sky

Disney has struck a multiyear deal with the United Kingdom’s leading entertainment aggregator, Sky.

The agreement announced Wednesday will fully incorporate Disney+ streaming content into Sky’s platform. Disney+ Standard with Ads will be included in eligible Sky TV packages starting next month. The deal also introduces a new linear movie channel for Sky’s paid-TV network called Disney Cinema.

It’s the first time U.K. subscribers will have access to Disney+, HBO Max, Netflix and Hayu (a reality TV streaming service) all in one subscription under the Sky brand. The subscription costs around £24 a month (roughly $33).

“We’ve grown Disney+ in the U.K. into our largest market across Europe over the past six years, and Sky is the perfect partner for our next wave of growth in the U.K. and Ireland,” said Karl Holmes, Disney+ general manager. “This agreement gives millions of Sky customers a simple, seamless way to enjoy all the great stories that Disney+ offers, and opens up a substantial new audience for content creators and advertisers.”

As part of Disney’s move to expand its reach in the U.K., Sky customers will be able to access the studio’s classic films like “Lilo & Stitch,” Marvel movies and well-loved TV shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “The Simpsons.”

The partnership is the latest in Disney’s effort to further globalize its streaming service. The company previously reached deals with Germany’s ZDF, Spain’s Atresmedia and Saudi media conglomerate MBC Group and UAE firm Anghami, so its content will be available in countries across the Middle East.

Disney+ isn’t the only streamer attempting to expand its global reach. In recent months, Netflix inked a deal with French broadcaster TF1, which will launch this summer. HBO Max also planted a flag in Germany and Italy — a move previously blocked by Sky.

Under the new leadership of recently appointed chief executive Josh D’Amaro, it’s expected that Disney will continue to invest in local language content and increase international subscriptions. After recording billions of dollars in losses, Disney’s streaming services, which include Hulu and ESPN+, reached profitability in 2024. The company said it hopes to reach 10% operating margins in its entertainment streaming business.

Times staff writer Samantha Masunaga contributed to this report.

KATIE Price’s new husband Lee Andrews has teased a new reality show with his bride in a bizarre AI video.

The newlyweds – who tied the knot last month after just a week of talking online – are going at lightning speed through their relationship.

And now a new post on Instagram suggests Lee is looking to put things in front of a camera.

In the story titled: “Coming soon: Kate and Lee”, an artificial version of the pair are seen looking loved-up as they zoom through having dinner, and seeing the world landmarks including Rome’s colosseum and Christ the Redeemer.

The post comes just days after it was revealed a TV production company was “fuming” with Katie after throwing their planned documentary with her into chaos.

The three-part documentary was set to air in the spring on Sky, and was created by Louis Theroux’s TV production company Mindhouse.

PLUS ONE

Katie Price teases new family addition with husband Lee Andrews after baby hint

lee-ve it out

Katie Price leaves TV bosses fuming as marriage throws new show into chaos

A source close to the series told The Sun: “The whole focus of the documentary is meant to be this redemption arc for Katie showing a more serious, thoughtful side to the mum-of-five that people rarely see in her tabloid antics.

“So this latest turn in her life isn’t the kind of publicity they wanted.

“They feel like this out-of-the-blue marriage has thrown a real spanner in the works and totally changes the tone of the show, making the footage they have shot feel really out of date.

“A lot of it was filmed while she was still with JJ and she talked on camera about how much more settled she was with him.

“That all sounds a bit daft in light of what’s transpired recently.”

The insider continued: “She’s also meant to still be filming some new footage, but she’s flown off to Dubai again to be with Lee so it’s all very up in the air.

“It will take a lot of re-editing and they need to shoot some new footage if it will make it on the air for the planned April airdate.”

Katie is currently still in Dubai with Lee – where he lives full time – enjoying a honeymoon together.

Despite not even knowing each other at the beginning of this year, Lee has already shared a tattoo he has of Katie’s name and their wedding day.

The couple met online and got engaged, with Katie walking down the aisle for the fourth time in a secret ceremony when she flew out to meet him.

He’s since posted pictures hinting that they’re trying for a baby, noting “good things come to those who wait”.

Katie is already a mum to five children, but has made no secret of her desire to have another.

Last year, a documentary aired showing Katie’s efforts to go through IVF treatment with ex-fiancé Carl Woods.

