Protesters urged the Venezuelan government to bring rice imports under control. (Archive)
Caracas, June 22, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Hundreds of rice producers took to the streets on Sunday in Calabozo, Guárico state, to urge the Venezuelan government to take action against agribusiness imports and price fixing.
The “tractorazo” saw local campesinos block one of the state’s major highways with tractors, trucks, and other heavy machinery carrying Venezuelan flags and signs with some of the main demands. Local sources estimated turnout at over 300.
“We are here on behalf of the producing states in Venezuela with a struggle that is just and urgent,” local spokesman José de la Cueva stated. “We urge the Venezuelan government to review its public policies so that national production is not destroyed.”
De la Cueva and other speakers emphasized the need for authorities to control imports, establish fair prices, and implement subsidies for the production of rice and other crops. Protesters contended that they have no conditions to compete with imports from countries where rice is subsidized, including Brazil and the US.
Rice growers, particularly in agricultural states Barinas, Cojedes, Guárico, and Portuguesa, have warned for months that agroindustry conglomerates have been importing massively since February.
According to agribusiness lobby FEDEAGRO, Venezuela has received more than 300,000 tons of imported rice in recent months. The amount is nearly half the 683,000 reportedly produced in the Caribbean country in 2025.
FEDEAGRO has complained that the exoneration of tariffs and import taxes is benefiting imported rice against national competitors. Imports of other crops such as corn have also skyrocketed, with purchases from the US more than tripling in the first five months of 2026 when compared to the previous year.
Meanwhile, campesinos have repeatedly denounced that local agribusiness corporations outright refuse to receive rice crops or attempt to impose prices as low as US $0.30 per kilo. Venezuela’s Agriculture Ministry established $0.40 per kilo following meetings with agroindustry and campesino representatives. Producers complained that the price did not take into account rising production costs and risked driving them bankrupt.
Alongside the latest street mobilization, rural organizations have likewise called for a boycott of Venezuela’s main agrifood conglomerates, including Polar and Iancarina.
The Small Farmers Movement (MPA), one of the organizations that took part in Sunday’s protest, issued a statement stressing that the defense of Venezuelan production and food sovereignty should become a “national unity cause.”
“This protest is about the survival of thousands of campesino families,” the text read. “It denounces the cruelty of agroindustry bosses whose voracious appetite for profit is fueling imports during harvest seasons to drive prices down.”
The MPA added that the growth of agricultural output in recent years has been based on “the exploitation of the work of thousands of campesinos” and urged social movements not to stay silent when it comes to the reality of small-scale producers in the countryside.
The campesino organization urged the government to adopt a series of measures, including implementing fair prices for rice and corn, reviewing import policies during harvest seasons, and investigating the “cartelization of prices” by agroindustry oligopolies. The MPA also called attention to the lack of credit for small-scale producers, which leaves them vulnerable to predatory lending agreements, including ones where they are offered seeds and inputs in exchange for a significant percentage of the harvest.
In a recent meeting with campesinos in Guárico state, National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez vowed to investigate the issue of rice imports, claiming he was not previously aware of it. He urged agribusinesses to respect the previously agreed $0.40 price and called on public banks to reactivate credit for rural producers.
In recent years, with the economy heavily constrained by US sanctions, the Nicolás Maduro government moved to liberalize agricultural policies, transferring state competencies to the private sector, including provisioning of seed and fertilizer inputs and access to tractors. Fuel subsidies have also been phased out, with small-scale producers highlighting it as a major factor driving up production costs.
Jeremy Clarkson took to Instagram this weekend with an exciting update on his hit Prime Video series
Jeremy Clarkson officially confirms Clarkson’s Farm Season 6
The update comes days after his cancer diagnosis was revealed.
Clarkson’s Farm Season 6 is officially in the works at Prime Video, Jeremy Clarkson has confirmed.
The news comes days after the fifth outing of the former Top Gear star’s hit series concluded with the devastating news that he has been diagnosed with cancer.
Jeremy took to Instagram this weekend with a filmed update in front of a Lamborghini tractor.
“So, bit of a year,” he began. “But, I am delighted to tell you that Season 6 of Clarkson’s Farm is currently being filmed. It’s in production.
“And that’s particularly good news for me because… well, if you know, you know.
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“And, if you don’t know, you need to watch Season 5.”
Despite Jeremy being diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer, which devastated his farming colleagues Kaleb Cooper and Charlie Ireland in the seventh episode of season five, he’s now confirmed to be cancer free.
The presenter took to Instagram just a couple of hours before the Season 6 announcement to assure fans he’s “perfectly fine” and urging men to get tested.
His update also arrives after Jeremy was spotted with camera crews on Diddly Squat Farm, leading to speculation that Season 6 was almost certainly underway.
Fans can now rest assured that the upcoming instalment is officially in the works and is likely to be released in summer 2027.
One of his followers replied: “I love you Jeremy, love the show and the rest of the crew.”
Someone else exclaimed: “Best news of the day!” And another said: “Wonderful news [heart emoji].”
“Absolutely thrilled,” another fan commented. “Thrilled as your show is one of my all time favourites, but even moreso that you’re all clear health wise! Excitedly awaiting season 6.”
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Season 5 was a rocky road for the Diddly Squat crew, which also includes Jeremy’s partner Lisa Hogan and dry stone walling expert Gerald Cooper.
In addition to Jeremy’s cancer diagnosis, the latest instalment kicked off with Jeremy’s emergency heart surgery in late 2024 and saw one of his toughest farming experiences yet as his pregnant cow was slaughtered due to “inconclusive” tuberculosis tests.
However, there were plenty of uplifting moments too as the AI-powered AgBot tractor proved a success and Kaleb welcomed his third child with fiancée Taya.
Clarkson’s Farm is available to stream on Prime Video.
Netflix Inc. is under contract to buy Radford Studio Center, a historic Los Angeles movie studio space, for a fraction of its 2021 $1.85-billion sale price after lenders including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. repossessed the property.
The price is close to $400 million, according to two people with knowledge of the transaction, which is expected to close in the third quarter.
The one-time silent movie lot has been home to many popular TV series over the decades, including “Gunsmoke,” “Gilligan’s Island” and “Seinfeld.”
Netflix wants to consolidate its real estate footprint in one place and has been considering relocating from a group of Hollywood buildings it leases from Hudson Pacific Properties Inc. The Hudson Pacific leases expire in 2031.
Radford’s current owner, Hackman Capital Partners, defaulted on $1.1 billion of bondholder debt and turned the property over to lenders led by Goldman after it was unable to reach a refinancing deal last year. The sale will wipe out close to two-thirds of the debt.
The value of Los Angeles studio real estate has tumbled since interest rates climbed and production plummeted following strikes in 2023 by unions representing writers and actors. Landlords unaffiliated with studios, such as Hackman, have been hit particularly hard as production moved to space owned by the entertainment giants. Occupancy of L.A. soundstages fell to 62% in the first half of last year, according to FilmLA, a local permitting group.
Representatives of Goldman and Netflix declined to comment. A Hackman representative didn’t immediately provide a comment.
Netflix, which has historically leased rather than owned real estate, has stepped up investing in studio lots. It’s currently developing a $1-billion production center in Fort Monmouth, N.J. The streaming service reported $12.3 billion in cash and equivalents in its most recent quarter. Netflix was paid a $2.8-billion breakup fee by Paramount Skydance Corp., which won a bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.
Before the recent slowdown, Hackman went on a buying spree of movie lots, banking on ever-growing demand for streaming TV production. In March, Deutsche Bank AG sued Hackman to foreclose on its Kaufman Astoria Studios in New York. Hackman-owned Television City in Los Angeles and Manhattan Beach Studios in nearby Manhattan Beach are both being marketed after lenders led by Deutsche Bank pushed for the sale, Bloomberg reported in May.
Brokerage Cushman & Wakefield Ltd. is selling the $240-million loan on the 22-acre Manhattan Beach property, which it describes in a marketing document as “one of the most strategically positioned opportunities in coastal Los Angeles, combining an institutional-quality operating asset with some of the most irreplaceable underlying land in the South Bay.”
The Radford Studio lot was only 71% leased as of March, according to mortgage filings.
The Air Force down-selected the designs from General Atomics and Anduril to move ahead as part of the first incremental development cycle of its CCA program, or Increment 1, back in 2024. What were originally designated the YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A first flew in August and October 2025, respectively, and have been undergoing further testing since then. Dark Merlin testing was paused earlier this year after one of the drones crashed, but has resumed.
A trio of YFQ-44A drones. AndurilThree YFQ-42As in a row. GA-ASI
“By moving fast from competitive selection into full-scale manufacturing, we position ourselves to field highly credible and combat-ready semi-autonomous systems to stay ahead of the pacing challenge,” Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said in a statement today. “These contracts reaffirm our confidence in the strategic path forward for the program to procure over 150 combat capable CCA by the end of the decade.”
The Air Force says these contracts were awarded four months ahead of schedule, reflecting “that the FQ-42 and FQ-44 meet rigorous mission requirements and are ready for full-scale manufacturing.” At the time of writing, the service does not appear to have provided an update on the expected delivery timeline of the first production CCAs, but it has said in the past that it is hoping to have the first examples in operational service toward the end of the decade. Air Force has asked for nearly $1 billion in its 2027 Fiscal Year budget request to begin procurement of these drones.
