sex with him while filming one of his music videos.

Wood named Manson as her alleged abuser for the first time in February 2021. They began dating in 2006, when she was 18 and he was 37.

The couple dated for four years, with Wood bringing to light allegations of sexual and emotional abuse years later, though it was only recently that she named Manson as her alleged abuser.

“He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years,” Wood wrote on Instagram in February last year.

“I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission. I am done living in fear of retaliation, slander or blackmail.

“I am here to expose this dangerous man and call out the many industries that have enabled him, before he ruins any more lives.

“I stand with the many victims who will no longer be silent.”

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Categories
Sports

FedEx Cup, Scottie Scheffler walks over Cameron Smith’s lie amid LIV storm, video, highlights, reaction

FedEx Cup, Scottie Scheffler walks over Cameron Smith's lie amid LIV storm, video, highlights, reaction

Scottie Scheffler is coming under fire for his cardinal sin during the opening round of the PGA Tour’s FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis.

The world No.1, who won this year’s Masters and backed it up by finishing runner-up at the US Open, walked across Open Champion Cameron Smith’s line on the 12th hole as the world No.2 prepared to make a putt.

As a seemingly oblivious Scheffler walked across the green, Smith, 28, looked up at his rival quizzically before returning his focus on the hole.

Eagle eye fans didn’t miss the moment, however, as they highlighted Scheffler’s actions as a not-so-subtle attack on Smith, who is reportedly sitting on a deal to join the rival LIV Golf Series on a deal worth an estimated $AU140 million.

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Cam Smith holes out for EAGLE! | 00:24

“This is basically golf’s version of throwing at someone’s head,” one Twitter user wrote.

Another said: “Spicy head games from Scottie LIV related?”

Interestingly, though, only a hole earlier Smith and Scheffler had high-fived each other on the green.

But, then again, Smith did record an eagle on 13 as he holed out from 156 yards. Did it help his focus on him?

READ MORE

J-Day of old stuns to revive hopes in $75m event, Smith’s strong response to LIV drama

While Scheffler has not criticized Smith for his coy responses regarding his future, the world No.1 hit out at the golfers, including Australian Matt Jones, who tried to gain an exemption to play at this week’s FedEx playoffs despite joining the rebel golf league.

“Those guys kind of made their decision to go join another tour and they broke the rules and regulations of our tour and now they’re trying to sue us, which is definitely a bit frustrating,” Scheffler said ahead of the tournament.

“I definitely am surprised to see some guys now suing us. If they win, come out here and play, that’s something that’s up to the courts, I can’t control what’s going to happen in a court case. Definitely interested but at the end of the day it has no effect on my preparation for the week.”

Scheffler had a frustrating opening round, finishing one-over. Smith managed to put a difficult fortnight to rest, posting a respectable three-under pair to be firmly in the mix.

READ MORE

The PGA Tour’s $108m showpiece has arrived amid an ugly sideshow that can’t be ignored

How Smith shock exposed sobering truth… and left question that may never be answered

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Categories
Business

Evergrande investor Lin Ho Man takes collapsing company to court over $158m debt

Evergrande investor Lin Ho Man takes collapsing company to court over $158m debt

A young millennial is threatening the existence of a multi-billion dollar Chinese property developer.

In 2021, real estate heavyweight Evergrande earned the unwelcome title of the world’s most indebted real estate firm after racking up staggering debts of around $A408 billion.

Evergrande’s share price tanked and the firm missed a string of payment deadlines, which eventually saw it officially declared in default for the first time in December.

And now a young 30-year-old investor — who Bloomberg reported is “politically connected” — is taking the conglomerate on in the High Court of Hong Kong.

Lin Ho Man claims Evergrande owes him HK$862.5 million ($158 million) because of money he invested through his business.

He has applied for a winding up order, calling for the company to be wound up unless they cough up the funds to pay him back.

In order for Evergrande’s shares to be able to trade, Mr Lin’s lawsuit has to be resolved, either by being mediated to lead to dismissal, or for him to withdraw the case.

