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Time of India
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Ann Takamaki in Persona 5 The Phantom X: Best weapons, teams, skill priority, and more
(Image via Sega) Ann Takamaki in Persona 5: The Phantom X gameplay is the fiery-hearted Panther who is a fan-favourite. The Phantom Thief is the powerhouse that specializes in devastating fire attacks. With her Carmen Persona, she dominates the battles with some high-damage AoE skills and also burns effects. Veterans and new players alike can harness her potential. Understanding her optimal gear, skill progression, and team synergies is key to dominating Metaverse. Let us dive within building Ann for maximum impact. Best weapons for Ann Takamaki to ignite the battlefield Ann thrives with her fire-boosting weapons, which can enhance her damage output. To equip her right would amplify her strength quite immensely. Her top choice remains 5-star Rosethorn, which can increase fire damage by approximately 24.2%, and she inflicts burn on enemies, too. If La Vie En Rose remains active, fire damage will escalate further as per the burning foes, capping at a max 76% boost. Note: Rosethorn weapon remains accessible early through the Plans tab. It can synergize with her unique mechanics perfectly. For a much more accessible option, the 4-star Masquerade Ribbon of Ann would also raise her attack by 12% and add approximately 23.7% to it when attacking the burning enemies. As Rosethorn remains obtainable early via in-game rewards, it is the preferred pick to maximize her firepower. Complementing the armament is the Strife Revelation Card Set. It can be found in the Words of Feuds domain challenge. The set is tailor-made just for Ann, the Panther, and delivers bonus fire damage and additional attack boost when exploiting the enemy's weaknesses. Give priority to stats like Damage% (Moon), Attack% (Sky), and Crit Rate (Star) on the cards. The combination would ensure her spell would hit with an overwhelming force, melting all enemy defenses. Ann Takamaki's team tactics and skill focus Building around Panther would mean embracing a mono-fire team to achieve peak efficiency. The core lineup here would pair her with Cattle and Key, who have proven to be exceptionally potent. The trio would leverage the fire synergies and enhance team cohesion and damage output. ANNS FLAMES ARE STILL BURNING! UNIT REVISIT! | PERSONA 5: THE PHANTOM X Players who seek more explosive results can swap Cattle with Leon and create a hypercarry setup. It would definitely sacrifice some sustainability but would push Ann's damage ceiling dramatically high. Some Personas of Wonder, like Dionysus (Crit Rate/Damage) or Surt (Defense Down), can further amplify the offensive pressure of the team. To master, Ann needs strategic skill upgrades. Her Persona, Carmen, even offers some potent fire abilities. Ensure priority is given to enhancing Trifire (Skill 3) at first. The potent and single-target burn skill will become more devastating against the weakened foes. Then focus on Skill 1, Crimson Rose. It is Ann's powerful AoE attack that even buffs her own strength. The Thief Tactics would follow, as the Highlight attack can deliver some massive AoE fire damage and offer crucial short-term damage buff. Skill 2, Falling Sun, while it remains useful, rounds out the priority list here. Unlock Ann Takamaki's full potential The unique Passion mechanic and La Vie en Rose (LVR) state of Ann state remain central to her kit. To deal fire damage can build Passion stacks. At 4 stacks, she can enter LVR, quite significantly giving a boost to her attack. To understand the rhythm remains vital. Her awareness level can unlock power enhancements, including party-wide attack buffs during the LVR, some potent follow-up attacks, as it would end, and some substantial damage increase per Passion stack. While the passive boosts come from the duplicates, they do solidify her position as the top fire unit. Ann, in short, is the cornerstone character. To obtain it is quite straightforward, but building her effectively can unlock the path of destruction through mid- and early-game. Also, to equip Rosethorn, use the Strife set and pair Ann with Key and Cattle while giving priority to Trifire and Crimson Rose upgrades; the players could unleash the character's full and fiery fury on any foe who dares to stand within the way of Phantom Thieves. Game On Season 1 continues with Mirabai Chanu's inspiring story. Watch Episode 2 here.
