Is the Force still strong with Luke Skywalker?

The first trailer for “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” dropped on Friday, showcasing a morose and withdrawn Skywalker. The two-minute teaser , unveiled by director Rian Johnson at the “Star Wars Celebration” fan event in Orlando, Florida, offered few clues to the film. But it notably includes Mark Hamill’s iconic hero gravely intoning, “It’s time for the Jedi to end,” from a dark cave.

The trailer whetted the appetites of ravenous “Star Wars” fans who turned out in droves in Orlando and online, where the event was streamed live. Actor Josh Gad, a Disney star from another universe (“Frozen,” “Beauty and the Beast”), hosted a panel including Johnson, producer Kathleen Kennedy and cast members Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and a new addition, Kelly Marie Tran.

“The Last Jedi” picks off where “The Force Awakens” left off, with Rey (Ridley) meeting Luke on a remote island, filmed off the coast of Ireland. Some shots in the trailer also suggested Skywalker training Rey on the island. In “The Force Awakens,” Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren has turned to the dark side after being tutored by Luke.

The presentation was mostly a game of teasing hints about the film while revealing very little about it.

“I actually can tell you some things. A small amount,” said Ridley, laughing. She said the film will go “deep” into Rey’s story and reveal how it can be difficult meeting your heroes — presumably alluding to a cranky Skywalker. “They may not be what you expect,” said Ridley to knowing groans in the crowd.

“The Force Awakens” director and “Last Jedi” producer J.J. Abrams has previously hailed Hamill’s performance in the film, suggesting it could land him an Oscar nomination. Hamill, the most raucously received star on Friday, said he drew on his own experiences for this new chapter in Luke’s life.

“I said: I have to relate to things that are real in my own life to understand where Luke is at this point in his life,” Hamill said.

“The Last Jedi” is due in theaters Dec. 15.
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Texas has a wealth of oil and gas production facilities, hundreds of ranches … and 14 national park sites that protect and preserve some of America’s most precious natural, cultural and historic land and waterscapes.

National parks traveler Mikah Meyer, who’s on a mission to visit all of the more than 400 sites within the National Park Service, crossed into Texas via its eastern border, eager to begin his ambitious adventures across the vast state.

Magical moments

First stop, Big Thicket National Preserve, which protects almost 45,780 hectares (113,121.96 acres) of land and water spread over seven counties in southeast Texas.

Mikah enjoyed the quiet beauty of a swamp cypress tupelo forest as he glided through one of its many rivers on a small boat. The dominant trees in most of the Big Thicket swamps are bald cypress and water tupelo which look primeval in appearance.

“There was something mystical and magical about the place even though it didn’t have the big sweeping vista that other parks might have,” Mikah observed.

Timeless beauty

Mikah found more natural beauty at Padre Island National Seashore near Corpus Christi, which protects 112 kilometers (70 miles) of coastline, dunes, prairies, and wind tidal flats, teeming with life.

To get to Padre Island, he had to travel through Houston, the most populous city in Texas, (which has no national park sites), and he said he couldn’t help but notice the contrast between the urban environment and the natural one.

“It was interesting to contrast this state that is so well known for oil… and then just to the southeast of this city known for oil production there’s the world’s longest undeveloped barrier island.”

“What I’m learning about the seashores is that what really makes them unique is that they present the opportunity to experience our coastal land as it was before human development,” Mikah said.

Timeless journeys

That seems to be the recurring theme as Mikah travels across the country from one national seashore to another.

“Everything from Cape Cod National Seashore to Canaveral National Seashore, Gulf Islands National Seashore and now Padre Island National Seashore — the consistency is that they offer the opportunity to experience undeveloped beaches,” he emphasized.

Near the park’s visitor center is an area where the tides come together, bringing with them literally tons of trash, which get swept up onto the beach. The park service uses that naturally occurring event as an opportunity to teach school children about conservation.

