More than 170 Australian travellers remained stranded in Bali last night following the Indonesian ban on Tiger­air.

THE Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing a possible computer hacking attack on J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 in its third week remained in first place on the Steam Weekly Top Sellers chart (excluding revenue generated by free games) for Week 46, 2024, which ended November 12, 2024.

There were two new releases in the top 10 this week. Planet Coaster 2 debuted in fourth place, while Farming Simulator 25 came in fifth place.

Steam Deck is up two spots to second place, while Baldur's Gate 3 re-entered the top 10 in third place. EA Sports FC 25 is up two spots to sixth place, Cyberpunk 2077 re-entered the top 10 in seventh place, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard fell from second to eighth place.

Ahead of its release next week pre-orders for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl came in ninth place.

Here are the Steam Weekly Top Sellers by revenue for the week (excluding free games):

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
2. Steam Deck
3. Baldur's Gate 3
4. Planet Coaster 2 - NEW
5. Farming Simulator 25 - NEW
6. EA Sports FC 25
7. Cyberpunk 2077
8. Dragon Age: The Veilguard
9. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl - Pre-orders
10. The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

Here are the Steam Weekly Top Sellers by revenue for the week (including free games):

1. PUBG: Battlegrounds
2. Counter-Strike 2
3. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
4. Apex legends
5. Throne and Liberty
6. Steam Deck
7. Baldur's Gate 3
8. Dota 2
9. Planet Coaster 2 - NEW
10. Farming Simulator 25 - NEW

The Steam charts are ordered by revenue, include pre-order numbers, and hardware. If a game appears multiple times it is because it has multiple editions.

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.

Full Article - https://www.vgchartz.com/article/463048/planet-coaster-2-and-farming-simulator-25-debut-on-the-steam-charts/

Journalists at CNN, including some of the network’s biggest personalities, are living in fear of “inevitable” layoffs and pay cuts as its new CEO looks to shore up finances amid declining ratings.

That’s according to The Ankler, which reported Wednesday that 77-year-old Chris Wallace—whose already been relegated to a weekend program—is among the network’s most well-known names whose future is in limbo.

Wallace’s $8.5 million contract, signed by the ex-CNN boss Jeff Zucker to recruit him away from Fox News three years ago, is reportedly up and he was spotted in CEO Mark Thompson’s office on Tuesday.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Liam Payne was seemingly having a “lovely day in Argentina” just hours before his death on Wednesday, according to what appear to be a series of final posts made to his Snapchat account.

The former One Direction member was found dead in the courtyard of a Buenos Aires hotel, having apparently plunged 13 to 14 meters from his balcony, according to local police. A cause of death has not officially been determined, and it was unclear whether the fall was accidental or intentional.

On his Snapchat Story, however, it would have appeared to any fan that Payne was having a relaxing vacation. In since-deleted posts in the hours before his death, he posted a front-facing video in which he told followers, “It’s a lovely day here in Argentina. This is the breakfast table. Just enjoying coffee and breakfast even though it’s 1 p.m.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

It appears Donald Trump is once again attempting to silence Stormy Daniels, despite his recent convictions in that category.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reports that Trump’s lawyers tried to “get another hush money deal” with the adult film star, to keep her from making any “public or private statements related to any alleged past interactions” with the former president. In exchange for her written agreement, Trump’s team reportedly offered to adjust the debt she owes Trump for the unsuccessful defamation case her lawyer brought against him in 2018.

Daniels still needs to pay “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in legal fees, Maddow explained, and in hammering out the exact amount, Trump’s lawyers allegedly offered to “pretend” she owed their client “less than they actually believed” she did. Whereas they first estimated Daniels’ debt at $650,000, Maddow reported, they said they would settle her tab for $620,000, if she promised not to make any “defamatory or disparaging statements about him, his business, and/or any affiliates, or his suitability as a candidate for president.” They then adjusted the fee, asking $635,000 if she refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Daniels reportedly turned them down, paying $627,500 and declining to sign the NDA.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

One of my favourite satires is the Screwtape Letters, an epistolary novel by Narnia scribe C.S. Lewis. It consists of messages from an oily elder demon to his nephew about how to correctly groom the soul of an unsuspecting human being. It's a claustrophobic send-up of managerial politics and nepotism, with World War 1 unfolding in the background. A real pick-me-up. Sintopia is the Two Point incarnation of that premise - in other words, brighter and breezier and definitely more slapstick than Christian. It puts you in charge of a world divided between Earth and hell, and challenges you to ensure a steady movement of optimally sinful souls between one and the other. Say your prayers and watch the trailer.

