how to win in jili super ace online Share Tweet Share Share Email Speakers at the Global Stratalogues Dinner honoring the founder and chairman of Frank-Jürgen Richer (Center) with Belal Jassoma from DMCC (Left), Henzelene Healley from VA-Consultants (Left), Ebba Theding, 4+ Ventures (Right) and Oscar Wendel, Global Stratalogues (Right) The Global Stratalogues Dinner brought together an extraordinary lineup of industry leaders, visionaries, and changemakers to discuss the technologies and ideas shaping the future. Key speakers included Belal Jassoma, Director of Ecosystems at DMCC, and Frank – Jürgen Richter, Chairman of Horasis, who was the guest of honor. The dinner was held on occasion of the Horasis Asia meeting, co-hosted by DP World, alongside the Global Freight Summit at Expo City’s Dubai Exhibition Centre. Oscar Wendel, the Chairman of Global Stratalogues, opened the evening by introducing Ebba Theding, the dinner’s co-host, and welcomed long-time collaborator Belal Jassoma to give the welcoming address, acknowledging his significant efforts in fostering innovation through DMCC. Highlights from the Global Stratalogues Dinner: https://youtu.be/iGC0sBiiH5g?si=N0jr_-Y5G8zaBTW- Belal Jassoma & Ebba Theding: Visionaries in Ecosystem Building Belal Jassoma began his address by emphasizing the importance of collaboration in achieving shared goals. He praised the Global Stratalogues for uniting individuals with aligned visions and fostering groundbreaking discussions. Belal traced DMCC’s journey from a traditional commodities trading hub to a global leader in blockchain, AI, and Web3 technologies. He elaborated on DMCC’s evolution over the past decade, mainly focusing on leveraging technology to enhance trade. In 2021, DMCC launched the Crypto Centre, now home to over 600 Web3 companies, making it the region’s largest blockchain ecosystem. Similarly, creating dedicated hubs for gaming and AI exemplifies DMCC’s commitment to nurturing innovation. One of the most exciting initiatives Belal highlighted was the Global Web3 Innovation Challenge, an annual hackathon that attracts top talent worldwide. This year, the prize pool has increased to $160,000, and 15 promising startups are participating, underscoring the growing demand for blockchain and AI-driven solutions. Following Belal’s remarks, Ebba Theding shared her insights during a dynamic interview with Henzelene Healley of VA-Consultants, who moderated the on-stage interview. Introducing herself as the CEO of 4+ Ventures, Ebba explained her firm’s mission to co-build and invest in blockchain-powered companies. Her vision revolves around using blockchain to revolutionize collaboration and sustainability and developing next-generation infrastructure. Ebba identified four key areas her company focuses on AI, blockchain, infrastructure, and sustainability. She emphasized the transformative potential of these technologies in reshaping industries. According to Ebba, blockchain serves as an “upgrade to the internet’s operating system,” enabling unprecedented collaboration and problem-solving opportunities. She also spoke passionately about using gaming as a testing ground for blockchain technologies. In gaming environments, developers can safely experiment with mechanics like tokenization, ownership verification, and collaboration. These lessons can be applied to more sensitive sectors such as finance, healthcare, and land registries. Belal and Ebba shared complementary perspectives on the future of technology and trade. Belal provided practical examples, such as using blockchain for traceability in luxury goods and tokenizing gold. With DMCC’s robust commodities infrastructure and trade finance systems like Tradeflow, Belal highlighted how blockchain is driving transparency and efficiency in global trade. Meanwhile, Ebba focused on the promise of decentralization. She advocated for creating platforms that leverage collective intelligence, ensuring inclusivity and diverse perspectives in decision-making. Ebba noted that while regulation is essential, decentralization offers a unique opportunity to balance control with innovation. Frank-Jürgen Richter : Championing Global Collaboration As the guest of honor, Frank- Jürgen Richter delivered a powerful address on the role of collaboration in addressing global challenges. Representing Horasis, a global visions community, Frank shared the organization’s mission to draft actionable solutions through a multi-stakeholder approach. He praised Dubai for its forward-thinking and collaborative spirit, contrasting it with Europe’s more cautious approach to decision-making. Frank also shared success stories from Horasis, including facilitating dialogue between unlikely collaborators and fostering partnerships across industries and borders. One memorable example was bringing together ministers from India and Pakistan, who found common ground during a Horasis meeting in Dubai. “If people leave as friends, we’ve achieved something remarkable,” Frank remarked. The discussion naturally gravitated toward Dubai’s unique appeal as a global hub for technology and trade. Ebba expressed admiration for the UAE’s openness and ease of networking, citing the country’s proactive approach to fostering partnerships. Belal echoed these sentiments, emphasizing Dubai’s young, tech-savvy population and growing prominence in gaming and eSports. Belal also revealed DMCC’s ongoing efforts to attract gaming companies by creating a supportive ecosystem and hosting major events. This aligns with Dubai’s broader vision to become a leader in Web3, gaming, and decentralized technologies. See Ebba Theding interviews and Frank- Jürgen Richter : https://youtu.be/9Vb9_9vkzvE The dinner concluded with a renewed call for collaboration. Ebba encouraged attendees to continue exchanging ideas and exploring partnerships, highlighting the importance of building ecosystems that support innovation. Frank extended an invitation to join the Horasis Asia Meeting, promising more opportunities for cross-sector brainstorming. The evening underscored the power of shared vision and collaboration in shaping the future. With leaders like Belal Jassoma, Ebba Theding, and Frank Richter at the helm, the Global Stratalogues dinner demonstrated how Dubai is not just keeping pace with global innovation but setting the stage for transformative change. As the plates cleared and conversations deepened, the dinner left attendees inspired to reimagine possibilities and work together to solve the world’s most pressing challenges. The event was a testament