quality

When Shohei Ohtani was asked about his woeful performance at the plate in the Dodgers’ National League Division Series against the Philadelphia Phillies last week, he first gave credit to the opposition.

Then, after a series that saw the Phillies counter him with one left-handed pitcher after the next, he was also quick to point out that he wasn’t alone.

“It was pretty difficult for left-handed hitters,” Ohtani said in Japanese amid the Dodgers’ clubhouse celebration following their Game 4 victory. “This was also the case for Freddie [Freeman].”

The Phillies did indeed make life tough on the Dodgers’ best lefty bats.

Freeman was only three for 15 in the series, albeit with a key Game 2 double and a .294 on-base-percentage.

Max Muncy was four for nine in the series, but spent most of it waiting on the bench, not getting a start in any of the three contests the Phillies had a southpaw on the mound.

And as a team, the Dodgers hit just .199 with 41 strikeouts in the four-game series.

However, no one’s struggles were as pronounced as Ohtani’s — the soon-to-be four-time MVP winner, who in the NLDS looked like anything but.

Ohtani struck out in each of his first four at-bats in Game 1. He didn’t get his first hit until grounding an RBI single through the infield in the seventh inning of Game 2.

After that, Ohtani’s only other time reaching base safely was when the Phillies intentionally walked him in the seventh inning of Game 4.

His final stat line from the series: One for 18, nine strikeouts and a whole lot of questions about what went wrong.

Ohtani, who was coming off a three-hit, two-homer wild-card round, did acknowledge Thursday night that “there were at-bats that didn’t go the way I thought they would.”

But, he quickly added: “The opposing pitchers didn’t make many mistakes. They pitched wonderfully, in a way that’s worthy for the postseason. There were a lot of games like that for both teams.”

The real question coming out of the series was about the root cause of Ohtani’s unexpected struggles.

Was it simply because of the tough pitching matchups, having faced a lefty in 12 of his 20 trips to the plate? Or had his faltering approach created more legitimate concerns, the kind that could threaten to continue into the NL Championship Series?

“I think a lot of it actually was driven by the left-handed pitching,” manager Dave Roberts said Saturday, as the Dodgers awaited to face either the Chicago Cubs or Milwaukee Brewers in an NLCS that will begin on Monday.

However, the manager also put the onus on his $700-million superstar to be better.

“Hoping that he can do a little self-reflecting on that series, and how aggressive he was outside of the strike zone, passive in the zone,” Roberts said. “The at-bat quality needs to get better.”

For the Dodgers, the implications are stark.

“We’re not gonna win the World Series with that sort of performance,” Roberts continued. “So we’re counting on a recalibration, getting back into the strike zone.”

From the very first at-bat of Game 1 — when he was also the starting pitcher in his first career playoff game as a two-way player — Ohtani struggled to make the right swing decisions.

He chased three pitches off the inside of the plate from Phillies lefty Cristopher Sánchez, which Roberts felt “kinda set the tone” for his series-long struggles, then took a called third strike the next two times he faced him.

From there, the 31-year-old slugger could never seem to dial back into his approach.

He went down looking again in Game 1 against left-handed reliever Matt Strahm. He led off Game 2 with another strikeout against another lefty in Jesús Luzardo. On and on it went, with Ohtani continuing to chase inside junk, flailing at pitches that darted off the plate the other way, and finding his only reprieve in a rematch with Strahm in Game 2 when he got just enough on an inside sinker.

Roberts’ hope was that, moving forward, Ohtani would be able to learn and adjust.

“Understanding when he faces left-handed pitching, what they’re gonna try to do: Crowd him in, off, spin him away,” Roberts said. “He’s just gotta be better at managing the hitting zone. I’m counting on it. We’re all counting on it.”

Roberts also conceded that Ohtani’s at-bats on the day he pitched in Game 1 seemed to be especially rushed.

“[When] he’s pitching, he’s probably trying to conserve energy, not trying to get into at-bats,” Roberts said. “It hasn’t been good when he’s pitched. I do think that’s part of it. We’ve got to think through this and come up with a better game plan.”

