Downton Abbey film is a possibility

Plus: New Dr Dre album out this week, Bobby Brown says farewell to daughter, Angelina Jolie meets Myanmar factory women, Italian police confiscate Snoop Dogg cash, and Rapper held after urging fans to climb over barricades.

From left: Laura Carmichael as Lady Edith Crawley, Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary Crawley, Jessica Brown-Findlay as Lady Sybil Crawley, in Downton Abbey. Courtesy Masterpiece

With Downton Abbey coming to an end on TV, its executive producer has offered hope for fans that there may be more to come, with a follow-up movie a possibility. By ending the TV drama several years before the 1929 stock-market crash, producer Gareth Neame said there is rich story territory left to be mined in a film. He told TV critics on Saturday that the possibility had been discussed, but there was no script or a firm plan as yet. "I think a Downton Abbey movie could be a wonderful thing," he said, but added that it was time for the TV series to end while it was still popular. The Television Critics Association panel discussion was bittersweet, as the show's stars and producers looked back at past seasons and forward to the conclusion. The sixth and final season will begin airing in September in the UK and in January in the United States. Neame said some faces from the past would return but the focus would be on wrapping up storylines for the main cast. The drama about the upstairs-downstairs lives of the owners and staff of a stately English mansion dealing with social changes in the early 20th century will finish filming on August 15. Production at Highclere, the real-life estate that stood in for Downton Abbey, finished recently. "Laura [Carmichael, who plays Edith Crawley] and I wandered around for the last time," said Michelle Dockery, who played Mary Crawley. "Suddenly we didn't want to go home. It was really funny." She said they had a bit of a cry, which will likely be the case for fans of the show, which is the highest-rated PBS drama ever. – AP

New Dr Dre album out this week

Hip-hop super-producer Dr Dre announced on Saturday that the wait is finally over and he will release his first album in 15 years on Friday. He said on his radio show, The Pharmacy, that Compton a Soundtrack by Dr Dre was inspired by the NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton, a Hollywood film that details his rise in the music industry along with members of one of the genre's most well-known hardcore groups. Dre said the album features contributions from Ice Cube, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem and Snoop Dogg. It's his first album since 2001, which was released in 1999. Dre said it will be his grand finale "and the record is bananas". – AP

Bobby Brown says farewell to daughter

R&B singer Bobby Brown emerged from the funeral of his daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, on Saturday, staring at the ground before lifting his head up and briefly gazing at the sky. Dressed in all black, he was one of the first to leave the private memorial service at the St James United Methodist Church in Alpharetta, north of Atlanta. Bobbi Kristina, 22, his only child with the late singer Whitney Houston, died in hospice care on July 26, about six months after she was found facedown and unresponsive in a bathtub at her home. Several celebrities showed up for the funeral, including filmmaker Tyler Perry, Grammy-winning R&B singer Monica and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. In the middle of the service, Bobby Brown’s sister, Leolah Brown, walked out of the church and told reporters she was angry because Pat Houston – Whitney Houston’s sister-in-law and former manager – was speaking at the funeral. “I told her that Whitney is going to haunt her from the grave,” Leolah Brown said, adding that a long-running feud between the Houstons and the Browns was far from over. “It’s just getting started,” she said before going back inside the church. Bobbi Kristina’s death was grimly similar to the way her mother died three years earlier. Houston’s assistant found the singer’s lifeless body facedown in a foot of water in her bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel just before the Grammy Awards in 2012. Authorities found prescription drugs in the suite, and evidence of heart disease and cocaine in her body, but determined her death was an accidental drowning. Bobbi Kristina was found in the home she shared with Nick Gordon, an orphan three years older, whom Houston had raised as her own son. A police report earlier this year described the incident as a drowning, but authorities are still investigating her death. – AP

Angelina Jolie meets Myanmar factory women

Hollywood actress and director Angelina Jolie joined Myanmar’s opposition leader, democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, to meet female factory staff, and learn more about their dire working conditions. Jolie, a special envoy for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, is on a four-day visit to the country. During her meeting with the workers on the outskirts of an industrial zone in Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, Jolie and Suu Kyi saw how the women live mostly in low-cost hostels. Jolie also toured the factory. She travelled to Kachin state this week, home to more than 10,000 people displaced after a ceasefire between Myanmar’s government and ethnic rebels broke down in 2011. It is her first visit to Myanmar, which only recently emerged from decades of military rule. More than a dozen ethnic minority groups, mostly in Myanmar’s border areas, have been fighting for greater autonomy since the country attained independence from Britain 67 years ago. Recently, world attention has turned to the plight of stateless Rohingya Muslims, who have been trafficked from Myanmar and Bangladesh aboard overcrowded boats. – AP

Italian police confiscate Snoop Dogg cash

Snoop Dogg has had another run-in with European authorities. Italian financial police said they stopped the rapper at Lamezia Terme airport in Calabria on Saturday with US$422,000 (Dh1.5 million) in cash, well above the limit that can legally be transported across European Union borders undeclared. The incident comes less than a week after the rapper was briefly stopped in Sweden on suspicion of drug use after a concert near Stockholm. Police confirmed that half of the cash was impounded under Italian anti-money laundering rules. In such cases, the balance is returned minus any fine set by magistrates. Travellers within the European Union are required to declare €10,000 (Dh40,439) or more in cash. Snoop Dogg played in Calabria on Friday night, and at the Kendal Calling Festival in England yesterday. Last weekend in Sweden, the rapper was questioned and tested for suspected drug use. Authorities said test results would not be available for some time. – AP

Rapper held after urging fans to climb over barricades

Rapper Travis Scott faces disorderly conduct charges after encouraging fans to jump over security barricades during his performance at Lollapalooza. The rapper, whose real name is Jacques Webster, was arrested on Saturday during the second day of the three-day music festival in downtown Chicago. Office of Emergency Management spokeswoman Melissa Stratton said Scott performed one song, then told fans to climb over the barricades. He fled the scene but was taken into custody a short time later. No fans were injured. She said Scott would be charged with disorderly conduct. – AP