Latest news with #Missions
Time of India
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Marvel Rivals Season 3 all the changes in the mission structure explained
Image via NetEase Games. With the Season 3 'Abyss Awakens' kicked off in Marvel Rivals, a lot of brand new contents have taken entry into the game. However, this season has also marked a new chapter for these hero-shooter titles as it has brought about a lot of changes in the game, especially in the mission structure. It was already confirmed that Season 3 would introduce the two-month seasonal formula, where the mid-season refresh update would launch the very next month. Along with these changes, new aspects like accessories, mix and match skin MVP animations, a huge array of events, and many more are also set to be featured in this season. Marvel Rivals Season 3 new mission structure explained Season 3 in Marvel Rivals has brought in a lot of new changes, but the most significant ones are the missions in the game. First up, Daily Missions has now been removed from the game. From now on, all the Chrono Tokens will be redistributed to other missions. Previously, fans had to play a limited number of heroes in order to acquire Chrono Token, but that seems to be changing soon as NetEase Games has gotten away with the Daily Missions, and now getting Chrono Tokens would be much easier. There are changes in the Weekly Mission sector as well. Previously, Weekly Missions used to expire after being unfinished over time, but as Season 3 has arrived, any unfinished Weekly Mission will roll-over to the next week, giving fans ample time to complete those. From now on, players can complete 6 out of the 10 missions, which offer 100-240 Chrono Tokens. The remaining ones will be left behind. Season 3 The Abyss Awakens | Dev Vision Vol. 07 | Marvel Rivals However, the most effective and highly awaited change has to be the removal of excessive hero-specific missions. In order to get Chrono Tokens out of these, fans used to play the specific characters which they would have never picked if it wasn't for the missions. There will be Seasonal missions as well, which lasts the entire season. These missions give a combined amount of 360 Chrono Token. The most interesting fact of these missions are that each of the three available missions can be repeated a maximum of four times for yielding more rewards. Last but not the least, Season 3 has introduced a limited-time event mission-bunch called the Milano Repair Logs. This event features a total of 7 logs, each containing three missions. The first missions of each log grants units, and the remaining ones come up with Chrono Tokens, If you are able to complete all the seven logs before the season ends, you will be awarded with a Symbiote Storm costume, which is one of the many outfit themes available in Season 3 . Read More: How to unlock all accessories in Marvel Rivals Season 3? For real-time updates, scores, and highlights, follow our live coverage of the India vs England Test match here. Catch Rani Rampal's inspiring story on Game On, Episode 4. Watch Here!
Irish Examiner
6 days ago
- General
- Irish Examiner
My Life: 'We all looked so different to one another — but our mother treated us all the same'
Our error of judgment might have gone unnoticed, had I not declared the cash to my mum that day. I was in Junior Infants when a little girl in my class began slipping coins my way each week, in the misguided belief that charity begins in the classroom. It was 1978 and I was the only child who looked like me in my school. One of seven children living in Cork, I had been adopted by Irish born and bred parents. My two older brothers are my parent's biological children, and I like to think destiny brought the rest of us together. My older sister landed first, aged approximately one month old. She is half Irish and half Libyan. Two years later I exploded onto the scene, having been born to an Irish mother and Jamaican father. Over the next few years, the 'stork' continued to visit my parents. With a penchant for the exotic, he delivered a half-Irish/half-Indian brother, and another sister who is half-Irish and half-Italian. I didn't know I was any different, but while my classmate saw colour, it wasn't in the way that one would expect. The missions were the order of the day back then. My own recollection suggests that my class was collecting for Trócaire, but mum tells me it was the Missions so I have to take her word for it. Everyone - Junior Infants included - wanted to do their bit. Teachers constantly reminded us about the importance of giving to the 'black babies' in Africa. When one of my friends went home to request money, her mother had no idea that this 'black baby' was me. It was genius