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Mad magazine is celebrating its longest tenured contributor, Al Jaffee, with an issue devoted to him on the occasion of his retirement. The latest edition of the smart alecky bible of boomer humor, billed as the "Special All Jaffee Issue" and available Tuesday, is filled with reprinted and previously unpublished work by or about Mr. Jaffee, the creator of two signature features in the magazine, the intricate Mad Fold In and Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions. "I'm 99 years old and I stress the old," Mr. Jaffee said in an interview. "I used to be able to work around the clock and produce a Fold In or an article, but it is not something I can do anymore." Mr. Jaffee came up with the Fold In in 1964 as a satirical reversal of the centerfolds in Playboy and other magazines of the era. The final Fold In, which he created in 2014 in anticipation of his retirement, seems suited to a time when businesses have been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. It starts with an image of the magazine's tooth deficient mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, looking worried amid stores displaying signs announcing that they have gone out of business. When readers fold the page in thirds, a new message is revealed: "No More New Jaffee Fold Ins." And the artist's serene visage is seen floating above the cityscape. "I had two jobs all my life," Mr. Jaffee said. "One of them was to make a living. The second one was to entertain. I hope to some extent that I succeeded." Born in 1921, in Savannah, Ga., Mr. Jaffee met some of his future Mad co conspirators in the 1930s, when they were students at the High School of Music and Art in New York. He followed a circuitous path to finding like minded artists. As young boys, Mr. Jaffee and his three brothers were taken by their mother, Mildred Jaffee, to her home city, Zarasai, Lithuania, for what became an extended visit. In 1933, Mr. Jaffee's father brought Al and two of his brothers back to America for good. The family lived in Far Rockaway, N.Y. Mr. Jaffee's youngest brother did not leave Lithuania until 1940, shortly before much of Zarasai's Jewish population were killed in World War II. The losses included Mildred. The all Jaffee issue is in keeping with the recent publishing pattern of Mad. Last July, in a cost cutting move, the magazine moved largely away from new material in favor of recycled work. That format will continue at least through the end of the year. The table of contents includes a warning about the old selections: "The vintage Mad pieces reprinted in this issue were produced in a time that was less mindful of and sensitive to the matters of race, gender, sexual identity, religion, and food allergies." The first Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions feature, from 1965, appears in the issue. It depicts a man happening upon a driver who has crashed into a tree. The man asks, "Have an accident?" The driver offers three punchline replies: "No thanks! I already have one!"; "No, I'm a modern sculptor!"; "No, I'm starting a junk yard!" A fourth cartoon balloon is left blank, so that readers can supply retorts of their own. New material includes tributes to Mr. Jaffee by other Mad artists. The cover, by Sam Viviano, depicts him as a doctor examining the brain of Alfred E. Neuman (and finding it lacking). A "Spy vs. Spy" installment by Peter Kuper includes a Fold In that shows Mr. Jaffee adding to the chaos of the eternally warring secret agents.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
Aretha Franklin, as seen in the documentary "Amazing Grace," shot in 1972 during a live recording session for her double platinum gospel album of the same name. Late in 1971, some unlikely news spread among the Southern California Community Choir in Los Angeles. Aretha Franklin was coming to town to record a live gospel album in January, and 25 of its members would be backing her up. The group was led by one of the most famous gospel figures of the era, the Rev. James Cleveland, but its singers were local churchgoing Angelenos. Mary Hall, an alto, was 22. "The reverend just said, 'You be at rehearsal, and you be at rehearsal,'" she said in an interview last month. "I couldn't believe I was getting ready to sing with the Queen of Soul. It's still one of the greatest moments in my life." That moment an electrifying two night session before live audiences at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts resulted in Franklin's "Amazing Grace," the best selling gospel record in history, featuring now canonical arrangements of gospel standards like "How I Got Over" and "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." Less known until recently was that the performances were also filmed: a collaboration as ambitious and as bungled as only Hollywood could manage, buried for decades by red tape and a monster technical error. But with last weekend's wide theatrical release of "Amazing Grace," fans can finally immerse themselves in the full cinematic experience. Read our review, in which Wesley Morris calls "Amazing Grace" "one of the great music films." The project sprouted at the confluence of several cultural currents at the beginning of the 1970s. Edwin Hawkins's R B crossover hit "Oh Happy Day" had helped bring gospel into mainstream in 1969. And by 1971, Franklin, who had grown up as a touring gospel singer, was one of the biggest stars in pop music, with a list of hit singles including "Respect," "Think" and "Chain of Fools." If anyone could capitalize on that moment, it was Franklin, then 29. Having signed a few years earlier with Atlantic Records, she teamed with one of the label's star producers, Jerry Wexler, who had helped catapult the careers of artists like Ray Charles and Wilson Pickett. The plan was to make a double album. "Jerry was smart enough to understand that it would be a statement as to her imprimatur as an artist," said the producer Alan Elliott, who worked for years to resurrect the film. "And he empowered her by making her his co producer." To film it, Warner hired the director Sydney Pollack, a rising star still riding the success of his 1969 movie "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" Pollack was between projects and had campaigned with executives for the job. Joe Boyd, who had been hired by Warner to pair Atlantic artists with Warner film projects, had already been tasked with putting together a 16 mm film crew. He shared his misgivings with executives about using Pollack. "Shooting a concert film is a very different kettle of fish from shooting a drama," Boyd said in an interview, relating what he told Warner. "And it's a very different skill." But Pollack's star power won out. Boyd took his cue. "I kind of stood back and let it happen," he said. Read more about why the film lay buried for nearly a half century. Franklin and her team busied themselves with the music. Rehearsals started a month in advance at Cornerstone Institutional Baptist Church, in Los Angeles, where James Cleveland, a childhood mentor of Franklin's, ran the show. Franklin was to provide a rhythm section, flown in from New York, many of whom had been members of King Curtis's band, including the drummer Bernard Purdie, the bassist Chuck Rainey and the guitarist Cornell Dupree. Cleveland was to provide his choir and accompany Franklin on piano. He hired a charismatic 27 year old named Alexander Hamilton to direct the choir. Hamilton said that Cleveland had hired him in part for his "steel trap" memory. "I would ask Aretha what she was definitely trying to get in the song certain licks that she wanted to do," he said. "She would say where she wanted the licks, and when, and I would make sure that it happened." The resulting performance was transporting, Pollack's footage a visceral, unmediated document of a music freighted with suffering and bursting with joy. Sweat and tears stream down Franklin's face. Cleveland sobs. Old women bolt from their seats, convulsing in the aisles. As word of Franklin's presence spread, the modestly sized audience of Night 1 swelled past capacity inside the sweltering church on Night 2, spilling into the aisles. The Rev. C.L. Franklin, her father, hurried to Los Angeles for a front row seat and to deliver a lengthy speech. The renowned gospel singer Clara Ward sat next to him in a sequin dress. Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones, who shared a label with Aretha Franklin and were in town working on "Exile on Main Street," also stopped by, inching their way toward the front as the session progressed. But just as Boyd feared, Pollack and his crew made a critical error. They failed to use clapperboards, according to multiple people involved in the production, which meant the footage couldn't be synchronized with the sound. Pollack hired Hamilton to lip read the footage in attempts to match it. But not even Hamilton could sync more than a small percentage. The team gave up after about six weeks, Hamilton said. "They hadn't prepared for it to be what it turned out to be," he said. The session had simply become too chaotic. "The place became electric." Elliott, who had worked as a music producer under Wexler, first learned about the footage from him in 1990 and had never forgotten about it. In search of a new project, Elliott acquired the assets from Warner Bros. Films in 2008, with Pollack's blessing. Pollack, who died that same year, never saw the film completed. With advances in digital technology, Elliott was soon able to synchronize the footage. But there was another roadblock: Franklin herself. Publicly, she said she loved the film. But she sued multiple times to prevent its being seen. Rainey, the bassist, who said that he talked to Franklin twice a year by phone until she died last year, said she told him that she didn't like the film at all. He thought her resistance derived from a feeling that the film wound up being more about style and celebrity than about the music or the worship or even about Franklin.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
Thanks in part to a donation from the estate of one of England's most esteemed poets and some dancing cats the Bronte Parsonage Museum's doors will remain open, for now. The estate of T.S. Eliot has gifted the struggling museum, which reopened in late August after being closed since March, 20,000 pounds (or approximately 26,000) last week. The donation was first reported by the BBC. The parsonage, located in Haworth, said it was facing a loss of expected income of more than PS500,000 because of the coronavirus pandemic. There is a connection between Eliot and the Brontes: The "Bradford millionaire" who appears in the Eliot poem "The Waste Land" is thought to be Sir James Roberts, a Yorkshire philanthropist who was also a customer at the bank where Eliot worked. Mr. Roberts donated Haworth Parsonage once the home of the Bronte sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne to the Bronte Society, which operates the museum, in 1928. Roberts knew the family as a child.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
MANCHESTER, England Manchester City has its answer: the answer it wanted, the answer it was adamant, right from the start, was the only one possible. There will be no two year ban from the Champions League. There is no reason to worry that Pep Guardiola might seek new pastures earlier than expected, or that Kevin De Bruyne or Raheem Sterling or any other member of City's galaxy of stars will feel the urge to leave. All of those achievements of the last decade stand, unblemished. To Manchester City and its fans, that is what matters. The Court of Arbitration for Sport has cleared its name on appeal, striking down the charge from UEFA, the body theoretically in charge of European soccer, that City misrepresented some of its financing to circumvent cost control rules. True, there might still be quibbles, queries. Like whether a determination that the most serious accusations against City fell outside UEFA's statute of limitations counts as total exoneration. Or if you can claim to be exonerated as you pay a fine of more than 11 million. Or how what the club had said was a "comprehensive body of irrefutable proof" of its innocence came down to UEFA's not being able to make its case. City had claimed that a cache of emails, released as part of the Football Leaks documents and explosive enough to attract UEFA's attention, had been not just hacked but "taken out of context." It is not yet clear quite what that context might be. Perhaps the full ruling from CAS, scheduled to be published later this week, will clear it all up. Perhaps not. No matter: Nobody goes past the first page of Google. For City, six years of skirmishing with UEFA over its financial fair play regulations is at an end. It has its victory. Any dissent to that orthodoxy will be dismissed as sour grapes, bile produced by bitterness. But the ramifications of this case were always likely to extend way beyond the club at its center. If there will be no tangible consequences for City carte blanche to back Guardiola, to build a dynasty, to extend its empire of clubs the same cannot be said for European soccer more broadly. The organization, after all, has emphasized its continuing commitment to its regulations. City has not proved F.F.P. is illegal under European Union law (and was not, in the end, trying to). UEFA has simply not brought a strong enough, or quick enough, case to police its rules in this instance. The problem is that it is not just this instance. This is the third time UEFA has tried to punish one of the continent's elite for all its attempts to characterize itself as some sort of insurgent underdog, that is precisely the group to which Manchester City belongs and it is the third time it has failed to bring any of them to heel. It has been undone, again, by procedural technicalities. There has been no spectacular, conclusive breach in F.F.P.; just a series of cracks appearing, fatally undermining the foundation. For the richest and most powerful clubs, the rules are starting to look an awful lot like guidelines, and the impression is that UEFA cannot universally enforce them, anyway. There is, now, precious little incentive for anyone to adhere to them. That such a blow should be delivered now is significant. UEFA has already agreed to suspend, temporarily, some of its cost control measures, to allow clubs to ride out the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Even before the virus hit, though, UEFA was considering how its financial rules might be altered, updated, possibly simplified, to make them easier to understand and possibly more appealing to follow. City's acquittal lends weight to the argument that the current approach is not up to the task, but it also highlights how difficult it will be to rewrite the rules. There is a school of thought that perhaps it is not worth the time and effort. The belief that F.F.P. is not doing what it was supposed to do has become a truism: An idea introduced almost a decade ago to improve soccer's financial health and to decrease its reliance on debt has become, instead, a tool to entrench the status quo, to lock ambitious clubs out of the golden circle. Criticism, though, is easier than construction. If Financial Fair Play is jettisoned, if Manchester City's vindication proves to be its death knell, one question lingers: What comes next? This moment is a window into what soccer's landscape might look like without financial control: the teams with the most generous owners and the deepest pockets bending the market to their whim, cherry picking the poor, challenging their rivals to match them or to sink into mediocrity. Perhaps that is as it should be: the strong rising and the weak falling and fading. Except, of course, soccer has been there before, in an age of unrestrained spending. At the start of the 2010s, UEFA found that European soccer as a whole was 1.9 billion in debt. The turnaround, over the last 10 years, has been remarkable. In 2017, the continent's clubs turned a profit of 680 million. The change, of course, was the introduction of Financial Fair Play. That is soccer's problem: Inherently, unapologetically tribal, it settles on the small answers and ignores the big questions. In Manchester City's eyes, Financial Fair Play was designed, exclusively, to limit its ambitions. In the eyes of English or Spanish or Italian fans, it was created to stop arriviste wealth from distorting the sport's economics. But elsewhere, it has proved crucial. It has enabled UEFA to ensure that clubs in smaller markets where the concerns are not who wins the Champions League meet their debts and obligations by wielding the threat of expulsion from money spinning European competitions. F.F.P. has always looked like a paper tiger to the big clubs; for smaller teams, it has had teeth. That is its weakness, but it is also its strength. In its absence, it is in the places where it has had the most effect that the consequences will be felt: not for the clubs that can spend to their hearts' content, but to the clubs that can risk their very existence for short term success.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
The first line of one of the oldest poems in Western literature, Homer's "Iliad," begins with the ancient Greek word for anger, or superanger: wrath. And from that emotion an entire epic driven by hatred, hubris, lust, grief and violence spins out. The poem dates from around 700 B.C., a wild and woolly time, no doubt. Leap ahead four centuries and things have changed in Greece. The calm of reason has descended; emotions are under control. Or so we're inclined to imagine from looking at the buff Apollos and poised Aphrodites of the Classical Age. But we're wrong. Explosive feelings, personal and political, were still the story of Greek culture then. Such feelings continue to fuel and inflame modern societies at least nominally descended from that culture, the United States being one. And these feelings are now the subject of a strange and wonderful exhibition, "A World of Emotions: Ancient Greece, 700 B.C. 200 A.D.," at the Onassis Cultural Center New York in Midtown. The Onassis Cultural Center itself tends to stir an emotion: gratitude. It's some kind of gift outright. Tucked away below street level in Olympic Tower you have to know it's there to find it and charging no admission, it brings in top shelf art from Greece, supplemented by choice international loans. The current show draws on the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, the Acropolis Museum and Greek regional museums, as well as the Louvre, the British Museum and the Met. The results aren't necessarily full fledged "masterpiece" shows. This one isn't. It's a mix. There are true glam items an apparitionally perfect marble kouros; a cup attributed to the great Penthesilea Painter but also homely ones: pottery shards with inscriptions, that kind of thing. It's what the show does with the material that really counts: It uses objects to tell a human story, one that changes our view of the past, brings it into the present; makes it ours. This is precisely what an object rich museum like the Met could be doing with its undervisited permanent collections, but rarely does. The show begins with faces, the most immediate visual gauges of sentiment, though not always reliable ones. From around 540 B.C. comes the image of a young equestrian with chic spit curls and a strenuously confident, for public consumption grin. Next to him, dated some two centuries later, is a naturalistic portrait of a beaming toddler, an embodiment of guileless cheerfulness, probably a thank you gift to a shrine by happy parents. The feelings conveyed in a satyr head from the second to the first centuries B.C. are harder to read, as befits a being half human, half beast. With his lazy eyes and wiseguy smirk, he's like a kid plugged into an iPod, pacified and stimulated. Take away the music though, and he might be trouble. A terra cotta head of Medusa changes the mood of the lineup. With her wrinkles, fangs and tongue stuck out, she's a fright, though a potentially protective one. Nobody, ill intentioned or otherwise, would dare to come near her or near you, if you stayed in her vicinity. Basically, you can see versions of all these faces riding the New York City subway every day. And a sense of familiarity across time and cultures may lead you to assume that they have no secrets; that you know what they're about. But you don't. Would you guess at a glance, for example, that cool looking unisex couple, set a little apart from the group and represented by two life size marble heads, is experiencing irreversible tragedy? One of the two is the Greek hero Achilles; the other is the Amazon warrior queen Penthesilea. They fought on opposite sides of the Trojan War. And when they encountered each other, fully armed, faces hidden, in combat, Achilles cut her down. As she fell, her helmet came off; their eyes met. Instant love, but too late. Though their side by side heads don't convey that. Instead of pain and regret we see just a stunned swoon. Penthesilea was hurt beyond healing; so was Achilles's heart. Or so it might appear if you're looking for melodrama. One of the lessons the show teaches, though, and expands on in its catalog, is how difficult accurate cross cultural readings of emotion can be. In a quick scan of the gallery, for example, images of everyday domesticity and profound mourning can be hard to tell apart. A relief of a child playing with a dog is a sweet backyard scene until you discover that it's a tombstone. And, again, searching faces for conventional modern signs of emotions won't get you far. Despite the occasional laughing or scowling face, most Greek public sculpture before the fourth century B.C., shares a demeanor of grave restraint. Restraint, considered the product of thought through emotion, had moral value in Greek Classical tradition. As ever more remote inheritors of that tradition, we may acknowledge this value historically, without relating to it. In our own age of nonstop noise and cartoon politics, that old restraint is what makes this art feel at once exemplary and alien. But is it really so alien? And, for that matter, is it really so restrained? The exhibition, organized by three scholar curators Angelos Chaniotis of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.; Ioannis Mylonopoulos of Columbia University; and Nikolaos Kaltsas, director emeritus of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens argues no. Look at some of the audacious paintings on ceramic pots and what do you find? Moral chaos, operatics, R ratings. In illustrations for the "Iliad" alone there are scenes of mutilation, murder, attempted rape, suicide and aborted human sacrifice. The Medea tale, spread over three pots, is a tabloid nightmare: jealous wife poisons rival and knifes two children, her own. In the earthly realm, passions run riot. Not that Olympus was any calmer. Zeus, divinity in chief, is a sexual compulsive, a serial cheater, preying on juveniles, whether male or female didn't matter. In paintings and sculptures he hops from one conquest to the next: from Io, to Ganymede, to Leda; disguised as a cloud, an eagle, a swan. He didn't care that these adventures could ruin the lives of his lovers. He was on to the next affair, his wife's curses sizzling in his ears. In art about emotions, words can be as important as images, maybe more so. Many objects come with annotations: signatures, narrative cues, memorial dedications. The most stirring of all the show's funerary works is a plain marble stele with no image, just an inscription of a poem about a young woman named Zoe ("life" in Greek), who died in childbirth and whose premature baby died, too, leaving "the sunlight behind without ever crying." The words with the most contemporary ring, though, are inspired by political passions and written on pottery shards called ostraka. In fifth century Athens, ostraka were used to register a vote of no confidence against especially despised public figures. The procedure was simple. Citizens scratched the official's name on a shard, sometimes with a comment. ("King of the idiots" reads one; in general, a tone of disgust runs high.) If enough votes were collected, banishment followed. This was, in short, impeachment by grass roots emotion. And it worked.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
A peculiar, semisweet, slightly mysterious slow burn, "Nobody Knows I'm Here," the debut feature of Gaspar Antillo, introduces its protagonist, Memo, by cutting between him at two ages. As a child (Lukas Vergara), he was a rising pop star. But as an adult (Jorge Garcia, best known as Hurley from "Lost"), he couldn't be more anonymous: Living with his uncle (Luis Gnecco) on a sheep farm in Chile that can be reached only by boat, he is a giant man and probably a gentle one although he has a habit of sneaking into others' houses, and the prospect of attending a music festival seems to enrage him. Whatever happened with his singing career haunts him to a degree that he now barely uses his voice at all, even to speak.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
Our columnist sets out on a road trip to take advantage of what the Irish countryside had to offer and finds that it more than delivers on its promises. There's a lost city called Kilstiffen beneath the Cliffs of Moher or so the story goes which sprawl grandly over the Atlantic Ocean on the western coast of Ireland. The city was submerged and, according to legend, will remain so until the golden key to the gates are found. Or maybe you subscribe to a different theory: That an evil witch who lived there fell in love with Cu Chulainn, one of the great heroes of Irish mythology. Furious that he did not return her affection, she pummeled the shoreline, giving the cliffs their distinctive outline. All I knew, standing blissfully alone atop a precarious bluff looking far down onto jagged rocks and sparkling cobalt water below, was that I owed that witch a debt of gratitude. The folkloric correlations made perfect sense: Looking at purple wildflowers and kelly green grass, I couldn't remember the last time I was surrounded by such serene exquisiteness. Having left the clamor of Dublin, I set out in a rental car to take advantage of what the Irish countryside had to offer and found that it more than delivered on its promises. Better still, I was able to do so without expending too many precious euros. The clouds parted slightly as I entered County Meath, and a few happy cows greeted me as I headed toward what seemed to be increasingly green and slightly more scenic pastures. I finally reached the small, beautiful harbor city of Galway, considered by many the cultural backbone of Ireland. I parked by the Galway cathedral, the site of a former prison, and made a brief visit, paying the suggested donation of 2 euros (about 2.30). Galway's charm was immediately evident as I walked along the canals of the River Corrib, past chirping birds and tall reeds. But I was hungry. I had the restaurant Kai in my sights, a welcoming, cozy place headed by a New Zealand chef, Jessica Murphy. The lunch crowd had begun lining up at the door, but I grabbed the last table outside and dove into a delicious bowl of carrot and miso soup (5 euros). Accompanied by a thick slice of dense, multigrain bread, that probably would have sufficed as a small meal. But I also ordered a picnic board (13.50 euros), which came with some piquant Killeen cheese, a pile of local Brady's ham, potato salad and slaw. Fortified, I continued to explore and soon learned how Galway earned its distinction as Ireland's cultural capital. A stop at the charmingly ramshackle bookshop Bell, Book and Candle was a quick lesson in literary history from the owner, Paul Deacy. I asked him which of the lesser known heroes of Irish literature that is, anyone not named Joyce or Shaw might he recommend to a relative neophyte? Quay and Shop Streets were where I found most of the action in Galway; they teemed with pedestrians, shops, day drinkers and street musicians. After I'd reached the Eyre Square park on the northwest side of town and a historical relic from the 17th century, the Browne Doorway (an out of place but interesting entrance to a wealthy family's old mansion that's been plopped in the square), I bid Galway farewell, making a mental note that I needed to return sooner rather than later. Despite my concerns about left side driving, I found driving in the Irish countryside to be an utter pleasure. Many country roads are so narrow that the opposite lane driving doesn't factor in much, and I found native drivers to be generally patient with slowpoke foreigners like me. The scenery also happens to be every bit as gorgeous as whatever movie you've got playing in your mind: winding stone walls spotted with lichen, snaking over a pristine green hillside; dozens of sheep in the distance, like small puffs of smoke, seen through a field of Queen Anne's Lace. Having navigated through Rinville and Clarinbridge, I stopped for one more small snack, a half dozen grilled oysters at Moran's Oyster Cottage (13.50 euros), a venerable business that dates back seven generations. I slurped happily in a picturesque setting overlooking the Kilcolgan River. If you spend any amount of time driving in Ireland, you'll be spoiled by the number of beautiful old castles you pass, but Dunguaire Castle, in the southeastern corner of Galway Bay, is one of the stateliest. After walking the grounds, it was onto one of the true natural wonders of Ireland: The possibly bewitched Cliffs of Moher. They're easy enough to find: Just follow the road signs, pull into the big lot and pay the 8 euro admission (4 euros if you book online in advance like all the other tourists). But go beyond the tour buses and continue south, and you'll notice signs for an alternate parking lot that claims to get you closest to the actual cliffs. It's slightly tricky, but continue until you find Liscannor Walk and a small private lot, where you'll pay just 2 euros to park. It's a manageable uphill walk to the cliffs from there, along a stone wall and past curious cows as you make your way toward the water. It was worth it: I felt like I had the entire ocean to myself. I ran out onto a particularly solitary outcropping of rock, flowers and grass, and took in the panoramic vista of the ocean and jagged coastline on sunny, slightly windy day. There was a lengthy dead drop down onto the rocks below be careful, there are no guardrails. On my way back to the trail, I passed a young couple in full wedding attire with a photographer. They had chosen the perfect spot, to be sure. But there's no reason to limit yourself to merely one breathtaking spot when the coast is peppered with them. Motoring further, I stopped in tranquil Spanish Point as evening set in and enjoyed a walk on a smooth, lovely beach before finding my Airbnb ( 60) in the sleepy town of Kilrush for a quick recharge. The Bridges of Ross, another of Ireland's breathtaking natural coastal monuments, awaited me the following morning. The name is something of a misnomer the site once consisted of three natural land bridges; only one remains after the others collapsed into the sea. But that bridge is worth the trip. After parking in the lot, you'll need to walk out to the ocean and, turning left, continue down the coast a bit until you see the tunnellike outcropping of green grass and gray rock, under which deep blue ocean runs. With so much water everywhere, it's tempting to want to find a beach and take a plunge, or at least dip your toes. While that might not be the safest idea at the Bridges of Ross or Cliffs of Moher, other locales are happy to oblige. Entering County Kerry, I wound my way over to the resort town of Ballybunion for a little sun and surf. The beach at Ballybunion, like all the best things in life, was free (except for the 1 euro per hour parking). What makes it exceptional is how private is feels: sheltered by a long, craggy cliffside on one end, full of tiny caves and grottoes and the ruins of Ballybunion Castle, perched on a hillside, on the other. After wading into the chilly Atlantic water, I grabbed a soft serve ice cream for 2 euros from a nearby shop to complete the beach experience. My Irish mini road trip ended in Tralee, the largest town in County Kerry and one that's making an excellent case for itself as a tourist destination. Walking from my lodgings at the Rose Hotel (84 euros per night) into the center of town, I crossed through the Park of Tralee and its beautiful rose garden before taking in a quick meal at a local restaurant, Croi. I got to talking with its manager Kevin O'Connor about Tralee. "Galway has really arrived over the last few years, and now it's our time," he said. "People are starting to believe in our town, and the townspeople are starting to believe. And that's how it starts." My two course early bird dinner (20 euros) certainly won me over. Glenbeigh mussels with wild foraged garlic and chorizo were nicely cooked, and a portion of local Irish chicken with mushrooms and pancetta was perfectly juicy and flavorful. Finally, it was show time. I surely wasn't going to wrap up my Ireland trip without taking in some Irish dancing, and what better place to do that than at Siamsa Tire, the national folk theater of Ireland? The tickets weren't exactly cheap (27.50 euros) but I thoroughly enjoyed the spirited, rollicking performance of Oilean, which tells a loose story of traditional life on the nearby Blasket Islands. There were plaintive ballads sung in the traditional sean nos style; there were flutes and fiddles; and, naturally, there was plenty of percussive stomping and intricate footwork. It capped off a thrilling trip through the Irish countryside that seemed almost like a folktale nearly storybook like in its grandeur and beauty. But it's no myth: It's very real, and utterly accessible.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
OMAR AMANAT, the chairman of the Aman Resorts Group, is on the road a lot for his job, visiting his company's resorts. On these trips, he likes to cycle through the surrounding area often with his personal trainer from New York to make sure he doesn't take it easy. "I do intervals, and knowing when to switch up the intensity level is important," Mr. Amanat said from Montenegro. "Otherwise, I'd be looking around and drop off for some gelato." Dale Noelle, a former model who owns her own modeling agency, True Model Management, has traveled with her trainer, too, but prefers to use her more for the convenience. "She came at 9 p.m. the other night," Ms. Noelle said. "I like that she'll come at 6 a.m. or in the middle of the day, too." And while she and her trainer often work out in her apartment in New York, Ms. Noelle says she gets bored easily and likes that her trainer is creative. "She makes up exercises for me because of injuries I have," she said. "We work out outside, in Central Park or in the Hamptons. We've done exercises on stand up paddleboards." This is the kind of personal attention that only money can buy. Whether it is worth the price is in the eye or biceps of the beholder. "People don't need a personal trainer," said Ryan Serhant, a real estate broker and star of Bravo's "Million Dollar Listing New York," who actually has two trainers one for weekdays and one for weekend martial arts. "If you can wake up every morning and have your own routine, to each his own," he said. "But because I am so busy, it's an investment I'm willing to make." With summer approaching, and bathing suits coming out of storage, what would you get if you could afford a top trainer? And can you replicate any of it if you can't afford to pay a trainer to follow you around? A well qualified personal trainer who comes to your home will cost 120 to 150 an hour. A trainer who offers nutritional advice costs about 200 an hour, and those with their own brand and following can command 250 an hour. In contrast, a basic trainer at the Equinox chain of gyms in New York costs 105 an hour, or 92 an hour in a package of 24 sessions. Matthew Cluney, chief executive of Ballast Partners, which does financial services marketing, said he decided to hire a trainer to work with him two days a week in his building's gym because he felt that he was throwing money away on a gym membership he never used. "I'm paying a premium for sure to do this, but I feel like I'm getting a lot more from that time," he said. "I feel like all that money I'm spending is directly going to me. For me, it's worth the premium." Mr. Amanat says he hardly thinks of the rates he pays which he wouldn't disclose because he feels his trainer is so focused on his health, at home and when they travel abroad. But personal training rates go up quickly, particularly when travel is involved or requests for services are unusual. One trainer said the going rate was 2,000 a week to travel with a client, in addition to all flight, hotel and food expenses for the trip. Dan Anderson, a martial arts instructor in New York, said he once signed a three month contract to train an executive at any time with only one hour's notice. Essentially he was at the executive's beck and call. Mr. Anderson said he calculated the fee by adding up his hourly rate, weekend rate and on call rate and rolling them together. He wouldn't disclose the actual fee, other than to say it was "expensive." "I'd get a call, and I'd go and wait at the Plaza Hotel," Mr. Anderson said. "This person canceled every single time." He ended up training the client a half dozen times in the three months. One time, after waiting for hours, Mr. Anderson and a world kickboxing champion the client also had on retainer ordered oysters and Champagne from room service. Even under normal circumstances where people actually exercise the top personal trainers monitor everything a client does. Louis Coraggio, chief executive of Body Architect, his personal training business, and trampoLean, a fitness program that uses mini trampolines, says he limits the number of private clients to six so he can focus on them intently. "I'm committed to them," he said. "I'm willing to pack my bags and go on vacation with them. I make that very clear when I start with them. It's not just something that stops at the end of the session." "Of course," he added, "everything has to be worked out with the numbers." With new clients, he will create a gym for them at home. If the space is small, he will emphasize balls, resistance bands and other equipment that can be stowed away. When clients travel without him, he asks them to text photos of the hotel gym, and he sends them a workout tailored to the equipment there. Tommy Boyer, a former dancer who owns Manhattan Wardrobe Beauty Supply, said he was awakened on many days by Mr. Coraggio buzzing from the apartment's lobby. "I roll out of bed and he's there," Mr. Boyer said. He credits this arrangement with keeping him fit and free of back pain, from injuries sustained as a dancer. It is also something he cannot avoid, whereas he might skip going to the gym, which is six blocks from his apartment. Personal trainers also look at the client's diet. This is where people who can't afford a personal trainer but still make it to the gym can take heed. Mr. Amanat said his trainer, who goes by the name Joe Trainer, focuses a lot of time on what he eats. "Nutrition is just as important as working out," he said. "At first, I gained weight because I was so hungry. I had to train myself to eat less." Likewise, Mr. Serhant, who says he goes out most nights for work or fun, remains just as focused on what he eats as on how often he exercises. "It's 70 percent diet, to be fit and look fit," he said. "You can't do a really great workout and be spent and then eat bagels all day. You have to treat your body like a car." The real reason to have a trainer, in a gym or next to you while you cycle in the mountains, is to push you into working out more than you otherwise would. Ms. Noelle said that after having her first child she was doing the same exercises and struggling to lose the last 10 pounds of baby weight. And Mr. Boyer said he would be 30 pounds heavier without Mr. Coraggio's prodding. "When I want to cancel, he asks me why," he said. "If I say I'm tired, he says, 'We'll figure something out and get a workout in.' He really cares about what he's doing and about what is working for me." Even Julie Karlitz, chief executive of Strap Its, a women's apparel company, who has a tennis court in her backyard and gym in her house in Alpine, N.J., said she could not push herself to work out without someone there. "I truly hate working out," she said. With her first trainer, she said, "I used to turn the lights out and pretend I wasn't home when he came to my door." She opens the door now, she said, because she feels she needs to look fit for her business and to show her daughters, who are 18 and 20, the value of fitness. "You buy a pocketbook today and it's out of style next year," Ms. Karlitz said. "I feel like a trainer is money well spent. It's your health. It makes me a better mother. It makes me more focused in business." So this weekend, while you're sipping a cocktail at the beach or on your deck, remember: Many people with trainers would be doing the same thing if they didn't have someone to count the calories in that margarita and hand them a jump rope first thing in the morning.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Your Money
The current snow sports season is far from over, but the companies running the popular multiresort passes would like you to start thinking about the next one. Passes from the three main players are now on sale for the 2020 21 season, with incentives to buy early: As time goes on, prices go up and some perks vanish. The renewal discount for the 2020 21 Ikon Pass and Ikon Base Pass, for example, ends on April 22. Here's what you need to know about the updates to next year's Epic, Ikon and Mountain Collective passes. The big news for Epic, the Vail Resorts' pass, is the introduction of Epic Mountain Rewards, which offers 20 percent off an array of services at the destinations owned and operated by the Colorado based behemoth. "It's really simple," said Johnna M. Muscente, the director of communications at Vail Resorts. "You have access to Epic Mountain Rewards whether you ski one day or every day in the season. You don't need to sign up for anything, you don't need to track miles or points. And there are no blackout dates." Pass holders present their cards when renting skis or snowboards on site, or when buying quick service lunch or dinner. They can also use the Rewards website to book lodging, group lessons or rentals ahead of time. There is some fine print: Alcohol isn't included, for example, and the dining discount applies up to 150 in purchases per day. Besides that, Epic is staying the course with its two main products. The first is the Epic Local Pass ( 729 for adults, as are all the prices quoted here), which offers unlimited access to 26 resorts as well as restricted access to flagship mountains like Park City, Utah; Vail, Colo.; and Whistler Blackcomb, British Columbia. The second is the Epic Pass ( 979), which has fewer restrictions and includes more international destinations. Epic is strengthening its New England base with two new regional passes: a Northeast Midweek ( 449) and a Northeast Value ( 599). There are local offerings, too, like the 389 Keystone Plus Pass in Colorado, which gives unlimited (excluding holiday blackouts) access to Keystone, as well as unlimited access to neighboring Breckenridge after April 1, and five days (with blackouts) at Crested Butte. In the winter of 2019, the Ikon pass became a target of criticism for locals irked by increased traffic on the roads and lifts. The agitation flared up especially at Colorado's Aspen Snowmass and Wyoming's Jackson Hole, which may explain why, for 2020 21, access to these two destinations will be a 150 add on to the 699 Ikon Base Pass, unlocking five days at each place. (Both resorts remain part of the package for the 999 Ikon Pass.) "Being an add on will make people commit, so those who really want to ski Jackson Hole will make that decision when they're purchasing," said Anna Cole, the communications director at Jackson Hole. Also new is the 399 Ikon Session Pass 4 Day, which offers four flexible days at 30 participating resorts (though not at Copper Mountain, Colo., or Killington, Vt., for example). The last major Ikon change is increased access at Vermont's Sugarbush and Stratton resorts good news for New Englanders. Next season, Mountain Collective is adding four destinations: Sugarloaf, Me.; Panorama, British Columbia; Grand Targhee, Wyo.; and Chamonix, France (promoted from affiliate to full member). A favorite of ski devotees, Grand Targhee had long been a pass holdout, and its proximity to Jackson Hole which is also in the collective will make the region doubly attractive for pass holders. "The Mountain Collective Pass fills a niche for adventurers and snow chasers who don't necessarily live close to a resort but want affordable access to the best winter destinations on the planet," said Christian Knapp, the chief marketing officer of Aspen Skiing Company. "The relatively low out of pocket price, combined with the flexibility of extension days and no blackouts, sets it apart from other multiresort passes." At 469 for 2020 21, the Mountain Collective Pass offers two free days at each of its 22 destinations and 50 percent off the window rate for additional days. The price tends to go up in the late spring and early summer, when incentives such as a third free day at one destination and a 99 pass for children 12 and under disappear. 52 PLACES AND MUCH, MUCH MORE Discover the best places to go in 2020, and find more Travel coverage by following us on Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our Travel Dispatch newsletter: Each week you'll receive tips on traveling smarter, stories on hot destinations and access to photos from all over the world.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
Raul Esparza as a Brooklyn chef who doesn't take well to compromise in Theresa Rebeck's play "Seared." If you can't stand my creative, manly heat, get out of my kitchen: This could be the unofficial motto of Harry, the temperamental chef at a tiny Brooklyn restaurant. But it's O.K. for him to be a jerk because Harry played by Raul Esparza with knife wielding, cocky charm is not a cook, he is an artist. There often comes a point, however, when even visionaries must confront reality, and Theresa Rebeck's new play, "Seared," takes place at exactly that moment. While Harry busies himself creating edible masterpieces the scenic designer Tim Mackabee's working replica of a restaurant kitchen on MCC Theater's smaller stage allows Esparza to actually cook his business partner, Mike (David Mason, a master of the harried slow burn), is worried. Two and a half years into their restaurant's existence, the place is still on shaky financial ground, and the chef's insistence on the finest, most rarefied ingredients does not help. So when New York magazine unexpectedly hails Harry's scallop dish, Mike brings in a consultant, Emily ( Krysta Rodriguez ), to help turn the mollusks into foodie bait and monetize the hell out of them. The problem is that Harry has lost interest in the scallops and pulled them from the menu. It's as if Celine Dion had decided to stop singing "My Heart Will Go On" right after it became a hit. Stuck in the middle is the amiable waiter, Rodney ( W. Tre Davis ), who sympathizes with Harry's ambitions but also knows that there's a real world out there, waiting for its order. Rebeck has often considered the tensions generated by art making, ambition and money, whether it was the maneuvers of aspiring writers and their mentor in "Seminar," a stage manager's attempt to wrangle high maintenance actors in "The Understudy," or the creation of a Broadway musical in the television series "Smash." Harry himself is not so different from the Sarah Bernhardt of her 2018 Broadway play "Bernhardt/Hamlet," both chafing against expectations and fueled by exalted chaos of their own making. But people's self dramatizing behavior does not necessarily make them interesting. And for the most part, everybody in "Seared" motors forward on a straight track : You get a pretty clear idea of who they are very early on, and they behave accordingly the whole way through. Rebeck does allow for a modicum of ambiguity, but does not make much of it. Harry may have high standards when it comes to cooking but his ethics are shakier: Even though he's on salary, he takes half of Rodney's tips. Mike is obsessed with the bottom line but still tries to do right by his staff he's certainly tolerated Harry's shenanigans long enough. As for Emily, she is not just an operator with a publicist's knack for saying exactly what people want to hear. She also appears to genuinely admire what our maestro of the stovetop puts on the plate. (The role makes good use of Rodriguez's hard edge hummingbird energy.) The shading does not go deep, however the show's title is spot on in that respect and really, the people onstage are not all that complicated. To perhaps distract from both the play's mechanical construction a looming critic's visit upsets the restaurant's shaky equilibrium; lessons are learned the production by Moritz von Stuelpnagel ("Hand to God") goes all out on realism and energy.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
AFROMONDO SHOWCASE 2019 at S.O.B.'s (Jan. 3, 7:30 p.m.). Artists from across Africa and the African diaspora are represented in this lineup, which ranges from traditional musicians to the continent's latest pop exports. Performers include Ilam, a bluesy singer songwriter from Senegal; William Cepeda, a Puerto Rican trombonist who fuses contemporary jazz with the island's folk music; the Nigerian pop singer Jemiriye; and Nkumu Isaac Katalay, who fuses the music of his native Democratic Republic of Congo with Afrobeat the West African funk popularized by Fela Kuti. 212 243 4940, sobs.com VICTOR CALDERONE at Sony Hall (Jan. 1, 8 a.m.). For those who want to keep their New Year's celebrations going as long as possible (or perhaps just start them at an unconventional time), Sony Hall, a New York house music stalwart, is hosting a party that begins before most will have had their first bagel of 2019, and lasts well into the night. Calderone, who is the only D.J. on the bill, first earned wide acclaim remixing songs for Madonna; since then, he's worked with everyone from Beyonce to Sting. 212 997 5123, sonyhall.com M.A.K.U SOUNDSYSTEM at Nublu 151 (Dec. 28, 8 p.m.). The members of this predominantly Colombian ensemble don't confine themselves to a narrow definition of "soundsystem," a term usually associated with Jamaican dub and reggae. For M.A.K.U, the dance inducing grooves are plentiful but come through a combination of vibrant horns, traditional Colombian instruments, guitar, bass, drums and psychedelic synthesizers. Their music is jubilant and rough around the edges in a way that's best experienced live; for those looking to start their New Year's revels a few nights early, the band offers an optimal soundtrack. nublu.net MASTA ACE AND MARCO POLO at the Knitting Factory (Dec. 30, 8 p.m.). Old school New York rap bona fides don't get much more impressive than a verse on the legendary 1988 posse cut "The Symphony," which features Masta Ace alongside fellow members of the Juice Crew hip hop collective. This rapper from Brownsville, Brooklyn, has continued to release music that recalls the late 1980s and early '90s what's often called its golden age. His latest, "A Breukelen Story," is a joint project with producer Marco Polo, who layers lush, jazz tinged samples over classic boom bap beats. 347 529 6696, knittingfactory.com STEEL PULSE at Brooklyn Bowl (Jan. 2 3, 8 p.m.). Reggae has a well earned reputation for creating good vibes but alongside the easy tempos and mellow sounds, there's often a political or religious message. Steel Pulse, the first non Jamaican band to win the Grammy for best reggae recording (they're from Birmingham, England), titled their first major label single "Ku Klux Klan" 40 years ago. "Those cowards only kill who they fear/That's why they hide behind the hoods and cloaks they wear," the frontman David Hinds sings on the track, which remains depressingly relevant. 718 963 3369, brooklynbowl.com NATALIE WEINER BEN ALLISON QUARTET at Bar Lunatico (Jan. 3, 9 and 10:30 p.m.). A deftly propulsive bassist, Allison tends to devote his creative energies to original music; he's the author of more than a dozen albums and a founder of the Jazz Composers Collective. But at this show he devotes himself to lifting up the work of a lesser known giant in jazz composition: Herbie Nichols, who was born on Jan. 3, 1919, and who never achieved the acclaim that many of his peers felt he was due. Allison will play some of Nichols's angular, mazelike tunes in an expert quartet featuring the saxophonist Michael Blake, the guitarist Steve Cardenas and the drummer Allan Mednard. 718 513 0339, barlunatico.com JOHNATHAN BLAKE at Zinc Bar (Dec. 29, 8 p.m.). Blake plays the drums with flawless technique and the buoyant, crisscrossing style of a post bop master. His appearances as a bandleader come infrequently, but his original music is packed with dynamic contrast and a wide range of motion. Here he appears with the alto saxophonist Jaleel Shaw and the bassist Dezron Douglas (who just released a fervent and compelling album of his own, "Black Lion," this month), as part of Zinc Bar's Percussion Masters Series. 212 477 9462, zincbar.com HERBIE NICHOLS 100TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION at the Stone (Jan. 2 5, 8:30 p.m.). While Bar Lunatico will devote one night to honoring Nichols's iconoclastic legacy, the Stone will welcome a different group each night for four days in a row. The multipart tribute kicks off with a performance from members of the Jazz Composers Collective, the confederation helmed by Ben Allison (see listing above). The radical, quizzical, often exuberant Fay Victor, who organized this full week of programming, will perform vocal interpretations of Nichols's music on Jan. 3 with a five piece band. On Jan. 4, a squad of pianists including Vijay Iyer and Anthony Coleman will give short solo recitals. The final night, six brass musicians affiliated with the trombonist Roswell Rudd a champion of Nichols's songbook who died last year will play in a horns only outfit led by the trumpeter Steven Bernstein. thestonenyc.com GRETCHEN PARLATO at Jazz Standard (Jan. 2 3, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.). Whether moving in a frictionless drift or scatting through a percussive passage, Parlato's voice is as commanding and distinctive as any in contemporary jazz. Here she presents a new project, Flor, featuring the guitarist Marcel Camargo, the cellist Artyom Manukyan and the drummer Leo Costa. 212 576 2232, jazzstandard.com QUEEN ESTHER at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola (Jan. 2, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.). This singer has a strong and beadlike voice, as comfortable in a bluesy, countrified mode as it is in a classic jazz style. At Dizzy's she will dip into Billie Holiday's songbook, performing with the guitarist Jeff McLaughlin, the pianist Sharp Radway, the bassist Hilliard Greene and the drummer Darrell Green. 212 258 9595, jazz.org/dizzys TOM RAINEY TRIO at Cornelia Street Cafe (Dec. 30, 8 and 9:30 p.m.). Well, here it is: the last jazz gig you'll ever be able to hear at Cornelia Street Cafe. After New Year's Day, the 41 year old restaurant and performance space will close, leaving behind a long history of left of center artistic presentations from poetry to Off Off Broadway to experimental jazz. Rainey, a drummer with a sensitive touch and a knack for crafty compositions, has performed at Cornelia often. His trio with the guitarist Mary Halvorson and the tenor saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock will provide a loving send off. 212 989 9319, corneliastreetcafe.com BUSTER WILLIAMS AND BRANDON MCCUNE at Mezzrow (Dec. 28 29, 8 and 9:30 p.m.). Williams, a bassist, has been all over jazz's playing field. He accompanied the pianist Mary Lou Williams during the gloried final chapter of her career, joined Herbie Hancock as a member of his jazz funk band Mwandishi, and backed up such vocalists as Betty Carter and Nancy Wilson. These days, he often leads his own groups at clubs across Manhattan. Here he will perform straight ahead repertory over two nights in an intimate duet with the pianist Brandon McCune. 646 476 4346, mezzrow.com GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
