assault

Trump's plan to get Mexico to pay for the wall is working!

Closed borders are closed borders, island or not.

More on the Victoria stuff, and how quickly things can get out of control: Victoria reimposes coronavirus stage 3 lockdown on metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire after record rise in cases

Coronavirus Victoria: Melbourne to re-enter stage 3 lockdown restrictions for six weeks "Metropolitan Melbourne will go into stage-three lockdown for six weeks from 11.59pm on Wednesday after the state of Victoria recorded 191 new cases of coronavirus since Monday, the highest daily increase since the pandemic began." For comparison, in Queensland: Queensland novel coronavirus (COVID-19) update 7 July 2020 "Queensland has one new case of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) to report today, bringing total cases to 1068." Apparently this new case is a member of the Defense Force, just returned from another country.

China issues bubonic plague alert, forbids eating risky animals Because it's still 2020.

39 years ago, not 49.

They don't get most of their characteristics from their rings, and some of them (Kilowog!) have superhuman characteristics. I wouldn't go too low, and certainly wouldn't inflict NCM on them. (But then, NCM should never be used for superheroes.) Everything depends on what you are planning on doing, but if you aren't concerned with restricting point totals, I'd consider making them "low powered superhumans" even without their rings. That might even be low, if you go nuts with skills, EGO (willpower!) and such.

Panic buying is back in Victoria, Australia.

It's meaningful in a national and state/territory context. Essentially, for much of Australia, the number of new cases currently borders on zero. The exceptions are mainly related to international or interstate travel. The current spike in Victoria is likely to slow the ongoing process of lifting restrictions, and may, critically from where I am in Queensland, result in a delay in our state borders being reopened. Unsurprisingly, the media outlets that have been campaigning to have restrictions lifted, borders opened and so on, are now, without a hint of self-awareness, going into panic mode about the increase in cases.

As coronavirus cases rise in Victoria, how do we know when a second wave is starting?

Likewise, a smoke arrow is different from a net arrow or a shoot-them-in-the-head arrow. But a glue arrow isn't different from a net arrow, and you don't need five different kinds of shoot-them-in-the-head arrow. That's entirely reasonable. However, a blanket prohibition on using Multiforms for such things should be considered as a House Rule. That's not awful. It's well documented that even Gary Gygax used a bunch of house rules in his D&D games.

New Zealand records two new COVID-19 cases after virus-free streak

Lots of different kinds.

There's been a couple of cases in other threads where there has been dispute over the intention of the rules. It might be useful to restate here what the rules say about the Two Statements, especially the second. "Okay! When you get people together, have the following two statements at the ready, no more and no less. ▶ One solid bit of content about superpowers, heroes, or villains ▶ This part might be back-story, or purely visual, or just atmospheric. ▶ One solid bit of fictional style and specific types of problems ▶ Include the location of play (ideally, somewhere that someone in the group knows really well) ▶ This part says nothing about powers or superhero/villain material. It’s really tempting, but resist. This isn’t a pitch. It’s not negotiated, discussed, debated, or explained. If you chose phrases that are fun – that you like to see or want to see in comics – that’s enough." The bolded words are emphasized in the text. Each marks one of the statements. The only case where I have had problems with this is the "location of play" part, where a game isn't oriented towards a particular city. It's a funny one, because books like the FF and the Avengers are definitely "located" in New York City in some ways, but wander about all over the place all the time. (And often through time!) You could treat this as a "we should be playing the equivalent of First Level characters and restrict ourselves to a particular location" mandate, but obviously there is no such thing a "First Level character" in CNow, characters can routinely have powers that allow them to move outside such a location, and they can be egregiously powerful. Such geographical restrictions are therefore entirely dependent on a particular game. When they aren't in effect, such a location is merely a starting point or home base. It might be worth mentioning that in a Statement 2, especially since DNPCs don't necessarily get around nearly as much as PCs.

The short version is: it isn't. One quote should be enough to demonstrate this: "The Multiform has Slots and a Pool, but no Control. It works well for heroes whose powers can be split into modular options, so that they use either one combination of them or another. ... The pool may be as big as you like within the confines of the total character points. (Yes, your entire hero may be expressed as varying slots within one huge Multiform!) Conversely, the Multiform may be one small aspect of your character, like a modular weapon." My reading of this is that both "changing forms" and "selecting options" are supported by this. The other references to Multiform in the text don't provide any support to excluding one or other of these. So we are left with the written text, versus a second-hand "Ron intended". The former would probably take precedence in most games.