to the belief that when visionary minds come together, the future is not only brighter—it is boundless. Henzelene Healley interviews Belal Jassoma of DMCC and Ebba Theding of 4+ Ventures: https://youtu.be/Ay_XdAFTrg4 About Global Stratalogues The Global Stratalogues is an exclusive series of high-level, closed-door roundtables and dinners that convene policymakers, private sector leaders, and academic experts from diverse disciplines in a think tank-style environment. These non-commercial gatherings unite some of the world’s most innovative and influential figures across industries and geographies to explore groundbreaking research, harness cutting-edge technology, and shape forward-thinking policies. The Global Stratalogues dinner in Dubai, honoring Horasis Chairman Frank-Jürgen Richter, brought together an extraordinary lineup of industry leaders, visionaries, and changemakers to discuss the technologies and ideas shaping the future. The next Global Stratalogues roundtables and dinners are confirmed to take place at the House of Lords, UK Parliament, from January 13 to 15. The theme, “Technology and Design: Unlocking Human Potential Across Physical and Digital Realms,” will spotlight global leaders in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and neurotechnology. Related Items: Belal Jassoma , Ebba Theding , Global Stratalogues Night 2024 , Leadership Networking Event , Oscar Wendel Share Tweet Share Share Email Recommended for you The Future of Web3 and Blockchain Technology: Insights from the CEO of Four+ Ventures Empowered Advocacy Leading the Way in Evolving Workplace Accessibility CommentsSignificant milestones in life and career of Jimmy Carter

Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig told CNN's Michael Smerconish on Saturday that President-elect Donald Trump 's four indictments could have unfolded differently, outlining a hypothetical, alternative timeline that "absolutely" would have led to at least one federal trial and verdict before the 2024 election. In a conversation with Smerconish on Saturday morning, Honig analyzed the timeline of appointments and legal proceedings pertaining to Trump, starting with the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, followed by Merrick Garland 's confirmation as U.S. attorney general, the appointment of Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Jack Smith , the subsequent federal indictments, up until the November 2024 presidential election. He notes that there's a "key gap" between Garland taking office and appointing Smith, saying it "takes almost two years—20 months—until November 2022, when Merrick Garland names Jack Smith as special counsel." Garland was sworn in as U.S. attorney general in March 2021. In a hypothetical exercise, Honig, a senior CNN legal analyst, said, "What if Merrick Garland had appointed Jack Smith right away, let's say April of 2021?" He continued, that even when accounting for extra time, Smith "would have gotten those cases indicted in early- to mid-2022. We would have absolutely had a trial—even if you account for the immunity decision—in mid to late 2023, maybe early 2024, and to me, it would have been impossible for Donald Trump to run out the clock. We absolutely would have had trials and verdicts well in advance of the 2024 election." In a 6-3 ruling on July 1 , the U.S. Supreme Court said that presidents have broad immunity for official acts. The Court added that presidents have absolute immunity for core political acts and some immunity for other acts committed as president, but no immunity for strictly private conduct. It also ruled that official acts cannot be used as evidence if taking a case against a president for unofficial acts. Honig later said on Saturday that "if Merrick Garland was serious about digging into this, he could have done it from day one." Newsweek filled out an online contact form with the DOJ seeking comment from Garland's office on the matter. Earlier this month, Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris , the Democratic nominee, in the presidential election, winning both the popular vote and the Electoral College. He is set to take his second term in office on January 20, 2025. Since the conclusion of his first term in office, Trump has been faced with four indictments: a federal classified documents case in Florida, which was dismissed by Judge Aileen Cannon this summer on grounds that Smith was not properly appointed, a federal indictment related to alleged 2020 election interference, a state indictment in Georgia also tied to alleged 2020 election interference, and a criminal hush-money case of falsifying business records in New York. Trump has maintained his innocence in all the cases and said they are a political witch hunt. Only the criminal hush money case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has gone to trial. In May, Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election to keep an alleged affair the two had in 2006 a secret, was initially set to be sentenced on July 11. However, presiding Judge Juan Merchan has postponed his sentencing indefinitely following his election win. "By the weakest of the four cases going first, and being the only one to go to trial, that really undermined the entire process here, the entire effort to bring Donald Trump to accountability," Honig said Saturday. Last week, Honig, who previously disclosed he is a friend and former colleague of Bragg's, said the Manhattan district attorney "poisoned the well" for other Trump trials. The federal cases are set to wind down before Trump takes office as Smith has filed motions to drop the charges and is reportedly planning on stepping down. Trump has publicly vowed to fire Smith within "two seconds" of being sworn in, and according to The Washington Post, he plans to fire Smith's entire team. Regarding Trump's federal election subversion case, overseen by Judge Tanya Chutkan , in which he is accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction and attempted obstruction of an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights related to an alleged pressure campaign on state officials to overturn the 2020 election results, Honig said Trump "would have had a brutal jury pool" in Washington, D.C. He said that out of the 94 federal districts, "the number one where Donald Trump is least popular, number 94 of 94, is the federal district for Washington, D.C." Honig added that since Chutkan "ruled against Donald Trump on virtually every issue" and the "indictment looks fairly strong and