After all, while Ohtani might not have been the only struggling hitter in the NLDS, his importance to the lineup is greater than anyone’s. The Dodgers can only endure without him for so long.

TESCO has launched a range of “restaurant quality” ready-made meals across 160 of its stores around the country.

There are 12 different dishes included in the collection, for a different meal to be had each day of the week.

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The brand new Finest Chef’s Collection range has been designed by Tesco’s in-house chefs.

It includes slow-cooked meals ranging from Italian to Indian cuisine, as well as classic British flavours.

Prices range from £17.50 to £20 per dish.

Among the British-inspired dishes include a Blush Double Pork Chop a Tender Lamb Rump, Balsamic and Rosemary Lamb Shoulder, Succulent Pork Belly, and an Oak Smoked Chicken Crown.

Indian flavours in the collection include Tandoori Spiced Chicken Supremes, Masala Spcied Beef Cheeks, and Spice Lamb Shanks.

The chicken and beef have masala spice blends in the sauce, while the lamb shanks are served with green tikka sauce.

For the Italian inspired dishes, there is a Blush Shoulder of Pork, Stuffed Beef Featherblad with a Procini and Parmigiano Regiiano stuffing, Nduja Stuffed Porchetta, and Rosemary and Porcini Pork Shoulder.

Breige Donaghy, Director of Product Development and Innovation Tesco, said: “We know life’s busy, but that doesn’t mean you have to miss out on amazing food at home.

“That’s why our chefs have created the Chef’s Collection – a range of dishes inspired by restaurant menus and packed with clever techniques that make it super easy to cook something special.

“With top-quality ingredients, and most of the prep already done, these dishes make it easy to create special food moments and transform a meal at home into something truly memorable.”

It comes after research found almost 30 per cent of Brits, and around 60 per cent of adults, have tried to pass of supermarket-cooked meals as their own.

More people have also been found to be going out less to restaurants to eat compared to last year, often due to costs.

Executive Chief at Tesco, Jamie Robinson, added: “We’ve worked hard to bring authentic flavours from across the globe to customers’ kitchens without the stress of cooking from scratch.

“Most dishes have been gently slow cooked, and come with our top cooking, pairing and plating tips to help you deliver great results every time.”

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Each meal is designed as a main for two people, therefore costing £10 each.

The Finest Chef’s Collection range is launching at larger Tesco stores, and offers a 25 per cent discount of Clubcard customers until October 12.

Dishes come with step-by-step cooking instructions and a QR code that can be scanned to provide cooking, plating and pairing tips from Tesco chefs.

It comes after Tesco was mocked for launching a strange meal deal shoppers spotted in stores.

As a £9 Clubcard offer, Tesco launched a meal deal consisting of a 12-packl of Sol beers and a bag of five limes.

Many shoppers also threatened to boycott Tesco last month after it was seen increasing the price of its meal deal by 25p.

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With Chelsea visiting Old Trafford on Saturday, a trip to Brentford – where United have conceded four times on each of their last two visits – and encounters with Sunderland and then Liverpool at Anfield follow, making the chances of a significant upturn in fortunes in the short-term unlikely.

Scholes is not alone in believing United have no chance of reversing their fortunes unless Amorim changes his style, with all-time leading scorer Wayne Rooney believing his old side have “got worse” under the Portuguese, who replaced the sacked Erik ten Hag last November.

“He cannot carry on playing this way, he just can’t,” said Scholes, who won 11 Premier League titles and the Champions League twice in a 20-year career with the club.

“At some point there has to be a moment where he thinks, ‘I have to change something because what I am doing now is not working and I am not getting results’. The proof is there.

“I like Amorim, with everything he says, he seems to be a likeable man. But unfortunately results paint a picture.

“At this moment in time it isn’t good enough. At this moment in time if results don’t improve, performances don’t really matter that much. He has to win some games or the pressure is going to come on him massively.”

Following last season’s struggles, where United finished 15th in the league and lost the Europa League final to Tottenham, Amorim worked hard in the summer trying to create a harmonious dressing room culture.