really, because that same little girl decided to cut out the middle man by donating to the child sitting beside her in school. She probably assumed that I was starving, despite the fact that we were the best-fed family in Cork. We just thought we were the same as everyone else. Colour wasn't an issue in my household growing up. It wasn't really an issue outside the home either, with the exception of an isolated racist incident that I experienced during my youth. The story of the little girl gifting me cash on the other hand is one of pure innocence. It's not something that could ever be viewed as offensive because we were both innocent parties. I was, after all, very happy to accept the money without any real understanding of why it was coming my way. People sometimes talk about the racism and discrimination they faced as children growing up in Ireland who were black or mixed race. This was the flipside. The little girl thought she was doing the right thing and I was going home with more money than I knew what to do with. In our eyes we had done nothing wrong. As soon as my mum found out where the money was coming from, she approached the little girl's mother to explain what was going on. This woman was understandably mortified, while my own mum found the whole thing hilarious. All she could do was laugh. I don't remember her speaking to the child's mum, but it's a story I've grown up with that continues to be spoken about to this day. My family loves to laugh about it, because it reminds us of more innocent times. Maeve Dalton at home in Glounthaune. Picture: Eddie O'Hare I look back at that story now and smile, because the way we saw the world was beautiful. Life was definitely less complicated then. When you talked about things like the missions, in those days, they seemed a lot further from home. These were faraway places we didn't know much about that only nuns and priests visited. In some ways, I think children were better off knowing less. There were some other misunderstandings over the years, albeit not as many as we got older. To this day everybody knows our family because we all looked so different to one another. I'll never forget when my brother Noelie brought friends home for the first time. They must have assumed that he had foreign students in the house or something. It was confusing for people when we were introduced as brothers and sisters. We found ourselves explaining quite a lot when meeting people for the first time. None of us ever felt any different though, because my mother treated us all the same. Mum never saw us as different. She praised us the same, and disciplined us the same, because we were all equal. She did things right which is why we all had a lovely childhood. I was good in school. You might say I was a bit of a nerd because I loved reading and wrote poetry. My own son's life is very different from how I grew up. There was no such thing as travelling when I was a kid, but life couldn't be any different for Finn. He's in secondary school now but his first holiday abroad was at the age of three months old. We went to Madrid. I think both of us had very happy childhoods which is all that any of us can really ask for.
Business Standard
11-06-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Government has disbursed nearly 99.44% of Smart Cities Mission's total budget outlay
Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs issued advisory for Repurposing of Smart City Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs). Launched in 2015, the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) promoted city-level innovation and integrated infrastructure delivery. Over the past decade, SPVs have demonstrated the ability to deliver complex, multi-sectoral projects with agility and innovation. As of March 2025, over 93% of the 8,000+ projects under SCM have been completed, with the Government of India having disbursed nearly 99.44% of the Missions total budget outlay of Rs 48,000 crore. In the process, the SPVs have cultivated a robust institutional capacity to manage high-value urban projects efficiently. Recognising the strategic investments made in establishing and strengthening SPVs and ICCCs, and their growing relevance in supporting Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) to address complex and evolving urban challenges, the Government of India is of the considered view that these entities should continue to operate beyond the completion of the Smart Cities Mission on 31.03.2025.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
After one legendary moment, actor Rolf Saxon chose to accept another 'Mission'