straightforward," the case could have been particularly challenging for Trump. "In this hypothetical alternative timeline, for sure Jack Smith would have indicted his cases before Alvin Bragg came down with his, for sure Jack Smith would have been the first one to get to trial," he said, adding that this case had gone first, it's not known whether Bragg or Georgia's Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis would have "piled their cases on." Willis is still prosecuting the Georgia case. Earlier this month, the Georgia Court of Appeals canceled the December 5 hearing for Trump's appeal "until further order of this court." The Georgia case is likely to be dismissed following Smith's motion to dismiss the federal cases, in which he wrote: "The Constitution's prohibition on federal indictment and prosecution of a sitting President apply to this situation and that as a result this prosecution must be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated."MALAGA, Spain — As Rafael Nadal prepared to serve in what turned out to be the last tennis match of his career, a woman's voice broke the silence from the stands: "You make Spain proud!" Not long after that, Nadal was wiping away tears from his face and waving goodbye to his fans. His farewell from tennis was as emotional as expected when it came in Malaga on Tuesday, too soon for most. Nadal deliberately set up his swansong on a home court but Spain was eliminated in the Davis Cup quarterfinals and he and they couldn't complete his exalted career with a win. It was also heart-wrenching for his fans across Spain as they saw one of the country's very best — arguably its greatest sportsperson ever — finally call it quits. "It's clear that Rafa is the best athlete ever in Spain. He is on a different level than everyone else, by far," Feliciano López, a former tennis player and the tournament director of the Davis Cup Finals, told The Associated Press. "No disrespect to all other Spanish athletes, and we have very good ones, but no one has been able to inspire the fans the same way that Rafa did." López, who was Nadal's teammate in the Davis Cup, compared him to the likes of Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Muhammad Ali, all athletes who transcended sports. "There is a very small group of athletes who, during their careers, were able to inspire people in a special way, going beyond sports," López said. "Rafa belongs to this small group. People everywhere in the world will remember Rafa some 40 or 50 years from now." Unable to overcome a string of injuries in recent years, the 38-year-old Nadal retired from professional tennis after more than 20 years on tour and 22 Grand Slam titles, two more than Roger Federer and second only to the 24 of Novak Djokovic, the only one of the Big Three still playing. The front pages of Spain's dailies all talked about Nadal following his farewell match — a 6-4, 6-4 defeat against No. 80 Botic van de Zandschulp of the Netherlands. "It was an honor," the sports daily AS said. "Thank you, Rafa," Marca headlined. "Eternal," Mundo Deportivo said. It's hard to find any other Spanish athlete coming close to Nadal's fame and sporting achievements. Other Spaniards who have earned sporting greatness include five-time major golf champion Seve Ballesteros; five-time Tour de France winner Miguel Induráin, two-time NBA champion Pau Gasol; two-time Formula 1 champion Fernando Alonso; six-time MotoGP champion Marc Márquez; and four-time Dakar Rally winner Carlos Sainz. Spain also has a long list of successful soccer players, including World Cup winners Iker Casillas and Andrés Iniesta, but none with a status like a Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi, who have transcended sports like Nadal. Nadal is also a two-time Olympic champion, and was Spain's flag-bearer during the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. He is adored in Spain just as much for his victories as he is for his passion and unwavering dedication, and is seen as an example for society in general for his values and humbleness on and off the courts. "Nadal makes us Spaniards feel proud. He represents the values of passion, camaraderie, solidarity. He will always be the image of sport in Spain," said Clara García, a 35-year-old fan who was in Malaga to watch Nadal. "It's not easy knowing that he won't be playing and representing Spain on the courts around the world anymore." Federer gushed about his friend and longtime foe's retirement in an open letter. "You made Spain proud, you made the whole tennis world proud. You have always been a role model for kids around the world." Nadal told the crowd in his farewell ceremony after Spain's loss that he always "strived to be better and achieve my goals from a place of respect, humility, and I valued all the good things that happened to me. "I've tried to be a good person, which was what mattered the most to me, and I hope that you have noticed that." Fellow tennis pros Djokovic and Serena Williams, as well as former soccer stars David Beckham and other athletes praised Nadal. "Thank you for so many incredible moments and memories as a tennis fan and for everything that you have done to inspire young people around the world," former England and Real Madrid player Beckham said. "My goodness, you will be missed," Williams said. Carlos Alcaraz, regarded as Nadal's heir in Spanish tennis — he already has four Grand Slam titles at 21 — said it will be hard to avoid the inevitable pressure that will come along with following in the footsteps of his idol. "I don't want to think that we have to continue his legacy. I don't want it to be a frustration if we don't reach the level that he reached," Alcaraz said. "If I achieve half of what he achieved, I will be happy. His legacy is going to be eternal." It wasn't quite clear what the future would hold for Nadal, who is an avid golfer and who has always been linked to Real Madrid. He has said in the past he would probably enjoy being the club's president one day. "My life will change radically," Nadal said on Wednesday after arriving home in Mallorca, where he also has the Rafa Nadal Academy. "I have to accept this change as something normal, and accept that my life will be different now than it was for the last 30 years or so. I'm excited about it, there is no doubt." One thing was certain: Nadal will never be too far away from tennis. "I'll retire from the sport but I will continue to be available for whatever is needed, and to being a good ambassador, which is what I have tried to do my entire life."

