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Even with technology taking over much of our day-to-day lives, board games still offer quality entertainment that can’t be beaten. Of course, the popular board games of today are a far cry from the games your parents grew up playing. Board games are perfect for encouraging your family to work together or for bringing your group of friends around the table for an evening. If you’d like to start up a weekly game night, let this helpful list of the most popular board games be your guide. Utter Nonsense Ages 8+ This game will have every player rolling in stitches with each ridiculous phrase that’s uttered. Combine crazy accents and hilarious phrases to impress the Nonsense Judge and win the round. The player with the highest number of wins ultimately wins the game, but the true fun of this card game is listening to your fellow players trying to say some of the most entertaining phrases of all time. This game is perfect for game nights or parties. Speak Out Ages 8+ This hilarious game is perfect if you have teenagers or are hosting a party with all adults. To play, you insert a mouthpiece that alters the sound of your speech, making every word sound silly. Set the timer and read one of the phrases on the cards and try to help your teammate guess what you’re saying. Speak Out easily provides hours of fun that even grandparents will love. Escape Room in a Box Ages 13+ What’s the next best thing to trying to break out of a room? Escape Room in a Box, of course. This thrilling, immersive game involves solving 2D and 3D puzzles in order to prevent a mad scientist from turning you and your friends or family into werewolves. Work together to escape your fate and use Amazon Alexa to enhance the experience. Codenames Ages 14+ This fun strategy game is perfect for anyone with teenagers. Form two teams and select a spymaster on each team. Using clues, spymasters try to help their teammates find all 25 of the agents they’re in contact with, hopefully without selecting the other team’s agents or running into the deadly assassin. This innovative game offers a challenging and rewarding time working together. Harry Potter Clue Ages 9+ Excite your kids on game night with this modern twist on a classic. Play as six recognizable Hogwarts characters — Harry, Hermione, Ron, Luna, Ginny or Neville — to solve the mystery behind a fellow student’s disappearance. It’s up to you to figure out who attacked the student, what bewitching spell they used and where it occurred. Watch out for the Dark Mark, moving staircases and secret passages as you travel along in this magical family game. Pandemic Ages 8+ If you’ve ever wanted to save humanity from a deadly outbreak, you’ll love spending an hour playing Pandemic. You and your teammates must fight to contain four deadly diseases threatening the human race. Players must learn to work with their teammates to control outbreak hotspots and treat diseases. Win the game by curing all diseases without wiping out humanity first. Catan Ages 10+ This tactical 60-minute game will push your imagination to its limits as you embark on a journey across Catan. Acquire crucial resources as you travel, build roads, buildings, and cities, and be wary of the ruthless robber and other players halting you on your own road. Through careful trading and clever decisions, you can lead your travelers to victory in this role-playing game of limitless possibilities. Play again and again. Every game is different. Ticket to Ride Ages 8+ Train lovers will enjoy this innovative board game which has won numerous awards. This cross-country train adventure game mimics the concept of traveling around the world in 80 days. Collect train cars and claim railways across the country. Players earn the most points by establishing long train routes and connecting distant cities. Each game takes roughly 30 to 40 minutes to complete, and every adventure is different. 5 Second Rule Ages 10+ This quick-paced game gives each player five seconds to name items on a certain topic. Although the topics are objectively easy —“Name 3 Mountains,” “Name 3 Types of Hats” or “Name 3 Super Heroes,” the pressure of the time crunch is likely to put you on edge. Race the clock and remain composed to win this game. You can even make up your own topics if you prefer. Half the fun is just hearing what other people blurt out, whether it’s relevant to the topic or not. Prices listed reflect time and date of publication and are subject to change. Check out our Daily Deals for the best products at the best prices and sign up here to receive the BestReviews weekly newsletter full of shopping inspo and sales. BestReviews spends thousands of hours researching, analyzing and testing products to recommend the best picks for most consumers. BestReviews and its newspaper partners may earn a commission if you purchase a product through one of our links.
