Author: NY TIMES

In the darkest moments of a family tragedy, when the playwright Mona Pirnot couldn’t find the strength to verbalize her feelings to her boyfriend or her therapist, she tried something a little unorthodox: She typed her thoughts into her laptop, and prompted a text-to-speech program to voice them aloud.It was a coping mechanism that also sparked a creative pivot: Pirnot’s then-boyfriend, now-husband, Lucas Hnath, is also a playwright, with a longtime interest in sound and a more recent history of building shows around disembodied voices. His last play, “A Simulacrum,” featured a magician re-creating his side of a conversation with…

Human bones were found protruding from the side of an eroding cliff on Prince Edward Island in Canada late last month.But it wasn’t a crime scene. The remains, discovered by a resident who was out for a walk along the province’s western coast, were most likely from a shipwreck that occurred roughly 150 years ago.It is also possible that the bones had been previously found and reburied, said Scott Ferris, a spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Prince Edward Island. Hurricane Fiona, he added, caused erosion and damage to the island in 2022, raising the possibility that more…

Archaeologists working in Saqqara recently unearthed three funerary masks at least 1,800 years old. Source link

The numbers are staggering.More than 100 million people are expected to vote, many for the first time. They’ll do so in booths across thousands of islands and three time zones, hammering nails into ballots to mark their choices. And within hours, if history is any guide, the world will know the outcome of the biggest race of the day: the one for Indonesia’s presidency.Indonesia, the world’s third-largest democracy, will hold its general election on Wednesday. Election Day is a national holiday, and on average, about 75 percent of eligible voters have turned out. In addition to the president, voters are…

China’s BYD was a battery manufacturer trying its hand at building cars when it showed off its newest model in 2007. American executives at the Guangzhou auto show gaped at the car’s uneven purple paint job and the poor fit of its doors.“They were the laughingstock of the industry,” said Michael Dunne, a China auto industry analyst.Nobody is laughing at BYD now.The company passed Tesla in worldwide sales of fully electric cars late last year. BYD is building assembly lines in Brazil, Hungary, Thailand and Uzbekistan and preparing to do so in Indonesia and Mexico. It is rapidly expanding exports…

Israeli security forces said early Monday that they had rescued two hostages who were being held in the southern Gazan city of Rafah, in one of the few examples of a successful hostage rescue in Gaza since the start of the war.The hostages, Fernando Simon Marman, 60, and Louis Har, 70, were undergoing tests at a hospital in Tel Aviv and were both in good condition, according to a joint statement from the Israeli military, the police and the domestic security agency, Shin Bet.The statement was issued around the same time that Israel said it had conducted a “wave” of…

A few minutes into Usher’s dynamic and sly Super Bowl LVIII halftime show performance Sunday night at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas came a moment of uncommon, almost startling calm.Alicia Keys had just appeared, in a sequined red jumpsuit and matching encrusted gown, and rather gratuitously flubbed the opening note of her hit piano ballad “If I Ain’t Got You.”She recovered, and as she approached the end of the chorus, you could hear Usher singing in quiet harmony as the camera panned back, settling on the two of them at opposite ends of Keys’s piano. Usher picked up the final…

President Biden warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Sunday that a ground offensive in southern Gaza should not proceed without a plan to protect the more than 1.4 million Palestinians clustered there, the latest sign of frustration by the White House over rising civilian deaths from Israel’s military assault.During the call on Sunday, according to a description from the White House, the two leaders also discussed ongoing negotiations with Hamas to release Israeli hostages in Gaza in exchange for a cease-fire and the release of Palestinians being held in Israeli jails.Last week, Mr. Netanyahu bluntly rejected as “ludicrous”…

Israel’s military said early Monday that it had conducted a “wave of attacks” on Rafah, the city in Gaza to which more than a million displaced Palestinians have fled.At about 3 a.m. local time, the military said on Telegram that its strikes on “quality targets” were over. Images and videos on social media, which could not immediately be verified, showed injured people and damage to buildings. News outlets reported deadly attacks on two mosques in Rafah and said people were being taken to Kuwait Hospital in the city.Israel’s most important allies, including the United States and Britain, have warned Prime…

After days of speculation and online sleuthing by fans — just another week, in other words — Beyoncé used her appearance in a Super Bowl commercial to announce that she would soon be releasing new music.In a Verizon ad that ran shortly after halftime, Beyoncé joked with the comedian Tony Hale about doing something that would “break the internet” (i.e. Verizon’s 5G network). She ran through a few riffs, like “Beyonc-A.I.,” a Barbie-like “Bar-bey,” and a presidential “BOTUS.”Then she said, “Drop the new music,” before the commercial ended. Soon after, Beyoncé’s website updated with the announcement that a new album,…