BMW praises Tesla's Full Self-Driving technology on social mediaNone

After missing out on Juan Soto, the New York Yankees made their first splash of the offseason. The Yankees and left-handed starting pitcher Max Fried have agreed to an eight-year, $218 million contract, several reports said Tuesday. The contract includes the most guaranteed money for a left-handed pitcher in baseball history, ESPN reported. A two-time All-Star, Fried will join right-handed ace Gerrit Cole to form a one-two punch at the front of the Yankees' rotation. Fried, 30, spent his first eight MLB seasons with the Atlanta Braves and went 11-10 with a 3.25 ERA across 29 starts last season. He had 166 strikeouts and a career-high 57 walks over 174 1/3 innings. He also pitched a major league-high two complete games (one shutout). Fried was an All-Star in 2022 and 2024, and he received votes for the National League Cy Young Award in 2020 (placing fifth) and 2022 (second). In 168 career games (151 starts), Fried has gone 73-36 with a 3.07 ERA and 863 strikeouts against 246 walks in 884 1/3 innings. He has tossed six complete games, including four shutouts. --Field Level MediaNEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes drifted lower Tuesday in the runup to the highlight of the week for the market, the latest update on inflation that’s coming on Wednesday. The S&P 500 dipped 0.3%, a day after pulling back from its latest all-time high . They’re the first back-to-back losses for the index in nearly a month, as momentum slows following a big rally that has it on track for one of its best years of the millennium . The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 154 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.3%. Tech titan Oracle dragged on the market and sank 6.7% after reporting growth for the latest quarter that fell just short of analysts’ expectations. It was one of the heaviest weights on the S&P 500, even though CEO Safra Catz said the company saw record demand related to artificial-intelligence technology for its cloud infrastructure business, which trains generative AI models. AI has been a big source of growth that’s helped many companies’ stock prices skyrocket. Oracle’s stock had already leaped more than 80% for the year coming into Tuesday, which raised the bar of expectations for its profit report. In the bond market, Treasury yields ticked higher ahead of Wednesday’s report on the inflation that U.S. consumers are feeling. Economists expect it to show similar increases as the month before. Wednesday’s update and a report on Thursday about inflation at the wholesale level will be the final big pieces of data the Federal Reserve will get before its meeting next week, where many investors expect the year’s third cut to interest rates . The Fed has been easing its main interest rate from a two-decade high since September to take pressure off the slowing jobs market, after bringing inflation nearly down to its 2% target. Lower rates would help give support to the economy, but they could also provide more fuel for inflation. Expectations for a series of cuts through next year have been a big reason the S&P 500 has set so many records this year. Trading in the options market suggests traders aren’t expecting a very big move for U.S. stocks following Wednesday’s report, according to strategists at Barclays. But a reading far off expectations in either direction could quickly change that. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.22% from 4.20% late Monday. Even though the Fed has been cutting its main interest rate, mortgage rates have been more stubborn to stay high and have been volatile since the autumn. That has hampered the housing industry, and homebuilder Toll Brothers’ stock fell 6.9% even though it delivered profit and revenue for the latest quarter that topped analysts’ expectations. CEO Douglas Yearley Jr. said the luxury builder has been seeing strong demand since the start of its fiscal year six weeks ago, an encouraging signal as it approaches the beginning of the spring selling season in mid-January. Elsewhere on Wall Street, Alaska Air Group soared 13.2% after raising its forecast for profit in the current quarter. The airline said demand for flying around the holidays has been stronger than expected. It also approved a plan to buy back up to $1 billion of its stock, along with new service from Seattle to Tokyo and Seoul . Boeing climbed 4.5% after saying it’s resuming production of its bestselling plane , the 737 Max, for the first time since 33,000 workers began a seven-week strike that ended in early November. Vail Resorts rose 2.5% after the ski resort operator reported a smaller first-quarter loss than analysts expected in what is traditionally its worst quarter. All told, the S&P 500 fell 17.94 points to 6,034.91. The Dow dipped 154.10 to 44,247.83, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 49.45 to 19,687.24. In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in China after the world’s second-largest economy said its exports rose by less than expected in November. Stocks rose 0.6% in Shanghai but fell 0.5% in Hong Kong. Indexes fell across much of Europe ahead of a meeting this week by the European Central Bank, where the widespread expectation is for another cut in interest rates. AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.Rising Cybersecurity Insurance Demands Create New Opportunities for Technology Service Providers, Says Info-Tech Research Group

The rental subsidy would allow her to move to a better neighborhood with better opportunities for her and her now 4-year-old daughter, she said. It was going to “take a little bit of a load off” in a high-cost housing market, she said. But after spending about eight months applying for apartments, Knighten found no landlord willing to accept her rental subsidy, and her allotted time from CHA to find a unit where she could use her voucher was up, according to the lawsuit she filed in August alleging that housing providers discriminated against her based on her source of income. Knighten’s lawsuit alleges that housing providers said they did not accept housing vouchers, did not work with CHA or did not respond when she told them she had a housing voucher. “It was really dehumanizing,” Knighten said. There’s “a real stigma behind having the voucher.” Within the last year and a half, housing attorneys have filed some of the first lawsuits, including Knighten’s, allowed under Illinois’ nearly two-year-old statewide law preventing discrimination on the basis of someone’s source of income. All the complaints allege that the plaintiffs, who had housing vouchers, were discriminated against. Advocates said the discrimination is still widespread across the city and state despite the law, and they’re eager for legal rulings to help hold real estate professionals accountable. As the cases wind their way through the court system, housing counseling and legal aid organizations are continuing to enforce the law through other means, such as filing claims with local and state human rights agencies. Before the new state law took effect, attorneys were not legally allowed to sue alleging source of income discrimination; the local human rights commissions in Chicago and Cook County were the primary route for holding housing providers accountable, and their rulings do not come with consequences as severe as lawsuit verdicts. Knighten, who lives in Lansing, is suing 14 parties, ranging from individuals to real estate brokerages to smaller corporations. Some defendants did not return requests for comment. Others said they did not know they were being sued, that they were no longer the owners of the property in question, had not heard of the plaintiff