Although Evergrande has been in hot water with creditors and customers in recent months, nobody has reportedly gone as far as demanding the company be liquidated.

Mr Lin runs a fintech company called Top ShineGlobal which invested millions for a 0.46 per cent stake in Fangchebao, Evergrande’s automobile and real estate arm in March 2021.

Then Triumph Roc International, another one of Lin’s investment holding companies which he acted as guarantor for, invested the same amount for a separate 0.46 per cent stake.

Just a few months later, the extent of Evergrande’s financial woes became well-known.

Evergrande said it will oppose the legal case “vigorously” and added that this shouldn’t impact the company’s restructuring plans or timetable.

Mr Lin’s case has already had a preliminary hearing earlier in August and the next court session is happening later this month.

Evergrande, one of China’s biggest developers, has scrambled to offload assets in recent months, with chairman Hui Ka Yan paying off some of its debts using his personal wealth.

Its troubles are emblematic of the problems rippling across China’s massive property sector, with smaller companies also defaulting on loans and others struggling to raise cash.

Chinese creditors have sued Evergrande for more than $US13 billion in allegedly overdue payments, the Financial Times reports.

According to documents seen by the publication, a Chinese court has accepted a whopping 367 cases against Evergrande.

Insiders claiming it is one of the biggest indicators yet that local creditors have lost confidence in the firm’s ability to handle the ongoing crisis.

Shares in the company have been halted since March.

— With Alexis Carey

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Categories
Entertainment

Steve Martin says he will no longer ‘seek’ acting work, suggests retirement

Steve Martin says he will no longer 'seek' acting work, suggests retirement

Hollywood veteran Steve Martin has said he’s “not going to seek” any more acting work, adding, “This is, weirdly, it.”

The 76-year-old US actor, who has been a mainstay in film and television for more than five decades, said retirement is on the cards after he wraps filming on the upcoming third season of his breakout Hulu series, Only Murders In The Building, co-starring Martin Short and Selena Gomez.

In an interview with The Hollywood ReporterMartin suggested it was becoming difficult to stay in the game at the back-end of his career.

“There’s a time in your career when people are dying to see you… Now is the time in my career when I’m the one who’s got to show up,” he said.

Martin added: “When this television show [Only Murders In The Building] is done, I’m not going to seek others. I’m not going to seek other movies. I don’t want to do cameos. This is, weirdly, it.”

Martin, who is nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor (Comedy) at this year’s awards for his work on the series, made his name in showbiz in the ’60s for his writing work on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hourbefore becoming a host on Saturday night Live.

After retiring from stand-up comedy, Martin successfully transitioned to the big screen in the ’80s, going on to star in hit films including Three Amigos, Planes, Trains And Automobiles, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, LA Story, Father Of The Bride, Pink Panther and Cheaper By The Dozen.

Over the years he’s won five Grammys, an Emmy, and was awarded the Honorary Academy Award in 2013, meaning he only needs to win a Tony to achieve coveted EGOT status (where you have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony).

Martin retreated from the public eye throughout the 2010s, in which he occasionally featured in various projects, before his resurgence in 2020 in Father Of The Bride, Part 3(ish) and 2021’s only murdererswhich he created alongside John Hoffman.

On the personal front, Martin became a father for the first time at the age of 67, welcoming a daughter, Mary, with his wife of 15 years, Anne Stringfield.

While he did suggest he’d reached the end of his career, Martin also didn’t close the door completely.

“My wife keeps saying, ‘You always say you’re going to retire and then you always come up with something’ … I’m really not interested in retiring. I’m not. But I would just work a little less. Maybe,” he added.

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Categories
Entertainment

Steve Martin says he will no longer ‘seek’ acting work, suggests retirement

Steve Martin says he will no longer 'seek' acting work, suggests retirement

Hollywood veteran Steve Martin has said he’s “not going to seek” any more acting work, adding, “This is, weirdly, it.”