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Today in "person you already like says something you already agree with, but it’s still good to hear them say it" news, Arkane founder and im-simmy RPG studio WolfEye head Raphael Colantonio has spoken on Microsoft’s decision to shutter Prey (2017) studio Arkane Austin - alongside a handful of others - back in May.

Colantonio, who founded Arkane in 1999 and departed in 2017 to form Weird West studio WolfEye, recently chatted to Jeremy Peel for PC Gamer about Arkane’s closure, saying:

I think if you look a little bit, it's obvious that Arkane Austin was a very special group of people that have made some cool things and that could pull it off again. I think it was a decision that just came down to, 'We need to cut something.' Was it to please the investors, the stock market? They're playing a different game.

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You remember Lucas Pope, right? He who casually dropped two of the most influential puzzle games ever then got distracted by yellow cranks for six years, occasionally popping up to drop a demake of Papers Please? Well, Pope has ceased hogging that crank, for now at least, and just released Haloween-y adventure game Moida Mansion. It’s on Itch here, and it’s completely free to play in your browser.

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Some extremely fresh vintage workwear that I bought for entirely practical reasons aside, I’m not exactly a fashion person. I have nobody to impress most days but my cat, and the only item of clothing she appears to have an opinion on is my Oodie, which is very comfortable for both of us and also smells like a chicken shop, which I imagine is more pleasant for her than me.

This aside, I found myself taking a whole bunch of Dragon Age: The Veilguard screenshots as I played just to capture the RPG’s various outfits. They are ridiculous. Incredibly intricate and detailed, as well as being obscenely impractical for the most part. I do not like any of them in the sense I would wear them, but I like all of them in the sense that they display artists allowed to run free like caffeinated weasels and indulge their every whim.

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Typing Of The Dead released in arcades 25 years ago remains a masterpiece - funny, absurd, tense, and novel. I am keen on any game that aims to follow in its footsteps, and there are a few. The latest is Blood Typers, a horror game where you tippity-tap on your keyboard to fight montsters in a spooky mansion, but this isn't a rail shooter, so you'll be typing to explore and navigate, too.

It's now got a release of February 2025, and there's a demo you can play now.

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BioWare currently has no plans for Dragon Age: The Veilguard expansions, according to reports. Instead the studio will support the fantasy RPG with smaller updates and otherwise turn their full attention towards Mass Effect 5.

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Sunday is cancelled. Book for now!

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Put your hand up if you'd forgotten that every Assassin's Creed game is, strictly speaking, set in the present day. I know I had. That's not the actual distant past you're parkouring through. That isn't actual Renaissance architecture you're clambering on. It's a holographic Animus simulation, conjured from ancestral memories flash-frozen within your DNA - convenient, inasmuch as it means that any inconsistencies are your DNA's fault, not Ubisoft's. If the ledge-mantling animations are glitchy, that's simply because you have bad genes.

We can both be forgiven for losing sight of Assassin's Creed's modern day narrative frame. Ubisoft themselves have downplayed it since the era of Desmond Miles, the watery Peter Parker figure who served as puppetmaster protagonist for AC games up to Assassin's Creed 3. In Assassin's Creed Shadows, however, they're planning to bring back the modern day setting in a big way, though details are scanty.

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One of my lesser quality tests for an RPG is whether the shopkeepers complain at you for not buying anything. Grumpy shopkeepers, good RPG. This most specific of litmus tests has served me well, although I must admit that I’d happily upgrade it to ‘shopkeepers you can attack’, would that not disqualify 99% of games. But not turn based dungeon crawler Thysiastery, it turns out. This “dungeon crawler RPG featuring traditional roguelike and turn-based gameplay” apparently trusts you enough to let you recklessly batter its friendly wandering lizard merchants. You’d be a monster for it, of course, but it’s nice to have options.

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Twitch have introduced a new "Politics and Sensitive Social Issues" label for streams that "focus" on topics like "elections, civic integrity, and war or military conflict". As with the streaming giant's existing labels for M-rated material, sexual themes or depictions of gambling, the idea is that viewers can filter out such streams in advance by altering their settings.

