SAN FRANCISCO: Disney on Thursday announced plans for a new Star Wars film trilogy and a live-action TV series as it builds on the beloved and profitable science fiction franchise.
“We have big ambitions for the Star Wars franchise,” Disney chief executive Robert Iger said during a quarterly earnings call.
Disney just closed a deal with Rian Johnson, director of upcoming film “The Last Jedi,” to develop a brand new trilogy, according to Iger.
“We’re also planning to produce a number of original series for the new service and are already developing a Star Wars live-action series,” Iger said of a planned direct-to-consumer pay service offering television and film content.
While there have previously been animated Star Wars series, this will be the franchise’s first live-action show for the small screen.
The Star Wars franchise has been “exceeding expectations” since Disney acquired Lucasfilm five years ago, according to Iger.
Disney touted the box office success of two new Star Wars films and expressed confidence that “The Last Jedi,” set to debut in theaters next month, would be a hit.
“The excitement will only intensify as we get closer to the release date,” Iger said of the coming instalment.
Production recently wrapped on a film based on the story of Han Solo, who was played by actor Harrison Ford in the original trilogy as well as in 2015’s “The Force Awakens,” according to Disney executives.
“Solo” is the second movie of a saga that unfolds on the sidelines of the adventures of the Skywalker family, the primary protagonists of the Star Wars universe. The first was “Rogue One,” which came out in 2016 and raked in more than $1 billion at the box office.
“We’ve got more great Star Wars movies already planned for years to come in addition to the 2019 release of Episode IX,” Iger said, referring to the film that will follow “The Last Jedi.”
Star Wars has grown into the most lucrative and influential movie franchise of all time since the original film was released in 1977. It has become ingrained in a geek culture that gave rise to Silicon Valley and disruptive technologies.
Californian filmmaker George Lucas was 33 years old when he prepared to release his third feature — a far-fetched, slightly corny intergalactic saga of good and evil starring a sulky farm boy with daddy issues.
“I’m running out of hyperbolic adjectives to describe the power of Star Wars, but that’s because it is the ultimate standard-bearer,” Shawn Robbins, chief analyst for BoxOffice.com, told AFP in an earlier interview marking the 40th anniversary of the original film.
“Four decades of record-breaking, genre-defining entertainment across film, television, video games, toys, books and everything else the brand has touched simply speaks for itself.”
Lucasfilm debuted its highly-anticipated second trailer for “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” last month, hinting at dark times ahead for the Resistance and possibly even the end of Leia Organa, one of the main characters in the first three films who returned along with Han Solo in “The Force Awakens.”
The clip for the eighth installment in the blockbuster space opera, due for release on December 15, followed a trailer released in April which teased Luke Skywalker, the star of the original trilogy, teaching newcomer Rey the ways of the Force.
This time around more plot was unveiled, with Luke telling Rey he’d only seen power like hers once before — and while it didn’t scare him enough then, it does now.
Fans speculated on social media that he could be talking about his nephew and Rey’s nemesis Kylo Ren, who is seen in a TIE fighter with his mother General Leia Organa in his sights, his eyes welling up as he prepares to open fire.
Carrie Fisher — who has played the character since she was known simply as Princess Leia in the original 1977-83 trilogy — died in December, having already wrapped her scenes for “The Last Jedi.”
“The Last Jedi” — filmed on the west coast of Ireland and at Pinewood Studios near London — sees the return of the characters introduced in 2015’s seventh installment.
Johnson will write and direct the first installment of the new Star Wars trilogy in a collaboration with Ram Bergman, who will produce the film, according to a release posted online.
“We had the time of our lives collaborating with Lucasfilm and Disney on ‘The Last Jedi’,” Johnson and Bergman said in a joint statement.
“Star Wars is the greatest modern mythology and we feel very lucky to have contributed to it. We can’t wait to continue with this new series of films.”
Disney announces new Star Wars film trilogy, TV series
Disney announces new Star Wars film trilogy, TV series
New York man charged after nearly 70 live cats and two dozen dead kittens are found in his home
- His house also was condemned as uninhabitable
- He was charged with 18 misdemeanor counts of cruelty to animals and animal neglect and ordered to appear in court on May 23
NEW YORK: A suburban New York man has been charged with animal cruelty after authorities say they found nearly 100 cats in his home, including about two dozen dead kittens in a freezer.