“Under the contract, Anduril will deliver an initial set of production FQ-44 semi-autonomous fighter aircraft to support continued testing, validation, and, ultimately, operational fielding,” Mark Shushnar, Anduril’s Vice President for Autonomous Airpower, also wrote in a blog post today. “The contract also establishes a structure for the Air Force to buy additional lots of production FQ-44 aircraft across the next several years, providing a clear path for the Air Force to rapidly and affordably expand fighter capacity.”
A Fury drone carrying an inert AIM-120 air-to-air missile during a flight test. USAF
“This is an exciting day for our company and the nation,” David Alexander, President of General Atomics’ Aeronautical Systems, Inc. division (GA-ASI), said in his own statement. “Moving to production on FQ-42A is the result of an extraordinary partnership and many years of investments between General Atomics and the U.S. Air Force. We’ve been preparing for this order, and manufacturing is already well underway.”
A YFQ-42A in flight. General Atomics
A split-buy of Dark Merlin and Fury drones will help drive down risk. The designs are also very different, which opens the door to more operational possibilities for the Air Force right from the start. General Atomics and Anduril can also then focus on refining the respective strengths of their uncrewed aircraft. As noted, TWZ has pointed out on several occasions that a mixture of uncrewed platforms with different attributes would be needed to truly do justice to the CCA concept.
Furthermore, the Air Force making this decision still deep in the developmental phase also underscores how critical the service sees CCAs, and its desire to push ahead with getting at least an early iteration of the capability into service.
“Collaborative Combat Aircraft change how we project power and generate mass in highly contested environments,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach said in a statement today. “Delivering this capability to our warfighters faster ensures our forces maintain the tactical edge required to deter and, if necessary, defeat any adversary.”
The Air Force has also further split the CCA effort into hardware and software segments, with airframe development falling into the former category.
“These distinct efforts validate acquisition transformation principles to secure a critical operational advantage: decoupling hardware from software,” according to an Air Force press release today. “By treating mission autonomy as ‘software sold separately,’ the Air Force ensures that the warfighter receives state-of-the-art physical platforms alongside agile, easily updatable software, effectively breaking traditional procurement molds.”
Anduril and General Atomics, as well as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX Collins Aerospace, and Shield AI form the current vendor pool for the software side of the CCA program. The Air Force announced today that it had awarded additional mission autonomy contracts to Anduril, Collins, and Shield AI. Anduril is notably the only company currently with CCA contracts on the hardware and software sides.
Collaborative Mission Autonomy
“This targeted award, based on the vendors’ ability to meet aggressive schedule and affordability requirements, will fund the first of two six-month competitive phases designed to speed the fielding of operational software to the warfighter,” according to an Air Force release. “While the baseline contract establishes a continuous competitive arena, the competitive awards are designed to deliver capability faster. Following the initial six-month period, the Air Force will evaluate the vendors’ progress and execute a second competitive award period. This performance-based competition will culminate in the selection of a primary mission autonomy provider for CCA Increment 1, with award planned for selection by summer 2027.”
“Furthermore, this software contract leverages a first-of-its-kind award fee exposure strategy, which enables operator feedback and combat performance to determine what the Air Force pays for mission autonomy. The Air Force will only pay the entire licensing fee if a vendor provides a combat capability aligned with warfighter needs and feedback,” the release adds. “The licensing approach also allows the Air Force to award software licenses to any of the six vendors within the pool at any point over the next six years. This approach ensures the Air Force can procure the best-performing and most affordable solutions as technology evolves.”
More government ownership of key intellectual property, and software in particular, has become a central guiding principle for the U.S. military contracting, in general, in recent years. When it comes to autonomy software packages, there is also now a core government-owned Autonomy Government Reference Architecture (A-GRA) that goes beyond the Air Force’s CCA program.
“Today, Lattice for Mission Autonomy is fully A-GRA compliant, ensuring that it can be integrated not only with all Increment 1 CCA, but with the full spectrum of current and future A-GRA compliant aircraft,” Anduril’s Shushnar highlighted in his blog post. “Through the A-GRA, the CCA program has established the foundation that will drive the development of a larger ecosystem of autonomous aircraft.”
Lattice for Mission Autonomy: An Unfair Advantage for Unrivaled Deterrence
“Mission autonomy is the cornerstone of the CCA concept, and leveraging a competitive, multi-vendor environment ensures we capture the latest technology,” Secretary Meink also said today in another statement. “This approach guarantees our Airmen are equipped with state-of-the-art capabilities today but keeps the door open for the breakthroughs necessary to maintain air superiority.”
In general, greater government control over intellectual property rights also helps avoid the potential to be locked into a single vendor. Establishing vendor pools to compete for follow-on contracts also creates opportunities to lower costs and to diversify supply chains, especially when it comes to hardware. That diversification, in turn, can be beneficial when it comes time to scale up production of both key subcomponents and complete systems.
The U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy are also pursuing their own CCA fleets in very close coordination with the Air Force. The Air Force is very much in the lead in fielding drones in this category, which could factor into future Marine and Navy decisions. The Marines are currently planning for their first tranche of MQ-58 Valkyrie CCA drones from Kratos to arrive in 2029. The Navy’s program is still very much in its infancy.
The Air Force’s CCA program has now taken another major step forward toward an initial fleet of drones that will include both General Atomics Dark Merlin and Anduril’s Fury.
Supported by the World Health Organization and Africa CDC, India has taken on the urgent and unique task to engage in the production of a vaccine for the Ebola virus, the deadly disease that broke out in the Democratic Republic of Congo in mid-May 2026. Following the Ebola infection cases, many countries have broader steps to reinforce disease surveillance and strict border control mechanisms amid rising regional risks, especially in the Central African region.
WHO declared, in May, the outbreak a ‘public health emergency’ of international concern, underscoring the need for monitoring measures of cross-border human movements and the possibility to control transmission. Many countries have adopted and reviewed screening procedures and coordination designed to detect and contain any suspected cases.
The Serum Institute of India (SII) is partnering with the University of Oxford and CEPI to develop a new vaccine candidate targeting the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus. Because no approved vaccines currently exist for this specific strain, the SII is fast-tracking production using the viral vector platform.
Fast-Tracked Vaccine Development
The Target: The vaccine candidate (ChAdOx1 BDBV) is designed to prevent the rare Bundibugyo ebolavirus, which is currently causing outbreaks in Central Africa.
The Technology: It utilizes the same viral vector platform used for the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, allowing for rapid scaling and manufacturing once the clinical-grade material is ready.
Timeline: The World Health Organization (WHO) has fast-tracked the assessment process, with clinical-grade doses expected to be available for trial testing.
Indian Preparedness & Protocols
Zero Active Cases: India has not reported any active cases of the Ebola virus.
Preventive Measures: Indian health authorities and airports have placed specialized facilities on high alert. This includes preventive screening and isolation protocols for any suspected cases or individuals traveling from affected regions like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.
Global efforts accelerate vaccine development.
Scientists and vaccine manufacturers are now racing to design, test, manufacture, and deploy vaccines that could help prevent this outbreak from persisting for several years, as previous outbreaks have. Medical experts across the world maintain that the Ebola epidemic is a global threat.
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus flew to the DRC and visited the province of Ituri. After the visit, he said, “A Bundibugyo vaccine could help to control this epidemic and strengthen preparedness for future outbreaks.”
Notwithstanding the challenges, Ghebreyesus expressed confidence and optimism that the outbreak would be stopped. Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention director general Jean Kaseya later confirmed that the vaccines will be manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, underscoring the growing confidence to ensure health sovereignty and to contain further spread of Ebola.
Different virus, different challenge
Since the outbreak, over 1500 suspected cases and 650 deaths have been reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda. According to medical reports, this newest outbreak is being caused by the Bundibugyo virus, a more recently discovered species that is less lethal than Zaire but has no approved vaccines or treatments. With the majority of cases impacting the DRC, this marks the country’s 17th Ebola outbreak since the discovery of the virus on the Ebola River in 1976.
Despite the huge untapped resources, the world’s deadliest and most complex humanitarian crises have been unfolding for decades in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, located in central Africa.
In “Rheology,” Shayok Misha Chowdhury, an experimental theater artist, and his mother, Bulbul Chakraborty, a theoretical physicist, bridge the language of their different disciplines to explore a subject dear to both of them: loss.
Chowdhury, author of the play “Public Obscenities,” a 2024 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and the director of the sensational off-Broadway production of Jordan Tannahill’s “Prince Faggot,” is as tenderly devoted to his mother as the young Marcel was to his own in Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time.” The idea of his mother dying is insupportable to Chowdhury, but given that she’s in her 70s and he’s in his 40s, certain terrifying realities must be faced.
“Rheology,” which is receiving its West Coast premiere at REDCAT (in a brief run ending Saturday), is the piece they’ve created to prepare Chowdhury for that fateful day. This strikingly staged Bushwick Starr, HERE Arts Center and Ma-Yi Theater Company production is an interdisciplinary experiment that is as playful in its methodology as it is serious in its research aims.
Chakraborty, a professor at Brandeis University, starts off with a physics lesson. Her subject is sand, and she poses a simple question: Is the sand pouring through the hourglass sitting on the counter before her a liquid or a solid?
A charismatic teacher, she knows how to Socratically engage a room. Her welcoming manner draws out from the audience the different ways sand behaves both like a solid and like a liquid.
Shayok Misha Chowdhury, in rear, and Bulbul Chakraborty in “Rheology” at REDCAT.
(Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater [REDCAT])
Rheology, or the science of how a substance responds to external stress, is her chief interest. Her research, focused on soft condensed matter, has been seeking a comprehensive theory to explain the curious elasticity of such material. A photo of a sand dune, in which she’s seated alongside Chowdhury as a toddler, helps illustrate her point that sand can flow like a liquid yet retain its shape like a solid.
An onstage sandbox is more than just another visual accompaniment to her talk. It’s a source of both elemental mystery and childlike wonder. But elucidation is her motive. She enters the box with her bare feet, noting the way the sand flows around her toes yet supports her weight in observation of the rule that “every grain has to be in force balance.”
She writes equations on the board to explain these findings, equations that begin to glow as the production moves from the realm of pure science to the more slippery domain of art. The transition, like all aspects of this piece, is frolicsomely conducted.
While pouring sand from one container to another, Chakraborty appears to be overcome with dust. For a moment, it’s not clear if this is part of the show or a medical incident until Chowdhury, discreetly occupying a seat in the audience, asserts himself as the director. He asks his mother to run through the death scene with a different sequence of movements and introduces the accompaniment of George Crotty on cello to liberate her performance.
They are rehearsing not so much Chakraborty’s end but Chowdhury’s reaction. He assumes he will fall apart and vows to die himself out of heartbreak. Chakraborty wants him to carry on his work, just as she carried on her research as a mother with a young son who would wail uncontrollably when she would drop him off at daycare.
She recounts that his emotional outbursts were so extreme that it was painful leaving him behind. But she was assured that he was handling the separation. For proof, she was taken into a private teacher’s room, where through a one-way mirror she saw him compose himself shortly after her departure and start to play with the other children.
Mother and son enact a similar situation where, after a more permanent leave-taking, she can catch a glimpse of her son recovering himself sufficiently to survive her loss. Chowdhury, a queer artist who enjoys sampling performance modes, adopts the figure of the grieving Bollywood widow. The effect isn’t to lampoon but to confront his raw emotion and to test his capacity for resilience.
The experiment might sound sentimental, but Chakraborty, the production’s secret weapon, maintains a scientific restraint, albeit one suffused with maternal anguish. The way she listens to her son, takes in his feelings, gently suggests other possibilities of response and treats his experimental theater piece with the same dignity as her own research is incredibly moving to witness. Her performance won an Obie Award, and though she insists that she’s not an actor she demonstrates a sincerity and collaborative grace that many veteran performers would envy.
As it unfolds, “Rheology” can seem piecemeal, even haphazard. There’s an informality built into the production, but it’s somewhat deceptive because the mercurial staging is extremely precise. Chowdhury’s direction has visual panache. Kameron Neal’s video design transforms Krit Robinson’s part lab, part lecture hall set into something kaleidoscopic.
When mother and son sing songs from the famous cycle by Bengali writer-composer and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore or hold a deathbed conversation in Bangla, the piece spins further across time and space. Empiricism gives way to surrealism. But the world, as any scientist probing into the atomic level can attest, contains more secrets than meets the eye.
Fragile matter is Chakraborty’s specialty, and her expertise is put to novel use in shoring up her son’s tender heart.
The House Committee on Armed Services added the requirement for the C-17 production restart briefing to a report accompanying the latest draft of the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), last week. The Air Force took delivery of its last Globemaster III in 2013, and has some 222 of these airlifters in service today. The air arms of Australia, Canada, India, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom also have smaller fleets of these airlifters. Three more of these aircraft are operated under the Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC) initiative, a multi-national arrangement with several European members, as well as the United States. Boeing shuttered the C-17 line entirely in 2015.
Boeing Pieces Together the Last C-17 on the Line
“The committee recognizes that the existing C-17 fleet continues to bear significant operational demands supporting combatant commander requirements, humanitarian assistance missions, and global mobility operations,” the provision in the House Committee on Armed Services’ report notes. “The committee is concerned that future operational demands may place additional strain on the existing C-17 fleet.”
“Therefore, the committee directs the Secretary of the Air Force to provide a briefing to the House Committee on Armed Services not later than March 1, 2027, assessing the feasibility of restarting the production line for the C-17 aircraft,” it adds.
The committee wants the Air Force’s briefing to at least include the following:
“An assessment of the technical and industrial feasibility of restarting the C-17 production line, including the status of tooling, supplier base viability, workforce availability, and potential reconstitution costs.”
“An estimate of the timeline required to reestablish production and deliver the first newly produced aircraft.”
“A cost estimate for restarting the production line and procuring additional aircraft, including options for limited procurement and multi-year procurement.”
“An evaluation of alternative approaches to increasing strategic airlift capacity, including service life extension programs, modernization of existing aircraft, procurement of commercial derivative cargo aircraft, and expansion of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet.”
“An assessment of potential international partner interest in participating in or contributing to a restarted production line.”
A row of US Air Force C-17s. USAF
TWZ subsequently reached out to Boeing to ask about the company’s current position on rebooting C-17 production.
“Our goal is to help our customers be successful, and we work with them to develop innovative solutions to meet their mission needs, including development and production partnerships,” a Boeing spokesperson told us this week. “We are proud of our continued support for the unique, mission-proven capabilities that the C-17 Globemaster III delivers to the U.S. Air Force and eight allied nation partners.”
At the Paris Air Show last year, Turbo Sjogren, Vice President and General Manager of Boeing Global Services-Government Services, had told Shephard Defense that talks with an unnamed country about a possible C-17 production restart were in their “early infancy.”
“It is a very extraordinary effort to do” and is “reflective of the utility of the aircraft,” he also said at the time, according to Shephard.
Boeing has also now said that it is always willing to work to better understand the requirements and needs of its customers. Any talk about the prospect of restarting C-17 production would also have to be viewed in the broader context of the Air Force’s still-evolving requirements for the Next Generation Air Lift (NGAL) program. The service’s current NGAL plans envision a single aircraft replacing the very different C-17 and C-5 Galaxy fleets, as you can read more about here.
A C-5 Galaxy, at left, and a C-17, right. USAF
TWZ also reached out to the US Air Force about the recently requested briefing.
It is unclear what it might cost to get the C-17 line restarted and what the unit price of these new-production aircraft would be in the end. There are various factors at play, including whether Boeing retains any relevant tooling, the knowledge base of its current workforce, the state of third-party supply chains, and the availability of physical space to build the airplanes. Back in 2019, the company sold off the facilities in Long Beach, California, where it built the original run of Globemaster IIIs.
More than a decade ago, the RAND Corporation did conduct a detailed, independent analysis that explored options for resuming production of the baseline C-17A, a new C-17B, and a significantly revised “fuel efficient” C-17FE derivative.
The C-17B was “a variant Boeing has proposed that adds centerline landing gear, a tire deflation/inflation system, higher-thrust engines, advanced flaps, and an advanced situational awareness and countermeasures system,” according to RAND’s report. The C-17FE derivative “would have a narrower fuselage, up-rated engines, a double-element flap system, winglets, a longer loading ramp, a shorter cargo door, and a modified horizontal tail.”
A graphic offering a very general comparison between the C-17A and the proposed C-17FE. Boeing
RAND said that it could cost between $2.1 and $2.7 billion in 2011 dollars to begin making C-17A models again after a pause, depending on how much tooling Boeing retained. Those costs would rise to $4.6 to $6.4 billion for new production of the improved C-17B version, and $6.2 billion to $7 billion to start building the C-17FE derivative. Billions more would be required to actually procure the aircraft, with unit prices being highly dependent on the total size of the production, as outlined in the table below. If nothing else has changed, these cost projections would still be significantly higher today just due to inflation.
RAND
As an aside here, RAND published a similar assessment of the options for restarting production of the F-22 Raptor in 2011. That report factored heavily into a study the Air Force subsequently delivered to Congress on that topic back in 2017, which you can read more about here.
Foreign participation in new production of C-17s could help defray costs, and is one of the points the House Armed Services Committee specifically wants the Air Force to address in its briefing. As TWZ noted last year after Turbo Sjogren made comments at the Paris Air Show, Boeing’s discussions at that point might not have been with the U.S. government. Earlier in 2025, then-Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba had expressed interest in buying Globemaster IIIs, raising immediate questions about where those aircraft might come from.
It should be noted here that the U.S. Air Force’s C-17s have received various upgrades over the years, and the service continues to move ahead with other plans to improve their performance and expand their capabilities. This includes the installation of 3D-printed microvanes on the fuselage, which offer a very minor reduction in drag (approximately one percent), but that translates into real reductions in fuel consumption. All Air Force C-17s are expected to have this feature by the end of next year. Communications and data-sharing upgrades have also been a major focus area across all of the Air Force’s airlift and tanker fleets.
Boeing is now under contract for a more extensive upgrade of the flight decks on Air Force C-17s. The company says this will aid in “resolving avionics obsolescence” and integrate new open systems architectures to make it easier to add new and improved capabilities and functionality in the future.
A look inside the cockpit of a US Air Force C-17. USAF
The prospect of a re-engining effort for the Globemaster III fleet has also been raised in the past, but the Air Force downplayed the value of doing so earlier this year.
When it comes to discussions about restarting C-17 production, another key factor is the lack of immediate alternative options. There is really no other aircraft in this class in production now in the United States or anywhere else in the West. Airbus has long positioned its turboprop-powered A400M as sitting in a capability space between Lockheed Martin’s C-130 family and the C-17. Embraer’s KC-390 Millennium design, which is also offered as an aerial refueling tanker, has generally been pitched as a jet-powered competitor to the C-130. China’s Y-20 and Russia’s Il-76 are really the only in-production analogs on any level to the C-17 globally.