“They give them a trash bag and the kids can go out and pick up trash and they talk about conservation and taking care of the earth,” Mikah explained. “So it’s a cool way to see how the National Seashore is trying to involve the next generation in preserving and taking care of these lands,” he added.

A mammoth discovery

When people hear the name Waco, Texas, many associate it with the deadly siege carried out by federal agents of a compound belonging to the Branch Davidian religious group in 1993.

But the city was famous long before then for something a little more appealing.

As Mikah describes it, in 1978, two young friends, Paul Barron and Eddie Bufkin, were looking for old Native American arrowheads in the area near their homes when they found a bone sticking out of the ground. “So they started digging around it and it turned out to be a mammoth tusk,” Mikah explained.

The young men removed the bone and took it to Baylor University’s Strecker Museum (predecessor to the Mayborn Museum Complex) for examination. Museum staff identified the find as a femur bone from a Columbian mammoth. This extinct species lived during the Pleistocene Epoch (more commonly known as the Ice Age) and inhabited North America from southern Canada to as far south as Costa Rica.

That stunning discovery launched a massive archaeological dig “that produced the largest — and what I think is the only — find ever of an entire herd of mammoths,” Mikah said.

A lost world

Strecker Museum staff quickly organized a team of volunteers and excavation began at the site. The crews slowly excavated a lost world. Between 1978 and 1990, they uncovered the fossil remains of 16 Columbian mammoths. Their efforts revealed a nursery herd that appears to have died together in a single natural event. Six additional mammoths as well as the fossil remains of many other animal species have been excavated in the years since, including the tooth of a juvenile saber-toothed cat and a camel that lived approximately 67,000 years ago.

Waco Mammoth National Monument was designated as a new unit of the National Park System by President Barack Obama in 2015.

“When you hear the word Waco you think of compounds and biker gangs, so you know it’s good that they have some things a little less controversial to be known for,” Mikah observed.

Mikah invites you to join him as he continues his journey across the Lone Star state by visiting his website, Facebook and Instagram.

 
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The local publisher of Vogue Arabia has announced Manuel Arnaut as its new editor-in-chief a day after the surprise exit of its former editor.

Arnaut is currently the editor-in-chief of Architectural Digest Middle East, which like Vogue Arabia, is a publication of Conde Nast International.

In a statement released Friday, Dubai-based publisher Nervora said Arnaut, who hails from Portugal, will begin as editor-in-chief of Vogue Arabia May 7.

The fashion magazine’s new edition for the Middle East had published just two print issues when it was reported Thursday that its editor-in-chief, Saudi Princess Deena Aljuhani Abdulaziz, was no longer in the post.

She was quoted in a statement to insider fashion website Business of Fashion saying she was fired because she refused to compromise on her vision for the magazine.
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On April 15, 2013, the Boston Marathon bombing shook the world. Two bombs that exploded 12 seconds apart near the finish line of the world famous race killed three people and injured an estimated 264 others who were treated at 27 hospitals. At least 14 people required amputations. 

Movies such as the feature film Patriots Day have offered a dramatized account of those events. But Jon Dunham’s documentary Boston, narrated by Boston native Matt Damon, looks beyond the bombings, weaving an uplifting narrative of the race from its inception in 1897 to 2014, the year after the attacks.

Watch: Boston Documentary Chronicles the History of Boston Marathon

A lot of grieving

By the size of the race, the sheer enthusiasm of the 36,000 racers and the community spirit during the 2014 Boston Marathon, no one would have guessed that the year before, the event, its participants and the city itself had been devastated by a terrorist attack. 

The bombings weighed heavily on filmmaker Jon Dunham, a marathon runner who had planned, for years before the attacks, to make a documentary about the history of the race.

“There were a number of feelings — there was certainly a lot of grieving for what had happened. I walked up and down Boylston Street every day as soon as I arrived here in Boston in January of 2014, and just thought about it every day,” the filmmaker said.