The man, 75, surrendered Wednesday to detectives with the Suffolk County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals at a local police precinct, the nonprofit organization said. He was charged with 18 misdemeanor counts of cruelty to animals and animal neglect and ordered to appear in court on May 23.
His house, which is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of Manhattan, also was condemned as uninhabitable because of overpowering odors of feces and urine, authorities said.
The man didn’t immediately respond to a Thursday phone message seeking comment. Court records don’t list a lawyer for him.
Authorities found 69 living cats, many of which had medical ailments including respiratory infections and eye disease, and 28 dead cats at Glantz’s home on Saturday while investigating a complaint about dozens of cats living in squalid conditions, the county SPCA said. About two dozen dead kittens were wrapped up in a freezer and the other deceased animals were found in other parts of the house, according to the group.
Three of the living cats taken from the home later had to be euthanized because they were in such bad shape, the SPCA said.
The surviving cats are being treated at the Islip town animal shelter with the help of the SPCA’s mobile animal and surgical hospital. Officials are working to find new homes for them and seeking donations to help pay for their care. More than two dozen will be brought to upstate New York to be made available for adoption, the SPCA said.
“The house was in absolute deplorable condition,” said Roy Gross, chief of the Suffolk County SPCA. “Feces covered the floors, sprayed on the walls, saturated in urine. The floors were spongy, most likely from the urine. And the ammonia was so extremely high — the ammonia smell from the urine — that the town of Islip fire marshal condemned the house.”
It isn’t clear why the man had so many cats. Gross said the man’s wife died last month and they had lived in the home for more than 30 years.
It has been a busy and trying month for the animal welfare organization, which also has been helping to care for dozens of cats that were injured in a cat sanctuary fire in the nearby hamlet of Medford on March 31. The shelter’s owner was killed in the blaze.
UAE-based nurse nominated for Aster Guardians Global Nursing Award 2025 with $250,000 prize
- Filipino nurse says he will use money for cancer research if he wins
DUBAI: A UAE nurse shortlisted for the Aster Guardian Global Nursing Award 2025 has said that he will not spend a cent of the $250,000 prize money on himself, but instead on pediatric cancer research.
Fitz Gerald Dalina Camacho has been shortlisted for the award, which includes the quarter-of-a-million dollar prize.
The 10 shortlisted for the prize were selected from a record-breaking 100,000 applicants from 199 countries.
The only candidate working in the UAE and wider Arab world, Camacho is listed with nine other nurses in the running for the annual award, which celebrates their dedication and skill.
The Filipino nurse learned about the nomination during a shift at work. “I was shocked when my parents and friends sent me the links on social media. I did not expect to be nominated,” Camacho said.
Despite his modesty, Camacho has an extremely decorated career. After starting his pediatrics training in the Philippines, he moved to the Gulf, first in Saudi Arabia.
“It was quite a transition for me moving to Saudi,” Camacho said. “But it is a very good foundational place where the learning is very (well) supported.”
He has been stationed in the UAE for 11 years and is currently a duty manager at Mediclinic City Hospital in Dubai.
Since starting this post, Camacho has taken it on himself to upskill his nursing colleagues in areas where they might lack experience; especially in different age groups.
“I started an initiative of upskilling our nurses, and training them in terms of rehabilitation and intensive care,” he explained. “If they were an adult nurse, I have skilled them to pediatric and if they were pediatric, I have skilled them to adult.”
But Camacho said that he wants to make a move in his career from education to research so he could pursue one of his passions — pediatric care.
“I’ve seen how patients with cancer struggle,” Camacho said, “So if I were chosen as the winner, then I would use the money for pediatric cancer patients back home in the Philippines.”
The final round of the award will include interviews from a distinguished grand jury. After voting, the winner will be announced at a gala event in Dubai on May 26.
