Hawaii announced Thursday night that it has pulled out of the EasyPost Hawai’i Bowl against Memphis, citing COVID-19 issues within the program in addition to injuries and transfers.
The game was scheduled to be played Friday in Honolulu.
“The health and safety of our student-athletes is the most important part of this decision,” Hawaii athletics director David Matlin said in a statement. “The recent surge in COVID-19 cases has forced us to not participate in the game.
“We are disappointed for our players, coaches, and fans. ESPN and the EasyPost Hawai’i Bowl staff did everything they could for us and we appreciate their valiant effort throughout the week. We want to thank the Memphis Tigers for making the long trip to Hawai’i. We are disappointed we can’t compete on the football field.”
Memphis coach Ryan Silverfield expressed disappointment as well.
“We hope that Hawai’i players and staff get healthy soon,” he said in a statement. “I’m upset for our seniors and the rest of the team that battled this season to earn this opportunity. We’ve had [a] terrific time here in Hawai’i as a program and we are sad our trip ended this way.”
Hawaii joins Texas A&M as teams unable to compete in bowls this season as a result of COVID-19 issues.
“While we are disappointed that the bowl will not be played despite considerable efforts from our many stakeholders, sponsors, supporters, and volunteers who worked tirelessly to make this game a reality,” ESPN said in a statement. “We thank the University of Memphis program and its fans for making the long trip, and we hope they were able to enjoy the unique experience that this event offers in the Aloha state.”
ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg contributed to this report.
Rainbow Six spin-off title Rainbow Six Extraction has officially gone gold. After multiple delays and an official rebrand from its previous name, Rainbow Six Quarantine, the tactical shooter is finally set to release on January 20, 2022.
The news was announced today via a tweet from the official Rainbow Six Extraction Twitter account, which reads in part, “We’re very proud to share that Rainbow Six Extraction has gone gold!” The tweet also includes a short animation of the Rainbow Exogenous Analysis & Containment Team (REACT) logo turning gold to mark the occasion. Games that are delayed after officially going gold are few and far between, so it’s safe to say the January 20, 2022, release date is set in stone.
Though the game faced a series of delays up till now, Ubisoft has steadily revealed much of the game throughout 2021. Players already have a roster of 12 REACT Operators making their way over from Rainbow Six Siege, including their abilities and primary weapons. At this point, six of the 18 Operators players will be able to access at launch remain a mystery.
Most recently, Ubisoft announced plans for Rainbow Six Extraction’s post-launch content line-up, including the challenge-based Maelstrom Protocol mode and Crisis Events. It appears Ubisoft wants to support Extraction for years to come following its launch early next year.
During this year’s Pride Month, soccer star Li Ying made history as China’s first female athlete to come out publicly as gay, in a candid series of celebratory photos posted on social media, showing her posing happily alongside her partner.
It’s increasingly common worldwide for celebrities and high-profile sports stars to come out, often to widespread public support. But in China, Li’s announcement received a very different reaction.
Her post, uploaded on June 22 onto Weibo, China’s heavily censored version of Twitter, immediately went viral, becoming one of the top trending topics on the platform. And while much of the reaction was positive, with people sending their congratulations, Li’s account was also inundated with a wave of homophobic abuse. The post was later deleted without explanation.
Li has not posted on Weibo since. Chinese state-run media, meanwhile, did not report on Li’s announcement, nor the subsequent reaction it generated.
Li’s experience is just the tip of what for many was something of a grim Pride Month in China. In years past, June was filled with LGBTQ events in major cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, during which China’s sexual minorities could semi-openly celebrate their identity.
But in August 2020, China’s biggest and longest-running LGBTQ festival, Shanghai Pride, was canceled due to mounting pressure from local authorities. When Pride Month 2021 arrived, few events were held, and those that were remained largely underground.
“Every year it becomes more and more challenging,” one Chinese LGBTQ artist, who asked not to be named for fear of government reprisal, told CNN. “Events are fewer and advocates are finding it more and more difficult to raise acceptance.”
