Author: NY TIMES

No sooner had British Airways Flight 9240 roared into the air over Heathrow Airport than the cabin air was pierced by a sharp, scary noise, like an alarm or a siren. The power surged and then seemed to falter, and the plane became worryingly quiet. (Too quiet?)What was it? Images of catastrophic scenarios — birds, engine failure, parts falling off, total systemic breakdown — pinballed through the passengers’ imaginations as the plane seemed to struggle to find its equilibrium. Unease gripped the cabin. But then a disembodied voice wafted soothingly over the public-address system. “Everything’s normal,” the voice said. “The…

Rebecca Hall stood in front of an easel, her face contemplative. She moved a paintbrush gently on a palette, then applied the paint to the canvas. This was in her studio, a converted barn next door to where Ms. Hall lives in upstate New York with her husband, the actor Morgan Spector, and their 5-year-old daughter, Ida.When she’s not acting, Ms. Hall paints as a way of channeling her creativity. Her father, Sir Peter Hall — who founded the Royal Shakespeare Company — once warned her about dividing her talents. “He said that it’s very hard to do more than…

An auto C.E.O.’s plan to fend off China Tesla is scheduled to announce first-quarter delivery data this week, a key update as investors grow increasingly rattled about Chinese rivals — especially the Warren Buffett-backed BYD — gaining ground in the electric vehicle race.Tesla’s stock is down nearly 30 percent this year, with short sellers circling.Politicians and auto executives on both sides of the Atlantic are calling for more protectionist measures. After Tesla lost its crown to BYD as the world’s biggest E.V. maker, Elon Musk signaled that trade barriers may be needed. Otherwise, the Tesla C.E.O. said, Chinese E.V. makers…

▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube3. Tina Turner: “Bayou Song”Released in 1974, Tina Turner’s first solo album announced its cowgirl bona fides (and its radiant sensuality) right there in the title: “Tina Turns the Country On!” The album featured Turner’s reworkings of twangy tunes like Kris Kristofferson’s “Help Me Make It Through the Night” and Bob Dylan’s “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You,” plus this smoldering original, penned for Turner by the songwriter P.J. Morse.▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube4. Rissi Palmer: “Country Girl”“It’s a state of mind, no matter where you’re from,” Rissi Palmer…

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing his most challenging political threat since the start of the Gaza war because of a disagreement among members of his coalition about whether ultra-Orthodox Jews should retain their longstanding exemption from military service.An unwieldy right-wing alliance of secular and ultra-Orthodox lawmakers, the coalition’s members are divided about whether the state should continue to allow young ultra-Orthodox men to study at religious seminaries instead of serving in the military, as most other Jewish Israelis do. If the government abolishes the exemption, it risks a walkout from the ultra-Orthodox lawmakers; if it lets the exemption stand,…

The water tankers seeking to fill their bellies bounced past the dry lakes of India’s booming technology capital. Their bleary-eyed drivers waited in line to suck what they could from wells dug a mile deep into dusty lots between app offices and apartment towers named for bougainvillea — all built before sewage and water lines could reach them.At one well, where neighbors lamented the loss of a mango grove, a handwritten logbook listed the water runs of a crisis: 3:15 and 4:10 one morning; 12:58, 2:27 and 3:29 the next.“I get 50 calls a day,” said Prakash Chudegowda, a tanker…

It was Sept. 1, 2020, and Maxwell Dayvson Da Silva and Evgenia Satsuk were wearing masks during their first date at Leuca, an Italian restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He freaked her out just a bit when he asked her to lower her mask and kissed her.“All right, now I’m going to die,” she recalled thinking. “He probably kisses every woman during the pandemic.” He had actually quarantined in his apartment for 90 days because he had been terrified of going out during the Covid-19 pandemic. But at the time, she didn’t know that.The kiss didn’t scare her away, though, because…

Lottery fever is rising again in the United States. But buyer beware. The advertised jackpots aren’t nearly as big as they look.On March 26, someone in New Jersey won a jackpot that Mega Millions advertised on its website as $1.13 billion. And Powerball says its current jackpot is $935 million.These lottery grand prizes are a fortune, no doubt about that. But truth be told, those mouthwatering advertised jackpot numbers aimed at tempting people to buy tickets are misleading. Thanks to the magic of rising interest rates, the advertised numbers have swelled, while the real value of the current lottery prizes…

Alice Coltrane’s concert at Carnegie Hall, recorded in 1971 but only released in full this month, gathered force like a typhoon, and is well worth experiencing as a whole. Its serene opening was “Journey in Satchidananda,” a modal meditation with the flute and saxophones of Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp enfolded in her cascading harp arpeggios. Later in the concert, she switched to piano and led her group — which also included two drummers and two bassists — in a squall of free jazz that “Journey in Satchidananda” doesn’t begin to foreshadow. JON PARELESAni DiFranco’s next album, due in May,…

Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday night in one of the largest demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government since October, when the Hamas-led attack on Israel ignited a war.Tel Aviv has been the scene of weekly demonstrations calling on the government to strike a cease-fire deal to free the hostages who have been held in Gaza since October. Those protests have been growing in size as the war has dragged on and anger at Mr. Netanyahu’s government has mounted.On Saturday night, the sounds of whistles, horns and drums filled the air along with…