While there are some within the United dressing room who are thought to be uneasy about the 40-year-old’s refusal to change his tactics, there is no sign of widespread discontent as yet.

The optimism around Amorim is not confined to the Old Trafford boardroom.

João Noronha Lopes, favourite to win the Benfica presidential election on 25 October, is thought to be keen on bringing him back to the club where he made his name as a player, making 154 appearances across six seasons.

Lopes was at Etihad Stadium for Sunday’s derby, where he was accompanied by Pedro Ferreira and Nuno Gomes, the former Portugal and Benfica forward, who is one of Amorim’s closest friends.

Speaking to Portuguese media before the group left for Manchester, Gomes spoke about the prospect of hiring him.

“I can’t answer that question,” he said. “Ruben Amorim is the coach of Manchester United.

“But one thing I do know, Ruben Amorim will be the coach of Benfica one day.”

You hear that?

Spotify announced Wednesday that Lossless Listening, its newest audio format, is available for premium users in select countries, including the U.S.

Lossless audio files allow for listeners to stream music using the least compressed and highest resolution audio formats can have, the company said.

Previously, when a musician uploaded their work to a streaming platform, the files tended to get compressed and lose some quality due to the encoding process. Spotify says that with Lossless Listening, users will now be able to hear every detail within the audio file.

From the delicate plucking of an electric guitar to the subtle sample of someone speaking, this new feature will allow listeners to get a heightened sense of clarity and quality when playing their favorite tracks, Spotify said. Lossless works by capturing the recording’s original sound waves and putting them together to create an accurate reproduction of its initial quality.

“We’ve taken time to build this feature in a way that prioritizes quality, ease of use, and clarity at every step, so you always know what’s happening under the hood,” Gustav Gyllenhammar, Spotify’s vice president of subscriptions, said in a statement. “With Lossless, our premium users will now have an even better listening experience.”

Founded in 2006, Spotify has become the world’s most popular audio streaming service, garnering over 696 million users. Last year, the company posted a net income of more than $1.3 billion with revenue of $18.4 billion. That was its first annual net profit since the company started. The streamer, based in Sweden, is available in more than 180 markets and has a library of over 100 million tracks, almost 7 million podcast titles and 350,000 audiobooks.

Lossless Listening is currently only available for music.

This new feature comes several years after streaming competitors first introduced a similar feature. Subscribers to Apple Music and Amazon Music have had the capacity to listen to music in this format since 2021 and 2019, respectively.

On Spotify, the lossless files are larger than the standard formats, meaning the feature can not be used when connected to Bluetooth, as there’s not enough bandwidth to transmit. If attempted with Bluetooth, the file will be compressed and played at regular quality.

To use Lossless Listening on Spotify, premium users must enable it in their settings, and an icon will appear when listening.

It’s currently available for use on mobile, tablet and desktop. Spotify Premium costs $11.99 a month, while the standard version is free for use with ads.

A MAJOR supermarket has cut the price of Quality Street tubs – but bargain hunters need to move fast as the deal ends today.

The offer is running in stores across the UK, giving shoppers the chance to stock up on Christmas favourites months before the festive season begins.

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It’s Morrisons offering the bargain, letting customers bag two tubs for just £9.

Normally, the tubs sell for £7 each, so the deal works out as a saving of up to 36 per cent.

The offer covers four favourites – the 600g Quality Street tub, plus 550g tubs of Celebrations, Cadbury Heroes and Cadbury Roses.

It’s one of the cheapest supermarket offers around right now, but the bargain won’t last long.

The promotion only runs until August 31, after which prices will jump back up.

So, today is the very last chance to snap up the tubs before the discount disappears.

The offer comes as Christmas chocolates are already hitting supermarket shelves across the country.

Fans were left buzzing this week when B&M stores began selling Quality Street’s famous Strawberry Delight crackers.

Each box contains dark chocolate bites filled with a creamy strawberry centre – and shoppers couldn’t wait to share the news.

One excited fan posted online: “Strawberry Delight are the best Quality Street and the crackers are BACK at B&M.”