Los Angeles Times
5 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
‘Deceit, dishonesty, betrayal': The wrongful conviction that haunted Johnnie Cochran
He was an uncommonly dangerous man, in the FBI's eyes, a combat-toughened killer who had returned from Vietnam to wage war on the Establishment. 'We are going to drive the pigs out of the community,' Elmer 'Geronimo' Pratt, the 21-year-old leader of the Black Panther Party in Los Angeles, told a reporter in 1970. Pratt was stout, compact and level-eyed, with a raspy drawl bespeaking his childhood on the Louisiana bayou. He envisioned a violent end at the hands of police, whom he cast as an occupying army in African American neighborhoods. 'The next time you see me, I might be dead.' When he went on trial in 1972 — on charges he murdered a white schoolteacher, execution-style, during a robbery — he insisted he was being framed. His defense attorney, a young Johnnie Cochran Jr., initially dismissed Pratt's talk as paranoia. But Cochran would later describe the case as 'a twilight zone of deceit, dishonesty, betrayal and official corruption.' Pratt's conviction kept him behind bars for 27 years, and the case haunted Cochran, who believed Pratt was innocent and who had made a mistake at trial that prosecutors skillfully exploited. In the authorities' war against perceived subversives, it would be years before it became clear how brazenly they had cheated. 'It looked on the surface like a really straightforward murder case,' said Stuart Hanlon, now 76, the radical San Francisco defense attorney who took up Pratt's appeal as a law student and pursued it doggedly for decades. The victim was Caroline Olsen, 27, who was with her husband on a Santa Monica tennis court in December 1968 when a pair of gunmen approached demanding money. The men ordered the couple to lie face down, then began opening fire. She was fatally wounded; her husband was struck but survived. The robbers got $18. The investigation stalled, and Pratt was not a suspect until 1970, when Julius 'Julio' Butler, a beautician and former police officer, implicated him. Butler had been a Panther himself, and had resented Pratt's elevation as Los Angeles leader. The state's star witness, Butler testified that Pratt had dropped by his beauty shop and announced he was going on a 'mission' and later pointed to an article about the Santa Monica shooting to confirm it was his doing. Cochran asked Butler if he had ever been a police informant. Butler flatly denied it. Devastatingly for the defense, Olsen's widower pointed to the defendant and said: 'That's the man who murdered my wife.' Cochran argued against the reliability of cross-racial witness identification, particularly under conditions of stress, and put on the stand a witness who had seen Pratt in the Bay Area around the time of the killing. He also put on Pratt, who had been decorated for heroism during two tours in Vietnam with the Army, and who showed what Cochran called a 'soldier's contempt' for whomever shot the helpless Olsen in the back. Cochran thought it was a winnable case, but he introduced an exhibit that backfired terribly. It was a Polaroid, given to him by Pratt's brother, who insisted it had been taken a week after the shooting. It showed Pratt with a beard, which contradicted the widower's initial description of the shooter as 'a clean-shaven black man.' Prosecutors countered with a Polaroid employee who said the film had not even been manufactured until five months after the crime, a blow to the defense's credibility that left jurors doubting Pratt's other claims. It took jurors 10 days to find him guilty of first-degree murder. The sentence was 25 years to life. 'You're wrong. I didn't kill that woman,' Pratt erupted. 'You racist dogs.' Pratt spent the next eight years in solitary confinement. He was shuttled among prisons, and eventually allowed conjugal visits; his wife gave birth to two children. At a series of unsuccessful parole hearings, the panel waited for him to say he was sorry. He insisted he hadn't done it. 'The last person I killed,' he would say, 'was in Vietnam.' There was much the authorities had not shared with Pratt's defense team. They did not reveal that Olsen's widower had previously identified another man as the shooter. (The man had been in jail at the time and could not have done it.) Nor did they reveal the scope of the star witness' work as an informant for law enforcement officials. Based on FBI documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Pratt's lawyers pieced together a picture of Butler's intimate involvement with the FBI, the Los Angeles Police Department and the L.A. County district attorney's office in dozens of cases. To FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, the Panthers had been the most dangerous group in the country, homegrown terrorists with stockpiles of weapons and alarming Maoist rhetoric. His secret COINTELPRO program was a campaign of spying, wiretaps and sabotage aimed at crushing perceived subversives and thwarting 'the coalition of militant black nationalist groups.' 