A history of the race

His documentary Boston does not focus on the pain and fear in 2013. Instead, it chronicles the Boston Marathon as an event that has fostered charity, unity and strength since its inception in 1897.

Dunham’s film follows the growth of the event through the decades. The race has become more selective, the runners faster. They come from all over the world to compete. One of them is Kenyan runner Wilson Chebet.

“Long time ago, when I was a child, I used to run to school. 3.7 kilometers. Lunchtime you come back, you go to school after lunch, and then in the evening you come home,” Chebet said.

War connection

The documentary shows how the race also has grown into a major fundraising event. 

It started with Greek Olympic athlete Stylianos Kyriakides, who won the Boston Marathon in 1946 and used his notoriety as a Boston Marathon champion to raise funds and put together supplies that aided Greece after WWI, Dunham said.

He says the history of the marathon has been intrinsically connected with war. 

“It is interesting to consider the marathon in the context of war, even if you want to go back to the whole idea of the marathon. … The Battle of Marathon in Greece and the Athenians having triumphed over the invading Persians and then the messenger being sent from Marathon to Athens to share new good news, that they had been victorious in this battle. That of course being the idea for creating a Marathon race came from,” Dunham said.

Ready for 2017

With just a few days before this year’s race, Boston is getting ready. T.K. Skenderian, director of communications at the Boston Athletic Association, is in the middle of the preparations.

“In the year that followed (the Boston Marathon bombing), and in the years that have followed, the sense of solidarity and community pride that has emerged from not just those injured but people locally, people from around the world, has been overwhelming. I mean that sense of civic pride, city pride, and pride in the sport of running has been enormous. Yeah, we got knocked down but we got back up in a big way.”

Two days before the 121st running of the Boston Marathon, Jon Dunham’s documentary is premiering in its namesake city.

“There are so many things we cannot control in life, but getting out and running, setting a goal like running a marathon, is something that can be done, and it really does change lives, and it is something very positive,” the Boston filmmaker said.
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On April 15, 2013, the Boston Marathon bombing shook the world. Movies such as the feature film “Patriots Day” offered a dramatized account of those events. But Jon Dunham’s documentary “Boston,” narrated by Boston native Matt Damon, looks beyond the bombings, weaving an uplifting narrative of the race from its inception in 1897 to 2014, the year after the attacks. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.
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How do you celebrate 40 years of Star Wars in 90 minutes?

With a surprise Harrison Ford appearance, a touching Carrie Fisher tribute, a John Williams performance and a fair amount of jokes about George Lucas’ dialogue, of course.

Attendees at Star Wars Celebration were treated to that and more Thursday in Orlando, Florida, at the kick-off of the four-day fan event marking the anniversary of Lucas’ space saga.

Actor Warwick Davis moderated the sprawling look-back at the four decade legacy, featuring appearances by Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy, Mark Hamill, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew and Hayden Christensen.

There were also video messages from Liam Neeson, who joked that a film was being made about Jar Jar Binks going to the dark side, and from Samuel L. Jackson, who cheekily suggested that his prequel character Mace Windu is not dead.

“Let’s make it happen,” Jackson said directly to Kennedy. “All you gotta do is say the word.”

Ford sticks the landing

Ford’s unexpected appearance garnered the most enthusiastic response from the thousands of fans in the convention center.

“I can’t believe we managed to keep it a secret considering you landed your plane” on Interstate 4, Davis joked when the applause died down.

“It was a good landing,” Ford said, smiling. 

The actor has historically had a tenuous relationship with the fandom around his character Han Solo, but he appeared genuinely happy to reminisce Thursday about the lasting legacy of Lucas’ creation. 

Lucas said he had worked with Ford on American Graffiti when he gave Ford the part because it was about “spaceships and flying” and he could fly.

Ford, quoting another of his iconic characters, Indiana Jones, quipped back, “Fly? Yes. Land? No.”