The F.D.A. inspection at Juul Labs's headquarters in San Francisco was a follow up for a request of documents in April. The Food and Drug Administration conducted a surprise inspection of the headquarters of the e cigarette maker Juul Labs last Friday, carting away more than a thousand documents it said were related to the company's sales and marketing practices. The move, announced on Tuesday, was seen as an attempt to ratchet up pressure on the company, which controls 72 percent of the e cigarette market in the United States and whose products have become popular in high schools. The F.D.A. said it was particularly interested in whether Juul deliberately targeted minors as consumers. "The new and highly disturbing data we have on youth use demonstrates plainly that e cigarettes are creating an epidemic of regular nicotine use among teens," the F.D.A. said in a statement. "It is vital that we take action to understand and address the particular appeal of, and ease of access to, these products among kids." F.D.A. officials described the surprise inspection as a follow up to a request the agency made for Juul's research and marketing data in April. Kevin Burns, Juul's chief executive officer, said the company had already handed over more than 50,000 pages of internal documents to the F.D.A. in response to that request. "We want to be part of the solution in preventing underage use, and we believe it will take industry and regulators working together to restrict youth access," he said. In recent months, the F.D.A. has increasingly expressed alarm over the prevalence of vaping among youths in high school and even middle school, which its commissioner, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, said had reached "epidemic proportions." The number of high school students who used e cigarettes in the past 30 days has risen roughly 75 percent since last year to about three million, according to preliminary unpublished data, confirmed by the F.D.A. Dr. Gottlieb has repeatedly noted that the candy like names and flavors of many vaping liquids seem intended to attract younger users. A RAND Corporation study of 2,039 Californians from ages 16 to 20 beginning in 2015 through 2017, released Tuesday, offered new evidence for concern about teenage vaping. Published in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research, the report said that as teenagers who used e cigarettes grew older, many began smoking traditional cigarettes, which are more dangerous, as well. By the end of the study period, over half of e cigarette users were also smoking cigarettes. In another report released on Tuesday and published in the journal JAMA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlighted the dominance of Juul in the e cigarette market. The C.D.C. noted that Juul Labs' sales soared from 2.2 million devices in 2016 to 16.2 million devices last year. The C.D.C.'s figures only included those from retail stores, not the internet, which is also a major source of sales. Other recent studies have also pointed out that teenagers are increasingly using vaping devices for marijuana consumption. Many adult consumers of e cigarettes say the devices have helped them move away from smoking traditional cigarettes, or quit entirely. But a growing number of teenagers who have never smoked are also turning to e cigarettes, believing that they are relatively harmless products. But though e cigarettes do not have the carcinogens that come from burning tobacco, they, especially Juul, can have strong concentrations of nicotine, which is highly addictive, and detrimental to the developing adolescent brain. In September the F.D.A. announced a flurry of fines and warning letters that it had sent to convenience stores for selling e cigarettes to underaged customers. (It is illegal to sell the devices to anyone under 18.) The agency said it would also go after online sales, pointing out that bulk purchases were possible red light indicators that a buyer might then resell devices to minors. The agency has given Juul and four other e cigarette manufacturers a 60 day deadline to produce plans showing how they will limit access to teenagers. Recently, it started its own multimillion dollar campaign of posters for high school bathrooms and public service announcements on popular websites to warn teens of the dangers of vaping nicotine.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
Kyren Zimmerman and Tobias a Labrador retriever who specializes in sniffing out the invasive Argentine ant on Santa Cruz Island, in the Channel Islands National Park. Tobias is a Labrador retriever with one job: sniffing out invasive Argentine ants wherever they hide. He's really good at it, and with his help, a fragile island ecosystem may be spared a repeat inundation with the pests. Santa Cruz Island is 25 miles off the coast of Southern California, part of Channel Islands National Park. The island's rich, rugged environment which includes more than 1,000 kinds of plants and animals, including the bald eagle and the island fox is threatened by Argentine ants, one of the world's most successful and wily invasive species. The ants are one in a long line of threats that The Nature Conservancy has worked to overcome since it bought most of the island in 1978. In one section, the ants chased away flower pollinating bees, native ants, spiders and other insects crucial to local ecology. They are nearly impossible to get rid of; it had never been done with an infestation as large as Santa Cruz's. But Christina Boser, an ecologist who leads the conservancy's ant eradication project, devised an aerial assault, dropping tiny sugar water beads spiked with diluted poison from helicopters. The campaign, largely in 2015 and 2016, appears to have killed off the ants. Still, if even one colony has survived, this elaborate effort might have been wasted. That's where Tobias comes in. Once he pinpoints the faint pheromone scent left by this particular species of ant and no other he will sit down and look at his handler with the excited expectation of a child on Christmas morning. Tobias's reward is his "wubba," a soft blue ball. "We have developed a really special bond," said Kyren Zimmerman, a handler with the nonprofit Working Dogs for Conservation, headquartered in Bozeman, Mont. Dogs are renowned for their scenting skills, whether they're detecting narcotics, bedbugs, bombs or tumors. Increasingly, since the 1990s, scientists have trained them to aid in conservation. It is a rare package of traits that suit some dogs to this kind of work, the most important being a fanatical toy obsession and high energy. This is a personality that can be difficult for pet owners, which may be why Tobias and others in the Working Dogs for Conservation "pack" were found in shelters. "They love what they do. They just needed that purpose and direction," said the group's co founder, Deborah Woollett. In March, Tobias and Mr. Zimmerman underwent weeks of basic Argentine ant training. Then they took a choppy ferry ride to the island and got to work. By summer's end, the pair hadn't found any new ant colonies in all their hiking and bushwhacking a great sign that the eradication really worked. Ms. Boser and Dr. Woollett are now working to publish their training methodology. With Argentine ants a major pest on six continents, they believe dogs with Tobias's skills could be in demand. "It's an emerging science, but it's actually a very needed science," Ms. Boser said. Monitoring will continue, but with the ants seemingly gone, the area's ecology has already improved. "Being able to put your towel down on the beach and watch the sunset is nice," Ms. Boser said. "You can do that now without having ants crawl all over you." Tobias, however, has been happier since leaving in September. He's moved to nearby San Clemente Island, where he's helping scientists find Argentine ants in areas that are still infested. It's a little closer to an ant sniffing dog's vision of heaven. "He's getting a lot more of his favorite wubba time now," Mr. Zimmerman said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
The United States labor market is still having trouble achieving liftoff. Payrolls expanded by 36,000 jobs in January, a sharp decline from the gains of recent months and well below the level economists had forecast. The reluctance of employers to add jobs at a time of robust corporate profits, strengthening consumer spending and other economic improvement renewed concerns that this near jobless recovery could continue for an extended period. The picture painted by the Labor Department's monthly snapshot of the job market was confounded by a more encouraging drop in the unemployment rate to 9 percent, from 9.4 percent a month earlier, for its lowest rate since April 2009. The unemployment rate is gleaned from a survey of households, rather than companies, and can be volatile. The snowstorms in January probably had some effect on the anemic job growth, given that the transportation and warehousing sector and the construction sector both shed jobs. Government layoffs, particularly at the state and local level, also reduced the overall number. A mosaic of other indicators this week suggested that the economic recovery was gaining momentum. A closely watched survey of manufacturers rose to its highest level since May 2004, and spending by consumers has outpaced expectations. On average, fewer people are filing for unemployment insurance. As a result, some economists said they would largely disregard January's weak payroll data. Others, however, cautioned that underlying job growth was still not robust. "You can blame weather for the number being as low as it is," said Steve Blitz, a senior economist for ITG Investment Research. "But even if you abstracted out the weather, you're still not getting the dynamic job growth that is going to cut the unemployment rate significantly." The private sector added 50,000 jobs, while government shed 14,000 jobs. Analysts had forecast an overall increase of about 145,000, roughly the number needed to absorb people joining the labor pool in good times. A broader measure of unemployment which includes those whose hours have been cut, those who are working part time because they could not find full time jobs, and those so discouraged that they have given up on the search was 16.1 percent, down from 16.7 percent in December. That left 13.9 million people still out of work. For the unemployed, the situation is growing increasingly frustrating. Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project, said that given growth in corporate profits, "this is when we need to see jobs growing hand over fist." A few sectors are indeed picking up. Health care and retail businesses added jobs, and manufacturing, a highlight of the recovery so far, added 49,000 jobs last month. While average weekly earnings for private sector workers barely budged, economists noted that average weekly earnings for manufacturing workers increased to 959.45 from 948.19, and an index of average weekly hours was also up. "Those firms are working the people they have harder," said Heather Boushey, senior economist at the liberal Center for American Progress. "And they will have to bring in new employees." Cliff Waldman, economist at the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, said companies could be adding more jobs but were having some trouble filling slots that required workers with more skills. "The modern manufacturing sector requires a different kind of worker than the manufacturing sector of 20 years ago," Mr. Waldman said. "They have to be more literate, better at math and able to work in teams." Recruiters and staffing companies underscored the fact that employers that were hiring were looking to fill slots that generally required candidates with college degrees. Evan Davis, chief operating officer of MRINetwork, which has 700 franchised recruiting offices throughout the United States, said the company had seen a strong increase in postings for information technology, engineering and health care jobs. In fact, Mr. Davis said, some employers were having a difficult time hiring for such openings. "It's actually hard to meet the demand that's out there," he said. "It's really hard to find top talent." Michael Bove, who recently secured a job in San Antonio helping sports teams work with ticketing software a year after he was laid off as a manager with a soccer team in Houston, said he could not imagine what it would be like to search for a job if he did not have his college degree. "You hear stories of the people who are in their mid 40s or early 50s that have been working 20 or 25 years as bank branch managers or I.T. people and have all this experience but now they're out there competing for entry level positions that in the past might go to someone who doesn't have a college degree," Mr. Bove, 30, said. "Now companies can pick and choose who they want." The number of people who had been out of work for six months or more eased to 6.2 million from 6.4 million. Austan Goolsbee, the chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, disputed the suggestion that a significant portion of the long term unemployed won't be able to find work. "The durations are essentially what you would expect when the overall unemployment rate is high," Mr. Goolsbee said. "It's still a serious problem, but the way we must address that is getting the growth rate up higher and encouraging firms to hire back workers." The Labor Department's survey of household members, which tends to better account for the self employed and those in newly formed firms than the payroll survey, showed a rosier view of the job market. The number of employed people rose by 589,000 last month, when the effects of adjustments to the total work force population numbers were stripped out. The government does not include those population adjustments in retroactive numbers, however, making comparisons with the unemployment rates through the months of last year more difficult. Other revisions to the data on the payroll side suggested that job growth in 2010 was slightly lower than originally reported. The report included upward revisions to November and December's numbers, lifting job creation in November to 93,000 from 71,000, and in December to 121,000 from 103,000. Elsewhere, temporary help, which had been strong throughout 2010, actually declined by 11,400 jobs, and construction lagged, shedding 32,000 jobs. Economists noted that job growth would not truly hit the levels needed to seriously dent the unemployment rate until employers outside of a handful of industries started hiring in earnest. A crucial factor holding back job growth is that construction, which was among the hardest hit during the recession, has not yet revived. "It's very brutal in our industry," said Brantley Barrow, chairman of Hardin Construction, a builder of office buildings, malls, hospitals and hotels based in Atlanta. "Even though the general economy is getting better, it's going to be another year or two before things start to improve in our industry." Victor Fernicola, a construction worker from Queens, N.Y., said he had been out of work since last February. He has high hopes that his union, Laborers Local 79, will soon send him job opportunities. "It's actually been moving," he said of the construction labor market. "At one time it was pretty much at a standstill." Many workers are waiting for the pace to pick up. The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, said on Thursday that "until we see a sustained period of stronger job creation, we cannot consider the recovery to be truly established."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
A packed theater. A booming band. Dancers pounding across the stage in unison. And in the middle of it all: David Byrne. It was only February when the Hudson Theater played home to the last sold out performance of the theatrical version of Byrne's 2018 album, "American Utopia," before the pandemic shuttered Broadway. Now, in one of the rare saving graces of this year of cultural shutdowns, the show has been made into a film directed by Spike Lee. Reviewing "American Utopia" on Broadway, the New York Times critic Ben Brantley called it an "expansive, dazzlingly staged concert," and added, "Byrne puts the central tenet of making contact with a world outside your mind into dynamic, sensory practice onstage." A filmed concert featuring songs from Byrne's band Talking Heads might seem like a bookend to the 1984 concert film "Stop Making Sense." But the "American Utopia" creative team Byrne and Lee as well as the cinematographer Ellen Kuras and the show's original choreographer, Annie B Parson was focused on a sense of community and communal energy even before the pandemic hit. "American Utopia," Byrne said, is about a person who "starts off kind of living inside his head. And then finds a connection with a small community that would be the band, and this person, by the end is making a connection to the wider world, the wider community, engaging with bigger issues." Wearing a T shirt and his signature shock of white hair, on a Zoom call from his home in Manhattan, he added, "It's a look at my story, but it's also a story that a lot of people have gone through or are going through." The film features him and 11 musicians and dancers and builds on songs from the album as well as a few Talking Heads classics and a powerful cover of Janelle Monae's protest song, "Hell You Talmbout." Unique to the film, that number also features family members holding photographs of loved ones killed by police violence. The show's lyrics touch on everything from the workings of the brain to politics and social justice. Parson's gestural choreography adds a dimension that helps give the show structure. Byrne said he contacted Lee about directing the film before it was even on Broadway, when it was being workshopped in Boston. Lee's visual style was one draw, but there was also the fact that the material brings up a lot of social issues. "It's a big part of what the show is," Byrne said. "And I thought, well, of course, you know, Spike is going to get that." He added: "It's not a conventional narrative, but there's an arc. And I think I thought he'll see that as well and actually see the band as like a character." Lee signed on after watching just two performances. "I knew right away during the matinee show there's something I want to do," the director, wearing his trademark cap, said by Zoom from his Brooklyn office. "I was very in sync with the ideas that David was playing with." He looped in Kuras, who has worked on several of Lee's films, going back to the 1997 documentary "4 Little Girls." There are similarities to "Stop Making Sense," which Jonathan Demme directed to wide acclaim. The new show also begins with Byrne alone onstage, the band slowly filling in the space. There are also suits and propulsive percussion. But what is most remarkable is Byrne's energy. Reviewing "Stop Making Sense" in 1984, Roger Ebert wrote: "The film's peak moments come through Byrne's simple physical presence. He jogs in place with his sidemen; he runs around the stage; he seems so happy to be alive and making music." It's this same exuberance that Lee and Kuras capture in "American Utopia," only now Byrne is 68. Both Lee and Kuras, however, shied away from drawing too many connections to Demme's movie. They wanted this film, they said, to stand on its own. Speaking from Nyack, N.Y., Kuras explained: "Spike said to me, 'I want to get inside and I want to do it in a different way.' We know we have a precedent. We both talked about it." Instead, Lee "really wanted to honor the choreography, wanted to honor the sense of community," she said. Of course, Lee added, Byrne was proud of the earlier film. "That's his legacy," he said. "But he's an artist. Great artists keep going." One of the most powerful moments in the new film centers on the stirring cover of Monae's "Hell You Talmbout" and the naming of victims of police violence. It was Lee who brought in their loved ones. "Here's an opportunity to show their faces," Lee said. "And to have their loved ones hold up their beloveds who are no longer here. It's very, very emotional." He added: "What's so sad is that every time Ellen and I would go to see a show, we would go backstage and we would tell David there is somebody else to add. Even after we finished shooting, you know, we had to add, George Floyd; It's very deep." Another element that distinguishes the film from the stage version are the visuals of Parson's choreography. Lee said he was thinking a lot about musicals and Busby Berkeley. "My mom was dragging me to musicals from a very young age," he said. "And I understand that to do choreography, the camera has to follow the dancers." "The camera is going to move," he said, explaining that the choreography "was telling us where the camera should go." Especially striking is the way the camera follows the dancers and musicians from overhead. To get these shots, Lee and Kuras watched the show multiple times together and came up with locations for 11 cameras. One is set at the back of the stage. "We wanted to break the fourth wall," Lee said, "So we feel part of it, so we're inside of it." Filming took place over two days, and Lee said the energy from the performers was contagious. So much so that during certain numbers he said he couldn't stay in the basement where he was monitoring the shoot. "For some numbers," he said, "I would run upstairs and I'd be jumping up and down with the audience. Just 'Burning Down the House.'" Now, months later, both Lee and Byrne are thinking about how much has changed for artists and the city they call home. Byrne has been leading cast members on impromptu bike trips to Staten Island, Queens and other boroughs. It's a way to keep connected until they can get back in the theater. Both Byrne and Lee pushed back on any notion that after being rocked by the pandemic, the city as a cultural capital is on the wane. "New York has lived through 9/11, the recession, Sandy," Lee said. "You know, New York is never going to be done. We're built for this. Artists are going to tell the true story of what happened during this crazy time we live in. There is great art that is going to come out of this. I'm convinced the artists once again will lead the way."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
When the Environmental Protection Agency published in June its new rules to combat carbon emissions from power plants, the American political class lit up in debates over what this meant for the country's carbon emissions, its coal industry and its economic growth. But a more relevant discussion was taking place some 7,000 miles away. In Beijing, He Jiankun, an academic and deputy director of China's Advisory Committee on Climate Change, told a conference that China, the world's largest greenhouse gas polluter, would for the first time put "an absolute cap" on its emissions. His comments, and the brief flurry set off over whether they represented government policy, highlight a little appreciated feature of the long running, often acrimonious debate over how to slow climate change. The most pressing issue is not whether the United States will manage to wean itself from coal, or even about how quickly the American economy can reduce its reliance on fossil fuels. The most pressing issue is to what extent and under which conditions China will participate in the global effort to combat climate change. Any hopes that American commitments to cut carbon emissions will have a decisive impact on climate change rely on the assumption that China will reciprocate and deliver aggressive emission cuts of its own. It is well known that preventing a climate catastrophe requires China's participation: The country accounts for over a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions. Over the next 20 years, China's CO emissions will grow by an amount roughly equal to the United States' total emissions today, according to the latest baseline forecast by the Energy Information Administration, released last year. But the scale of China's challenge is less well grasped. It might be best understood by slicing the growth of CO emissions into four driving forces: the expansion of the population, the growth in people's incomes, the amount of energy needed to produce a dollar of income, and the amount of CO spewed for each unit of energy used. Even assuming that China's population does not grow at all over the next 30 years, that the energy efficiency of its economy increases at a faster pace than most developed and developing countries and that it manages to decarbonize its energy sources faster than pretty much anybody else, China would still be emitting a lot more carbon in 2040 than it does today, according to E.I.A. calculations. To achieve a rate of economic growth per person of 5.7 percent a year which is only about half the pace China experienced in the last 10 years China's CO emissions would soar to almost 15 billion tons in 2040, up from 8 billion in 2010. Alternatively, it could accept a substantially slower pace of economic growth. But considering that the average Chinese earns about one fifth as much as the average American, the government in Beijing is unlikely to follow this path. Can the United States or anybody else do anything to speed China down a low carbon path? Heads of state from around the world will be gathering in September on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly to start a new international climate agreement, due to be signed at a summit meeting in Paris next year. They come off a big defeat. In 2009, the Copenhagen conference on climate change broke down to a large extent because big developing countries like China refused to accept legally binding commitments on emission cuts, which might constrain their future development. Today, the crucial question remains the same: how to meaningfully bring aboard countries like China or India. The debate appears stuck in more or less the same place, with countries arguing over who is responsible for what. How much of the burden should be shouldered by rich countries which grew rich while spewing carbon into the air in past decades? How much by the fast growing developing countries where emissions are growing fastest? Who is to blame for the carbon emitted in making the latest gadget, the developing country that made it or the developed country that bought it? The latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, issued in April, suggested several ways to allot responsibilities. If one starts counting in the 18th century and counts only emissions from industry and energy generation, the United States is responsible for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gases that humanity has put into the air. China, by contrast, is responsible for 10 percent. But if one starts counting in 1990, when the world first became aware that CO was a problem, and includes greenhouse gases emitted from changes in land use, the United States is responsible for only 18 percent, and China's share rises to 15 percent. Rich and poor countries, unsurprisingly, disagree on the proper measure. Fortunately, the United States seems to have learned from past climate negotiation mistakes. In 1997, the Senate blew up the Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon emissions even before it was finalized formally urging the White House not to sign it unless it included legal commitments by developing countries. The Obama administration's new rules on power plants, by contrast, are not contingent on the actions of anybody else. By unilaterally offering up American emission cuts, they might get more in return. Countries left Copenhagen without legally binding emissions targets. But that didn't mean nothing was achieved. Big emitters of carbon dioxide made nonbinding, voluntary offers to reduce the CO they pumped into the air. And though not all of these offers will be met, this voluntary, unilateral approach may offer a promising path for the future. The United States pledged then that greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 would be 17 percent lower than in 2005, which, compared with the business as usual path, amounts to a reduction of one billion tons. Trevor Houser, who heads the energy practice at the Rhodium Group, an economic modeling firm, calculates that this American commitment was crucial in unlocking commitments by other countries worth two billion to five billion tons. 1. Time for action is running out. The major agreement struck by diplomats established a clear consensus that all nations need to do much more, immediately, to prevent a catastrophic rise in global temperatures. 2. How much each nation needs to cut remains unresolved. Rich countries are disproportionately responsible for global warming, but some leaders have insisted that it's the poorer nations who need to accelerate their shift away from fossil fuels. 3. The call for disaster aid increased. One of the biggest fights at the summit revolved around whether and how the world's wealthiest nations should compensate poorer nations for the damage caused by rising temperatures. 4. A surprising emissions cutting agreement. Among the other notable deals to come out of the summit was a U.S. China agreement to do more to cut emissions this decade, and China committed for the first time to develop a plan to reduce methane. 5. There was a clear gender and generation gap. Those with the power to make decisions about how much the world warms were mostly old and male. Those who were most fiercely protesting the pace of action were mostly young and female. "This is not a bad leverage ratio," he said. "So we know that U.S. leadership elicits reciprocal action from other countries." This may be a useful precedent for future negotiations. After all, countries cannot really commit to cutting carbon emissions in the way that they commit to cut tariff barriers on trade. Forcing legally binding tariffs might discourage countries from shooting for ambitious goals. Public voluntary commitments that are attached to a rigorous and transparent monitoring process could be more effective. It is nonetheless far from clear whether this kind of approach gets us where we want to be. Not everybody will meet their Copenhagen pledges. Japan, which unplugged its nuclear energy after the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, will fall behind. So will Canada and Australia, whose new conservative governments have lost interest in the pledges of their predecessors. The United States is only halfway there, helped along by a deep economic recession that cut into the demand for energy. And it will require more than the current rules on power plants to get there. "We need more action," said Kate Larsen, a former climate negotiator at the State Department who now is director of Climate Change at the Rhodium Group. "It's not in the bag." Most importantly, the Copenhagen commitments are nowhere near big enough. China, for instance, committed to improve its carbon efficiency but made no promise on carbon emissions. It must offer more. American officials are confident that offering unilateral emissions cuts can persuade the Chinese to offer real commitments that might have a chance to keep global temperatures in check. But the incentive goes only so far. For China, the existential question remains whether it can simultaneously decarbonize and grow. If it cannot do both things at once, chances are it will choose the second. Indeed, shortly after his words toured the world, Mr. He, the official on the Chinese climate panel, issued a clarification: He was not announcing policy in Beijing. "I'm not a government official, and I don't represent the government," he said. The Chinese government is still figuring out how much it can afford to participate.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
BRISTOL, Wis. The drug bust shattered the early morning stillness of this manicured subdivision in southeastern Wisconsin. The police pulled up outside a white shuttered brick condo, jolting neighbors out of their beds with the thud of heavy banging on a door. What they found inside was not crystal meth or cocaine or fentanyl but slim boxes of vaping cartridges labeled with flavors like strawberry and peaches and cream . An additional 98,000 cartridges lay empty. Fifty seven Mason jars nearby contained a substance that resembled dark honey: THC laced liquid used for vaping, a practice that is now at the heart of a major public health scare sweeping the country. Vaping devices, which have soared in popularity as a way to consume nicotine and THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, have been linked in the last several months to nearly 400 illnesses and six deaths. State and federal health investigators have not yet determined a cause, but authorities are focusing on whether noxious chemicals have found their way into vaping supplies, perhaps from a flourishing nationwide black market of vaping products fueled by online sales and lax regulation. The bust this month in Wisconsin, where THC is illegal, offers an intimate look at the shadowy operations serving large numbers of teenagers and adults around the country who are using black market vaping products, sometimes unknowingly because it is difficult to tell them apart from legitimate ones. "When we walked in there, we were like, 'Oh boy,'" said Capt. Dan Baumann of the Waukesha Police Department. "This is what we were looking for, but we did not know it was this big." Key players in the operation, authorities said, were brothers barely into their 20s, Jacob and Tyler Huffhines, who lived in a small town nearby . Both are now in custody at the Kenosha County Jail. More arrests and charges in the case are likely to follow, according to the police. Tyler, 20, is being held on charges of the manufacture, distribution or delivery of marijuana; Jacob, 23, is being held on charges of cocaine possession and of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Authorities said that Jacob was being investigated for his involvement in the drug operation. "I'd meet people at Starbucks, a cross street, in front of an apartment, wherever they tell you," said a 17 year old who was one of the people hospitalized for the vaping related lung illness in New York state. He asked that his name not be used to guard his reputation and privacy. "It never comes up where they source it," he said. "You don't ask." Investigators have not determined whether there is a connection between the Wisconsin operation and any of the cases of severe lung diseases linked to vaping. But public health officials across the country, including Mitch Zeller, director of the Center for Tobacco Products for the Food and Drug Administration, say that street made vaping products should be avoided by all consumers and pose the greatest health risk. Vaping works by heating liquid and turning it into vapor to be inhaled. The original intent was to give smokers a way to satisfy their nicotine cravings without inhaling the carcinogens that come with burning tobacco. But vaping devices and cartridges can be used to heat many substances, including cannabis based oils, and some of the solvents used to dissolve them can present their own health problems. On Wednesday the Trump administration said it planned to ban most flavored e cigarettes and nicotine pods including mint and menthol, in an effort to reduce the allure of vaping for teenagers. But the move may expand underground demand for flavored pods. And it does nothing to address the robust trade in illicit cannabis vaping products. The Wisconsin operation is wholly characteristic of a "very advanced and mature illicit market for THC vape carts," said David Downs, an expert in the marijuana trade and the California bureau chief for Leafly, a website that offers news, information and reviews of cannabis products. ("Carts" is the common shorthand for cartridges.) "These types of operations are integral to the distribution of contaminated THC based vape carts in the United States," Mr. Downs said. They are known as "pen factories," playing a crucial middleman role: The operations buy empty vape cartridges and counterfeit packaging from Chinese factories, then fill them with THC liquid that they purchase from the United States market. Empty cartridges and packaging are also available on eBay, Alibaba and other e commerce sites. The filled cartridges are not by definition a health risk. However, Mr. Downs, along with executives from legal THC companies and health officials, say that the illicit operations are using a tactic common to other illegal drug operations: cutting their product with other substances, including some that can be dangerous. The motive is profit; an operation makes more money by using less of the core ingredient, THC which is expensive and diluting it with oils that cost considerably less. Public health authorities said some cutting agents might be the cause of the lung illnesses and had homed in on a particular one, vitamin E acetate, an oil that could cause breathing problems and lung inflammation if it does not heat up fully during the vaping aerosolization process. Medium grade THC can cost 4,000 a kilo and higher grade THC costs double that, but additives may cost pennies on the dollar, said Chip Paul, a longtime vaping entrepreneur in Oklahoma who led the state's drive to legalize medical marijuana there. "That's what they're doing, they're cutting this oil," he said of illegal operations. "If I can cut it in half," he described the thinking, "I can double my money." The black market products come packaged looking as the THC vaping products that are legal in some states do. Sometimes the packages are direct counterfeits of mass market brands sold in places like California or Colorado, where THC is legal, and others just look the part. "Someone would not recognize that this is not a legitimate product," said Dr. Howard Zucker, commissioner of the New York State Department of Health, adding that this is a tremendous risk. "The counterfeit handbag you buy on the corner is not going to kill you but the counterfeit vaping device you buy has a chance to kill you," he said. In Wisconsin, the neatly packaged vaping devices had logos such as Dabwoods, Chronic Sour Patch and Dank King Louie. The police say the Huffhines operation produced close to 3,000 cartridges a day . Cartridges sell for around 35 to 40. Wisconsin police say they were stunned by the scope and ambition of the Huffhines operation, and only beginning to understand how far it might have reached. It was a teenager in nearby Waukesha whose actions eventually led the police to the operation in Bristol, a town just miles from the Illinois border. That teenager's parents discovered that he was vaping and brought him to the police station in Waukesha. He then told the police where he got his vaping supplies; the authorities traced the sellers step by step, and several degrees of separation later, they were led to the Huffhines brothers. The condo in Bristol, rented under a false name, was believed to be their base of operations. But on an afternoon this past week, it appeared deserted, with the blinds inside closed tightly and a dent on the front door. Until recently, the condo hummed with quiet activity that attracted only glancing notice from neighbors. The operation employed at least 10 people, the police said, who were paid 20 an hour to use syringes to fill cartridges with oil. The Huffhineses kept meticulous records, using timecards to note when employees worked. The cartridges were sold in packs of 100, through channels that authorities, who also seized 18 pounds of marijuana and three money counting machines, said they did not yet fully understand. It might have been the perfect place for a drug operation, said one neighbor, who described the subdivision as a mix of busy professionals and families who do not socialize much. Students leaving school Thursday afternoon described a system of easy access to vaping devices that contain nicotine or THC, despite strict penalties from administrators if they are caught. Students frequently vape in the bathrooms, they said, and obtaining vaping devices is as simple as asking someone for a contact. News about deaths and injuries from vaping has been spreading throughout school, a 16 year old said. "People are scared of getting caught," he added. "Now they're scared of getting sick, too."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
Watching is The New York Times's TV and film recommendation website. Sign up for our twice weekly newsletter here. Need a break from holiday activities? Below are our favorite TV series and movies coming to the major services in December, plus a roundup of all the best new titles in all genres. (Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice.) New to Apple TV Plus Hala (Geraldine Viswanathan) is a 17 year old Pakistani American. She wears a hijab, she skateboards, and she prefers morning masturbation to morning prayers. This awkward Chicago teenager's story could easily have been shaped to fit a typical coming of age rebellion film: She has strict parents, has a crush on a boy they wouldn't like, and is sneaking around with him anyway. Instead of playing the scenario for laughs, though, the director Minhal Baig treats her character's hyphenated identity and her search for independence with quiet respect. Baig, who is Muslim and grew up in Chicago, drew upon her own senior year of high school for the film. If you thought we were already at peak true crime, behold: a fictional series about making true crime media. Kathleen Barber's novel "Are You Sleeping" portrays a true crime podcaster as a heartless vulture, but this adaptation is very much on the podcaster's side. (Sarah Koenig, of "Serial" fame, consulted on the show.) Octavia Spencer plays Poppy Parnell, a Bay Area journalist who doubts the evidence that convicted a teenager of murder some 20 years ago. She creates a "Serial" style podcast series, which asks the audience to reconsider the case, too (Spencer has Poppy's intimate podcast vocal delivery down pat). Her efforts to free the long incarcerated Warren Cave (Aaron Paul) are not universally welcomed the police, the victim's relatives and even Poppy's own family all have objections, but Poppy plows on. The serial killer Henry Lee Lucas has taught law enforcement a couple of embarrassing lessons. First, don't offer your perp strawberry milkshakes in exchange for each confession of murder. Second, don't give him case files to study and crime scene clues to stir his "memory." This five part documentary examines how Texas Rangers and detectives from 40 other states botched the Lucas investigation with these techniques in the early 1980s. Lucas claimed to have randomly murdered more than 600 people around the country (an imaginary spree that was the basis for the 1986 movie "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer"). Police kept questioning him about thousands of cases, despite increasing indications that Lucas was making it all up. Authorities now believe Lucas's kills were actually in the single or double digits, meaning hundreds of murders to which he'd confessed were returned into the vast sea of unsolved homicides. In Noah Baumbach's new film, a divorce lawyer played by Alan Alda characterizes the sundering of marital bonds as "a death without a body." But the way it plays out here, between the actress Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and her theater director husband Charlie (Adam Driver), divorce is more like a love autopsy. The couple starts off wanting an amicable split, but once the expensive lawyers are involved, every stray comment or innocent mistake is scrutinized and weaponized, the story of their marriage rewritten with each cast as the villain to the other. Baumbach's unflinching examination of the imploding union spares neither party, and Johansson and Driver's commitment to their characters is devastating. The standup comic Ronny Chieng has a lot on his mind, including politics, civil liberties, immigration, consumerism, subway etiquette and wedding planning. But Chieng is at his most incisive when he's blowing up stereotypes: Why do Asian American immigrants want their first generation children to become doctors, but then neglect to see doctors themselves? What if Asian Americans became the impartial referees of all disputes among other races? ("No hatred, just solutions.") And what would it be like if an Asian American were voted into the White House? This leads to a very funny rant, but Chieng doesn't really seem to be joking. Who knows what Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, then Pope Benedict XVI (Anthony Hopkins), and Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the future Pope Francis (Jonathan Pryce), might have said to each other in private meetings six years ago? In this film, the writer Anthony McCarten and the director Fernando Meirelles imagine that the these two very different churchmen one a conservative traditionalist, the other considered a more liberal reformer had a momentous dialogue that led to the resignation of one man and the ascension of the other. Discussed are issues of sexual abuse and financial malfeasance, and nothing less than the future of the Roman Catholic Church appears to at stake. Even though the movie is pure speculation, the discussion is riveting, and the master actors Hopkins and Pryce create the illusion of actually having it. Rom coms have long celebrated stalking think Lloyd Dobler and his boombox in "Say Anything." The dark conceit of the psychosexual thriller "You" is that the obsessive protagonist, Joe Goldberg, sees himself as a romantic hero, despite being a serial killer. Following his Season 1 murder spree, Joe now needs a change of scenery. So for Season 2 he relocates to Los Angeles a town he hates, providing much fodder for his biting voice over. The plot this time is largely derived from Caroline Kepnes' novel "Hidden Bodies," the sequel to her "You." An unfortunately named woman, Love (played by Victoria Pedretti from "The Haunting of Hill House"), comes into Joe's orbit as the bodies start dropping again. Could it be that Joe has finally met his soul mate? Or has he just met his match? The "Austin Powers" series, "Malcolm X" and "Searching for Sugar Man." It's time to hit the road, as Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) embarks on her first tour, opening for the musician Shy Baldwin on a circuit that takes her from Las Vegas to Florida. Along for the ride, of course, is Midge's manager, Susie Myerson (Alex Borstein), who gets a crash course on contract negotiations. Though a great opportunity for Midge, the tour presents a number of problems, so insecurities are high, nerves are frayed and bad options start to look rather tempting. (It's Vegas, after all.) The show's trademark rat a tat repartee only gets better with new banter partners joining the cast: Liza Weil ("Gilmore Girls"), Stephanie Hsu ("The Path") and Cary Elwes ("Stranger Things"). "A Better Life," "Almost Famous," "The Aviator," "Footloose," "Hamlet," "Hancock," "The Pawnbroker" and "Some Kind of Wonderful." Eleven year old Jonas Brodsky is both precocious and deaf, and he wants to play Beethoven's Sonata No. 14, a piece the great composer wrote as he was losing his own hearing. In this documentary, Jonas's mom, the filmmaker Irene Taylor Brodsky, combines real footage and animation to tell her son's story, exploring the aural world of a gifted child with cochlear implants. Brodsky's deaf father, Paul, who invented TTY, the first telecommunications device for the deaf, wonders if advances in genetics and technology might mean that "there will be no deafness in the future." Brodsky herself suggests that Jonas' musical memory technique turns deafness from a disability into a gift. "The Abyss," "Being Julia," "Bridesmaids," "Buena Vista Social Club," "Cedar Rapids," "Closer," "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," "Empire of the Sun," "Hoop Dreams," "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" and "What About Bob?" The characters in this Tarantino inflected neo noir are a new breed of femmes fatales less seductive, but more, well, fatal. Although this highly stylized show (there are touches of Lynch and echoes of Hitchcock, too,) is nominally concerned with the activities of the men in the Banished Brawlers gang, the story really revs up when the gang's auxiliary women take charge. Worth extra close attention is Abigail Spencer's Katherine Harlow, who always seems to be several steps ahead of everybody else. "All my life, people have been underestimating me," she says. She's not complaining being underestimated proves to be her secret weapon. "A Better Life," "Airheads," "Almost Famous," "The Aviator," "Downhill Racer," "Footloose," "Hamlet," the "Kill Bill" films, "Nobody's Fool," "The Pawnbroker," "Secretary," "Some Kind of Wonderful" and "Wall Street."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
But maybe you're in a rush, so here's some great highlights: Kim Kardashian West said she will not be running for office anytime soon. (A previous time she was asked, she said "never say never.") Kanye West's involvement in the Kardashian business empire, along with "momager" Kris Jenner, is pretty intense: If Kris is the founder and chief executive of Kardashian Inc., Kanye has become the creative director. He frequently texts with the producers, offering input on the opening images which initially had a 1970s sitcom feel and now feature the women in nude tones and sleek, silvery poses. And he shared his thoughts on the backdrop of the confessionals, which now bathe the women in amber light. "He's a real creative force, clearly, and had thoughts on marketing, thoughts on presentation of the show, on the opening title sequence," said Adam Stotsky, the president of E! And he makes home decor decisions! Kris Jenner explained, after a recent home visit from Mr. West: He pointed to a new piece of furniture. "He said, 'I really think that little entry table would look better over there. So what did I do? I moved the entry table," she said. After Kanye urged Kim, his wife, to turn down 1 million for an Instagram post from a company that he said rips him off, he gave her a 1 million on Mother's Day. Kim Kardashian said: Kendall Jenner addressed her involvement in promoting the Fyre Festival, a luxury music festival that turned into a major debacle in 2017. "You get reached out to by people to, whether it be to promote or help or whatever, and you never know how these things are going to turn out, sometimes it's a risk," she said. "I definitely do as much research as I can, but sometimes there isn't much research you can do because it's a starting brand and you kind of have to have faith in it and hope it will work out the way people say it will." Even when she trusts her collaborators, "you never really know what's going to happen." Kylie Jenner addressed whether she was, in fact, a self made billionaire. And yes, Kylie Jenner addresses rumors that she had slashed the price of the lip kit named after Jordyn Woods after a falling out. What's the number one thing you should think about the Kardashians? Perhaps it's this: "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" started as a way for the family to get famous. With their glammed up mix of high low culture (i.e. driving a Bentley but eating Chipotle), it has since become a kind of infomercial for the Kardashian Industrial Complex. And, regardless of what you think of what the Kardashians are selling, their never ending hustle is an undeniable lesson in female entrepreneurship.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