Advertisers, similarly, can "make better choices about the content they want to advertise next to" - in other words, pull their ads from a whole swathe of material if they don't want to be associated with anything controversial. Twitch's hope is that "the labels will allow advertisers to have more context to inform which types of streams they show their ads alongside, which we expect to increase brands’ confidence in running ads on Twitch, and could bring new advertisers to our service."

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I have zero archaeology experience or knowledge, but I bet archaeologists really love their jobs (for the most part). They get to analyse and discover cool artefacts and educate us on the histories of forgotten civilisations. That's dreamy stuff, that is. But I do wonder what it's like for archaeologists to discover and study something they shouldn't have; something with a disturbing secret - a curse, maybe. Bite-sized horror game The Children Of Clay explores this idea and I'd like more of it, please.

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To say that Factorio: Space Age throws out the rulebook is an understatement. It'd be more fitting to say it's somehow automated the whole process: an inserter plucked out the rulebook from my brain and deposited it in hot magma, while a new rulebook was churned out in a nearby machine and plopped into my brain from the other side - only for that to be immediately plucked out and incinerated as well. With each new planet and each new phase, Space Age reinvents itself. I'm battling hyperbole here, but ah hell, I admit defeat. Factorio: Space Age is a masterpiece, the final form of perhaps the most well-crafted building game I'll ever play.

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Enshrouded has received what developers Keen Games are calling the survival game's "most sizable" update yet, sizable being an appropriate word for mountains. Expect a new playable area, the Alabaneve Summits, with its own enemies, resources, non-threatening wildlife and quests. The maximum character level has risen to 35! There are new townsfolk to find and place in your poorly built houses! You can tame animals, and make them live in poorly built houses too! You can get hypothermia!

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Steam's built-in game recording feature has been usable in beta since the summer, but it has now been properly launched for every user, following a client update to Steam yesterday. It's basically another method of capturing funny ragdoll glitches and posting them on the "lol-games-are-dumb" channel of your friend's Discord. Or for posting that flukey knife throw in Call Of Duty to Twitter, as if you really meant to kill the man from across the map all along. Or saving a clip for your personal records, like the footage of that time you yeeted an innocent citizen off the 50-foot wall of a castle town in Dragon's Dogma 2. We all do that, right? Right?

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I would never have predicted there'd be an isometric tactics game based on run-and-gun series Metal Slug, yet here Metal Slug Tactics is, and I am here for it. We've been following its development for a while but it's out now on Steam, and seemingly as strong as its demo suggested.

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We'll have a review of Planet Coaster 2 soon, but I keep making Brendy do other tasks so he's not had enough time yet to ride the rails. That means it falls to me to at least let you know that Frontier's theme park builder is out now.

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Calling a game ‘no frills’ or ‘no nonsense’ is always a back-handed compliment, because it sounds like you're saying it's a bit straightforward and simple. And yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying here. Acts Of Blood feels like a spiffy PS2 action brawler; a slightly tighter old Yakuza game, or a stripped-back Sifu. It’s snacky and a bit janky, but it’s also great coffee break fodder, assuming you want to spend your break breaking a selection of heavy objects over the crumbly skulls of ne’er-do-wells. I mean, they might have done some things well, I don’t know them. But they aren’t doing any well to my character in the game, so violence it is.

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Take-Two Interactive have sold their publishing label Private Division to an unnamed party, along with five of Private Division's "live and unreleased titles". The GTA 6 publisher have also finally confirmed that they have shut down OlliOlli World and Rollerdrome devs Roll7 together with Kerbal Space Program 2 creators Intercept Games, months after performing mass layoffs at both studios.

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Life simulation game Inzoi will launch on PC via Steam early access on 28th March 2025, publishers Krafton have announced. Billed as a potential Sims 4 usurper, and equipped with syrupy Unreal Engine 5 visuals, it was originally slated for launch this year.

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Sega are delisting several bundles of 'classic' games from digital stores, along with "select individual" games. On Steam specifically, this adds up to over 60 games in total, including several actual classics including the original Streets Of Rage trilogy, Crazy Taxi, and Jet Set Radio.

The games will be removed on December 6th but will remain playable to those who already own them.