Katie Price: Making Babies was filmed when Katie was engaged to Carl , 35 – who was less than impressed with the programme airing two years later.

At the time she was told that she had a less than 1% chance of being able to conceive, but decided to try anyway.

Katie later split from Carl and started dating Married at First Sight star JJ Slater.

They split just weeks before she flew to Dubai to marry Lee.

By midwinter, Los Angeles is defined less by cold than by light. Cool, clear mornings give way to afternoons shaped by the low winter arc of the sun, painting the mountains in long shadows and the sky in improbable color.

And as that low light settles in, my whole body shifts in spirit. Somewhere deep in the limbic system, a synapse fires like a flare, tracing the old circuitry of migration and memory — that annual pull toward the wide-open deserts of the American Southwest.

I dream of lizards, dark skies, sand dunes and sunsets streaked in rose-mauve and smoky violet, the air heavy with the scent of wet creosote and campfire smoke.

A sunrise in the desert.

(Josh Jackson)

But mostly I long for the open road, those forgotten highways where pavement runs through the quaint towns, weathered landmarks and the millions of acres of public land in the desert. It is a nostalgia shared by the chroniclers of the past.

In 1971, Lane Magazine published “The Backroads of California,” a large-format book that delivered trip notes and sketches of 42 backroads by the late artist Earl Thollander.

In the epilogue he writes, “On the backroads of California I re-discovered the pleasure of driving. It had nothing to do with haste, and everything to do with taking time to perceive, with full consciousness, the earth’s ever-changing colors, designs, and patterns.”

Many of those original roads have faded away, swallowed by high-speed highways or erased by suburban expansion. But a handful still survive — routes that don’t carve a straight line but follow the meandering, undulating contours of the land. They are living archives of the West.

This essay marks the beginning of a series exploring those remaining roads. And we begin on Highway 127, a two-lane stretch that runs north from Baker, slowly ascending and descending toward the Nevada border. To the west lies the outskirts of Death Valley National Park; to the east, millions of acres of public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management — acreage collectively owned by all of us.

The Baker Country Store.

(Josh Jackson)

I arrived in Baker at sunrise in early December, camera in hand, notebook in pocket. The highway sign was nearly indecipherable beneath layers of stickers and graffiti.

I pulled the car north out of town, the 41-degree air still holding the night’s chill, and was greeted by shifting light and the open, empty scale of the desert. A full moon was dropping toward the Avawatz Mountains as the sun worked its way over the horizon in the east. The dry lake beds and bare mountains were cast in glow and shadow, the whole scene washed in cinnamon and brown sugar — earthy tones that felt almost edible.

Dumont Dunes, a playground for sand dune enthusiasts, is bordered by the slow-running Amargosa River.

(Josh Jackson)

By mile 34, the winter light had begun to settle over the landscape. A short spur leads to the Dumont Dunes, a popular off-highway vehicle area, but I came to witness the miraculous waterway that surfaces above ground on its 185-mile horseshoe journey from Nevada to Badwater Basin: the diminutive but mighty Amargosa River.

Here it pushes and carves through a canyon of mud walls that resemble the color of a wasp’s nest. Ravens circle overhead, croaking at my presence in defiance. The sight of water in the parched desert unsettles your perceptions. The urge to lie down for a soak, even in winter, is hard to resist. I bend down, scoop a handful of cold water and splash it against my face.

Amargosa Canyon is known for its dramatic rock formations.

(Josh Jackson)

The Amargosa Conservancy and local tribes have worked for decades to protect this river for its cultural and biodiversity values. As Executive Director Mason Voehl told me, it is “the lifeblood of these lands. The fates of every community of life in this extreme reach of the Mojave Desert are inextricably tied to the fate of the river.”

Kneeling at the riverbank, I understood exactly what he meant.

The Shoshone post office.

(Josh Jackson)

Built in the 1930s, the Crowbar Cafe & Saloon is like a time capsule.

(Josh Jackson)

Twenty-two miles farther north, Shoshone appears as a small village serving a couple dozen residents. A gas station, post office, general store and the Crowbar Café & Saloon anchor the town.

I met Molly Hansen, the community’s unofficial historian and naturalist, in her low-ceilinged office near the village center. We walked to the end of town, where spring-fed pools hold the fate of the only population of Shoshone pupfish in the world. Once thought extinct, they were rediscovered in a metal culvert in 1986. Today they dart and shimmer through the warm water — tiny, minnow-like survivors whose breeding males flash a bright desert blue.

