The first photo of the new villain from Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens was unveiled on Monday. The image, published in Vanity Fair, shows Girls star Adam Driver as black-clad baddie Kylo Ren. The character had appeared in the first trailer for the film, carrying a distinctive crossbar lightsaber, but his face was not shown. The photos in the magazine's June edition were released on May 4 — celebrated by fans of the films as Star Wars Day by saying "May the Fourth Be With You", a pun on the Jedi mantra. The cover of the magazine shows Harrison Ford as Han Solo with Chewbacca and new characters Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega) and the new BB-8 droid. The Force Awakens, which was partly filmed in Abu Dhabi, will be released on December 18. — AFP
UK government feels The Force
Star Wars Episode VIII will be filmed in Britain, the United Kingdom government announced on Monday — prompting some to speculate that David Cameron's beleaguered ruling Conservative party was attempting to use the Force to secure success in tomorrow's general election. Finance minister George Osborne made the announcement on May 4, describing it as "great news for the UK as a whole". He said it would bring about £100 million (Dh555m) in investment and create 3,000 jobs. The movie is expected to start filming next year and be released in 2017. Like Episode VII: The Force Awakens, and the previous movies in the saga, Episode VIII will be primarily filmed at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, also the home of the James Bond films. — AFP
Obama and Letterman plan their futures
Barack Obama sees a future of playing dominoes with fellow retiree David Letterman. The United States president joked about a quieter future for them both during his eighth Late Show appearance on Monday, as he paid tribute to the veteran comedian, saying Americans had grown up with him. "After a tough day at the office, knowing that you've been there to give us a little bit of joy and a little bit of laughter, it has meant so much," Obama said. "You're part of all of us. You've given us a great gift and we love you." Letterman, who has hosted the Late Show for 33 years, is filling his CBS show with high-profile guests in the run-up to his final show on May 20. Letterman returned Obama's praise by complimenting his "very funny" performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner last month. Obama also said that, like Letterman, he was looking forward to life out of the spotlight. "I was thinking you and me could play some dominoes together," Obama said. "We could go to the local Starbucks and swap stories." –AP
Lauryn Hill cancels Israel gig
Singer Lauryn Hill has cancelled a concert in Israel, saying she had tried unsuccessfully to arrange a performance in Palestine as well. The former Fugees singer was due to perform tomorrow near Tel Aviv but a social-media campaign had urged her to boycott Israel over its occupation of Palestinian land. Hill said that she had wanted to schedule a second show in Ramallah in the West Bank, but that the logistics “proved to be a challenge”. “I’ve wanted very much to bring our live performance to this part of the world, but also to be a presence supporting justice and peace,” she wrote on her website. Former Take That star Robbie Williams, who performed in Abu Dhabi at du Arena on April 25, faced criticism when he ignored boycott calls and went ahead with a concert in Tel Aviv on Saturday. — AFP
Google goes in search of Jedi lore
Star Wars fans no longer have to search their feelings to discover the truth. They can just Google it. The search engine revealed on Monday that it has added information from the Star Wars universe into Google's Knowledge Graph, the first time it has done this for fictional information. The Knowledge Graph answers direct questions, either typed or spoken. After typing, "Who is Luke's father?" for example, Google now replies "Darth Vader" in a box that offers a short summary with clickable links for more information. — AP
Dances With Wolves writer dies
Michael Blake, the writer whose novel Dances With Wolves became a hit movie and earned him an Academy Award for the screenplay, died on Saturday in Tucson, Arizona, at the age of 69 after a long battle with cancer. Blake, who wrote several novels, is best known for Dances With Wolves, which he wrote when he had no money at the urging of his longtime friend, actor Kevin Costner. The novel — a Civil War epic about an army lieutenant who befriends a Native American tribe — was relatively unsuccessful but it became an award-winning film after Costner asked Blake to adapt it into a movie. It sold 3.5 million copies after the movie became a hit, winning seven Academy Awards. — AP
Elton John glasses-theft suspect charged
A man who police say stole Elton John's heart-shaped glasses from a museum display in Memphis has been indicted on a felony theft charge. Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich's office said that 26-year-old Matthew Colvin of Cordova was charged with theft of property worth more than US$1,000. The glasses were reported stolen on April 21 from the Rock' n' Soul Museum. Colvin was being held in the Shelby County jail on a $25,000 bond after being transferred to Tennessee from DeSoto County, Mississippi. Flamboyant glasses and outfits have been part of Elton John's signature look through the years. — AP
Collection of letters reveal insight into Mark Twain’s early life
Scholars at the University of California, Berkeley have pieced together a collection of dispatches written by Mark Twain when the author was a young journalist in San Francisco.
In the letters, the man who would write The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, likened the city's police chief to a dog chasing its tail and accused city government of rascality. Some of the letters carried his flair for embellishment and may not be entirely true.
“This is a very special period in his life, when he’s out here in San Francisco,” said Bob Hirst, general editor of the Mark Twain Project on the Berkeley campus.
“He’s utterly free, he’s not encumbered by a marriage or much of anything else, and he can speak his mind and does speak his mind. These things are wonderful to read, the ones that survived.”
Twain was probably about 29 years old when he started filing daily columns for the Territorial Enterprise newspaper in Virginia City, Nevada, in 1865. He wrote a 2,000-word story, or "letter," six days a week for a salary of $100 a month, Hirst said.
Many of the letters were in back issues lost to fires through the years, but Twain scholars picked through archives of other newspapers for copies. They have found about 110 columns written in 1865 and 1866.
Twain was struggling at that time with his career, uncertain whether writing humorously was literature, Hirst said.
In an 1865 letter to his brother, Twain wrote of contemplating suicide, partly due to debt. But his time in San Francisco may have helped change that and the following year, he moved to Hawaii. — AP
