“Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” (now streaming on Disney+) is like “Goonies” in space, with four kids discovering a deserted Starship on their suburban home planet post “Return of the Jedi” and going on a pirate adventure with a mysterious Force-user played by Jude Law. The eight-episode Lucasfilm series was created by director Jon Watts (“Spider-Man: No Way Home”) and writing partner Christopher Ford, who channeled their inner child to play in the “Star Wars” universe, coaxing an all-star lineup of directors to do the same: David Lowery (“An Almost Christmas Story”) , the Daniels (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”), Bryce Dallas Howard (“The Mandalorian”), Lee Isaac Chung (“Twisters”), and Jake Schreier (Marvel’s “Thunderbolts”). “It’s exactly what I wanted to happen to me as a kid,” Watts told IndieWire. “I grew up in the middle of nowhere and, for fun, we would go walk in a field in a straight line just hoping that we’re going to stumble across a pirate treasure or get abducted by aliens. So, to be able to go back to that feeling and try to channel that into the show has been fun for me.” It was much the same for Ford, who grew up in the background of Lucasfilm in Marin County and watched all the Amblin movies along with the “Star Wars” franchise. “That was just part of our imagination,” he told IndieWire,” so it’s almost like we’re hearkening back to ourselves as fans of those movies.” For the four kids, it’s their first exposure to the “Star Wars” universe after hearing about the lore and playing with the toys. There’s Ravi Cabot-Conyers as Wim, Kyriana Kratter as KB, Robert Timothy Smith as the elephant-like Neel (but not the same species as Max Rebo from “Return of the Jedi”), and Ryan Kiera Armstrong as cyborg Fern. “It’s a really good point of view, I think, from a storytelling perspective, to be able to see this world, that we know, for the first time through their eyes,” added Watts. “We think of Wim being the dreamer, just looking for adventure but not thinking things through; his friend Neel is the risk-averse one and a little bit more shy; and the girls are a little older, more mature, and they’re formidable: Fern is like a natural born leader, and KB is extremely intelligent and tech-savvy.” Speaking of tech-savvy, Watts wanted to embrace both high and low tech, from The Volume to puppetry to stop-motion to models to a matte painting (under the VFX supervision of John Knoll, executive creative director of Lucasfilm). The Volume, which keeps improving with each new iteration at ILM, was utilized early on for hyperspace, a bustling pirate port, and a dark moon. “The thing I came to realize pretty quickly is that it’s just another tool to put in your toolbox,” Watts said. “But what’s so cool is that the best part of it feels just like an old-fashioned background painting. And I liked The Volume because it forces you to make all the choices ahead of time. It’s a bit of a magic trick where you have to figure out ways to hide the seam. My favorite use is when they’re in that little dinghy. We built the whole environment and rigged it up so the kids and Jude could sit in the dinghy and literally pilot their way through space.” The best of the puppets, meanwhile, was SM 33 (voiced by Nick Frost), a decrepit old droid first mate on their ship, the Onyx Cinder. He was inspired by Bunraku puppet theater. “He’s completely real and practical, attached to a guy, with bars coming off of a puppeteer and then that droid,” added Ford. “We pre-recorded the audio and triggered a Nick Frost line on set, so all the expressions you see from the kids and Jude were like having a real guy on set.” Lowery, who directs Episodes 2 and 3, got to work with a Teek hand-puppet that’s a favorite of his from “Ewoks: Battle for Endor.” “He’s a Teek that’s had a hard life, living on a pirate port for a while,” Watts explained. “And it’s fun because the puppeteers are such artists, making something so alive. And then, ironically, the thing that makes it special is erasing the puppeteer from the shot. Leaving what was really there practically just makes it feel so much more real. It just made David so happy.” Stop-motion vet Phil Tippett (“Mad God”) was also invited to make a Ray Harryhausen-like alien creature. “That blew my mind,” Watts said. “That was one of those things where we were completely encouraged to follow all of those crazy, old-school, expensive impulses. I think it’s because the creature was so good for the stop-motion technology and felt right.” Watts even got permission to slip in a matte painting of some planets, and Knoll phoned a retired ILM matte painter to come and do the work. “It almost became a bucket list of every old-school VFX technique,” added Watts. “We did a lot of physical models, and the one for the kids’ ship had amazing detail with moving engines. John built his own from-scratch motion control rig. There were people working in their garages because that’s where these things happen now. “The only thing that I was discouraged from doing was an actual optical effect,” Watts said. “John said, ‘No, you don’t want to get the optical printers out again. Let’s do the compositing on a computer.'” The first two episodes of “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” are now streaming on Disney+. New episodes premiere Tuesdays through the January 14 finale.Volunteers join a search for a woman from Hawaii missing in LA for weeks as her father is found deadjili super ace app download 。