In recent decades, sexual minorities in China seemed to have received gradual — though uneasy — acceptance by authorities.
China decriminalized homosexuality in 1997 and removed it from its official list of mental disorders in 2001.
But with same-sex marriage still illegal and Chinese authorities banning “abnormal sexual behaviors” from the media in 2016, the impression among many is that LGBTQ people are free to explore their identities — so long as they do so in private.
The ongoing clampdown on LGBTQ spaces appeared to accelerate on July 6, when China’s most popular messaging app WeChat suddenly shut down dozens of LGBTQ accounts run by university students, one of the most widespread and coordinated acts of censorship targeting sexual minorities in the country in decades.
When several users attempted to access the groups, they received a notice saying, “After receiving relevant complaints, all content has been blocked and the account has been put out of service.”
Speaking to CNN under a pseudonym, Cathy, the manager of one of the deleted groups, said spaces for the LGBTQ community to speak openly are shrinking rapidly in China.
“Our goal is to simply survive, to continue to be able to serve LGBT students and provide them with warmth. We basically don’t engage in any radical advocating anymore,” she said.
After the shutdown of LGBT WeChat groups on Tuesday, Hu Xijin, editor of the state-owned tabloid Global Times, claimed on his blog that there was “no restriction” from the Chinese government on the “lifestyle choices” of sexual minorities, or “discrimination and suppression” from public opinion.
Hu said if LGBTQ people in China could just accept their country was never going to be on the “forefront” of rights for sexual minorities, they might be happier.
“LGBT people in China at this stage should not seek to become a high-profile ideology,” he said.
Some LGBTQ people have blamed the crackdown on the incorrect impression that homosexuality is a Western import into China, and groups supporting gay rights are liable to infiltration by foreign forces.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has increasingly stressed the ruling Communist Party’s absolute control over every aspect of society. Some also suspect a more direct link between the crackdown on LGBTQ rights and top officials’ worldviews, which for many were shaped during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and ’70s, when authorities attempted to purge any “non-socialist” elements — including homosexuality — from Chinese society.
“Nationalist trolls stigmatize LGBT activists as being supported by foreign forces. Just like what they did to the feminist activists,” the LGBTQ artist said.
Around Asia
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi dropped 12 members from his cabinet, including the federal ministers for health and law, in a major reshuffle Wednesday, following fierce criticism over his government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Tokyo Olympics will be held without spectators when it begins later this month, after the Japanese government announced a state of emergency would continue in the capital until August 22 due to rising Covid-19 cases.
Facing vaccine shortages at home, Taiwan citizens are going on “Visit and Vaccination” holidays to the US territory of Guam, where tourists aged 12 and up are able to get their first shot on the day they arrive.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said he was “seriously thinking” about running for vice president in the 2022 Presidential election. The strongman leader is barred for running for a second term as president under the country’s constitution.
Outrage over Didi’s botched IPO grows in America
The firestorm over Didi’s disastrous IPO is getting even fiercer.
A member of the US Senate’s banking committee on Thursday called on American financial regulators to investigate the Chinese ride-hailing company’s public offering.
“The [US Securities and Exchange Commission] should thoroughly investigate this incident to see if investors were intentionally misled by Didi’s public disclosures,” Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen told CNN Business in a statement.
Didi raised $4.4 billion by listing its shares on the New York Stock Exchange on June 30, marking the biggest US IPO by a Chinese company since 2014.
But the share price collapsed within days, costing US investors dearly. The selloff was triggered by a crackdown from China, which announced on July 4 it was banning Didi from app stores in the country because it poses cybersecurity risks and broke privacy laws.
“American investors need confidence that the companies that list on US exchanges are not engaging in fraud and should have access to information on the risks posed by investing in foreign companies — especially those influenced by foreign governments,” Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, said in the statement.