Each week, we review the week's news, offering analysis about the most important developments in the tech industry. I should not have read the Imperial College coronavirus report before bed. The now famous report by a team of British epidemiologists, which was posted online this week, laid out the worst case scenario for the coronavirus, predicting that as many as 2.2 million Americans could die if the disease was left to spread unchecked. It's an objectively terrifying document scary enough that it jarred the American and British governments into taking bolder action to stop the virus's spread and I lay awake for hours after reading it, trying to repress visions of mass death as terms like "incubation period" and "gamma distribution" buzzed around in my head. I've been doing a lot of this kind of doomsurfing recently falling into deep, morbid rabbit holes filled with coronavirus content, agitating myself to the point of physical discomfort, erasing any hope of a good night's sleep. Maybe you have, too. There's nothing wrong with staying informed. But we need to practice self care, and balance our consumption of grim news with gentler kinds of stimulation, for our own health and the sanity of those around us. One good solution is logging off. (Isn't it always?) But there are nourishing things we can do online, too. As I wrote in my column, the coronavirus crisis has made the internet feel unexpectedly social. Every day, there's an explosion of new, creative kinds of digital community building happening, as we find new ways to use technology to replace some of the physical proximity we're losing. Teenagers are using the videoconferencing app Zoom as a makeshift social network, as my colleagues Taylor Lorenz, Erin Griffith and Mike Isaac reported. Art galleries and comedy clubs forced to close by the virus are streaming their shows instead. Musicians are giving quarantine concerts. There's a new Instagram dating show called "Love Is Quarantine." Over the past few days, I've found a few ways to stay sane online. I've muted some group chats with panic inclined friends, so I can avoid being interrupted every time one of them sees a new story about the virus. I've started meditating again. (Several meditation apps, including Calm and Headspace, have released free meditations to help people cope with coronavirus related stress.) I've used Freedom, a productivity app, to lock myself out of social media during certain hours of the day. I've also tried to do less surfing and more one on one connection: calling my family, setting up Zoom dates with friends, sending Instagram direct messages. Research has found that using social media actively makes us feel better than consuming it passively, and in my case, the finding checks out. The other day, I asked my Facebook friends what they were doing to stay sane while they sheltered in place. Their answers included: None "I bought an Xbox after 13 years. Working on getting the old Halo gang together." None "Reading, cleaning and organizing my house, making things more cozy since I'm spending a lot more time here. Talking on the phone and texting to maintain some connection with people." None "I'm doing all the little tasks one never has time for like sharpening knives, washing the reusable shopping bags, cleaning out closets, etc., so I feel super accomplished! And keeps me from watching the pandemic coverage all day." None "Get a group video chat together and play the online version of Code Names at horsepaste.com!" None "I'm a teacher, so I'm both planning and teaching 6th grade English and home schooling 2nd and 5th grades. So not really staying sane at all, but thanks for asking, Kevin." My Smarter Living colleagues also put together a list of 10 ways to ease your coronavirus anxiety. A few more pieces of tech news that like all news during the week revolved around the pandemic. (And yes, I said I'm trying to avoid doomsurfing, but I promise these are worth your time.) None A gut wrenching report by Kate Conger, Adam Satariano and Mike Isaac on how the coronavirus has affected the livelihoods of gig workers for companies like Uber, Lyft and TaskRabbit, who have few of the protections of salaried workers and no employer sponsored health care. None From Brian X. Chen, a guide to solving your work from home tech problems, such as "Why is my Wi Fi connection so slow?" and "Wasn't the fridge full of snacks yesterday?" (OK, that last one is just my problem.) None Karen Weise on how Amazon is coping with a huge surge in demand from the virus by limiting shipments of certain goods and prioritizing medical items and household staples. None Two great stories from China: Raymond Zhong's report on the country's digital divide, which is leaving low income families without the ability to connect to daily necessities like virtual classes, and Paul Mozur's look at China's "internet police," whose investigations and power have only intensified since the coronavirus outbreak. Side note: Both Raymond and Paul are part of the team of New York Times reporters that is being ejected from China, as part of the country's crackdown on American journalists. Both are phenomenally talented reporters who have been working in China for years, and it is both "irresponsible" (to borrow a word from a statement by Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times, about the expulsion) and very sad to see them being expelled from a country they have covered so well for so long, at a time when good, independent journalism is needed in China more than ever.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
The antidote to that sensationalist exercise is the fascinating experimental documentary "El Mar La Mar," which also concerns migration in the Sonoran Desert and screens at MoMA from Friday through March 1. But instead of offering a short burst of terror followed by the prospect of a quick escape, this immersive, sensorially complex movie evokes the terrifying disorientation and loneliness of migration: the eerie sounds of sand crunching underfoot; the surreal sights of jugs of water left by well wishers; fragments of voices heard over radio transmissions. Told in three movements, the second being the longest and least cryptic, the film is the work of J.P. Sniadecki (a veteran of Harvard's Sensory Ethnography Lab) and Joshua Bonnetta, who are as concerned with the possibilities of the film medium as they are with this particular subject. The human presence is largely limited to voice over testimonies. A resident talks about taking in a shivering young man. We hear of migrants' experiences with getting lost. A woman recalls discovering a body.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
On Saturday night in Manhattan, Ralph Lauren took over the Bank of New York building, a 1920s edifice on Wall Street just across from Cipriani and cater corner to the stock exchange, transformed in 2015 from financial headquarters to cavernous event space . And inside he built a nightclub. There were soaring Art Deco columns framing enormous arched mirrors; little round tables covered in crisp white tablecloths beneath rotund black and white chandeliers. There were special Ralph's matchbooks and special Ralph's cocktails. There was a stage, with a 16 piece jazz band. There were potato chips and corned beef sandwiches. There was nostalgia bathed in the refracted light of a zillion beaded flapper dresses. They were the least of it, though, because as soon as the last strapless black column appeared, so did Janelle Monae (in her own backless halter tux top, complete with a little black bow tie, detached cuffs on her wrists and a billowing sheer plaid skirt), belting "Fly Me to the Moon," kicking off her shoes, climbing on tables and smashing champagne glasses. Boom! Amid all that, who could focus on the fashion? It was fine, in any case the sort of classic formal wear Mr. Lauren could probably do in his sleep. It was hard not to wonder why he even bothered, given that Ms. Monae was really all the model he needed; given that the point was other, and the point was apropos. We all need a bit of escapism these days, a moment away from the relentless mess of trade wars, Brexit, missile testing and the redefinition of truth. The question is where you find it. Do you retreat to the fantasy of some defanged sepia past, or do you try to conjure up an unknowable next? Mr. Lauren opted for the bygone (he has built a career on it), and he wasn't the only one. Sometimes the opening days of New York Fashion Week felt like an exercise in sliding down brightly festooned wormholes. And Brandon Maxwell went all Shelley Hack Charlie Girl, with long swinging blazers atop slick denim, slithery silk columns under slithery silk trenches, and piles of costume jewelry. Gobstopper colored stones glittered from every finger, were linked in a belt, dangled from ears; glittering ropes of silver chains swung with the stride. Which nevertheless seemed less liberated than encased in perfectly polished amber. Mr. Maxwell's one nod to looking forward: a new men's wear line, in the same colors, fabrics and loose silhouettes as his women's styles. And it made the grounded cool of Marcus Wainwright at Rag Bone his brand of "just clothes" (cropped collegiate sweaters, little leather minis, slouchy olive green suiting) seem neither here nor there. Despite the fact it was dressed up in a dance performance recorded by a robot and replayed on video to live tunes provided by a pair of guest drummers and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. While there are all sorts of reasons to pay attention to history at this particular moment we seem increasingly at risk of repeating our worst mistakes it is also increasingly apparent that old solutions no longer work. To offer them up as cheerful costumes can spur a smile (almost everything is rosier in retrospect), but it's ephemeral. Mr. Lauren's nightclub, after all, so gorgeous on the surface, was really just a thin veneer inside an empty building.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
Credit...Scott McIntyre for The New York Times You Can't Check In, But You Can Watch MIAMI With its boarded up facade eerily lit by a round Miami Beach moon, the Ocean Terrace Hotel looks abandoned. But when the blank metal doors swung open on a recent February evening, history suddenly came to life. In one room, a relentless Christian temperance crusader described how she brought down a Prohibition era den of iniquity on the corner. In another, an exuberant Jewish couple on their 1956 honeymoon decided to abandon Brooklyn for the glamorous beachside neighborhood outside their window. "It feels wonderful," said the honeymooning husband. "Like paradise." Elsewhere in the hotel, a black shoemaker shared admiring tales of Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge, while Andrew Cunanan, who murdered Gianni Versace in front of his South Beach mansion, raved in an imaginary disco and a young Hasidic man negotiated his reluctant attraction to a flamboyant gay bartender. They were all actors in "Miami Motel Stories North Beach," the fourth edition of an immersive theater project that uses forgotten history to bring this city's diverse, eclectic and often gentrifying neighborhoods to life. The Ocean Terrace is a derelict structure named for this picturesque but rundown beachfront street in North Beach, a quiet area 50 some blocks north of tourist packed South Beach. Audiences chose one of four themed tracks (including "Glamour" and "Crime") and were guided in small groups, to tiny, elaborately designed rooms in which the interactive scenes played out. Tickets for the show, running until the end of March and co directed by Ana Margineanu and Tai Thompson, are 70. Even as "Motel Stories" reveals North Beach's multifaceted past, the area is headed for more change. The development company Ocean Terrace Holdings, which owns the former hotel, will soon turn the street much like Ocean Drive in pre boom South Beach into an upscale complex of condos, stores, and a public park, restoring two historic hotels but leaving just the facades of the rest. The project is part of a wave of development flooding Miami's culturally distinctive neighborhoods, including those where other "Miami Motel Stories" have taken place. "We know there's gentrification," said Bravo, a Miami native. "What we can do as artists is tell the story before the change comes. A heightened reality happens in this building. We're peeling off the wallpaper, archiving history." Bravo and Juan C. Sanchez, the project's playwright and co creator, aim not only to entertain, but to foster connection in a city where decades of arrivals often split into ethnic enclaves. One result is Miamians tend to know little about the city's history or groups besides their own. "Once we know we've all had a place here, we begin to see ourselves in each other more," said Sanchez, who spends months researching each show. The pair, longtime friends, came up with the concept in 2016. Sanchez, whose parents emigrated from Cuba, had just finished "Paradise Motel," a traditional play that told the story of Little Havana through decades at a fictional motel. Bravo, returning to the arts after years in corporate marketing, had discovered immersive theater by acting in the New York City show "Broken City," set on the Lower East Side. She suggested staging a version of Sanchez's play in a real Little Havana hotel. The 2017 production, the first significant immersive theater produced here, was a hit, drawing a diverse, youthful crowd. That led to "Motel Stories" in the MiMo, or Miami Modern, District; in Wynwood, famous for its street murals; and now in North Beach. The veteran theater critic Christine Dolen, who has seen all of the iterations, said the latest version had "fewer clear standout" vignettes. "Yet what Juggerknot reliably delivers a dramatic deep dive into a neighborhood's changing character throughout time shines through again," she wrote in ArtburstMiami.com. One theme in the North Beach show is the area's history of discrimination. Until the Civil Rights Act, blacks had to have work permits to be on Miami Beach, and to leave at sundown. Luckner "Lucky" Bruno, 42, who plays the black shoemaker (based on an elderly man who's owned a nearby shop since the 1970s), remembers how tense family trips to the beach were for his parents. "There are so many rights that are threatened now, in Miami and America," he said. "I feel even more responsibility to remind people we are all part of this patchwork." Sanchez also featured the neighborhood's notoriously colorful past, with a '60s gangster lamenting the loss of a mobster's paradise. A quarreling, undocumented Argentine couple represents the many immigrants who led to the area being dubbed "Little Buenos Aires" in the early 2000s. The historic segments mesh with a parallel plot, a fictional indie film shoot that can seem like ironic commentary on the show's idealism. "I love history!" proclaims the actor Alex Alvarez, as a bombastic film director. "North Beach is where dreams come to live they kick ass!" Yet there's a tension underlying the project. All the "Motel Stories" have been hosted by hotel owners and developers who are likely to change neighborhoods in ways that push out the culturally distinctive, working and middle class people portrayed in the shows. Ocean Terrace Holdings recently emerged from a sometimes contentious five year process over plans for the neglected North Beach street, where several picturesque hotels have been closed for years. Some neighborhood activists opposed a project they saw as threatening to turn their affordable community into another pricey, tourist driven South Beach. "I'm tired of giving in all over Miami Beach to developers' greed," said Marsha Gilbert, a lifelong North Beach resident, at the City Council meeting last August where the Ocean Terrace project was approved, according to a story in the Miami New Times. Sandor Scher, who owns Ocean Terrace Holdings with his partner Alex Blavatnik (a brother of Len Blavatnik, the multibillionaire international entrepreneur), said it's not surprising that residents would have concerns about a project that he said will be "transformational." He predicted that new business and visitors to Ocean Terrace will restore the neighborhood's dynamism which is what attracted many of the characters portrayed in "Motel Stories" in the first place. The company did repairs and got permits so the show could use the abandoned hotel, and is hosting the production for free. "Arts and culture have been a big part of finding a way to activate our buildings, give back to the community, do something that creates interest in North Beach and Ocean Terrace," Scher said. That is something the "Motel Stories" artists believe is worth doing. "I don't think any city has come up with a solution to gentrification," said June Raven Romero, who plays the temperance crusader. "Every city is battling this monster. Maybe this is not an answer, but a conversation." Not long after the show closes, all but the facade of the Ocean Terrace will be demolished. "All the ghosts we're evoking now won't have a realm," said Bruno. "But we are at least giving it that last energy. Remember me, and I'll always remember you."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
I spent two hours last month falling flat on my face (or back), at least a dozen times. These weren't minor trips and stumbles in fact, I wiped out repeatedly, spectacularly, in front of my family and even a photographer. I was surfing in the salty seas off Kailua Kona on Hawaii's Big Island, where my sister, brother and their spouses and kids had come to recover from a rough year that included the death of our parents, my sister's cancer diagnosis and the placing of my brother's autistic son in a home. We were determined to celebrate our resiliency and newfound hope. As a bonus, I realized that many of the lessons I learned on the waves could be translated for use on dry land. The first time I tested my mettle on a Hawaiian long board, I was 32 and fearless perfect attributes for catching oversize waves and experiencing long, exhilarating runs (as well as mash ups with underwater coral and rough hewed lava rocks). I loved the rush of adrenaline each run unleashed, fueling the desire to take on more and bigger waves. Surfing at 60 after a 15 year hiatus was, frankly, more of a challenge. When I took my first surfing lessons in 1989, my body's muscles had an elasticity that made it almost effortless to "pop up" (that's when you move from lying prone on the board to crouching on it, butt out and back flat). I could see that very same elasticity in my 21 year old niece, Jessie, a surfing novice, as she jumped up time and again to catch a wave. Her legs had a natural spring to them, and in a flash she'd be in the Warrior 2 position, shimmying down the wave, braids flying out behind her. I know my hips and glutes have tightened over the decades, but it really wasn't my body that kept getting in the way as I crashed off the board. Our instructor, Ossian (pronounced "Ocean") Farmer, owner and operator of FBI Surf School, pointed out how I kept hesitating that, more than any loss of flexibility, he said, was what was holding me back. That certainly resonated. In my youth I had had few hesitations. I was a Malcolm Gladwell "Blink" kind of guy: I could commit to a wave, a job, a partner, and never look back. Now on the board I found myself dragging one foot like an anchor caught on a rock (and yes, I recognized the metaphor). "The moment you hesitate in surfing is the moment you will find yourself in trouble," I read on SurferToday.com. You will lose momentum; you will miss the wave; you will likely wipe out. Or, as Mr. Farmer put it to me: "Hesitation is totally the enemy. If you're not fully committed, you're history." Jessie concurred, saying it wasn't physical ability or even her youth that gave her an edge. "It's not a strength thing," she said. "You have to be in your own body and have the intuition of knowing when to stand up." Jessie has lived through much of our family tumult with me and knows a thing or two already about being able to stand up at the right time. Surfing well, my teacher told me between my wipeouts, is a lot like meditation. "It's like not thinking," he said, "you're just in the moment." For the next several waves after he told me that I tried out a surfing mantra, similar to what I use to stay focused during meditation. "Eyes forward. Knees relaxed. Feet parallel. Core tight." But in the rush and flush of a wave, I got lost in my words and wiped out. I simplified my mantra to "Jessie," since her wave riding captured all those reminders. To my surprise, I caught the very next wave and made it halfway to shore. I had stopped thinking and was actually in the moment. As Jessie put it to me: "There's an element of risk each time you get up because there's always a chance that you'll fall. But do you have the trust, the willingness to take the leap when you don't know the specified conditions each time?" Watching my niece, I noticed something else. Jess kept her eye on the prize, which on the board means looking straight ahead to the shore. I realized that even when I did pop up properly, my focus often wandered to the left or right and I'd quickly tumble off the board. "Look straight ahead," my instructor shouted over the breaking surf. He kept reminding me not to get sidetracked. I couldn't help but think of the many times distraction had undermined me, personally and professionally, by tempting my focus away from the goal. In 21 years, Jess has learned many things, but I do have a few decades of experience on her. My siblings and I have lived through some difficult times and have gotten a bit too familiar with illness, disability, death and fear. In the years since I'd last surfed, I had watched my aged parents fall and hurt themselves many times, and I'd developed a fear of falling. My brother and sister in law had also faced their own trials over those years, notably raising their son who has autism, who is both lovable and a huge challenge. Mr. Farmer, who's surfed since he was in third grade, admitted to some fears of his own, but was philosophical about them. "Don't let fear get in the way of living your dreams. It will handicap you," he said. "Usually fear holds you back and creates anxiety. You should pretty much ignore it" although he quickly pointed out he wasn't encouraging me to be a daredevil and ride a giant wave beyond my ability. "But what do I do when I tumble?" I asked. "Fall flat," he advised, which would keep me from getting scraped by any lava rocks. "Don't dive head first. And be as graceful as you can." (With a beachside photographer capturing every fall, I tried for grace, but I laughed when I looked at the photos.) When it came time for the last wave, I deployed all of my surfing mentor's advice, as well as my own experience. I popped up. I did a "Jessie" and caught the wave, surfing it all the way to the shore. Exhilarating. And then I fell flat since I didn't know any other way to get off the board. My brother's wife, who witnessed this magnificent ride, had the last word of the morning after my head bobbed up from underneath the surf: "The next step after falling," she said learned as much from her life experience as from times on the board "is getting up again." Steven Petrow, a Hillsborough, N.C., writer, is a regular contributor to Well.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Well
The grandmother of American conservation, Mardy Murie, once called the national parks our "best idea." And this year, with foreign travel all but canceled, some of these celebrated domestic destinations have reached new heights of jam packed popularity and that, of course, presents challenges during a pandemic. Despite the breathing room offered by the Great Outdoors, many of the 419 National Park Service areas have sites that are not conducive to social distancing. Many parks concentrate the public along narrow trails leading to crowded geysers, waterfalls, wildlife viewing stands or other scenic vistas. Yet there are notable exceptions. In particular, 13 national seashores and lakeshores offer a completely different experience. While these federally protected coastlines collectively attract millions of visitors each year, the primary attraction is water and uncrowded stretches of sand that invite picnics, water activities and social distancing. During the pandemic, many of the visitor centers, museums, historic buildings and signature lighthouses have remained closed to the public. The plan, according to the National Park Service's administrative history about the seashore surveys of the 1930s, was to protect natural locations for "beachcombing, surf bathing, swimming at protected beaches, surf and sport fishing, bird watching, nature study, and visits to historic structures." First on the roster, in 1937, was Cape Hatteras National Seashore: 70 miles along North Carolina's Outer Banks, including three lighthouses (the site wasn't formally dedicated until 1958). Prompted by burgeoning development along the coastlines after World War II, Congress added nine more national seashores to the Park Service in 10 different states, along with four national lakeshores in three states surrounding the Great Lakes (Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore was recently changed to a national park). Today these 13 expanses of lake and sea shorelines protect 809,000 acres, abutting thousands of miles of oceans and lakes. The principal focus of the seashores and lakeshores is recreation. Many of the sites also allow off road vehicles and sport hunting activities that are forbidden in national parks. And while the heat of summer makes these wild shores ideal destinations, most can also be explored throughout the fall and winter. From California to Cape Cod, here are eight of the most scenic seashores and lakeshores in the National Park Service. As one of the most popular seashores, with over four million visitors last year, this seashore has still plenty of room along 15 different beaches to spread out and fish, body surf, swim, go for interpretive walks, take four wheel drives along the beach and hike a dozen different trails that lead to forested wetlands and picnic areas. Beaches are essential ecosystems that support a wide variety of often overlooked plants and animals, from small nematodes (simple worms) to tiny crustaceans and other clam like invertebrates living between the lower surf and the higher grasses. You can also observe ospreys, foxes, coyotes and wildflowers amid the rolling dunes. For the summer of 2020, the two visitor centers, half a dozen lighthouses and historic buildings are closed. Immediately south of Ocean City, Md., this windswept and pristine island stretches 37 miles into Virginia, where it adjoins one of the richest birding sanctuaries in the country, Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. The island is also famed for a herd of some 150 wild ponies, descendents of the animals shipped over by planters in the 1600s. Sometimes they can be seen trotting along (and into) Chincoteague Bay. Most of the beaches are open to four wheel driving (with permits), along with biking, hiking, surfing, swimming, kayaking, clamming and fishing. Presently, the visitor center and backcountry campsites are closed. Since this is the only nature oriented national park site on the Mid Atlantic seaboard, more than two million people come each year, but in the cool spring and fall, the tourist crowds thin. As the least visited and most isolated national seashore (53,904 people came in 2019), the 18 mile long Cumberland Island, off the Georgia coast, showcases an unusual landowner history. Historic structures, such as the Thomas Carnegie mansion ruins, surround what were once thriving cotton plantations. The north end of the island, home to an African American community in the 1890s, holds the intact First African Baptist Church, which is still a popular destination. Today, although there are private property owners living on the island, many of the dunes and surrounding beaches have been reclaimed by nature; nearly one third of the total 36,000 acres are protected wilderness (Cumberland Island National Seashore was established in 1972). Along with feral horses, there are rattlesnakes, alligators, more than 300 species of birds and white tail deer. Fishing, boating and camping opportunities abound; after storms, try your luck hunting for sharks' teeth and shells on the beaches. Largest of all the national seashores at 135,600 acres, with over five million visitors a year, Gulf Islands National Seashore offers plenty of room to go beachcombing and boat across 12 different units that are spread from the Gulf shores on the Florida Panhandle to Southern Mississippi. Eighty percent of the park is water. And the beaches, with their pure white sand, are heralded as among the most beautiful in the world. These crushed quartz shores are likened to spun glass, the grains of which have washed down over thousands of years, from the Appalachian Mountains and into the Gulf. In addition to sunbathing, swimming or picnicking, you'll find year round snorkeling and scuba diving throughout the warm and pellucid waters, along with ample opportunities to camp, hike, bike, ride horses and hunt. The diversity of wildlife habitats from dunes to marshes to forests attracts more than 300 species of birds, along with armadillos, black bears, dolphins and river otters. Many come to visit the islands' four intact forts (the Fort Barrancas area is currently closed) that were built to protect the mainland during the War of 1812. Renowned as the largest undeveloped barrier island in the world, the drivable hard sand of Texas's Padre Island sweeps 80 miles from Corpus Christi to Brownsville, free of the resorts and homes strung along the mainland several miles west across the Intracoastal Waterway. One sheltered stretch, Laguna Madre, contains some of the most saline waters in the world. Padre Island is also known as a windsurfing destination, but when the breeze dies, or out among the sheltered dunes, mosquitoes can be fierce. Although busy on weekends and during college breaks, most visitors drive in four wheel vehicles at least five miles south from park headquarters until they've found the desired isolation. Last year, more than half a million people visited the park. Along with innumerable activities on beaches colorful with evening primrose, there are several shipwrecks buried offshore. For birding opportunities, bring your binoculars, and if patience prevails, wildlife watchers might also get a glimpse of the endangered Kemp's ridley turtle. As the only national seashore on the West Coast, the spectacular Point Reyes on the San Andreas Fault is a short drive north of San Francisco. In 2019, more than two million people visited this 71,000 acre headland. Home to more than a thousand species of plants and animals, Point Reyes is the most biologically rich and diverse seashore of them all. With forests sheltering tule elk, pastoral grasslands and tall cliffs overlooking the breakers, visitors can watch migrating gray whales, seals and fluttering colonies of seabirds. An astonishing 480 different species of birds have been identified here. In 1988, UNESCO included Point Reyes in the Golden Gate Biosphere Reserve. Historically, the park preserves the region's 150 year old cattle ranching legacy, with dairy operations still active today on the treeless plain above the sea. And down below, in 1579, Sir Francis Drake became the first European to land in California, in what is now called Drake's Cove. The 80 miles of shoreline hold a dozen different beaches the most popular destinations for backpacking, surfing, kayaking or simply strolling along the littoral where the vast Pacific beats the shore.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
THE BAKER AND THE BEAUTY 9 p.m. on ABC. Daniel (Victor Rasuk) is a family oriented baker unaccustomed to being in the public eye. Noa (Nathalie Kelley) is a model, entrepreneur and actress whose every move is tabloid fodder. They met by chance and hit it off in the debut episode of this series, which premiered in April, but have struggled to merge their very dissimilar lives ever since. Vengeful exes, familial strife, Noa's controlling manager and a meddling journalist have all contributed to their ongoing difficulties. In last week's episode, it looked like many of the major conflicts had been resolved, but Noa decided to end the budding relationship anyway after seeing all the trouble it had caused. The two hour finale tonight leaves plenty of time for the erstwhile couple to experience more highs and lows. 90 DAY FIANCE: SELF QUARANTINED 9 p.m. on TLC. The couples who participate in this reality show franchise face plenty of challenges. Most obviously, they have only three months to decide whether to get married and then seal the deal if they choose to. Before and after that decision is made, there are usually cultural and personal differences to navigate as well as skeptical friends and family to contend with. This spinoff focuses on past participants who are dealing, on top of everything else, with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. A mix of self recorded video and remote interviews show how they're coping with cabin fever, economic stress, health concerns and other related obstacles. The season wraps tonight.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
LONDON In a surprising departure from convention, the British government on Monday selected Mark J. Carney, the head of the Canadian central bank, to succeed Mervyn A. King as the next governor of the Bank of England. The appointment ended months of jockeying by some of Britain's most prominent public officials. As a result of changes to take effect next year, the job will come with sharply enhanced powers. The odds had been seen as heavily favoring the Bank of England's deputy governor, Paul Tucker. The decision to select a foreigner to lead the bank, Britain's most storied financial institution and the equivalent of the Federal Reserve in the United States, came as a shock when George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, broke the news during a session of Parliament. The appointment was arguably the most significant in the bank's 318 year history. Mr. Carney will not only be the first foreigner to lead the bank, but will also take responsibility for the health of the British financial system. Besides doing the traditional job of setting interest rates, the central bank will directly regulate and oversee the country's banks and other financial institutions. Until now, such regulation and oversight has been primarily the job of the Financial Services Authority, which will be scrapped. "I see this as a challenge and I'm going to where the challenge is the greatest," Mr. Carney said at a news conference in Ottawa. Mr. Carney will assume the governor's post in July, and the pressures facing him will be immense. Not only must he decide whether to continue Britain's aggressive money printing program aimed at stimulating the economy, he must also ensure that the central bank's independence and reputation are not sullied by an investigation into the manipulation of key interest rates by commercial banks. Indeed, the decision to pick Mr. Carney seems to have been heavily influenced by the taint of the interest rate scandal that, although it has largely subsided, remains attached to Mr. Tucker. As the scandal was erupting this year, the disclosure of e mail exchanges dating to 2008 between Mr. Tucker and Robert E. Diamond Jr., the chief executive of Barclays at the time, suggested that Mr. Tucker might have supported the idea of keeping rates artificially low. Mr. Carney, a former Goldman Sachs executive, is widely admired for the steady job he has done in preserving financial stability in Canada in the face of pressures that have shaken other countries. The Bank of England's new heft represents a stark shift from the era of light regulation that held sway before the financial crisis, in which its ability to issue warnings and intervene in banking excesses were constrained. "This is a new job," said Simon Hayes, an economist at Barclays. "Previously, the focus was mainly on monetary policy. Now, it is about financial stability, monetary policy and macro prudential policy. The key is to get the right mix of policy and making sure there is proper coordination" with the Exchequer, or British Treasury. Mr. King, who will remain as central bank governor until next summer, has emerged as Britain's most vociferous critic of irresponsible bank behavior. But he has also been criticized for acting too slowly in 2007 to bail out Northern Rock, the mortgage lender whose collapse that year was the onset of Britain's financial crisis. The central bank's broader regulatory powers will be wielded by a newly formed Financial Policy Committee, operating inside the bank and presided over by the governor. The framers of the new structure hope the bank will be better able to sniff out early warning signals, like excessive risk taking and borrowing by the banks, and move to defuse a crisis something it was not able to do in 2007. Today in On Tech: Imagine not living in Big Tech's world. Dollar Tree will raise prices to 1.25 by the end of April. Reflecting the importance of the position, Mr. Osborne cast a wide net in searching for a successor and took the unusual step of considering candidates from outside Britain. The names of prominent investment bankers also surfaced as potential chiefs, indicating the hunger for an innovative appointment. Mr. Carney was encouraged this year by Mr. Osborne to apply for the governor role, according to a government official in London who declined to be identified because the chronology of Mr. Carney's appointment had not been made public. Mr. Carney ruled himself out of the race for the job in August, the official said, but remained in touch with Mr. Osborne, who, as one of Prime Minister David Cameron's top political advisers, has a fondness for grand gestures. After further talks with senior officials in Britain, Mr. Carney reconsidered, applied for the post and was told of his appointment last week, the official said. Mr. Osborne told Parliament that Mr. Carney was "the best, most experienced and most qualified person in the world to do the job" and that he would "bring strong leadership and a fresh new perspective" to the job. Mr. Osborne pointed out that unlike some other candidates, Mr. Carney had both central bank and private sector experience. "I look forward to working with Mark as we continue to rebalance our economy, deal with our debts, and equip Britain to succeed in the global race," Mr. Osborne told Parliament. "We needed the best and in Mark Carney we've got it." Mr. Carney will also remain the head of the Financial Stability Board, the international body based in Basel, Switzerland, that is meant to ensure the health of the global financial system. That position, along with Mr. Carney's experience in the private sector, made him a compelling candidate assuming he could be persuaded to take the job. At Goldman, where he worked for 13 years, Mr. Carney's areas of responsibility included sovereign debt and emerging markets debt. The former is a particular asset, given the continuing crisis in the euro zone. "He's highly regarded here and known for his strong but calm hand throughout the financial crisis," said Issa Mazen, a strategist at TD Securities in Toronto. "Carney was decisive and responded firmly, understanding the scope and magnitude of the crisis. He's also a leading advocate on good communication and transparency." Mr. Carney received some renown late last year for being the target of an outburst from Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase. Mr. Dimon criticized Mr. Carney, who would soon become chairman of the Financial Stability Board, for his support of new rules dictating how much capital banks need to hold in reserve. Mr. Carney stood his ground and in doing so enhanced his reputation as a hawkish regulator, both willing and able to resist the powerful bankers' lobby. Such backbone will no doubt come in handy in Britain, where Mr. Carney will need to decide whether banks here should have their commercial and investment banking activities separated. The decision came as a blow not only to Mr. Tucker, but also to Adair Turner, the chairman of the Financial Services Authority. Mr. Tucker, who until the interest rate scandal was seen to be a shoo in to succeed Mr. King, has been at the central bank for close to 20 years and was widely recognized for his knowledge of the markets.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Global Business
These days most publishers insist that their authors maintain an online presence, so we decided to visit the websites of everyone on the fiction list to unearth the most interesting thing about each one. , whose "The Next Person You Meet in Heaven" is at No. 1, provides readers with lots of lists: "15 Albums I Could Listen to Forever," "Books I Love, in No Particular Order" and "13 Favorite Movies of All Time," to name a few. "Holy Ghost," at No. 2, is the latest from John Sandford, whose son, Roswell Camp, has begun tallying his father's use of profanities. The results can be found in a document called "Swearing Statistics," tucked away in a corner of the author's website. Kate Morton, whose newest historical novel, "The Clockmaker's Daughter," is at No. 3, admits to an "obsession with houses, both real and fictional. ... I adore the physical aspects chimneys, attics, dormers, crooked roof lines, odd gables and also the role of the house as a building in which human lives are led."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Does Lillian Hellman belong in the same elite club of 20th century masters as Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller? The Washington Post's chief theater critic, Peter Marks, suggested as much in a review last year of Arena Stage's revival of "The Little Foxes," a Hellman play receiving a starry new production on Broadway. Directed by Daniel Sullivan, this drama about a Southern family at war with itself features Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon in the juicy leading parts, Regina and Birdie. These stars, who also happen to be experienced stage performers, will alternate in the roles. This Manhattan Theater Club production will be a great opportunity for New York audiences to see if this play, first produced on Broadway in 1939, fits in the canon.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
When Nelson Doubleday, John O. Pickett and Fred Wilpon bought the Mets from the Payson family for 21 million in 1980, it was a relatively simple transaction. "It took us one week from the phone call," Doubleday said. "We don't fool around." Things haven't gone so smoothly with the Mets' financial dealings since. The team is up for sale again, with a first round of bidding having concluded this week, according to multiple news media reports. The latest chapter has already involved a scuttled deal, a family feud and, somehow, Jennifer Lopez. Throw in a Ponzi scheme and a notorious contract, and you have a most colorful financial history. Wilpon initially owned just 1 percent of the team. In 1986, he exercised a clause in the deal that allowed him to buy the team much to his partners' displeasure and he ended up with 50 percent ownership after a settlement. Then in 2002, he tried to buy out Doubleday entirely. In 2011, the Wilpons moved to sell a minority share of the team to a hedge fund manager, David Einhorn, for 200 million. The deal did not come to fruition. One problem was that Einhorn wanted to be preapproved by Major League Baseball to become the team's majority owner in the event he bought a larger stake in the team in the future. Einhorn said the Mets backed down from agreeing to authorize this; the Wilpons denied doing so. There was also tension over how much authority Einhorn would have as minority owner, with Einhorn hoping to be heavily involved and the Wilpons expecting to keep full control of team decisions for themselves. Aborted deals like this one helped give the Wilpons a reputation for making last minute changes in negotiations with partners, government officials and even players. As The Times put it earlier this year: "Just when a deal appears to be done and it is time to shake hands, the Wilpons reach for a little more." Last year it appeared the Wilpons were finally ready to sell a controlling interest in the Mets. The prospective buyer was the billionaire hedge fund owner Steven A. Cohen, already a minority investor, who was seeking 80 percent of the team. The sale was inspired in part by bickering among the Wilpons. Fred Wilpon is in his 80s, and he and the second generation do not always see eye to eye. Some in the family were said to be wary of the eldest son, Jeff, being in charge. No Sale After All Yes, the deal with Cohen fell apart, too. Once again, the issue of who would control the team was central to the collapse.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Graham Walzer for The New York Times Graham Walzer for The New York Times Credit... Graham Walzer for The New York Times Galleries participating in art fairs tend to judge their success by the numbers not only profits from their sales but also how many new collectors they met who stay in touch. But for visitors, what matters most is less quantifiable: Was the fair experience memorable? And how was the art? For many viewers reached by a reporter and photographer for The New York Times, the inaugural edition of Frieze Los Angeles and the upstart Felix LA art fair last weekend succeeded on those fronts, dispelling a longstanding notion of the city as a graveyard for art fairs and underscoring its vitality as an art center. Frieze, set at Paramount Studios, commissioned artworks for the five acre New York streetscape on the backlot and they helped to give the fair a different vibe, from Hannah Greely's paintings of laundry on a clotheslines to Sarah Cain's wall to window takeover of a classic brownstone apartment, including a brilliant stained glass window. In the big tent housing 70 gallery booths there were many discoveries to be made. They ranged from a stridently colored, puzzle like painting of female factory workers by the little known Sacramento artist Irving Marcus (age 89) at Parker Gallery to a reconstruction of Judy Chicago's important 1965 "Zig Zag" sculpture at Jeffrey Deitch. Hans Ulrich Obrist, the artistic director of Serpentine Galleries in London, who typically leads two to three trips a year for patrons, called his trip "one of the most exciting we've ever had." He praised the "village like experience of the Paramount lot," the fair's manageable size (less than half that of Frieze New York) and the various satellite fairs and pop up events around it. The popular Felix art fair, which had free entry and was intended to show more affordable art, commandeered several poolside cabana rooms and the entire 11th floor of the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel. Visitors could see unframed paintings by Roger White spread out on a bed and putty sculptures by Matt Hoyt posed on hotel end tables rather than museum pedestals. The lobby had a spread of Kristen Morgin's painted clay replicas of books that she imagined came from Jennifer Aniston's library, with titles heavy on romance and self help. Komal Shah, a Bay Area collector and trustee at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, praised the strong showing of women artists across Frieze and singled out as a Felix standout the room of the Chicago gallerist Kavi Gupta, which featured one wall of paintings by AfriCOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists) an artist collective that helped define the vision of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 70s. "I did hear a couple of dealers at Frieze lamenting that the L.A. crowd seemed to be more conservative than New York more interested in paintings than conceptual work," she said. "But I thought the dealers brought great works. And I loved the energy." Howard Rachofsky, the Dallas collector, agreed. "I don't ever remember Frieze New York actually being fun and this was," he said. "My sense is this will be the first of many Frieze fairs out here." Tickets had quickly sold out, with the final tally of attendance at 30,000. Bettina Korek, the Frieze L.A. director, confirmed the London based group would return in 2020. Dean Valentine, the co founder of Felix, said that given the crowds and positive feedback, he was "excited to start the process" of planning for the future. Here are some highlights from the fairs' debut editions.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
If you're an 18 year old student with no children, two college educated parents and only one task over the next four years to get a degree it might not be that difficult to navigate registration, find time to get to the bookstore, or stay late after class for extra help, all leading to a high likelihood that you'll graduate. But if you're a single parent with a full time job, or the first person in your family to go to college, and are perhaps attending part time, it's a different story. Community college students across the country struggle to complete their programs only 25 percent of those who start as full time students at public two year institutions graduate, according to the United States Department of Education. Only about one of five finishes in two years. Even given twice as long to complete the coursework, just 36 percent of these students graduate. But in recent years, technological advances have given administrators a chance to offer help when and where students need it, whether it's reminding them about due dates, nudging them to complete homework or guiding them toward resources that will help them stay enrolled. "I think all colleges need this kind of help, but community colleges see a significant number of first time students, people who may not have family understanding of the kinds of things that are necessary," said Bret Ingerman, vice president for information technology at Tallahassee Community College in Florida. Students can now expect to get personalized text messages from their college. Instead of a mass email listing the deadlines for payment, a student might receive a text that says: "Dear Ayana, you're about to be dropped from your fall classes. Click this link to fix that." These kinds of technologies allow administrators to nudge their students toward success in a way that wasn't possible a decade ago. "There's something about getting a message with that level of personalization, because now you know it applies to you," Mr. Ingerman said. He said members of the administration have received messages from students expressing gratitude for the reminder, or asking for help. That opens the door for someone to intervene. Using software that was originally designed to track technology "help desk" tickets, Mr. Ingerman and his team also route faculty concerns about students who seem to be at risk of dropping out. "We can have a faculty member identify a student who's not doing well, maybe they're sleeping in class because they don't have housing," said Mr. Ingerman. "Whatever the issue may be, we know the right people to help." Professors also have access to a fuller picture of their students, with information about how often they open their materials, or how long they spent on an assignment. Some of the most at risk students who enter community college are those who aren't considered "college ready" in certain subjects. They have to take remedial courses that won't count toward a degree, but cost time and money. "We know that developmental math tends to be the main barrier to college completion. We also know that minority students are disproportionately placed in developmental math education," said Kevin Li, dean of arts and sciences at Triton College, a public community college in the greater Chicago area.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Education