The House Armed Services Committee has now also asked the Air Force to speak to the possibility of buying “commercial derivative cargo aircraft” and/or an “expansion of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet,” or CRAF, to help bolster airlift capacity. The CRAF is an arrangement by which the U.S. military can call upon commercial airlines and charter companies to help move cargo and personnel, which you can learn more about here.
A key issue here is that the C-17 is specifically designed for tactical operations right at the tactical edge. This includes the ability to bring combat-ready forces to far-flung locations without the need for an established airfield. Additional commercial alternatives could still be utilized in rear areas to help free up C-17s for more demanding missions and otherwise relieve stress on the Globemaster III fleet.
A C-17 at Delamar Dry Lake in Nevada during training. USAF
A wind tunnel model of a design concept for an advanced tanker and/or cargo aircraft that the Air Force explored as part of a project called Speed Agile in the late 2000s and early 2010s. USAFA rendering of the blended-wing-body demonstrator aircraft now in development for the Air Force. USAF
When any new platform developed under NGAL actually enters service remains to be seen. The stated plan the Air Force has put forward to date would see those new aircraft replacing its C-5s first, with C-17s flying through 2075. By that point, the Globemaster III, as a type, will have been in service for 80 years.
“The C-17 is the most amazing airplane ever made. I have a lot of time in it, so I can say that. We have asked it to do a lot of things, and it’s done more than we ever planned for when we bought that airplane,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Rebecca Sonkiss told TWZ and other outlets at a roundtable on the sidelines of the Air & Space Forces Association’s (AFA) annual Warfare Symposium in February. “It has performed flawlessly, but it’s getting old too.”
Sonkiss is Deputy Commander of Air Mobility Command (AMC). She has been serving as the interim head of the command since her predecessor, Gen. John Lamontagne, became Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force in January.
“I cannot have a gap in my strategic airlift forces, and we’re working forward on the NGAL to combine the view of the C-5 and the C-17 fleet and figure out what the next strategic airlifter needs to be. That conversation, in my book, can’t happen enough, or can’t happen fast enough,” she added at the roundtable in February. “We have to get after what next looks like, and we can’t wait until we’re shoveling it into the boneyard before we get to that discussion.”
Whether the Air Force’s future airlift plans also include buying new-production C-17s remains to be seen. For its part, Boeing does not appear to have ruled out the possibility just yet.
The show that has had everyone clamoring for tickets this spring, Joe Mantello’s cobweb-clearing production of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” won, as expected, for best revival.
Mantello, who received a Tony for his direction (his third such award), swept away the cliches that have accumulated around this American classic to reveal a “Salesman” like none we’ve experienced before. The Loman family home isn’t depicted in a literal fashion but instead fluidly suggested in a warehouse space that allows the actors to move unfetteredly between past and present. (The physical production was honored with awards for Mikaal Sulaiman’s sound design, Jack Knowles’ lighting and Chloe Lamford’s scenic design.)
Laurie Metcalf, confirming her standing as the First Lady of the American Theater, won for her portrayal of Linda Loman, a more formidable than usual interpretation of Willy’s stalwart wife. Metcalf, who endowed her characterization with a sharp-edged autonomy and transfixing gravitas, added another Tony to her two previous acting wins (“Three Tall Women,” “A Doll’s House, Part II”).
Joe Mantello wins the Tony for his direction of “Death of a Salesman.”
(Evelyn Freja / For The Times)
Nathan Lane was in a tight race with John Lithgow, who won for his ruthlessly uncompromising portrayal of a wrathful and dyspeptic Roald Dahl in Mark Rosenblatt’s “Giant.” Lane’s Willy leaves a lasting memory in “Salesman,” but it would be hard to imagine “Giant” having the same impact without Lithgow, who provides a terrifying human foundation to this explosive play about a writer’s political commitments tipping over into toxic antisemitism. (The performance slips into a sinkhole of animus in the uncanny way of one of Dahl’s recognizably terrifying, psychologically plausible stories.) In his almost but not quite valedictory acceptance speech, the 80-year-old Lithgow acknowledged that this Tony win, his third, comes 53 years after his first — and feels every bit as satisfying.
Aya Cash and John Lithgow in “Giant.”
(Joan Marcus)
Rather than a slight to Lane, Lithgow’s win is a sign of the dramatic depth that characterized this otherwise squirrely season. Indeed, Lithgow’s performance was as thrilling to experience as that of British powerhouse Lesley Manville, who won for her portrayal of Jocasta in Robert Icke’s modern reworking of “Oedipus.” The play was categorized by the Tony committee as a revival, but it’s really an original drama — one that gave rise to one of the most enthralling productions of the year.
In a season lifted up by Bess Wohl’s magnificent “Liberation” and capacious enough to include a first-rate “Salesman,” a searing “Oedipus” and a smartly contentious “Giant,” it should be no surprise that there were more great performances than statuettes to dole out.
Johannesburg, South Africa – In the quiet mining town of Swartruggens, a small courthouse is preparing to decide whether five Mexicans accused of a major illegal drug operation will be granted bail or remain in custody.
Their arrests followed a raid on a remote farm in North West province, where police said they uncovered a large methamphetamine laboratory worth about one billion rand ($60m).
The case is one of several pointing to a pattern taking shape in South Africa’s rural interior.
The Swartruggens laboratory was not an isolated discovery.
It was one of four major meth sites linked to Mexican criminals uncovered in South Africa in just two years, a pattern that has unsettled investigators and organised crime experts.
In 2024, police dismantled a large meth facility worth about $105–110 million on a farm near Groblersdal in Limpopo. Later that year, another laboratory worth roughly $5–6 million was discovered near Tshwane, followed by arrests last year in Mpumalanga.
Then came Swartruggens.
When police moved in on the North West farm in May, they found 481 kilos of methamphetamine, containers of chemicals and firearms. Among those arrested were Mexican nationals Fabian Astorga, Jesus Alonso Medina Astorga, Luis Alberto Ramirez Rios, Jose Andres Medina and Jacquelin Lopez Madrid, alongside co-accused South Africans.
All the sites followed the same pattern: remote farmland, long distances from towns and enough isolation for criminal activity to go undetected.
For investigators, the pattern is becoming harder to ignore.
Mexicans are increasingly being found working alongside local collaborators in rural production sites, suggesting a shift from trafficking meth into Africa to producing it there.
Organised crime researcher Julian Rademeyer told Al Jazeera the model reflects a deliberate strategy.
“It’s quite a unique development where you have members of Mexican drug cartels franchising, moving chemists into remote rural areas and farms,” he said.
The approach has been building for more than a decade, he added.
The logic is straightforward: produce closer to consumers, cut transport costs and reduce exposure to border and maritime enforcement.
How it spread
Mexican-linked networks in Africa did not begin in South Africa.
Researchers trace early activity back to Nigeria, where local groups were producing meth with Mexican involvement by around 2016.
From there, the networks spread through East Africa, then south through Mozambique and Botswana, before reaching South Africa more recently.
For years, users on the streets spoke of “Mexican meth”, often assumed to be imported. That supply chain has now shifted inward.
“Now, basically, the cartel chemists are being sent here,” Rademeyer told Al Jazeera.
Analysts say multiple supply routes now feed the South African market, but the most significant change is the rise of local production.
Who looks the other way
Methamphetamine dominates parts of South Africa’s illicit drug market because cheaper drugs such as cocaine and heroin remain out of reach for many users, creating steady demand for a cheaper, highly addictive stimulant.
Crime expert Willem Els says demand is only part of the story.
“The main reason why manufacturing locally is lucrative to cartels is the local conditions that exist, where there is protection from corrupt police and politicians,” he told Al Jazeera.
“It is very lucrative. The cartels can make a lot of money because South African conditions result in undetected and protected operations.”
A separate commission of inquiry into law enforcement has heard testimony alleging deep corruption within policing structures, including missing drug consignments and suspected inside involvement in major cases.
One case under scrutiny involves 541 kilos of cocaine seized in 2021 and later stolen from a police facility, in what investigators believe was an inside job.
Former Interpol ambassador Andy Mashiale told Al Jazeera the problem is visible on the ground.
“There is no way in which police don’t know those labs,” he said. “So corruption plays a role.”
He said officers deployed to rural areas were often aware of suspicious activity but failed to act.
“What inspires the drug manufacturers or the drug cartels is the willingness of the police to enable the drug trade from happening,” he said.
South Africa’s elite Hawks unit says recent raids show progress in disrupting networks, while international partners, including the US Drug Enforcement Administration, have provided intelligence linking some suspects to the Sinaloa Cartel.
But investigators warn that the system behind the labs is resilient.
A frontier that keeps moving
US Africa Command officials have warned that Mexican cartels are now not only moving drugs through Africa, but also producing them on the continent.
For South Africa, the challenge is no longer just border control, it is institutional capacity, intelligence and corruption within the system meant to contain it.
Without deeper reform, analysts warn, the pattern is likely to continue: new farms, new labs, new chemists arriving quietly in rural provinces.
For the five men in Swartruggens, the question is immediate, whether they will be released.
For South Africa, the question is larger and more difficult: how to contain a trade that is no longer arriving at its borders, but taking root in the country.
Rademeyer says the structure is built to absorb disruption.
“It’s a game of whack-a-mole,” he told Al Jazeera. “You seize a meth lab here, you seize a meth lab there. They’ll spring up elsewhere.”