The SEC did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
There’s growing outrage within the United States over the IPO. Republican Senator Marco Rubio told the Financial Times this week that it was “reckless and irresponsible” for Didi to be allowed to sell shares. He argued that American investors have “no insight” into Didi’s financial strength “because the Chinese Communist Party blocks US regulators from reviewing the books.”
Former President Donald Trump late last year signed a law that requires US-listed companies to be held to American auditing standards and establish they are not owned or controlled by a foreign government. Under the law, companies that fail to comply with US auditing standards for three years in a row will get kicked off US exchanges.
— By Matt Egan
Photo of the day
Aging elegantly: While dancing in public squares has become a popular exercise among the elderly in China, some seniors are pursuing dancing as a more serious pastime. In Henan province, a group of women in their 60s have formed an amateur ballet group, pushing their physical limits to perform challenging routines.
Year 6 is the first full year of Rainbow Six Siege’s revamped annual content plan, and as advertised it’s loaded with quality of life changes and core feature overhauls. There are four new operators, some map reworks, and plenty of events promised in the official roadmap – just enough new toys to keep things feeling fresh from season to season – but what’s missing from that roadmap is Ubisoft’s plan to fundamentally change the way each round plays out.
During the Year 6 reveal Ubisoft announced its intention to reduce the amount of downtime in matches of Rainbow Six Siege by giving the attackers more to do during the preparation phase, and allowing eliminated players to contribute directly to the outcome of a round. Additionally, Year 6 will feature reworks to Mira, Maestro, and Goyo, make health and armour more transparent, and generally rebalance the game so that attacking feels just as viable as defending.
Join us as we recap every announcement from the Crimson Heist and Year 6 reveal.
We’ll kick off by going through the headline changes coming with Operation Crimson Heist release date, from Flores to the Gonne-6 secondary, and then move onto the Year 6 roadmap and some of the gameplay changes Ubisoft is cooking up.
Flores
Year 6’s first season, Operation Crimson Heist, introduces Argentinian attacker Flores, a medium speed attacker with four special drones that come loaded with explosives. Flores gets ten seconds to steer each RCE-Ratero drone into position. Afterwards the drone anchors to its location, becomes bulletproof, and explodes after a couple more seconds. Each explosion appears to have a blast radius similar to that of a nitro cell, but defenders get plenty of warning to vacate the area thanks to an audible siren that rings out when the drone anchors.
Flores can manually trigger the anchoring phase of each drone at any point during the countdown, and if you activate this mid-air the drone will anchor the next surface it touches. This allows you to ‘cook’ the drone a little if you drop it from a height, giving defenders less time to react. Ultimately the drones are useful for opening hatches and destroying gadgets like shields and Maestro cams than killing enemies.
Flores can pick either the AR33 or the SR-25 as his primary weapons, but can only bring the GSh-18 as his sidearm. Finally his choice of secondary gadgets is between stun grenades and a claymore.
Border rework
Flores arrives alongside a rework to the popular map Border, which was recently removed from competitive play as it had grown stale. The rework is similar in scale to the Club House rework and maintains the identity of the map, its key sites, and flow.
So, what’s new? Bathroom and Tellers is now a viable objective with a massively expanded Bathroom and less scope for vertical play. Waiting Room now has an interior balcony that connects Break Room to East Stairs. Archive has been opened up, making it much easier to defend against an North Balcony and Vehicle take. There are many more small revisions, but it’s also worth noting that the map is now much tidier with less debris and clutter obscuring lines of sight – hopefully this means no dying to bizarre pixel peeks.
Gonne-6 and match replay
Y6S1 also adds a new secondary weapon for attackers called the Gonne-6, which is a single-shot weapon that can destroy defender gadgets, and the anticipated match replay system for PC players. Ubisoft says it’s not available for console players just yet as it’s still in beta.