Fear festers, burrows and blooms in Caryl Churchill's "Escaped Alone," a short and wondrous play that plumbs the depths of 21st century terrors, large and small. These range from the eccentrically personal (as in being uncomfortable around cats) to the sweepingly historic as in, well, the end of the world as we know it. Now if you yourself are in an apprehensive state of mind these days (and I'd wager, somehow, that you are), you might think a show about what scares people would be the last thing you'd want as entertainment. Yet this British import, which runs through Feb. 26 at the Harvey Theater of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, has the effect of a restorative tonic, and you may find a new bounce in your step as you leave it. That's what happens when a work is as perfectly executed and as playfully and purposefully intelligent as this one, directed with luminous subtlety by James Macdonald and featuring a cast of four fine actresses portraying women in the evening of their lives. Then there's the ever mutating language, which finds a natural poetry in everyday speech, which in turn grows and warps into Swiftian accounts of an apocalyptic future. What lies behind would hardly appear to be the stuff of Lewis Carroll fantasies. Within a walled in, sun soaked backyard (designed with bright storybook lushness by Miriam Buether) sit four grandmotherly types, basking and chatting in the idle, free associating way of people of long acquaintance with time on their hands. Their names are Sally (Deborah Findlay), Lena (Kika Markham) and Vi (June Watson). They swap descriptions of grandchildren, hobbies, former jobs and the many changes their little neighborhood has seen. Occasionally, they bruise one another's feelings, not always accidentally; and at one blissful point, they erupt into a spontaneous version of the girl group classic "Da Doo Ron Ron." But shadows stir within the mellow afternoon light. Christopher Shutt's subliminal sound design lends a foreboding edge to the commonplace noises of traffic and children at play. And as you listen to the women and with these actresses you can't help but hang on everything they say you sense a specific, isolating unease in each. Before the show, which runs under an hour, has concluded, the individual sources of their anxiety will be revealed, in three exquisite monologues that seem to occur in an interior eternity. (Though the scene doesn't change here, Peter Mumford's uncannily precise lighting defines each woman as apart at such moments, utterly alone among others.) But wait. There's more to "Escaped Alone" than this sustained backyard idyll. At regular intervals, the stage goes black, and when the light returns it's in the form of two vast, illuminated red rectangles, one within the other, crackling and burning in the dark. Mrs. Jarrett stands before them, all by herself, delivering reports of a future in which nature, poisoned beyond endurance, has run amok. These Bosch like accounts are grotesque and whimsical, painting landscapes of destruction from the basic vocabularies of both contemporary culture and ages old apocalyptic imagery. Stories of life devouring flood, famine and pestilence are woven with references to such seemingly trivial phenomena as television cooking shows and selfies. Here, for example, is Mrs. Jarrett on the devastation wrought by a "wind developed by property developers": "Buildings migrated from London to Lahore, Kyoto to Kansas City, and survivors were interned for having no travel documents. Some in the whirlwind went higher and higher, the airsick families taking selfies in case they could ever share them. Shantytowns were cleared. Pets rained from the sky. A kitten became famous." The reality within the surrealism of such descriptions is what makes them stick to your memory. (I saw "Escaped Alone" at the Royal Court Theater in London a year ago, and its images seem to have been in my bloodstream ever since.) Ms. Bassett delivers these monologues not in the ominous style of some otherworldly oracle but in the matter of fact, common woman manner of her character. As extreme as these visions are, they also feel ineffably linked to the more everyday worries and make believe speculations (what bird would you like to be?) that have been shared by Sally, Lena and Vi. And there turns out to be more than meets the eye (or ear) to these women, too, as we learn by carefully calibrated degrees what it is that keeps them awake at night. The play's combination of theatrical technique and untrammeled imagination, and of the personal and the universal, make you understand why Ms. Churchill is regarded by many (rightly, I think) as the most dazzlingly inventive living dramatist in the English language. No one in theater these days is better at exploding and reassembling traditional modes of language and storytelling. "Escaped Alone" is a fairy tale of sorts, as were Ms. Churchill's earlier "The Skriker" and "Far Away." This magnificent writer's latest variation on that form reaffirms such tales' power to warm us even as they warn of the unspeakable dangers in the wide, dark world beyond.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
Sometimes, it's not enough to be attractive. To lure buyers and keep them happy, top buildings often have to entertain residents, too. Many listings are, for better or worse, judged for the breadth and quality of their amenities the gym in the basement of an exclusive co op, or the summer camp's worth of tennis courts, swimming pools and golf simulators in a shiny new condominium. Being able to practice golf swings in front of a virtual fairway may not come cheap, whether the resident has to pay for the privilege through additional fees or inflated common charges. But channeling your inner Arnold Palmer may be less of a drain than you think. With so many buildings investing in on site recreation, more perk laden listings are out there than prospective buyers may realize, according to a search of recently available New York City apartments on StreetEasy.com and NYTimes.com. And if buyers are willing to consider the Bronx for a massage room, say, or Brooklyn for a robotic garage, they might find their must have amenity at more reasonable prices. But even in Manhattan, you can buy a home with amenities for less than what these properties typically cost, and even for less than the average sales price over all, which was 1.9 million for condos in existing buildings in the third quarter, according to the Corcoran Group. For existing co ops, Corcoran puts the average price at 1.3 million. However, you may have to head for once industrial, transitioning edges of the island to find them. Indeed, in a bid to get people to consider fringe areas, developers often lard their more remote condos with whiz bang extras. "It seems like for every block you travel away from the middle of Manhattan, you will find buildings with more and more amenities," said John W. Chang, a Re/Max agent who has a one bedroom listing at the Atelier, a condo at the far reaches of West 42nd Street with a private basketball court, a playground and a rooftop ice skating rink. "The idea seems to be to create a mini city with so many amenities that people feel like they never have to leave the building," Mr. Chang said. Of course, not all promised amenities are what they are cracked up to be. Listings sometimes suggest that pools are under the same roof when they are really a few blocks away. Sometimes phrases like "rock climbing" are merely click bait, dumped into online ads to generate more hits in searches when there is no place to belay for miles. But if buyers absolutely insist on doing the backstroke an elevator ride away from their apartments, and can't afford a multimillion dollar townhouse with a rooftop pool, possibilities exist. But the most indulgent amenities often are not listed in easy to check boxes and may require a little more persistence to find, such as knot loosening back rubs that can relieve the stress of the daily grind. At Skyview on the Hudson, a sprawling 1960s red brick co op complex on Arlington Avenue in North Riverdale, the Bronx, residents can stroll across the property to a private clubhouse where a massage room awaits alongside a gym that offers Pilates classes. Though the co op's maintenance fees cover gym membership, massage sessions are extra, usually starting at around 80, according to Elite Pool and Fitness Management, which runs the facility. At 140,000, a studio at Skyview was among the lowest priced apartments with massage access recently for sale in the city. For a massage that doesn't require leaving the building and is in Manhattan, buyers might consider the Downtown Club, a 45 story, 280 unit condo tower at 20 West Street in the financial district. The building was once the Downtown Athletic Club and the home of the Heisman Trophy and, according to old floor plans and photos hanging in hallways, once had squash courts, rooms for checkers and chess, and even a golf course with tiny bridges and greens. Today, on the seventh floor near a large gym, is a cozy massage room equipped with a towel warmer and a stereo system for those who prefer to have their shoulders kneaded to New Age rhythms. There are no fees to use the facilities. Residents, however, are on the hook for the actual massage therapists' fees. Amenities tend to evolve. When the condo opened, for instance, it offered free breakfast, which is no longer the case, according to Kevin Geloso, the founder of KG Properties of New York, a brokerage. "Sometimes amenities seem like a good idea at the time, but they're not used as often as expected," Mr. Geloso said. In late November, Mr. Geloso listed a 44th floor corner studio at the Downtown Club with a windowed kitchen and views of the Statue of Liberty that rival those from a tour boat. At 675,000, the listing was among the least expensive of about 70 units for sale with massage room access in existing buildings in Manhattan, with the priciest a shoulder locking 12 million. Condos and co ops throughout the city offer indoor pools, an amenity that was a fixture in certain high rise developments on the Upper East Side in the 1960s and 1970s, but now seems to know few neighborhood constraints. Finding a low cost place with a pool can be a chore. Some listings claim them, when the pools are actually at nearby YMCAs. But the Bronx, again, may be worth a look. Last month, an alcove studio at 2400 Johnson Avenue in the Spuyten Duyvil section of Riverdale, with parquet floors and a private patio, was listed at 140,000. The building is a 14 story, 130 unit co op with a small, recently retiled pool that offers a view of the Harlem River. It's free to shareholders, though special events like the recent "Stay Up Late and Take a Dip," which featured refreshments, cost 10. A no fee pool is not always an easy sell, management agents say, as residents who don't swim may not want to chip in for upkeep. So some co ops have opted for an a la carte payment model. At the Excelsior co op, at 303 East 57th Street in Manhattan, the pool is part of a health club in an adjacent building, but reachable through a door in the chandelier hung lobby, so one can get there wearing flip flops. The least costly for sale property with a golf option was on Staten Island, at the waterfront Accolade condo at 90 Bay Street Landing in St. George. A studio in the former warehouse was 327,000. Across the harbor in Manhattan, virtual golfers can buy in places like the Platinum on West 46th Street in Times Square; the Corinthian on East 38th Street in Murray Hill; and 170 East End Avenue on the Upper East Side. Golf is also on the menu at 20 Pine Street in the financial district, a condo conversion of a bank office building whose elegant amenity space also includes a 60 foot pool, a billiards room and a gym; there is no annual fee. At 20 Pine Street, the lowest priced offering was a studio with 730 square feet, plus an almost 200 square foot private terrace. It was listed for 950,000 by Richard J. Steinberg of Warburg Realty. "Fitness centers and indoor pools are almost givens now, so developers are seeking the next level," Mr. Steinberg said. "Call them the ultra amenities." An on site parking garage may be enough of an amenity for some, at least until a dent in a door appears, or annoying waits begin to stymie beating a path out of town before rush hour traffic heats up. Those car owners might then conclude that careless and slow moving attendants are sapping the value of a space. Relief could be in sight. A handful of buildings now offer automated garages, where robots do the heavy lifting. The cheapest robot assist on the market in the city late last month was at 1610 DeKalb Avenue in Brooklyn, in the L Lofts condo, where a two bedroom, two bath unit could be had for 749,000. L Lofts parking, in an adjacent garage reachable from inside the building, will set users back 138 a month. Manhattan options, meanwhile, include buildings like 123 Baxter Street in Chinatown and soon, condos like 12 East 13th (a former garage), 17 East 12th Street (another former garage) and 252 East 57th Street, a ground up project. But be careful about search terms: "automated" can produce listings with automated blinds. There's also One York Street, a condo near Canal Street in TriBeCa, where a two bedroom, two and a half bath unit with a terrace and high end finishes such as glass topped kitchen counters was recently listed at 4.795 million with Janna Raskopf of Douglas Elliman. Cars drive into One York's garage and onto a circular platform that turns like a record player; drivers get out and then activate the parking system, which lifts the car and carries it to a designated berth, either up a few levels, or below grade. The whole process takes about a minute, and reassuringly, drivers can see the car the whole time. The apparatus, though, shuts down sometimes, according to those who have used it. And to own a space at One York, buyers have paid up to 250,000, Ms. Raskopf said, with monthly fees around 75. Monthly garage fees in the area are about 700, she added. For the two bedroom unit at One York, the cost of the parking space was included, "because it's such a practical and fabulous amenity," Ms. Raskopf said. Private lanes are available in several buildings, including 15 Broad Street, a condo in the financial district, and at the Aldyn, a condo rental hybrid at 60 Riverside Boulevard. But the price of in house bowling can be steep. A seven bedroom duplex at the Aldyn with marble, teak and brushed nickel finishes was listed in late November for 14.5 million, the priciest of the 10 or so available apartments with access to lanes in the city. At the other end of the spectrum, a one bedroom at 15 Broad, a former bank building, was 1.34 million. The Aldyn's two lane bowling alley is part of an impressive 42,000 square foot basement athletic complex operated by La Palestra, a high end fitness chain. The members only space also features a game room with a Ping Pong table, a squash court and a two level rock climbing wall. The athletic complex will also be available to residents at One Riverside Park, a 219 unit condo now going up across from the Aldyn, on West 62nd Street. The buildings will be connected by an underground hall. Last month, prices at One Riverside Park, which is 85 percent sold, started at 7.6 million for a four bedroom. For those who can't afford to buy, one option is the Ashley, a rental tower on West 63rd Street that also has access to the La Palestra outpost, also through its basement. Studios there start at 3,550 a month, its website says. But Ashley residents must fork over a monthly fee for the facility, while owners at the Aldyn and One Riverside Park are comped, according to a project spokeswoman. In the race to give buildings the latest and greatest amenities, basketball courts have come in from the cold, so residents can dribble to their heart's content all year long. Memorable examples turn up in condos like Edge in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Chelsea Stratus on West 24th Street in Manhattan. Other buildings offer outdoor courts, which unlike, say, sun decks, are used until they're actually covered with snow, and then again as winter winds down. Included in this group are condos like 15 William Street, in the financial district, and 635 West 42nd Street, otherwise known as the Atelier, near the West Side Highway. The Atelier's court doubles as a tennis court and is near climbing equipment and barbecue areas. All told, more than 100 apartments last month across the city were offering some kind of on site basketball access, with the least wallet draining being a 180,000 one bedroom at the Foxwood Square condo complex in New Springville, Staten Island. The priciest was the entire 45th floor of the Atelier, for 85 million. Yet the Atelier also contains some of the least expensive court adjacent units in Manhattan, including a one bedroom on the 16th floor with a breakfast counter and a marble bath listed last month for 999,888 by Mr. Chang of Re/Max. The Atelier recently became among the first buildings in the city to install its own ice skating rink. On a section of the roof on top of the 46th floor, the rink has a surface of chemically treated interlocking plastic panels that are skatable up to 80 degrees, said Daniel Neiditch, the president of River 2 River Realty, which has about 20 listings in the building. An Atelier resident and the president of the condo board, Mr. Neiditch led the rink installation effort. Though it may not have the romance of Rockefeller Center's version, the rink, available free to residents and their guests, takes itself seriously all the same. "No fast skating, playing tag or suddenly stopping at any time," read rules posted on a door. And unlike the sunken Rockefeller Center rink, it provides breathtaking views of the Hudson River. For Mr. Neiditch, adding amenities like faux ice makes good business sense. "Owners want something that looks beautiful," he said, "but at the end of the day, everybody looks at a home as an investment, too, and so the goal is to increase the value of their unit."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
Watch enough HGTV and flipping houses starts to look easy. Just talk to Joshua Levitt, who spent the better part of 2014 sitting on his couch in South Orange, N.J., watching shows like "Flip or Flop" and taking notes as the charismatic stars frenetically bought distressed properties and, with the right mix of anxious looks and Carrara marble, successfully flipped one by the end of every episode. At the time, Mr. Levitt, now 41, had recently sold his tech company and was taking care of his wife, who was on bed rest with a difficult pregnancy, and their toddler. He had no background in real estate, design or construction, yet watching all that television convinced him that he could make big money buying, restoring and reselling dilapidated properties. Then a neighbor introduced Mr. Levitt to his brother and sister in law, Graham and Krista Blundell, who were flipping houses in the area. By April 2015, Mr. Levitt was at an auction with Mr. Blundell, 44, who previously worked in investment banking, bidding on a vacant house in South Orange. A few weeks earlier, Mr. Levitt had tried to gather information about the property, driving past it after a snowstorm to see if the mail had been collected and the snow had been shoveled, or any other evidence that someone might still live there. He peered in the window and saw standing water in the basement and piles of trash and belongings scattered inside. He and Mr. Blundell won the house, paying 318,000 in cash and hiring a locksmith to let them in. And so, with a cashier's check and a leap of faith, Mr. Levitt joined the growing ranks of small time real estate investors who model themselves on spunky TV personalities. Enthusiasm for flipping, the practice of buying property to renovate and sell at a profit, is surging. In 2017, Americans flipped 207,000 single family homes or condos, hitting an 11 year high, according to ATTOM Data Solutions, a real estate data company. And real estate brokers, designers and contractors credit the popularity of reality TV, specifically scrappy, do it yourself flipper shows, with encouraging this new generation of investors. "There are definitely more people interested in flipping because they watch these shows on HGTV," said Elizabeth Kee, an associate broker for CORE real estate, who frequently works with buyers of investment properties and now regularly fields calls from people with no real estate experience who are interested in investing. Home improvement shows have for some time played a role in America's relationship with real estate. After the housing market collapsed in 2008, HGTV was criticized for fanning the flames of an overheated market, encouraging a culture of rampant investment that contributed to the eventual bust. Today, the cable network is among the most popular on television, reaching 1.11 million viewers in May. In the New York metro area, home flipping is on the upswing, with flips accounting for 5.6 percent of all 2017 sales, an increase of 29 percent from 2016, according to ATTOM. Most of these investments happen in boroughs other than Manhattan or in the suburbs, primarily because Manhattan prices leave little room for profit. Of the 2,894 properties that were flipped in New York City in 2017, only 187 were in Manhattan, while 1,367 were in Queens, according to data from StreetEasy. But as impressive as those numbers are and as alluring as house flipping may be reality rarely measures up to reality TV. How Hard Could It Be? Mr. Levitt and Mr. Blundell sold the South Orange house in February 2016 for 650,000, making an 80,000 profit. Their next purchase, of a 196,000 four bedroom in Bloomfield, N.J., did not go nearly as smoothly. They underestimated transaction fees and financing costs, walking away with only 20,000. The shows "make it look very easy," Mr. Levitt said, pointing to deceptively short timelines and unrealistic cost estimates. Where a show might describe a six week renovation schedule from start to finish, the real world moves at a slower pace. "You could spend four weeks with an architect before you even get started," he said. "Then you have to pull permits and that can take another month." During that time, an investor is paying property taxes, insurance and interest on a mortgage or construction loan. Chip Wade, a carpenter on HGTV's "Designed to Sell" and "Curb Appeal: The Block" and a Liberty Mutual consultant, describes the information gleaned from these aspirational shows as no more useful than what you might find on a Pinterest board. "You're not seeing pricing. You're not getting full spectrum of the process," he said. "You're looking through a very small lens." Three years into his new career, Mr. Levitt said he has gotten better at minimizing his expenses. On a recent breezy spring morning, he sat on a bench in Grove Park in South Orange, opposite a house he and Mr. Blundell bought in January for 300,000. Ms. Blundell, 40, who owns a design and home renovation consultancy, is designing and staging it, as she does for all the properties that her husband and Mr. Levitt buy. From the bench where he sat, Mr. Levitt watched workers building the framing for an addition that will expand the house from three bedrooms to five. "I pulled up to this house and said, 'We're going to buy it because of the location,'" he recalled. He hopes to list the property in about three or four months for around 900,000. It Was Easier on TV If anyone should understand how far television often is from reality, it would be the producers of home improvement shows the ones who spend months following celebrity flippers around with a camera, setting up the drama and delivering the Big Reveal, the moment when the homeowner gets to see the ugly duckling re emerge as a beautiful swan. But having that insider knowledge didn't dissuade Max Weissman, whose production company, Departure Films, produces shows like "Flip This House" for A E and "Vacation House for Free" for HGTV, from getting into the flipping business. "I certainly thought it was going to be easier," said Mr. Weissman, 51, sitting in the living room of his latest investment, a seven bedroom colonial in Maplewood on the market for 1.7 million after a gut renovation. Mr. Weissman bought the dilapidated house in November 2016 for 710,000, invested more than 700,000 in it and hopes to net a six figure return. Renovating the 6,500 square foot house has been an enormous effort. Ms. Di Lullo has 12 spreadsheets for the 1912 center hall colonial that now has five full bathrooms, two half baths and a chef's kitchen with Calacatta quartz countertops. "It's hard to remember we aren't doing this for TV," she said, surrounded by upended furniture that arrived earlier in the day for staging. For television, producers need to finish only what viewers will see within the frame. For one episode that Departure Films produced, the crew painted just two sides of the exterior of a house to get the perfect shot. (T he owners didn't like the color and planned to repaint it once the filming was done.) But when you are listing a property for sale, everything down to the outlet covers needs to be done before the open house. On the shows, the producers, not the homeowners, call the shots, dictating the finishes and materials that will be featured on screen. For the 25 houses filmed for "Vacation House for Free," no two kitchens looked alike: The audience has to be entertained, after all. In real life, Ms. Di Lullo often puts the same finishes in multiple houses, because she knows they will look good, and she turns to the same general contractor, Savage Home Improvements in Morristown, N.J., for every project. Television thrives on drama: The roof is leaking! The foundation is cracked! In real life, nightmare scenarios are just nightmares. At a South Orange six bedroom that the team flipped in 2017, a toilet started backing up after the house was in contract. An investigation revealed that the waste pipe had been mistakenly removed earlier in the renovation. The error cost 10,000 and meant ripping up a newly laid driveway. "I was not making a TV show, so it was only horrifying," Ms. Di Lullo said. She and the other team members have brought the HGTV look to their projects, with sconces and chandeliers selected for a universal appeal, rather than a regional one. "There's a Jersey style, and we decided not to go that way," Mr. Robbins said, referring to a Tuscany farmhouse look with dark wood kitchens, stone features and ornate fixtures. The staging they prefer heavy on brass, glass and shag looks like something you might see on an episode of "Fixer Upper." "HGTV has set the style and the tastes for a large part of America," Mr. Weissman said. And it has set the style for the Weissman projects, too. Not everyone, of course, wants to mimic the HGTV look. When Sydney Blumstein, an associate broker at Corcoran, decided to invest in real estate in 2014, she was determined to avoid the monotony. She watched the shows religiously, particularly the ones about flipping property, mainly for a lesson in what not to do. Reality TV producers may agonize over the details of things like cabinets, to make sure no kitchen looks like a rerun, but the overall effect tends to be a made for TV look, leaving viewers with a nagging sense of deja vu, one that is often repeated in real life renovations and new construction. "What I find fascinating with every renovation show is everybody does the exact same renovation," said Ms. Blumstein, 34, who has witnessed a homogenization of design in the city's real estate, too. "I go into these new developments and I'm so bored by them. The only differentiation is what floor you're on." So when she found a dated one bedroom in the East Village, she saw an opportunity to reimagine it with an anti HGTV look. She would expose the brick walls and reveal the beams and joists in the ceiling. Her parents, both real estate brokers, agreed that the property was a great investment. In 2014, she bought the 650 square foot space on East 12th Street for 749,000, and planned to continue living with her parents on East 11th Street during the renovation. Four contractors estimated the work would cost around 120,000 and tried to steer her toward a more traditional look, raising concerns that creativity could cost her buyers. The fifth contractor, however, shared her creative vision and offered to do the work for half the price. "So, obviously, I hired the 65,000 contractor," Ms. Blumstein said. "That was a huge mistake." The alteration agreement she submitted to the co op board omitted her plans to expose the ceiling beams and joists. "I was planning on asking for forgiveness instead of permission," she said. The board halted the work and insisted that Ms. Blumstein consult the building's architect, who charged 350 an hour. To correct her error, she had to reinstall the ceiling, which cost 8,000. The project dragged on for two years, with spiraling costs that soured her relationship with the contractor. She hired a second contractor to fix the mistakes made by the first. The renovation ultimately cost 120,000, exactly what the other contractors had estimated. But she got to express her creativity, using reclaimed materials like floor joists as open shelving and painting the cabinetry a sea foam green. Going it alone has its downside. By rejecting the more generic style used on television shows, she found herself without a road map, susceptible to rookie mistakes. "There are 15 different shows showing you how to go from A to B," she said. "But I wanted to go from A to Paris." By the time the work was done in 2016, Ms. Blumstein's life was no longer the same as it was when she bought the apartment. She now had a fiance, Brett Lichtman, so instead of selling the renovated apartment, they moved into it. But the space where Ms. Blumstein had once seen only potential felt cramped.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
"Keeping Faith" offered everything the Welsh actor Eve Myles had been waiting for: An unflinching leading lady. A richly layered mystery showcasing her magical homeland. A role so different from anything she'd previously done that it was almost frightening. And yet she turned it down repeatedly, uncertain that she could dig deep enough into the character let alone in more than one language. Developed by the Welsh language channel S4C and co produced by BBC Wales and Acorn Media Enterprises, "Keeping Faith" was designed to be shot in two versions: One in English and the other (titled "Un Bore Mercher," meaning "One Wednesday Morning") in Welsh, which Myles, like so many natives of Wales, didn't actually speak. But in the end, her fear of regretting passing on the job outweighed her fear of actually doing it. "I had to take a deep breath and go, O.K., if you're going for it, don't do a mediocre job," Myles recalled recently. "If you're going to do it, smash the expletive out of it." So she did and in the process helped to turn the small but mighty Welsh thriller into a mega hit throughout Britain, where 19 million viewers have watched it so far across two seasons on BBC iPlayer , the network's streaming platform. In iPlayer's 2018 year end report ranking individual episodes, the numbers for the Season 1 opener of "Keeping Faith" placed fifth behind blockbusters like "Killing Eve" and the chart topping "Bodyguard." In "Keeping Faith," returning Friday to Acorn TV for its second season on the heels of its British run, Myles is Faith Howells , a happily married wife and mother of three on maternity leave from the family law firm, where she works alongside her doting husband, Evan. Then one morning Evan, played by Bradley Freegard , Myles's real life spouse, vanishes and as dark secrets arise from the misty shores of fictional Abercorran , Faith comes to realize that she scarcely knew him. "My husband is playing him, how do you think I feel?" Myles said, laughing. "In the middle of the night he wakes up with me nudging him going, 'You're not like that really, are you?'" Season 2, which picks up 18 months later, finds Faith reassembling her life after Evan's unexpected return and outrunning the demons he brought with him while plunging into a new mystery. In a phone call during a family vacation in France, Myles, 41, whose resume includes "Torchwood" and "Broadchurch," spoke about conquering her fears and creating a sensation. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. "Keeping Faith" has become one of the most popular shows in Britain. Does that surprise you? Yeah. You're up against huge, huge juggernauts that don't have to fight to be anywhere, have great budget, great promotion, great marketing. This was a scrap from Day 1. We had no money. The car I used in the show is my director's car. Laughs. It came close to Faith being a barrister on a bike. And then it went on iPlayer and just exploded without any marketing or promotion. That's unheard of. We made the most of what we had, but we were wealthy in story. We were wealthy in passion and in talent and in the need to prove that we can make something like this with very little but a great, great script and a great team. Faith has become a lifestyle icon with her yellow rain slicker and bright blue coat, and the "Faith bun" just might rival "The Rachel" from "Friends." To think that people are doing the Faith messy bun and the bangs and wearing these coats and everything means a great deal to me because it means that everyday brilliant women are feeling good because it makes them feel strong like Faith. They think they're connected to me but I don't think they realize how much I feel connected to them. To an outsider, the Welsh language seems unfathomably knotty. How daunting was it to learn? I didn't even know there was a Welsh alphabet. The producer came over and sat down in front of me and said, "Well, let's have a read." And I remember it being about 9:30 in the evening, and I had hives all over my neck and my chest with nerves. I was so, so stressed out because I'd refused the job so many times by trying to tell them that I didn't speak Welsh, and then I had to prove to them that I actually really, really didn't. So when she said to read, I said, "I don't know if I'm holding the page the right way. What do I do?" And I literally could see the color draining from her face. You shot each scene first in English then in Welsh. Had you learned the language well enough that the emotions came naturally, or did you do it by rote? I'm far from knowing the language now. I'm still very nervous speaking it but I understand a lot more of it. They'd set up the scripts for me. A line would be in English and then they'd write it in Welsh. So I had to go through the process of understanding what every line meant. I needed to know when to react to people. And it needed to be as developed as the English performance. So my producer recorded all my lines for me and then every morning before my children woke up, I'd run for two hours listening to the lines. And it's not just about speaking Welsh. You have to sound Welsh because there's nothing more jarring than hearing somebody not pronouncing it properly. It's wrong, and I wanted it to sound authentic. Wales is campaigning to double the number of Welsh speakers to 1 million by 2050, and "Keeping Faith" is credited in part with the surge of people signing up for lessons. It's a vibrant forward project to keep the Welsh language resilient and at the forefront and alive, which is incredibly important. We're a small country but we're a big country. Now that I've been introduced into it, I'll never leave it, and I'm introducing it to my children's generation. The doors must remain open because learning is all that matters, at whatever age. You star opposite your husband, Bradley Freegard. Was that always the plan? Oh no. It was months later that Brad had an audition for the part of Eve's love interest, Steve Baldini , and we were waiting and waiting on it. Then I had an accident and I was in the hospital, and I had just come around from the second operation. And Brad sat next to me and said, "I didn't get the part." I remember in my hazy post operation going: "Darling, don't worry. When one door closes another one will open." He went, "I've been offered Evan." Laughs. And that's when I asked for more morphine. This season Faith vents her aggression by taking up boxing, and throws a few punches outside her workouts. How did fans react to her newfound pugilistic skills? I have to say, I had one of the funniest tweets I've ever received. A man, a grown man, said excuse my depravity "Eve Myles is a expletive boxer. She throws 19 right hands and not one left. I reckon I could take her." Now I found that absolutely hilarious. What I wanted to say was, "I didn't throw a left because I'm keeping it for you sometime." Laughs. But I thought I'd better not.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. Two years ago, in an effort to attract more veterans to Columbia, Curtis Rodgers, a dean of admissions, began recruiting at military bases. Almost immediately he noticed differences between the Marines and the typical 18 year old Ivy League applicant. Marines are less aggressive. When Mr. Rodgers asked Sgt. Tiffani Watts at the end of a recent interview if she had any questions, the Marine answered, "I do, sir, but I don't want to make you late for your next interview, sir." Marines are open about academic weaknesses. "To be forthright, sir, I did very poorly in high school," Cpl. Leland Dawson began his interview. "It was a bit shaky, sir." Marines are understated. While 18 year olds describe in detail a week they spent in Costa Rica building houses for the needy, Sergeant Watts, Cpl. Benjamin Vickery, Cpl. Tyler Fritz and Cpl. Andrew King barely mentioned their deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. "No one wants to brag about something so terrible," Corporal King said. "In a brief 30 minutes you can't explain something that dramatic in your life." Which makes the dean's interviews with Marines a little tougher. "They tend to play down their accomplishments," Mr. Rodgers said. Life has come full circle for the military and Columbia. In 1947, Columbia opened its School of General Studies to accommodate returning World War II veterans whose education was financed by the G.I. Bill. During the Vietnam War protest years, veterans all but disappeared from campus and stayed disappeared for decades. And now, in good part thanks to passage of the Post 9/11 G.I. Bill in 2008, veterans are returning in numbers not seen in half a century. Of the 1,500 undergraduates at Columbia's School of General Studies which serves older, nontraditional students 210 are veterans, up from 50 three years ago. (General Studies students take the same classes and get the same degree as other Columbia undergraduates.) According to Wick Sloane, who writes a column for Inside Higher Ed, Columbia is the most aggressive recruiter of veterans among Ivy League colleges. Cornell is second, with 48. A week ago, in his "Doonesbury" comic strip, Garry Trudeau took a swipe at other universities for not doing better. "Athletes? Sure. Legacies? In spades," B. D., the Vietnam veteran, says to an admissions director. "But veterans? Some of the country's most talented, motivated kids? Not so much!" Yale, Mr. Trudeau's alma mater, has eight undergraduate veterans on the G.I. Bill, according to a spokeswoman. Recruiting visits made by Mr. Rodgers and his admissions team include the Bronx High School of Science, Lycee Francais de New York, Milken Community High School in Los Angeles, Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and Camp Pendleton here in Southern California. Columbia is one of 190 colleges in the Leadership Scholar Program, which helps Marines navigate the admissions process after leaving the Corps, although few visit bases to recruit. In a day sitting in on interviews with the 10 applicants all in their mid 20s a pattern emerges: generally speaking, they once were lost, but now are found. Mr. Rodgers asked Corporal Vickery why he had dropped out of Florida State University. "My father died, and then six months later my mother died and I left to take care of my brother," he said. "I didn't know what to do with myself and thought the Marines would give me a focus." Sergeant Watts described growing up in La Porte, Ind., with little direction or ambition. "I came into the Marines kind of a wayward child," she said. No more. She spent hours preparing for the interview. "I've been reading extra hard," she said while waiting her turn. "I did several practice interviews with my captain. He believes in me a lot. He told me I have nothing to worry about, I'm ready." Midday, Mr. Rodgers did a telephone interview from Afghanistan with Corporal Fritz, who spoke quite a bit about his love for debate in high school, and how he'd read novels like "The Great Gatsby" to learn about New York. The corporal did not mention that it was midnight there; or that he'd just gotten off a 12 hour shift; or that his job is to be rushed into combat to provide backup whenever a unit from the Seventh Marine Regiment is under attack. After hanging up, Mr. Rodgers said, "He got 2100 on his SATs." Mr. Rodgers brought along Columbia T shirts for an information session with the Wounded Warrior Battalion. Most of the wounds whether shrapnel buried all over a body or post traumatic stress disorder are invisible. So it was a little jarring when Staff Sgt. Jauntianne Saleigh, a counselor, raised her hand and said: "You told us some form of standardized test score was required, but a lot of our Marines don't do well on standardized tests. They've suffered traumatic brain injury and have to learn to talk all over again." Mr. Rodgers said things were handled case by case. Though applicants had been screened by the Marine command, there was a wide range of abilities. One corporal told Mr. Rodgers he would be taking introduction to algebra at Washtenaw Community College in Michigan in January, and hoped to enter Columbia next fall, majoring in economics and statistics. Others would be strong candidates anywhere. In military language schools, Corporal King has learned Persian (Tehrani and Shirazi dialects); Dari, Pashto and Baluchi. During high school he had mastered German and Latin and was accepted at the University of Virginia and Emory, but as one of six children, he couldn't afford an elite school. He is scheduled to be deployed for his second tour to Afghanistan next month, and he hopes to enter college in September. Several of the Marines had asked Mr. Rodgers whether he thought they'd feel out of place at an Ivy League school, although it wasn't something Corporal King had thought much about. "After surviving firefights, sitting on a college campus with someone who doesn't like me is the least of my worries," he said. Corporal King said he was pleased with his interview, but he had forgotten to say one thing: "I wanted to convey to Dean Rodgers that just because I served in Afghanistan doesn't mean I have P.T.S.D. and will be a mental health risk to an institution."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Education
Jonathan Groff, the star of "The Bobby Darin Story," which will open the new season of the "Lyrics Lyricists" series at the 92nd Street Y. When he was first asked if he'd want to play Bobby Darin in an upcoming production in the long running "Lyrics Lyricists" series at the 92nd Street Y, Jonathan Groff wasn't sure how to respond. Mr. Groff, who became a Broadway star at 21 in the 2006 production of "Spring Awakening," knew little about the entertainer and songwriter who, in a tragically brief career, was one of the biggest pop stars and most accomplished performers of the late 1950s and early 60s. "My only reference point was seeing the movie with Kevin Spacey," Mr. Groff explained during a recent interview, referring to the 2004 biopic "Beyond the Sea," which earned lukewarm reviews and flopped at the box office, even well before accusations of sexual misconduct abruptly derailed Mr. Spacey's career. (Mr. Spacey's lugubrious performance of Darin's "The Curtain Falls" at the end of last year's Tony Awards did little to help that singer's faded reputation.) But the morning after Ted Chapin, the new "Lyrics Lyricists" producer, mentioned Darin's name to him over a post theater dinner, Mr. Groff was hooked. "I went on YouTube," said Mr. Groff, speaking before an early rehearsal at the Y, where "The Bobby Darin Story" will kick off the new "Lyrics" season from Jan. 20 to 22. "I watched all these TV performances, from the beginning to the end of his career, and I was blown away by his versatility. The rock roll and the standards, the dancing, the folk songs. The duets with George Burns and Judy Garland. His life was insane." Mr. Groff also known for his cheekily effete, Tony nominated performance of King George III in "Hamilton," and TV roles in "Glee," "Looking" and "Mindhunter" was discussing his new "obsession" with the show's director Alex Timbers, the music director Andy Einhorn and Mr. Chapin. Mr. Timbers, the director of "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" and "Here Lies Love," was brought into the project by Mr. Groff. The two had met last spring to discuss another collaboration, but couldn't coordinate their schedules. Mr. Timbers said he was intrigued by the chance to reconsider the performer's career. "It's interesting to ask if Bobby Darin's legacy has been negatively impacted by the fact you couldn't put him in a box," said Mr. Timbers. "He was always chasing the next wave in music. In one of our first conversations, we were talking about people like Madonna, how she was ahead of the whole EDM thing with 'Ray of Light.' Or U2, when they released 'Pop.' " If Darin's singing could seem slicker and less distinctive than that of his more celebrated contemporaries, his range was indeed expansive, encompassing rock ("Splish Splash"), lush and jazzy pop ("Dream Lover," "Beyond The Sea") and show tunes and songbook staples ("Mack the Knife," most famously). He also ventured into film acting, founded a record label and music publishing company, and, as his political awareness grew, crafted "Simple Song of Freedom," a pacifist anthem for the Vietnam era. Darin pursued goals like he was running out of time "like he had a stopwatch on his life," noted Mr. Timbers. And with good reason: childhood bouts with rheumatic fever had left the performer's heart severely weakened; he would die at 37. He nonetheless proceeded at a breakneck pace: marrying movie sweetheart Sandra Dee; collecting an Oscar nomination; holding court at the Copacabana and in Las Vegas; campaigning for Bobby Kennedy before returning to nightclubs. "It's an extraordinary trajectory for a guy who was told he'd be dead by the age of 15," said Mr. Timbers. While Darin was prolific in the studio, evidence suggests his live performances could be looser, and swing harder. In the "Mack the Knife" captured on "Darin At the Copa," his voice sounds grittier than on the hit single, and his syncopation is more playful. "As with so many great performers," said Mr. Einhorn, "there was clearly something about being in the room with him, this great kinetic energy. That's often where you discovered what he could really bring to the music." Though "Lyrics" shows have focused more on writers known for their work in theater the new season will include tributes to Irving Berlin, Frank Loesser and Lynn Ahrens Mr. Chapin said he thought, "Well, Bobby Darin did write his own songs, so there is that aspect to it." After getting the blessing of the "Dream Lover" producers (who hold worldwide rights to Darin's story, via his estate), Mr. Chapin assembled his team and hunkered down. Getting rights to the songs Darin had written, of which there are 160 titles, proved tougher than expected: "I could get my hands on only 25 of them. One piece I actually bought on eBay for 35." Like previous installments of the "Lyrics" series, "The Bobby Darin Story" will not be a book musical. (Nor are the creators banking on a fuller production.) But there will be something of a narrative line, written by Mr. Chapin, as well as other performers joining Mr. Groff to tell the story of Darin's roller coaster life, which included a "midlife meltdown," in Mr. Chapin's words, precipitated by the late in life discovery that the woman he thought was his older sister was actually his mother. "There aren't characters speaking dialogue, having conversations on stage," Mr. Timbers said. "It will show emotion through music, and narration. That section toward the end of Darin's life, this sort of downward spiral, could have been tricky in musical theater, where it can become less exhilarating when you don't have a protagonist making choices, taking positive action. But Ted has been able to focus on the coolest, juiciest stuff about Bobby Darin." Mr. Groff's own research has included "Dream Lovers," an unsparing account of Darin and Ms. Dee's lives together written by their son, Dodd Darin. "There's this quote that basically says that after all the things Bobby Darin did, in the end, he felt most powerful and most alive and most himself performing in a nightclub setting," Mr. Groff said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
Enrollment at American colleges is sliding, but competition for spots at top universities is more cutthroat and anxiety inducing than ever. In the just completed admissions season, Stanford University accepted only 5 percent of applicants, a new low among the most prestigious schools, with the odds nearly as bad at its elite rivals. Deluged by more applications than ever, the most selective colleges are, inevitably, rejecting a vast majority, including legions of students they once would have accepted. Admissions directors at these institutions say that most of the students they turn down are such strong candidates that many are indistinguishable from those who get in. Isaac Madrid applied to 11 colleges, a scattershot approach that he said is fairly typical at his private high school, Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, Calif. Students there are all too aware of the long odds against getting into any particular elite university. "It was a crazy amount of work and stress doing all those essays by the deadline and keeping up my schoolwork, and waiting on the responses, and we had more than 800 in application fees," he said. Mr. Madrid, 18, got a taste of how random the results can seem. He was among the 95 percent turned away by Stanford, but he got into Yale, which he plans to attend, and he admitted having no real insight into the reasons for either decision. Bruce Poch, a former admissions dean at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., said he saw "the opposite of a virtuous cycle at work" in admissions. "Kids see that the admit rates are brutal and dropping, and it looks more like a crapshoot," he said. "So they send more apps, which forces the colleges to lower their admit rates, which spurs the kids next year to send even more apps." Isaac Madrid, who attends a private high school in San Jose, Calif., applied to 11 colleges and was accepted at Yale. Thor Swift for The New York Times For most of the past six decades, overall enrollment boomed, while the number of seats at elite colleges and universities grew much more slowly, making them steadily more selective. Enrollment peaked in 2011, and it has dropped a bit each year since then, prompting speculation that entry to competitive colleges would become marginally easier. Instead, counselors and admissions officers say, the pool of high achieving applicants continues to grow, fed partly by a rising number from overseas. At the same time, students send more applications than they once did, abetted by the electronic forms that have become nearly universal and uniform applications that can make adding one more college to the list just a matter of a click. Seven years ago, 315 colleges and universities accepted the most widely used form, the Common Application; this year, 517 did. Students applying to seven or more colleges made up just 9 percent of the applicant pool in 1990, but accounted for 29 percent in 2011, according to surveys by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, and counselors and admissions officers say they think the figure has gone higher still. While people have lavished attention on a Long Island teenager who was accepted by all eight Ivy League colleges, admissions professionals say it is remarkable that anyone would apply to all eight. Stanford received 42,167 applications for the class of 2018 and sent 2,138 acceptance notices, for a first year class that, ultimately, will number about 1,700. The University of California, Los Angeles, the national leader in applications, had more than 86,000 requests twice as many as in 2005 for space in a first year class of about 6,000, and it also received 19,000 applications to transfer from other colleges and universities. This year, for the first time, the admission rate for first year applicants at U.C.L.A. and the University of California, Berkeley, could drop below 20 percent. "For most kids, this really used to be a regional process, but they have access to so much information online now, so every school seems local," said Richard H. Shaw, the dean of undergraduate admission at Stanford. Admissions directors at several top Eastern colleges agreed, saying that they now received more applications from California than any other state, which would have been unthinkable a few years ago. Some of them also pointed to colleges' increasingly aggressive outreach to prospective students, with mailings, emails and advertising some of it well intentioned, and some of it more cynical. "One of the ways that colleges are measured is by the number of applicants and their admit rate, and some colleges do things simply to increase their applicant pool and manipulate those numbers," said Christoph Guttentag, the dean of undergraduate admission at Duke. A generation ago, it was rare for even highly competitive colleges to offer places to fewer than 20 percent of their applicants. In 2003, Harvard and Princeton drew exclamations of dismay (from prospective applicants), envy (from other colleges) and satisfaction (from those they accepted) when they became the first top universities to have their admission rates dip below 10 percent. Since then, at least a dozen have gone below that threshold. This was the second year in a row that Stanford had the worst odds of admission among top colleges, a title that in previous years was usually claimed by Harvard. This year, by the April 1 deadline for most colleges to send admission notices, Harvard and Yale had accepted about 6 percent of applicants, Columbia and Princeton about 7 percent, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago about 8 percent. (Some rates will increase by a few tenths of a percentage point as colleges accept small numbers of applicants from waiting lists.) Several universities, including Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania, had admission rates this year that were less than half of those from a decade ago. The University of Chicago's rate plummeted to a little over 8 percent, from more than 40 percent. The most competitive small colleges draw comparably accomplished applicants, but far fewer of them relative to their size, so their admission rates are higher. Even so, the acceptance rates at Pomona, Amherst, Harvey Mudd, Bowdoin, Claremont McKenna, Swarthmore, Middlebury, Williams and others were between 10 and 20 percent this year. Mr. Shaw, the Stanford dean, said he could not predict where the rates would bottom out in fact, he never expected them to go as low as they have. "Honestly," he said, "I'm sort of in shock."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Education