If you are only going to be in one part of a movie, it's best if it's the most memorable part. For example, a thrilling set-piece that sets the template for an entire franchise. So it was for actor Rolf Saxon, who appeared as a befuddled CIA analyst in the very first "Mission: Impossible" film. The sequence, in which Tom Cruise dangles from the ceiling of a stark white vault room to infiltrate the computer system overseen by Saxon's character, is now the stuff of action-cinema history. From a throwaway punchline in that 1996 film — exiling Saxon's William Donloe to a remote radar station in Alaska — comes one of the most unexpected storylines in the new 'Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.' His part in the new film is substantially larger and provides the film with some of its emotional heft, making Saxon's return as Donloe a triumph. (A rather memorable knife makes a comeback as well.) For Saxon's work in the first film, he was in the same physical space as Cruise but their two characters never interacted and had no dialogue together. So a moment late in the new film when Donloe makes a heartfelt expression to Cruise's Ethan Hunt of what his life has been like all these years in Alaska provided relief for the character of Donloe — and for the actor portraying him too. 'It was something I was hoping for, and then it happened,' says Saxon, 70. 'It's a great scene. Working with one of the biggest movie stars in the world, that's kind of cool too.' Finally sharing a proper scene with Cruise also gave Saxon some insight into the reason Cruise has been one of the world's biggest movie stars for more than 40 years. 'There's no question why he is,' Saxon says. 'The energy that he personally brings into a room, I've never witnessed before. It's focused, it's practiced. I know this sounds like I'm supposed to say this about him, but it's true. This guy's unbelievable. And he does those effing stunts." Saxon is impressed, too, by the real-life mission Cruise is often vocal about. 'His whole raison d'être is to enhance the industry that's given him so much and bring people in, bring them back to theaters. And I just applaud that on my feet.' Having had a steadily successful career between his two "Missions," Saxon lives in the Sierra Foothills of Northern California but was recently on a Zoom call from New York City the day after attending the new film's U.S. premiere there. It was Saxon's second time seeing the movie, having also attended a premiere in London just a few days earlier. Born in Virginia, Saxon studied acting in England, where he would land parts in numerous British TV series as well as assorted film and theater roles. Throughout his career he has also done voice-over work for video games, including the 'Broken Sword' series, and was the narrator for the American edition of the popular children's show 'Teletubbies.' Read more: The 18 summer movies we're most excited about According to Saxon, much of the business of what Donloe does onscreen in the first movie directed by Brian De Palma came from an unexpected interaction on set. 'I was given the script," he recalls, "I read it and I thought, OK, there's not a lot to do here. And then one day I was messing around on set, joking around, there was some downtime. And I got a tap on the shoulder from the first [A.D.], who said that Brian De Palma wanted to have a word with me. And I thought, 'Uh-oh.' 'And I walked over and he had a very stern demeanor. Great guy, but he just always looked angry and he said, 'You're playing around on set.' I said, 'Yes, Mr. De Palma.' He said, 'Could you do that again?' I said, "Sure, of course." What am I going to say to say, no? He said, 'OK, after lunch, we're going to have you messing around onstage. We'll film that.'" All of Donloe's memorable physical mishaps — the vomiting, the double take — were Saxon improvs. The vault sequence has become one of the signature set-pieces of the first film, seemingly lifting from both the silent heist in 'Rififi' and the spacewalk of '2001: A Space Odyssey' and setting a stunts-centric guide for the franchise to come. To perform the scene, Cruise spent hours in a harness suspended from the ceiling. 'I mean, it was a long time,' says Saxon. 'And they'd bring him down sometimes, but he's that guy. He does what needs to be done. I was in the room a number of times with him, while he was filming it, but [our characters] never were supposed to meet.' Saxon recalls that while shooting the first 'Mission' film, he and Cruise shared a makeup room at the studio in England. One day the woman who did Cruise's makeup wasn't there because her son had an accident at his school. As soon as Cruise heard the news, he called his private on-call doctor and sent him to attend to the boy. 