A rare New Zealand snail is filmed for the first time laying an egg from its neck
- What looks like a tiny hen’s egg is seen emerging from an opening below the head of the Powelliphanta augusta snail, a threatened species endemic to New Zealand
WELLINGTON, New Zealand: The strange reproductive habits of a large, carnivorous New Zealand snail were once shrouded in mystery. Now footage of the snail laying an egg from its neck has been captured for the first time, the country’s conservation agency said Wednesday.
What looks like a tiny hen’s egg is seen emerging from an opening below the head of the Powelliphanta augusta snail, a threatened species endemic to New Zealand.
The video was taken at a facility on the South Island’s West Coast, where conservation rangers attempting to save the species from extinction have cared for a population of the snails in chilled containers for nearly two decades.
The conditions in the containers mimic the alpine weather in their only former habitat — a remote mountain they were named for, on the West Coast of the South Island, that has been engulfed by mining.
Observing their habits
Lisa Flanagan from the Department of Conservation, who has worked with the creatures for 12 years, said the species still holds surprises.
“It’s remarkable that in all the time we’ve spent caring for the snails, this is the first time we’ve seen one lay an egg,” she said in a statement.
Like other snails, Powelliphanta augusta are hermaphrodites, which explains how the creatures can reproduce when encased in a hard shell. The invertebrate uses a genital pore on the right side of its body, just below the head, to simultaneously exchange sperm with another snail, which is stored until each creates an egg.
A long but slow reproductive life
Each snail takes eight years to reach sexual maturity, after which it lays about five eggs a year. The egg can take more than a year to hatch.
“Some of our captive snails are between 25 and 30 years old,” said Flanagan. “They’re polar opposites to the pest garden snail we introduced to New Zealand, which is like a weed, with thousands of offspring each year and a short life.”
The dozens of species and subspecies of Powelliphanta snails are only found in New Zealand, mostly in rugged forest and grassland settings where they are threatened by habitat loss.
They are carnivores that slurp up earthworms like noodles, and are some of the world’s largest snails , with oversized, distinctive shells in a range of rich earth colors and swirling patterns.
A political storm
The Powelliphanta augusta was the center of public uproar and legal proceedings in the early 2000s, when an energy company’s plans to mine for coal threatened to destroy the snails’ habitat.
Some 4,000 were removed from the site and relocated, while 2,000 more were housed in chilled storage in the West Coast town of Hokitika to ensure the preservation of the species, which is slow to breed and doesn’t adapt well to new habitats.
In 2011, some 800 of the snails accidentally died in a Department of Conservation refrigerator with faulty temperature control.
But the species’ slow survival continues: In March this year, there were nearly 1,900 snails and nearly 2,200 eggs in captivity, the conservation agency said.
Kenya court fines teens for trying to smuggle protected ants
- The case has received considerable attention after the Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS) accused the four of engaging in “bio-piracy“
- Lornoy and Lodewijckx were arrested in possession of 5,000 queen ants packed in 2,244 tubes in Nakuru County
NAIROBI: A Kenyan court on Wednesday fined four people, including two Belgian teenagers, more than $7,000 for attempting to smuggle thousands of live ants out of the country.
The case has received considerable attention after the Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS) accused the four of engaging in “bio-piracy.”
David Lornoy and Seppe Lodewijckx, both 18 of Belgium, Duh Hung Nguyen of Vietnam, and Dennis Nganga of Kenya all pleaded guilty to possession of the ants, but denied seeking to traffic them.
Lornoy and Lodewijckx were arrested in possession of 5,000 queen ants packed in 2,244 tubes in Nakuru County, around 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the capital Nairobi.
Duh and Nganga were found with ants stored in 140 syringes packed with cotton wool and two containers, according to a charge sheet seen by AFP.
The senior magistrate, Njeri Thuku, made a reference to the slave trade while passing judgment.
“Imagine being violently removed from your home and packed into a container with many others like you. Then imagine being isolated and squeezed into a tiny space where the only source of nourishment for the foreseeable future is glucose water,” she wrote.
“It almost sounds as if the reference above is to slave trade. Yet, it is not slave trade, but it is illegal wildlife trade.”
Lornoy was described as an “ant enthusiast” who kept colonies at home in Belgium and was member of a Facebook group called “Ants and Ant Keeping,” according to the sentencing report.
