Walt Disney's ESPN to launch new streaming service on August 21
ESPN will also become the exclusive home for all WWE events, including WrestleMania, from 2026 in the U.S., the company said.
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CNA
2 days ago
- CNA
Jim Lovell, commander of NASA's Apollo 13 moon mission, dies at 97
WASHINGTON: American astronaut Jim Lovell, commander of the failed 1970 Apollo 13 mission to the moon that nearly ended in disaster but became an inspirational saga of survival, has died at the age of 97, NASA said on Friday (Aug 8). Hollywood star Tom Hanks portrayed Lovell in director Ron Howard's acclaimed 1995 film Apollo 13, which recounted the mission that was planned as humankind's third lunar landing. An onboard explosion en route to the moon put the lives of Lovell and crew mates Jack Swigert and Fred Haise in grave danger. The three endured frigid, cramped conditions, dehydration and hunger for three-and-a-half days while working with Mission Control in Houston to find solutions to bring the crippled spacecraft safely back to Earth. 'A 'successful failure' describes exactly what (Apollo) 13 was – because it was a failure in its initial mission – nothing had really been accomplished,' Lovell told Reuters in 2010. 'It was a great success in the ability of people to take an almost-certain catastrophe and turn it into a successful recovery.' THE CRISIS IN SPACE Apollo 13 launched on Apr 11, 1970, nine months after Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon during Apollo 11. Days before liftoff, backup lunar module pilot Ken Mattingly was replaced by rookie astronaut Swigert after being exposed to German measles. The mission proceeded smoothly for two days until, shortly after a TV broadcast from space, an exposed wire in an oxygen tank caused an explosion 320,000 km from Earth. The accident ruined the crew's chances of landing on the moon and threatened their lives. Swigert radioed Mission Control: 'Houston, we've had a problem here' later adapted in the film to Hanks' famous line, 'Houston, we have a problem.' With power failing, the crew abandoned the command module for the lunar module, designed for two men, and used it as a lifeboat for the journey home. Temperatures plunged, water was rationed and a filter was improvised to remove carbon dioxide. The crew altered course to loop once around the moon before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean near Samoa on Apr 17, 1970. FOUR SPACEFLIGHTS Apollo 13 was Lovell's fourth and final space mission. He first flew in 1965 on Gemini 7, the first link-up of two manned spacecraft, followed by Gemini 12 in 1966. In December 1968, Lovell flew on Apollo 8, the first mission to orbit the moon, reading from the Book of Genesis during a Christmas Eve broadcast to Earth. Lovell never walked on the moon, but a lunar crater bears his name. He retired from NASA in 1973, later working in the maritime and telecommunications industries. A LIFE BEYOND NASA Lovell co-authored the 1994 book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, which became the basis for Howard's film. He made a cameo in the movie as the commander of the US Navy recovery ship that greets the returning astronauts. Born in Cleveland on Mar 25, 1928, Lovell was five when his father died and his family moved to Milwaukee. He became interested in space as a teenager, graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1952 and became a test pilot before joining NASA's astronaut corps in 1962.
CNA
2 days ago
- CNA
Take-Two soars after forecast signals mobile gaming rebound
Take-Two Interactive Software shares rose 5.6 per cent on Friday as the Zynga owner's strong forecast signaled a rebound in the mobile gaming industry following a years-long post-pandemic slump. Once seen as the video-gaming industry's next big growth driver, the mobile market sputtered over the past few years as people spent more time outdoors after lockdowns and high inflation deterred non-essential spending by consumers. That left investors waiting for payoffs from mobile gaming deals such as Take-Two's 2022 buyout of Zynga for $12.7 billion. But Take-Two's raised annual forecast and better-than-expected results for the April-June period offered the clearest sign yet that the U.S. mobile-gaming market was bouncing back. "We've seen so much momentum in a lot of our big titles and some of our titles that have really started to take off since the fourth quarter of last year and into this first quarter," finance chief Lainie Goldstein said. Take-Two, whose fiscal year runs from April to March, makes puzzle-based mobile titles such as "Match Factory," "Color Block Jam" and "Toon Blast." Those games helped it post a nearly 17 per cent jump in bookings - a revenue indicator - in its fiscal first quarter. "Raises after first-quarter beats are generally rare in this industry, particularly with major releases still to come, but the ongoing strength in mobile leaves ample room for a simple passthrough of the upside," TD Cowen analysts said. The mobile-gaming market is also benefiting from the growing integration of live-service features into titles to keep players spending. That helped in-app purchase revenue rise to $81.7 billion last year from $78.6 billion in 2023, Sensor Tower data showed. Take-Two is set to add over $2 billion to its market cap if premarket gains hold. Apart from the mobile business, Take-Two has large premium titles in its pipeline including "Mafia: The Old Country," set to release on Friday, as well as "Borderlands 4" and "Grand Theft Auto VI," all of which are expected to sell millions of copies. "Between Take-Two's current performance, their upcoming releases like Mafia and Borderlands, and, of course, GTA VI, the firm should be optimistic," said Joost van Dreunen, games professor at NYU Stern School of Business.
Straits Times
3 days ago
- Straits Times
Concert review: SSO and Disney's Fantasia 2000 make a great introduction to classical music
Singapore Symphony Orchestra Aug 7, 7.30pm When movies incorporated the new dimension of sound, it did not take long for renowned animator Walt Disney to dream up the ultimate marriage of animated films with classical music. Fantasia (1940) was the result - his famous collaboration with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski.