A site of big changes, the Music Center has become farewell central. Alongside the Gustavo Dudamel hullabaloo at Walt Disney Concert Hall, James Conlon has begun his final appearances in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion as music director for two decades of Los Angeles Opera, with his own signature form of enchantment in Mozart’s “Magic Flute.”
The silent-movie panache of Barrie Kosky’s production, which opened Saturday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and runs through June 21, is on its way to becoming a perennial. This is the third revival since L.A. Opera first staged it in 2013 — all four times with Conlon in the pit. The production operates like an operatic graphic novel and live animated film charmingly all in one. The scene is a giant movie screen broken up in sections and upon which is projected witty, fantastical background animation, while the characters are the live singers, dressed as though silent film stars.
The orchestra plays Mozart’s score as though it were, as orchestras did in the old days, accompanying a silent movie but to radically different effect. Fulgurous cinematic spectacle may immerse your attention, but the opera’s essence is transferred from the stage to the pit. The singers, meanwhile, function to an unusual degree as choreographed characters in a cartoon, leaving little opportunity for body language, allowing, instead, individual expression almost exclusively to their voices.
In Mozart’s opera, Tamino, a prince in a fairyland of mystic temples and mystifying gods, relies on his supernatural flute that turn sorrow into joy to get him out of jams. The genius of Kosky’s singularly musical production is that it magically makes the orchestra itself a compendious magic flute. It more than ever becomes an agent of delight.
That is where Conlon comes in. He has, while leading L.A. Opera for 20 seasons (half the company’s existence), served as an advocate for the core operatic repertory — notably Mozart, Verdi and Wagner — much of it little heard in our late-blooming former operatic desert. He has also been an international champion of his “recovered voices” project, salvaging the neglected operas of composers in the first half of the 20th century who were silenced by Nazi Germany.
“The Magic Flute,” one of the world’s two or three most popular operas, needs no such patronage. Written at the end of Mozart’s life as a popular entertainment, its a singspiel, or sung play. As a proto-Broadway musical operatic genre of spoken word and musical numbers, it appeals on all levels. The fairy-tale libretto is child-friendly. Mozart’s score is tune heaven.
The troublesome Queen of the Night dazzles with high notes that shoot out like daggers. The main lovers, Tamino and Pamina, are lyrical wonders. The comical bird-catcher, Papageno, is everyone’s darling. The domineering Sarastro, an all-powerful priest, bellows spiritual profundities. But if you start digging under the surface, deeper than the symbolic Freemasonry and all, you may never find bottom.
The opera begins with three ceremonial chords in the orchestra that signal a brief, sober introduction quickly undercut by an exhilarating fast-forwarding overture. Those three chords can be made to mean many things. Often, they come across as commands by an orchestra to sit up straight and pay attention. They may be dignified or downright quirky and playfully no big deal, just a here-we-go.
Conlon handles them as a sweet, perfectly tuned, almost amorous invitation to pleasure, implying this will be a genial, gracious, laid-back “Flute.” Among his accomplishments in L.A. has been to make the opera’s orchestra capable of producing just such velvety, flowing Mozart, as well as terse, tight theater.
Here, Conlon offers a lesson in the kind of leadership generally lacking in modern society, by simultaneously staying out of the way yet being at the essential center of things. Depth here is not announced, but the care of phrasing implies that there is more to everything Mozart is saying than first meets the ear, that, under it all, the “Magic Flute” is not fantasy but a spiritual lesson in morality.
Many in the cast, this revival, are young singers, not yet well known and new to the company. Sydney Mancasola and Miles Mykkanen, as Pamina and Tamino, are likable, lyric lovers. Kyle Miller catches Papageno’s vulnerable charm. Aigul Khismatullina, Queen of the Night, impresses with the silvery pricks of her high notes, while Kwangchul Youn’s Sarastro, unsteady in middle register, takes on weight at the bottom of his bass. Zhengyi Bai’s lustful Monostatos, disguised in the production as a hammy vampire, almost steals the show a time or two. The Three Ladies and Three Spirits provide vocal allure.
One of the evening’s most theatrical moments, though, came after the music stopped when what sounded like a gun interrupted curtain calls. But as if rescued by a magic flute, an instant of fear turned to joy, glittery gold graffiti filling the Chandler and celebrating Conlon.
‘The Magic Flute’
Where: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A.
When: Through June 21
Tickets: $49-$440
Running time: About 2 hours, 50 minutes, with one intermission.
Communes Minister Ángel Prado oversaw the transfer of a coffee-roasting plant to a network of communes. (MinComunas)
Mérida, June 2, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan government launched the First National Meeting of the 2026 Communal Coffee Plan on Saturday, May 30, as part of efforts to deepen popular control and increase coffee production for export.
The central event took place in the Ospino municipality of Portuguesa state, where authorities inaugurated the El Cafetal social property company (EPSDC), a coffee-processing plant transferred to collective communal management.
According to officials, the infrastructure will serve nearly 80 coffee-producing communes from the central-western states of Portuguesa, Lara, Yaracuy, and Trujillo. The facility, previously ran by the state-owned Venezuelan Coffee Corporation, was transferred to a network of several communes.
Acting President Delcy Rodríguez opened the event, emphasizing the role of grassroots production in the sector.
“Coffee is one of the most important items where the communal economy already has the entire production chain organized,” she stated during a tour of the relaunched plant.
Rodríguez hailed output growth to nearly 4 million quintals in the 2025-2026 cycle, with 1.8 million quintals destined for national consumption and 2.1 million for export. According to official figures, production increased by around 25 percent over the past five years.
In her address, Venezuela’s acting president emphasized the importance of increasing exports to international markets while maintaining accessible prices domestically. “This is the path of a country that builds a sovereign future,” Rodríguez concluded.
Communes Minister Ángel Prado, who led an assembly with thousands of coffee producers and communards on Saturday, echoed the target of boosting non-oil exports from communal organizations. “You can count on the communal economy, President,” he said in his speech.
Agriculture Minister Vladimir Padrino López, who previously served as defense minister, also attended the event and called for joint efforts between his ministry and communal structures to support coffee producers.
“We have to merge, work with a special synergy because in the end, where is the campesino? Where is the coffee grower? He is in a communal circuit, he is in a commune,” Padrino expressed.
For their part, grassroots producers hailed the transfer of the processing plant as a long-awaited conquest. Yamileth Ortiz, a spokeswoman from El Cafetal Commune in Portuguesa state and a worker at the plant since 2008, emphasized the project’s potential to elevate coffee production in the Caribbean nation.
“There is an expectation to receive crops from at least 10 states and strengthen the national links between coffee-producing communes,” she told reporters.
The Venezuelan government has facilitated fuel supplies, seeds, and technical guidance to support producers taking part in the El Cafetal project. In recent years, Venezuelan coffee growers have highlighted fuel shortages, overpriced inputs, and a lack of access to credit as obstacles to maintaining production levels. Rural organizations have likewise denounced the influence of agribusinesses in establishing crop prices.
Animator Jorge R. Gutierrez is facing online backlash following news that his latest series, “Punky Duck,” will use artificial intelligence for its production.
Amazon MGM Studios and Amazon Web Services announced on Wednesday the launch of the GenAI Creators’ Fund, a joint initiative that gives creators access to professional-grade AI tools and funding to produce cinematic entertainment.
Three animation projects have already been greenlighted, including Gutierrez’s “Punky Duck,” which follows a punk duck and his best friend, Smiley Cat, through a wildly exaggerated Los Angeles filled with alien invasions, giant monsters, robot criminal conspiracies, telenovela-style family drama and supernatural mayhem.
BuzzFeed Studios’ “Cupcake & Friends” and Albie Hecht’s “Love, Diana Music Hunters” are also part of the initiative.
Fans took to social media to critique the “Book of Life” creator, sharing their disappointment. Many pointed out how the tool is actively reshaping traditional Hollywood jobs, from storyboarding to production design, raising concerns over creative control.
As a response to the backlash, Gutierrez uploaded a screenshot to Instagram that same day featuring news articles by Variety and the Hollywood Reporter with a caption addressing the collaboration: “I understand a lot of you are happy for me and a lot of you are really angry at me for experimenting with AI at Amazon. I’m going to leave the comments open so you can get it all out and hopefully feel better.”
Gutierrez also warned that any death threats will be reported, as well as threats to his family. The post has since been deleted.
In a subsequent Instagram post, he shared a screenshot of a post on X, which showed edits to Gutierrez’s Wikipedia page, where he is described as a “sellout.” Gutierrez captioned his Instagram: “Whoever did this I thought it was really funny!”
The Mexican creator is behind Nickelodeon’s “El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera” and Netflix’s “Maya and the Three.” He is also currently developing the long-awaited Speedy Gonzales film with Warner Bros. Pictures Animation.
It took over a decade for Gutierrez to get approval for his 2014 film “The Book of Life,” a beloved storybook animation about the Day of the Dead. After multiple rejections from top animation studios, it was eventually produced by Mexican director Guillermo del Toro — a staunch critic of AI, who described its use as “sharting” at a party to The Times late last year.
By comparison, “Punky Duck,” was greenlighted in two months, according to Cartoon Brew.
In a statement to The Times, Gutierrez said he is “cautiously optimistic” about his collaboration with Amazon MGM Studios: “Artists driving tech, and not the other way around, is my goal.”
“It’s a big experiment for me, and like all experiments it might not work, and I will be as cautious and ethical as possible with AI,” he said.