Year 6 operators and maps
While much less is known about the remainder of Year 6, we do know that the second season’s operator is from Nakoda, an indigenous people of the Great Plains. This operator is accompanied by a casual-focused Favela rework. In the third season we get a Croatian operator and three smaller map buffs instead of a large-scale rework. Finally, Siege gets an Irish operator in the fourth season, as well as a rework to Outback.
Operator reworks
Operator reworks are also promised, and they all target utility-based defenders. Goyo is losing his exploding shields. These will be replaced by a similar explosive device that can be mounted on the floor or against walls much like Jäger’s ADS. Like the previous design, these also have a metal casing that gives them roughly 270 degrees of protection.
Related: Here are the best Rainbow Six Siege operators
Mira and Maestro are both getting reworks that affect their ability to provide intel. The plan is that attackers who are able to melee these devices will shatter the glass, obscuring vision for the defenders – Mira and Maestro would then be forced to open their respective gadgets to make them useful again or simply forfeit the utility. Melusi’s gadget is also being nerfed. When you trigger a Banshee it will open up and you will be able to shoot and destroy it.
Few details were provided, but the panel also mentions reworks for Fuze and Finka. Fuze’s gadget will become more useful and Finka will be able to revive herself with a Nanoboost.
Bulletproof cam rework
Bulletproof cams will now have full rotation and an EMP dart that they can fire to disable attacker gadget and drones. An early version should be available in the Y6S2 test server.
Reduce downtime
One of the key goals for Year 6 is to reduce downtime and Ubisoft aims to achieve this through two changes. The first, called ‘attacker repick’, will allow anyone on the attacking team to switch their operator and loadout during the preparation phase so that they can react to the defending team’s setup.
The second, called ‘activities after death’, allows players to use any remote-controlled utility after being eliminated. It’s not clear if there are any limitations, but the basic idea is that a dead defender like Castle can hop on Maestro’s cam and start tasering an attacker. For an attacker, this would mean piloting your own drone around the map if you’ve been eliminated and have a spare drone still deployed.
Armour and health
To aid with transparency, the armour system is also being tweaked slightly so that you can clearly tell how much extra health your armour stat is giving you. A one-armour operator still has 100 health, but a two-armour has 120 health and a three-armour has 140 health. This doesn’t change anything in terms of how many shots you can take, but it does make the difference between low and high armour more transparent for players.
Reputation system
The final major update is the full arrival of the player behaviour system that’s been working in the background for a few months now, albeit in a limited capacity. Ubisoft doesn’t get into specifics about what actions affect your ranking, but there are five levels to the reputation system and players are able to move up and down the levels based on their actions. At Level 0 there will be messaging and warnings about the player’s actions, and there may be repercussions such as not being able to queue for ranked matches. On the positive end of the scale, at Level 3 and 4, there will be rewards for players, although we don’t know what those rewards will be.
Streamer mode and menu overhaul
A streamer mode is arriving on the test server in Y6S1. This mode hides the player’s region, name, clearance level, profile picture, and other players in their lobby. This mode also adds a matchmaking delay to prevent queue sniping.
The UI and presentation of Rainbow Six Siege is also being overhauled, which promises to make the game’s menus faster to navigate and simpler. Matchmaking, ranked, and the newcomer experience also came up during the panel, but Ubisoft didn’t provide any real detail on how it plans to change these parts of Siege.
Battle pass
Year 6 also kills off the annual pass, folding each season’s new operator into the seasonal battle pass at no additional cost. There is an odd catch, which is that the exclusivity window for accessing new operators is being extended, so if you don’t purchase the new battle pass you will have to wait two weeks before being able to purchase the operator with R6 Credits or Renown.
Skins and crossovers
Lastly, there are a bunch of changes to how skins work in the game. Elite skins will soon feature some customisation so you can mix pieces of an Elite skin with other skins you like, including the MVP animation and gadget skin. Some new partnered skins will feature in Year 6, too, including a Zofia skin inspired by Resident Evil’s Jill Valentine and what appears to be a Rick & Morty collaboration. A new Elite Skin for Kali is also coming with Y6S1. Lastly, Queen of E3 2019 Ikumi Nakamura is working on some cosmetics for Year 6, which is unexpected, but very really cool.