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Nostalgia, when you think about it, is bollocks. There has never been a better time than right this second – averaged out, and despite repeated attempts to the contrary, humanity has never been healthier, freer, or more enlightened by knowledge. It’s true of games too. For every by-committee platter of passionless map markers, there are thousands of more personal, more creative, more interesting works, all adding to the decades' worth of great stuff we can still play today.

What isn’t bollocks is the emotional pull that nostalgia, for all its lack of cold, hard reason, still manages to wield inside our warm, squishy brains. Hence, the centrepiece of Apex Legends’ Season 23 update is a mode that recreates the battle royale FPS as it was back in 2019, defaulting back to the original map and weapon arsenal while cutting the 26-strong legend roster to the earliest ten. It’s a Fortnite-style rolling back of the clock, and a passably enjoyable one, but also a reminder that the good old days weren’t always that good.

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Let’s try and get you up to speed on the fascinating oddity that is simulation game Ecosystem, on the off chance that Nate's coverage of it hasn't stuck with you like an unwelcome brain parasite you’re nonetheless unwilling to get removed for fear of the lingering emptiness it might cause (he once described an eel as “a quaver with erectile dysfunction”). Broadly speaking, this game is Spore’s evolutionary-biology-degree-having cousin. It’s been in early access for about three years now, but with the latest "Crustacean" update, it’s just hit 1.0. Once again, carcinization has come for all things.

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"A lot of puzzle games can leave you staring at the same static screen for ages, but here, I’m always pushing you forward," says Mark Brown of Game Maker’s Toolkit. For a decade now, Brown has been releasing accessible deep dives on game design for his popular YouTube channel, like "How Game Designers Protect Players From Themselves" and "The Two Types of Random in Game Design." This week, he’s releasing his own for the first time.

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The developers of hero shooter Overwatch 2 must have dropped a box full of old photographs while clearing the attic, spilling old snapshots of Route 66 onto the floor and getting snared in a nostalgic daze. The game is launching a "Classic" mode today that will let you play the first-person payload pusher as it (mostly) was back in 2016 when the first Overwatch launched. That means 6v6 fights, the original abilities of its heroes, and no limits to stop the entire team picking the same character.

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My strongest and most enduring memory of Grand Theft Auto will always be creasing into complete hysterics watching my mate pile into a crumpled police officer with a wooden baseball bat in GTA 3 after school one time. Young’uns these days just don’t appreciate how revolutionary it was to be able to hit a cop with a thing after he’d already fallen over. Suffice it to say I’ve got good memories of the open world series’ nascent forays into 3D, though never enough to tempt me into revisiting them, especially given the poor reception to Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition. I can sympathise. I’m annoyed just having to type a semicolon and a dash in the same game name.

If you’re in a similarly non-fussed position (I will never not be annoyed that ‘nonplussed’ doesn’t mean what it sounds like it should mean) I can’t imagine a lighting update that’s been available on the mobile versions for a while is enough to tempt you back. But what is a reporter's job if not pathetically treading water between chunklets of Grand Theft Auto news, upon the publishing of which Graham presses the button to release the nutritious pellets on which we all wholly subsist? I hope he doesn’t read that last sentence. I don’t get my pellet if the syntax becomes too convoluted. Moving swiftly on.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Firefighters say they are making some progress battling the wildfires in Northern California. In all, the fires have consumed more than 220,000 acres, an area larger than New York City.

More than 5,700 structures have been destroyed. And at least 41 people have died, making it the deadliest wildfire in the state’s history.

The wine industry and the tourism business connected with it are trying to take stock. More than $50 billion in California’s economy comes from the wine business. And nearly 24 million people visit the region for that reason every year.

Special correspondent Joanne Jennings reports from Napa County.

JOANNE JENNINGS, Special Correspondent: The Mayacamas mountain range creates a natural barrier between Sonoma and Napa Counties. And it is here where the massive Nuns fire is posing a tough challenge for some 11,000 firefighters who are taming the blaze with aircraft and units on the ground.

CAPT. MARK BRENNERMAN, Viejas fire Department: We’re going around and making sure none of these fires that are still smoldering and smoking, we’re not going to get another big fire out of them.

JOANNE JENNINGS: Even as firefighters are battling shifting winds, owners and workers in Wine Country are trying to determine just how much damage has been done.