Gutierrez has been critical of AI in the past, expressing distaste for the tool through a series of cheeky memes shared in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Last year, he referred to the nascent technology as a “mutant AI cockroach.”
An infographic shows Hyundai Motor Group’s roadmap for deploying Atlas humanoid robots at manufacturing facilities, including plans to build annual production capacity of 30,000 units by 2028 and expand robot operations from parts sequencing to assembly work at its Georgia smart factory. Graphic by Asia Today and translated by UPI
May 25 (Asia Today) — Hyundai Motor Group is accelerating plans to mass-produce humanoid robot Atlas and deploy it at manufacturing sites, creating new software-defined factory and robotics parts organizations as it pushes to build AI-driven future factories.
Industry officials say the leading candidate for Atlas mass production is the company’s Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America, or HMGMA, in the U.S. state of Georgia.
Analysts say Hyundai’s strategy goes beyond simply introducing robots into factories and instead aims to simultaneously establish AI-based manufacturing systems and a dedicated robotics supply chain.
According to industry sources Sunday, Hyundai Motor Group recently created a new “Software Defined Factory,” or SDF, division and appointed Alpesh Patel to lead the effort.
SDF refers to a next-generation manufacturing system in which AI integrates and controls factory-wide production, quality management and logistics through unified software systems.
The goal is not only factory automation but also real-time analysis of manufacturing data and optimization of quality control and logistics operations.
Patel, formerly with consulting firm McKinsey & Company, joined Hyundai Motor Group in 2023 and previously served as chief innovation officer at the Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center Singapore, or HMGICS, where he led development of digital manufacturing systems.
Industry observers said Hyundai’s decision to move Patel into a broader group leadership role reflects plans to expand smart manufacturing systems validated in Singapore across global production sites.
Patel is also expected to oversee digital twin operations, production data management and AI-driven factory systems while coordinating future deployment of Atlas robots in manufacturing facilities.
Analysts say humanoid robots require integrated coordination among production equipment, logistics systems and worker movement within a unified software environment to function effectively in factories.
Hyundai Motor Group is also expanding its robotics supply chain infrastructure.
The company recently established a dedicated Robotics Parts Procurement Office and appointed So Hyun-sung to lead the division.
The office will oversee sourcing and cost competitiveness for core humanoid robot components such as actuators, robotic grippers and head modules as Boston Dynamics moves toward mass production.
Boston Dynamics reportedly requested that key Atlas components be mass-produced by Hyundai Mobis.
Hyundai Motor Group plans to build a mass-production system centered on Hyundai Mobis while linking it to global procurement networks to secure supply stability and pricing competitiveness.
Industry officials have also discussed the possibility of constructing a U.S.-based actuator production facility capable of producing about 350,000 units annually.
The company has additionally reorganized teams handling global trade risks amid rapidly changing international trade conditions.
Hyundai recently established a Global Trade Strategy Office under its Global Policy Office to oversee diplomacy, trade and tariff issues, appointing Jang Jae-ryang to lead the division.
Industry analysts said the move is intended to address growing risks involving global manufacturing and supply chains.
Georgia has emerged as the leading candidate for Atlas mass production over Massachusetts, where Boston Dynamics is headquartered, according to industry sources.
Officials reportedly concluded Georgia would allow newly produced robots to be immediately deployed and tested at HMGMA production facilities.
HMGMA already operates as a smart factory combining about 1,700 workers and more than 1,000 robots.
Industry officials said the facility offers advantages for repeated testing, machine learning and operational improvement of Atlas robots in real manufacturing environments.
The site is also viewed as strategically favorable for vertically integrating component procurement, robot production and deployment logistics.
Hyundai Motor Group plans to establish annual Atlas production capacity of 30,000 units by 2028 and gradually deploy more than 25,000 of those robots across Hyundai and Kia production facilities.
Initially, Atlas robots are expected to handle parts sequencing operations at the Georgia factory before expanding into assembly work.
Hyundai also plans to extend SDF technologies to facilities including its Pune plant in India and a dedicated electric vehicle factory in Ulsan, South Korea.
An industry official said Hyundai Motor Group is pursuing more than a traditional automated factory model.
“What Hyundai is building is a future manufacturing system combining AI and humanoid robots,” the official said. “The creation of SDF organizations, robotics supply chains and production hubs is essentially preparation for the era of mass-produced robots.”
Sony Pictures Television has acquired controlling interest in the reality TV production company behind “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and “Vanderpump Rules.”
The Culver City studio, which produces “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune,” announced Monday that it has closed its purchase of a majority stake of Alex Baskin’s three-year-old production firm, 32 Flavors. Baskin’s company has been expanding beyond its audience-addicting programs on Bravo to develop podcasts and documentaries.
NBCUniversal will continue to own “Real Housewives” and the other programs it televises, including “The Valley,” and spinoff show, “The Valley: Persian Style.” Baskin will continue as executive producer on his Bravo shows and stay on as chief executive of his production company.
Sony declined to disclose deal terms.
“Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and “Real Housewives of Orange County,” are produced through Baskin’s company.
“32 Flavors has been on a remarkable trajectory, and with Sony’s support, we expect that momentum to accelerate meaningfully,” Baskin said in a statement.
Sony Pictures Entertainment studios in Culver City.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
Sony already owns nonfiction production companies, including Sharp Entertainment, Embassy Row, Brass Monkeys Media and 19 Entertainment, the powerhouse behind “American Idol.” It also owns formats for “Shark Tank,” and “90 Day Fiancé,” and an upcoming adaption of the board game, Clue.
“As the market evolves, we see real opportunity in premium nonfiction, and 32 Flavors strengthens our ability to deliver high-impact, returnable formats that connect with audiences and buyers around the world,” Katherine Pope, president of Sony Pictures Television Studios, said in a statement.
Pope gained responsibility for the unscripted TV business earlier the spring as part of a restructuring and dramatic downsizing, which resulted in hundreds of layoffs in the Japanese company’s entertainment business. At the time, Sony said the cuts reflected a business shift under Sony Pictures Chief Executive Ravi Ahuja.
Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who serves the 4th District, makes her way across an empty, unnamed backlot, presenting her case to be the city’s next mayor.
“Studio lots like this one used to be filled with people, costumers, electricians, set medics, caterers, thousands of Angelenos making a living,” she says in the video posted on social media. “Now these lots are quiet. Since 2018, shooting days in the city have fallen by half.”
After telling voters this issue is “personal” (her husband is a TV writer and producer), criticizing Mayor Karen Bass’ leadership on the matter and outlining her own plans, Raman proclaims, “I’m running for mayor to make sure Los Angeles stays the film and TV capital of the world.”
Placing the concerns of the entertainment industry at the center of the city’s mayoral race would have been unthinkable even in the last election cycle. But the production crisis, which has rocked Hollywood and pummeled its workforce, has reached a critical juncture. The state of L.A.’s signature industry is now a political flashpoint alongside affordability, crime and homelessness in the upcoming election.
A person films an interaction between mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt and another person on his cellphone during a “Community Meet and Greet” event out of a house for sale on Long Ridge Avenue in a residential neighborhood of Sherman Oaks on Saturday.
(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)
In campaign ads, interviews and the recent televised debate, the top three contenders: incumbent Mayor Bass, former reality TV villain Spencer Pratt and Raman, have made the ongoing production slump a pivotal topic, highlighting their plans to revitalize the industry while deploying the issue to undercut one another.
For decades, elected officials have not had to focus on the film and TV business, let alone turn it into a campaign issue. It was simply a given that local production would continue to play a dominant role in the city’s economy as it has for more than a century.
But the cumulative effects of consolidation, runaway production to tax-friendly states and countries and the end of the streaming boom has caused Los Angeles to lose billions in economic activity, shed some 57,000 jobs over the last four years and led to the closing of more than 80 film and television production service businesses across the city since 2022.
“For us, ‘save Hollywood’ is more than a slogan and more than headline. It is what needs to be done,” said Pamala Buzick Kim, one of the co-founders of Stay in LA, a grassroots campaign aimed at increasing film and television production in Los Angeles.
To be sure, the biggest driver of where studios and producers film are state and federal tax credits, over which the city has no control.
But Buzick Kim and others argue that “there is lots the mayor can do, hand-in-hand with the City Council.”
Mayor Karen Bass, center, walks with Avance Democratic Club President Nilza Serrano, to the right of Bass, during Avance’s politics and tacos event at Ernest E. Debs Regional Park in Los Angeles on Saturday.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
For starters, say filmmakers and advocates, much can be done to tackle the city’s sclerotic bureaucracy, onerous regulations and a slow and costly permitting process that has pushed filmmakers to flee to friendlier and cheaper locales.
While steps have been put in place recently, including a pilot program offering reduced-cost filming permits for shoots that demonstrate a “low impact” to the surrounding community, many complain such steps have come too little and too late.
Scott Niner, president and owner of Dangling Carrot Creative, checks on woodwork being produced at his shop in North Hollywood.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
“The industry is in collapse and people have been talking about fixing things for years, but all we get are incremental little changes,” said Ed Lippman, a location manager of 34 years who lives in Sherman Oaks and has worked on such shows as “ER” and “The X-Files” and movies including “Galaxy Quest.” “And if the city is not being business-friendly, the business will go elsewhere.”
Compounding the problem, the Los Angeles area has more than 100 jurisdictions, many of which have their own set of rules and regulations regarding filming.
