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Tencent’s modifcations come after China’s content regulator criticized the game for its violent content. To appease the Chinese government, Tencent will focus on how PUBG can promote “the spirit of teamwork” and “fair competition.” It will also focus on providing “positive cultural and value guidance,” particularly for any Chinese youth that play the game. How exactly this will be accomplished is unclear at the time of this writing, however....

Kongregate has been a gaming publisher and web portal giant, but have recently been looking to shift its focus. With Flash going the way of the dinosaur in spite of some people’s efforts to save it, like Flashpoint, the company has been moving toward trying to develop games and be less of a portal for others. This coupled with a lot of strain on many due to the COVID pandemic, Kongregate chose to make some changes....

Who knew grammar could be so much fun? British journalist Lynne Truss did. A self-proclaimed “punctuation stickler,” she wrote the delightful “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” (Gotham Books), a grammar book that takes itself just about as seriously as the joke above. One part instructional manual, one part stand-up routine, the book has been enormously popular in Britain, becoming the No. 1 best seller over Christmas. (It gets its U.S. debut this month....

On Friday, the Dodgers opened their weekend series in Colorado with a victory thanks to Yasiel Puig. The two teams are battling it out as the Dodgers now sit just half a game back thanks to the bat of Puig, who hit the team’s longest home run of the season in the second inning and followed that up with a RBI single in the fifth. That capped off the Dodgers’ scoring for the night but it was all they needed, with the help of Cody Bellinger and Alex Verdugo, who also scored for Los Angeles....

Pujara, in the midst of a storm over his slow strike rate, gave an exhibition of classy batsmanship to complete his 10th half-century in 37 Test matches. The 28-year-old willower was unconquered (64; 189 balls, 13x4), alongside Rahane (47; 92 balls, 6x4) with the duo putting on 90 runs for an unfinished fourth-wicket stand that rescued India from the pre-lunch hiccups when they were 46/3 at one stage. Pujara played in his typical gritty manner, but was also ruthless on the loose balls as the wicket eased out under the afternoon sun and gave little or no purchase to the New Zealand bowlers....

The 30-year-old notched up his 16th hundred in his 65th Test at the Adelaide Oval, reaching the 5000-mark landmark in 108 innings, the same as the legendary Rahul Dravid, who made the No 3 slot his own. Pujara is the second active Indian cricketer with 5000 runs after skipper Virat Kohli who has amassed 6331 in 124 innings. His 246-ball innings was also his maiden Test hundred on Australian soil....

Not only did the U.S. not come close to matching the Ticos in any category, whether it be passing, creating of chances, defensive discipline or even simply energy, the Americans just didn’t look up for the fight in any sort of organized way. Klinsmann’s job should be in jeopardy That is what has Jurgen Klinsmann facing more scrutiny than at any point in his tenure as U.S. coach. He has had his team beaten before, and dominated before, but Tuesday felt like a much more damning indictment of his coaching abilities than any previous loss....

Pune - Kings XI Punjab recorded their first win in the sixth edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) with a comfortable eight-wicket win over Pune Warriors India at the Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium here Sunday. Excellent bowling juxtaposed with superlative fielding helped Punjab restrict the Warriors to a meagre 99 for nine. In reply, two local youngsters from Punjab, Mandeep Singh (31) and Manan Vohra (43 not out) finished the game in no time with some clean hitting....

For his part, Baker is trying to inject a note of realism into postwar expectations. “You’re not going to make progress on Arab-Israeli peace unless the parties themselves really want to make progress,” he said last week. In fact, Baker is already hitting snags. The gulf Arabs balk at the idea of a regional development bank for fear their money will wind up in pro-Saddam Jordan. And NEWSWEEK has learned U....