The tony Highlands gated community was among the first to be consumed by flames when the Atlas fire raced through this canyon, leaving several mansions in rubble. Down the hill, at the Silverado resort, charred remnants of the Safeway PGA Tour remain. The major golf event had just wrapped up last Sunday afternoon, a few hours before flames engulfed tents and grandstands, forcing spectators and athletes to evacuate.

MAN: Do you see how it burned right up to the retaining wall here?

JOANNE JENNINGS: Silverado resident Steve Messina stayed behind and shot video of fire crews containing the flames, which consumed some condos. Within minutes, flames raced three miles down Silverado Trail, home to several storied hillside vineyards.

Most wineries in the region have been spared the worst. But hundreds suffered some damage. And at least eight vineyards have been significantly damaged or destroyed.

Pierre Birebent, who has been making wines for the family-owned Signorello estate for 20 years, rushed to his winery as quickly as he could.

PIERRE BIREBENT, Signorello Estate Vineyards: I jumped right in my truck, came down, and then when I was riding down, I saw the hill all flaming.

JOANNE JENNINGS: Two vineyard workers joined him to help save the estate’s tasting room.

PIERRE BIREBENT: But the smoke was getting very thick, and the wind was very strong. And after an hour, we couldn’t breathe anymore. At the moment, I was so upset. It was rage to see that I couldn’t do anything. But it was like fighting a giant.

JOANNE JENNINGS: The tasting room, which also housed the winery’s office and a dining room, burned to the ground. But Birebent says he wants to focused on what survived.

Fortunately, he said, the fire stopped short of reaching the vineyard, the crush pad, or any of the barrels of wine stored on site; 95 percent of this year’s grapes were already picked.

But, to be on the safe side, Birebent is taking these samples to a lab to make sure the juice is not too acidic for winemaking. If the crops are OK, a staff of 25 employees will have jobs to return to.

As the fires begin to recede and the smoke clears, people here are beginning to wonder when the tourists, who fuel much of the economy, will return.

It’s a serious concern for Andrew and Jeni (ph) Schluter, who are self-employed and are raising a young family.

ANDREW SCHLUTER, Andrew’s Tours and Transportation: I do wine tours and transportation for people. And my business started to do really, really well. I was on track to have the best month ever.

JOANNE JENNINGS: Andrew just bought this new SUV, which has been idle in his driveway collecting ash. Jeni is a personal trainer and has family who lost their homes in the fires. She’s just not sure how they’re going to make ends meet.

WOMAN: I think we’re just overwhelmed, you know? And uncertainty is kind of scary.

ANDREW SCHLUTER: We will hopefully get by for awhile, but we might make — have to make some hard decisions shortly.

JOANNE JENNINGS: While fires burn nearby, some vineyards are already open to tourists. At the Raymond Vineyard, workers are crushing grapes at a feverish pitch. The tasting room is open for the first time since the fires started.

Jeremy and Erika Moore arrived from Tennessee yesterday. They considered canceling their trip, but decided the best way they could help people here is to give them their business.

JEREMY MOORE, Tourist: On the one hand, a few hundred yards from here, you can see them shuttling up with the helicopters fighting fires, but then here it’s beautiful. They are doing some great tastings, and they are working outside on the crops. So, it’s a weird combination of tragedy, but then at the same time business must go on, too.

JOANNE JENNINGS: Proprietor Jean-Charles Boisset owns several wineries in California, France and Canada, but like many other people here, he and his family had to evacuate their home when the flames came dangerously close.

Still, he is bullish about the future of the wine industry in this region.

JEAN-CHARLES BOISSET, Boisset Collection: Napa has been one of the most amazing agricultural places in California for a long time, so it will survive those fires. What I love, as a Frenchman here in California, is that amazing American positive attitude.

We will recover. We will walk again, run again, and we will welcome all our guests and give them the dreams of fine wine.

JOANNE JENNINGS: For the PBS NewsHour, I’m Joanne Jennings in Napa Valley, California.

The post California wine country tries to get back to business despite wildfire destruction appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: It’s been almost a month since Hurricane Maria destroyed much of Puerto Rico and killed at least 48 people. The island and its residents are still coming to grips with the scale of the devastation.

William Brangham brings us the latest.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Many Puerto Ricans are still in the dark, without electrical power. Hundreds of thousands still have no access to running water, and the rebuilding of the countless damaged homes, roads and facilities is just beginning.