Others quickly piled in with their support. One wrote: “Love them and the orange.” Another added: “My favourite.”

Tesco is also running its own offer, slashing the price of a Quality Street tin to £5.95 with a Clubcard.

But some shoppers reckon it’s far too early for festive promos.

One joked: “Be Easter eggs by the end of the month on display.”

Another said: “Don’t know what’s the bigger joke. The price or the fact it’s 4 months early.”

Meanwhile, there’s frustration as Quality Street tubs have shrunk yet again this year.

The classic purple boxes are now 550g, down from 600g last year, and a huge drop from 780g back in 2015.

That means around five or six fewer chocolates per tub, with the number falling from around 63 to roughly 57.

Tom Church, co-founder of LatestDeals.co.uk, said: “The shrinking Quality Street tub has become a Christmas tradition.

“The lights go up, the carols play, the chocolates shrink.”

He joked: “At this rate, the tub will quite literally be empty by 2035.”

Consumer champion Martyn James also blasted the change, saying: “Most people consider this to be out and out greed.”

He added: “Better to charge us more than give us less and not tell us.”

Nestlé, which makes Quality Street, insisted changes are based on “manufacturing, ingredients, transport and customer preferences.”

How to save money on chocolate

We all love a bit of chocolate from now and then, but you don’t have to break the bank buying your favourite bar.

Consumer reporter Sam Walker reveals how to cut costs…

Go own brand – if you’re not too fussed about flavour and just want to supplant your chocolate cravings, you’ll save by going for the supermarket’s own brand bars.

Shop around – if you’ve spotted your favourite variety at the supermarket, make sure you check if it’s cheaper elsewhere.

Websites like Trolley.co.uk let you compare prices on products across all the major chains to see if you’re getting the best deal.

Look out for yellow stickers – supermarket staff put yellow, and sometimes orange and red, stickers on to products to show they’ve been reduced.

They usually do this if the product is coming to the end of its best-before date or the packaging is slightly damaged.

Buy bigger bars – most of the time, but not always, chocolate is cheaper per 100g the larger the bar.

So if you’ve got the appetite, and you were going to buy a hefty amount of chocolate anyway, you might as well go bigger.

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Aug. 9 (UPI) — An air quality alert was issued for parts of Southern California because of the effects of the Canyon Fire, fueled by dry brush and extreme heat.

But evacuation orders were canceled and shifted to warnings for thousands of residents in Ventura and Los Angeles counties, CalFire said Saturday.

The wildfire had spread to 5,370 acres and was 48% contained, the state agency said Saturday afternoon. On Friday morning, it was 4,756 acres, but none contained.

The fire ignited on Thursday afternoon in a remote area east of Lake Piru, north of Highway 126 and west of Castaic in Ventura County, and spread to Los Angeles County.

The National Weather Service said the smoke was causing harmful air pollution in parts of Southern California through the weekend.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District issued an air quality alert on Friday night.

The alert is in effect for the Santa Clarita Valley, San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys, and the Inland Empire. It expires Sunday morning for the Santa Clarita Valley and 8 p.m. Saturday for everywhere else.

“Even in areas far from fires or areas not covered by a smoke advisory, if you can smell smoke or see ash from a wildfire, avoid or limit outdoor activities,” the alert read.

People with medical conditions are urged to stay inside with the windows closed.

“Particles in wildfire smoke can get deep into the lungs and cause serious health problems such as heart attacks, strokes, asthma attacks, and difficulty breathing,” the alert reads. “Everyone can be affected, but people with lung or heart disease, older adults, people who are pregnant, children, and those who spend a lot of time outdoors are at greater risk.”

On Friday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency authorized the use of federal funds to help California in battling the Canyon Fire. The state on Thursday sought the funds.

“At the time of the request, the fire was threatening approximately 5,118 homes in and around Hasley Canyon and Val Verde,” FEMA said. “Mandatory evacuations were taking place for approximately 5,000 people. Evacuation warnings are in effect for another 11,000 people.”

FEMA grants provide funds for up to 75% of eligible firefighting costs.

No injuries have been reported and no structures are threatened, CalFire said.