3 Up Clayton Kershaw, SP, Dodgers. Evidently, that second rehab start wasn’t necessary after all. Kershaw did scatter nine hits over seven frames, but he K’d nine without issuing a single walk. Miguel Cabrera, 1B, Tigers. Cabrera had a more typical night on Tuesday, finishing 4-for-5 with a homer (3) and double. He scored two, drove in four, and raised his average from .270 to .293. Carlos Gonzalez, OF, Rockies....

Demonstrations started on July 10, a day after the arrest of their popular regional governor Sergei Furgal, 50, on murder charges believed to be trumped up. Discontent rose even further after Putin replaced him with someone who has no ties to the region. Mikhail Degtyarev, 39, took up his post on July 20 and was accused of running scared by not meeting people at Lenin Square, the center of the city’s protests....

The latest assessment of the war in Ukraine by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) released on Thursday night said Putin may be making efforts to thwart the increasing power of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group who has long been characterized as a close ally of the Russian leader. The U.S.-based think tank said recent actions by Putin suggest he may not be pleased with recent announcements by Prigozhin in which he claimed Wagner was behind recent battlefield gains for Russia....

Abbas Gallyamov, who is also a political analyst, said a trusted source told him that the Kremlin has, since the spring, been developing a backup plan for a potential defeat in Ukraine, which involves Putin and his top leadership fleeing to Venezuela. “I usually don’t retell insider stories, but today I will make an exception. Firstly, I trust the source too much, and secondly, the information is very juicy,” Gallyamov wrote on his Telegram channel....

“Go bravely to fulfill your military duty. And remember that if you lay down your life for your country, you will be with God in his kingdom, glory and eternal life,” he told a sermon at the Zachatyevsky Monastery in Moscow. Kirill, who has justified Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in February on spiritual and ideological grounds, made the remarks shortly after Russian officials said up to 300,000 reservists would be called up to fight....

Among the invited panelists at the White House conference was Microsoft chairman Bill Gates. Presumably, he was not included because he is a corporate thug which is–by inference–how Judge Jackson depicted him. What are we to think of Gates? A larger contradiction looms. If Microsoft is such an anticompetitive monster, how has the New Economy become (at least by reputation) so competitive that it raises efficiency and lowers inflation?...

NEWSWEEK: What’s “The Namesake” about? Mira Nair: It’s about mothers and sons. I have a teenage son so I bring life experience to it. But what propelled me to make this film was grief—losing a parent in a country that is not fully home, experiencing death for the first time. It’s also about home. Where is home for you? You have homes in Delhi, New York, Africa … It’s a privilege to have the luxury of moving between places....

NEWSWEEK: You paint a picture of an America that is almost hopelessly polarized. How did the country end up in this impasse? Merle Black: The parties have become more ideologically homogenous than ever before. The Democrats are more liberal than in the past. The Republicans are more conservative than they’ve ever been before. Each party has over time carved out regional strongholds, which means they have to appeal to voters in those strongholds, rather than at a national level....

NEWSWEEK: You’ve been spending one third of your time in the Middle East for the past seven years. What’s changed since you first arrived? Ken Morse: Most government leaders have understood that the entrepreneurial virus has to take hold. They see the demographics and the economic growth they need to create jobs for their young people, and those numbers are hairy and scary. They also see that entrepreneurs and smaller businesses create a disproportionately high number of jobs....

To prove his point, Simpson, 49, a New Zealand Internet publisher and jet-engine consultant, is assembling a cruise missile–the same type of weapon used by U.S. forces to help win the war against Saddam Hussein earlier this year–in his garage and documenting his progress online (interestingprojects.com). He says he’s trying to show governments how easy it would be for terrorists to build the low-cost but lethal missile so that they will put more effort towards preventing such an attack....

The footage from inside Q Con was originally recorded by producers of the QAnon Anonymous podcast before later being shown on CNN. Among some of those seen at the convention is Jake Angeli, aka the QAnon Shaman, who is facing criminal charges for taking part in the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and Jim Watkins, who runs the controversial messageboard site 8Kun, which has become an online hub for QAnon conspiracies....