Sound Off For Tuesday, Jan. 2

INDIANAPOLIS — Veteran Heat big man Kevin Love could see this coming, this dominant start by the Cleveland Cavaliers, because he was part of how it came together — the part that required patience, perspective and pain, Rising from the ashes of a LeBron James departure can be one of the most daunting challenges in sports.

Recently, I picked up a book to distract myself from my phone, which was blowing up with social media alerts, election prognostications and sweaty-palmed predictions about who the Dodgers might sign for next season. That book, “Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel,” lands in stores on Nov. 19, and it immediately pulled me in with its sobering, concise summation of the period: “That century brought world wars, revolutions, automobiles, women’s suffrage, death camps and the internet.” With all that profound change, the jacket copy asked a question as pertinent now as for the previous century: “And for novelists, it posed an urgent question: How to write books as startling and unforeseen as the world we live in?” Indeed. In this work of nonfiction, which was 15 years in the making, author Edwin Frank, the editorial director of New York Review Books and founder of its NYRB Classics series, explores 20th-century novels through a personally chosen and idiosyncratic list of 32 titles (that makes allowances for Dostoevsky’s 1864 narrative “Notes From the Underground,” which presages the fiction of the coming century).

By Nina Heller, CQ-Roll Call (TNS) WASHINGTON — Despite deep partisan divides on issues like abortion and contraceptive access, lawmakers from both parties appear to have forged a cautious consensus on another women’s issue: menopause. The agreement became evident earlier this year, when a bipartisan group of female senators introduced legislation that would increase federal research on menopause and coordinate the federal government’s existing programs related to menopause and midlife women’s health for the first time. At a press conference with actress Halle Berry in May, Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.; Patty Murray, D-Wash.; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; Susan Collins, R-Maine; Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.

MIAMI GARDENS — The South Florida Sun Sentinel’s Miami Dolphins writers are picking out a pair of prop bets each week in the 2024 season. Dolphins columnist Chris Perkins and Dolphins reporter David Furones, neither of whom condone gambling, will make predictions on player or team props they believe will occur for every Dolphins matchup. Each writer will offer their “Best Bet,” a near 50-50 proposition they believe will occur, and a “Longshot,” which has to be given betting odds of at least +300, or 3-to-1 probability. Odds are according to the Hard Rock Bet app.

By Tim Henderson, Stateline.org (TNS) Before the COVID-19 pandemic, McLean County, Illinois, was known mostly as the home of State Farm Insurance in Bloomington and Illinois State University in Normal. Now, the area illustrates a trend that’s bringing more factories to small cities with lower costs of living: It has thousands of new jobs manufacturing Rivian electric vehicles and a new candy factory that will produce Kinder Bueno and other Ferrero candies. “Food and electric cars.

By KELVIN CHAN, AP Business Writer LONDON (AP) — If you’re tired of memorizing passwords, then give passkeys a try. You might have noticed that many online services are now offering the option of using passkeys, a digital authentication method touted as an easier and more secure way to log in. The passkey push started gaining major momentum after Google started accepting them about 18 months ago. Passkeys are seen as eventual replacements for passwords, but if you’re still not sure what they’re all about, read on: What are passkeys?