Context

Here — in a side office, up the stairs of an unmarked building hidden away on a block of the city center jammed with flashy music stores that used thumping loudspeakers to attract customers — was the workshop of one of this city’s oldest and most accordion repairmen. “Everything I do is to improve the…

Have you ever taken in a natural vista, say the soaring ranges of a national park, and thought: Three thousand feet of nothingness between me and the ground would really improve this. For Breannah Yeh, a 24-year-old professional slackliner, such an experience is quite a walk in the park. Ms. Yeh shares her aerial escapades…

On the beaches of Western Australia, by California’s crashing waves and in sight of Hawaii’s blue depths, “shark attacks” are slowly disappearing, at least as a phrase used by researchers and officials who have been rethinking how to describe the moments when sharks and humans meet. Last week, two Australian states drew mockery when The…

For women in conducting, there are reasons to be optimistic. Administrators at major ensembles in cities like Atlanta, Minneapolis and Cincinnati, as well as Baltimore, are vowing to ensure that women are serious contenders. Search committees are looking at a mix of artists and rising stars, according to interviews with 20 committee members, administrators, players…

For a stretch late last year into the early months of this year, the most withering style assessments available online came in the form of Mark Boutilier’s very round, very calm, very expressionless face. On TikTok, he used the app’s duet function, with which you can post a reaction video side by side with someone…

Welcome to our new weekly interactive Vocabulary in Context Quiz, created with help from Vocabulary.com. We will be publishing a new one every Thursday this school year, and you can find them all here. This week's quiz comes from a "burst" published on Jan. 24, 2022. Choose the word or phrase that BEST completes each…

“I made a deal with myself that I was going to either learn how to do hair really well so I could make it a final touch to all my outfits or buzz my head,” she said. In late January, when Ms. Perlmutter, 23, was on set at a photo shoot, she watched as a…

“Our land and livelihoods have been battered many times over by raging cyclones and unpredictable, heavy rains,” said Ms. Dhara, 30, as she and the other women in the boat discussed where they needed to plant more trees. “The rhythm of our lives is dependent on the of the water around us, making the mangroves…

“Getting here and being in our first drivers’ meeting gave me ,” said Atefa Saleh, 41, a Siemens engineer from the United Arab Emirates. “I’m excited to be the driver. But we’re switching if something goes really wrong,” she quipped. Ms. Saleh’s co-driver, Eleanor Coker, 48, is an American living in Saudi Arabia. She had…

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Sport of Kings. Ha! Thoroughbred races have increasingly surrendered to the sheikhs and princes, the hedge fund wizards and industrialists, the fat cats who could plunder their vaults and pay whatever it took to secure a regally bred horse who, they hoped, could run a hole in the wind. But that…