This went from sweet to sour. A Swedish candy craze that took over TikTok and local confectionaries has resulted in a shortage of the Swede sweets around the globe. As a result, New Yorkers flocked to candy stores late at night, opting for a sweet treat instead of going out to bars on the weekends, inspired by a viral video posted by Macy Grace Graves, who informed her followers about the deliciousness of Scandinavian candy. The frenzy exhausted stockpiles — and workers — at local haunt BonBon, which often saw a line stretching down the sidewalk in front of its Lower East Side location. And the soaring popularity has resulted in a crushing candy crunch. “It’s like the crack is gone. It’s like selling drugs – they’re addicted,” BonBon co-founder Robert Persson previously told The Post. “Thank goodness, this is a positive thing.” Likewise, on social media, sweet-toothed TikTokkers post candy hauls and taste tests of their bulk buys, while NYC tourists rush to get their hands on some of the sour grub while visiting the Big Apple. The subsequent dearth of delectables has been devastating. Last month, Orkla, producers of the fan-favorite brand Bubs, announced that there was not enough supply to meet the demand. As a result, vendors who are struggling with keeping Bubs candy in stock are hoarding the sweets. “The trend started to really increase during the spring, but unfortunately we didn’t have enough safety stock before the summer,” Orkla director Niclas Arnelin told The Guardian . “During summer, we need to let people in the factory have their vacations by law, and we also close the factory for maintenance. We sold everything we produced over the summer. And after that, we ran out.” Arnelin told Canada’s CBC News that the company was going to “prioritize” customers in Sweden and the surrounding regions, with whom the company has had “long relationships.” “They’re a texture that’s not a marshmallow or gummy, but foam – so they’re right in between,” BonBon COO Sara Ciliberto previously told The Post of Bubs chewy candies. “They’re so intriguing.” The allure of the Swedish sweet is that it contains real sugar, not high fructose corn syrup, a common sweetener in American candies, while being available in unusual flavors or shapes, too. “No GMOs, no corn syrup, typically [fewer] ingredients than your conventional candy that you’re going to find at the grocery store,” Michelina Jassal, the owner of the Vancouver-based Swedish candy store Karameller, told CBC News. “You don’t quite have that sick-to-your-stomach [feeling] that you sometimes experience with conventional candy.” In Gotham, BonBon regulars have been converted from traditional US-made candy to the confections produced overseas. “It tastes so good,” Haley Alpert, 27, previously told The Post. “I don’t want normal American candy anymore.”Burt died over the weekend, the Crocosaurus Cove reptile aquarium in Darwin, Australia, said. He was at least 90 years old. “Known for his independent nature, Burt was a confirmed bachelor – an attitude he made clear during his earlier years at a crocodile farm,” Crocosaurus Cove wrote in social media posts. The aquarium added: “He wasn’t just a crocodile, he was a force of nature and a reminder of the power and majesty of these incredible creatures. While his personality could be challenging, it was also what made him so memorable and beloved by those who worked with him and the thousands who visited him over the years.” A saltwater crocodile, Burt was estimated to be more than 16 feet long. He was captured in the 1980s in the Reynolds River and became one of the most well-known crocodiles in the world, according to Crocosaurus Cove. The 1986 film stars Paul Hogan as the rugged crocodile hunter Mick Dundee. In the movie, American Sue Charlton, played by actress Linda Kozlowski, goes to fill her canteen in a watering hole when she is attacked by a crocodile before being saved by Dundee. Burt is briefly shown lunging out of the water. But the creature shown in more detail as Dundee saves the day is apparently something else. The Internet Movie Database says the film made a mistake by depicting an American alligator, which has a blunter snout. The Australian aquarium where Burt had lived since 2008 features a Cage of Death which it says is the nation’s only crocodile dive. It said it planned to honour Burt’s legacy with a commemorative sign “celebrating his extraordinary life and the stories and interactions he shared throughout his time at the park”.
I can’t sugarcoat how progressives feel at the close of 2024: rough. President-elect Donald Trump won back the White House with a campaign that was bigoted and fascist. And from President Joe Biden’s backing of Israel’s ghastly war in Gaza to his ill-fated decision to seek reelection, progressives aren’t celebrating his tenure, either. The next few years will see an onslaught of challenges. If you look closely, you’ll see signs people aren’t just going to roll over and accept it. Here are five that caught my eye. The American public has had it with economic elites. Union activity has been on an upswing for a few years, with union petition filings in 2024 significantly up over 2023. After a successful national strike in 2023, the United Auto Workers won an election in Tennessee this year, a significant breakthrough in the traditionally anti-union South. And more Amazon warehouse workers and drivers are pushing to join. Meanwhile, communities in places such as Wisconsin fought back against a private-equity takeover of nursing care. And nationally, widespread anger exploded over the greed of health insurance companies. Trump likes to play a populist on TV. But if he moves to slash workers’ rights, cut taxes for CEOs and erode access to health care, he’ll have a fight. The movement for a ceasefire in Gaza drew support from a vast, diverse coalition of young people — with additional support from faith communities, unions, environmentalists and others who’d previously stayed “in their lane.” They haven’t succeeded yet. But they’ve won broad, bipartisan public support for a ceasefire, an arms embargo on Israel and, more generally, foreign policy informed by human rights. Democratic politicians, in particular, won’t be able to avoid this issue. Temperatures continue to rise. Natural disasters worsen, and our leaders fail us on climate. The Biden administration’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, is unleashing record investments in green jobs, fueling unprecedented growth in renewable power. Meanwhile, Indigenous-led efforts are quietly reintroducing species to their natural habitats. The more local support initiatives such as these win, the harder they’ll be to reverse. One of the worst moments of the 2024 campaign was the ridiculous slander of Haitian Americans in Springfield, Ohio, by Trump, and other right-wingers. Springfield natives turned out to support their Haitian neighbors. Locals flocked to Haitian restaurants, churches and community centers to show their solidarity. The lesson is that, while hardline immigration measures can attract support in the abstract, people feel differently when they realize members of their communities could be affected. Progressives should defend their immigrant neighbors without apology. They may win some unlikely allies if they stand up for what’s right. Forget “red states” and “blue states” — there’s support for progressive ideas in all 50 states. Just look at the election. Several conservative states passed ballot measures to raise the minimum wage, guarantee paid leave, protect abortion access and liberalize marijuana laws. Once you filter out the noise around candidates and ask people about progressive policies directly, even “red state” voters tend to support them. The key is to make candidates run on those policies — without watering them down. Our politics are a mess. But the U.S. isn’t lost — only our leaders are. When Americans organize around our common decency, it will be a lot harder for bullies such as Trump to walk over us. Certo is the communications director of the Institute for Policy Studies. He wrote this for InsideSources.com . Get local news delivered to your inbox!