Hansen gestured toward the springs. “We’re not just trying to save a species,” she said. “We’re trying to restore the entire ecosystem.”

This ecosystem persists in large part because of Susan Sorrells, who owns the town and surrounding thousand acres. As the lead advocate for the proposed Amargosa Basin National Monument, she is working to protect this entire corridor — the river, wetlands and deep cultural history stitched through these desert valleys. Shoshone might be a tiny dot on a map, but it holds something astonishing: the reminder that the desert doesn’t have to be a place where things go to die — it can be a place where they begin again.

Eagle Mountain.

(Josh Jackson)

Just past mile 72, Eagle Mountain begins to tease the horizon. At first only its serrated top breaches the low hills, as if surfacing for air. Eventually the entire massif stands exposed: a solitary block of limestone rising 1,800 feet above the Mojave floor. Its isolation is striking, a misplaced guardian island.

For the Southern Paiute and Western Shoshone, Eagle Mountain holds profound cultural significance — woven into their creation stories and Salt Songs, understood as a “passage to the sky.” Even with my limited knowledge, the mountain radiated a kind of gravity, as though the desert itself were remembering.

Amargosa Opera House.

(Josh Jackson)

By mile 83, the Amargosa Hotel and Opera House appear — one of the strangest and most enchanting landmarks in the Mojave. Its stucco walls and Spanish arches were once part of a Pacific Coast Borax company town, later abandoned when the boom ended. In 1967, Marta Becket, a professional ballet dancer from New York, serendipitously got a flat tire nearby and fell in love. Soon after, she moved to the outpost, bought the hotel and spent the rest of her life preserving the landmark and restoring the opera house, where she performed for audiences large and small until 2012. Today, the hotel and theater remain open — faded, fragile and utterly magnetic.

The final seven miles of Highway 127 passed quickly, the sun slipping toward the western horizon as I crossed into Nevada, eight hours after I began.

Turns out, Thollander was right: This experience had nothing to do with haste. These backroads teach a different rhythm — the wonders of going the long way, of stopping when something catches your eye, of noticing beauty that doesn’t shout for attention. In a world increasingly defined by speed and distraction, this slow way of seeing becomes more than nostalgia; it becomes an antidote to the frantic pace of our modern condition, a necessary pause to see not what has been forgotten, but what endures.

Road trip planner: California Highway 127

California 127 illustrated map.

(Illustrated map by Noah Smith)

The route: Baker to the Nevada state line

Distance: 91 miles (one way)

Drive time: 1.5 hours straight through; allow a full day for stops

Best time to go: Late October through April. Summer temperatures frequently exceed 110°F

Fuel and essentials:

• Baker (Mile 0): Last major services. Fill your tank and stock up on water/supplies here.
• Shoshone (Mile 57): Gas station, general store and post office available.
• EV charging: Fast chargers available in Baker; Level 2 chargers available at Shoshone Inn.

Food and drink:

• Los Dos Toritos Restaurant in Baker: Authentic Mexican.
• China Ranch Date Farm (Mile 48): A historic desert oasis along the Amargosa River; famous for date shakes.
• Crowbar Café & Saloon in Shoshone: The local watering hole. Hearty meals and cold beer.

Camping:

• Dumont Dunes: A wind-shaped sand dune complex designated for off-highway vehicle recreation. Primitive camping (permit required, purchase on-site or online).
• Shoshone RV Park: Full hookups, tent sites and access to the warm spring pool.

Lodging:

Hike and explore:

• Amargosa River Crossing (Mile 34): Pull out safely to see the rare sight of water flowing in the Mojave.
• China Ranch Trails (Mile 48): Creek Trail is an easy, short walk through riparian willow groves; Slot Canyon is a moderate 2-mile hike into spectacular mud-hill geology.
• Shoshone Wetlands (Mile 57): Short walking paths to view the Shoshone pupfish habitat.
• Amargosa Opera House (Mile 83): Tours of Marta Becket’s painted theater typically run daily (check schedule online); walk the grounds to see the historic borax town ruins.

Safety Notes:

• Water: Carry at least one gallon per person per day.
• Connectivity: Cell service is spotty to nonexistent between Baker and Shoshone. Download offline maps before leaving I-15.
• Wildlife: Watch for wild burros and coyotes on the road, especially at dawn and dusk.