Fighting the fire are 1,148 personnel, 45 engines, seven helicopters, three dozers and nine hand crews.

A firefighter was injured in a rollover crash in a grassy area in the Romero Canyon. The victim was airlifted to a hospital but was alert. Three firefighters also suffered minor injuries and were taken to a local hospital “out of an abundance of caution,” the L.A. Fire Department posted Friday on X.

“Crews worked throughout the night to improve defensive positions and further secure the fire’s perimeter,” CalFire said. “Overnight fire activity was minimal as firefighters worked to continue strengthening existing control lines.”

Firefighters “will continue to enhance, monitor and patrol existing control lines … while providing structure defense for residences in the affected areas,” CalFire said.

Temperatures will be in the mid-90s with relative humidity 19-24% and wind gusts up to 20 mph.

Historically dry vegetation contributes to the ongoing potential for rapid fire growth and significant fire behavior,” CalFire said.

On Friday, firefighters dealt with gusty conditions.

“This afternoon, we’re starting to see the temperatures come back up, we’re seeing winds start to pick up,” Andrew Dowd with Ventura County Fire told KABC-TV. “There’s still a risk here. Fire is still burning, and we’re still going to be incredibly vigilant until we get this fire contained.”

Residents in the Hasley Canyon area of Castaic were thankful the wildfire didn’t reach their homes as flames were visible, and some families didn’t evacuate, instead opting to take care of their animals.

“It’s been a long night just watching the fire,” Castaic resident Geri Aebersold told KABC-TV. “Just watching it coming up right there on that hill. A firefighter said, ‘You’re ok. We got this.'”

I will say this: I should be watching more cartoons. It has been harder to indulge this passion for some of the best, most pleasurable work television has to offer with so many ordinary series fighting for my professional time and attention, but here and now I make a more or less midyear resolution to get back to them. Please hold me to it.

Two great animated series are posting new seasons after long hiatuses (neither on the original platform, both on Hulu). “King of the Hill,” which ran on Fox from 1997 to 2009, lives anew with 10 fresh episodes streaming Monday; “The Amazing World of Gumball” (2011-2019), one of the greatest products of a great age of Cartoon Network, is back as “The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball,” in a 20-episode season now available. (Earlier seasons of both shows are available on the platform.) Each is under the protection of their original creators; both are their easily recognizable, extremely different old selves.

Visually, there is little to no difference between one multi-camera sitcom and the next, one single-camera mockumentary sitcom and the next, one single-camera non-mockumentary and the next, one CBS police procedural and the next. But every cartoon creates its individual grammar, its dynamic, its world, its synergy between the image and the actors, its level of awkwardness of slickness. (The voice actors, I mean — animators are also actors.) There are trends, of course, in shapes and line and ways to render a mouth or an eyeball, and much drawing is drawn from the history of the medium, because art influences artists. But the spectrum is wide, and novelty counts for a lot.

“The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball”

(Hulu)

Created by Ben Bocquelet, “Gumball” doesn’t settle for a single style — that is to say, not settling is its style. The characters comprise a hodgepodge, nay, an encyclopedia of visual references, dimensions, materials and degrees of resolution, and include traditional 2-D animation, puppet animation, photo collage and live-action, usually set against a photographic background and knit into a world whose infinite variety seems nothing short of inevitable. (Netflix’s late “The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants” is the only other cartoon with such a range of modes.

Like many modern cartoons (excepting anime, which I would argue is a different, if widely influential, art), its main characters are children. Gumball, currently voiced by Alkaio Thiele, is a blue cat, the son of a cat mother and a rabbit father; he has a pink rabbit little sister, Anais (Kinza Syed Khan), and an adoptive brother, Darwin (Hero Hunter in the new season), a pet goldfish who grew legs and gets around quite easily in the air. Their middle-school classmates include a ghost, a cloud, a banana, an ice cream cone, a daisy, a balloon, a cactus, a T. Rex and a flying eyeball. Gumball’s girlfriend, Penny (Teresa Gallagher) is a shape-shifting yellow fairy. Each is rendered in a different style, and that is just the tip of the animated iceberg.