The Associated Press reported yesterday that almost half the sewage treatment plants on the island are still out of service, increasing the risk of contamination and disease.

I’m joined now by David Begnaud. He’s a correspondent from CBS News who’s been doing some very strong reporting there from since when the storm hit, and is just back from his latest trip to the island.

David, welcome to the NewsHour.

I wonder. We saw many of your reports and others of people still three weeks out from the storm who are still drinking from streams and creeks. You heard — I mentioned this AP report about fears of contamination.

Can you just tell us what is going on there? How are people getting water now?

DAVID BEGNAUD, CBS News: Well, let me tell you this.

The governor of Puerto Rico said this morning that he’s aware of those reports and that they’re looking into it. What’s concerning, William, is that three weeks after the storm and at least a week after the allegations first surfaced that people might be trying to drink from toxic wells at what’s known as Superfund sites, the governor of Puerto Rico is still saying, we’re looking into it and telling people to stay out of rivers where sewage may be spilling into the river.

And, he said, we want them to stay away from the coastal areas.

How are people doing? They’re still desperate to get water. No one seems to be able to figure out how to get enough water to every single person on that island who needs it. And as long as people need water, it’s still an emergency phase.

Nearly four weeks later, no one seems to be able to move from the emergency to the recovery.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, people who are — we see them drinking out of these PVC pipes that they have kind of rigged and sort of poked into the side of a creek.

People are just drinking that water straight, without purification, without boiling it; is that right?

DAVID BEGNAUD: Absolutely.

Look, they have got the PVC pipes tapped into the mountains so that it’s coming out of the stream that way. And they literally are — I saw a woman walk up to a potable water tank that the military had brought in, and she had a Clorox bottle.

And I said, “Ma’am, you’re putting drinkable water in a Clorox bottle?”

And she said, “It’s all I have got.”

Now, that was a good scenario. The other scenarios are people right now who are drinking from streams and creeks and rivers who have no water filters, who have nothing, right? They’re just taking this water.

Now, listen, the government got a million water-purifying tablets within the last week. It took almost three weeks to get those. Now there’s a large push to bring in water filters.

I have got to tell you, most of the water filters I’m seeing brought in are coming from the private sector, and civilian samaritans who are getting 1,000 or more from the mainland and flying them over to Puerto Rico and personally hand-delivering them.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That’s really incredible.

Medical facilities were another big — just a huge devastation on the island. I know you have been doing a lot of reporting on the USS Comfort.

DAVID BEGNAUD: Yes.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This is the huge Naval hospital that is now just offshore Puerto Rico.

But I understand it hasn’t been fully utilized. Can you tell us what your reporting has found there?

DAVID BEGNAUD: The two men running the ship told us that nearly 87 percent of the ship is empty. Sounds alarming, right? They have 200 beds, and 87 percent are empty.

Now, here’s what they said: We stand ready for whatever the government wants to do. We are waiting to be told by the government.

So, I went to the governor, and said exactly what’s happening. And he said: “Look, I’m not satisfied with what the protocol was from the beginning.”

He said, initially, they were prioritizing only the most critically ill patients go to the Comfort. And he said there was a layered process that was complicating things.

So, the governor, Ricardo Rossello, said: “I started to take out some of those layers, and I, said, listen, take people on the ship who may not be critically ill, but need good medical care and can’t get it at the hospital, where the lights are flickering and the A.C. is not running.”

That’s what the governor said.

Within a matter of hours, I got a tweet from a third-year medical student who said: “Let me tell you what a nightmare it has been to reach the Comfort.”

He said: “We have got a pediatric patient who desperately needs to get off this island, either to a hospital on the mainland or to the Comfort.”

And he said: “I went through Google and the local newspaper to find the number. I couldn’t find it.”

Now, here is how things work. Within about 30 minutes of that tweet going out and that medical student’s story being posted, the governor’s spokesperson responded with numbers that should be able to help.

The bottom line here, William, is that asking relentless questions and the good work of journalism is what’s making a difference there. It’s no one person. There’s no heroic work that’s being done by any journalist, other than people who are going back to the same officials and asking some of the same questions, relentlessly seeking the right answer that will make a difference.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: One of the other pieces of reporting that you did that was very early in the story was this backlog of supplies trapped in container ships on the ports in Puerto Rico.