or declined to comment on pending litigation. Knighten’s voucher was through the Housing Choice Voucher Program, the primary federal housing voucher program. Formerly known as Section 8, it allows public housing authorities to provide subsidies to low-income residents to find housing in the private market. The multi-billion-dollar program, administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through local public housing authorities, helps more than 2 million households nationwide. The Chicago Housing Authority is supplying vouchers to more than 52,000 renters through the program, according to HUD data. Residents with vouchers from the CHA pay 30% to 40% of their income toward rent and utilities; the CHA covers the rest. It can take years, sometimes decades, to get off the waitlist for a housing voucher. About 18,000 households are on the CHA’s waitlist. When the agency last opened the waitlist for four weeks in 2014, it got 280,000 applications, 70,000 of which were approved for the list. In Illinois, the majority of voucher holders are Black, like Knighten, as the Black population has historically faced racial discrimination preventing them from building wealth, making them more likely to use vouchers. Housing advocates said source of income discrimination is another form of racial discrimination. For those who do get off the waitlist, in 2022 only 61% were able to use their CHA vouchers, the agency’s most recent year with complete data. The CHA data are consistent with national figures. Only 60% of voucher holders are able to use them to lease homes, according to a 2024 national study conducted with data from 2015 to 2019 by New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. The numbers are worse for markets with an older housing stock and for voucher recipients of color, the study says, both of which apply to Chicago. Michael Mini, executive vice president of the Chicagoland Apartment Association, a trade group that represents housing providers, said he has not heard of any problems or concerns related to source of income discrimination. The “vast majority” of his members are “very familiar” with the voucher program and had already been following the city and county laws prior to the statewide law’s passage, Mini said. He said his organization notified its members downstate and beyond when the state law was passed. “Source of income is a protected class. Like any other protected class, we expect our members to comply with the law,” Mini said. But housing advocates said source of income discrimination happens overtly and covertly. Sometimes real estate professionals explicitly say they will not accept a housing voucher; other times they do not count the voucher toward a renter’s income and say the renter does not have sufficient income to qualify for the unit. Many property owners and managers require a renter’s monthly income to be three times the monthly rent. And sometimes required credit scores and high application fees are limiting factors for voucher holders. “There are always emerging strategies ... that a landlord can employ that really accomplish the same thing,” said Susan Theiss, an attorney focused on fair housing rights with Legal Aid Chicago. “Landlords are always shifting the ground when they really don’t want to rent to people with housing assistance.” Theiss and other advocates said the number of callers alleging source of income discrimination has increased since the state law passed, a sign that information about it is getting out. In one case, fair-housing counseling organization Open Communities and one of its clients filed a lawsuit in 2023 in federal court in Chicago against national property management company Harbor Group Management and software company PERQ. The lawsuit alleged that Harbor Group Management employed an artificial intelligence chatbot that systematically rejected online applicants who had Housing Choice Vouchers. In January, the parties settled for monetary damages and entered into a two-year consent decree that requires Harbor Group to provide Open Communities data and access related to its fair-housing policies and practices, including its use of PERQ software. Advocates and their clients are also using the new state law to help with eviction cases and are still filing cases through the local and new state human rights commissions. Allison Bethel, director of the Fair Housing Legal Clinic at University of Illinois Chicago, said she has clients who are voucher holders and are being evicted and/or are facing poor living conditions or fines because of their source of income. The clinic has settled cases where clients have stayed housed or received money, Bethel said. The Chicago Commission on Human Relations estimates it has received 1,700 complaints related to source of income discrimination since 1990, the year the agency began handling these types of complaints. The commission saw the number more than double from 2022 to 2023, with 101 source of income discrimination complaints filed in 2023, according to agency data provided to the Tribune. In Cook County, fewer than 75 complaints have been filed since 2013, when it made source of income discrimination illegal, according to the county. Since 2022 the Cook County Commission on Human Rights has seen an uptick in filings. The Illinois Department of Human Rights, which began accepting source of income complaints in January 2023, when the statewide law took effect, received 34 complaints in 2023 and 48 in 2024 as of November, according to data provided to the Tribune. Advocates and attorneys say some cases are settled before an investigation is completed. They also said it can take several months to over a year for the IDHR to process and investigate a complaint, with many of its cases still awaiting results. Some of those advocates said they hope this process can be sped up. As Illinois heads into year three of its statewide source of income protections, housing advocates will continue their work and await verdicts that they hope can help guide their paths forward. For Knighten — who works at a call center and is paying more than 1.5 times as much for rent as she would have with a voucher — she hopes her case raises awareness. “Just because people are getting assistance from the government doesn’t make them less of a person,” Knighten said. “(I want to) make sure no one else has to go through what I went through when they are just trying to get help to survive.”SIPPING a glass of chilled fizz this Christmas morning, I will not only feel full of festive cheer, but also a little bit smug. That’s because this is the 17th time I’ve successfully managed to cut my mother-in-law, Rene, out of our celebrations. While other women will be run ragged, pandering and panicking, I’ll be blissfully relaxed at home, with my husband Brian, 52, our two sons, my parents and my sister Anneliese, 53. I’ll do nothing more strenuous than peel some vegetables, munch chocolate and unwrap presents, free of festive tension. This is the exact opposite of what the day would be like if Rene was on the scene. And it’s the reason why, during 18 years of marriage , my family has spent Christmas Day with her only once. READ MORE IN FABULOUS That was eight years ago and I am still suffering from a mild form of “seasonal PTSD ”. The barbed remarks started early in the day. “Do you often eat chocolate for breakfast?” she scoffed. The slurs didn’t end until we went to bed, when she commented: “That Christmas pudding wasn’t the best”. At the end of the day, close to tears, I swore I would never put myself through the ordeal again. Most read in Fabulous And now, at 51, I certainly won’t be swayed. I know I’m not alone, either. Mumsnet is filled with posts from women