Now Lives: In a 800 square foot loft in the Arts District in Downtown Los Angeles, with a small stage for performances. Claim to Fame: Once best known as the drummer for M.I.A., Ms. Gandhi made headlines in 2015 when she ran the London Marathon without a tampon, in a defiant act known as free bleeding. She has since emerged as an activist and TED Talk speaker, who has fused her passion for music, technology and feminism into a solo music project, which she calls Madame Gandhi. Her five song EP, "Voices," which explores feminist values through spoken word, rap and electronica, was released last year. Big Break: Ms. Gandhi was at the start line of the 2015 London Marathon when she realized she was about to get her period. "With the radicalness in that moment, I connected the dots and chose to bleed freely," she said. News articles about her decision were widely read. "When I was running, I knew it was a choice of privilege: I knew that there was something radical in doing that. But I also wanted to acknowledge the billions of women and girls in the world who don't have the same choices that I had in that moment."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
Full reviews of recent dance performances: nytimes.com/dance. A searchable guide to these and other performances is at nytimes.com/events. American Ballet Theater (through July 4) At Monday night's anniversary gala, American Ballet Theater proudly looks back at its remarkable 75 year history. Excerpts from nearly two dozen ballets will be performed, representing a Who's Who of 20th century dance luminaries, from Fokine and DeMille to Tharp and MacMillan, and more. Tuesday brings the first of four performances of Lar Lubovitch's sumptuous "Othello" (through Thursday). This weekend, the company concludes its "Classic ABT" mixed bill program, which includes Robbins's "Fancy Free," Balanchine's "Theme and Variation" and two by Tudor. Monday's gala is at 6:30 p.m., Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, 212 362 6000. Complete schedule: abt.org. (Brian Schaefer) Kimberly Bartosik and Dylan Crossman (Wednesday through May 23) In 2008, Kimberly Bartosik introduced the first and second chapters of her "Ecsteriority" project, a meditation on decay. "Ecsteriority3" appeared in 2011 a six hour marathon and now she completes the cycle with "Ecsteriority4 (Part 2)," for an all star trio of Dylan Crossman, Marc Mann and Melissa Toogood. Mr. Crossman contributes a solo to the second part of the evening, part of the Abrons Arts Center's Travelogues series. His work, "Bound," considers that emotional seesaw of freedom and constraint. At 8 p.m., 466 Grand Street, at Pitt Street, Lower East Side, 866 811 4111, abronsartscenter.org. (Schaefer) BC Beat (Monday) Even on their night off, Broadway gypsies are drawn to the stage. Cast members from Broadway's biggest shows "An American in Paris," "Aladdin," "On the Town" perform and share their own choreography in this biannual showcase of innovative musical theater dance. With the help of 40 professional dancers, nine choreographers push the genre into new territory. Imagine all of the rollicking showstoppers, with none of the stagnant ballads. At 7 p.m., Cielo, 18 Little West 12th Street, West Village, 646 543 8556, bcbeat.net. (Schaefer) Bodystories: Teresa Fellion Dance (Thursday through May 23) In the title of Teresa Fellion's new work, "The Mantises Are Flipping W.3," the "W" stands for "world," and this is the third one she's created in her Mantises series. The project started as a solo, but this world is populated by seven dancers who are charged with expressing a variety of unrelated but interconnected themes: the nature of opposites, sanity and insanity, how sound moves through and around the body, and the mental effects of isolation. At 8 p.m., Danspace Project, St. Mark's Church, 131 East 10th Street, East Village, 866 811 4111, danspaceproject.org. (Schaefer) Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana (Tuesday through May 24) This New York based company, which has been championing flamenco for more than 30 years, presents three new works by Spanish choreographers. Angel Munoz's "Angeles," with a cast of 10 dancers and musicians, finds angels in myths and music; Enrique Vicent and Antonio Lopez unleash the beautiful agony of flamenco's dark side in "Martinete Seguiriya"; and Guadalupe Torres offers a moving solo called "Ausencia." Additional company repertory rounds out two separate programs. Tuesday through Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 7:30 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m., Fishman Space, Fisher Building, Brooklyn Academy of Music, 321 Ashland Place, near Lafayette Avenue, Fort Greene, 718 636 4100, bam.org. (Schaefer) Fridays at Noon (Friday) Writing about Merce Cunningham's 1984 work "Doubles," which juxtaposes solos, duets and trios, the dance critic Arlene Croce said that at first glance, its action "looks as lazy and unplotted as that of a summer afternoon." But its cumulative effect, she added, is to create what Cunningham said he intended dance to be: "a spiritual exercise in physical form." Alastair Macaulay, chief dance critic for The New York Times, is a serious Cunningham phile, and at this program, part of the Fridays at Noon series at the 92nd Street Y, he hosts a conversation with original "Doubles" cast members, paired with a performance of the work. At noon, Harkness Dance Center, 1395 Lexington Avenue, 212 415 5500, 92y.org. (Schaefer) Gibney Dance Company (through Saturday) In its 24 years, this ensemble has performed only the work of its founder and artistic director, Gina Gibney. Departing from that model, the troupe now presents "Work by Women," an evening of choreography by Amy Miller the company's associate artistic director and one of its finest dancers and Hilary Easton. Ms. Miller offers "Still and Still Moving," created with the composer Peter Swendsen, and Ms. Easton reprises excerpts from "The Short Cut," a 2005 work inspired by the progressive era management guru Frederick Winslow Taylor. At 7:30 p.m., Gibney Dance Performing Arts Center, 280 Broadway, near Chambers Street, Lower Manhattan, 646 837 6809, gibneydance.org. (Siobhan Burke) Rennie Harris (through Sunday) Mr. Harris and his Philadelphia based company, RHAW (Rennie Harris Awe Inspiring Works), return to the New Victory Theater with their latest foray into narrative, youth empowering hip hop. "LUV: American Style," featuring about a dozen young performers, tells the story of a daydreaming teenager who unjustly lands in prison. A classic rock soundtrack sets the unconventional backdrop for styles like popping, locking and boogaloo. Friday at 7 p.m.; Saturday at 2 and 7 p.m.; Sunday at noon and 5 p.m.; 209 West 42nd Street, Manhattan, 646 223 3010, newvictory.org. (Burke) Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (through May 24) If the Midwest has a hub for European choreographers, Hubbard Street is it. This troupe of exceptional dancers, who thrive in many modes of contemporary ballet, travels east with two programs of works created at home and abroad. These include Jiri Kylian's stark and percussive "Falling Angels," Nacho Duato's Mediterranean tinged "Gnawa," a Crystal Pite solo and a tribute to George Balanchine by the Spanish choreographer Gustavo Ramirez Sansano. The resident artist Alejandro Cerrudo contributes two pieces, one on each program. Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.; Thursdays and Fridays at 8 p.m.; Saturdays at 2 and 8 p.m.; Sundays at 2 p.m.; Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Avenue, at 19th Street, Chelsea, 212 242 0800, joyce.org. (Burke) Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance (through Saturday) In recent years, Ms. Lavagnino has turned to themes of political oppression in her ballet based work. Her company's quadruple bill at St. Mark's Church includes the premiere of "Nadeje," which draws inspiration from Czech artists and writers to reflect on freedom of expression. Also on the program are last year's "RU," about a young Vietnamese political refugee, along with "Snapshots" (2010) and "Will" (2009), examining various facets of interpersonal relationships. At 8 p.m., Danspace Project, St. Mark's Church, 131 East 10th Street, East Village, 866 811 4111, danspaceproject.org. (Burke) New York City Ballet (through June 7) The spring season continues with an all Balanchine program inspired by French composers (Friday and Tuesday), Peter Martins's new staging of "La Sylphide" (Saturday and Sunday), a Jerome Robbins double bill ("The Goldberg Variations" and "West Side Story Suite," on Wednesday) and a program of "21st Century Choreographers," featuring works by Mr. Martins, Christopher Wheeldon and the welcome return of Justin Peck's "Rodeo: Four Dance Episodes" (Thursday). Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2 and 8 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m., Tuesdays through Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center, 212 496 0600, nycballet.com. (Burke and Schaefer) Rebecca Patek (Wednesday through May 23) The full title of Rebecca Patek's new work is "The Future Was Looking Better in the Past: My Family Herstory: Or from religious persecution to American greed to murderous infamy to denial, repression and the slow dissolution into moral confusion, financial ruin and karmic retribution," which tells you plenty. Expect to be uncomfortable: Ms. Patek's gripping and disturbing brand of dance theater doesn't hold back. At 8 p.m., Chocolate Factory, 5 49 49th Avenue, Long Island City, Queens, 718 482 7069, chocolatefactorytheater.org. (Schaefer) Purchase Dance Company (Wednesday through May 23) Purchase College, part of the State University of New York and about 35 miles north of the city, is home to one of the best higher education dance conservatories in the country. The Purchase Dance Company, made of its most promising students, presents two programs combining classical and contemporary styles, including works by the popular modern dance choreographers Doug Varone and Aszure Barton and the former New York City Ballet dancer Bettijane Sills. At 7:30 p.m., New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th Street, Chelsea, 212 924 0077, newyorklivearts.org. (Schaefer) Rioult Dance NY (Friday and Saturday) The French born choreographer Pascal Rioult understandably has a soft spot for that country's most famous voice. His company's latest full length work, "Street Singer Celebrating the Life of Edith Piaf," pays tribute to that complicated diva a century after her birth. The performance is smartly staged at 42West, an intimate nightclub where clinking glasses evoke the cabarets where Piaf first made her mark. La Mome Piaf will be portrayed by the Tony nominated Broadway veteran Christine Andreas. At 8 p.m., 42West, 514 West 42nd Street, Clinton, 212 279 4200, rioult.org. (Schaefer) Ann Liv Young (Wednesday) The irreverent Ms. Young presents "Elektra Cabaret" at Joe's Pub, casting a character often portrayed as wicked in a compassionate light. In this reimagined version of her full length "Elektra," she is joined by Marissa Mickelberg (chorus), Bailey Nolan (Klytemnestra), Charley Parden (Orestes) and Vanessa Soudan (Chrysothemis). At 9:30 p.m., Joe's Pub, at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place, East Village, 212 967 7555, joespub.com. (Burke)	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
DALLAS In a decade as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Richard W. Fisher was frequently mistaken in his economic predictions but seldom boring. The departure of Mr. Fisher, who stepped down on Thursday, means that the Fed is losing one of the most outspoken internal opponents of its stimulus campaign just as it is winding down. Mr. Fisher argued right up to his retirement that the central bank was increasing economic inequality, destabilizing financial markets and might yet unleash higher inflation. But he is best known not so much for what he said as for the way he said it. He spoke more often and more colorfully than any of his colleagues at the Federal Reserve, larding his speeches with quotes, anecdotes and metaphors. Among the most memorable was his 2012 description of his breeding bull, Too Big to Fail, as full of liquidity but unable to reach the pretty cows on the other side of the fence. "His speeches have regularly been the most eloquent a true joy to read his somewhat excessive Texas exuberance in explaining both the successes and the possible excesses of monetary policy," the former Fed chairman Paul A. Volcker, a mentor to Mr. Fisher, said in a recent introduction. Noting that Mr. Fisher was the rare non economist among senior Fed officials, Mr. Volcker continued: "In an era in which economists claim a natural right to central banking leadership, Dick has brought a healthy sense of reality, sound judgment, business background and leadership." But Mr. Fisher also has angered those who think the Fed can and should do more to help unemployed workers. "He was wrong at the beginning, and he's still wrong now," said Danny Cendejas of the Texas Organizing Project, a nonprofit group that advocates for lower income Texans. "He's ignoring the reality of what's happening, particularly in the Latino community and in communities of color." At the Fed, Mr. Fisher was set apart by his views and his style. He kept a list of roughly 50 executives at corporations ranging from Walmart to American Airlines to "the Bud distributor in North Texas," and he called several dozen before each Fed meeting. He insisted that those anecdotal reports offered a more accurate and timely window onto the economy than government data and the Fed's elaborate models. "My local dry cleaner, I would say that if you took him and put him against the whole Fed staff in terms of forecasting, he's been far more accurate," Mr. Fisher said. Mr. Fisher now worries that the Fed is waiting too long to raise rates and that its efforts to assist the recovery instead will cause another downturn. He said the consequences of the Fed's stimulus campaign would not be clear for some time. "How long?" he said, repeating a question. "No idea. And I hope my concerns, which are only expressed as uncertainties, prove to be sleep lost and nothing more." These warnings have made Mr. Fisher a popular figure among the Fed's Republican critics, who also insist that the Fed's attempts to expand employment are doing more harm than good. So did a February speech in which Mr. Fisher told a New York audience that the Fed should change its governance structure to limit the outsize role of the New York Fed. But Mr. Fisher has spoken sharply against calls from Republican lawmakers for new restrictions on the Fed's authority. He said he wanted the Fed itself to make better decisions. Mr. Fisher rose in Horatio Alger style from childhood poverty to marry the daughter of a prominent congressman and build a fortune of more than 20 million as an investor. He worked his way through Harvard as a cook and a crew member on the yacht of a wealthy alumnus, and by renting his dorm room to amorous couples. Now he sits on Harvard's Board of Overseers. He was born in Los Angeles in 1949 to a Norwegian mother and an Australian father who met in South Africa and conceived Mr. Fisher in Shanghai before moving to California. A few years later, propelled by poverty, the family moved to Mexico City, where Mr. Fisher learned to speak Spanish fluently. He ended up in Dallas after marrying the daughter of a Texas congressman, James Collins. The young couple lived in New York at first, where Mr. Fisher worked as an assistant to the banker Robert Roosa. But Mr. Fisher says that one day, while on a ferry returning from the Statue of Liberty with his infant son, he looked across the water at the New York skyline and decided to leave. "I thought, 'This place is already made,'" he recalled. "Things were moving my way, but I just thought, 'This has already been built. I need to go someplace new.'" He made a fortune investing in distressed assets during the rocky years of the Texas economy in the late 1980s and early 1990s. After two failed runs for the United States Senate, he signed on with the Clinton administration as a deputy trade representative in 1997. He remained in Washington until 2005, when he got a call asking him if he'd like to come back to Texas to run the Dallas Fed. The Fed's 12 regional branches together oversee the banking system, operate payments infrastructure and conduct economic research. Their presidents also participate in setting monetary policy. And the Dallas Fed has a longstanding preference for outspoken leaders. Mr. Fisher's predecessor, Robert D. McTeer, was known for reciting cowboy poetry and for his disagreements with the Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan. When Mr. Fisher took the job, he changed the hold music on the Dallas Fed's phone system from country and western to classical. The Dallas Fed's board has yet to select Mr. Fisher's successor, but Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago, said it was a good bet they would pick someone with a strong voice. "They like to have people who are cowboys," she said. He was one of the first Fed officials to raise concerns about the health of the housing market. Yet he was also among the last to understand the depth of the resulting financial crisis. He warned throughout most of 2008 that inflation was the primary danger to the economy a threat that has still not materialized and that the bleak pronouncements of other Fed officials were fueling an unwarranted sense of panic. In August, as the financial system teetered on the brink of collapse, he voted to raise interest rates, which would have made the situation even worse. In December that year, when the Fed reduced its benchmark interest rate nearly to zero in a move to spur a recovery, Mr. Fisher cast the only dissenting vote. After the meeting, he decided the moment required solidarity and went to Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman, to change his vote. But Mr. Fisher said in the interview here that he had not changed his mind. He said the Fed should never have pushed interest rates below 2 percent, nor bought so many bonds. Like many of the Fed's critics on the left, Mr. Fisher emphasizes that he is deeply concerned about the damage caused by the Great Recession. He says he simply does not believe the Fed is helping. He says holding down interest rates has mostly enriched the rich, like his own family. The middle class is being squeezed, he said, "but the Fed can't fix that." The Fed's current chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, sometimes uses the metaphor of a car to talk about monetary policy. Mr. Fisher said he had frequently argued for the substitution of a ship "because there are no brakes." He told of serving as a student at the Naval Academy on the U.S.S. Truckee, a tanker, as it collided with an aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Wasp, in June 1968. "The scariest thing was watching all the other ships pull over the horizon," he said, and then draws the metaphor: The Fed's portfolio, which has swelled to more than 4 trillion, is "an enormous amount of explosive fuel" and the danger is "an explosion of inflation." "My successors," he said, "are going to have to be very careful in steering that ship."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
Yannis Pappas, Brooklyn born and bred, grew up in a two family brick rowhouse in Park Slope. He left New York for four years at American University in Washington, D.C. After college, Mr. Pappas, who is a comedian, returned to Park Slope to live with roommates, relocated to Miami for work on a newscast for millennials and then came back to New York, living with his mother in his childhood home. "I wanted to buy a place before I was paying 4,000 in rent every month," he said. Last winter, Mr. Pappas contacted Susan Little, a saleswoman at the Corcoran Group, who was referred by a friend. He sought a one bedroom in Brooklyn in the 200,000 to 450,000 range. He loved the view from a studio on a high floor in the 1950 Concord Village co op complex on Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn. It was listed for 325,000, with a monthly maintenance fee in the mid 700s. Inside, the place was "completely custom designed and a perfect bachelor pad," Ms. Little said. She warned Mr. Pappas that the apartment would sell for well above the asking price. He bid 335,000. It ended up selling for 381,000. Mr. Pappas was disappointed, but the outcome "made me trust Susan a lot," he said, because she had been right. Mr. Pappas, who scrutinized online listings daily, dismissed buildings in areas that were too commercial or desolate or too far from stores. Even at the top of his budget, "the search did not produce that many fruitful spots," he said. She urged him to consider Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where she had moved a few years ago. Initially, Mr. Pappas thought the neighborhood was too far from Manhattan, but he couldn't help noticing the comparatively low prices. "I didn't want to break the bank," he said. In Bay Ridge, Mr. Pappas found real possibilities. The neighborhood had "a sleepy beach feel, and it is very retro," he said. "I am at that age where I don't need Williamsburg, but I don't want Westchester. I am in between having kids and needing to go out every night, so Bay Ridge fits perfectly in between those two opposites." A one bedroom in a midsize 1950 co op building on Ovington Avenue was small and needed work, though conveniently close to the R train. The asking price was 230,000, with a monthly maintenance fee of 500. Mr. Pappas bid 215,000; it sold for 235,000. By now, he said, "I had adjusted my thinking, because I learned you have to make sacrifices. It's going to be space or location. You are giving up something you want, and it's not a little thing it's a huge thing." A ground floor one bedroom on 93rd Street near Shore Road in the Fort Hamilton section of Bay Ridge was 269,000 with a maintenance fee of just over 600 a month. The apartment was large and charming but dimly lighted with views of walls, though the beautiful Verrazano Narrows Bridge loomed outside. Maybe he could brighten the place with paint and recessed lighting. "It's that sacrifice thing," he said. But he decided against it. "I am a comedian," he said. "I don't need my house to be depressive, because my mind is already that." Around then a listing appeared for a corner one bedroom in a midrise co op on Colonial Road. The price was 199,000, with monthly maintenance in the mid 400s. Ms. Little couldn't make it, so Mr. Pappas went alone. Downtown Manhattan appeared out the window. The bathroom and bedroom were relatively big, though there were just two small closets. "I was X ing it out because of the closet space," Mr. Pappas said. But he found himself dwelling on the view. He returned with Ms. Little in tow. She loved it. The small kitchen was against a wall in the living room, but, she said, "Yannis is a bachelor and never cooks." Another party was interested, so Mr. Pappas offered 204,000. "I am not scared to walk away," he said. "I've been doing comedy for 14 years. You develop a thick skin from not being good at comedy for a long time when you start." His offer was accepted. He closed in late summer and bought a captain's bed with drawers underneath as well as a free standing closet. "From my pillow I am looking straight at the Freedom Tower," he said. He finds Bay Ridge filled with hidden treasures, such as his now favorite pizza place, Campania. "You order the whole pie, no slices," he said approvingly. "Depending on what's going on in my life, I can put down two." After one horrendous two hour subway trip home from Manhattan, Mr. Pappas leased a car. Parking in Manhattan on the avenues is easy at night, he said, but when he gets home late from a stand up gig he'll be at the Gotham Comedy Club at the end of the month he must circle the block to find a parking spot. "I love Bay Ridge," he said. "I love it so much that part of me is thinking: 'I am at that age, I will get married and have kids, I want to buy a house in Bay Ridge.' If you buy a house and have a spot to park, it is the greatest."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
YOURS SINCERELY To hear Ann Napolitano talk at a pre publication lunch, at an event to celebrate the relaunch of Dial Press, on the "Today" show is to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she did not write her third novel, "Dear Edward," with any victory lap in mind. It's not that she's a fish out of water behind a podium or on a white couch in a television studio; in fact, Napolitano commands attention in a quietly mesmerizing way, like the veteran teacher she is. She's a writer's writer, which is like being a long distance runner. Sure, she'll show up for the marathon this time she crossed the finish line with great fanfare, giving "Dear Edward" its monthlong run (and counting) on the best seller list but clearly she's fueled by daily neighborhood runs. In other words: putting words on the page. "I wrote on the subway, in my parked car and when my kids were in school," she says. "This book was a complete joy to write." "Dear Edward" tells the story of a 12 year old boy who survives a plane crash that kills his family. Napolitano explains, "In 2010, a flight from South Africa to London crashed in Libya. There was one survivor: a 9 year old Dutch boy who was found half a mile away from the wreckage, still buckled into his seat. He had a punctured lung and a broken leg, but otherwise he was fine. Everyone else on the plane died immediately, including his brother and his parents. This story just flayed me. I could not imagine how the boy would be O.K. and I could feel from the stickiness of my obsession that I was going to have to write a book that created a set of circumstances to make him O.K." The result is a surprisingly uplifting story, full of hope and dry humor, with an underlying, noncloying message about the decency of strangers. Napolitano has long advised her writing students to pay attention to ideas that stick, seemingly at random, on what she thinks of as their invisible magnet boards. In her mind, everyone has one: "Your magnet board is calibrated differently from your sister's or your best friend's, and that's because of your DNA, your personal history, all the things that go into making you who you are. Your subjects could come from a headline or some weird documentary no one else wanted to watch. Our world is so noisy, and we're inundated with so much information, that if you're not paying attention to what thwacks against your magnet board, you're going to miss the obsession that makes you uncomfortable. We have to let ourselves follow that pull."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Jupiter's large gravitational pull is constantly influencing the meteor streams, according to Dr. Cooke. Sometimes it tugs them toward Earth, and sometimes it pushes them farther away. The last time a special Perseids shower like this one occurred was in 2009. The Perseids zoom through the atmosphere at around 133,000 miles per hour and burst about 60 miles overhead, according to Dr. Cooke. Most of the meteors are about the size of a grain of sand, but some can be as large as a silver dollar. You should be able to see many of the small bursts, but it's the handful of large ones that create jaw dropping fireballs when set ablaze. "It scares you to the bone when you see it coming across," said Jackie Faherty, an astronomer from the American Museum of Natural History. "If you get just one, it will be embedded in your vision for all time. I don't think you forget things like this." The best way to see the Perseids meteor shower, according to Dr. Faherty, is to go to a location with a clear view of the entire night sky. Ideally you would go somewhere with dark skies, but she said the main thing to look for is a spot that offers a wide, unobstructed view. She said that even in a crowded city like New York you could still spot some of the flashes by going to a rooftop. The best time to watch is before dawn on Friday. Before getting their hopes up, stargazers should be warned that the weather and moonlight can obscure the show. If that happens, there are several livestreams of the event to watch, like one hosted by NASA and one hosted by Slooh, a global system of cameras and telescopes pointed at the sky. Still, Dr. Faherty suggests people get outside and try to see it for themselves. "It is worth waiting out there for an hour, two hours, three hours, four hours even to catch a glimpse of something like this," she said. "When you get a good one, it will rival the stars in the sky."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
In another effort to address the lack of diversity in the country's art institutions, the artist Charles Gaines has established a fellowship to support Black students in the renowned M.F.A. program in art at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where he has been a longtime member of the faculty. "I have spent my whole teaching career at CalArts working not alone but with others on diversity and inclusion in order to increase the presence of the minority voice in society," Mr. Gaines said in a statement. He added that he wanted "to help make possible access to opportunities that have been historically denied to people of color and that most Americans take for granted." The fellowship, which bears his name, will cover at least two thirds of the cost of its recipients' tuition. Mr. Gaines's initial donation the amount of which was not disclosed was matched by Jill Kraus, a trustee, and the gallerist David Kordansky, who is an alumnus. Black students are strikingly underrepresented in the country's M.F.A. art programs, including CalArts, where not one of the 25 students enrolled in fall 2019 identified as Black.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
PARIS The morning of Jacques Chirac's funeral the sun came out. There was an autumn crispness to the air and Paris was, on Monday , as it is wont to be at such times, gleaming with pomp and a sense of circumstance past. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was in town; so was President Bill Clinton . So were a number of other world leaders, come to pay their respects to a man who once led France. As a crowd gathered for the Sacai show in the Grand Palais, a motorcade went by. The fashion gang watched the black cars and the accompanying vehicles, and then filed upstairs to discover George Clinton, the Parliament Funkadelic founder , sitting front row. It was a less jarring segue than it sounds. The designer Chitose Abe had taken the band's album, "One Nation Under a Groove," as the inspiration for a collection that was effectively an argument for unity: of big oversize trousers and hard core trench coats and sheer, weightless blouses spliced into a single jumpsuit; of many, many different size polka dots; of cartographic prints, flickering hither and yon on the points of scarf dresses and suits. We are the world! Or at least the world map. It was fitting. This is a time to come together. Or at least mostly it is: The security guards at Chanel were less keen to embrace the catwalk crasher who ran down the bleachers to hop into the final parade across the roofs of Paris set that the designer Virginie Viard had created in the Grand Palais. She turned out to be a French YouTuber and comedian known as Marie S'Infiltre, doing her thing. Ms. Viard, however, seems to have not yet found her thing. She has the unenviable job of following the legend that was Karl Lagerfeld, and is certainly going through the motions of continuity, from the big sets to the classic Chanel boucle and pearl isms, petite Parisienne coats and dresses. And she is trying for an update. But shorts short coat rompers, metallic pink leather matching shorts and jackets, teeny black Lycra ... hot pants? paired with sparkling tops and a chain belt do not currency (or youth) make. Save that last combo, which was so subversively peculiar, it was kind of fun, and the final looks, which combined completely casual long skirts and shirts with sparkling silver embroidery like a blase shrug in face of fancy, it all feels very minor. The motions are there, but there's no oomph. The soul and animating wit that extended from Coco to Karl are missing. They need to be reunited. It was unexpected, for example, to arrive at the Opera Garnier, the Second Empire theater with a Chagall ceiling , for Stella McCartney 's show and discover that all over the gold interior there were videos playing of bears and zebras and monkeys and armadillos (and other kinds of animals) enthusiastically engaged in the act of procreation. That's one way to underscore the importance of communion. Another is basing the cut of a simple blouse or pair of trousers or lace dress on the circle, as Ms. McCartney did in scalloped cottons that curved around the arms and legs, potentially unforgiving volumes she aerates with ease, mixed in with cool safari suiting and loose halter dresses covered in photographic flower field prints she shot during on a bike ride in the countryside. It's also a lot of symbolism for clothes to contain, and these particular clothes didn't, entirely they mostly just looked cool and uncomplicated to wear but in case you missed it (and maybe it doesn't matter, if consumers get the clothes) on every seat was a green (duh) paper detailing Ms. McCartney's milestones when it came to sustainability: PVC free, angora free, mohair free, plastic bottle free, solar panels in stores and so on. She has been a proponent of animal rights since she founded her business, and increasingly an activist trying to wake fashion up to climate change. Mostly, the industry has decided to join her. Yet, in focusing so much on materials, legitimate as that is, another dimension of sustainability tends to be overlooked: the part that is not simply about chemistry and landfill but also community, communication, employment, the passing on of tradition. As Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen made clear in a collection rooted in the nexus of man and earth and sky, where another kind of extinction was in the offing. It opened with a simple puffed sleeve dress in white linen, which had been naturally bleached by being left outside in the sun. And it ended with skinny black pants under a jacket lavishly draped in what turned out to be toiles reimagined as oily beetled linen (beetling being a once common process in which fabric is painted with potato starch and then pounded by large wooden blocks).	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
FIREFIGHTING The Financial Crisis and Its Lessons By Ben S. Bernanke, Timothy F. Geithner and Henry M. Paulson Jr. For a few months in 2008 and 2009 many people feared that the world economy was on the verge of collapse. They had good reason to be afraid. Financial markets were virtually frozen, with credit almost unavailable to anyone except the safest of borrowers. The real economy was in free fall: Over the winter America was losing 700,000 jobs a month, while world trade and industrial output were falling as fast as they did in the first year of the Great Depression. In the end, however, the worst didn't happen. The financial crisis caused huge, lasting damage. But the bottom didn't fall out completely. What saved us? There were multiple factors. But one element was that key public officials didn't stand aside while the world burned. Instead, they acted not always soon enough, not always forcefully enough, not always wisely, but pretty effectively all the same. "Firefighting" is a brief account of that crucial moment by three of the most important actors. Ben S. Bernanke was the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, then and now the most influential economic position in the world. Henry M. Paulson Jr. was George W. Bush's Treasury secretary. Timothy F. Geithner was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York another key position in the Fed system then became Paulson's successor under Barack Obama. Want to keep up with the latest and greatest in books? This is a good place to start. None Learn what you should be reading this fall: Our collection of reviews on books coming out this season includes biographies, novels, memoirs and more. See what's new in October: Among this month's new titles are novels by Jonathan Franzen, a history of Black cinema and a biography by Katie Couric. Nominate a book: The New York Times Book Review has just turned 125. That got us wondering: What is the best book that was published during that time? Listen to our podcast: Featuring conversations with leading figures in the literary world, from Colson Whitehead to Leila Slimani, the Book Review Podcast helps you delve deeper into your favorite books. There are a number of forms a book by central players in a historic episode can take. "Firefighting" could have been a juicy tell all; it could have been an exercise in boasting about how its authors saved the world; it could have been a litany of excuses, explaining why none of what went wrong was the authors' fault. And the truth is that there's a little bit of each of these elements but not much, considering. What Bernanke et al. I'm going to call them BGP for short have given us, instead, is a primer on why the crisis was possible (and why, even so, almost nobody saw it coming); a ticktock on how the crisis and the financial rescue unfolded; and a very scary warning about the future. Much of what BGP have to say here is familiar to economists, but perhaps less so to the general public. Fundamentally, they argue, what happened in 2008 was a "classic financial panic," of the kind that has happened again and again ever since the dawn of modern banking. (Even Adam Smith called for financial regulation, having seen a banking crisis firsthand.) So why didn't people see it coming? Part of it was hubris: "Serious economists were arguing that financial innovations like derivatives ... had made crises a thing of the past." (How serious were these economists, actually?) And the reality was that financial innovation made things worse, not better: Most of "the leverage in U.S. finance" debt that was vulnerable to panic had moved to "shadow banks" that, unlike conventional banks, were largely unregulated and lacked a financial safety net. Also, as they say, "it's hard to fix something before it breaks." As long as the housing bubble was still inflating, defaults were few and everything seemed sound. A few Cassandras warned about the risks, but like the original Cassandra, they went unheeded. And BGP, to their credit, acknowledge their own failures to recognize the danger, including Bernanke's notorious declaration that problems in subprime lending were "contained." Then it all fell apart. Most of the book is concerned with the increasingly desperate efforts of BGP and other officials to prop up financial dominoes before they could topple and collapse the whole system. It's an intricate story, one whose details probably seem a lot more interesting to those who were involved than they will to a broader readership. And I don't think there are any shocking new revelations. There is, however, a unifying theme to all that complexity: Containing this crisis was so hard precisely because of all that financial innovation. Conventional banks are both overseen and guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which has the power "to wind down insolvent banks in an orderly fashion while standing behind their obligations." But "the federal government had no orderly resolution regime for nonbanks." So BGP and company had to engage in frantic innovation. For example, the Fed funneled money through conventional banks into the hands of nonbanks, in effect lending to institutions they weren't really supposed to support. This exposed the Fed to new risks; Paulson effectively indemnified the Fed against those risks, apparently without real legal authority to do so. At another point, when a run on money market funds which would have been a complete catastrophe seemed imminent, Paulson guaranteed those funds using money legally earmarked for a completely different purpose, defending the dollar's foreign exchange value. Sometimes all these efforts fell short. In a section that will no doubt cause a lot of controversy, BGP argue that there was nothing they could legally have done to prevent the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the event that nearly broke the world. Was this true? I'm not enough of a lawyer to tell. Still, by the late spring of 2009 the storm seemed to have passed. Recovery was slow, but at this point we are back to an economy with low unemployment and seemingly stable financial markets. But should we be worried about another crisis? Yes, the authors say, in a final chapter that is downright scary. Banking, they argue, is actually less risky than it was, thanks to financial reforms that, while far short of what should have been done, have nonetheless led to safer practices. But crises will still happen, and when they do, the firefighting abilities of policymakers will have been gravely compromised. Interest rates are too low for cutting them further to do much good. Fiscal stimulus, which BGP agree was crucial, will be much harder to sell given high levels of debt. And Congress has taken away much of the authority that made extraordinary measures possible in the crisis. In other words, it's hard to imagine BGP's modern successors carrying out the kind of rescue operation the authors managed a decade ago. And it's not even clear whether they would try, or at any rate have any idea what they're doing. The authors are too nice to say this, but today's top economic officials seem to be systematically drawn from the ranks of those who got everything wrong during the crisis. The failure of Bear Stearns was the first solid indication of how much trouble we were in; Donald Trump has just chosen David Malpass, Bear's chief economist at the time, to head the World Bank. Larry Kudlow, now the administration's top economist, ridiculed "bubbleheads" who claimed that housing prices were out of whack, then praised Paulson for refusing to bail out Lehman just hours before financial markets went into full meltdown. In other words, we seem to have learned the wrong lessons from our brush with disaster. As a result, when the next crisis comes, it's likely to play out even worse than the last one. Isn't that a happy thought?	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
SAN FRANCISCO A small Boston company, founded by the inventor of a popular corporate encryption technology called RSA SecurID, sued Apple and Visa on Sunday, arguing that the Apple Pay digital payment technology violates its patents. The lawsuit, filed by Universal Secure Registry in Federal District Court in Delaware, says that its chief executive, Kenneth P. Weiss, received 13 patents for authentication systems that use a smartphone, biometric identification such as a fingerprint and the generation of secure one time tokens to conduct financial transactions. In the suit and in an interview, Mr. Weiss said he had extensive meetings in 2010 with Visa officials, including its chief executive at the time, to discuss working together on the technology. In the interview, he said that Visa had signed a 10 year nondisclosure agreement to gain access to the technology, assigned engineers to fully understand the details, but then dropped further communication without securing a license. Mr. Weiss said he also wrote to Apple at the same time seeking to license his technology, but the iPhone maker never responded to his inquiries.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
The buyer of this Faberge icon saw it on Sotheby's Instagram feed. LONDON The singularity and relatively high cost of most fine art have, so far, made it resistant to sales on the internet. There aren't many collectors who seem willing to spend millions of dollars online. But Instagram has quietly become a commercial game changer for the art market, a force in influencing auction and gallery transactions, especially for younger buyers. "I often get contacted by collectors about specific objects I've shown on Instagram, and then that turns into a different conversation," said Matt Carey Williams, the London based deputy chairman for Europe and Asia at the Phillips auction house. Last Tuesday, Mr. Carey Williams used his personal Instagram account (5,644 followers at the time) to highlight the inclusion of a 1969 Josef Albers painting, "Study for Homage to the Square: Wet and Dry," in Phillips's March 8 contemporary art auction here. The work is estimated at 150,000 pounds to 250,000 pounds (about 180,000 to 306,000). Phillips itself has 95,400 Instagram followers, twice as many as in 2015. That is about four times the number of its followers on Facebook and three times the number of its followers on Twitter, Mr. Carey Williams said. Sotheby's (417,000 followers) and Christie's (261,000) are also making the most of Instagram as a marketing tool. In London in June, Sotheby's sold a Faberge silver, enamel and seed pearl icon for PS245,000 10 times its estimate. The buyer had seen it on the auction house's Instagram feed. "Instagram has become the leading social media tool for discovering, showing and following art, particularly for people below the age of 35," said Anders Petterson, an author of the Hiscox Online Art Trade Report. Of the more than 650 art buyers questioned for the 2016 report, 48 percent said that Instagram was their preferred social media platform. The figure rose to 65 percent among the younger buyers contacted. "It has hit a sweet spot in the market for sharing information," Mr. Petterson said, "but no one saw this coming as a sales tool." Its direct effect on art sales, however, remains difficult to quantify, apart from anecdotal evidence. Last month, a Jean Michel Basquiat canvas priced at about 24 million was hailed by Bloomberg News as a breakthrough Instagram sale. Brett Gorvy, then Christie's global head of contemporary art, had posted an image of the Basquiat, a 1982 painting of the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, on his personal Instagram site (57,900 followers) as he boarded a plane for the auction house's private selling exhibition in Hong Kong. When he landed, Mr. Gorvy said he had messages from three collectors in the United States, London and Asia expressing interest in buying the painting. The unidentified American collector completed the transaction two days later. Christie's declined to comment on the Basquiat, though it would technically regard it as a private sale, rather than an online transaction. But Mr. Gorvy, who is now a partner in the newly branded Levy Gorvy dealership, said, "From the buyer's point of view, this was a total Instagram sale." Mr. Gorvy's Instagram account is all the more influential for having no corporate branding and a strong individuality. "It allows you to get into the hearts and minds of important collectors," Mr. Gorvy said. "People think they know you, and that pulls down barriers. People saw that I had a daughter, a dog and a home. I became less of a guy that sells paintings." The quirkily personal Instagram accounts of tastemaking specialists like Mr. Gorvy and Mr. Carey Williams, or of high profile private collectors and dealers like the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa (38,500 followers), Simon de Pury (177,000) and the art world "disrupter" Stefan Simchowitz (77,600), remain the unquantifiable "soft power" of today's art market. Just as difficult to gauge is the impact of the huge Instagram followings on sales at the world's major galleries. Gagosian Gallery's Instagram site has at least 593,000 followers, with that of Pace not far behind, at 506,000. "It's a two way thing," said Stefan Ratibor, the director of Gagosian's London galleries. "We put out the information and we value the feedback. This has led to conversations that have led to sales, but they can't be quantified." Mr. Ratibor said that Gagosian regarded Instagram as "hugely important," to the extent that the eight part series of Rudolf Stingel exhibitions held last year at the dealership's Park Avenue gallery in New York was announced on Instagram, rather than through the traditional medium of cards and advertisements. "Instagram made it more special," Mr. Ratibor said. "People think they are in on a secret. That's the magic of the medium." The contemporary dealers Joe Kennedy, 27, and Jonny Burt, 26, are now holding an exhibition of "art popularized by Instagram" at Unit London (78,800 followers) in the city's Soho district. A collaboration with the Instagram savvy dealership Avant Arte (490,000 followers) of the Netherlands, the show, which opened on Jan. 13, features 31 works at the more accessible end of the market, for emerging art. Information about the works is available not through labels, but through smartphone quick response, or QR, codes on the gallery walls. As of last Wednesday, 27 had attracted confirmed sales at PS1,500 to PS25,000 each. "Young people of our age are growing up on social media. They're glued to their phones," Mr. Burt said. "Instagram creates a safe place to enjoy art. They feel part of the gallery before they walk in." Although half of the show was reserved via Instagram before it opened, sales at Unit London continue to be confirmed in person, in the way that gallerists have been closing sales for hundreds of years.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) looks to be the central figure of the new Netflix feature "El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie," directed by the "Breaking Bad" creator Vince Gilligan. Six years ago, AMC's award season juggernaut "Breaking Bad" came to a bloody and satisfying end, and with it the story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), the high school science teacher who became an Albuquerque drug kingpin. AMC quickly spun off a prequel series, "Better Call Saul," giving fans more time with characters like Saul Goodman, Mike Ehrmantraut and Gus Fring. But given that shift in focus and all the carnage of the final "Breaking Bad" season it was reasonable to think that the finale was the last word otherwise. Then in late 2018, the series's creator, Vince Gilligan, secretly gathered his collaborators in New Mexico and directed his own screenplay for "El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie," which comes to Netflix Friday. Judging by the trailer, the movie introduces a bunch of new characters and brings back a few familiar ones, the most important being Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), whom we last saw looking broken but alive, speeding off through the desert in ... an El Camino. But what about the rest? Remember Skinny Pete? And what about poor Flynn? It's been a while, so here's a refresher on where we left the characters who may still have some bearing on the sequel alive, dead or somewhere in between. In Season 5, Walter's right hand man, Jesse, went through the wringer. First he came to realize just how much Walter had betrayed him. Then he was made a literal slave to meth dealing white supremacists. We don't know a lot about what happened to Jesse after the desert shootout that killed the D.E.A. agent (and Walt's brother in law) Hank Schrader (Dean Norris). But by the time Walter came to save him, his existence looked tortured: imprisoned in the meth lab, cooking for monsters, rarely seeing the light of day. Walter saved him, relying on his usual mix of brazenness and ingenuity (and the help of a remote controlled machine gun). Jesse sped off into the night, hysterical and screaming. The movie looks to pick up immediately thereafter, so remember the trauma inflicted by Jesse's captivity. It will surely play a role. The first teaser trailer for "El Camino" offered a glimpse of Jesse Pinkman's regular collaborator Skinny Pete (Charles Baker). He appears again in the official trailer, alongside his usual partner, Badger (Matthew Lee Jones). They were two of the last people to do business with Walt. In the series finale, they were paid by Walter to pose as assassins outside of the home of Walter's former business partners the Schwartzes (Jessica Hecht and Adam Godley), a ruse to ensure that the couple would do as they were told. Pete and Badger also revealed to Walter that blue meth was still on the scene. Jesse has turned to them in times of need before. Judging by the trailer, he looks to need their help again. Saul's lovable bodyguard, Huell (Lavell Crawford), has been the subject of much internet concern as he was last seen being told never to leave a safe house by Agents Schrader and Gomez who were then killed by Nazis. Is he still there? If Saul comes back into the picture in "El Camino," he could also bring back one of the few people he thinks he can still trust. There's a shot of a photo of Jesse's former girlfriend, Andrea, and her son, Brock (Ian Posada and Emily Rios), in the "El Camino" trailer, reminding viewers how important they were to Jesse and to the plot: The end of "Breaking Bad" would have been very different if not for Jesse's realization that Walter had poisoned Brock. In the second to last episode, Jesse watched as Todd (Jesse Plemons) murdered Andrea on her porch; maybe Jesse will try to be a father to an orphaned Brock in "El Camino." Skyler and Walter Jr., a.k.a. Flynn (Anna Gunn and R.J. Mitte), again moved with baby Holly out of the family home in which so much of "Breaking Bad" took place. But Walter still found them in the finale. In a phone call the episode before, Walt Jr. had angrily asked his father to hurry up and die, so it's just as well he wasn't home. Almost unfazed by Walter's appearance, Skyler listened to what Walt Sr. had to say, arguably got some closure, learned where Hank's body was buried and then allowed him to say a final goodbye to his daughter. After leaving, Walter watched from afar as his son come home from school, unaware his father was seeing him for the final time. Walter was just about to turn himself in when he saw Gretchen and Elliott on Charlie Rose, talking about how little the now infamous drug kingpin had to do with their success. He tracked them down, dropping millions of dollars on them with instructions to form a trust fund for his family. Perhaps "El Camino" will provide an update on whether they actually go along with Walt's plan.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
