A number of days in the past I assumed I used to be within the midst of an odd early morning dream. However as I lay in mattress in a half-sleep state, nonetheless attempting to decipher the dream world from actuality, I realised that the yelling I assumed was coming from my unconscious was truly coming from the road under my bed room window. It was barely 6am, and an indignant and distressed girl was loudly telling her accomplice that she was carried out with their relationship.
I reside on a really quiet residential avenue by New York Metropolis requirements, so within the interludes between the screaming, it was eerily quiet. Quickly she spoke once more, yelling to somebody down the telephone that she needed “to get away from him”. There was “nothing left [for her] in New York”.
I obtained off the bed and appeared out of the window to see the girl standing on the sidewalk along with her suitcases, and the person simply exterior the entrance door. A automotive pulled up. The driving force obtained out and put the girl’s circumstances within the trunk as she climbed within the again seat. It appeared to me that her accomplice had crossed some line. And that she was now crossing her personal.
The entire incident triggered a low wave of unhappiness to return over me. It felt unusually emblematic of what seems like a bigger world fracturing round us, and it’s made me assume for the previous few days in regards to the thought of crossing traces, actual and symbolic ones. All of us make traces in our heads and hearts, which might or can’t be crossed in {our relationships}, in our neighbourhoods, in our cities, in our international locations. And in some unspecified time in the future, most of us should reckon with the query of what occurs when these traces do get crossed.
The portray “Route 66”, by the modern artist Dean Mitchell, is an outline of a desolate stretch of highway alongside the celebrated US freeway that when related Chicago to Los Angeles. We come to the brown and gray painted canvas at an intersection of roads, gazing on to the flip that will put us on to Route 66. The panorama earlier than us is barren. There aren’t any vehicles or folks within the body, nothing to recommend which historic interval we’re in. As a viewer, we face a cease signal, the purpose the place we should pause to think about what our subsequent transfer can be.
Advertisement
US Freeway 66 formally existed from 1926 to 1985. I’m most conversant in it from Nat King Cole’s 1946 track recommending travellers to “journey my method, take the freeway that’s the perfect / Get your kicks on Route 66.” These lyrics, written by Bobby Troup, a white musician and actor, supply a carefree imaginative and prescient of the freeway. However I believe that Mitchell, a 65-year-old African-American man, was effectively conscious of the distinctive risks posed to black individuals who travelled stretches of that route.
Route 66 was sparsely populated and handed by many counties containing “sunset cities”, locations that prohibited black folks from coming into after the solar went down. Any black one that discovered themselves in a kind of locations after darkish confronted the prospect of racially motivated violence. The dangers have been so nice that in 1936, Victor H Inexperienced, a black postal employee, revealed TheNegro Motorist Inexperienced Ebook giving recommendation on the place it was protected to cease to eat, relaxation or get gasoline. Your life relied on realizing upfront what traces might be crossed safely and the place.
In an effort to cross a line, traces first should be drawn. And line making, actual or symbolic, is a technique of gatekeeping, demarcating place and energy, and distinguishing between “us and them”. Choose from any variety of international locations, cities, neighbourhoods: traces are nonetheless being drawn and the security and hazard of crossing them continues to be being thought of.
I don’t know that any of us can escape the moments in life the place, like this determine, we’re delivered to a call level that requires us to assume by and negotiate what traces we’re prepared to cross. Often crossing a line comes with some sacrifice and discomfort, stepping by the scary and unfamiliar so as to attain the opposite aspect. Lately I discover myself considering not solely of the tragic circumstances of these fleeing Ukraine, each Ukrainians and different nationals, but in addition in regards to the Russians who’ve chosen to go away their nation or to remain and protest, having decided that their president has himself crossed an irredeemable line.
Tió’s stark portray is a poignant reminder that we every stand alone in summoning up the braveness, knowledge or willingness to take advantage of difficult choices. Although it may possibly really feel like a lonely place to be, it could even be precisely what you must hear and heed your individual voice.
The artist Caitlin Connolly attracts, paints and sculpts, her work reflecting her curiosity in ladies’s interiority, and the way ladies transfer on the earth. I like her illustration “Climbing Mountains with Youngsters”. The grand determine of a girl takes up the centre of the body. The skirt of her tent-like costume billows out, including to her larger-than-life look. A younger woman hangs on to her neck, and she or he additionally holds the hand of a barely older little one who’s stepping precariously and reluctantly behind her. The girl is forging forward throughout a jagged line of mountaintops, her naked ft stepping determinedly on the pointed rock edges, as if detached to the problem.
We will see that this have to be a painful and treacherous journey. She can’t be resistant to that actuality. However many people additionally know there’s a peculiar resilience and fortitude that turns into obvious when a girl decides she should do a sure factor, together with defending those she loves. Typically now we have to cross formidable traces not only for ourselves, however as a result of we’re dedicated to the welfare of others.
The sky in Connolly’s picture is blue. It feels hopeful, regardless of the treacherous journey. I believe again to the girl I heard on the road on the sting of daybreak. It appears there may be all the time some hint of darkness within the selections we make. However there can even all the time be some thread of sunshine, irrespective of how skinny. Possibly that’s what offers us the power to cross the road within the first place.
E-mail Enuma at enuma.okoro@ft.com
Comply with @ftweekend on Twitter to seek out out about our newest tales first
Bollards that normally protect pedestrians from vehicles were to be replaced as part of the city’s preparations for the Super Bowl next month. The attacker drove his pickup around a police vehicle parked to block traffic from the street he struck.
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The rerouting of global trade from China to ports elsewhere in Asia is leading shipowners to move on from the era of ordering ever-larger vessels and switch to smaller crafts instead.