Well-told tales

For Star Wars super fans, most of the behind the scenes stories told were as well-known as the stories in the actual films — from the fact that Lucas’ inspiration for Chewbacca was his dog Indiana to the actors’ problems with Lucas’ fanciful and technical dialogue.

“How can you make it sound like it’s spontaneous dialogue rolling off the tongue?” Hamill asked.

“He was right. It was a bit much,” Lucas responded.

Ford laughed.

“I said to George, ‘You can type this stuff but you can’t say it. Move your mouth when you’re typing,”’ Ford said.

Fisher tribute

Missing, of course, was Carrie Fisher, who died late last year at 60. Lucas and Kennedy saved their words about Fisher for the end.

“She was very strong, very smart, very funny, very bold and very tough. There were not very many people like her. They’re one in a billion,” Lucas said, recalling Fisher’s willingness to tell him when his dialogue was too difficult to say in portraying Princess Leia. “We’ll all love her forever and ever.”

Fisher’s daughter Billie Lourd, who acted alongside her mother in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, appeared on stage decked in Princess Leia white to remember her mother and grandmother Debbie Reynolds. Hamill also has planned a Fisher tribute for Friday.

Star Wars composer John Williams closed out the session, conducting the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of his score, from the Imperial March to the Main Title.

Star Wars Celebration runs through Sunday and includes a myriad of events for fans, many of which can be streamed online. 

Perhaps the most anticipated is a talk with Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson on Friday in advance of its December release.
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More than 50 U.S. cities will be hosting Make Music Day, a free one-day outdoor festival celebrating music and music-making.

The annual event is June 21, the summer solstice.

Highlights of Make Music Day in the U.S. will include Sousapaloozas in Chicago; Cleveland; Madison, Wisconsin; Minneapolis-St. Paul; New York; and San Jose, California.

Part of Make Music Day is an event called Mass Appeal in which musicians play together in single-instruments groups. Featured instruments will include guitars, harmonicas, accordions, trombones, bassoons, French horns and harps. More than 150 are scheduled.

Street Studios in Atlanta; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Minneapolis-St. Paul; New York; and Philadelphia will give passers-by a chance to collaborate in producing original music.

The festival began in France in 1982 and has since spread to 750 cities across 120 countries.
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University of Michigan mechanical engineering students have made one of the most popular puzzle games much larger. And tougher to solve.

Seven former and current students unveiled a 1,500-pound Rubik’s Cube during a ceremony Thursday inside the G.G. Brown engineering building on the Ann Arbor campus. The massive, mostly aluminum structure is meant to be played by students and others on campus.

Four students came up with the idea three years ago and handed down the project to other students.

“It’s the largest solvable mechanical stationary Rubik’s Cube,” said Ryan Kuhn, a 22-year-old senior who helped assemble the giant puzzle this week. “It was kind of an urban myth of North Campus, this giant Rubik’s Cube that’s been going on for a while.”

The oversized version of the brain-teasing 3-D puzzle, which has flummoxed players since its heyday in the 1980s, is much harder to decipher than its diminutive counterpart, said Kuhn, who called it an “interactive mechanical art piece.”

The puzzle is solved when the player is able to manipulate the cube until all nine squares on each of its six sides display an individual color.

“It’s very reasonable that it could take at least an hour” to solve, said Martin Harris, who helped conceive the project in 2014 while hanging out in the College of Engineering honors office.
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Twenty years ago on April 13, 1997, American athlete Tiger Woods made history, winning one of golf’s most prestigious tournaments, the Masters, in Augusta, Georgia. He became the youngest golfer to win – and he did it by 12 strokes, a record that still stands.

​That day, Woods not only shot a 72-hole score of 18-under-par 270, but he also shattered the Masters record of 271 that Jack Nicklaus and Raymond Floyd had shared. 

By June 1997, Woods was ranked No. 1 in the world.

Two years later, he won eight PGA tournaments, earned a record $6 million in prize money and began a winning streak that eventually tied Ben Hogan’s in 1948, the second-longest in PGA history. 

