Business
Heathrow Shutdown Shows How Aviation Chaos Can Quickly Spiral
Airlines, airports and air traffic controllers prepare for chaos. But that doesn’t make responding to it any less complicated.
The global aviation system is deeply interconnected and responding to a disruption — especially one as severe as the power outage at London’s Heathrow Airport, a global hub — is a delicate balancing act. For airlines, moving even a small number of flights can have cascading effects.
Heathrow was closed Friday after a fire at a nearby power substation, leaving tens of thousands of travelers, and dozens of airlines, facing cancellations, rerouted flights and a cascading series of changes to schedules.
“They’re thinking not just in terms of a single day, but recovery,” said Dr. Michael McCormick, a professor of air traffic management at Embry‑Riddle Aeronautical University, who managed the federal airspace over New York during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. “They have to look at where passengers with bags, aircraft and aircrews need to be tomorrow, the next day, and the next day.”
When crises occur, airline network operation centers go into overdrive. The centers are the nerve centers of carriers — typically large, quiet, secure rooms with power backups and protections against severe weather and disasters.
At large airlines, operations centers are staffed around the clock with teams that monitor the weather, manage planes, communicate with air traffic control, schedule crews and much more.
Small disruptions can be handled surgically — a sick pilot can be replaced or a broken plane swapped out for another. But bigger disruptions like the one at London’s Heathrow Airport can require scrapping and reworking intricate plans while taking into account a wide range of limitations.
Planes differ in how many people they can carry and how far they can fly, so a small plane used for shorter domestic flights cannot easily be swapped in for a larger one used on longer flights. They also must be fueled adequately and their weight balanced appropriately, needs that must be adjusted if planes are rerouted.
Regulations require that pilots and flight attendants are not overworked and are allowed to rest after certain number of hours on the clock. If a flight takes too long to depart, a crew can time out. When schedulers do reassign crews, they also have to take into account where those pilots and flight attendants are needed next, or they could risk more disruptions later.
Airlines, of course, do not operate in isolation. As they change plans, they need to work with airport and air traffic control officials who may have limited resources to accommodate the changes. Airports are limited not just in how many flights they can receive, but also, in some cases, what types of planes they can safely accept. In the United States, for example, many air traffic control towers have long suffered from controller shortages.
new video loaded: Ferrari’s Stock Falls After It Unveils Its Latest Car
transcript
transcript
Ferrari’s Stock Falls After It Unveils Its Latest Car
The Italian sports car manufacturer received significant backlash after it unveiled its first electric vehicle, the Luce, earlier this week.
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It doesn’t shout Ferrari. And for a company whose entire history is based on making dynamic-looking, sleek cars, it’s maybe harder for Ferrari to get around than it is for other manufacturers.
By Jamie Leventhal
May 27, 2026
After nearly 50 years of selling all things comics, Dark Horse is closing its Things From Another World retail locations.
The publishing house, well known for series such as “Hellboy” and “The Umbrella Academy,” operated two storefronts in Oregon and maintained a flagship store at L.A.’s Universal Citywalk. The Oregon shops will close in June, and the L.A. location will close in September. The company said in a statement that these closures are a part of its efforts to “modernize.”
“This was not an easy decision, and we do not take lightly the impact it has on the people directly affected,” Dark Horse said in a statement.
As the company moves away from the retail business, the Oregon-based publisher said it plans to focus more on its creators and writers, “ensuring they have the development support, creative partnerships, and resources to bring their visions to life across film and television.” Over the years, Dark Horse has become one of the largest comics publishers in the country.
The company also recently launched a games division focused on providing creators with development opportunities in interactive entertainment.
Dark Horse added, “We believe these changes further focus Dark Horse on its successful core publishing and collectibles business and on deepening our relationship with our fans and the retail community alike.”
The structural changes came a week after Dark Horse Media, which oversees Dark Horse Comics, was rolled into a new parent company, Fellowship Entertainment. The Stockholm-listed entertainment business was formed through a company split at Embracer Group. Under this separation, Fellowship Entertainment is now home to companies such as Dark Horse Media and Crystal Dynamics, as well as IPs such as “The Lord of the Rings” and “Tomb Raider.”
Dark Horse was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson. He had initially opened Pegasus Books in Bend, Ore., in 1980, with plans to become an author. But as the retail business expanded, he instead decided to get into the publishing industry with Dark Horse. In the first few years of the company, he popularized comic series based on movies such as “Star Wars,” “Aliens” and “Predator.” Today, the company represents over 350 properties across comics, books, films, television, electronic games, toys and collectibles.
The closing of Things From Another World at Universal Citywalk marks the loss of another legacy comic store in the city. In recent years, many storied shops such as Geoffrey’s Comics in Torrance, Earth-2 Comics in Sherman Oaks and Hi De-Ho Comics in Santa Monica have all been forced to close due in part to a struggling retail market.
Ferrari’s first-ever fully electric vehicle triggered some fans who said it looks more like an iPhone than an Italian supercar.
The $640,000 Ferrari Luce, which was unveiled on Wednesday, looks like a distant relative of many Apple products. It was built with the help of Jony Ive, the person who designed the look and feel of the Cupertino company’s iPhone, iPod and Macintosh through 2019.
“Legend has it that if you pull the Ferrari badge off the side of the new Luce you see an Apple logo underneath,” one user wrote on X.
A meme circulated portraying the Luce with iPhone applications photo-shopped onto the top, and another showing the car upside down and plugged into an iPhone charger.
To accommodate more batteries and seats, the new EV is bigger and boxier than most classic Ferraris. Ive’s design firm, LoveFrom, which he started in San-Francisco after leaving Apple, was brought in to try to meld the traditions of Ferrari with the new functionality and form allowed by a battery-powered engine.
In a marketing video, Ferrari’s chief design officer, Flavio Manzoni, said he sees the Luce “acting as a bridge between San Francisco and Maranello,” the northern Italian city where Ferrari is headquartered.
The four-door, five-seat car comes onto the scene at a difficult moment for electric vehicles, an industry that has been battered by President Trump’s policies.
Trump has cut EV incentives for manufacturers and customers, prompting several major automakers to move away from EV efforts and focus on gas-powered options.
A luxury EV effort from Sony and Honda, a high-tech vehicle dubbed Afeela, was shut down before it ever hit the road due to Honda paring back its EV offerings.
Legacy automakers such as Ferrari face a particularly difficult landscape for launching an EV, as die-hard fans are attached to traditional, gas-powered models.
Ferraris are known for roaring engines and bold, angular designs, a far cry from the smooth, rounded exterior of the Luce.
To be sure, aggressive redesigns often attract ridicule. The early electric Mustang models were shunned by some but have become popular.
One X user posted a meme with a photo of fictional Italian gangster Tony Soprano saying, “I don’t want any California bulls—.”
The online launch page for the car emphasizes that the Luce is “100% Ferrari.”
Still, Luca di Montezemolo, Ferrari’s former chairman, told reporters on Tuesday that the automaker is “risking the destruction of a legend.”
Ferrari shares have fallen about 8% since the launch of the Luce, signaling investors’ concerns that the car won’t resonate with customers.
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