In the work of Yve Laris Cohen, choreography often takes the form of construction: walls and floors being built, transported, taken apart. Traversing the worlds of dance and visual art, Mr. Laris Cohen is interested in their architectural spaces, the nature of black boxes and white cubes. Recently at St. Mark's Church, he assembled and disassembled, over several nights, a portable stage belonging to New York City Ballet. During last year's Whitney Biennial, he shuttled a gallery wall from the old Whitney Museum to what is now the new one. These displays of manual labor embed shrewd aesthetic and economic critiques, sometimes punctuated by more traditional dancerly feats. In "Fine," opening on Thursday at the Kitchen, he continues in this vein. According to a news release, the work "asks architecture's lowest common denominators to both outperform and fall short of their usual duties."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
You Know You Should Use Sunscreen. But Are You Using It Correctly? Look, we're not here to nag. We all know we're supposed to use sunscreen more reliably than we probably do. Instead of hounding you again, we asked experts for tips on skin cancer prevention and using sunscreen that you're less likely to have heard: the counterintuitive, the new or the little known. Here's what they told us. (We know this is a little "Eat your vegetables" of us, so we'll give you a reward if you make it to the end.) We hope maybe you've heard these before, but let's reapply. Depending on your body size, experts recommend using enough lotion to fill a shot glass, or an ounce, when you're at the beach. Even if people are smart enough to apply sunscreen, they may not use enough, said Dr. Jerry Brewer, a dermatologic surgeon at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Even if the bottle says the lotion is waterproof, beachgoers should reapply after swimming. If you're not swimming, you should reapply every two hours, regardless of the SPF count. You should put sunscreen on 15 minutes before exposure. Look for products that are labeled "broad spectrum protection" with an SPF of 15 to 50. Dr. Elizabeth Hale, a senior vice president for the Skin Cancer Foundation and a dermatologist in New York City, said that both men and women are likely to miss the tops of their ears and the tops of the feet. (Full disclosure: The nonprofit Skin Cancer Foundation receives some funding from sunscreen manufacturers.) Men are particularly likely to miss their scalps and the backs of their necks, while women are more likely to miss their chest and neck areas, she said. Dr. Brewer said beachgoers often miss the bottoms of their feet, which can be exposed if they're lying on their stomachs reading or napping. This is a tricky one. Not even the Food and Drug Administration is sure, and we still don't know how effective they are or whether inhaling them can be dangerous. While some medical professionals suggest you should not use them, "I tend to think it's better than nothing," Dr. Brewer said. He recommended using the creams and lotions when possible, but said the sprays can be useful if you're on the go and won't make time for a full reapplication. Dr. Hale said spray on sunscreen should be applied indoors in a well ventilated area, and never sprayed directly on the face. Trying to apply it on the beach could lead to much of it flying away in the wind, leaving you with inadequate protection. Though there's no quantifiable standard like the shot glass of lotion, Dr. Hale suggested spray users create "an even sheen on the skin." Because you're probably taking your phone to the beach, you could rely on it, instead of your faulty memory, to remind you that it's time to reapply. Android and iOS are rife with free and inexpensive apps that could alert you when you need it. You could also seek help from wearables. A jewel like device called JUNE, which can be worn as a bracelet or a brooch, monitors sun exposure and syncs with an iOS app that can tell you how quickly you're using up your recommended sun allowance for the day. Or you could try a low tech wristband, like UVSunSense, that changes colors to signal you should reapply sunscreen or head indoors. Improving Your Looks, Too Dr. Hale said that when she tries to persuade patients to take sunscreen more seriously, she sometimes targets their vanity more than their health. She tells them that using sunscreen every day not just when they're at the beach or the park can help prevent the brown spots and wrinkles that often lead people to seek out dermatologists, and that sun exposure is a primary driver of the skin's aging process. "I truly believe sunscreen is the No. 1 anti aging ingredient," she said. Research in 2013 revealed that people who used sunscreen every day had markedly smoother and more resilient skin. The study was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, and no sunscreen makers contributed. Congratulations for making it all the way through an article about sunscreen. As your reward, we present you this adorable photo gallery of parents applying lotion to visibly annoyed children. You earned it.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
Giving malaria victims a common blood pressure drug along with regular treatment may save lives by preventing lethal brain hemorrhages, scientists reported on Monday. The experiments were done only in infected mice and may not predict success in humans. But substantially more mice were saved when given the drug, according to scientists at NYU Langone Medical Center and their colleagues in Spain and Germany. The study was published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation. There are an estimated 216 million malaria infections around the world each year, and more than 400,000 deaths mostly young children in Africa. Most of the fatalities, the authors said, were caused by cerebral malaria.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
If your doctor struggles to help you, you'll need to help yourself. Modern medicine works marvels, but it's built to treat acute conditions and well known diseases. A completely novel virus that seems to hang around for months is neither. Add in all the other burdens on the medical system at the moment, and the understandable focus on the most life threatening Covid cases, and it may be extremely difficult to find a doctor who can guide and support a labyrinthine recovery process. So to some uncertain extent, you may need to become your own doctor or if you're too sick for that, to find someone who can help you on your journey, notwithstanding the absence of an M.D. beside their name. Trust your own experience of your body. Yong's Atlantic piece notes that many Covid long haulers "have been frustrated by their friends' and families' inability to process a prolonged illness" and have dealt with skepticism from doctors as well. In such circumstances, it's natural to doubt yourself as well, and to think maybe it really is all in my head. In some cases, presumably, it is: Hypochondria certainly exists, and the combination of high anxiety and pandemic headlines no doubt inspires some phantom illnesses. But for a field officially grounded in hard materialism, contemporary medicine is far too quick to retreat to a kind of mysterianism, a hand waving about mind body connections, when it comes to chronic illnesses that we can't yet treat. If you don't have a history of imagined illness, if you were generally healthy up until a few months ago, if your body felt normal and now it feels invaded, you should have a reasonable level of trust that it isn't just "in your head" that you're dealing with a real infection or immune response, not some miasma in your subconscious. There is no treatment yet for "long haul" Covid that meets the standard of a randomized, double blind, placebo controlled trial, which means that the F.D.A. stamped medical consensus can't be your only guide if you're trying to break a systemic, debilitating curse. The realm beyond that consensus has, yes, plenty of quacks, perils and overpriced placebos. But it also includes treatments that may help you starting with the most basic herbs and vitamins, and expanding into things that, well, let's just say I wouldn't have ever imagined myself trying before I become ill myself. So please don't drink bleach, or believe everything you read on Goop.com. But if you find yourself decanting Chinese tinctures, or lying on a chiropractor's table with magnets placed strategically around your body, or listening to an "Anti Coronavirus Frequency" on Spotify, and you think, how did I end up here?, know that you aren't alone, and you aren't being irrational. The irrational thing is to be sick, to have no official treatment available, and to fear the outre or strange more than you fear the permanence of your disease. The internet is your friend. For experimental purposes, that is. My profession is obsessed, understandably, with the dangers of online Covid misinformation. But the internet also creates communities of shared medical experience, where you can sift testimonies from fellow sufferers who have tried different approaches, different doctors, different regimens. For now, that kind of collective offers a crowdsourced empiricism, an imperfect but still evidence based guide to treatment possibilities. Use it carefully, but use it. Ask God to help you. And keep asking when He doesn't seem to answer. I mean this very seriously. You can get better. I said earlier that my own illness is still with me five years later. But not in anything like the same way. I was wrecked, destroyed, despairing. Now I'm better, substantially better and I believe that with enough time and experimentation, I will actually be well.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
The inhabitants of the derelict mansion in "The Lodgers" don't get out much. It's some time around World War I in rural Ireland and the orphaned Rachel (Charlotte Vega) and her twin brother, Edward (an effective Bill Milner), are struggling in the family manor, an art directed ruin cloaked in shadows and mystery. Edward stays inside, turning paler and weirder, but Rachel sometimes ventures out, occasionally putting on a black riding hood (the better to scare you) to visit a nearby village. She sweeps in and out to stock up on provisions, breezing past locals with rude manners and wagging tongues. The twins have an unfortunate history to go with their exceedingly troublesome tenants, who scuttle into a movie that takes entirely too long to spill its dark secrets. Working from David Turpin's script, the director Brian O'Malley drapes the house in cobwebs and pours on the dust (the look is Miss Havisham without the cake), and sets the camera loose while he tries to rustle up the scares. These come intermittently and generally when you expect them, whether Rachel is dashing through the darkening forest or taking one of those candlelit soaks in the tub that women in storybook peril indulge in.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
Meningitis may be poised for a ferocious comeback in Africa, international aid organizations are warning, and vaccine manufacturers must step up production if the outbreak is to be averted. Meningitis is caused by one of several strains of the bacteria Neisseria meningitidis. A vaccine introduced five years ago has all but defeated meningitis A infections in Africa. But infections with another strain, Type C, are on the rise. Some experts fear the new strain will explode next year, while others say too little is known to predict its course reliably. Meningitis C vaccines exist but are expensive: 20 per shot is the lowest price offered thus far to an international public health consortium, led by the World Health Organization, that stockpiles vaccines for emergencies. The consortium, the International Coordinating Group for Vaccine Provision for Epidemic Meningitis Control, is seeking five million doses. To be effective, they must be shipped and injected before January, when meningitis normally returns to Africa with the dry harmattan winds. Unless something drastic happens a surge of donor money, or huge price cuts the consortium's experts do not hold out much hope. "If we don't get the doses, we'll be having a really hard time," said Dr. William A. Perea, coordinator of the W.H.O.'s epidemic diseases control unit. "So we are making a little noise." The global vaccine industry is fragile. Because of mergers and acquisitions, only four major pharmaceutical companies GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi Pasteur, Merck and Pfizer still make vaccines for diseases other than flu. They are primarily interested in serving wealthy countries, where they can charge 100 or more per dose. As a result, there are too few factories to supply the vaccines poor countries need, and also little competition to drive down prices. State owned factories in India, Brazil, Cuba and elsewhere also manufacture meningitis vaccines. While they can sometimes be paid to make more than their own countries need, many are reliant on old technology and hampered by government bureaucracies. A low priced vaccine against meningitis C and four other strains of the infection is being developed in India but will need at least another five years of testing. Meningitis used to strike thousands of Africans every year. In 1997, meningitis sickened 250,000 people and killed 25,000. Survivors also suffer. A quarter are left brain damaged, paralyzed, prone to seizures or without limbs that had to be amputated. In African schools for the deaf, most students are meningitis victims. Desperate families often sell everything to pay for care: chickens, cows, even front doors, which in West Africa can be elaborately carved heirlooms. Type A bacteria were once responsible for more than 80 percent of Africa's meningitis cases, but that infection is being vanquished by a new vaccine, MenAfriVac, which was introduced in 2010 by the W.H.O., the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation and PATH, a Seattle health technology group. Over 220 million doses against Type A, made by the Serum Institute of India for 50 cents each, have been injected. But that success has had an alarming coda. Two years ago, a new Type C strain appeared, a genetic variant from the previous Type C. In April, a serious outbreak in Niger sickened nearly 6,000 people and caused nearly 500 deaths. "There was a lot of anxiety, because very few people in Niger didn't know somebody who'd gotten ill or died in the past," said Dr. Sarah A. Meyer, an epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who helped fight the outbreak. "People prayed for the rains to start. And they started rushing to the pharmacy for vaccines." Experts are now fiercely debating what will happen when the harmattan winds return to Africa's so called meningitis belt, which stretches from the Atlantic Coast to Ethiopia. Experts at the W.H.O. and Doctors Without Borders fear that the new strain will spread. But others, including Dr. Meyer and colleagues at the C.D.C., say there is no way to predict that with confidence. Previous outbreaks of meningitis C in Europe, for example have not followed the pattern typical of Type A in Africa: a few low level years, then an explosive epidemic. "The idea that there is a death knell sounding for these countries is exaggerated," said Dr. Marc LaForce, a meningitis expert who led the development of MenAfriVac. Over the next few weeks, his agency hopes to swab the throats of Africans across the belt to see how many carry the new Type C strain without symptoms. That may help predict what will happen in January. On a much smaller scale, a similar strain substitution took place on American college campuses in the last decade. Expensive new quadrivalent vaccines, effective against multiple strains of meningitis, were introduced in 2005 and reduced infections with Types A, C, W and Y by more than 90 percent. Then, in 2013, the B strain surged, causing outbreaks at Princeton and the University of California, Santa Barbara. One student died. The Obama administration responded by importing a meningitis B vaccine that had been approved in Europe but not in the United States. Meningitis often strikes young people and can progress from a bad headache to death so quickly that hospital care comes too late, even in the United States. Mysteriously, Neisseria bacteria spread easily in saliva and harmlessly colonize the throats of about a fifth of the world's population. The bacteria kill only if they reach the bloodstream or the meninges, membranes protecting the brain and spine. In the West, "freshman meningitis" or "boot camp meningitis" affects people gathered in dorms or barracks who adopt new habits like sharing beer bottles, toothbrushes, cigarettes or joints or kissing. In Africa, meningitis surges when cold winds force families indoors and dry out throats, opening tiny cracks through which bacteria enter the blood. The world used to rely on polysaccharide vaccines, which are cheap, but their protection does not last long, and they do not kill silent throat infections. About 20 years ago, conjugate vaccines were introduced. By coupling the polysaccharides sugarlike molecules from the bacterial membranes to proteins, they provoke long lasting immune responses and can also clear silent infections. Six strains of the meningitis bacteria A, B, C, W, X and Y cause disease. GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi make conjugate vaccines against A, C, W and Y, and have made some of them available to the W.H.O. at lower prices. But the manufacturers cannot produce enough for a major outbreak. The Serum Institute of India is working on a vaccine against five strains all but B but it will not be finished until about 2020, Dr. LaForce said, assuming it passes all clinical trials. Vaccines against Type B bacteria must be made differently because the polysaccharides on the membrane of that strain resemble some on the surface of human nerve cells, so there is a risk that making antibodies to them could cause a dangerous autoimmune reaction.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
The Vend at New York's Rockefeller Center contains six elaborately stocked vending machines, one of which contains a diamond engagement ring. (Or maybe you want the Ruth Bader Ginsburg bobblehead instead?) When they're ready to propose, most people typically head to a jewelry store where they can take the time to peruse the various stones and settings. But there are much quicker (not to mention quirkier) options available: vending machines. Last year a hotel in London began offering vending machines with engagement rings. And over Labor Day weekend, the owners of New York's Rockefeller Center, Tishman Speyer, opened the Vend in the concourse, one floor below where the annual Christmas tree sits. That room contains six elaborately stocked vending machines, one of which contains a diamond engagement ring. The New York machines are stocked with shelves of pretzels, kale chips, Red Bull drinks and Kombucha tea. With the swipe of a credit card, you can also buy sunscreen, toothbrushes and stain rescue kits. (Among the highest selling items: a pinata filled with undisclosed surprises and a Ruth Bader Ginsburg bobblehead doll.) EB Kelly, the managing director of Tishman Speyer, says the ring is there for couples who might get swept off their feet by the romance of the place. "You can easily imagine the person who comes in and is having this amazing moment," she said. It's not such a far fetched notion. Couples do get engaged at Rockefeller Center, perhaps by the tree or in the Rainbow Room. Ms. Kelly jokingly added that you could almost pull off an entire wedding with items from the vending machines. Grooms can wear the Duncan Quinn cuff links ( 525) and a necktie ( 285). Brides can carry a dried bouquet that stays fragrant for three years ( 25). Photos can be taken with a Polaroid camera ( 100). The machine even sells Polaroid film in color or black and white ( 17 each). No one has bought the ring in Rockefeller Center so far. But an Autograph Collection hotel in London called the Bankside has had buyers of rings in its vending machines. The artsy hotel on the South Bank, which opened last October, has sold nine engagement rings from machines located on every guest floor. (They're more popular than the sparkly underpants also sold in the machines; eight of them have been bought.) One reason for its popularity might be the cost. The price for each engagement ring is 125 British pounds, or around 154. The gold plated band of the ring is adjustable; its stone is a labradorite. "It's a beautiful iridescent stone with some hints of blue, green, and gold," said Marie Paule Tano, the founder of Rokus, the London jeweler that supplies the rings for Bankside. "For those who believe in the healing energy of gemstones, labradorites are known to protect against the negativity and misfortunes of the world." Douglas McHugh, the hotel's general manager, sees the vending machines as another amenity. "It's a fun and experiential way to give guests exceptional quality and wide choice of refreshments and amenities," he said. In the same way a guest might need toothpaste at the last minute, he also felt they might need an engagement ring if they got wrapped up in their vacation and felt it was the right time to pop the question. The machines don't track the identity of the purchasers, so there is no way to tell if the rings were being used for serious proposals or as a prank. There was at least one spontaneous proposal in the hotel's restaurant, though, where the ring was used. "They said yes, so we hope that wasn't a joke," Mr. McHugh said. Ms. Kelly says the Rockefeller Center ring could be the real deal or a symbolic gesture. "People might say, 'I'll buy this engagement ring, and maybe it's not the engagement ring forever, but it's the engagement ring for right now,'" she said. Either way, the purchase certainly makes for a good story on social media. Or as Ms. Kelly put it, "What a way to start off your lives together." Continue following our fashion and lifestyle coverage on Facebook (Styles and Modern Love), Twitter (Styles, Fashion and Weddings) and Instagram.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
The problem with plays based on the biographies of artists is that, with rare exceptions, the creation of art cannot be credibly dramatized. Instead, you get anecdotes. Since 2001, Ensemble for the Romantic Century has been exploring workarounds for the problem in a series that began as a way of innovating the presentation of chamber music. Over the years, as its offerings have evolved from theatrical concerts to plays with music, its subjects have branched out as well: from composers ("The Other Chopin") to poets ("Because I Could Not Stop: An Encounter With Emily Dickinson") to painters ("Van Gogh's Ear") to political figures ("The Dreyfus Affair") all of them romantic, if not exactly Romantic. Now, in "Maestro," which opened on Monday at the Duke on 42nd Street, the company takes on a more difficult subject in Arturo Toscanini. The great Italian conductor is neither a Chopin, whose life can be illustrated, however contrivedly, by his own compositions, nor a Dickinson, whose cultural outlook can be suggested by the works of a contemporary (in her case, Amy Beach). Toscanini, an interpretive artist, is neither one nor the other and so "Maestro" lands with a thud in the gap. Not that Toscanini, as a person, wasn't dramatic, especially in the slice of his life that the author, Eve Wolf, focuses on. From his long career, which encompassed the premiere of Verdi's "Otello" in 1887 (he played cello in the pit) and the Golden Age of television (he conducted Gershwin on NBC), she has selected two decades and one theme. The decades the 1930s and 1940s roughly coincide with the inception, climax and denouement of his love affair with Ada Mainardi, a pianist 30 years his junior. (Both Mainardi and Toscanini were married to others.) The theme is Toscanini's anti Fascism, as demonstrated in his courageous resistance to Mussolini and Hitler, and his support of Jewish musicians. When Mainardi, seeking to stay on good terms with the "Teutonic delinquents" back in Europe, ghosts Toscanini, who has moved to New York, political and personal betrayal intertwine. But even that dry description is more exciting than what Ms. Wolf and her director, Donald T. Sanders, put onstage. The text is a clip job, consisting almost entirely of excerpts from Toscanini's letters and other documentary bric a brac. As all of it comes from his point of view, we have no way to evaluate its validity and the play has no way to spark any drama. (We never hear back from Mainardi, let alone Mrs. Toscanini.) Nor, as the maestro, can John Noble (Walter Bishop on "Fringe") scrape up much fire from the character's two modes: pathos and dudgeon. Perhaps the musical interludes, which total about an hour of the show's bloated running time, were meant to compensate. A few are historical recordings of rehearsals or performances of "Aida" conducted by Toscanini, often including his grunts and tantrums. What's new onstage and off: Sign up for our Theater Update newsletter But most of the interludes are performed live by musicians seated off to the side of the stage or sometimes, for unclear reasons, on the minimal set itself. (Vanessa James's design consists mostly of chairs and period Victrolas.) In any case, the repertory is awkwardly programmed. The more successful material is "atmospheric": chamber works by contemporary Italian composers Toscanini championed Martucci, Finzi, Respighi, Castelnuovo Tedesco even if he never conducted the particular pieces selected. As played here by a string quartet and the pianist Zhenni Li, they're lovely yet basically decorative. The interludes based on symphonic works Toscanini did conduct are mortifying to the extent they are hijacked to serve as program music. The "Liebestod" from "Tristan und Isolde," performed by Ms. Li in Liszt's transcription, is made to illustrate the brief sexual reunification of Toscanini and Mainardi, complete with projected images of gushing fountains. Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" represents Toscanini's infatuation with New York, even if it is performed here in a bizarre arrangement for trumpet and piano. Either way, the interludes add nothing to the story; indeed, they actively subtract from it by suggesting an overly literal link, in the manner of tortured genius movies like "Lust for Life," between art and biography. This is a surprisingly middlebrow concept for a supposedly highbrow jukebox presentation, and the visuals don't help. The intrusive projections by David Bengali not just those fountains but also animated architecture and dancing bolts of fabric seem desperate to give the eye something to look at, as if this were an outtake from "Fantasia." More fundamentally, "Maestro" suffers from the problem of theatrical Great Man itis: the assumption that someone famous need only show up in faint caricature to be inherently stage worthy. I have to assume from the warm reception greeting previous outings of Ensemble for the Romantic Century that the problem in this case is just a fluke, a bad fit of subject and method. Still, looking ahead at the company's calendar, I feel obliged to say: Watch out, Hans Christian Andersen.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
FROM Mozart, who begged patrons to help settle his debts, to the rapper MC Hammer, who declared bankruptcy, musicians have a long history of lacking money skills. So far, Marina Sturm, a 55 year old clarinetist, has managed to avoid Mozart's fate. "I don't like owing people," she said. And while she's far from the problems Mr. Hammer's faced, she has fallen into other money traps like indifference and a lack of confidence. "I'm naive" about money, she said. Combine that with the passage of time and this single, tenured professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas feels as if she has wasted valuable years. "In my 20s, I didn't think about it. Thirties, maybe. In your 40s you're more likely to, then 50s you go 'Whoops!' " At least she's on notice. In a recent Harris Interactive Poll, 25 percent of baby boomers said that they had no retirement savings at all and 26 percent said they had no cash savings. Ms. Sturm is in much better shape, though far from where she should be to meet her retirement goals. After talking with Kimberly D. Overman, a certified financial planner who is president of the Financial Well, an advisory firm in Tampa, Fla., Ms. Sturm discovered that she actually had close to 180,000 saved and invested, much more than the 80,000 she thought she had before looking at her statements. But to save the amount that Ms. Sturm actually needs to retire at age 67, there's additional pressure. She earns her living in two professions taking a big hit in this economy teaching and the arts. Ms. Overman, 52 and also single, took to Ms. Sturm and her needs immediately. "Most of the issues that are going on in our world are going on in her life." Ms. Overman said that when making a financial plan, assumptions on future income needed to be flexible to take account of the realities of the times. For Ms. Sturm, who even with tenure has already been placed on paid furlough and may be forced to take a 5 percent salary cut, "we're in a position right now that we have to think that that assumption doesn't really work," Ms. Overman said. And though Ms. Sturm does not have children, she is caring for an aging parent. To be able to take in her 89 year old mother and have other family nearby to help, Ms. Sturm recently bought a bright, adobe style home here, with a view of the mountains. After not being a property owner for decades, Ms. Sturm now has a mortgage and though her mother is helping with expenses the strain of a new set of costs is wearing on her budget and her mind. "If something happens with Mom, how much of it will have to be out of our pockets, I don't know." With that in mind, Ms. Overman's advice for Ms. Sturm started with getting long term care insurance for herself. "In my opinion it's essential. You can break a hip and long term care will take care of you when medical coverage does not same with stroke." Ms. Overman said all older people should consider such coverage, even married couples with children. "I have had women tell me, 'My kids will take care of me.' Only to have them call me a year and a half later saying that their kids are losing their jobs because they're taking care of me!" But long term care insurance can be expensive. Can Ms. Sturm, who makes less than 70,000 a year, manage that? And does it make sense? "It is expensive but not having it is also expensive," Ms. Overman said. She estimated that such coverage for Ms. Sturm would cost about 1,900 a year. "I bet you she's paying that much in car insurance." The youngest of three children from a musical family, Ms. Sturm has enjoyed her "nomadic" existence, but it has left her finances scattered through four separate retirement accounts. Ms. Overman's advice: consolidate. "She does need to consolidate into a single I.R.A. so she can diversify without having to keep track of 14 different statements which she doesn't read anyway." Ms. Overman, who is also president of the Financial Planning Association of Florida, works with clients by initially assessing their tolerance for risk. After answering 25 questions, Ms. Sturm's results showed that she was very conservative more so than 80 percent of investors. Ms. Overman's strategy to plump up Ms. Sturm's conservative portfolio was to get her to put the maximum contribution into her 403(b) savings plan and put even more each month into a Roth I.R.A. "If she can bump it up to the 15 percent level and rebalances her portfolio, she has about a 70 percent chance of hitting her retirement goals." This sunny prognosis is aided by Ms. Sturm's pension, larger than she had thought, but still too small to live on even when combined with Social Security. As a last and vital move, Ms. Sturm needed to reduce her expenses by about 35 percent at retirement, Ms. Overman said. "If she doesn't make these changes, her chances are zero. That's the problem." Ms. Sturm's expenses needed triage. Her cash balances were too low for Ms. Overman. After putting a down payment on the home and lending cash to her sister at 2 percent interest, Ms. Sturm needed to find places to cut. After a rather painful realization, she accepted Ms. Overman's suggestion that she create and stick to a budget. "For someone who is creative, dealing with that hunt and peck is painful," Ms. Sturm said. In the past, she never paid attention to grocery prices, but now was learning to pass up costlier items in favor of less expensive ones. And that musical logic? Ms. Overman found that it had its advantages. She may not be trained in financial strategies, but "she's very astute," Ms. Overman said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Your Money
"I kept coming back to this feeling of gratitude to realizing that, even in this world, I felt grateful," Michael J. Fox said. Two years ago, Michael J. Fox had surgery to remove a benign tumor on his spinal cord. The actor and activist, who had been living with Parkinson's disease for nearly three decades, had to learn to walk all over again. Four months later, he fell in the kitchen of his Upper East Side home and fractured his arm so badly that it had to be stabilized with 19 pins and a plate. Mired in grueling, back to back recoveries, he started to wonder if he had oversold the idea of hope in his first three memoirs, "Lucky Man," "Always Looking Up" and "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future." "I had this kind of crisis of conscience," Fox said during a video interview last month from his Manhattan office, where pictures of Tracy Pollan, his wife of 31 years, and his dog, Gus, hung behind him. "I thought, what have I been telling people? I tell people it's all going to be OK and it might suck!" His solution was to channel that honesty into a fourth memoir, "No Time Like the Future," which Flatiron is publishing on Nov. 17. For an example of his new outlook, consider his perspective on traveling by wheelchair. "It can be a frustrating and isolating experience, allowing someone else to determine the direction I'm going and the rate of speed I can travel. The pusher is in charge," Fox writes. "From the point of view of the occupant of the chair, it's a world of asses and elbows. No one can hear me. To compensate, I raise my voice and suddenly feel like Joan Crawford in 'What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?,' barking out orders." He continues: "Generally the person in control is a stranger, an airport or hotel employee. I'm sure that if we could look each other in the eye, we'd recognize our mutual humanity. But often in the wheelchair, I'm luggage. I'm not expected to say much. Just sit still." Later, he adds, "No one listens to luggage." Before the spinal surgery, Fox was working on a book about golf. "Then life happened," he said. "I started thinking about what it meant to be able to move and express myself physically, to have that taken away. And then dealing with the surrender it takes to lie down and say, 'Cut me open.' I don't know what that's like for anybody else, but I can figure out what it's like for me and write it down." The book also explores Fox's separate but equal relationships with his four adult children (he said they were on high alert for evidence of favoritism); his decision to stop acting ("not being able to speak reliably is a game breaker for an actor"); why he recently got a turtle tattooed on the inside of his right forearm ("a visual record of the power of resiliency"); and perhaps most movingly, the gradual progression of his disease. Want to keep up with the latest and greatest in books? This is a good place to start. None Learn what you should be reading this fall: Our collection of reviews on books coming out this season includes biographies, novels, memoirs and more. See what's new in October: Among this month's new titles are novels by Jonathan Franzen, a history of Black cinema and a biography by Katie Couric. Nominate a book: The New York Times Book Review has just turned 125. That got us wondering: What is the best book that was published during that time? Listen to our podcast: Featuring conversations with leading figures in the literary world, from Colson Whitehead to Leila Slimani, the Book Review Podcast helps you delve deeper into your favorite books. He writes, "Absent a chemical intervention, Parkinson's will render me frozen, immobile, stone faced, and mute entirely at the mercy of my environment. For someone for whom motion equals emotion, vibrance and relevance, it's a lesson in humility." For a certain consumer of Generation X pop culture, Michael J. Fox calls to mind "Family Ties" in prime time, "Back to the Future" in movie theaters, interviews in Tiger Beat. The energy that made him such a riveting presence onscreen comes through in his book. It even comes through in the time he is on my screen where I've watched different incarnations of him all my life, only this time he's talking just to me to the point I'm worried about getting in trouble with his mama bear publicist if I take up more than the agreed upon amount of time. The only pause in momentum comes when he talks about Pollan. "The book is a love letter to Tracy. She really got me through" he swallows, shakes his head, holds up a hand "everything." The guiding principle for "No Time Like the Future" was inspired by Fox's brother in law, Michael Pollan, a fellow writer known for his books "The Botany of Desire" and "How to Change Your Mind." "He always says to me, 'Velocity and truth. Velocity and truth. Keep it honest and keep it fast,'" Fox said. "I don't want to be the guy who's sitting on the pillow telling people, 'Be the ball.' I'm not going to tell anyone about anything other than my experience. I'm 59 years old, and I got no time for small talk." A draft of the book was underway when Fox and his family relocated to their house in Quogue, N.Y., to ride out the early months of the pandemic. From there, he continued to work six days a week via FaceTime with his longtime producing partner, Nelle Fortenberry, who was in Sag Harbor. Eventually the team rented an office, where their process was the same as it had been for previous books: Fortenberry plastered a wall with index cards listing themes Fox wanted to cover. Under each one was another row of color coded cards containing stories pertaining to each subject. "The way I work is, I write notes no one can read and then I dictate them to Nelle," Fox said. Fortenberry elaborated in a phone interview: "Michael's handwriting has never been good," she said. "So he talks and I type. I am not his ghostwriter or a co writer. He is the writer of this book." The two have collaborated together for 25 years on books, films and projects for the Michael J. Fox Foundation, a Parkinson's research and advocacy organization. She first met Fox to talk about a job with his production company, a position she wasn't even sure she wanted. "Within five minutes, I could sense the deep friendship that would follow," she said. "I don't think I'd ever felt that way before, that sort of certainty you get when you meet your husband, or when you look at 50 houses and you finally walk into the one and you're like, 'Look no further. This is my house.' I felt that way with Michael from the very beginning." Fortenberry said the foundation gets letters from Parkinson's patients wanting to know what miracle drug Fox is taking. "There's no miracle drug. That's just who Michael is," she said. "But this book gives a different side of him, and it's not manufactured. It's 100 percent real. And heart wrenching." Fox writes, "Have I been an honest broker with the Parkinson's community? The understanding I've reached with Parkinson's is sincere, but the expression of it risks being glib." He used to be a believer in making lemonade out of lemons, but now, he writes, "Screw it I'm out of the lemonade business." Bob Miller, the president and publisher of Flatiron, who has also known Fox for 20 years, said "No Time Like the Future" is "more wistful, thoughtful and quiet. It's a thinking person's book about how you continue to find meaning through hard things." He initially thought Fox's message would be useful counterprogramming to the political environment, but that was before the pandemic. Now, he said, "We're surrounded by illness and the possibility of illness on a daily basis, so we can all join Michael in a way. We want his answers." People often ask Fox if he's going to move back to Canada, or if he can help them make a move to Canada, where he was born and lived until he was 18. "I built a life here and became a citizen so I could vote," he said. "And now I want to be here to help fix what's going on. There's a cleansing happening. Things are going to get better." These sound like the words of an optimist, don't they? Fox laughed. "Optimism is informed hope," he said. "You've been given something, you've accepted it and understood it, and then you have to pass it on." He does this through his foundation, which is now 20 years old and has funded more than 1 billion in Parkinson's research. "I'd hoped we'd be out of business by now," he said. "I thought we'd find a cure oil and dog hair will fix it, or something like that." Still, Fox writes in his book, "In the quest to cure Parkinson's, we're absolutely certain we're the tip of the spear." In his epilogue, he looks back on the first wave of the pandemic. He describes the sound of neighbors banging pots, blowing whistles and ringing cowbells in honor of health care workers, "a band of thousands, sending a message of thanks out to the universe." He recalls his father in law, Stephen Pollan, who died in 2018, and was known for his trademark assurance, "Just wait, kiddo. It gets better." Or, as Fox puts it, "With gratitude, optimism becomes sustainable." Follow New York Times Books on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, sign up for our newsletter or our literary calendar. And listen to us on the Book Review podcast.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Jonathan Groff has never been in a production of "Little Shop of Horrors." Unless, that is, you count the hours in the kitchen of his childhood home, belting out "Skid Row." Now the two time Tony nominee, a star of the television shows "Mindhunter" and "Looking," is going to lead a revival of the musical in a 270 seat Off Broadway theater in Hell's Kitchen. "It's a scary, funny, genius show, and I'm excited to celebrate it," Mr. Groff said in an interview. "And to do it in that small space it seems like an illegal amount of fun." The production, which is scheduled to begin previews Sept. 17 and to open Oct. 17 at the Westside Theater, will reunite Mr. Groff with the director Michael Mayer; they previously collaborated on "Spring Awakening," the show that brought the actor his first Tony nomination. Mr. Groff returned to Broadway as King George in "Hamilton," and that role brought him his second nomination. His other familiar credits: He voices Kristoff in the "Frozen" films, and he had a recurring role on "Glee."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
CHERISH THE DAY 10 p.m. on OWN. After creating the OWN family drama "Queen Sugar," Ava DuVernay was invited to bring another show to the network. The result is this new anthology series. The season follows the relationship of a single couple, each episode focusing on a momentous, single day they share together. The premiere stars Xosha Roquemore ("The Mindy Project") and Alano Miller ("Underground") as a couple in Los Angeles who, over the course of several years, forge a deep connection and face hurdles that challenge their relationship. ALI CAVETT: THE TALE OF THE TAPES (2020) 9 p.m. on HBO; stream on HBO platforms. Some might say Muhammad Ali was made for prime time television. In the 1960s and '70s, the boxer made more than a dozen appearances on "The Dick Cavett Show." He was charismatic, witty and, at times, provocative. But as a guest on the show, he also brought light to social injustices against black people at a time when the United States was convulsed by racial tension. This new documentary offers a window into Ali's mind through clips of those appearances in which he thoughtfully shared his political, social and religious views and provides context using interviews with authors, civil rights activists, sports commentators and Cavett himself.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
Five months after the surprise arrival of "Folklore," an album entirely written and recorded in quarantine, Taylor Swift is doing it again: "Evermore," the singer and songwriter's ninth studio album, will arrive on Friday. "To put it plainly, we just couldn't stop writing songs," Swift wrote in a post on Instagram Thursday morning. "I've never done this before," she added, saying that she'd treated each previous album as a discrete aesthetic cycle and turned her attention to the next one. "Folklore" marked a musical shift for the musician, a move away from the elaborately produced pop of the three albums she's released since 2014 ("1989," Reputation" and "Lover") toward quieter, more atmospheric rock. "I loved the escapism I found in these imaginary/not imaginary tales," she wrote. "I loved the ways you welcomed the dreamscapes and tragedies and epic tales of love lost and found into your lives. So I just kept writing them." "Evermore" features the same core creative team as "Folklore": Aaron Dessner of the indie rock band the National and the producer Jack Antonoff (one of her longtime collaborators), along with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver and William Bowery (a.k.a. her boyfriend, the actor Joe Alwyn, who has writing credits on the "Folklore" songs "Exile" and "Betty"). New guests include Haim and the National.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
But he claimed at the time to have no ambitions to lead the orchestra, and the board went with an outsider: Mr. Woods, who had developed a reputation for innovation during his run as president of the Seattle Symphony. The staff he inherited included at least two people who had been discussed as contenders for his job. When he departed, he said in a statement that "after a great deal of reflection, I have concluded that my hopes and aspirations lie elsewhere." In a sign of how awkward the upheaval has been, and how quickly the change of leadership was put into place, Mr. Smith declined to be interviewed, which is rare for the incoming chief executive of a major orchestra. Sophie Jefferies, the orchestra's director of public relations, said in an email that Mr. Smith was "not giving interviews at this juncture" and that he "would like time to set his vision for the organization and will talk later." It was not immediately clear what the appointment would mean for the Ojai Music Festival, about 90 minutes north of Los Angeles, where Mr. Smith recently began his tenure as artistic director. (His first edition of the festival is planned for June 2020.) Asked if running Ojai so near the Los Angeles Philharmonic and its summer home, the Hollywood Bowl, was seen as a conflict or complication, officials at the orchestra and the festival said that there would be no change at the festival. After Mr. Woods stepped down, several prominent critics expressed support for Mr. Smith. In The Los Angeles Times Mark Swed described him as the "obvious" candidate. And several composers, including John Adams, praised his appointment on social media. "Sometimes," Mr. Adams wrote in a post on Twitter, "things actually go right in the world, and today that happened in L.A. with Chad Smith being named to run the Philharmonic."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Now that the hotel industry has largely embraced bans on plastic straws, one major hotel group aims to eliminate the next set of plastic targets: mini bottles of shampoo, conditioner, lotion and the like. On Tuesday, July 30, IHG will announce it plans to replace all "bathroom miniatures" with bulk supplies across all of its 17 brands, including Holiday Inn Hotels and Resorts and InterContinental Hotels Resorts. The decision will affect 843,000 guest rooms in more than 5,600 hotels during 2021. "Today's customers and colleagues expect us to have less impact on the environment," said Keith Barr, the chief executive of IHG. He called the company's plastic straw ban, which was announced in October 2018, to be a first step in a wider sustainability program . "This, to me, was the next logical step." While IHG is the first company to issue the brand wide ban, many hotels already use refillable dispensers of personal care products, often associated with affordable hotels, rather than single use items. "Budget hotels have always been more likely to have bulk shampoo and conditioner dispensers in the shower, and some also have them by the sink. The reason is cost," said Henry H. Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst and the president of Atmosphere Research Group. "It costs them less to install and service these bulk dispensers than providing individual cakes of soap and bottles of shampoo, conditioner and the like." Mr. Barr acknowledged the savings in costs to hotel operations, but framed it as a win win that, "makes environmental and commercial sense," he said. The hurdle may be convincing an InterContinental guest to accept a bulk dispenser in the bath as better than the mini bottle of high end shampoo. Some luxury travel companies have been moving in that direction. The luxury cruise line Lindblad Expeditions uses refillable dispensers for soap, shampoo and other liquid products on all of its ships, including the upcoming National Geographic Endurance, launching in April 2020. The Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi, which opened July 1, offers Salvatore Ferragamo bathroom amenities in refillable marble containers. In Namibia, andBeyond Sossusvlei Desert Lodge, opening in October, plans to put bath products in bulk glass bottles. Several IHG brands already offer bulk bathroom amenities, including the high end Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas, which IHG acquired earlier this year, where bathrooms are fitted with refillable ceramic dispensers. It also furnishes bathroom products in bulk at its wellness centered Even, mid scale Avid and new upscale Voco hotels. The mini bottle ban is the latest salvo in an escalating battle against plastic waste. Municipalities and companies are making moves like San Francisco's initiative to ban the sale of plastic water bottles on city property and IKEA's commitment to ditch single use plastic plates, cups and cutlery in its houseware lines and in store cafes. In the travel industry, major hotel groups, including Marriott International and Hilton, have pledged to rid their properties of plastic straws. Airlines including American, Delta and United have done the same in their airplanes. Following IHG's move to ban personal products in mini plastic bottles, others may be forced to follow. The California Legislature is currently considering Assembly Bill 1162, which would prohibit hotels, beginning in 2023, from providing miniature plastic bottles of personal care products. According to the World Bank, some 242 million tons of plastic waste was produced in 2016 and this waste is projected to grow to 3.4 billion tons in 2050. The World Economic Forum found at least 8 million tons of plastics end up in the ocean annually, and that only 14 percent of plastic packaging material globally is collected for recycling. To Mr. Barr, the green swap is worth any disappointment on the part of travelers who may miss taking home their freebie bottles of Agraria shampoo from an InterContinental resort or Beekman 1802 lotion from a Crowne Plaza hotel. "I'm sure I will get some emails from some customers, but I'm betting I'll get more thank you's for taking a step forward and having a positive effect on the environment," he said. 52 PLACES AND MUCH, MUCH MORE Follow our 52 Places traveler, Sebastian Modak, on Instagram as he travels the world, and discover more Travel coverage by following us on Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our Travel Dispatch newsletter: Each week you'll receive tips on traveling smarter, stories on hot destinations and access to photos from all over the world.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