“There needs to be universal standards,” said Travis Beck, a location manager for commercials, small films and music videos. “Burbank is different from Glendale, which is different from Pasadena.”
The recent kerfuffle over filming “Baywatch,” the lifeguard reboot at Venice Beach, underscored both the efforts to bring production back to L.A. — enticed by a $21-million tax credit — and the complex, baffling red tape required to film here.
When shooting began in March, the production encountered a number of hiccups, including that it needed nearly double the parking space it had received a permit for, which was not part of the original approvals.
An anonymous crew member claimed on Facebook that government restrictions had forced production to relocate from Venice Beach. Production staff denied they had relocated. However, the incident prompted a backlash, becoming a rallying cry over L.A.’s burdensome filming bureaucracy.
The “Baywatch” team quickly met with city and county officials and resolved the issue, securing an agreement for a 20% parking discount from the city, and the mayoral candidates used it as an opportunity to score political points.
Pratt slammed the city’s permitting problems.
“LA turned its back on Hollywood — now the golden goose needs CPR,” he wrote on his Substack.
“The City of Los Angeles will always clear bureaucratic barriers, making it easier and more affordable to film in the entertainment capital of the world,” she wrote on X last month.
On April 21, the mayor unveiled programs to offer productions 20% discounts on city-owned parking lots and other equipment, reduced filming fees at places like the Griffith Observatory and reopened the Central Library for filming. Last August, she appointed Steve Kang, president of the Los Angeles Board of Public Works, as the city’s film liaison.
Raman has pledged her support for expanding the state’s $750-million tax incentive program, streamlining permitting and lowering fees and eliminating those for small productions. She has also said she will establish a dedicated city film office with a liaison who understands production.
Councilmember and mayoral candidate Nithya Raman speaks to a crowd at the “Families for Nithya” event at Vineyard Recreation Center in Los Angeles on Saturday.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
“Los Angeles is losing Hollywood,” Raman said in a statement. “Not because productions want to leave, but because we’ve made it too hard for them to stay.”
On his Substack and various podcast interviews, Pratt has promised to slash location fees in half, speed up permit approvals, reduce on-set city staff for the majority of productions and waive all fees for shoots with budgets under $2 million.
All three candidates have attacked one another over their approach to Hollywood.
Pratt and Raman have said Bass moved too slowly to address spiraling production and retain film jobs, saying she enacted measures only recently as the mayoral race was heating up.
Speaking on the Monks & Merrill podcast, Pratt criticized Bass’ moves to cut costs to film at the Griffith Observatory, saying, “Who needs that shot right now with the homeless poop all around it?”
The incumbent mayor has defended her administration’s record with the entertainment industry.
Bass and Pratt have taken Raman to task, calling her out for what they say is her lack of advocacy during her time on the City Council.
“She feels very strongly about it. But never offered one motion on the industry, and when motions came up on the industry she either recused herself, or got up and walked out,” said Bass during a debate this month.
Citing a potential conflict of interest over her husband’s work in television, Raman refrained from voting on several motions related to Hollywood.
Many working in the industry would like to see full-throttled support coming from the mayor’s office that will get results. They note how New York City has successfully promoted itself as a leading film destination over the years. (Kang, the city’s chief film liaison, said the city is working on a similar marketing campaign to promote filming that will launch by early fall.)
“For all the talk about, ‘We need to support and bring back filming,’ if they just did basics like lowering the fees and simplifying the process … that would actually help people and get things produced,” said Chris Fuentes, 66, who worked for 30 years as a location manager until he retired last year.
“We’ve heard a lot of great things, but not all things are possible in the mayor’s remit,” said Buzick Kim, noting that tax incentives are a state and federal issue.
Still, she said, “the mayor must understand that Hollywood needs to be made a priority and to find and create inspired thinking to make things easier and cheaper.”
Kang agrees, but says there are limits to what the mayor can achieve.
“We definitely can do a lot to really open up the entertainment industry, but at the same time, we recognize the larger impact needs to come from Sacramento and Washington, D.C., because L.A. just does not have the resources to compete with other jurisdictions in providing millions of dollars in tax incentives,” he said.
For most working in the industry, they just want city leadership that will execute on more than just talking points.
“This is the birthplace of cinema,” Beck said. “It shouldn’t be so hard to film here.”
After watching his mother perform in a production of “A Raisin in the Sun” at Compton Community College when he was 9 years old, Anthony Anderson knew appearing on stage would be his life’s work. Over the next handful of years, he enrolled in programs across Los Angeles to achieve that dream. Then, one morning after finishing a class at the Southern California Regional Occupational Center in Torrance, Anderson saw a Post-It note on a bulletin board that caught his attention. The note informed aspiring artists about a newly formed arts school. To be admitted, they had to submit an audition tape.
“I ripped it off the board, and I brought it home to my mother, and I said, ‘Mom, if I can get into this school, can I go here?’” Anderson says. “She said, ‘If you can get into that, yes.’”
Months later, Anderson received a letter informing him that he had been accepted into the inaugural class at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts.
Founded in 1984 and opening its doors to students in 1985, Los Angeles County High School for the Arts is located on the campus of Cal State L.A. It was established to provide students (currently 550) with conservatory-level arts training and college-prep academics within the public education system. LACHSA isn’t associated with LAUSD; instead, it partners with the Los Angeles County Office of Education, which provides funding to support it.
“I felt it to be very important that I was in an environment where other students had the same passion as I did for the arts, in particular, theater,” Anderson says. “Being around other students who had the same passion and drive that I had as an artist was very influential.”
Over the years, LACHSA has featured a who’s who of alumni across various disciplines, including musicians Phoebe Bridgers and Haim, actors Jenna Elfman and Belissa Escobedo, and visual artists Robert Vargas, Tomashi Jackson and Kehinde Wiley. For the past seven years, the school has been ranked as the top public high school for the arts.
Drew McClelland (second from right) with students from LACHSA’s Cinematic Arts Program and actor William H. Macy (far right).
(Courtesy of LACHSA)
While the school’s accolades focus on the arts, LACHSA also aims to give its students experiences that extend beyond the program. Days are structured so that students take academic classes in the morning and arts in the afternoon. With this format, they meet and get to know classmates from other disciplines.
Former “SNL” cast member Taran Killam points out that this also promotes the school’s social and economic diversity, acting as a mini-college experience.
“It’s such a melting pot, but you have this beautiful, focused bonding,” he says. “It’s a rare thing for kids to know, but LACHSA students are ambitious. It’s very unifying when your background is so disparate and so diverse. It’s what makes it special, and you can’t get this experience in a traditional school.”
Lara Raj attended several arts-focused high schools as she moved during her childhood. With that in mind, the member of the girl group Katseye cites LACHSA as having a major influence on her artistic development. During her time at LACHSA, Raj took music, fashion and acting classes, and says its music tech class was her favorite. There, she learned how to create beats and write songs.
“I developed my songwriting and fell in love with it through those classes,” Raj says. “I was excited to go to school every day. And I hate school.”
Before attending LACHSA, singer-actor Josh Groban didn’t know a school specializing in the arts was an option. After bouncing around schools and realizing he needed a different education to express himself equally academically and artistically, he ended up at LACHSA. There, he found like-minded, artistically inclined outsiders.
Josh Groban, a former student of LACHSA, credits the institution with helping him find his voice.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
“I was a kid who didn’t quite know how to fit in,” Groban says. “Then at [LACHSA], I was surrounded by other students who, I think, didn’t know how to fit in either. We were there for the same reasons, which is that we felt like we needed the nourishment of the arts and being able to express ourselves on a daily basis.”
Half of LACHSA’s funding is provided by the state, with the rest provided by the LACHSA Foundation, a registered 501(c) (3). According to its executive director, Trena Pitchford, the foundation has invested $1 million each school year.
“People always ask me when I tell them I went to LaGuardia and to LACHSA if they were private schools,” Raj says. “I tell them it was created by people who are passionate about the arts and want to inspire kids.”
“There’s a part of LACHSA that I think is a discovery point for a lot of Los Angeles County, and even the nation,” Pitchford says. “There’s so much opportunity for the school, and they’re doing it on a limited budget. What would happen if they were fully funded? What would happen if the foundation had a $40 million endowment? That would fully sustain what they’re doing right now.”
LACHSA students posing in front of the entrance to the Greek Theatre
(Courtesy of LACHSA)
LACHSAPalooza, the culmination of the foundation’s two-year fundraising campaign to celebrate the first 40 years of LACHSA, will take place at the Greek Theatre on May 30. There, student artists will perform alongside Ozomatli, Jon B., April Showers and more. From a fundraising standpoint, the foundation has high hopes of raising $2.5 million.
“We have both annual goals in terms of investment as well as sort of big visions, big dreams of where we think LACHSA could go for the next 40 years,” Pitchford says. “We also hope to put LACHSA on the national stage.’
The honorees for the night are the late Pat Bass, LACHSA’s gospel choir director, retiring LACHSA theater department chair Lois Hunter, and Jerry Freedman, a longtime social studies teacher at the school.
For Anderson, who is serving as the night’s host, seeing Freedman recognized is very meaningful.
“He was there from the school’s beginning,” Anderson says. “He was there when I started, and he’s still there and is still beloved by the students 40-plus years later. I’m looking forward to honoring him.”
As an arts-based school in the long-standing entertainment capital of the U.S., LACHSA can educate and enable the next generation of artists to discover their voices in the backyards of production companies, studios and record labels.