Like the best cartoons ostensibly made for kids, it doesn’t underestimate its audience, what it might understand or can handle. Many “Gumball” episodes devolve into a sort of authentically disturbing horror movie, including the last episode of the original series, which saw the characters frighteningly transformed into realistic animated children and a void opening just before the closing credits. It also demonstrates an adult skepticism about the world that might profitably infect young minds. There are critiques of capitalism, consumerism and online culture: In the first episode of the new season, an evil talking hamburger controls the corporate universe; in another, mother Nicole (Gallagher again) is seduced into virtual reality by a lonely, jealous chatbot.

The decade and a half since “King of the Hill” went off the air — surreptitiously, if obviously, referenced in a remark about “that cooking show that Fox stupidly canceled 15 years ago” — is not exactly represented in the new season, but time has passed. (The characters did not age 13 years over the original series — but they grew a little.) Hank, voiced by co-creator Mike Judge, and Peggy Hill (Kathy Najimy), returning to Arlen, Texas, from Saudi Arabia, where Hank had been exercising his expertise in all things propane, are drawn older by the addition of a few wrinkles but are substantially unchanged. As a character, Hank, of course, distrusts change, though possibly not as much as the friends who gather, as before, in the alley behind his house; indeed, he worries that the love of soccer he acquired while away will reduce his standing in their eyes. Peggy, on the other hand, was enlarged by her time away; she likes to demonstrate a few words of Arabic. Both Hills are dealing uncomfortably with retirement; he looks for odd jobs, takes a stab at making beer (not that fruit-flavored stuff); she exercises.

In the revived “King of the Hill,” Bobby and Hank compete against each other in a home brew competition, to Peggy’s dismay (but eventual delight).

(Mike Judge/Disney)

The show is set in an awkwardly drawn but highly evocative, extremely ordinary environment that perfectly serves its stories; it feels like an accurate outsider-art rendition of its middle-class Texas suburb. There is little in it that couldn’t be handled as live-action situation comedy; indeed, for long stretches you can close your eyes and let it play in your head like an old-time radio show — “Ozzie and Harriet,” or “Vic and Sade” for the deep cut — which testifies to the quality of the writing and the performances. (Judge’s voice has an unschooled quality that perfectly matches the drawing. I was once almost certain that Hank’s voice was that of my friend Will Ray, a country-music guitar slinger — which would have made sense, given Judge’s interest in the music and his occasional moonlighting as a bass player. That is neither here or there, but I am happy to have found a place to mention it.)

Their son, Bobby (Pamela Adlon), is now an adult; little dots on his chin indicate either that he can grow a beard but neglects to shave or that he can’t quite grow a beard; it doesn’t seem exactly like a choice. A formerly established talent for cooking — the final episode of the original run concerned his ability to judge the quality of a cut of meat — has blossomed into his becoming a restaurateur, offering a fusion of Japanese and Texas cuisine; he is evidently good at this, though for whatever reason — more work to draw them? — his restaurant is devoid of customers. The torch he carries for sometime girlfriend Connie Souphanousinphone (Lauren Tom) occupies the other half of his storyline here.

There are light topical references — a sidelong joke about the names billionaires give their children, for example — but the show happily lives in its world of day-to-day annoyances and victories. Hank is excited by a trip to the George W. Bush presidential library, but one can’t imagine him with any affection for the current Oval Office occupant; he’s too common-sense for that. Extreme views and conspiracy theories are loaded into Hank’s pest exterminator friend Dale Gribble. The late Johnny Hardwick, who voiced him for the first six episodes of the new season, was replaced by Toby Huss. (Jonathan Joss, who played the character John Redcorn, died in a shooting this June.) Cartoons have a way of dealing with death — they don’t have to — and time means no more there than the animators want it to. It’s a comfortable state of being.

Blazes across several Canadian provinces and territories pose health risks to Canadians and their southern neighbours.

Smoke from wildfires burning in Canada has triggered air quality alerts over the border in the United States.