This summer, however, the prickliest pair in fiction can be found most nights in their own D.I.Y. Pemberley, a tent in Garrison, N.Y., overlooking the Hudson River and reminding audiences that the finest china in their beloved Jane Austen is as likely to be a chamber pot as a teacup. Lizzy is Kate Hamill. Her stage adaptation of Jane Austen's "Pride Prejudice" had its premiere last Saturday at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival there, where it will play in repertory until September before shifting to Primary Stages Off Broadway in November. And yes, Ms. Hamill acts opposite her nonfictional boyfriend, Jason O'Connell. It's a first for the couple, although he played the future brother in law, Edward, to her Marianne Dashwood in Ms. Hamill's previous Austen adaptation, "Sense Sensibility," a rollicking muslins on wheels affair (by the appropriately named theater company Bedlam) that had an acclaimed run Off Broadway last year. Ms. Hamill, 33, says she plans to adapt all six Austen novels for the stage probably in the order of their writing, the better to chart her own progress against Austen's. "Northanger Abbey" may be next. ("There's something I love about teenage vernacular," she said in an interview last week.) Starting with "Sense Sensibility" was perhaps wise: She could gauge the appetite for yet another Austen adaptation before adapting the most adapted and cherished of them all, "Pride Prejudice." "It's the one everyone knows," she said. "People have a serious attachment to it." "Sense" was such a hit that even a committed Janeite's attachment might well withstand an irreverent "Pride." And it is irreverent. Think men cast as Mary, the plain and prudish Bennet sister, and as the snobbish Miss Bingley. A lot of "intentional water spillage." Mr. Bingley as near to being a puppy as a man can be without being on all fours. "People might feel I have desecrated their idols, but, you know, at least I've tried to do something interesting," she said, noting that she had not put zombies in it, and that "I haven't set it on Mars." She has discovered, however, that "Janeites" and she counts herself as one "are pretty open minded people; they're exceptionally generous. Because sometimes I'm taking liberties." Ms. Hamill doesn't see the purpose in adapting a classic unless there is a clear point of view. She found hers for "Pride Prejudice" in the exaggerated notion of courtship and marriage as a game with winners, losers, referees and exceptionally bad coaches. She applied her own "historical ambivalence about marriage" just as she was arriving at the age when her friends were pairing off around her. She concluded that matches happen between people "whose weirdnesses fit together." She looked to the Shakespeare canon for a model. "It's a romantic comedy, and I was thinking, what romantic comedies do I not hate?" The answer was "Much Ado About Nothing." "I thought the big challenge going into it was, everyone knows who gets together," she said. "I wanted to make a certain story uncertain. How do you make a 'Much Ado' where you're really not sure if Benedick and Beatrice get together?" She was not afraid to go broad and go silly. There are games galore in her production. (In researching games of the period, she said, she discovered one in which participants simply slap one another in the face. It's not in her production.) Bells ring throughout her play: wedding bells; alarm bells; the kind of bells that signal rounds in a prizefight; a chime that sounds, if only in your head, when you connect with your imperfect perfect match. ("It kind of annoys me when both Lizzy and Darcy are supermodels," she said.) The clanging insistence of bells became a critical device to her retelling of this classic story about the game of games: the marriage game. Ms. Hamill grew up in a farmhouse in rural Lansing, N.Y., the fifth of six siblings. She knows how to milk a cow and collect eggs from hens, but she spent much of her time reading ("My parents didn't believe in TV"), and she joined the theater program in her very small high school. That's where she gained some sage advice. She was studying to be an actress, but the drama teacher told the girls that if they wanted work, they had to create it. When she moved to New York, one of her jobs involved writing copy for catalogs. Hundreds of descriptions of jewelry. "You start to just amuse yourself: What else can I say about this pendant?" Early on, she said, "in my mind a serious writer was someone different from me," and she remained committed to acting. But she wearied of auditions for "silent suffering girlfriend" and "girl in bikini." That's when she recalled her old instructor's counsel. Three quarters of all plays are written by men, and an overwhelming majority of parts are for men, she said, reeling off statistics she seemed to have learned the hard way. She began to think about creating "new classics." In addition to the two Austen novels, she has adapted Thackeray's "Vanity Fair," and is at work on Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" and why not? "The Odyssey," for which she wrote a scene, she said, featuring a Cyclops singing to his sheep. In the meantime, she is vastly amused to be doing a show with Mr. O'Connell in which they get to "bicker and hate each other for hours" and nightly he must recite a proposal that was written by her.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
CROMWELL, Conn. When Sergio Garcia sank his final putt Thursday on an 18th green enveloped by a natural amphitheater customarily filled with thousands of fans, the golf ball's rattle around inside the hole could be heard from 30 yards away. A minute later, as Garcia ascended a hill, the only sound was his pencil scratching a last number on a scorecard. The PGA Tour's officials have said they are proud to be at the vanguard of major American sports returning to competition after the coronavirus shut down athletic events nationwide. But on Thursday at the Travelers Championship the third fan free event in the tour's comeback the noiselessness was an eerie contrast to a growing chatter about how much longer professional golf's traveling circus would keep hopscotching around the country. Golf's grand experiment to prove that an outdoor, noncontact sport operating on a nomad's schedule could return safely during a pandemic was showing signs of the stress that comes with attempting the unprecedented. Denny McCarthy tested positive on Friday after waking up feeling "achy" and withdrew from the Travelers event. A playing partner from the first round, Bud Cauley, tested negative but withdrew from the tournament for precautionary reasons. The third golfer in that group, Matt Wallace, also tested negative and will continue to play. On Wednesday, four golfers withdrew from the tournament because of Covid 19 concerns, including Brooks Koepka and Webb Simpson, the fourth and fifth ranked players in the world. Koepka departed after his caddie, Ricky Elliott, tested positive for the virus as part of the PGA Tour's multilayered testing system. Koepka's brother, Chase, who had also qualified for the tournament, also withdrew after having played a Tuesday practice round with Brooks and Elliott. Earlier in the day, the former United States Open champion Graeme McDowell announced he would not compete because his caddie, Ken Comboy, tested positive for the coronavirus this week. Simpson, who won last week's PGA Tour event in South Carolina, withdrew and chose to isolate himself because a family member had recently tested positive for the virus. Two other golfers, Nick Watney and Cameron Champ, had already withdrawn from the tournament after positive test results in the previous 10 days. The departures sent a jolt through the golf community and had Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, warning players of "serious repercussions" if they did not follow new, stricter safety protocols. Shane Lowry, the reigning British Open champion, said when asked if the withdrawals had jarred his colleagues: "The first couple of weeks have been kind of a kick in the backside to all of us." Scores of golfers Thursday went out of their way to praise the safety measures imposed by the tour, including the world's top ranked golfer, Rory McIlroy. "There's been almost 3,000 tests administered and the percentage of positive tests is under a quarter of a percent," McIlroy said. "I think as a whole, it's been going really well." But McIlroy tellingly conceded there were "loose ends" that needed to be tied up, which may be at the crux of the matter. Many top players have been calling for their brethren to be far more diligent in adhering to social distancing recommendations on the golf course, because the execution of those guidelines has been spotty at best. Players routinely bump fists, talk face to face with their caddies and stand shoulder to shoulder on tees and greens. Moreover, as other sports contemplate resuming competitive play within a so called bubble for the players, golf has patently experienced how difficult it can be to maintain a safe zone once the athletes leave the playing arena. Many golfers have adhered to tour guidelines, which require going to considerable lengths to avoid contact with others. The tour chartered a plane to ferry golfers to tournaments, disallowed family members at courses, and advised golfers to sequester themselves in private, rented homes or tour approved hotels. Some golfers and caddies, however, have been seen eating together at restaurants. And in other cases, with a field as deep as 148 players, the tour has no way to restrict what players are doing with their evenings. Since Wednesday's positive test results, leading players are trying to send the message that dicey individual choices run the risk of putting the entire tour back on hiatus. "If we start doing whatever we want, all of us, then it probably will be totally out of control and then it could get dangerous," said Garcia, who said this week's positive test results were "a wake up call." "It's not back to normal," he added. "It's not what it used to be, and we have to realize that. We have to be trying to be as careful as possible." The tour has taken new steps in hopes of keeping the circuit moving along on a weekly schedule that currently stretches throughout the year. Earlier this week, the tour distributed to every player a Whoop band, a device worn on the wrist or upper arm to monitor various medical data. A Whoop band worn by Watney had alerted him to an elevated respiratory rate and led to a second test for the coronavirus last week just days after Watney had tested negative for the virus.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Beneath Yellowstone National Park lies a supervolcano, a behemoth far more powerful than your average volcano. It has the ability to expel more than 1,000 cubic kilometers of rock and ash at once 2,500 times more material than erupted from Mount St. Helens in 1980, which killed 57 people. That could blanket most of the United States in a thick layer of ash and even plunge the Earth into a volcanic winter. Yellowstone's last supereruption occurred 631,000 years ago. And it's not the planet's only buried supervolcano. Scientists suspect that a supereruption scars the planet every 100,000 years, causing many to ask when we can next expect such an explosive planet changing event. To answer that question, scientists are seeking lessons from Yellowstone's past. And the results have been surprising. They show that the forces that drive these rare and violent events can move much more rapidly than volcanologists previously anticipated. The early evidence, presented at a recent volcanology conference, shows that Yellowstone's most recent supereruption was sparked when new magma moved into the system only decades before the eruption. Previous estimates assumed that the geological process that led to the event took millenniums to occur.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
"I can't imagine what those years were like," says a young gay man named Eric, contemplating the worst of the AIDS crisis. "I can understand what it was. But I cannot possibly feel what it was." In an extreme exercise of empathy, his 50 something friend Walter asks Eric to name his closest companions and one by one deals out their hypothetical fates: dead, infected, ostracized. But mostly dead. "That," Walter says in the first act of Matthew Lopez's "The Inheritance," "is what it was." "The Inheritance," which opens on Broadway next month, is about a lot of things. (With a running time of nearly seven hours over two parts, it's bound to be.) As an update of the E.M. Forster novel "Howards End," it is a story about haves and have nots and the soul of a society in the age of Trump. As a gay update of "Howards End," it becomes about what is handed down, both literally and symbolically, from one generation of the community to the next. And, Lopez said, a play about generations of gay men "couldn't not be about AIDS." Yet the youngest men in the cast have known only a life of declining H.I.V. infection rates. The crisis of the 1980s and '90s, and the public's blind eye to countless deaths, may have colored their childhoods with fear, but it is all still imagined from a distance. They are all, in a way, just like Eric. "The Inheritance," though, offers its characters and inevitably its cast, especially the gay men in the company a communion with the victims and survivors of the AIDS generation. And, like Eric, they have found themselves newly immersed in the past, thinking about how the epidemic has echoed into the present and questioning their relationship with, and responsibility to, their gay elders. Elders like Edmund White the 79 year old author and brazen pioneer of gay literature who was invited to sit in on a rehearsal last month. Preparations were underway for the play's first preview in New York, after a widely lauded premiere in London that fetched four Olivier Awards (the British equivalent of the Tonys). Holding court over catered sandwiches and bagged chips during a break, White spoke with the cast most of whom are new to the production about New York City's gay culture in the days of liberation and the emergence of AIDS. He told bawdy stories about cruising in the standing room section of the Metropolitan Opera, and writing "The Joy of Gay Sex" with his former therapist. He was also more solemn, recalling how in the early days of the Gay Men's Health Crisis, which he helped found, he and dozens of others frightened by the emerging AIDS epidemic gathered in Larry Kramer's apartment, where a doctor told them they should all stop having sex. "We were like, what?" White said. "For us, gay liberation was sexual liberation." While he spoke, the actors in the room listened attentively, reacting with laughs but almost never interrupting. Jordan Barbour, a gay member of the cast, said later, "I'm normally a very vocal person, but that day I was silent." They did ask, though, about what it was like when homosexuality was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders which White said suddenly made gay men a minority group, no longer sufferers of a psychological illness. "It's a minority where you don't grow up with your parents belonging to the same minority," White explained. "And with AIDS, there was such a rupture. There wasn't much of a culture passing from one generation to another." This disconnect, of a gay lineage severed, is in many ways at the heart of "The Inheritance." Kyle Soller he isn't gay but grew up friendly with older gay men in local theater and says he now feels he has been brought "deeper within the community that has always been kind to me" plays Eric, who wonders "what his life would be like if he had not been robbed of a generation of mentors, of poets, of friends and, perhaps, even lovers." There is a personal dimension to the yearning for Lopez himself: 42 years old, he bore witness to the AIDS crisis while not truly being part of it. Unlike Kramer's "The Normal Heart" and Tony Kushner's "Angels in America," his play was not written from the front lines of the epidemic. (Nevertheless, it will probably be compared to "Angels" because of its length and subject matter.) It's personal, too, for several members of the cast. Some of them lived through the history "The Inheritance" imagines. The director, Stephen Daldry, is 59; John Benjamin Hickey, 56, who plays Henry Wilcox (the least subtle tip of the hat to "Howards End"), moved to Manhattan in the early 1980s; and Lois Smith, the only woman in the cast and by far its oldest member at 88, lost dear friends to AIDS. One stairwell in the Barrymore Theater, where "The Inheritance" is now in previews, is decorated with portraits of men lost to AIDS. Carson McCalley, a 23 year old gay member of the company, said that many of them were actors, adding, "What they would give to have the opportunity to be onstage here and now I have that opportunity." "We have sort of a responsibility to do what they could not, to live with joy and passion, and continue the legacy of queer people," McCalley said. "They opened doors for us to run. Some in the generation below me are the most outspoken political activists I know. But a lot of that has come from, for good or bad, not having to deal with what the past generation has had to deal with." Arturo Luis Soria, 32, inspired by the play, has also found himself thinking "a lot" about what he owes his predecessors. He quoted a line "The only way to heal heartache is to risk more" and said it had made him wonder: "In which ways am I still holding myself back from loving the way I want to love and being the person I want to be because of this fear from growing up queer?" "Am I being of service to those who passed, who didn't have the opportunity to be their fullest selves, if I'm not being open?" he continued. "If I'm not, then I'm doing a disservice." One way of being more open, Soria has found, is by speaking up at rehearsals where conversations among generations have been integral to the process. "I'll bring my Latinoness to it," he said; Lopez has rewritten his character, who was played by someone of a different ethnicity in London, to reflect his Latin American identity. "He wrote a line that said, 'Hello maricon, you're gay!" Soria said, adding that he cried out of happiness seeing Spanish slang and thus himself throughout the script. Talks with Barbour prompted a new scene about Truvada, a drug that reduces the risk of H.I.V. infection. And a roll call of bygone gay bars now includes additions from his own life. "With something like this that is so much about identity, it's incumbent upon the people represented to speak up," Barbour said. "There are so many meta things happening in this play, and this is one of them. It's been clear that there are queer people in the cast who have something to say." It's difficult to maintain professional composure when meeting people at the stage door after each performance. Many audience members gay or not leave the theater misty eyed, and some meet the actors, eager to share their own stories. Soller recalled a conversation with one man who had lost his entire friend group to AIDS. McCalley who himself is repeatedly emotional at the line "I think your lives are beautiful" because, he recalled, "No adult had really ever said that to me" heard from another person who lost someone close, who said, "Thank you for bringing him back to me, for one night." And a woman in her 80s told him she was inspired by queer people his age, claiming that it was her generation that had a lot to learn from his. There are tears onstage, as well, at the end of the first part, in a moment that brings a flesh and blood immediacy to the memory of those lost. Watching that scene from the wings, Hickey for example thinks of a brilliant Juilliard classmate who was a year out of school when he died. Barbour thinks about the mentors he'll never have, but also the beauty of honoring them now. "This is a requiem," he said. "Giving all praise to our forebears, this is an opportunity to put some of those ghosts to rest."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
Want more basketball in your inbox? Sign up for Marc Stein's weekly N.B.A. newsletter here. In a family that has amassed five N.B.A. championships, there are naturally strong basketball opinions. Andy Thompson didn't win any of those rings, but he considers himself the only Thompson qualified to rank dynasties whenever his brother Mychal or his nephew Klay claim that their title teams were better or a bigger deal than Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls. Mychal Thompson won back to back titles alongside Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul Jabbar with the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1986 87 and 1987 88 seasons. Klay Thompson won three titles in five consecutive trips to the N.B.A. finals with the Golden State Warriors from 2014 2019. Andy Thompson? He hatched the idea to embed a camera crew for an entire season with the circus known as the Jordan Bulls. As a 10 year veteran at N.B.A. Entertainment in the 1997 98 season, after a knee injury ended his own playing career, Andy Thompson went just about everywhere with Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and Bulls Coach Phil Jackson, documenting Chicago's sixth championship in eight years. Read more on the death of Michael Jordan's father, James Jordan. "Of course Mychal thinks that his era is the greatest era, playing with Magic and Kareem and Showtime," Andy Thompson said of the 1980s Lakers. "I keep telling him, 'You can't compare.' Klay thinks that what they go through and all the media attention and fanfare is as big as the Bulls, and I keep telling him: 'No, it isn't. Both of you are wrong.'" Those Bulls, Thompson said, were "in another stratosphere." He insisted this will all become clear when Mychal and Klay "see this documentary for themselves." That documentary is "The Last Dance," ESPN's 10 part series about Jordan's final season in Chicago and the countless dramas that built up to it. It is highly anticipated well beyond the various Thompson households and premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. after ESPN, which produced the film with Netflix, heeded a clamor, headed by LeBron James, to move it up from a June release. The network will roll out two new Jason Hehir directed episodes over the next five Sundays to try to help fill the sports television void caused by the coronavirus crisis and its shutdown of leagues worldwide. For Jordan devotees eager to relive the glory of his two three peats, and for younger fans who did not have the chance to watch Peak Mike in real time, it is bound to be the sort of shared cultural experience, through sports, that is suddenly so scarce. The candor Jordan unleashes throughout the docuseries providing a window into his maniacal drive and discussing a lifetime of triumphs and controversies in greater detail than ever before is the standout force of the production. The M.J. on display combines the vicious, can't let it go nature of his Basketball Hall of Fame speech in 2009 and some of the raw emotion that poured out of Jordan during his eulogy at Kobe Bryant's memorial in February. The bonus is the behind the scenes footage of a season that Jackson, after being told it would be his final season even if the Bulls went 82 0, called "the Last Dance." For more than 20 years, some 500 hours of Super 16 millimeter film Thompson recorded as a field producer alongside his cameraman, Michael Winik, and the sound man, Mario Porporino, sat in N.B.A. Entertainment's archive. The scope of access granted to Thompson and his crew was unseen in those days, even in the media friendly N.B.A. That was especially true with Jordan, who stunningly retired for the first time in September 1993 at age 30, in his prime, in part to get away from the relentless media spotlight trained on "the No. 1 sports team in the world," as former N.B.A. commissioner David Stern described the Bulls in the first episode of the documentary. By the time Jordan returned to the Bulls in March 1995, his global celebrity was boundless. Even with fewer news media covering the league then, seemingly only NBC's Ahmad Rashad, the former Pro Bowl wide receiver and Jordan's close friend, had the license to stray beyond typical media boundaries with the Bulls. Inspired by the 1987 documentary "The Boys on the Bus," about the N.H.L.'s Edmonton Oilers, Thompson tried to change that entering the 1997 98 season, after an executive named Adam Silver took over as president of N.B.A. Entertainment. Thompson suggested to Silver, the future commissioner, that the league assign a full time crew to the Bulls before Chicago's management disassembled the team. "Just for history purposes," Thompson said. "I didn't even mention 'documentary.'" During the Bulls' preseason trip to Paris, Silver persuaded Chicago's power brokers, most notably Jordan, to let the cameras in. Jordan was assured he would always have a say in how much of what was recorded would be released to the public. He was also sold on the idea by Silver, as Thompson recalled, that he would at worst come away with "the greatest collection of home movies you can show your kids" if the project was abandoned. "I knew that it was never going to be shown until Michael decided he was ready," Rashad said. "As time went by, I think Michael just figured out in the last couple years, it's time for this stuff to come out." All these years later, Thompson is convinced that the comfort level his N.B.A. Entertainment crew gradually reached with Jordan and that Bulls team required a considerable assist from Rashad. The first time Thompson met Jordan, during the 1990 91 season, he was Rashad's field producer for a new NBC show: "N.B.A. Inside Stuff." They soon learned Jordan had been a fan of Thompson's older brother in his youth; Jordan revealed he was once scolded by his mother for spelling his name "Mychal" on a school notebook. "He goes on and tells the story about how he loved Mychal as a kid and he wanted to emulate him because he thought he was cool, the way he spelled his name, and he wore these puka shell beads around his neck," Andy Thompson said of Jordan. Cut by three N.B.A. teams before he switched careers and landed with N.B.A. Entertainment, Thompson was described by Rashad as "the perfect fly on the wall." The footage Hehir was ultimately presented, according to Rashad, led to "a wonderful inside look at the way a team works the way it works around the star." Meetings in Toronto during All Star Weekend in 2016 between Michael Tollin of Mandalay Sports Media and Jordan's longtime advisers Estee Portnoy and Curtis Polk, as well as N.B.A. Entertainment's David Denenberg and Dion Cocoros, revived discussions that had gone dormant. Among the league's previous flirtations were talks with Spike Lee, the noted filmmaker and Jordan's former Nike commercial co star. Tollin, in his bid, proposed to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Bulls' last title. Four months after the All Star Weekend, Tollin was in Charlotte, N.C., to make his first face to face pitch to Jordan as executive producer on the same day as the parade for LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers to celebrate a historic N.B.A. finals comeback against the 73 win Warriors and the city's first major championship in 52 years. "He said yes in the room, which doesn't happen too often in my business," said Tollin, who has produced or directed numerous sports projects, including movies such as "Coach Carter" and "Varsity Blues." That we have heard from Jordan so infrequently in the years that followed his polarizing Hall of Fame speech surely only adds to the anticipation. But Golden State Coach Steve Kerr, who spent 3 1/2 seasons with Jordan in Chicago, defended his legendary teammate's reclusive nature. Although Kerr's own team has been subjected to an extended spell of intense scrutiny under the microscope of the Twitter era, Kerr echoed Andy Thompson's view that no team has been suffocated quite like the Jordan Bulls. "There was a cultural phenomenon with the Bulls that was just different," Kerr said. "And there was a level of fame for Michael that was so uncomfortable. He was maybe the most famous person in the world. He couldn't get away from it. As teammates, we were just along for the ride. It was more just an entertaining show for us." Rashad is convinced that even the hard to please Jordan will enjoy the show once it starts to unspool for the world Sunday night despite the criticism His Airness is bracing for once the documentary exposes the depths of his withering treatment of several teammates. "Yeah, he'll like it," Rashad said. "I think it's one of those things where he'll say: 'Here it is. You make up your mind.' I don't think he's going to be out there on a soap box trying to explain it."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Hotels in the quintessentially romantic city are offering Valentine's Day packages and amenities to help counter the dip in tourism attributable to last November's terrorist attacks. The Left Bank boutique property Hotel Esprit Saint Germain will have a concierge who can create customized itineraries of romantic walks, gardens and other spots; couples can also book the four night Valentine's Day package, which includes a room upgrade and unlimited alcohol in the lobby lounge bar; from 1,350 euros for four nights, or 1,415 at 1.06 to the euro. The Grand Pigalle Hotel in the South Pigalle (SoPi) neighborhood has its "From SoPi With Love" package. Couples arrive to find their room decorated with rose petals and chocolates and get a three course dinner at its Wine and Dine restaurant, breakfast in bed and either a cocktail mixology course or wine tasting; from 330 euros a night. The Four Seasons Hotel George V is going the classic route with its Romance Package; included are breakfast, a bottle of Champagne, a 100 euro spa voucher and a bouquet; from 1,560 euros a night. Christian Le Squer, the executive chef of Le Cinq, the hotel's two Michelin starred restaurant, has created a nine course dinner featuring dishes like truffled asparagus and peppered venison in a grape sauce; 750 euros a person.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
"Hello, this is just a test call," a female robocall voice intones. "Time to stay home. Stay safe and stay home." The calls began back in June, according to YouMail, a service that offers robocall blocking for smartphones. But they have increased greatly as the election has approached, grabbing the attention of some election officials in recent days. YouMail found evidence that the robocalls have reached 280 of the country's 317 area codes since this summer, peaking at more than 600,000 calls in one day. Over all, the company has tracked 10 million similar calls in October. Though the calls do not mention the election explicitly, their timing and lack of information were suspicious, said Alex Quilci, YouMail's chief executive. Robocalls in favor of a political candidate typically include some "get out the vote" information or a call for donations, he said. These did not.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
The Indian government dealt a surprise blow on Wednesday to the e commerce ambitions of Amazon and Walmart, effectively barring the American companies from selling products supplied by affiliated companies on their Indian shopping sites and from offering their customers special discounts or exclusive products. If strictly interpreted, the new policies could force significant changes in the India strategies of the retail giants. Amazon might have to stop competing with independent sellers and end its offerings of proprietary products like its Echo smart speakers in India, its top emerging market. For Walmart, which spent 16 billion this year to buy 77 percent of Flipkart, India's leading online retailer, the new rules could hamper its strategy of selling clothing and other products under its own private brands and prevent it from using its supply chain expertise and clout with retailers to drive down prices for Indian consumers. Representatives for Amazon and Flipkart in India declined to comment on the new rules, saying the companies were still assessing them. The government posted the changes, which go into effect Feb. 1, without warning on Wednesday evening in New Delhi, while much of the business world in both countries was on vacation.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
Technically, the Kansas City Chiefs. But to the brands that shelled out millions to place commercials on the broadcast, the big question is, which ad took the top spot? Was it Bill Murray, playing a jovial version of his jaded TV weatherman character in a Jeep commercial that was a takeoff to the 1993 comedy "Groundhog Day"? Or was it Google, with its tear jerking tale of an old timer trying to recall his longtime love? Maybe Hyundai's Boston besotted "Smaht Pahk" commercial hit home with viewers beyond the paht of the country where the "r" sound is often dropped? And what about the Western dance off duel between Sam Elliott and Lil Nas X? More than a dozen rankings emerged after Pat Mahomes led the heartland team over the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday night. And each one claims to have identified the most successful ad that ran during the broadcast, which brought Fox an audience of 99.9 million. The rankings help extend the promotional spectacle of the Super Bowl, which includes the fanfare around the halftime entertainment and the weekslong process of teasing game time commercials. Commercials from Jeep, Google, Hyundai and Doritos were the ones that popped up the most but the lists did not agree on which of the four deserved the top spot. Using an array of differing metrics, companies tried to judge a fundamentally subjective contest finding the best ad among more than 80 big budget commercials. None Week 11 Predictions: Here are our picks against the spread. N.F.L. Tightens Covid Protocols: As cases rise and Thanksgiving approaches, the league is requiring masks inside team facilities and increasing testing. The Packers' Defense Is Their M.V.P.: Green Bay's oft overlooked defense has kept the team from falling out of the Super Bowl chase. The Long Path to the Super Bowl: With 18 weeks in the regular season and fewer teams earning byes in the playoffs, the Super Bowl is still a long way off. Playoff Simulator: Explore every team's path to the postseason, updated live. Ad Meter, which counts public votes from a website hosted by USA Today, gave the crown to the Jeep commercial with Mr. Murray. YouTube announced that the top ad, as measured by worldwide views through 10 p.m. eastern on Sunday, was the Amazon commercial featuring the ubiquitous pitchwoman Ellen DeGeneres and her wife, Portia de Rossi, pondering what life was like in the time before Amazon's Alexa voice assistant. Twitter's Brand Bowl measure concluded that Google was the fan favorite for driving "the highest overall positivity." Salesforce analyzed comments and images on social media and found that President Trump's campaign ad about criminal justice reform generated the most mentions around the world, with 75.6 percent expressing positive sentiment (the same ad was ranked last by Ad Meter voters). At the New York office of the McCann agency, a panel of more than a dozen advertising executives gathered Monday morning to make their own determination. Considering factors such as the creative bravery of the ads and the likely difficulty of production, the group deemed the winner of the sixth annual Super Clio award an offshoot of the industry's coveted Clio Awards to be a Snickers commercial that showed a giant candy bar being dropped into a gaping hole as a crowd of people sang. Other companies tried to measure the emotional effect. Ipsos, a research company, invited 40 people to a Super Bowl screening in New York and fitted their wrists and fingers with various gizmos to "passively capture galvanic skin response." By this scheme, the Doritos commercial with Lil Nas X and Mr. Elliott was the best of the broadcast. A similar measurement, by the video ad technology company Unruly, declared Google's tear jerker about loss the "most effective" commercial of the game. Among the factors the company considered was "emotional intensity." "At best," such rankings "tell only part of the story," said Alixandra Barasch, an assistant marketing professor at the New York University Stern School of Business. "Everyone wants certain answers about ad effectiveness, and almost no one has them," she said in an email. "But with so little agreement over how to measure effectiveness and impact, everyone can find some way to claim success and advance their own interests."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
Home to a major university and the Zingerman's Delicatessen empire, Ann Arbor isn't exactly a dining wasteland. But until recently, it wasn't the kind of town where you'd walk into a restaurant and find dill flowers in your cherry soup or fennel pollen in your semolina cookies. At Spencer, the tiny wine and cheese bar and restaurant that Abby Olitzky and Steve Hall opened downtown last October, you'll find just those sorts of dishes, part of a rotating menu of small plates bearing the kind of pretty, hyper local, seasonal food that's still relatively uncommon here. "We get customers who come in and say, 'This food feels San Franciscan I hope that's not weird,' " Ms. Olitzky said. Given Spencer's DNA, it's not weird at all: Ms. Olitzky, a pastry chef, met Mr. Hall, a cheesemonger, when the two were working at neighboring restaurants in San Francisco, Ms. Olitzky's hometown. "I courted her with a loaf of Zingerman's rye," said Mr. Hall, an Ann Arbor native (and Zingerman's alum). The pair came to Michigan with the idea of doing something in Detroit, but quickly became enamored of Ann Arbor. They designed Spencer as a neighborhood hangout replete with coffee, pastries to go, and whitewashed walls, trimming the restaurant only with fresh flowers and two 19th century oil portraits. Like its decor, Spencer's food is an Instagram fantasia: at a dinner in early August, that bowl of chilled cherry soup, its crimson surface streaked with creme fraiche and dotted with pale green ground cherries, was greeted by a chorus of iPhone cameras. But it's also food of substance: A salad of arugula, Tongue of Fire shelling beans, pickled red onion and fried bread crumbs boasted flavors as robust as they were balanced.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
The tiny, transparent roundworm known as Caenorhabditis elegans is roughly the size of a comma. Its entire body is made up of just about 1,000 cells. A third are brain cells, or neurons, that govern how the worm wriggles and when it searches for food or abandons a meal to mate. It is one of the simplest organisms with a nervous system. The circuitry of C. elegans has made it a common test subject among scientists wanting to understand how the nervous system works in other animals. Now, a team of researchers has completed a map of all the neurons, as well as all 7,000 or so connections between those neurons, in both sexes of the worm. "It's a major step toward understanding how neurons interact with each other to give rise to different behaviors," said Scott Emmons, a developmental biologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York who led the research. Like the Science Times page on Facebook. Sign up for the Science Times newsletter. Structure dictates function in several areas of biology, Dr. Emmons said. The shape of wings provided insight into flight, the helical form of DNA revealed how genes are coded, and the structure of proteins suggested how enzymes bind to targets in the body. It was this concept that led biologist Sydney Brenner to start cataloging the neural wiring of worms in the 1970s. He and his colleagues preserved C. elegans in agar and osmium fixative, sliced up their bodies like salami and photographed their cells with a powerful electron microscope. Then the researchers began the painstaking work of manually tracing individual neurons and synapses that join them, coloring the links as if it were an intense paint by numbers project. The resulting diagram, known as a connectome, was published in 1986 and inspired neurobiologists around the world to attempt to understand how animal behavior, learning and memory were governed. But the connectome was not complete. Because it was made by hand, it skipped over some parts of the worm's body. And it only mapped one sex the hermaphrodite worm, which can self fertilize and is considered the equivalent of a female in the C. elegans species. "We just had fragments of the worm's wiring," Dr. Emmons said. In 2012, after spending years developing software that could map neurons more accurately, Dr. Emmons and his colleagues published the connectome of a male worm's tail. The researchers kept on drawing maps of the rest of the male's nervous system, including the region in the head that is similar to the hermaphrodite's and where most of the worm's decision making takes place. The scientists also decided to reanalyze Dr. Brenner's original images, so that they could compare the male and female nervous systems. The sensitivity of the new software allowed them to identify previously overlooked neural links in the hermaphrodite and areas where nerves were communicating in the intestine, epidermis and various muscles. The scientists report their findings in a new paper, published Wednesday in Nature. "The new connectomes provide much more comprehensive information than the old data sets did," said Aakanksha Singhvi, a biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, who was not involved in the study. "They refine our ability to tell who is talking to whom in the nervous system and will inspire new ideas about how this communication translates to worm behavior." The research also provides clues to surprising sex differences in worms, Dr. Singhvi said. Scientists already knew of primary sex differences: neurons that controlled uterine muscles in the hermaphrodite or copulation in the male. But the new diagrams show that a significant number of synapses are different in pathways shared by both sexes. Interpreting exactly how these variations regulate the worm's decision making and behavior will require more work. "A connectome is just one snapshot image," Dr. Singhvi said. "It doesn't tell you what the neurons are saying to each other or when, whether they change with age or what the extent of variation between individuals is." Researchers are already working on more connectomes. A team based at Harvard University is studying C. elegans larvae to see how neurons and synapses change as the worms develop.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
On a riverfront terrace with a view of the city skyline, it could be easy to take in the loungelike setting and mistake it for something other than what it is: a convention center in Detroit. The riverfront terrace at the Cobo Center in Detroit, which is in the midst of a multiyear renovation project, opened about a year ago. There will soon be an adjoining plaza providing additional event space. "There's a higher demand for flexible space that isn't an exhibit hall or a meeting room," said Thom Connors, regional vice president and general manager of the Cobo Center. "It gives people a better sense of place when they're visiting." While a smattering of convention facilities have had outdoor space for a long time, convention center managers and architects point to reasons for more interest in such amenities. "Over the last few years, we've been hearing more and more from these people that conventioneers don't want to be locked in," said Todd Voth, a senior principal at Populous, an architecture firm in Kansas City, Mo. "I really think people that go to conventions are sick and tired of being stuck in a building all day." Outdoor space helps visitors feel as if they are experiencing the city they are visiting despite spending all day at a convention, Mr. Voth said. "Sometimes they don't have enough time to explore too far, but if you could just let them get outside, it gives them a sense of experiencing something beyond the walls of the building." Parks, plazas and terraces also help integrate sprawling, oversize convention facilities with the buildings around them while giving the neighborhood some figurative breathing room, Mr. Voth said. "Urban centers need open spaces," he said. "We're seeing more of a movement towards integrating the center and its surroundings with the community." The Cobo Center in Detroit is in the midst of a multiyear renovation project, with a plaza. One Populous project is the 325 million renovation and expansion of the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, an important facet of which is to give the center a "front lawn" through redevelopment of an adjacent park. The first phase of the 46 year old center's overhaul rerouting streets to accommodate a change in the center's orientation began last year. The project is to be completed in 2016. By 2018, planners envision turning the adjacent Hemisfair Park, site of the 1968 World's Fair, into a complete district including cafes and galleries as well as lawns, gardens and other spaces that can be booked by convention groups. "The center site and the park displaced a neighborhood, but now we're bringing a neighborhood back," said Michael Sawaya, executive director of the city's Convention and Sports Facilities Department. In addition to the park, the center itself will have outdoor spaces intended for group bookings. These are big investments, but they can pay dividends in the form of business that would otherwise go to hotels or other event sites. "There's pressure for finding new revenue sources for these buildings," said Ken Stockdell, vice president and convention center group practice leader at the architecture firm HKS. "That's attractive to the convention center on the operational side of things because food and beverage is the No. 1 income generator after space rental," he said. Tim Muldoon, general manager at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, said, "You're getting squeezed a bit with the rental income right now." In late 2012 the center added a landscaped green roof that includes native plants. A riverfront plaza opened the year before. Cocktail receptions or dinners bring additional revenue to a center, Mr. Muldoon said, and staying in one place saves convention planners the expense of busing participants to another location. Since these outdoor areas often include lighting, audiovisual and electrical hookups, convention planners also do not have to spend more money to rent and temporarily install this equipment. "We're seeing infrastructure being installed," said Charles H. Johnson, president and chief executive of Johnson Consulting, a firm in Chicago that does consulting on the convention business. "That's the trend plug in ready." Convention center officials say that once outdoor space is introduced, it tends to do well. At Anaheim, Calif., which added a 100,000 square foot plaza last year that links the convention center to the adjacent hotels, that space has been used for everything from yoga classes to food truck feasts, according to Jay Burress, president and chief executive of the Anaheim/Orange County Visitor and Convention Bureau, which markets the center. Out of 84 events that took place in the convention center last year, 65 of them made use of the outdoor plaza. Even in much chillier Detroit, Mr. Connors said the terrace had been used more than 50 times since it opened about a year ago. "People want to get outside," he said.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
For the Japanese filmmaker Isao Takahata, who died last year at the age of 82, the animated film was more than a vehicle for the whimsical and phantasmagoric, it was a platform for personal expression. While the same is certainly true for his friend and colleague Hayao Miyazaki, with whom Takahata co founded the production house Studio Ghibli, Takahata pushed harder at accepted boundaries. "Grave of the Fireflies," the 1988 film that was Takahata's first for Studio Ghibli, is a still stunning example. While suffused with near fantastic elements, "Fireflies," based on a late days of World War II story by Akiyuki Nosaka, mostly uses animation to heighten a harrowing realism. The movie begins on a blunt note that resonates more of its awful tragedy as it continues: with the death by starvation of one of its lead characters, Seita, who then is reunited with his dead younger sister, Setsuko, the two of them now wandering as spirits. The movie flashes back to events of earlier months when the duo were still alive. Separated from their mother after an American bombing raid on Kobe, the pair spend their last days fending for themselves in a wasteland where no adult help is forthcoming. As much as they struggle, they remain beautifully and sometimes humorously childlike. Although intermittently available on home video in the United States, "Fireflies" is only now getting an official theatrical release here. The movie remains one of the most startling and moving animated films ever. It is also, with the likes of "The 400 Blows," "Kes," and "Vagabond," one of the finest films about being young in an indifferent world.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
PARIS If anyone thought working out a free trade agreement between the United States and the European Union was going to be easy, France has a message: Slow down. "We will all win, provided we don't rush," the French trade minister, Nicole Bricq, told journalists on Monday after meeting with French business leaders. She said that a trade agreement, which would create a zone accounting for 40 percent of world trade, could provide a "formidable" lift to jobs and economic growth, but that the European Union should use access to its market, the world's largest, as leverage to ensure it obtained a good deal. She also suggested that a plan to have the 27 members of the bloc provide the European Commission with a mandate for negotiations by mid June could turn out to be too ambitious, saying, "This is a very tight schedule." Efforts to bolster global commerce under the auspices of the World Trade Organization have gone nowhere in recent years, so many nations are seeking bilateral agreements. Ms. Bricq was speaking Monday not long after officials in Tokyo and Brussels announced the start of negotiations for a Japan Europe free trade area. In addition to the economic benefits from reducing barriers to business, officials in Washington, Tokyo and Brussels have expressed hope that such arrangements will allow them to form a common front to set global trade rules in the face of a rising China. Ms. Bricq appeared to be seeking to lower expectations that were raised last month by European and United States officials, including President Obama, who endorsed a trade deal in his State of the Union address, and Ron Kirk, the United States trade representative, who said an agreement was possible before the end of 2014. European officials, including the trade commissioner, Karel De Gucht, have also sounded optimistic about the prospects for an agreement. Germany and Britain have signaled eagerness to reach a deal, but Ms. Bricq, a member of President Francois Hollande's Socialist Party, sounded considerably less enthusiastic. She said any agreement would have to overcome a number of problems, including a "red line" on "l'exception culturelle" France's insistence on special treatment to protect its homegrown culture. "We want to exclude from the negotiations everything that concerns culture," she said. She said other potential deal breakers included Europe's opposition to genetically modified crops and the use of hormones in meat, practices that are common in the United States. And any accord would have to pass muster with trade unions and with the European Parliament, she said. France's caution notwithstanding, the European Union and its trading partners are considering measures that would have been unthinkable just a few short years ago. The free trade talks between Europe and Japan are a case in point. The three spoke in a conference call after a meeting that had been scheduled to begin Monday in Tokyo was postponed because of the crisis in Cyprus. European leaders say a trade agreement with Japan would generate 400,000 jobs and add as much as 0.8 percent to the bloc's gross domestic product. Kevin Spacey was ordered to pay 31 million to the 'House of Cards' studio after sexual harassment allegations. Netflix buys a visual effects company in a move to support its global ambitions. Mr. Abe, who took office last December, is eager to break down barriers with Japan's main trading partners as he tries to revitalize the long stagnant Japanese economy. He said this month that Japan would join negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership, a pact led by the United States that would encompass almost 40 percent of the global economy. Mr. Abe wants Japanese exporters to regain ground lost to rivals, particularly in South Korea, which has already reached trade deals with the European Union and the United States. But he faces opposition at home from a powerful farming lobby, which has benefited from high tariffs on agricultural produce and argues that free trade will destroy the country's rural economy. The agricultural tariffs deemed most critical to Japan will remain off the table in the trans Pacific negotiations, Mr. Abe has promised. Tokyo could seek similar exemptions in talks with the European Union. Ms. Bricq said that French companies, including most of the industrial sector, were largely in favor of opening negotiations with the United States and that most saw the harmonization of regulations in areas like technical standards, chemical ingredients and intellectual property as being the primary benefit. But the troubled French auto companies Renault and PSA Peugeot Citroen are opposed. French farmers, she said, believed overwhelmingly that nontariff barriers were the primary concern and wanted to ensure that their American counterparts were bound by the same sanitation, environmental and animal welfare rules as Europeans. Meat and egg producers, corn growers and ethanol producers want to be excluded from any tariff reducing deal, she said, because they think Americans have unfair advantages in those areas. The biggest problem to overcome, though, could be the question of reciprocity with the United States, she said. She was particularly critical of "Buy American" provisions that oblige the government to buy domestically made goods when possible. The union says those measures have harmed European companies by excluding them from the public procurement market. "The United States talks free trade," Ms. Bricq said, "but the practice is somewhat different."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Global Business