my age who are dreading having to deal with the mother-in-law this Christmas. Unsurprisingly, to me, a US study found that both men and women have more conflict with the mother-in-law than with their own mums. I don’t feel an ounce of guilt that my mother-in-law doesn’t get to see her grandchildren on the big day. She’ll see them at some point over the festive period, when we’ll go and stay for a couple of days. During that time, I’ll insist on taking long walks to get rid of those Christmas excesses — when in fact it’s to dodge seeing her. And she will spend Christmas itself with my husband’s brother, his lovely wife Chrissy and their daughters — so it isn’t as though she’ll be alone. I remember the very first Christmas in 1997 after Brian and I started dating . We didn’t spend it together because we had only been seeing each other for six months. But I was horrified when he rang me on Christmas Day to say Rene had prepared roast beef and not a traditional turkey . It’s the one time of year that I’m a stickler for convention and this seemed very wrong. Christmas is all about family and I wish I could see my grandsons I immediately knew that I didn’t want to spend a single Christmas with his family. They don’t really do presents either — most years, they would all give each other Lottery scratch cards — and while I’m not materialistic, I spend hours trawling the shops for the perfect gift for my loved ones. My mother-in-law has only ever bought me one present — a pot of anti-wrinkle cream. This year, I’m bracing myself for hair dye, because she recently asked why I have more grey hairs than Chrissy, her other daughter-in-law, despite being ten years younger. So you can understand why I feel a twinge of terror at the thought of spending Christmas with Rene at the helm. I’ve been with Brian, who works in marketing, for 26 years and festivities aside, my mother-in-law and I are yet to see eye-to-eye on anything. “Highlights” of her behaviour include asking if she could wear black to our wedding and then telling me she didn’t gain a daughter, but lost a son. She has a photo album titled My Family and while my husband and sons, who are 18 and 14, feature, I’m nowhere to be seen. She has even carefully selected wedding photos where I’m missing. For me, Christmas is a special time, not an occasion I want ruined. And Rene has a unique ability to make me feel the size of a gnat. On Christmas morning, we open stockings at my parents’ house in Dorset and have a lovely smoked salmon breakfast, and lots of chocolate, before slowly opening presents. Late afternoon, we’ll have turkey and all the trimmings — including my mother’s bread sauce, best in the world — at my sister’s house. This is followed by quizzes and party games. Brian is lovely about me wanting to be at my parents’. He gets on brilliantly with his in-laws. But eight years ago, Rene, who is a widow, was set to be alone at Christmas. Brian’s brother was away and even I acknowledged that we should go to her house, six hours from ours in London . I even prepared the meal, but the level of interference was off the scale, with petty remarks about timings and how rapidly the water was boiling for the Brussels. Her lips pursed at the taste of the chicken — “too dry” — and stayed that way up until she had eaten her last scrap of Christmas pudding with brandy butter. She made snide comments about what I’d gifted my boys, then aged ten and six. Their noisiness brought nothing but sighs. I felt like I couldn’t do anything right, most of my efforts were followed by a “Chrissy wouldn’t do it like that”. I told Brian never again. It doesn’t cause rows — he loves my family . Des­pite everything, my boys love Granny. She’s wonderful with them and I make sure they see plenty of her. But I worry about karma. I tried hard to do things in a way Mel would appreciate, but it’s never enough If the boys marry, they could assume their partners get to choose where to spend Christmas, as that’s their normal. I suspect it will be with their wives’ mums and it will serve me right. But in the meantime, I’ll enjoy my mother-in-law-free Christmas Day. And I wish all the luck in the world to the women who aren’t as lucky as I am. Rene, 81, says: “Christmas is all about family and I wish I could see my grandsons. The one Christmas I did spend with them was magical. “Mel doesn’t think I thought it was special, but it was. READ MORE SUN STORIES “I tried hard to do things in a way Mel would appreciate, but it’s never enough. “And the only reason I bought her anti-wrinkle cream is because I saw it in her bathroom, so thought she’d like it.”

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In March 2001, producer the Oscar for best picture from Michael Douglas, thus setting the highest possible bar for the, at that point, already discussed sequel to ’s historical epic. At the end of his speech, Wick paid tribute to his family by lovingly saying that “all roads lead to” them, and the metaphor proved to be true in more ways than one. His partner in life, , left her decorated career as a studio executive to become producing partners with Wick at Red Wagon Entertainment, and together they’d shepherd over a dozen more films, including Oscar winners (2005) and (2013), as well as the under-appreciated gem known as (2012). In between it all, they never lost sight of as various scripts were commissioned, such as Nick Cave’s wild take that resurrected ’s Maximus Decimus Meridius as an immortal warrior who fought on behalf of the Roman gods. But the convoluted attempts to bring back their Oscar-winning leading man never truly took flight. “There were funny ideas for a sequel, but obviously, Russell’s character was dead. The idea of him making his way back through the afterlife was always a little bit doomed,” Wick tells . “So the fact that we killed two of our leads [Crowe’s Maximus and Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus] created a particularly challenging circumstance.” The turning point came when the creative team refocused on Lucilla’s (Connie Nielsen) son, Lucius, who was originally portrayed by Spencer Treat Clark. Fans have always theorized that Lucius was Maximus’ illegitimate son, but the brain trust didn’t finalize that choice until much later. After all, the revelation about Lucius would’ve undercut Maximus’ quest to avenge his murdered nuclear family. “Maximus was always his spiritual father, but we never determined at the time that Maximus was actually his biological father,” Wick says. Once joined the fold to play adult Lucius, another came when he was conceived to be the lost prince who resented the city of Rome for ripping his family apart and forcing him to live in exile under another identity. According to Wick, it was also important that the second century story reflect our present to some degree. “All period movies have to be a mirror to our times or they don’t deserve to live,” Wick stresses. “The idea of billionaires on both the left and the right who are more and more buying their way into government is a very modern story.” If the wasn’t enough of a challenge, the enterprise then faced generationally rare obstacles mid-production due to the writers and actors’ strikes throughout 2023. The former required them to prematurely begin production, and the latter caused them to shut down with at least a couple months of remaining work to fulfill. While the stoppage allowed everyone to assemble a cut and make improvements once filming resumed, the size of the film was so robust that costs mounted despite cameras no longer rolling. “The scale of making this movie was so massive that we might not ever see it again. So starting production was a military operation, and so was shutting it down,” Fisher