Several blazes continued to rage across Canada on Saturday, sending smoke wafting over several states in the US Midwest and bringing warnings of unhealthy air for at least the third day.

Air quality alerts were in effect in the US states of Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, as well as eastern Nebraska and parts of Indiana and Illinois.

Conditions were especially dire in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with the Switzerland-based air quality monitoring database IQAir reporting that the US city had some of the worst air pollution in the world since Friday.

The Air Quality Index (AQI), a system used to communicate how much pollution is in the air, is expected to reach the red or unhealthy category in a large swath of Minnesota, and will likely remain so through Saturday.

“We’ve sort of been dealing with this, day in and day out, where you walk outside and you can taste the smoke, you can smell it,” said Joe Strus, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area.

Forecasters warned that smoky skies would remain across the Midwest for much of Saturday, but could start to dissipate before spreading as far south as Tennessee and Missouri.

The poor air quality poses particular risks for people with lung and heart conditions, as well as children, the elderly and pregnant women.

This is not the first time that Canadian wildfires have prompted air quality alerts in the US and further afield. In 2023, a record early wildfire season sent smoke across the Atlantic into northern Europe.

On Saturday, the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre reported “out-of-control” blazes in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario, as well as in Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

The centre said that 717 fires were active across the country.

Environment Canada also said “extremely high” levels of air pollution were present in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and the Northwest Territories, according to a report by The Canadian Press news agency.

Areas in British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec were also under air-quality watch, though risks to health were reportedly lower.

Environment Canada said reduced visibility and poor air quality would persist into Sunday.

It was clobberin’ time this weekend, as Marvel’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” nabbed the top spot at the box office with a performance that returned the Walt Disney Co.-owned superhero franchise to form.

The movie hauled in $118 million in the U.S. and Canada and grossed $218 million globally in its opening weekend. The film, which stars Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn, is just the latest remake of the comic book property, though the first under Walt Disney Co.’s ownership.

Formerly owned by 21st Century Fox, “The Fantastic Four” is one of several key intellectual properties now under the umbrella of the House of Mouse after its $71.3-billion acquisition of that studio’s entertainment assets in 2019.

Disney has already capitalized on its ownership of the “Deadpool” and “X-Men” properties — its 2024 film, “Deadpool & Wolverine,” garnered more than $1 billion in global box office revenue.

Fox produced and released three “Fantastic Four” movies, none of which were well-received by audiences or critics. A 2015 reboot was particularly reviled.

Quality was not an issue this time. The movie notched a 88% approval rating on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and an “A-” grade from audience polling firm CinemaScore.

The movie exceeded pre-release estimates. “First Steps” was expected to gross $100 million to $110 million in its debut weekend, on a reported budget of about $200 million.

The theatrical reception for “The Fantastic Four” is a relief for Disney and Marvel, which has struggled in recent years to reap the box office earnings it once did with its superhero films.

The Anthony Mackie-led “Captain America: Brave New World” received middling reviews from critics and brought in about $415 million in global box office revenue. Ensemble movie “Thunderbolts*” received strong reviews, but made only $382 million worldwide.

Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger said earlier this year that the company “lost a little focus” in its zeal to produce more shows and movies for the Disney+ streaming platform, acknowledging that “quantity does not necessarily beget quality.”

“By consolidating a bit and having Marvel focus much more on their films, we believe it will result in better quality,” he said during an earnings call with analysts in May.

Anticipation was high for “The Fantastic Four,” and Disney went all out with the marketing. The company hired a skywriter to craft encircled 4’s in the sky near downtown Los Angeles on the day of the premiere and featured a drone show outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion after the showing.

“While Marvel films have settled into a fairly predictable core audience after multiple under-cooked films and streaming series in the post-’Avengers: Endgame’ era, the brand remains sturdy when the right film comes along,” Shawn Robbins, director of movie analytics at Fandango and founder of site Box Office Theory, wrote in a weekend theatrical forecast published Wednesday.

Warner Bros.’ DC Studios’ “Superman” came in second at the box office this weekend with a domestic total of $24.9 million for a worldwide gross so far of $503 million.