'And he hung up the phone, said, 'Shut the door,'" remembers Saxon. "And he said, 'This stays between us. If this comes out, it's somebody in this room. I'm going to find out who it is and that'll be your last day on the film.' He wanted no publicity. He did it for this lady and her son. And the boy was fine, he was mildly concussed. When she came back the next day, there was a massive bouquet of flowers, saying 'Welcome back.' And then nothing was ever said of it again. That's the kind of guy he is. And it took me two years before I would tell that story.' Saxon had never had reason to encounter Cruise in the intervening years, because, as he says, 'I'm an actor but I'm not a star.' The call for the new film first came in January of 2022, and Saxon began shooting on the film in August of that year, finishing in July of 2024. (Saxon's casting was announced via director Christopher McQuarrie's Instagram in March 2023.) This time around, Donloe becomes a vital part of the team and is in the middle of the action at the film's climax. In his years in Alaska he has even married an Inuit woman, Tapeesa (Lucy Tulugarjuk). 'The feeling on this set was one of warmth and inclusivity — welcoming,' says Saxon. 'I was on it for almost three years, but people were on it for over five years. This schedule for the filming was very erratic, and [McQuarrie] kept very calm. McQ and Tom, they worked very much in tandem. I loved coming to work every day. Not that I didn't with Brian's stuff, but this was just a joy, and I was much more a part of it than I was in the first one. I was much more part of the team, the core group that was working.' For "The Final Reckoning," a sequence meant to take place in Alaska, with a team of agents arriving to the remote cabin occupied by Donloe and Tapeesa, was actually shot in Svalbard, an archipelago north of Norway. 'We were staying on a ship,' says Saxon. 'We went to Longyearbyen, which is the furthest most populated area in the world. Then we took a six-hour ride north on the ship, parked on the glacier. And that's where we lived for two weeks. Polar bears, walruses, reindeer and us. It was the most beautiful place I've ever been in my life.' The cave sequence that is part of the movie's action finale is set in South Africa but was shot in the Middleton mines in England's East Midlands. 'This was in many ways a dream job,' says Saxon. 'The people I'm working with, the thing I'm working on and the places I got to go to work. It's just like, what would you really like to do? Here it is.' From his initial conversations with McQuarrie, Saxon knew that his part would be significantly larger than in the first film. But even then it developed over the course of production. McQuarrie informed him that some scenes Saxon initially shot were no longer going to be used and due to rewrites, the actor would now be part of the climactic finale. 'He said, 'We really like what you did, but we've had a story alteration, so we can't use that. So we're going to put you in in other ways,'' says Saxon. 'And that was kind of like, 'Oh, no' and 'Oh, yeah' at the same time. Which is kind of the way this worked the whole way through.' Among the actors in his scenes this time out, Saxon had previously worked with Simon Pegg on the 1999 British sitcom 'Hippies.' He also discovered that he and Hayley Atwell had attended the same drama school in London, though some years apart. Also returning was Henry Czerny, whose character in the initial film sent Donloe to Alaska in the first place. As to whether he had ever imagined returning to the franchise, Saxon holds his arms out wide, saying, 'Just a little dream.' He adds, 'I thought about writing Chris or Tom, 'Dear Tom, here's what I think we could do with Donloe.' Or, 'What about this with Donloe?' And at one point, after listening to a friend, I drafted a letter to him. The next day I woke up and I thought' — he mimes wadding up a piece of paper and tossing it away — 'That's never going to happen.' And then years later, bang, it did.' Saxon said he has never been recognized by anyone for the part of Donloe. (That is likely about to change.) If pressed, his favorite of the 'Mission: Impossible' films has remained the first one. Up to now. 'I suppose closure is one way of putting it,' says Saxon. 'It's been much more fun, this one. The other one, I did my job and I enjoyed doing it. But this one I got to really investigate. It's like remounting a production onstage, or coming back to a project you did 20 years ago, 30 years ago and getting to redo it with what you know now, particularly with the excitement of a larger part. It's fantastic. It's another reason this is such a gift.' Sign up for Indie Focus, a weekly newsletter about movies and what's going on in the wild world of cinema. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