explains. “We had 450 hotel rooms to close down, and we still had to keep renting everything, like all the scaffolding to hold up the Colosseum. We didn’t know when we were going to come back.” The dilemmas also extended to post-production, as Scott’s initial cut was . As a result, the editorial team, in conjunction with Scott and the producing team, had to kill their figurative darlings, including a scene where Nielsen’s Lucilla bids adieu to her deceased husband, Acacius (Pedro Pascal). In addition, Wick confirms that ’s entire role hit the cutting room floor due to the overlong runtime. “Even as we are, we’re a long movie. So you have to see what works and what’s essential,” Wick admits. “Connie had a wonderful [deleted] scene where she basically said goodbye to [Pedro’s character’s] corpse, so you just always have to make choices about what’s essential.” Below, during a recent conversation with , Wick and Fisher discuss all this and more, including the *** We definitely wavered. It was a strange journey. At one point, we were in Tokyo, creating 1930s Kyoto [​​for ]. Another time we were in Sydney doing 1920s Long Island for . There were all these other adventures, but our hearts were always in ancient Rome. We had gotten so lucky on the first movie. If you do this for a while, you know it’s always a minor miracle for a movie to turn out that good, and we were determined that we weren’t going to do a sequel unless we really felt it deserved to be made. Like Doug said, there was so much pressure to live up to the first one, and if we were going to do it, we certainly didn’t want to be a pale imitation. We wanted to figure out a story and a character that would be deserving, and while we always knew it was going to be the surviving character of Lucius, we didn’t quite know what the story was. We eventually found the idea of the reluctant prince, and that’s when it all began to click. It makes our careers seem paltry, but n between movies, which is more than most other people. So we were all busy at different times, and then a number of years ago, we really started to work on the development of the story, which did take a few years. Well, I knew Ridley from . I worked at Fox as the vice president when he was making , so I’ve actually known him for a long time. And, being the lucky “plus one,” I knew most of the crew already. Interestingly enough, we threw a birthday party for Ridley while we were on location in Malta, and other than a different editor [Claire Simpson] who’s been with him steadily for almost 10 years, I looked around the table and saw literally the same heads of department. They were always ready to come back. No, but we later did with Nick Cave, who we love. [ ] On a joking level, right after the first movie opened, Russell Crowe’s agent called me and said, “I have an idea: they carry Maximus’ body out of the corner of the arena. They put the stretcher down, he gets up and they all high five and say, ‘It worked. They believe he’s dead.’ That would be the beginning of the sequel.” So there were funny ideas for a sequel, but obviously, Russell’s character was dead. The idea of him making his way back through the afterlife was always a little bit doomed, so the fact that we killed two of our leads [Crowe’s Maximus and Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus] created a particularly challenging circumstance. You could say Ridley Scott was the real star a little bit, and Ridley being your tour guide to Ancient Rome is always going to be an event. But it’s a fight movie, so you’re trying to move story and character forward through a series of fights, and that’s particularly challenging. So that’s why getting a story that stood on its own was so elusive for that long period of time. And it wasn’t like we were working on it every day for two-plus decades. I did with Tony Scott in the middle of that, so I was still around the Scotts. And because had worked so well, we talked a lot about it. We like to say that we had to Besides the idea of Lucius as the lost prince, it was someone who hated everything about Rome, making the movie a homecoming. We know enough about movies to know that the more they’re about family, the more solid you are. We then talked for a long time about what the ending of Lucius’s journey would be. He’d return, he’d possibly reunite with his mother, but would he burn down the Colosseum and leave? And many of our breakthroughs were visual because Ridley thinks visually. As we would talk about all these thematics, he’d always look a little bored, and then he’d come in with a visual solution. And his visual solution to the end involved Lucius being pulled like a magnet towards his destiny as a Roman and his destiny with his family. All of his attempts to cut away his past, to cauterize himself and separate himself from it, would fail. As much as Lucius hated Rome and wanted to be no part of Rome, the events have swept him along to where he is very much a Roman. So Ridley’s idea for the very last image is that it then dawns on him that it’s happened. We suddenly had a beginning and an end, and that’s when we knew we had the movie. There were a lot of other challenges including the antagonist, because we didn’t want the antagonist to be another depraved emperor. So there was a long journey to . Also, all period movies have to be a mirror to our times or they don’t deserve to live. And the idea of billionaires on both the left and the right who are more and more buying their way into government is a very modern story. So there were a lot of pieces of the puzzle. No, we weren’t sure of it. It wasn’t ingrained the whole time. Maximus was always his spiritual father, but we never determined at the time that Maximus was actually his biological father. Yes, at heart, he’s always a painter. He still thinks visually as he did then. The thing with Ridley is that the longer you keep him in the room, he’s like the golden goose. If you pretended the door to the development room was locked in order to keep him in there a little bit longer, he would just have so many great solutions. In the first movie, Maximus was a combat general, so, of course, he was going to be formidable in the arena. But here we have an angry young man, a lost prince, so we talked a lot about how and why he is going to win in the arena. Ridley then had to suffer through a lot of thematic conversations about rage and fury. But one day, Ridley said, “In the scene with the baboons, the alpha baboon is going to kill Lucius’s mentor. Lucius will then be so enraged that he will bite the arm of the alpha baboon, spit out his flesh, and the baboon will realize there’s a new alpha in town.” So Ridley is a remarkable talent in that he can absorb all of these story challenges and then have them catalyze into a scene or a moment. He has a very unusual style of shooting. He hardly ever shot with less than eight cameras. Sometimes, there were 12 or more. So most directors wouldn’t know how to do that and wouldn’t want to either, because it’s a whole other brain set that he acquired from his early days as an operator. He came in way under schedule on this movie. He’s a machine in terms of being prepared. He storyboards everything. That’s always been part of his process, but you’ll wake up in the morning to a whole new scene with every angle storyboarded so that everyone is on the same page. So he always leaves room for improvement or serendipity or whatever you want to call it. He shoots films almost like a playlet because all the characters are sitting in the same scene; they’re not being shot on different days. So your closeup is happening when your wide shot is happening, and he never does an over-the-shoulder shot. The camera is always moving. So we