Much of his success is owed to Tiger’s close relationship to his father, Earl, who coached his prodigal son since childhood.

In June 2000, Woods won his first U.S. Open, considered the most challenging golf tournament in the world. Woods shot a record 12-under-par 272 to finish 15 strokes ahead of his nearest competitors. 

It was considered the greatest professional golf performance in history, surpassing even his 1997 Masters’ triumph and the 1862 showing by Old Tom Morris. 

In July 2000, Woods captured the British Open, and in August the PGA championship. At the age of 24, he was the youngest player ever to win all four major golf titles and just the second to win three majors in a year.

His winning streak slowed in the 2000’s around the time he married Elin Nordegren, a Swedish former model with whom he had two children.

The golfer won his 10th major, the British Open, in 2005. 

His performance fluctuated throughout the rest of the decade as he struggled with a torn ACL. His career took a further hit in 2009 in relation to a car accident outside his Florida home.

Later, several women came forward alleging they had affairs with the famous golfer. Nordegren divorced him in August 2010.

Woods’ last win took place in 2013.  

Woods planned to play throughout 2017, but a nagging back injury forced him to announce last month that he was withdrawing from the 2017 Masters. 
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The International Olympic Committee said Thursday that it still planned to hold its annual meeting in Lima despite the devastating recent floods in Peru.

The 2024 Olympic hosting vote between Los Angeles and Paris is set for September 13, the opening day of the IOC session.

Peru’s suitability for the weeklong Olympic meetings was questioned in ongoing fallout from heavy rains and mudslides last month.

The IOC said the Peruvian government confirmed Thursday that its preparations were “going ahead as planned.”

Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said hosting the Olympic meetings would “send a vital message to the world and to Peru that we are ready to welcome the world after the emergency situation.”

Last week, the IOC and Pan American Sports Organization made a $600,000 donation to flood recovery work.
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Russia’s lack of progress in cleaning up its doping culture and introducing a satisfactory testing regime continues to impede the country’s reinstatement to athletics, the IAAF said Thursday.

Providing its latest update on Russia’s state-sponsored doping system, the  International Association of Athletics Federations also criticized the country’s decision to make Yelena Isinbayeva the head of the country’s scandalized anti-doping agency.

“It is difficult to see how this helps to achieve the desired change in culture in Russia track and field, or how it helps to promote an open environment for Russian whistle-blowers,” Russia task force chairman Rune Andersen said in his report to the IAAF Council.

Isinbayeva repeatedly criticized the World Anti-Doping Agency, framed doping investigations as an anti-Russian plot and called for a leading whistle-blower to be banned for life.

The two-time gold medalist and world-record holder missed the Rio de Janeiro Olympics because of a ban on Russia’s athletics team that is unlikely to be lifted soon, based on the IAAF’s fresh concerns.

Tough stance stays

“There is no reason why better progress has not been made,” IAAF President Sebastian Coe said, adding that the IAAF would not soften its tough stance.

“There is testing but it is still far too limited,” Coe said. He said the Russian investigative committee was “still refusing to hand over athlete biological passport samples for independent testing from labs”; some athletes remained in “closed cities that are difficult or impossible to get to”; coaches from a tainted system were still employed; and “we have got the head coach of RUSAF [Russia’s athletics federation] effectively refusing to sign their own pledge” to clean up its culture.

The IAAF is allowing some Russians to compete internationally as neutrals while their country remained banned, with 12 athletes proving they have been adequately tested for drugs over a lengthy period by non-Russian agencies.

The athletes are still “subject to acceptance of their entries by individual meeting organizers,” such as the Diamond League series, the IAAF has said. The 14-meet circuit opens on May 5 in Doha, Qatar.
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Every night, the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland glistens with an array of lights from the waterside restaurants and shops, creating lovely water reflections. But during the Light City festival, illuminated sculptures and colorful interactive light displays add to the beauty along the waterfront.
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