The 76-year-old US actor, who has been a mainstay in film and television for more than five decades, said retirement is on the cards after he wraps filming on the upcoming third season of his breakout Hulu series, Only Murders In The Building, co-starring Martin Short and Selena Gomez.

In an interview with The Hollywood ReporterMartin suggested it was becoming difficult to stay in the game at the back-end of his career.

“There’s a time in your career when people are dying to see you… Now is the time in my career when I’m the one who’s got to show up,” he said.

Martin added: “When this television show [Only Murders In The Building] is done, I’m not going to seek others. I’m not going to seek other movies. I don’t want to do cameos. This is, weirdly, it.”

Martin, who is nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor (Comedy) at this year’s awards for his work on the series, made his name in showbiz in the ’60s for his writing work on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hourbefore becoming a host on Saturday night Live.

After retiring from stand-up comedy, Martin successfully transitioned to the big screen in the ’80s, going on to star in hit films including Three Amigos, Planes, Trains And Automobiles, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, LA Story, Father Of The Bride, Pink Panther and Cheaper By The Dozen.

Over the years he’s won five Grammys, an Emmy, and was awarded the Honorary Academy Award in 2013, meaning he only needs to win a Tony to achieve coveted EGOT status (where you have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony).

Martin retreated from the public eye throughout the 2010s, in which he occasionally featured in various projects, before his resurgence in 2020 in Father Of The Bride, Part 3(ish) and 2021’s only murdererswhich he created alongside John Hoffman.

On the personal front, Martin became a father for the first time at the age of 67, welcoming a daughter, Mary, with his wife of 15 years, Anne Stringfield.

While he did suggest he’d reached the end of his career, Martin also didn’t close the door completely.

“My wife keeps saying, ‘You always say you’re going to retire and then you always come up with something’ … I’m really not interested in retiring. I’m not. But I would just work a little less. Maybe,” he added.

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Categories
Sports

Jason Day leads Australian charge at $21m St Jude Classic

Jason Day leads Australian charge at $21m St Jude Classic

Former world no.1 Jason Day decided to ditch the “anxiety” that comes with worrying about outcomes and pushed himself into contention at the opening event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs where winning isn’t the only goal.

World No.2 Cameron Smith kept his cool amid a growing storm about his potential defection to Greg Norman’s Saudi-backed LIV Golf and declared he was ready to “cop some heat” for pre-tournament denials after his own solid opening round a the St JudeClassic.

In a sign interpreted by some as strengthening Smith’s reported $140 million LIV defection, the Australian was point-blank after his opening round of 67 about the continued questioning.

“I’m ready to cop some heat. I understand that’s what I’ve said,” Smith told Sky Sports having declared any news on a move would come from him.

“I’m here to win the FedEx Cup playoffs, that’s my number one goal. Whatever happens after that will come from me.”

But while Smith remains in focus Day, who withdrew from last week’s PGA Tour event with illness, carded a bogey-free round of 65 to sit just off the pace in a share of fifth late in the opening round at the $21m St Jude Classic , three shots behind the leaders.

Only the top 70 finishers will progress to the next event and remain in the hunt for the biggest payday in golf, outside of signing a LIV deal.

Day, who hasn’t won since 2018 and has slipped to 147th on the world rankings, said he wasn’t getting lost in thinking too far ahead.

“You’re always just trying like to just blend everything together and hopefully it will click,” Day said.

“I’m not getting too excited about anything right now, just got to stay patient as much as I can because the more and more I start thinking about outcomes and being able to get into next week, it just does nothing for me, or at least anything positive for me.

“It actually gives you more anxiety and a lot of other stuff that comes along with it.

“I feel pretty good about the opening round and looking forward to the rest of the week.”

Adam Scott was the next best Aussie at four-under, a score that could have been better if not for a double-bogey five on the par three 14th hole when his tee shot found the water.

Smith, who could assume the world No.1 ranking with a victory in Memphis, depending on where current world No.1 Scottie Scheffler finishes, carded an up-and-down opening round 67, which included an eagle and two bogeys, to be five off the lead.

Scheffler opening with a one-over par 71.

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