were always watching eight monitors simultaneously. You can’t even watch the dailies because there’s 14 hours of dailies. He just has a different way of working than anyone that we have worked with, and luckily for us, we have worked with many of the greats: Mike Nichols, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, George Miller. With all those cameras, we’d shoot both the emperor’s box and the floor of the arena at the same time. So the reactions of Denzel and Connie are being shot while they’re looking down at Paul with a mechanical rhinoceros. And after the first few days, I said to Denzel, “How’s it going for you?” And he said, “It’s been such a long time since I worked as an extra.” ( ) With all the reliance on computers, there may not be another build this big. We built not only the arena, but blocks of ancient Rome. And all the actors will tell you how the physical setting helped immerse them in the world, especially one that has a life-size statue of Pedro Pascal’s general on a horse. The VFX that are available now make the impossible possible. They wanted a rhino for the first movie, but it was too expensive. On the first one, I actually spoke to some animal trainers about getting a rhino because it was too expensive to do it all by computer. But rhinos don’t see well, and once they start running, they’re almost impossible to stop. So that was a complete disaster waiting to happen. But Ridley really wanted his rhino [in the sequel], and his team is so great that they also created a mechanical rhino so that the actors could still interact with something tangible. When we did , Geena Davis was always talking to her empty hand. Also, to shoot ships in the arena, all of the ships were wheeled onto the dry arena floor. The visual effects people then put in the water later. It’s much harder to control boats on water, so that made that scene doable in a way that would have been almost impossible 25 years ago. We shot the opening battle with all the Roman ships on the sand in Morocco. The boats were being dragged across sand. He was not happy to have to pay for his own set. Part of the producer’s job is to keep your eye on the ball in the middle of all this chaos. There’s so many problems to solve, and that’s where movies forget what their priorities are or what they’re about. So you’re always looking for the silver lining. Because of the writers’ strike, we started a little bit before we were ready. We then had to stop for the actors’ strike, and that pause allowed us to do a quick assembly of the movie. So we had the incredible luxury of seeing an assembly in the middle of shooting. David Scarpa, the writer, also got to see it, and then we all had conversations about what was and wasn’t working. We talked about what adjustments might be needed and what opportunities we might want to pick up in the first half of the movie based on what we were learning. So that was really invaluable. On the minus side, the scale of making this movie was so massive that we might not ever see it again. So starting production was a military operation, and so was shutting it down. We often had more than a thousand extras on set and a crew of 450 in Morocco. We had 80 tents just to store the props and for the extras’ hair and makeup. There was no infrastructure that was big enough for us, so there were literally 80 tents. The day before we had to stop shooting, we had 2,000 extras on set. Our last day before shutting down was a sunset in Malta, and the next day it was dark. So we had 450 hotel rooms to close down, and we still had to keep renting everything, like all the scaffolding to hold up the Colosseum. We didn’t know when we were going to come back. Paul Mescal also had to continue working out because you can’t get in that kind of shape in ten minutes. You have to keep it. And the Colosseum became weathered, so we had to refurbish it with paint and age it all over again. It was all an enormous undertaking. Luckily, we had brilliant line producers in Aidan Elliott and Raymond Kirk. And when we finally got to go back, we then had to stop again for Christmas. So there was a massive transportation bill to ship all those people back and forth, but everybody was so eager to work on this movie no matter what came our way. Interestingly enough, we haven’t read much that’s focused on that. I don’t know whether it’s because people are still in shock in real life, but we were stunned at how prescient it turned out to be. Anecdotally, we’ve had several people write to us and talk to us about how good it felt to have our higher angels celebrated in terms of the swamp of politics. So that has come across from a few people, but we don’t yet know the larger public reaction. We’ve gotten responses about the celebration of a dream and higher ideals, where everything isn’t just the low road. So I hope it resonates that way with the public. Having seen the movie somewhere between 50 and 100 times, I get choked up every time the armies yell “aye” after Lucius asks, “Dare we rebuild that dream together?” We so want to feel hope. Of the reactions that we have gotten, people have told us that they’re still thinking about it the next day. Sometimes, you see a movie that was really good, but then you can’t remember anything the next day. So, hopefully, this one will have some sticking power for a lot of people. Yeah, very clearly. Even as we are, we’re a long movie. So, yeah, very simply, it can’t be longer, and you have to see what works and what’s essential. Connie had a wonderful [deleted] scene where she basically said goodbye to [Pedro’s character’s] corpse, so you just always have to make choices about what’s essential. Nothing would be more fun, but I would say that we’re going to hold the same standard for making a third movie. There’s too many bad sequels and quick money grabs. So we’ll hold to our standards, but we hope to, and would love to, return to ancient Rome. To be able to do it again under the right circumstances, there’s nothing we’d like to do more. No, what this movie and others have proven is that the big theatrical event movie is the one sure thing in this business. So that point was more about technology. Things are now more likely to be computer generated than practically built. Doug is more the optimist, and I’m more the pessimist or the realist. We’re at a crossroads. People have always yearned for stories and entertainment, and whether it was VHS or DVD, each time it was like, “Oh, it’s over.” And then it wasn’t, because the eagerness for people to be together in a room and watch a story that resonates with them is a real instinct that human beings have. But our business is a little screwed up right now. I won’t opine upon the reasons, but it certainly wasn’t helped by COVID and the whole studio system turning to streaming. There’s been a lot of things. So we are in a confused state, but the instinct for people to want to gather and watch a story is still there. The attention span is shorter now with subsequent generations, although not as short as Quibi thought it was. ( ) So these reasons are why we all root for everyone’s movies. We need people to think, “It’s Friday night, and we’re going to go to the movies.” We want that habit to come back. So we’re rooting for all good filmmakers to be able to have a chance to make good movies and for distributors to have a chance at people seeing them in the theater. A movie like is so much more appreciated on a big screen. is now playing in movie theaters. Follow along with all of THR Newsletters Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day More from The Hollywood ReporterJimmy Carter, the 39th US president, has died at 100 (copy)

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