I understand some of that — some of those supplies are now moving. Can you tell us, are they getting to where they need to be throughout the island?

DAVID BEGNAUD: So, the shipping containers you’re talking about, about 3,000 sitting in the Port of San Juan, have been moved out, not all of them, but a majority of them.

And they were intended for grocery stores around the island. Right? So, those were private companies that had brought in these shipping containers, paid for the supplies, but couldn’t move them because their truck drivers were either at home, because the home had been destroyed, or the road was impassable.

More and more supplies are getting out. But let me tell you, the grocery stores around the island, they have a lot of nonperishables, Pringles, candy, cookies, all on the shelf.

But when you go to the meat section, it’s nearly 75 percent empty at the stores we have been to, the produce section 90 percent empty. And finding bottled water there is almost like playing a game.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: David Begnaud, CBS News, thank you so much for your reporting. Thanks for your time.

DAVID BEGNAUD: You bet.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Now: new questions surrounding the deaths of four Green Berets in the Western African nation of Niger and the role of the president as consoler in chief.

John Yang has the story.

JOHN YANG: Sending young Americans into harm’s way can be the most serious decision a president makes. Consoling the families of the fallen has become the latest controversy to engulf President Trump.

To bolster his claim that he does more than his predecessors, Mr. Trump today invoked the dead son of his chief of staff, retired Marine general John Kelly.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: To the best of my knowledge, I think I have called every family of somebody that’s died. Now, as far as other representatives, I don’t know. I mean, you could ask General Kelly, did he get a call from Obama?

JOHN YANG: Kelly’s 29-year-old son, Robert, a Marine lieutenant, was killed in 2010 when he stepped on a land mine in Afghanistan, an episode Kelly rarely talks about publicly. Kelly and his wife did attend a 2011 Memorial Day breakfast President Obama hosted for Gold Star families.

President Trump ignited the furor when he was asked about his public silence on four Green Berets killed two weeks ago in Niger.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: If you look at President Obama and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls. A lot of them didn’t make calls. I like to call when it’s appropriate, when I think I’m able to do it.

JOHN YANG: Reporters pressed him to back up the claim.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don’t know. That’s what I was told. All I can do — all I can do is ask my generals.

JOHN YANG: The response from former Obama officials was swift and forceful.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder tweeted this photo and insisted: “Stop the damn lying. I went to Dover Air Force base with 44 and saw him comfort families,” a reference to one of Mr. Obama’s late-night trips to pay his respects to troops killed in Afghanistan.

Mr. Obama and President George W. Bush often visited wounded warriors at Walter Reed and Bethesda hospitals, a practice Mr. Trump has continued. In February, the president and his daughter Ivanka went to Dover for the return of the remains of a Navy SEAL killed in Yemen, the first casualty of his administration.

So far this year, the Pentagon says 16 Americans have been killed in action. Another 17 sailors died in accidents. In the first year of the Obama presidency, 344 were killed in action.

During last year’s campaign, Mr. Trump publicly feuded with the Khans, the parents of a Muslim American soldier killed in Iraq, after they criticized him at the Democratic Convention.

Today, the Khans said: “President Trump’s selfish and divisive actions have undermined the dignity of the high office of the presidency.”

The current controversy comes as questions are being raised about how and why the four soldiers died in Niger.

Senator Jack Reed is the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.

SEN. JACK REED, D-R.I.: I think the administration has to be much more clear about our role in Niger and our role in other areas in Africa and other parts of the globe.

JOHN YANG: The Pentagon is investigating the deaths. Reportedly among the questions, did commanders adequately assess the risk, and was there ready access to medical support?

Today, President Trump called the families of the four dead Green Berets.

For the PBS NewsHour, I’m John Yang.

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NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell held a news conference today after the second day of the annual owners meeting. Watch his remarks in the player above.

NFL players will be encouraged to stand for the national anthem at the start of the football games, the league’s chief told reporters today.

After two days of meeting with owners of each NFL team, representatives for the players’ union and players themselves, the NFL has reiterated its decision to keep its existing policy of not requiring players to stand during the anthem. Goodell said yesterday that the league wouldnot instate a rule that would penalize players who refuse to stand for the anthem.