After one legendary moment, actor Rolf Saxon chose to accept another ‘Mission'
If you are only going to be in one part of a movie, it's best if it's the most memorable part. For example, a thrilling set-piece that sets the template for an entire franchise. So it was for actor Rolf Saxon, who appeared as a befuddled CIA analyst in the very first 'Mission: Impossible' film. The sequence, in which Tom Cruise dangles from the ceiling of a stark white vault room to infiltrate the computer system overseen by Saxon's character, is now the stuff of action-cinema history. From a throwaway punchline in that 1996 film — exiling Saxon's William Donloe to a remote radar station in Alaska — comes one of the most unexpected storylines in the new 'Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.' His part in the new film is substantially larger and provides the film with some of its emotional heft, making Saxon's return as Donloe a triumph. (A rather memorable knife makes a comeback as well.) For Saxon's work in the first film, he was in the same physical space as Cruise but their two characters never interacted and had no dialogue together. So a moment late in the new film when Donloe makes a heartfelt expression to Cruise's Ethan Hunt of what his life has been like all these years in Alaska provided relief for the character of Donloe — and for the actor portraying him too. 'It was something I was hoping for, and then it happened,' says Saxon, 70. 'It's a great scene. Working with one of the biggest movie stars in the world, that's kind of cool too.' Finally sharing a proper scene with Cruise also gave Saxon some insight into the reason Cruise has been one of the world's biggest movie stars for more than 40 years. 'There's no question why he is,' Saxon says. 'The energy that he personally brings into a room, I've never witnessed before. It's focused, it's practiced. I know this sounds like I'm supposed to say this about him, but it's true. This guy's unbelievable. And he does those effing stunts.' Saxon is impressed, too, by the real-life mission Cruise is often vocal about. 'His whole raison d'être is to enhance the industry that's given him so much and bring people in, bring them back to theaters. And I just applaud that on my feet.' Having had a steadily successful career between his two 'Missions,' Saxon lives in the Sierra Foothills of Northern California but was recently on a Zoom call from New York City the day after attending the new film's U.S. premiere there. It was Saxon's second time seeing the movie, having also attended a premiere in London just a few days earlier. Born in Virginia, Saxon studied acting in England, where he would land parts in numerous British TV series as well as assorted film and theater roles. Throughout his career he has also done voice-over work for video games, including the 'Broken Sword' series, and was the narrator for the American edition of the popular children's show 'Teletubbies.' According to Saxon, much of the business of what Donloe does onscreen in the first movie directed by Brian De Palma came from an unexpected interaction on set. 'I was given the script,' he recalls, 'I read it and I thought, OK, there's not a lot to do here. And then one day I was messing around on set, joking around, there was some downtime. And I got a tap on the shoulder from the first [A.D.], who said that Brian De Palma wanted to have a word with me. And I thought, 'Uh-oh.' 'And I walked over and he had a very stern demeanor. Great guy, but he just always looked angry and he said, 'You're playing around on set.' I said, 'Yes, Mr. De Palma.' He said, 'Could you do that again?' I said, 'Sure, of course.' What am I going to say to say, no? He said, 'OK, after lunch, we're going to have you messing around onstage. We'll film that.'' All of Donloe's memorable physical mishaps — the vomiting, the double take — were Saxon improvs. The vault sequence has become one of the signature set-pieces of the first film, seemingly lifting from both the silent heist in 'Rififi' and the spacewalk of '2001: A Space Odyssey' and setting a stunts-centric guide for the franchise to come. To perform the scene, Cruise spent hours in a harness suspended from the ceiling. 'I mean, it was a long time,' says Saxon. 'And they'd bring him down sometimes, but he's that guy. He does what needs to be done. I was in the room a number of times with him, while he was filming it, but [our characters] never were supposed to meet.' Saxon recalls that while shooting the first 'Mission' film, he and Cruise shared a makeup room at the studio in England. One day the woman who did Cruise's makeup wasn't there because her son had an accident at his school. As soon as Cruise heard the news, he called his private on-call doctor and sent him to attend to the boy. 