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Pakistan was haunted by political uncertainty, economic instability, a deteriorating security situation and troubled relations with neighbours in 2024. But what defined the year were not just these perennial ills but the country’s inability to tackle incarcerated former prime minister Imran Khan. Amid political turbulence, Pakistan hosted a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) conclave, which was also attended by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar — the first high-ranking Indian minister in nearly a decade to visit Islamabad amid frosty ties between the two neighbours. The last Indian foreign minister to visit Pakistan was Sushma Swaraj. She had travelled to Islamabad to attend the 'Heart of Asia' conference on Afghanistan in December 2015. In his address at the SCO event, Jaishankar said, "If friendship has fallen short and good neighbourliness is missing somewhere, there are surely reasons to introspect and causes to address." He also said if activities across borders are "characterised" by terrorism, extremism and separatism, they are hardly likely to encourage trade, energy flows and connectivity in parallel. His remarks were seen as directed towards Pakistan, which has troubled relations with all its neighbours. If the year began with Iran conducting missile strikes within Pakistan in January, targeting Baloch militants, it ended with Pakistan carrying out airstrikes in Afghanistan, killing at least 46 people, including women and children, according to Afghanistan’s Taliban government. Pakistan says the target was militants. Pakistan witnessed a series of terror attacks, particularly in troubled Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provinces in 2024, among the toughest years for its security forces. According to the details shared with Parliament by the interior ministry, 924 people were killed and 2,121 injured in 1,566 terrorism incidents in the first 10 months of the year. At least 573 dead and 1,353 injured belonged to law enforcement agencies, including the army. On the economic front, Pakistan was on the verge of default in 2022 and only averted it due to the timely intervention by the International Monetary Fund. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif takes credit for pulling the country back from the brink of bankruptcy and turning around the economy. In 2024 inflation came down to single digits, policy rates reduced from 22.5 to 15 per cent, foreign exchange reserves improved, and the stock market made record gains. But it was jailed former prime minister Imran Khan who often hogged the headlines. In the elections in February, independent candidates backed by Khan's party surprised everyone by winning more than 100 out of the 226 seats in a hung parliament. And then the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz threw in a surprise, nominating Shehbaz Sharif as the prime ministerial candidate instead of the party supremo and three-time former premier Nawaz Sharif. As the PML-N and the Pakistan Peoples Party struck a power-sharing deal to form a coalition government led by Shehbaz, Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf: decided to sit in the Opposition. Khan was arrested in August 2023 after his conviction in a case of corruption and has remained behind bars since then. Contrary to expectations, his popularity swelled in 2024, proving right his words — uttered before he was ousted as PM in 2022 after losing a trust vote in Parliament — that he would be “more dangerous when out of power.” Recently, after his party workers staged a march to Islamabad – triggering a crackdown on them by the authorities — the former cricketer threatened mass ‘civil disobedience’ by his supporters if his major demands were not met. These include the “restoration” of the “mandate” he believes he got in the February parliamentary elections to run the country. His supporters see 2024 as a disaster for electoral politics and democracy, pointing at the “blatant disregard” of popular opinion reflected on the ballots. Some in power also concede this. In a recent interview with Dunya News, senior PML-N leader Mian Javed Latif accepted that “we had lost the elections”. Talks began recently between PTI and the government, but few believe that Khan’s demand to restore his “stolen mandate” will be met. Consequently, the country could continue to face strong political headwinds in 2025. With the traditional challenges still intact, the government now faces another: how to tame a ‘cornered tiger’.Descartes Announces Fiscal 2025 Third Quarter Financial Results