Siege board game???
Ubisoft snuck this in right at the end, but yep, there’s a Rainbow Six Siege board game in the works from Mythic Games, and it’s out this Summer.
Keep an eye out on the site for more Rainbow Six Siege news in the coming days as we chat to the team at Ubisoft about the future of the game.
Update: We suppose Rainbow Six: Quarantine was just not going to fly as a title during a real-world global pandemic. Ubisoft already announced it was mulling a name change, and it looks like it’s settled upon Rainbow Six: Parasite.
Artwork of the game’s PlayStation 4 home screen has leaked online, following patches for the release being pushed onto PlayStation’s servers. Is a release date imminent?
Original Story: We don’t know when Rainbow Six: Quarantine is coming out. Ubisoft reiterated in its most recent financial call that it’s still eyeing a 2021 release alongside Far Cry 6 — but could the unfortunately named co-op shooter arrive sooner than we think?
The reason we ask is because a pre-launch update for the game has actually been pushed onto PlayStation’s servers (as per PlayStation Game Size on Twitter). This suggests that Rainbow Six: Quarantine could be incoming, but we’ll obviously have to wait for an official announcement before getting too excited.
It’s crazy to think that Rainbow Six: Quarantine was originally set to release in early 2020 following its reveal at E3 2019. It was then delayed into the next fiscal year, and we haven’t heard much about it since.
Are you interested in Rainbow Six: Quarantine? Wear a mask in the comments section below.
Posing in a rainbow crochet bikini top and jeans, Halsey surprised the world Wednesday with a pregnancy announcement.
Fans cooed over the unexpected maternity photos, shot by 21-year-old photographer Sam Dameshek in front of a silk drape background.
“Surprise!” Halsey, 26, captioned the photos on Instagram.
The pop singer, born Ashley Nicolette Frangipane, grew up in Washington, Warren County. She is expecting her first child with boyfriend Alev Aydin, who she tagged in the photos.
This is not Halsey’s first pregnancy. She suffered a miscarriage while on tour in 2015 and had her eggs frozen after being diagnosed with and undergoing surgery for endometriosis. In a 2019 tweet, she said she had experienced three miscarriages.
“My rainbow,” she said in a tweet Wednesday. The message and rainbow bikini (and rainbow emojis) ostensibly referred to “rainbow baby,” a term for a baby that arrives after a previous miscarriage, stillbirth or death of an infant.
“I want to be a mom more than I want to be a pop star,” she told Rolling Stone in 2016. “More than I want to be anything in the world.”
Aydin, a screenwriter, had only been tentatively linked with Halsey in recent months, but is sure to become one of the most Googled people this week. In October, he was seen with Halsey buying art supplies in Los Angeles.
“I left my house once in like the past three months and you guys know this because I got mf papped,” she tweeted Saturday, perhaps referring to Daily Mail photos of the art store outing with Aydin.
Aydin (see photo below) shared her pregnancy photos on his Instagram stories.
“Heart so full, I love you, sweetness,” he said in a comment on her post.
“I love you!!!!!” she replied. “And I love this mini human already!”
The singer, who is known for her chameleonic hair and makeup styling, recently launched about-face, her own cosmetics line. On Jan. 22, she canceled her previously postponed Manic world tour, citing the safety risk to fans during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Halsey, an alum of Warren Hills Regional High School, released the album “Manic” in 2020 and recently spoke out about the lack of Grammys love this year for her and other artists like The Weeknd.
“Without Me,” a single from the album, topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 2019. Halsey was nominated for two Grammys in 2016, for “Closer,” her collaboration with The Chainsmokers, and as an artist featured on Justin Bieber’s Grammy-nominated album “Purpose.”
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Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com and followed at @AmyKup on Twitter.