He told investigators he was not aware that transporting the ants was illegal.
Police had put the value of the ants taken by the Belgians at one million shillings ($7,740).
The haul included the rare Messor cephalotes species, a single queen ant that currently sells for at least $99 each, according to the court report.
Possession of any wildlife specimen or trophy without a permit is a criminal offense in Kenya, with suspects normally subject to a fine of up to $10,000 and five years or more in prison.
The court ultimately sentenced all four to a fine of one million shillings ($7,740), or a year in prison if they failed to pay.
The court said Lornoy and Lodewijckx “do not come across as typical poachers” and were ignorant of the law.
But it said the case reflected a script “that has been played out before in centuries gone by... of Africa having resources that are plundered by the West and now the East.”
The KWS said their action was not only a “wildlife crime but also constitutes bio-piracy.”
The suspects “intended to smuggle the ants to high-value exotic pet markets in Europe and Asia, where demand for rare insect species is rising,” it said in a statement.
Socks and satire: Syrians mock ousted Assad dynasty
- Pictures of the Assad clan have gone from being ubiquitous symbols of repression to objects of derision and mockery
DAMASCUS: At Basel al-Sati's souvenir shop in a central Damascus market, socks bearing caricatures that ridicule ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and his once feared family now sell like hot cakes.
"I want to bring joy to people who've been deprived of happiness for so many days and years," said Sati, 31, displaying pairs of white ankle-length socks.
"Everyone who comes from abroad wants to buy the socks -- some to keep as a souvenir, others to wear mockingly and take pictures," he told AFP.
"There are even some who buy them just to stomp on them," he said.
Stamping on someone's image is considered deeply insulting in the Arab world, so the socks allow wearers to trample the Assads underfoot as they walk.
Pictures of the Assad clan have gone from being ubiquitous symbols of repression to objects of derision and mockery since his December 8 ouster by Islamist-led forces after nearly 14 years of devastating civil war.
Some socks showing Assad in sunglasses read "We will trample them", while others depict him with heavily exaggerated features.
Others bear a caricature of Hafez al-Assad who ruled Syria before his son, depicted in his underwear and chest puffed out.
They bear the phrase "This is what the Assads look like" -- a play on the family's last name, which means lion.
Assad's once feared younger brother Maher labelled "the captagon king" also features. Western governments accused Maher and his entourage of turning Syria into a narco state, flooding the Middle East with the illegal stimulant.
Sati's shop, brimming with other gift items, is decorated with images from Syria's revolution.
An image of Assad is on the ground at the entrance so people can walk on it.
"It's another kind of celebration, for all the Syrians who couldn't celebrate in Ummayad Square after the fall of the regime," Sati said.
The Damascus landmark filled with huge crowds from across the country and hosted days of celebrations after Assad's ouster, with people raising the now official three-starred flag symbolising the revolution.
Afaf Sbano, 40, who returned after fleeing to Germany a decade ago, said she had come to buy "Assad socks", which sell for around a dollar a pair, for friends.
There is "no better" gift for those "who can't come to Syria to celebrate the fall of the regime", she told AFP.
"I bought more than 10 extra pairs for my friends after I shared a photo on Instagram," she said.
"We had never dared to even imagine making fun of him" before, she added.
Manufacturer Zeyad Zaawit, 29, said the idea of socks to mock the Assads came to him after the former ruler was deposed and fled to Russia.
Zaawit started with a small number and then ramped up production when he saw they were selling fast.
"People hate him," Zaawit said of Assad.
"I took revenge on him this way after he fled," he said, adding that the socks were so popular that some customers even paid in advance.
Zaawit said he produced around 1,000 pairs in the first week and has since tripled production, making more than 200,000 pairs in three months.
Images of the socks have been shared widely on social media and they have even been used in satirical television programmes.
Assad's own words have also been turned against him -- including a refusal to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a foe who is close to Syria's new authorities.
Erdogan made repeated overtures to Assad in the period before his overthrow.
In August 2023, Assad famously said: "Why should I meet Erdogan? To drink refreshments?"
The pronouncement, now the subject of jokes on social media, appears on posters in food and juice stalls, sometimes accompanied by mocking images of Assad.