Just six container ships capable of carrying the equivalent of more than 17,000 20-foot containers, known in industry parlance as TEUs, are due to be delivered in 2025, against 17 delivered in 2020, according to shipbroker Braemar.
At the same time, 83 mid-sized vessels measuring between 12,000 TEUs and 16,999 TEUs are set to be completed in 2025, almost five times the number five years earlier.
Advertisement
“The 16,000-TEU ship will become the popular workhorse for liner companies,” said Jonathan Roach, container market analyst at Braemar, who added that “tepid” global trade and a saturation of “massive ships” had also reduced the appetite for these vessels.
The threat of environmental regulations and trade disruptions — including last year’s attacks on ships in the Red Sea — have also hit demand for the bulkiest carriers, said industry insiders.
That disruption is expected to continue with Donald Trump’s return to the White House this month. The incoming president has threatened to turbocharge tariffs on imports from China.
“We definitely see increased interest away from sourcing only your products from China,” said Peter Sand, chief analyst at shipping market tracker Xeneta, who added that supply chains were spreading to smaller manufacturing hubs elsewhere in Asia.
Sand added: “You can only make economic sense out of ships [of the largest] size if you have got the cargo to fill that up. If you don’t, you are losing money.”
Advertisement
A senior executive at one of Asia’s biggest container shipping lines echoed Sand’s remarks. With manufacturing shifting to India and Vietnam, “it probably makes less sense to expect the largest vessels [to be] filled up in two or three ports”, he said.
While mid-sized ships had overtaken the largest in popularity, demand for vessels bigger than 18,000 TEU had picked up again as profits in the container shipping industry soared in 2024.
Seventy-six ships of this size were on order at the start of December, compared with 45 at the same point in 2023, according to Braemar. Mediterranean Shipping Company, the industry leader, alone ordered 10 ships measuring 21,000 TEU in September, according to reports in the shipping trade press.
Shipowners’ earnings have surged after Yemen’s Houthi militant group launched a flurry of attacks on vessels near the Suez Canal, leading liners to divert ships and driving up the cost of shipping as the supply of available vessels dwindled.
But experts said the attacks, launched in a demonstration of support for Palestinians during the war in Gaza, had only emphasised the growing importance of flexibility in the industry.
Advertisement
Ultra-large ships are predominantly used to ferry large Asia-Europe trades through the Suez Canal but would struggle to transit other critical passages such as the Panama Canal.
“The shutting of the Suez Canal has had a serious impact on container shipping,” said William MacLachlan, a partner at law firm HFW who advises clients on shipbuilding. “Smaller ships can respond to macroeconomic events more readily.”
He also pointed to considerable uncertainty over which fuel future ships should be built to run on, with limited supplies of green alternatives.
Shipowners are also unsure about what requirements the International Maritime Organization, the industry regulator, will set to achieve its target of net zero emissions by about 2050.
“I suspect smaller shipowners are thinking: can I justify that investment [in an ultra-large ship]?” said MacLachlan. “The smaller cost of the smaller ships means people are probably less concerned.”
A utility pole with loose cables is shown towering over a home in Loiza, Puerto Rico, Sept. 15, 2022.
Alejandro Granadillo/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Advertisement
Alejandro Granadillo/AP
BAYAMÓN, Puerto Rico — Power was restored to nearly all electrical customers across Puerto Rico on Wednesday after a sweeping blackout plunged the U.S. territory into darkness on New Year’s Eve.
By Wednesday afternoon, power was back up for 98% of Puerto Rico’s 1.47 million utility customers, said Luma Energy, the private company overseeing transmission and distribution of power in the archipelago. Lights returned to households as well as to Puerto Rico’s hospitals, water plants and sewage facilities after the massive outage that exposed the persistent electricity problems plaguing the island.
Still, the company warned that customers could still see temporary outages in the coming days. It said full restoration across the island could take up to two days.
Advertisement
“Given the fragile nature of the grid, we will need to manage available generation to customer demand, which will likely require rotating temporary outages,” Juan Saca, president of Luma Energy, said in a statement.
The lights went off in Puerto Rico at 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday, darkening almost the entire archipelago as people prepared to ring in the New Year. Authorities are still investigating the cause of the outage, but Luma Energy said a preliminary review pointed to a failure in an underground electric line in the south of the territory.
Governor-elect Jenniffer González Colón, who is set to take office on Thursday, warned that customers might experience interruptions in the coming days, with power plants not yet operating at maximum capacity.
“These days, I urge you to be moderate with your energy consumption to help reduce load shifting, so that more people can have access to electricity and the system can start up without any major setbacks,” González Colón said on social media platform X.
Advertisement
On the campaign trail, González Colón had promised to appoint an “energy czar” to oversee the operation of the power grid, which has long been fragile and faulty due to years of neglect.
The island’s power grid was ravaged in September 2017 by Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm.
Unreliable electricity remains frustratingly common, hindering daily life for Puerto Ricans. In June, over 340,000 customers were left without electricity as people reeled from soaring temperatures. At the peak of Hurricane Ernesto, in August, over half of all utility customers lost power. Tens of thousands of people remained without electricity a week after the storm.
The New Year’s Eve outage came as clients brace for a hike in electricity rates. Last month, Puerto Rico’s Energy Bureau approved an increase of 2.2 cents per kilowatt hour for residential customers from January through March, causing electric bills for the average household to jump by nearly $20, the Energy Bureau says.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25672934/Metaphor_Key_Art_Horizontal.png "There’s a reason Metaphor: ReFantanzio’s battle music sounds as cool as it does")
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24982514/Quest_3_dock.jpg "Meta’s ‘software update issue’ has been breaking Quest headsets for weeks")