the peanut farmer who tried to restore virtue to the White House after the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War, then rebounded from a landslide defeat to become a global advocate of human rights and democracy, has died. . The Carter Center said the 39th president died Sunday, , at his home in Plains, Georgia, where he and his wife, who died in November 2023, lived most of their lives. A moderate Democrat, as a little-known Georgia governor with a broad grin, effusive Baptist faith and technocratic plans for efficient government. His promise to never deceive the American people resonated after Richard Nixon’s disgrace and U.S. defeat in southeast Asia. “If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don’t vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president,” Carter said. Carter’s victory over Republican Gerald Ford, whose fortunes fell after pardoning Nixon, came amid Cold War pressures, turbulent oil markets and social upheaval over race, women’s rights and America’s role in the world. His achievements included brokering Mideast peace by keeping Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at Camp David for 13 days in 1978. But his coalition splintered under double-digit inflation and the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran. His negotiations ultimately brought all the hostages home alive, but in a final insult, Iran didn’t release them until the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, who had trounced him in the 1980 election. Humbled and back home in Georgia, Carter said his faith demanded that he keep doing whatever he could, for as long as he could, to try to make a difference. He and Rosalynn co-founded in 1982 and spent the next 40 years traveling the world as peacemakers, human rights advocates and champions of democracy and public health. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, Carter helped ease nuclear tensions in North and South Korea, avert a U.S. invasion of Haiti and and Sudan. By 2022, the center had monitored at least 113 elections around the world. Carter was determined to as one of many health initiatives. the Carters built homes with Habitat for Humanity. The common observation that he was better as an ex-president rankled Carter. His allies were pleased that he lived long enough to see biographers and historians and declare it more impactful than many understood at the time. Propelled in 1976 by voters in Iowa and then across the South, Carter ran a no-frills campaign. Americans were captivated by the earnest engineer, and while an election-year Playboy interview drew snickers when he said he “had looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times,” voters tired of political cynicism found it endearing. The first family set an informal tone in the White House, carrying their own luggage, trying to silence the Marine Band’s traditional “Hail to the Chief” and enrolling daughter, Amy, in public schools. Carter was lampooned for wearing a cardigan and urging Americans to turn down their thermostats. But Carter set the stage for an economic revival and sharply reduced America’s dependence on foreign oil by deregulating the energy industry along with airlines, trains and trucking. He established the departments of Energy and Education, appointed record numbers of women and nonwhites to federal posts, preserved millions of acres of Alaskan wilderness and pardoned most Vietnam draft evaders. , he ended most support for military dictators and took on bribery by multinational corporations by signing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He persuaded the Senate to ratify the Panama Canal treaties and normalized relations with China, an outgrowth of Nixon’s outreach to Beijing. But crippling turns in foreign affairs took their toll. When OPEC hiked crude prices, making drivers line up for gasoline as inflation spiked to 11%, Carter tried to encourage Americans to overcome “a crisis of confidence.” Many voters lost confidence in Carter instead after the infamous address that media dubbed his “malaise” speech, even though he never used that word. After Carter reluctantly agreed to admit the exiled Shah of Iran to the U.S. for medical treatment, the American Embassy in Tehran was overrun in 1979. Negotiations to quickly free the hostages broke down, and then eight Americans died when a top-secret military rescue attempt failed. Carter also had to reverse course on the SALT II nuclear arms treaty after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Though historians would later credit Carter’s diplomatic efforts for hastening the end of the Cold war, Republicans labeled his soft power weak. Reagan’s “make America great again” appeals resonated, and he beat Carter in all but six states. Born Oct. 1, 1924, James Earl Carter Jr. in 1946, the year he graduated from the Naval Academy. He brought his young family back to Plains after his father died, abandoning his Navy career, and . Carter reached the state Senate in 1962. After rural white and Black voters elected him governor in 1970, he drew national attention by declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over.” Carter published more than 30 books and remained influential as his center turned its democracy advocacy onto U.S. politics, monitoring an audit of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results. After Carter said he felt “perfectly at ease with whatever comes.” “I’ve had a wonderful life,” “I’ve had thousands of friends, I’ve had an exciting, adventurous and gratifying existence.” ___Former US president Jimmy Carter dies aged 100