'Geronimo was targeted by the FBI because he was a natural leader,' Hanlon said. As Hanlon pieced together documents, it became clear that Butler had been helping. Rejecting appeal after appeal, however, courts ruled that Butler had not been an informant — he had been 'a contact and nothing more,' according to one judge — and that Pratt did not deserve a new trial. He was still considered dangerous. 'If he chooses to set up a revolutionary organization upon his release from prison, it would certainly be easy for him to do so,' a prosecutor said at one parole hearing. 'He does have this network out there.' When defense lawyers brought their evidence to then-L.A. County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti in 1993, they presented it as a chance to undo the injustice his predecessors had sanctioned two decades earlier. But Garcetti's review dragged on for years, and the attorneys turned again to the courts. This time, the courts granted a hearing. Because the L.A. County Superior Court bench was recused — the original prosecutor was now an L.A. County judge and a probable witness — the case was transferred to Orange County Superior Court. For Pratt's supporters, this provoked a chill. What hope did they have in a staunchly conservative county? But Judge Everett Dickey surprised them. 'It's clear that this is not a typical case,' Dickey said. 'It cries out for resolution.' This time, Pratt's team was armed with evidence never heard at the original trial. They had the testimony of a retired FBI agent who supported Pratt's claim that he had been in Oakland during the killing. They knew that the D.A.'s office had allowed Butler to plead no contest to four felonies in exchange for probation, around the time he testified against Pratt. And they had an index card, recently discovered by one of Garcetti's investigators in the office files, that listed Butler as a D.A. informant. It was filed under B; it had been there all along. 'It had never been turned over to the defense. How could they have not turned this over?' Garcetti said in a recent interview. 'I couldn't find anyone who would fess up to the fact that, 'Yeah, we had that document in the files.'' Still, Garcetti's prosecutors downplayed the card's importance. Butler was not an informant, they argued vehemently, but merely a 'source.' In late 1996, Cochran finally got a chance to confront Butler. He had waited years. Butler had become an attorney and an official at a prominent Los Angeles church. He insisted he had been merely a 'liaison' between law enforcement and the Panthers. Cochran asked him his definition of informant. He admitted he had told the FBI that Pratt had a submachine gun. He said his definition of an informant was someone who supplied accurate information. 'So under your own definition, you were informing to the FBI?' Cochran asked. 'You could say that,' Butler said. Dickey threw out Pratt's conviction, concluding that Butler had lied and that prosecutors had hidden evidence that could have led to Pratt's acquittal. Pratt was released on bail in June 1997, to the cheers of his supporters. 'The greatest moment of my legal career,' Cochran called it. Pratt flew home to Morgan City, La., 'to see my mama and my homefolks,' he said. 'It wasn't easy getting here.' He said he wanted to hear rain on the tin roof of his childhood home. Pratt's legal ordeal was not over, however. Garcetti appealed, saying he had found no evidence pointing to Pratt's innocence. He did not drop the case until an appeals court sided with Pratt in February 1999. The following year, Pratt won $4.5 million in a false-imprisonment lawsuit against the city of L.A. and the FBI. He bought a farmhouse in Imbaseni, Tanzania, where he enjoyed the companionship of Pete O'Neal, a former Black Panther who had fled the U.S. in 1970. O'Neal found him dead at home in May 2011. Pratt had been hospitalized with high blood pressure, a condition that had plagued him for years, but had torn out his IVs and gone home. He hated confinement. He was 63. 'We always say, 'The system works,' but no, the system only produced the right result because Geronimo and the community and a band of lawyers fought the system. The system doesn't work by itself,' said Mark Rosenbaum, one of the lawyers who helped with Pratt's appeal. 'They took away half of his life. And they couldn't break him.' So, who killed Caroline Olsen? Hanlon believes the killers were other Black Panthers — a pair of heroin addicts known to feed their habit with armed robbery. They died violently in the 1970s, one by gunfire, the other impaled on a fence during a burglary. In a recent interview, Garcetti, one of the defense team's primary antagonists for years, said that his views on the case have evolved. In retrospect, he regrets fighting to keep it alive. 'He was more likely framed than he was the person who actually committed the crime,' Garcetti said. Since leaving office, he said, he has learned more about the U.S. government's tactics against disfavored groups in the 1960s and '70s. 'I have read enough to know the FBI, from the top down, were working to isolate any quote-unquote leader in the Black Panther movement, and it wouldn't shock me to learn that they went after people who really hadn't committed a crime that they were bent on removing from the scene.'
