People in the News

He’s a veteran of long-distance sailing voyages in all kinds of weather. She’s never sailed outside the Hudson River.

But together, 55-year-old Reid Stowe and his 23-year-old girlfriend, Soanya Ahmad, are embarking on a voyage that they intend to take them three times around the globe and last 1,000 days and nights—nonstop, with no port calls for supplies or a walk on solid ground.

They set sail Saturday aboard his 70-foot, two-masted schooner, named the Schooner Anne, from a Hudson River marina in North Hoboken, N.J.

British Airways cut a cameo by rival Richard Branson from its in-flight version of the latest James Bond film and blurred out the tail fin of a Virgin Atlantic plane seen in the movie.

BA’s entertainment team cut a cameo appearance by Branson, chairman of the rival airline Virgin Atlantic, that appears in the original version of “Casino Royale,” a spokesman confirmed Saturday.

“We screen all films before they’re used on our aircraft so that we can control the content of what is displayed,” the spokesman said on condition of anonymity, in line with company policy.

Jazzman Andrew Hill, a groundbreaking pianist and composer known for his complex post-bop style, has died, his record label announced. He was 75.

Hill, who had been diagnosed with lung cancer three years ago, died at his Jersey City, N.J., home, according to Cem Kurosman of Blue Note Records. He had released his final album, “Time Lines,” in early 2006, a farewell that earned him album of the year honors from Down Beat magazine.