Author: NY TIMES

Romance is a blast on Dua Lipa’s third album, “Radical Optimism.” It’s a thumping, reverberating, woofer-rattling, arena-scale sensation, something to exult in even when it doesn’t always go right.On Lipa’s first two albums, she juxtaposed flirtations and breakups with thoughts about power and gender. “I know you ain’t used to a female alpha,” she sang in the title track of “Future Nostalgia” in 2020, and she denounced male entitlement in “Boys Will Be Boys.” But on “Radical Optimism,” all that’s at stake is coupledom: sizing up each other, testing the possibilities, envisioning permanence or — surprisingly graciously — letting go.…

For months, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has avoided detailed public discussion about Gaza’s postwar future. Trying to placate both his far-right allies, who seek to rebuild Israeli settlements in Gaza, and Israel’s foreign partners, who want Gaza returned to Palestinian governance, Mr. Netanyahu has stopped short of any specific declaration.Behind the scenes, however, senior officials in his office have been weighing an expansive plan for postwar Gaza, in which Israel would offer to share oversight of the territory with an alliance of Arab countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the United…

Sometime in the next few years — no one knows exactly when — three NASA satellites, each one as heavy as an elephant, will go dark.Already they are drifting, losing height bit by bit. They have been gazing down at the planet for over two decades, far longer than anyone expected, helping us forecast the weather, manage wildfires, monitor oil spills and more. But age is catching up to them, and soon they will send their last transmissions and begin their slow, final fall to Earth.It’s a moment scientists are dreading.When the three orbiters — Terra, Aqua and Aura —…

While living in Warsaw in 2009, Tusia Dabrowska was always on the hunt for potential creative collaborators. Friends suggested that she meet Wiktor Maria Freifeld, who, like her, was Polish and Jewish, and making art.“We met at a party that I don’t remember,” Ms. Dabrowska, 44, said. “Then we met twice to talk about a project.”“We still need to finish it,” Mr. Freifeld, 47, said of the video project they discussed.About five months after their first meeting, Ms. Dabrowska was leaving Warsaw for a graduate program in creative writing at N.Y.U., and told Mr. Freifeld, who had recently arrived in…

Sony, a sprawling international conglomerate known for its cutting-edge electronics business, is an unconventional suitor for Paramount. Like Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, Sony has a highly profitable business outside traditional media, generating hundreds of millions of dollars from video games, music, imaging and sensors. That insulates Sony from the travails of the media industry, which has lately been challenged by the decline of the traditional theatrical business and the death of cable television.The letter, which was signed by Tony Vinciquerra, the chief executive of Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Aaron Sobel, a partner at Apollo, is intended to be a starting…

In 2015, NTS expanded, opening a studio in Manchester and one in Los Angeles the following year. Currently, NTS hosts around 700 shows a month — roughly 600 from residents, who host weekly, biweekly or monthly shows, and 100 or so from guest D.J.s — which come in from cities across the world, including Beirut, Lebanon; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and Melbourne, Australia. NTS broadcasts without advertising, instead relying on income from its commercial activities and a membership program called “NTS Supporters” to keep the station afloat. In March, the station averaged 360,000 listeners a day, according to its…

A Hamas leader said Thursday that the group would soon send a delegation to Cairo to “complete ongoing discussions” on a cease-fire deal for the war in the Gaza Strip, raising hopes of progress in the stalled efforts for a truce.The latest cease-fire proposal, which has been forcefully pushed by the Biden administration in recent days, comes after nearly seven devastating months of war. The deal would include a weekslong temporary truce — the exact duration is unclear — and the release of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners in Israel. It would also allow the return of civilians…

Britain’s Conservative Party suffered striking early setbacks on Friday in local elections that are viewed as a barometer for how the party will perform in a coming general election and a key test for the embattled prime minister, Rishi Sunak.Only a minority of the results had been announced by early Friday, but already the signs were ominous, if not unexpected, for Mr. Sunak’s Conservatives, who have trailed the opposition Labour Party by double digits in national polls for 18 months.The Conservatives have lost more than 120 seats so far, including six in Hartlepool, in northeast England, where the Conservatives had…

In January 2018, Andrew Stephen Matt said he spent the best $20.18 he’d ever spend: He bought a one-month, unlimited class pass to Lync Cycling in Dallas.The next month, he began by taking indoor cycling classes conducted by Kayla Nicole Dye, who immediately took a liking to him. “I liked how kind he was,” she said.After a few months, she moved him up to the head of the class. “He always booked Bike 22 in the back,” Ms. Dye, 33, said. “I moved him up to Bike 12.” Then she got really bold and booked him front and center on…

Edward Dwight is going to space, finally.In the coming weeks, as conditions allow, Mr. Dwight is expected to be part of a six-person crew heading into space on the latest mission of Blue Origin, the space company founded by Jeff Bezos. Blue Origin’s seventh human flight will carry an array of adventurers including a venture capitalist, a craft-beer entrepreneur from France, a retired accountant who has been told by doctors that she is going blind, and Mr. Dwight, a retired Air Force captain who 60 years ago was chosen, and then passed over, to be the first Black man to…