Miami Herald
22-06-2025
- Sport
- Miami Herald
Panthers fans make early preparations for this year's championship parade
Fans showed up before the sun in Fort Lauderdale Beach to stake out spots. Marty Kareff of Coral Springs booked a room at the B Ocean hotel on A1A Saturday night to ensure a good spot. He was saving spots for late arriving family and friends. 'It was easy at 5 o'clock,' he said. 'We missed the parade last year because we had a vacation planned. No more summer vacation until July.' 'Got a nice crowd out here,' Everett said, adding that they sell coconuts on the beach most weekends. 'We're out here on the regular.' There were no takers early in, he said, but he was confident the heat would increase the popularity of his product. 'They're gonna come ' Brian and Christina Doogue of Davie arrived early too, around 6:15 with an entourage of about 35. They set up a big tent along the route — an excellent way to hide from the sun, at least for a while. Doogue who coaches a 10-and-under team at Ice End in Coral Springs, said the group was named Bennett this year, after Panther Sam Bennett, the Conn Smythe winner. 'We'd love him to come by and give us an autograph,' he said. 'Our team has won the championship two years in a row, too' The crowd, perhaps buoyed by the fact it wasn't storming like it was a year ago, was friendly and boisterous, sharing water and chanting together. Shouts of 'Bobby! BOBBY!' [for Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky] echoed through the streets near the Elbo Room [the first place the Cup made an appearance this year], a long with the requisite chants of 'Skinner, Skinner.' Skinner, the Edmonton goalie shelled by the Cats in the final game, may want to forget how many pucks got by him, but the Panthers fans haven't. Despite the heat, fans showed up in the jerseys of their favorites, from Aleksander Barkov to Carter Verhaege to Brad Marchand. One fan in a Marchand jersey and what had to be a very hot rat mask, led the cheer of 'Let's go, Panthers.' Along the extremely noisy parade route, which got louder as noon grew closer, Rhiannon Langley and Carmen Ellis were lying stomachs down on the pavement, reading. Or at least trying to read. Langley was reading Ghosts of Honolulu by Leon Carroll Jr and Mark Harmon, while Ellis was absorbed in Suzanne Collins ' Hunger Games prequel, 'Sunrise on the Reaping.' The clamor did not faze Langley, who says she reads 10 to 15 books a month. 'I just block it out,' she said. Ellis, who gives two thumbs up to Sunrise on the Reaping, admitted the reading might not last much longer. 'We're just reading till the action starts,' she said.
Sydney Morning Herald
19-06-2025
- Sport
- Sydney Morning Herald
Joker and the Thief win the night: How a star duo helped Queensland play their oldest tune
However, the Maroons played smarter in the first half with their glut of possession, while the Blues charged one out at the defensive line with all the grace of a well-hurled bowling ball. The NSW forwards seemed more intent on winning a battle of collisions than securing a victory. Rugby league's two best centres, Latrell Mitchell and Stephen Crichton, were starved of the ball, given the penalties and wet, greasy conditions. The game was, therefore, decided by players with the No.8 and higher on their backs and the Maroons edged NSW in this area. Incoming forward Kurt Capewell, a veteran of Origin, proved to be a welcome gap-plugger, run-stopper and back-up man. The Queensland pack found the go forward that had been missing in Brisbane. It wasn't as if NSW did not expect a Queensland fightback. A text message from the Blues dressing-room minutes before kick off read: 'We need to get through the opening onslaught and we should be OK.' NSW actually scored the first try when the Penrith halves combination that won four consecutive NRL premierships saw Nathan Cleary passing to Jarome Luai who grubbered through for another Panther and NSW's best, Brian To'o, to score. But the Blues frustration with penalties and dropped ball grew, resulting in a first-half completion rate of 56%. Queenslanders see omens everywhere at Origin time, including in the pre-match entertainment at Perth's Optus Stadium. Wolfmother sang 'Joker and the Thief'. Cameron Munster, the man of the match is known as a joker, although he wore his game face in his debut as captain. Harry Grant, his