“The freedom that a LACHSA student gets on the campus to discover who they are is exciting,” Pritchard says. “It’s very innovative, very creative, and it’s forward thinking, future forward. It’s an exciting and thrilling place to be.”
Alumni agree. Without LACHSA and, in turn, a focused public arts education, pursuing a career in the arts would have been more difficult and more costly.
“It helps develop souls to be fully fledged human beings who feel like they can go off into the world and be the best versions of themselves,” Groban says. “We all felt like we were free to be who we wanted to be.”
“Specialty-focused high schools like LACHSA, be it arts or any other topic deserving of protection, because it is a gathering place for exceptionally talented, ambitious, driven kids,” Killam says. “And aren’t those the kind of people we want to be cultivating in society?”
The US naval blockade of Iranian ports and the Strait of Hormuz, in place since April 13, has raised concerns that Iran could run out of crude oil storage capacity and be forced to curb production.
Bloomberg reported analysis on Tuesday from the data and analytics company Kpler suggesting Iran could run out of crude storage in 12 to 22 days if the blockade persists.
Last week, United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed that storage capacity at Kharg Island, where most of Iran’s oil is exported, would be full “in a matter of days”.
So how quickly could Iran run out of oil storage, and why does it matter?
What is happening in the Strait of Hormuz?
The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow channel that connects the Gulf to the open ocean. It spans the territorial waters of Iran on its northern side and Oman on its southern side. It is not in international waters.
During peacetime, 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies are shipped through the corridor.
Two days after the US and Israel launched their first air strikes in their war on Iran on February 28, Ebrahim Jabari, a senior adviser to the commander in chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), announced that the strait was “closed”. If any vessels tried to pass through, he said, the IRGC and the navy would “set those ships ablaze”.
As the war has dragged on and negotiations have failed to achieve a settlement, Iran has at times in the past two months allowed some “friendly” ships and those that pay tolls to pass. It is currently refusing to allow any foreign-flagged ships, including those previously deemed friendly, to pass until the US lifts its own naval blockade.
Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said on April 19 that the “security of the Strait of Hormuz is not free”.
“One cannot restrict Iran’s oil exports while expecting free security for others,” he wrote in a post on X.
“The choice is clear: either a free oil market for all, or the risk of significant costs for everyone,” he added. “Stability in global fuel prices depends on a guaranteed and lasting end to the economic and military pressure against Iran and its allies.”
Since the US naval blockade on the strait began, the US has opened fire on and taken control of an Iranian-flagged tanker near the Strait of Hormuz while also redirecting vessels on the high seas transporting cargo to or from Iran. Iran’s armed forces have denounced these actions as “an illegal act” that “amounts to piracy”.
The US naval blockade of the strait means that Iran might have to store the oil it produces.
Iran is the third largest oil producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) after Saudi Arabia and Iraq and exports 90 percent of its crude oil via Kharg Island in the Gulf for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
What has the US claimed?
The US is eager to curb Iran’s oil revenues, which have risen since Tehran closed the Strait of Hormuz to other shipping. This is the primary motive behind Washington’s naval blockade of Iranian ports.
Iran exported 1.84 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in March and shipped 1.71 million bpd in April, compared with an average of 1.68 million bpd in 2025, according to Kpler.
However, the US naval blockade since mid-April now means that most of its exports are having to be stored instead.
Bessent wrote in an X post on April 22: “In a matter of days, Kharg Island storage will be full and the fragile Iranian oil wells will be shut in.”
Iran’s domestic refineries have a production capacity of 2.6 million bpd, according to the energy consultancy Facts Global Energy.
Satellite data show the amount of oil Iran has in storage has risen sharply since the US blockade began, and in the days after the US tightened it, stocks were rising so fast that it appeared Iran had been barely able to export any oil at all.
From April 13 to April 21, data showed that stocks rose by more than 6 million barrels, according to the Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP). From April 17 to April 21, the stock increased very rapidly, growing by 1.7 bpd.
As of April 20, the storage tanks at Kharg were about 74 percent full after the island alone had taken on about 3 million extra barrels of oil, the CGEP reported.
Generally, oil companies avoid filling their storage beyond 80 percent capacity to balance safety, emissions control and flexibility.
However, Iran and other oil producing countries have exceeded this limit before, for instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic. In April 2020, Kharg island’s stocks reached close to 90 percent capacity, an all-time high.
Iran also has some crude oil storage capacity in the form of “floating tanks”, or parked ships. About 127 million barrels can be stored in this way, Frederic Schneider, a nonresident senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, told Al Jazeera in an interview on April 14.
Will Iran need to cut oil production?
Muyu Xu, a senior crude oil analyst at Kpler, told Al Jazeera that the blockade could eventually force Iran to cut production.
“However, given there is still available storage capacity onshore (roughly covering 20 days of Iran’s current production), we expect any production reduction to be gradual over the coming week with a higher likelihood of acceleration into May,” she said.
Analysis by CGEP nonresident fellow Antoine Halff echoed this. Halff wrote in an article published by CGEP on Tuesday that it may be some time before the US blockade causes Iran to shut off its production “in a big way”.
However, Halff added, Iran may still choose to halt production “fairly aggressively” but this “would be more by choice than by necessity”.
He explained: “Doing so would have the advantage of providing Iran with relatively ample spare storage capacity after the shutdown and would allow for a smoother restart of operations once conditions permit, and the constraint is relaxed, thus minimising adverse impacts from the blockade on longer-term supply.”
Why does this matter?
Halting oil production risks damaging underground reservoirs by reducing reservoir pressure, allowing water or gas to encroach into producing layers and changing patterns of oil flow. This can make some oil harder or more expensive to recover later, experts said.
Restarting the process of oil production can also be slow and costly, involving repairs of corroded equipment or unclogging pipelines.
Halting production would also cause Iran’s export revenues to drop. However, analysts said that for a few months, Iran can continue to earn revenue from oil that is already in transit at sea.
Kenneth Katzman, former Iran analyst at the Congressional Research Service in Washington, DC, said Iran is not exporting new oil during the US blockade of Iranian ports but Tehran has 160 million to 170 million barrels of oil on ships around the world currently.
Lionsgate’s “Michael” is on track to unseat “Straight Outta Compton” as the king of musical biopics.
Early returns suggest the Antoine Fuqua-directed film will surpass the $60-million opening weekend box office record set by the N.W.A biopic in 2015, with the studio expecting an opening that could reach $70 million.
“Michael Jackson is one of the most influential artists in human history. His impact on music, fashion, dance, film and business has withstood the test of time,” said Adam Fogelson, the chair of the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group.
“All of those things together seem to have created a profound response from audiences of all ages,” he added.
“Michael,” starring the legendary pop star’s nephew Jaafar Jackson, hits 3,900 screens nationwide on Friday.
That film remains the highest-grossing documentary of all time with nearly $270 million in global ticket sales.
The stakes may be higher for “Michael,” not just because of its roughly $200-million cost, but also its circuitous journey to the big screen.
Early development on the motion picture began in 2019, but frequent changes — both in the storyline and production — forced delays. The original idea was to encapsulate Jackson’s life from childhood fame with the Jackson 5 to his solo commercial peak during the ’80s and end with the child sex abuse allegations he faced in 1993.
That version of the film was well underway when the production was forced to go back to the drawing board due to a legal issue. The Jackson estate, which is in support of the project, reportedly discovered the early draft of “Michael” violated a $15-million settlement with the accuser in that case. Part of the agreement stipulated that the alleged victim would never be pictured or mentioned in a dramatization of Jackson’s life.
Production reconvened for 22 additional days and the Jackson estate took on tens of millions of dollars in additional reshoot costs.
The current version of “Michael,” hitting theaters this weekend, is set between the 1960s and 1988. It closely follows the controlling relationship between Jackson and his father, Joe Jackson, played by Colman Domingo, and tracks the king of pop’s peak stardom. Janet Jackson is notably absent from the storyline.
Depending on how the movie performs, there are plans for a potential sequel. The follow-up would tell the second half of Jackson’s career, where much of the scrapped footage could be used. Lionsgate has done advanced work to ensure that a significant amount of the previously captured footage could be included.
So far, the movie is receiving mixed reviews. As of Friday morning, the critic’s consensus on Rotten Tomatoes was less than favorable, with a score of 40%. But Lionsgate remains confident the film will resonate positively with average moviegoers and Jackson fans, both domestically and globally.
“The audiences that are now starting to watch the movie in early previews have been euphoric,” Fogelson said. “Audiences are speaking loudly and clearly about how much they appreciate the final product.”
Even outside of theaters, Jackson’s story continues to find success. “MJ,” the jukebox musical based on his life, is in its fourth year on Broadway and has had both national and international showings. Michael Jackson’s estate has also collaborated with Cirque du Soleil for several acrobatic productions since 2011. The “Michael Jackson ONE” show, which first premiered in 2013, recently extended its run on the Las Vegas Strip until 2030.
Tiffany Naiman, the director of music industry programs at UCLA, said the sustained interest in the pop icon speaks to his loyal fan base and place in American cultural history.
“He represents not only extraordinary artistic achievement, but also the contradictions of fame at its most amplified,” Naiman said in a statement. “That tension — between brilliance and controversy, innovation and scrutiny — is precisely what continues to draw audiences back, and what will likely shape both the film’s reception and its broader cultural impact.”
Tesla framed 2026 as an investment-heavy year, with CEO Elon Musk saying, “We’re going to be substantially increasing our investments in the future so you should expect to see significant — a very significant increase
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