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Eagles WR DeVonta Smith (hamstring) ruled out vs. RamsMIAMI (AP) — The top United Nations human rights watchdog on Tuesday ordered Venezuela to avoid destroying tally sheets and other electoral material as it investigates allegations that President Nicolás Maduro stole this summer’s election. The U.N. Human Rights Council announced the opening of the probe in a letter to several Latin American jurists who in October petitioned the U.N. agency to take action in the face of what is said was widespread evidence of electoral fraud that violates the political rights of millions of Venezuelans. Maduro claimed he won the July contest by a large margin and is preparing to start a third, six-year term in January. But electoral authorities have so far refused to publish voting records to back such claims, as they have in the past, amid calls by the U.S., European Union and even leftist allies from Brazil, Colombia and Mexico to do so. Meanwhile, the opposition has published online what appear to be authentic showing that its candidate, , won by a more than 2-to-1 margin. The October petition, made on behalf of a regular Venezuelan citizen, alleges that Maduro officials committed multiple human rights violations by restricting the ability of millions of Venezuelans abroad, publishing false results and blocking any challenges in court. Paulo Abrao, a Brazilian attorney who was among those behind the complaint, said the decision comes as a crucial time, as the Maduro government is seeking to “normalize its nebulous electoral process” in the hopes the rest of the world will move on amid so many other pressing international crises. “We cannot allow that to happen,” said Abrao, the former head of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. “Now there is a formal case being processed in an international body with binding force. Venezuela has the obligation to comply with the decision.” ____ Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Alyssa Naeher ended her national team career with one last win. The stalwart goalkeeper made two critical saves in her final match for the United States, and the Americans beat the Netherlands 2-1 on Tuesday. “I definitely wasn’t thinking about it during the game, just wanted to win the game and do what I could to come away with the ‘W’ for us to close out the year,” Naeher said. Lynn Williams scored the go-ahead goal in the 71st minute for the U.S., which won its fifth Olympic gold medal in France this summer and wrapped up the year on a 20-game unbeaten streak. The Americans were coming off a scoreless draw with England on Saturday at Wembley Stadium. Naeher announced two weeks ago that the European exhibitions would be her final matches. The 36-year-old goalkeeper played in 115 games for the U.S., with 111 starts, 89 wins and 69 shutouts. Naeher is the only U.S. keeper with shutouts in both a World Cup and an Olympic final. She was in goal when the United States defeated the Netherlands 2-0 in the 2019 Women's World Cup final . “I feel like in my heart I would love to keep going. In my head, in my body and mind, I feel like it’s the right time. And I think it’s the right time with this team as well as it builds towards the future and towards 2027,” Naeher said. “This environment, this team, is an incredible team to be a part of, but it’s also really hard and really challenging in a lot of ways as well. “I feel like I’ve given everything I have to give for this team and that’s why I feel at peace with that.” The Netherlands took the lead on center back Veerle Buurman's header off a corner kick in the 15th minute. Naeher prevented a second goal when she punched away Dominique Janssen's shot in the 38th. The United States drew even at the end of the first half on an own goal that deflected off Buurman and past Dutch goalkeeper Daphne van Domselaar. Naeher slid to stop Danielle van de Donk's shot in the 69th minute before Williams, a second-half substitute, scored her fourth goal of the year and 21st of her career. “I wouldn’t say that this was our prettiest game of soccer ever. And sometimes that’s how games go. You can talk about tactics, you can talk about formations, you talk about everything, but the biggest thing was matching their intensity. Getting to the second ball, getting to the first ball. That was the shift that needed to happen,” Williams said about the team's second-half mindset. Naeher finished with six saves. She is not quite finished with soccer yet: She will continue playing next season for the Chicago Red Stars of the National Women's Soccer League. “She’s been consistent again and again. Even when she’s been questioned at times in her career, she’s always found the answer,” U.S. coach Emma Hayes said. “Not only has she been a great player in this program, but let me tell you, she’s so loved by everyone, players and staff alike. She is the best teammate you could ask for and that just speaks volumes to the person that she is.” Lily Yohannes came in as a substitute in the second half. Yohannes, who has dual citizenship, opted to play for the United States over the Netherlands last month. She plays professionally for the Dutch club Ajax. The U.S. finished the year without the trio of Mallory Swanson, Trinity Rodman and Sophia Smith, who were left off the roster for the final two matches to rest and heal nagging injuries. The U.S. is unbeaten in 15 matches under Hayes, who took over in May. AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer