HomePod mini 2 vs. HomePod 2: Is the Extra $280 Worth It in Canada? - iPhone in Canada

At the old pre-June prices, you could buy a 128 GB Apple TV and a pair of HomePod Minis for $350 ($150 + $100 + $100). Four short months later, with today’s new models, that combination would cost $600 ($300 + $150 + $150).

“Creep” is the important word — it is a slow and steady process, easily unnoticed, advancing in the background. Lifestyle creep means gradually spending more in daily life, usually as a result of a recent raise, but it also entails new spending habits that feel small but become permanent. These expenses add up.

Here’s your NYT Strands hint for today, plus the spangram and all of today’s Strands answers for puzzle No. 959 on Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. Today’s Strands theme was tricky. It helps to be a runner. Read on for all the answers.

A supply-chain attack involving ConnectWise’s cloud services has exposed Microsoft 365 customers to unauthorized application access, with researchers reporting successful sign-ins across 173 partner and customer tenants. The incident centres on credentials associated with ConnectWise Cloud Backup, formerly SkyKick, and raises concerns about attackers exploiting permissions already entrusted to business software. ConnectWise has confirmed unauthorized access to application identities within its Cloud Backup environment. In an October 17 update on its service-status page, the company said it was shutting off application access, interrupting customer backups while investigation and remediation continued.

You once played Basil Fawlty in an amateur student production of Fawlty Towers at Queen’s College in Melbourne. How amateur was your Basil Fawlty moustache? It was terrible. It was real but it was definitely coloured in – I still have holes in my beard. I’d also shaved my head, so if you look at the early promo posters, you can clearly see I’m wearing a wig. Our theatre was closed so we had to perform in a circus tent in the middle of winter, on an oval in the university grounds, which was all very Fawlty Towers. I’ve always loved comedy. I didn’t really do anything serious until drama school. I always thought there might be a good spin-off with Sauron and Celebrimbor as an odd-couple situation. You play Sauron in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Tolkien wrote that Sauron “represents as near an approach to the wholly evil will as is possible”. What do you consider wholly evil? A complete disregard for the feelings and wellbeing of other people, to put it simply. It’s the intention, I think. I have horrible flashbacks to playing Aussie rules when I was about 17. I thought people were being quite evil to me at the time.