Melbourne teammate, played the role of thief, stealing metres from dummy half, including setting up Munster's try to give the Maroons a 20-6 lead. Queensland coach Billy Slater surprised by starting with his nominated team, despite leaving his best two forwards from the first game – Jeremiah Nanai and Pat Carrigan – on the bench. Carrigan's presence was needed when some of the inexperienced Maroons tired. Slater looked composed throughout, compared to the lead-up when, under sustained criticism, his normal unflappable self looked extremely flapped. Once again, the negative pre-match publicity fed the Queensland underdog psyche, with Munster revealing afterwards that the Maroons were motivated to 'turn up for our coach'. In the long history of Origin, how many times have we seen Queensland, when facing defeat, claw back, in the adrenalised manner of someone fighting off death? Still, the result would have been different if two of the conversion attempts of NSW winger Zac Lomax had not hit the uprights. Loading Similarly, in the Brisbane game, Cleary failed with three goal attempts, although in that match it did not matter. In the final analysis, the Maroons out-hustled, outwitted and outlasted the Blues, and we now move to Homebush for the decider on July 9. Unexpected, maybe. Unbelievable, perhaps. Unfinished, certainly.
The Age
19-06-2025
- Sport
- The Age
Joker and the Thief win the night: How a star duo helped Queensland play their oldest tune
However, the Maroons played smarter in the first half with their glut of possession, while the Blues charged one out at the defensive line with all the grace of a well-hurled bowling ball. The NSW forwards seemed more intent on winning a battle of collisions than securing a victory. Rugby league's two best centres, Latrell Mitchell and Stephen Crichton, were starved of the ball, given the penalties and wet, greasy conditions. The game was, therefore, decided by players with the No.8 and higher on their backs and the Maroons edged NSW in this area. Incoming forward Kurt Capewell, a veteran of Origin, proved to be a welcome gap-plugger, run-stopper and back-up man. The Queensland pack found the go forward that had been missing in Brisbane. It wasn't as if NSW did not expect a Queensland fightback. A text message from the Blues dressing-room minutes before kick off read: 'We need to get through the opening onslaught and we should be OK.' NSW actually scored the first try when the Penrith halves combination that won four consecutive NRL premierships saw Nathan Cleary passing to Jarome Luai who grubbered through for another Panther and NSW's best, Brian To'o, to score. But the Blues frustration with penalties and dropped ball grew, resulting in a first-half completion rate of 56%. Queenslanders see omens everywhere at Origin time, including in the pre-match entertainment at Perth's Optus Stadium. Wolfmother sang 'Joker and the Thief'. Cameron Munster, the man of the match is known as a joker, although he wore his game face in his debut as captain. Harry Grant, his Melbourne teammate, played the role of thief, stealing metres from dummy half, including setting up Munster's try to give the Maroons a 20-6 lead. Queensland coach Billy Slater surprised by starting with his nominated team, despite leaving his best two forwards from the first game – Jeremiah Nanai and Pat Carrigan – on the bench. Carrigan's presence was needed when some of the inexperienced Maroons tired. Slater looked composed throughout, compared to the lead-up when, under sustained criticism, his normal unflappable self looked extremely flapped. Once again, the negative pre-match publicity fed the Queensland underdog psyche, with Munster revealing afterwards that the Maroons were motivated to 'turn up for our coach'. In the long history of Origin, how many times have we seen Queensland, when facing defeat, claw back, in the adrenalised manner of someone fighting off death? Still, the result would have been different if two of the conversion attempts of NSW winger Zac Lomax had not hit the uprights. Loading Similarly, in the Brisbane game, Cleary failed with three goal attempts, although in that match it did not matter. In the final analysis, the Maroons out-hustled, outwitted and outlasted the Blues, and we now move to Homebush for the decider on July 9. Unexpected, maybe. Unbelievable, perhaps. Unfinished, certainly.