“We believe everyone should stand for the national anthem,” he told reporters at a news conference today. “That’s an important part of our policy. It’s also an important part of our game that we all take great pride in. And it’s also important for us to honor our flag and our country and I think our fans expect us to do that.”

Goodell’s remarks came after President Donald Trump continued his criticism of the NFL this morning. On Twitter, Trump said: “The NFL has decided that it will not force players to stand for the playing of our National Anthem. Total disrespect for our great country!”

After former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the anthem last year to protest police killings of unarmed black men, dozens of other players joined him to draw greater attention to social and racial injustice. Last month, Trump said the NFL ought to fire players who didn’t stand for the anthem.

The players “are not doing this in any way to be disrespectful to the flag,” Goodell said today. “But they also understand how it’s being interpreted.”

Goodell also said the league wanted to stay out of the political arena over the issue.

“We’re not looking to get into politics,” he told reporters. “What we’re looking to do is to continue to get people focused on football.”

The post WATCH: NFL commissioner says players ‘should stand for the national anthem’ appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Watch Video | Listen to the Audio

HARI SREENIVASAN: In the day’s other news: Attorney General Jeff Sessions insisted he never lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee about his conversations with the Russian ambassador during the presidential campaign. At a hearing today, he bridled at Democratic Senator Al Franken’s accusation that he’d — quote — “moved the goalposts” on the nature of his discussions.

SEN. AL FRANKEN, D-Minn.: First it was, I didn’t have communications with Russians, which wasn’t true. Then it was, I never met with any Russians to discuss any political campaign, which may or may not be true.

Now it’s, I didn’t discuss interference in the campaign.

JEFF SESSIONS, Attorney General: Well, let me just say without hesitation, that I conducted no improper discussions with the Russians at any time regarding the campaign or any other item facing this country.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Sessions has recused himself from the Justice Department’s investigation into Russia’s election meddling.

President Trump had new criticism today for former FBI Director James Comey over the Hillary Clinton e-mail probe. He complained again that Comey decided to clear Clinton before she was even interviewed. That’s based on newly released draft statements by Comey from May of 2016. FBI officials say it was already clear that no charges were warranted.

On another issue, the president faced fallout over the death of Army Sergeant La David Johnson in Niger this month. Congresswoman Frederica Wilson says she was with Mrs. Johnson when the president called. The Florida Democrat told The Washington Post that Mr. Trump said — quote — “He knew what he was signing up for, but I guess it hurts anyway.”

The sergeant’s mother confirmed it, but the president denied it, and White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders went after Wilson.

SARAH SANDERS, White House Press Secretary: This is a president who loves our country very much, who has the greatest level of respect for men and women in uniform and wanted to call and offer condolences to the family, and I think to try to create something from that, that the congresswoman is doing, is, frankly, appalling and disgusting.

HARI SREENIVASAN: The Post also reported on another incident today. It quoted the father of a soldier killed in Afghanistan as saying the president offered $25,000 from his personal account, but never followed through.

We will get more detail on all of this after the news summary.

The death toll in Northern California’s wildfires rose to 42 today. Officials in Sonoma County found the remains of the latest victim, as they searched hundreds of burned homes. Meanwhile, fire crews made new gains overnight with the help of cooler weather and low winds.

A two-time Olympic medalist says the former team doctor for U.S. women’s gymnastics sexually abused her for years. McKayla Maroney is the highest profile athlete to come forward in the scandal. In a statement today, she said Dr. Larry Nassar began molesting her when she was just 13. He’s awaiting sentencing on a child pornography charge, but has denied any sexual abuse.

More questions tonight about drug pricing. A new study finds the costs of injectable cancer drugs, approved since 1996, rose an average of 25 percent over eight years. That’s far higher than the rate of inflation. The study was based at Emory University and published in “The Journal of Clinical Oncology.”

And on Wall Street, health insurers and IBM fueled a surge in stocks today. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 160 points, more than half-a-percent, to close above 23000 for the first time. The Nasdaq rose just a fraction, and the S&P 500 was up two points.

The post News Wrap: Sessions insists he didn’t lie about Russian contacts to Senate appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

A DWP employee who has been working in the welfare system for 42 years has shared some key advice for new claims for the likes of PIP and Attendance Allowance

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As the International Space Station comes to the end of its life, we should recognise its biggest achievement – showing that a better world is possible

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