'And he hung up the phone, said, 'Shut the door,'' remembers Saxon. 'And he said, 'This stays between us. If this comes out, it's somebody in this room. I'm going to find out who it is and that'll be your last day on the film.' He wanted no publicity. He did it for this lady and her son. And the boy was fine, he was mildly concussed. When she came back the next day, there was a massive bouquet of flowers, saying 'Welcome back.' And then nothing was ever said of it again. That's the kind of guy he is. And it took me two years before I would tell that story.' Saxon had never had reason to encounter Cruise in the intervening years, because, as he says, 'I'm an actor but I'm not a star.' The call for the new film first came in January of 2022, and Saxon began shooting on the film in August of that year, finishing in July of 2024. (Saxon's casting was announced via director Christopher McQuarrie's Instagram in March 2023.) This time around, Donloe becomes a vital part of the team and is in the middle of the action at the film's climax. In his years in Alaska he has even married an Inuit woman, Tapeesa (Lucy Tulugarjuk). 'The feeling on this set was one of warmth and inclusivity — welcoming,' says Saxon. 'I was on it for almost three years, but people were on it for over five years. This schedule for the filming was very erratic, and [McQuarrie] kept very calm. McQ and Tom, they worked very much in tandem. I loved coming to work every day. Not that I didn't with Brian's stuff, but this was just a joy, and I was much more a part of it than I was in the first one. I was much more part of the team, the core group that was working.' For 'The Final Reckoning,' a sequence meant to take place in Alaska, with a team of agents arriving to the remote cabin occupied by Donloe and Tapeesa, was actually shot in Svalbard, an archipelago north of Norway. 'We were staying on a ship,' says Saxon. 'We went to Longyearbyen, which is the furthest most populated area in the world. Then we took a six-hour ride north on the ship, parked on the glacier. And that's where we lived for two weeks. Polar bears, walruses, reindeer and us. It was the most beautiful place I've ever been in my life.' The cave sequence that is part of the movie's action finale is set in South Africa but was shot in the Middleton mines in England's East Midlands. 'This was in many ways a dream job,' says Saxon. 'The people I'm working with, the thing I'm working on and the places I got to go to work. It's just like, what would you really like to do? Here it is.' From his initial conversations with McQuarrie, Saxon knew that his part would be significantly larger than in the first film. But even then it developed over the course of production. McQuarrie informed him that some scenes Saxon initially shot were no longer going to be used and due to rewrites, the actor would now be part of the climactic finale. 'He said, 'We really like what you did, but we've had a story alteration, so we can't use that. So we're going to put you in in other ways,'' says Saxon. 'And that was kind of like, 'Oh, no' and 'Oh, yeah' at the same time. Which is kind of the way this worked the whole way through.' Among the actors in his scenes this time out, Saxon had previously worked with Simon Pegg on the 1999 British sitcom 'Hippies.' He also discovered that he and Hayley Atwell had attended the same drama school in London, though some years apart. Also returning was Henry Czerny, whose character in the initial film sent Donloe to Alaska in the first place. As to whether he had ever imagined returning to the franchise, Saxon holds his arms out wide, saying, 'Just a little dream.' He adds, 'I thought about writing Chris or Tom, 'Dear Tom, here's what I think we could do with Donloe.' Or, 'What about this with Donloe?' And at one point, after listening to a friend, I drafted a letter to him. The next day I woke up and I thought' — he mimes wadding up a piece of paper and tossing it away — 'That's never going to happen.' And then years later, bang, it did.' Saxon said he has never been recognized by anyone for the part of Donloe. (That is likely about to change.) If pressed, his favorite of the 'Mission: Impossible' films has remained the first one. Up to now. 'I suppose closure is one way of putting it,' says Saxon. 'It's been much more fun, this one. The other one, I did my job and I enjoyed doing it. But this one I got to really investigate. It's like remounting a production onstage, or coming back to a project you did 20 years ago, 30 years ago and getting to redo it with what you know now, particularly with the excitement of a larger part. It's fantastic. It's another reason this is such a gift.'
