production

The U.S. Air Force has awarded contracts for the production of General Atomics FQ-42A Dark Merlin and Anduril FQ-44A Fury drones. This sets the service up to operate a split initial fleet of Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), something TWZ has highlighted as being a distinct possibility from the start.

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.

“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.”

“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 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

Shield AI’s Hivemind software is also already flying on a number of different drones.  Just last month, the Pentagon announced that it would be using this autonomy package to introduce swarming capabilities to its Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS) kamikaze drones.  

Shield AI flies Hivemind AI Pilot on 6th Aircraft

“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.

As far as we know, the Air Force is still planning for at least one more incremental CCA development cycle, or Increment 2, firm requirements for which have yet to be publicly released. This could lead to further diversification of the service’s future CCA fleets. The Air Force has notably already given the YFQ-48A designation to Northrop Grumman’s Talon Blue drone design, which first broke cover in December 2025. Boeing’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat, originally developed for Australia, now has a greater presence in the United States.

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.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

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.

Operators of the C-17 Globemaster III have been reaching out to Boeing about possibly restarting the product line, and the company has been “encouraged” by these engagements. Separately, Congress recently directed the U.S. Air Force to prepare a formal briefing on the feasibility of acquiring new Globemaster IIIs. The Air Force’s C-17 fleet is critical for U.S. power projection globally. At the same time, a succession of crises in recent years has put serious strain on these aircraft, and questions have already been raised about the viability of the current plan to keep them flying through 2075.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

Questions have been increasingly raised about the survivability of the C-17 itself, especially in the context of a future high-end fight, as the threat ecosystem continues to expand and evolve. The Air Force has made clear that it is working to find new ways to bolster the defensive capabilities of all of its existing airlifters, as well as its tanker fleets, and that this is a key consideration in the evolving NGAL requirements.

TWZ has long been sounding the alarm on the need for more survivable cargo planes and tankers. The Air Force already has decades’ worth of experimental work and studies on concepts for stealthy cargo aircraft and tankers, as well as non-stealthy ones with blended-wing-body (BWB) planforms, under its belt. Over the years, several companies have publicly put forward prospective designs that could be relevant for NGAL, as well.

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.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

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.

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.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

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.

Speaking at the AI on the Lot event at Culver Studios, Gutierrez spoke positively of using the controversial new technology, comparing it to “having sex and then they hand you the baby.”

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.”

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.”

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

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Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260526010007193