Back in the sexual Stone Age, it was assumed that straight men were so genetically overheated that Mother Nature hard wired them to gawp at images of bare naked ladies. Women, on the other hand, were her empathic creations: nurturing, maternal, their libidinal thermostats permanently set to low cool. If a hunk of man flesh suddenly came into view, a woman's gaze was expected to rest some place well north of the belt buckle. What a woman was considered to want most from a man in ancient times before Tinder and rampant sexting was to gaze soulfully into his eyes. Burt Reynolds changed all that with one hairy chested centerfold. And while there is little doubt that the actor, who died Thursday at the age of 82, earned himself a fixed place in the entertainment firmament with a long career that begun in television's early days brought him mainstream success as a half Comanche blacksmith on the series "Gunsmoke" and later as the title character on the clunky police drama "Dan August"; acting cred for his breakout role in the 1972 film "Deliverance"; and an Oscar nomination for his turn in Paul Thomas Anderson's 1997 "Boogie Nights," it was with his 1972 striptease for Cosmopolitan that he effected true cultural change. It seems unimaginable now that Reynolds was making a radical break with Hollywood taboos about male nudity, let alone full frontal, by agreeing to appear in the altogether for a mainstream publication now that every actor from Jason Segel to Daniel Radcliffe has shown us his junk. Yet in consenting to the Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown's proposition (she made it to him while he was sitting in for Johnny Carson as host of the "Tonight" show) that he become the first male centerfold, Reynolds was not only helping to propel us into a new era in women's magazine publishing but also a refreshed understanding of what women desire. Brown herself said so. "At the time, you know, men liked to look at women naked," she once told James Landers, the author of a book on the first 100 years of Cosmopolitan magazine "Well, nobody talked about it, but women liked to look at men naked. I did." Reynolds was not Brown's first choice; Paul Newman had already turned her down. And what is interesting to contemplate is how things might have turned out had it been Newman who chose to present his undressed physique and not Reynolds Newman's lean boyish body a precursor of the glorified hairless male and Reynolds's furry one a relaxed emblem of an era of key parties, swingers, and also the hirsute and mustachioed gay clone. Three decades on, in 2002, the designer Tom Ford would make a knowing nod to that early Cosmo centerfold when creating a black and white Yves Saint Laurent fragrance advertising campaign that featured the martial arts champion Samuel de Cubber naked and ostentatiously unwaxed. "I wanted to show a man who represents a natural and relaxed image of male beauty," Mr. Ford said at the time. The lineage of that provocative pictorial can be traced directly to Burt Reynolds, forearm angled coyly over his genitals as he posed Odalisque style atop a fur rug. So too, in a sense, can every self conscious nude ever snapped in a bathroom mirror. The ease men now feel about showing their all, and the expectation that women are empowered to have a good look at it, has a distinct point of origin and it is Burt Reynolds. "I didn't know there was going to be a commotion about it," the actor, as dryly humorous as ever, told the talk show host Steve Harvey in his final televised interview last March. "It wasn't a big deal to me," Mr. Reynolds said. "I said, 'I'll do it, but I'll have my hands in front of me. And I have very small hands, actually."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
PARIS Wearing a long, white tunic with the names of two African ethnic groups written on it, the defendant stepped forward to the bar, took a breath, and launched into a plea. "No one has sought to find out what harm has been done to Africa," said the defendant, Mwazulu Diyabanza, a Congo born 41 year old activist and spokesman for a Pan African movement that denounces colonialism and cultural expropriation. Mr. Diyabanza, along with four associates, stood accused of attempting to steal a 19th century African funeral pole from the Quai Branly Museum in Paris in mid June, as part of an action to protest colonial era cultural theft and seek reparations. But it was Wednesday's emotionally charged trial that gave real resonance to Mr. Diyabanza's struggle, as a symbolic defendant was called to the stand: France, and its colonial track record. The presiding judge in charge of the case acknowledged the two trials: One, judging the group, four men and a woman, on a charge of attempted theft for which they could face up to 10 years in prison and fines of about 173,000. "And another trial, that of the history of Europe, of France with Africa, the trial of colonialism, the trial of the misappropriation of the cultural heritage of nations," the judge told the court, adding that such was a "citizen's trial, not a judicial one." The political and historical ramifications were hard to avoid. France's vast trove of African heritage it is estimated that some 90,000 sub Saharan African cultural objects are held in French museums was largely acquired under colonial times, and many of these artworks were looted or acquired under dubious circumstances. That has put France at the center of a debate on the restitution of colonial era holdings to their countries of origin. Unlike in Germany, where this debate has been welcomed by both the government and museums, France has struggled to offer a consistent response, just as the country is facing a difficult reckoning with its past. The restitution debate came to a head in France when President Emmanuel Macron promised in 2017 to give back much of Africa's heritage held by French museums. He later commissioned a report that identified about two thirds of the 70,000 objects at the Quai Branly Museum as qualifying for restitution. But in the two years following the report, only 27 restitutions have been announced and only one object, a traditional sword, has been returned to Senegal, in November 2019. The remaining 26 treasures that were designated for restitution, to Benin, are still in the Quai Branly Museum. And the bill supporting these exceptional, or case by case, restitutions has yet to be voted on. Calvin Job, the lawyer for three of the defendants, said in court that the bill, by focusing on exceptional rather than regular restitutions, reflected "a desire not to settle the issue." "We should enshrine the principle of restitution in the code of law," Mr. Job said. Given what they perceive as hurdles, activists from Mr. Diyabanza's Pan African movement have staged operations similar to that in Paris at African art museums in the Southern French city of Marseille and in Berg en Dal, in the Netherlands. At times, these actions have epitomized growing identity related claims, coming from French citizens of African descent living in a country where a racial awakening has started to take place in recent months. "We have young people who have an identity problem," Mr. Job said in an interview, "who, faced with a lack of action, a lack of political will, have found it legitimate to do the work that others don't." Speaking to the judge, Julie Djaka, a 34 year old defendant who grew up in a Congolese family, said: "For you, these are works. For us, these are entities, ritual objects that maintained the order at home, in our villages in Africa, that enabled us to do justice." Marie Cecile Zinsou, the president of the Zinsou Art Foundation in Benin and the daughter of a former prime minister of Benin, said that, although she did not share the activists' methods, she understands "why they exist." "We cannot be ignored and looked upon down all the time," she said. "In France, there's a post colonial view on the African continent," Ms. Zinsou added, saying that some prominent French cultural figures still doubted that African countries could preserve artworks. Such grievances on France's post colonial legacy were in full play on Wednesday at the trial as a small crowd of about 50 people, most Pan African movement activists, were barred from entering the courtroom by the police because of concerns about the coronavirus and because some feared that their presence could disrupt the trial. Activists shouted "band of thieves" and "slavers" at the police officers cordoning off the entrance to the courtroom and they chanted, "Give us back our artwork!"	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
An 18 karat gold toilet, titled "America," by the sculptor Maurizio Cattelan in a restroom of the Guggenheim Museum. It was used by museum visitors until last August. Officials at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum were tight lipped on Thursday night about an unusual email exchange in which its chief curator is said to have rebuffed a White House request for a Vincent van Gogh painting and offered a gold toilet instead. The exchange between the curator, Nancy Spector, and Donna Hayashi Smith of the White House's Office of the Curator was reported Thursday afternoon by The Washington Post. Citing a Sept. 15 email that The Post said it had obtained, the newspaper reported that Ms. Spector had turned down the White House's request to borrow van Gogh's "Landscape With Snow," which officials had hoped they could use to decorate President and Melania Trump's living quarters. As an alternative, The Post said Ms. Spector offered up what one might call a "participatory sculpture": a fully functional, solid 18 karat gold copy of a Kohler toilet titled "America" that more than 100,000 people had already used in a museum restroom. "It is, of course, extremely valuable and somewhat fragile, but we would provide all the instructions for its installation and care," The Post quoted Ms. Spector as writing in the email to the White House curator's office. The sculpture's artist, the email said, "would like to offer it to the White House for a long term loan." Asked Thursday night if she could confirm The Post's report, Sarah Eaton, a spokeswoman for the Guggenheim, said only, "I have nothing further to add." Ms. Eaton would not make the email described by The Post available to The New York Times and said Ms. Spector was not available for comment. Attempts to reach Ms. Spector; Richard Armstrong, the Guggenheim's director; and the sculpture's artist, Maurizio Cattelan, were not successful. It was not clear if Ms. Spector would face discipline. (The Guggenheim rehired her from the Brooklyn Museum last year in a new and more powerful position.) The Times also sent emails to multiple White House spokespeople who did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday night. Although most of the sculptures and historical objects on display in the White House are part of its permanent art collection, when a new first family arrives, the curator's office selects pieces to display in the building's public and private spaces. Presidents and their families have full veto authority, however, and most have exercised it when seeking to add their own touches. President Ronald Reagan insisted that a portrait of Calvin Coolidge hang in the cabinet room; President George W. Bush displayed in the Oval Office a painting by W.H.D. Koerner, which showed a cowboy racing a horse up a mountain trail; and President Barack Obama added two Edward Hopper paintings, which he got on a loan from the Whitney Museum of American Art. The Obamas, experts and historians have said, demonstrated a penchant for modern and contemporary art. The "America" work could also be labeled such. In a blog post Ms. Spector wrote about the piece last year, she called it "at once humorous and searing in its critique of our current realities." "Though crafted from millions of dollars' worth of gold, the sculpture is actually a great leveler," she continued, adding that "Cattelan's anticipation of Trump's America will, perhaps, be the lasting imprint of the sculpture's time at the Guggenheim." (The sculpture's exact cost has not been revealed.)	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
When Karl Lagerfeld, Phoebe Philo, Nicolas Ghesquiere and the family Arnault agree, it is at least worth paying attention. This June they made their latest pronouncement: Marine Serre may be the next great designer. Ms. Serre, who is all of 25 years old, is the most recent winner of the LVMH Prize, the 300,000 euro (about 357,000) award that recognizes the best young designer, as selected from a pool of hundreds of applicants and vetted by a jury of the LVMH corporation's creative directors. This year's edition delivers a dash of patriotic pride, as Ms. Serre is the first French designer to be recognized with the grand prize. But when Ms. Serre, with her spiky shag haircut and beetle brows, ascended the podium to receive the award from Rihanna, who towered over her, the general reaction worldwide was, politely: Who? "I like to keep things not private, but I don't know ... normal, I suppose?" Ms. Serre said on a recent visit to New York, where she had been invited by Dover Street Market New York, the retailer owned by Comme des Garcons that has been a launchpad for many fledgling designers, to design her own temporary installation space. She upholstered the walls with her signature moon print fabric, and set up a tableau of mannequins in outfits to match. Here and there were a few eccentric touches: One mannequin was supplied with a plastic bottle of water; an iguana peeked out from beneath the skirt of another. But in fashion, discretion like Ms. Serre's she speaks softly, arrives gently and doesn't even hold a fashion show to showcase her work is not normal. She has worked or interned for years, learning from many of fashion's stars, including Matthieu Blazy during his time at Maison Margiela, Raf Simons at Dior and, currently, Demna Gvasalia at Balenciaga. She has been quietly sawing away on the sidelines for years, a "Star Is Born" story without the usual glitter. The LVMH Prize is a sudden and high wattage spotlight (though it is worth noting that the award, inaugurated in 2014, has a mixed track record in sustaining the labels it anoints). Ms. Serre comes from the Limousin region of central France, where she grew up in Cevennes, a village she described as "five houses and a lot of dogs." She left home at 14 for art school near Limoges, the porcelain capital, and found her way to Marseille, where she began studying fashion. "No one thinks that you can study fashion there, but you can," she said. "It's quite a shock when you arrive. A lot of rebellion; the people are quite tough. It's, like, apocalyptic." (She subsequently received a degree from La Cambre, in Brussels.) There's something quite tough about Ms. Serre's designs, albeit in a softer way than many of her punk or street leaning compatriots. She draws heavily from historical designs, often from the 19th century, then jolts them into the present by incorporating details, cuts and fabric from athletic wear. (She was a competitive tennis player until the age of 16, a fact that now comes up in most of her few interviews, she said.) "I don't want to do a historical collection," she said. "It was really important to take it out of that." She said she "sponged" contemporary and historic influences and put them together anew. So her moire skirts have the heft and oversize silhouette they might have had a century or so ago, combined with a stretch sports top that you might see on the court at Roland Garros. A sporty tank dress is patched with carpet pieces hand painted in Iran. The crescent moon symbol that Ms. Serre has used is often taken as a symbol of Islam (and comes from her research into 19th century Moroccan design). But she downplayed any explicit political significance, though she acknowledged its presence.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
The Week in Tech: We Might Be Regulating the Web Too Fast Each week, we review the week's news, offering analysis about the most important developments in the tech industry. Want this newsletter in your inbox? Sign up here. Hi, I'm Jamie Condliffe. Greetings from London. Here's a look at the week's tech news: Web regulators are getting into their groove. But are they going too quickly? This past week, the British government proposed new powers to issue fines and make individual executives legally liable for harmful content on their platforms. My colleague Adam Satariano said it "would be one of the world's most aggressive actions to rein in the most corrosive online content." Days earlier, Australia passed legislation that threatens fines for social media companies that fail to rapidly remove violent material. And there's a growing pipeline of other internet regulation, along with existing laws like the European Union's sweeping General Data Protection Regulation. "We're entering a new phase of hyper regulation," said Paul Fehlinger, the deputy executive director of the Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network, an organization established to understand how national laws affect the internet. This flurry of content rules is understandable. Much of the material they would police is abhorrent, and social media's rapid rise has caught lawmakers off guard; now the public wants something done. But the regulations could have unintended consequences. Difficulties in defining "harmful" mean governments will develop different standards. In turn, the web could easily look different depending on your location a big shift from its founding principles. (This is already happening: The Chicago Tribune's website, for example, doesn't comply with General Data Protection Regulation, so there's no access to it from Europe.) There may be less visible effects. If regulation required differences at a hardware level, that could fragment the infrastructure, said Konstantinos Komaitis, a senior director at the nonprofit Internet Society, which promotes the open development and use of the internet. That could make the internet less resilient to outages and attacks. And bigger, richer companies will find it easier to comply with sprawling regulation, which could reinforce the power of Big Tech. "There is a major risk that we end up in a situation where short term political pressure trumps long term vision," Mr. Fehlinger said. Mr. Komaitis said avoiding unintended consequences was "very simple, yet very difficult." "It is all about collaboration," he added. The idea: lawmakers work together across borders to ensure rules are more consistent. The challenge is that collaboration could slow the pace of regulation that lawmakers desire. But Mr. Komaitis said many proposed regulations lack clear plans for implementation, and envisions snags when governments come to apply them. If they struggle, he said, collaboration and sharing of expertise may be the only way to make their plans work. How is technology blurring the lines between public and private? Sign up to Charlie Warzel's new limited run newsletter to find out more and what you can do stop it. Artificial intelligence could make our lives easier and more efficient. But, like any powerful technology, it's more complicated than that. A.I. can be used for surveillance. To control autonomous weapons. It can be biased. It could erode jobs. The list goes on. None of those are reasons to reject A.I. outright. But they underscore how its development must be approached with care. Let Us Help You Protect Your Digital Life None With Apple's latest mobile software update, we can decide whether apps monitor and share our activities with others. Here's what to know. A little maintenance on your devices and accounts can go a long way in maintaining your security against outside parties' unwanted attempts to access your data. Here's a guide to the few simple changes you can make to protect yourself and your information online. Ever considered a password manager? You should. There are also many ways to brush away the tracks you leave on the internet. Big Tech has struggled to publicly demonstrate that care. Amazon, Google and Microsoft have all drawn criticism for their A.I. work with military and government agencies. Just this month, Google's plan to create an A.I. ethics board ended disastrously when backlash about board members led to its dissolution. The guidelines, developed by 52 experts, contain seven requirements that A.I. systems should meet to be deemed trustworthy. What stands out about them for Charlotte Stix, a policy officer at the Leverhulme Center for the Future of Intelligence at Cambridge University, is that they're designed to be carried out. Unlike other A.I. ethics guidelines, they attempt to join ethical principles to firm recommendations something that has divided opinions among some people working in the field. That's why the European Commission hopes companies will adopt and test them between now and 2020, so that they can be improved. Frank Buytendijk, a vice president in Gartner's data and analytics group, said the guidelines sent a message to big tech companies that may have struggled with A.I. ethics in the past: "Here's your chance to do the right thing." Amazon joined the ranks of tech companies wanting to blanket the world with the internet. Its Project Kuiper plan, which came to light in filings made by the Federal Communications Commission, would put 3,236 satellites into low Earth orbit to deliver the internet to "underserved communities around the world." It has been likened to a network under development by SpaceX. Facebook has plans for a similar system, and Google has teamed up with the satellite operator Telesat along the same lines. These initiatives seek to provide affordable internet connections to people who currently lack them from Alaska to sub Saharan Africa. Satellites appear to be a front runner: Christopher Mims of The Wall Street Journal noted that, according to the satellite industry veteran Shayn Hawthorne, "some kind of affordable satellite internet now appears inevitable." For big tech companies, this is not selfless. A good example of why is the Free Basics program offered by Facebook's nonprofit Internet.org: a zero cost data service that provides access in some developing countries to a curated group of websites, including Facebook. In locations that are essentially untapped markets, its provision of the web can help it secure new users. The House passed a bill to revive net neutrality. But the legislation faces long odds in the Republican led Senate. Amazon workers are listening to our Alexa commands. They even share some amusing ones in an internal chat room. Jamie Condliffe is editor of the DealBook newsletter. He also writes the weekly Bits newsletter. Follow him on Twitter here: jme c.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
KNOXVILLE, Iowa In the week before the Iowa caucuses, the state becomes a crazy place. Everyone wants to know what's going on, so they ask people like me. I'm a small town Iowa radio guy on the wrong side of 60 in suspenders, Carhartts and mud boots. Candidates are everywhere, and media fly in from all over the world to get our stories. For this brief window, every Iowan is an expert. We in the local media draw more attention from our colleagues in the national media because we are paid to pay attention. In the past week or so, I was booked and then bumped by "Hardball" on MSNBC more times than a petty thief in a county jail holding tank. CNN, too. I understand, it goes with the territory. Besides I don't really like TV that much. I'm a radio guy. I look old, bald and grumpy on TV, and I'm not grumpy. Between candidate interviews, media events, my day job, news alerts rattling my phone, tweets falling like rain and relentless email, I try to make sense of what's happening as we call a wrap on the 2020 Iowa caucuses. That's what everyone wants to know. Me, too. I'm lucky to have had long, candid conversations with almost all the candidates and I'll especially miss those with Cory Booker, Beto O'Rourke and John Delaney (I do know that they aren't going to win). But let's see. Here's what I worry about: None The Ukraine scandal will hurt Joe Biden, and he won't be able to go toe to toe with President Trump. None Bernie Sanders's scorched earth campaign in 2016 continues today and will hurt not only him but us all. Most of his supporters are good, well meaning people, but the "Bernie Bros" are real, pernicious and legion. They carry their litmus tests everywhere they go and harass non Sanders supporters in real life (and at the events of other candidates), on social media, in their phone calls and in texts. None Elizabeth Warren peaked too soon, and Amy Klobuchar is peaking too late. Still, their organizations are strong, and northern Iowa just might surge for Ms. Klobuchar. Other thoughts: Having interviewed and spoken with both Ms. Klobuchar and Ms. Warren numerous times, one thing I've learned is to never underestimate them. They are smart, powerful policy wonks. Ms. Warren's supporters in particular are loyal. Her selfie lines have become legend. At the Liberty and Justice event in Des Moines last fall, I watched as she worked through a line of more than 1,000 people (Mr. Sanders and Mr. Biden didn't bother to hang around). I wish Senators Booker and Kamala Harris had stayed in the race longer because I believe both would have caucused well, and I admire them. Still, that the top tier of candidates in Iowa includes two women, a Jewish man, a gay man and a man of Asian descent is something we can be proud of. Mark Penn and Andrew Stein write that "only a broader course correction to the center will give Democrats a fighting chance in 2022" and beyond. Tory Gavito and Adam Jentleson write that the Virgina loss should "shock Democrats into confronting the powerful role that racially coded attacks play in American politics." Ezra Klein speaks to David Shor, who discusses his fear that Democrats face electoral catastrophe unless they shift their messaging. Ross Douthat writes that the outcome of the Virginia gubernatorial race shows Democrats need a "new way to talk about progressive ideology and education." And the candidates' staff members have impressed me too many to name them all, but I must mention Matt Fidel. He's from Pittsburgh, a former Booker staff member so beloved across numerous counties in Iowa that I've bestowed by the power invested in my suspenders the title of "honorary Iowan." When the Tree of Life mass shooting in Pittsburgh happened in his community, at the synagogue attended by members of his family and friends, he was with us, and we mourned with him. In recent days, I just about lost track of my life. Take one example from dozens in the past week. I wandered into an event for Tom Steyer in Knoxville, Iowa, looking around for my wife, Annie, and Matt, a friend who's a farmer. Annie was thinking about caucusing for Mr. Steyer, and Matt was introducing him. Two guys I had never seen before approached me like we were old drinking buddies. One was as big as a linebacker and laden like a pack mule with saddle bags and a big camera over his shoulder. The other looked like middle aged villain in a James Bond movie fit, head shaved bald, week old whiskers, dressed in black. They introduced themselves as a TV crew from Belgium that I had agreed to meet. Huh? I agreed to meet a film crew from Belgium? I had no clue. No memory at all. Zip, zilch, nada. But I wasn't surprised. Le Monde was here to speak with me Saturday, a Dutch film crew Monday, another Dutch crew Thursday, a Japanese crew at the Climate Parade in Des Moines on Saturday, and somewhere, sometime that I forget, another Japanese crew wanted to connect. I'll miss the lessons young campaign staff members and embeds teach me. Sam Sergi, an ABC embed and an associate producer of the movie "After Parkland," is a perfect example. At a Sanders rally in Des Moines that featured the Democratic superstar Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Sam and I went out together to speak with some Trump supporters. A man in his 60s, in a Green Bay Packers jacket, challenged her, pointing at her boots. "Why you wearing those boots you a farmer?" "Because I like them. Why are you wearing that Green Bay Packer jacket you play for the Packers?" He snorted, "No, I don't play for the Packers ..." She smiled, and said, "Then why are you wearing that jacket?" He retreated and hid behind some older ladies. As we walked away, Sam, who's from Kansas, said: "He doesn't know anything about farming. These are Tony Llamas, and I'd never wear them in the field!" That's another sport for locals in caucus season: I love watching staff members and the press from the big city who tiptoe across farm lots worrying about what they might step in. After stepping in manure, one young women clawed up my back like a cat, screaming a glorious stream of expletives. Another time a woman in capri pants and low shoes was walking very oddly across a field. I asked her what she was doing, and she said she "didn't like grass touching my ankles." One young guy spotted a farm dog, and yelled, "Dog!" as a toddler would, and then giggled and touched and petted it like he had only seen them in picture books before, never in real life. At the same farm, a nicely dressed young man asked me to inspect a smudge on his shirt. "What's this?" he asked. He scrunched up his face. "Dirt? Really? That's dirt?" Just a reminder of what awaits the winning Democratic nominee: Last week, I went to the Trump rally in Des Moines. It was brilliant, and he is an extraordinary showman. Over 7,000 people attended, and many more were turned away or watched from a large screen outside, on a 29 degree winter evening. Mr. Trump wove truth, half truths, hyperbole, exaggeration and lies seamlessly into a vast swirling reality that swept the audience along in an energizing experience as thrilling as an overtime win at the Super Bowl. And Trump supporters don't care about impeachment, the lies, any of it as one man told me in a concession line before the event, he doesn't care what Trump does, legal or not, because he knows Trump has his back. Anyway, back to the Democrats. With the results of the caucuses, Iowans will offer to America who they believe best has their back. And then the state becomes flyover country once more. As I was leaving the Steyer event the other day, I said goodbye to Adam Brewster of CBS and Maura Barrett with NBC. "See you in four years," I said. Adam thought for a moment, and then said, "If Iowa is first in the nation in four years!" I thought about it for a moment, and said, "If two old white guys with universal name recognition and high poll numbers before the caucus season even began come out on top in Iowa, maybe we don't deserve to be first." I shuffled off, not realizing I had said the quiet part out loud. Robert Leonard, the news director for the Iowa radio stations KNIA and KRLS, is the author of "Deep Midwest: Midwestern Explorations." The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters nytimes.com. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter ( NYTopinion) and Instagram.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
VISIBLE GEM This has been a bittersweet month for Ruby Bridges, the civil rights icon who was the first Black student to integrate an all white school in New Orleans. On Nov. 10, four days before the 60th anniversary of her first day at William Frantz Elementary, Bridges' mother died at the age of 86. Lucille Bridges was known for escorting her 6 year old to school under the guard of federal marshals while protesters chanted and threw eggs. This went on for a full school year. Nov. 10 also happened to be the publication day for "This Is Your Time," Ruby Bridges' book for "the young peacemakers of America," now in its second week on the middle grade hardcover list. The veteran activist describes it as "the silver lining in all of what's going on right now," and as a response to the murder of George Floyd. "I was compelled to reach out to the young people I've been talking to about racism for the past 25 years," she says. "I felt like I'd let them down because I'd spent so much time helping them to understand that racism has no place in their hearts and in their minds. And yet, here we all were, watching this." In the collection of photographs and reflections, Bridges recalls the scrum required to escort her to first grade a protective entourage that inspired Norman Rockwell to paint "The Problem We All Live With," which recently circulated as a meme featuring Vice President elect Kamala Harris walking alongside Bridges' shadow. Bridges isn't sure she'd have the courage to send her child or grandchild into such a heated environment. "But that was a different day," she explains. "I do believe that we as African Americans felt like if we were ever going to see change, we had to step up to the plate to do it ourselves. There were lots of people, not just my mom and dad, who did that. We are standing on the shoulders of so many people who paved the way."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
LONDON No bank likes to take a loss, especially those in Europe that already suffer from a toxic mix of thin capital, troubled financing and weak loan books. But in the case of the proposed second bailout for Greece the one that is supposed to make private investors feel the financial pain along with taxpayers the biggest banks in Europe are on the road now promoting the plan. It's not that the banks are suddenly masochists. It's that this first major bond restructuring in Europe's long festering debt crisis is shaping up as a much better deal for the banks than for the Greeks it is supposed to be helping. Holders of the Greek bonds would get much better value than they could in the open market, while Greece would still owe a lot of money. What's more, Greece would be surrendering a lot of its negotiating clout if, in the future, it needed to go back to the bailout bargaining table. This week, bankers representing the Greek government Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas and HSBC have been explaining to investors why it is in their interest to trade in their decimated Greek bonds, take a 21 percent loss and accept a new package of longer dated securities with AAA backing. Those bondholders include big European banks, smaller fund managers and insurance companies. The bond exchange is a crucial component of the more than 200 billion euro ( 286 billion) in rescue packages that Europe and the International Monetary Fund have put together to support the near bankrupt Greek economy through 2014. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and others insisted that banks make such a contribution to give them some political cover at home. The part of the rescue announced in July is subject to the approval of Germany and the governments of the 16 other member nations of the euro union in coming weeks. If investors balk at the 21 percent write down that is the price for getting a deal done, the whole package could collapse. European governments would be hard pressed to come up with those extra funds themselves. But with the price of Greek debt trading in some cases at 50 cents on the dollar even lower than when the bailout deal was announced in July the 21 percent haircut seems to be quite a bargain. As a bonus, the new bonds would be governed by international law, rather than Greek law. That is a significant alteration of lending terms that would strengthen the negotiating hand of the bondholders if Greece eventually concluded it had no alternative but to default even after this latest bailout. The International Institute for Finance, the advocacy group for global banks that is also the chief architect of the deal, says that 60 to 70 percent of the financial institutions holding Greek bonds have agreed to the swap so far. That comes close to the 90 percent threshold that the Greek government has stipulated, although it is too early to predict the final outcome because Greece will not formally make the swap offer until October. "This is an attractive offer," said Hung Tran, a senior executive at the institute. "We are making the case that if this deal is implemented it will restore stability to Greece." The question remains, however, whether the banks that financed the country's debt by buying its bonds would get off too easy and whether the Greek government should have pushed for a larger write down to ease its debt load. Analysts also note Greece's diminished bargaining power in any future debt negotiations with its bankers. In past debt negotiations involving countries like Argentina, Uruguay and Russia, the bulk of the debt was governed by either United States or British law. That gave the biggest bondholders the upper hand in negotiating terms; they could either hold out for a better deal or challenge the governments in foreign courts. In the case of Greece's debt, more than 90 percent of it was issued and is governed under Greek law, as a holdover of the era preceding Greece's entry into the European monetary union in 2001. That, legal experts say, currently gives the Athens government the flexibility, if it so chooses, to alter bond contracts and secure a more beneficial restructuring deal over the objections of its foreign creditors. For example, the Greek Parliament could pass a law allowing it to push through a restructuring deal with the support of a simple 51 percent majority of creditors as opposed to the 75 percent level that most international contracts require. More drastically, it could simply refuse to pay and leave it to creditors to seek redress in Greek courts. Debt experts have long argued that this legal quirk gave a powerful bargaining advantage to Greece as it sought to pare down its debt. "No other debtor country in modern history has been in a position significantly to affect outcome of a sovereign debt restructuring by changing some feature of the law by which the vast majority of the instruments are governed," wrote Lee C. Buchheit, a veteran debt lawyer at Cleary Gottlieb Steen Hamilton, in a paper he co wrote in 2010 about how Greece might restructure its debt. If the exchange goes through, though, the old bonds will be replaced by ones governed by international law. That would tilt the negotiating scales in favor of Greece's international creditors. Mr. Buchheit is now advising the Greek government on its debt exchange offer. Neither he or the Greek government would comment on whether Greece would give up too much by losing the local law advantage. There is no doubt that as long as it wants to remain a member of a common currency zone, Greece, unlike Argentina or Russia before it, has limited ability to act in a more proactive manner or threaten to default outright. But there is no question Greece has lost a big bargaining chip. "This was a big concession, but because Greece was not willing to default it had little choice," said Anna Gelpern, an expert in sovereign debt law at American University in Washington. "But if in another two years their debt stock is still unsustainable and they are willing to walk away from their debt and Europe, then they will be exposed to a higher threat of litigation." With this latest injection of money, the bet is that Greece will not reach that point of no return. But late Wednesday, a Greek parliamentary committee issued a report saying that Greece's debt dynamics were "out of control." Given the depth of the recession the economy is expected to shrink by more than 5 percent this year Greece's ratio of debt to gross domestic product for 2012 is likely to exceed the official forecast of 172 percent, the report said. The government disputed the committee's findings, prompting the panel's head researcher to resign on Thursday. But what cannot be disputed is that this year and next, Greece's debt to G.D.P. ratio will go up not down.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Global Business
When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. She Had a Preemie and Then She Started to Ask Important Questions EARLY An Intimate History of Premature Birth and What It Teaches Us About Being Human Sarah DiGregorio was 28 weeks pregnant when she found out that her baby had stopped growing. Two days later, her daughter, Mira, was delivered via an emergency cesarean section. She weighed 1 pound 13 ounces. "My body had been trying to kill her," DiGregorio writes. "Early" opens like a medical thriller. Newborn Mira is whisked away to a neonatal intensive care unit while her parents are bombarded with statistics, terrified about her future. It closes with Mira, a robust toddler, diving into a pit of foam blocks. This isn't a spoiler but the heart of DiGregorio's illuminating book isn't just about her family's journey; it's an expansive examination of the history and ethics of neonatology. For most of human history, babies born months too soon were left to die. They were considered less than full fledged beings, not quite living and therefore not worth saving. Plus, there wasn't much to be done. In 1961, Dr. Mildred Stahlman, a Vanderbilt University pediatrician, fitted a premature baby into a miniature iron lung machine. These machines, originally for polio patients, used negative pressure to pull open weak chest muscles to draw air into the lungs. The baby survived. Stahlman then created one of the first neonatal units and trained a cadre of disciples. By the 1970s, negative pressure machines were replaced with positive pressure ones that worked by inflating the lungs. It was a tricky technique that required threading the tiniest of tubes through the trachea and into the lungs. Dr. Maria Delivoria Papadopoulos, then a pediatrician at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, was one of the first to try. Seventeen attempts were unsuccessful. Then she saved one baby girl. Her tenacity paved the way for half a million people born prematurely living today. And yet, DiGregorio reminds us, every advance every attempt at every advance brings with it new dilemmas. Such innovations may save a child's life but can leave them with significant disabilities. A doctor cannot predict how a particular premature baby will fare. Complicating the matter, who's to say what kind of life is worth fighting for and how much treatment is too much? In "Early," we read about neonatologists, bioethicists and parents grappling with the toughest decisions. We meet pediatric palliative care specialists and parents who forgo further treatment and embrace their babies as they die. DiGregorio covers other factors that influence prematurity, such as poverty and racism. DiGregorio, a food editor and writer, is such a beautiful storyteller, I found myself underlining passages, turning corners of pages and keeping track of the page numbers at the back of the book until I had a hodgepodge of numbers scribbled on top of each other. In NYT Parenting: Sarah DiGregorio writes about struggling to feed her newborn daughter. She imagines her nonfunctioning placenta as "a beat up old car, chugging along, belching smoke"; after her emergency C section, she writes, her body "felt like an empty house that had been vacated in a rush, leaving dirty dishes in the sink." And later, DiGregorio refers to a 1 year old as "that sweet spot between baby and toddler." By the epilogue, when the narrative returns to DiGregorio's personal story, readers will appreciate how medicine lurches forward with leaps and mishaps along with the inevitably tense discussions about which path to take and when. All doctors wrestle with these issues, yet they seem particularly poignant when we are dealing with tiny babies. That's because, as DiGregorio puts it, the field of neonatology has "changed the way we understand what it means to be alive, what it means to be human, and what constitutes a life worth living."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Robert Plant, left, and Jimmy Page performing in Led Zeppelin in 1972. On Monday, a federal appeals court will consider a copyright claim against their anthem "Stairway to Heaven." It seems only fitting that the most epic and dramatic of rock songs has resulted in one of the music industry's most epic copyright fights. "Stairway to Heaven," Led Zeppelin's 1971 megahit, defined rock radio for decades and helped make its credited writers, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, extremely rich. For the last five years, it has been caught up in a copyright infringement case that has gripped the music industry. In a hearing scheduled for Monday, a panel of 11 federal appellate judges in San Francisco will delve into the song's authorship. At issue is who wrote the song's famous acoustic opening passage Mr. Page and Mr. Plant, or Randy Wolfe of the 1960s psychedelic band Spirit. A larger question that could be settled by the court concerns what, exactly, constitutes an original song. Mr. Page and Mr. Plant in 2012. They won a trial in the case, which was filed by a trustee for a song, "Taurus," that appeared on Spirit's debut album in 1968. With the music industry shaken by copyright decisions in recent years like the 2.8 million award that the creators of Katy Perry's hit "Dark Horse" were ordered last month to pay to a Christian rapper the Led Zeppelin case has become a cause celebre for songwriters, intellectual property lawyers and even the Trump administration, which took the unusual step of filing a brief in support of Led Zeppelin. Cases involving "Stairway to Heaven," "Dark Horse" and Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" have raised questions about which aspects of music can be protected by copyright and which are fair game. Legal experts and music executives alike are hoping for a clarification from the judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, who will hear the Led Zeppelin case "en banc," or as a full panel. "Appeals courts rarely take a case en banc, and they almost never do so in a copyright case," said Joseph P. Fishman, an associate professor at the Vanderbilt Law School in Nashville. "So there's some possibility that the court may take a big swing here." In 2014, a trustee for Mr. Wolfe's songs sued Mr. Page and Mr. Plant, accusing them of stealing the opening to "Stairway to Heaven" from "Taurus," a 1968 Spirit song written by Mr. Wolfe, who died in 1997. Mr. Page and Mr. Plant beat the challenge at trial in 2016. Since then, the case has had a complex history. Last year, an appellate court ordered a new trial, saying the jury had not received proper instructions. But then the Ninth Circuit judges voted to hold a new appeal en banc. Almost anyone who listens to the two songs would say they bear at least some resemblance to each other. But the "Stairway to Heaven" lawsuit is about composition, not how the song was recorded. Filter out the audio production and performance flashes from Led Zeppelin's eight minute studio version, and what remains are the song's basic melodies, chords and structure. Are they similar enough to "Taurus" to make it a copy? Questions like that can be difficult for a lay juror to answer. And many litigators and copyright scholars say music cases are especially complex, since they often come down to whether a song's composition is truly original or draws on elements so common that they are available to any songwriter. "Music copyright infringement cases are infinitely more difficult than any other kind of copyright infringement case, period," said Paul Goldstein, a professor at the Stanford Law School who is an expert in copyright law. At the 2016 trial, Led Zeppelin's lawyers argued that what little the two songs had in common similar chord progressions and a descending chromatic scale had popped up in music for over 300 years. Mr. Page even testified that "Stairway to Heaven" was reminiscent of the "Mary Poppins" song "Chim Chim Cher ee," from 1964. Why did the plaintiffs wait more than 40 years after "Stairway to Heaven" was released to bring the case? For one thing, the wishes of the author of "Taurus" were unclear. Ford and Rivian no longer plan to work jointly on electric vehicles. Elizabeth Holmes took the stand in her trial. Follow along with our reporters. Ken Griffin, head of Citadel, bid highest for a copy of the Constitution. Mr. Wolfe, a singer, songwriter and guitarist nicknamed Randy California by his friend Jimi Hendrix, had long disapproved of "Stairway to Heaven," calling it "a rip off" in an interview shortly before he died. But he never sued. Randy Wolfe, who performed as Randy California, with Spirit in 1970. The suit was brought by his estate. After his death, his song rights were placed in a trust now controlled by Michael Skidmore, a music journalist. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Mr. Skidmore considered suing but was discouraged by a longstanding statute of limitations. In 2014, the Supreme Court offered an opening when it ruled in a case involving the film "Raging Bull" that copyright suits could be brought even after long delays. Two weeks after that decision, Mr. Skidmore's lawyer, Francis Malofiy, filed suit, arguing that "Stairway to Heaven" copied "Taurus." He also threw in the novel claim of "falsification of rock 'n' roll history," which was dismissed. After recent plagiarism cases like the one centered on the 2013 hit "Blurred Lines," in which Mr. Thicke and Pharrell Williams were ordered to pay 5.3 million to the family of Marvin Gaye, many people in the music industry cheered the "Stairway to Heaven" verdict and have rallied behind Led Zeppelin. "This is the one time that a jury gets it right," said Edwin F. McPherson, a music industry litigator. "And the Ninth Circuit panel says, 'No, we need to get it wrong!'" Yet Led Zeppelin is an imperfect champion for originality in songwriting. Critics have long accused the band of brazenly borrowing from blues musicians and other artists. Over the years, Led Zeppelin has settled many infringement claims, with the results scattered on decades' worth of changes to their song credits. When the band's self titled debut came out in 1969, for example, the fine print on the label listed Mr. Page as the sole composer of the song "Dazed and Confused." By the time that album was reissued in 2014, the credits added "Inspired by Jake Holmes," after a singer who in 1967 had a similar song with the same title and had filed his own infringement suit. One issue in the "Stairway to Heaven" case that has drawn contentious arguments ahead of the hearing is how much copyright protection a piece of music should get if it includes generic seeming elements like common chord progressions but puts them together in a creative way. After the Monday hearing, the judges may take months to issue their decision, and even then the case could drag on even to the Supreme Court, Mr. Malofiy said. Still, many observers are hoping for clear answers to some basic questions concerning music copyright. "The appellate court in the 'Stairway' case has the chance to provide more clarity," Professor Fishman said, "on which kinds of musical borrowing are permissible and which aren't."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
Dana Schutz at her art studio in Brooklyn in December with "Treadmill," left, and "Boatman," right. The painter, coming off one of the biggest art world controversies, says she now imagines her audience when she is painting. Still reckoning with the fallout from her Emmett Till painting, the chastened artist reveals how the controversy has changed her even as she moves forward with a new gallery show. Dana Schutz was readying her coming gallery show, and chaos reigned on the walls of her Brooklyn studio. Her new works offered the painter's signature scenes of anxiety and mayhem. In "Presenter," a female speaker at a TED style event, with her underwear down around her ankles, tried to pull her own face off. "Treadmill" depicted a woman with a fishlike head flailing away on an exercise machine. And in "Painting in an Earthquake" an artist in front of a canvas held a brush as a brick wall before her shook violently. "She's trying to hold the room together, and the painting is falling," Ms. Schutz said of that figure. Thirteen paintings, along with five bronzes that represent her first foray into sculpture, are in Ms. Schutz's show, "Imagine Me and You," which opens Thursday at Petzel Gallery in Chelsea. But with "Painting in an Earthquake" it is hard not to see Ms. Schutz's recent history, too, given the art world earthquake she lived through and the tremors from it that are still being felt. Her painting "Open Casket," shown in the 2017 Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, drew sustained protests for its portrayal of the corpse of the black teenager Emmett Till, who was lynched by two white men in 1955 and whose death helped spur the civil rights movement. There were calls for the painting's removal, and some demanded its destruction. Now, Ms. Schutz admits that she is "guarded" about the controversy and is most wary discussing her motivations for painting the scene in the first place, saying only that it was an attempt to "register this monstrous act and this tragic loss." But she acknowledged that may have been an "impossible" task. The long term effect of the controversy, she said, is that she has internalized the viewpoints of the protesters even when making new work. "I've had so many conversations with people who were upset by the painting," Ms. Schutz said, adding that she has included them in "my imagined audience when I'm painting. It's good those voices were heard." Ms. Schutz, 42, established her reputation with expressionistic compositions featuring figures that seemed to be pushing at the edges of the picture planes with their limbs akimbo, barely skirting or is it courting? disaster. Either way, emotion and empathy seem to drive her work. "I'm interested in how something feels, rather than how it looks," she said at her studio, explaining her approach. But the debate over "Open Casket" and a subsequent controversy over the Walker Art Center's handling of "Scaffold," by the artist Sam Durant, which evoked in part the hanging of 38 Dakota Indian men in Minnesota in 1862 raised challenging questions for the exhibition of art in museums and elsewhere: Who has the right to tell certain stories, empathetically or not? Is it appropriate when a white artist recasts one of the most influential images of all time Till's mutilated body or is it cultural appropriation? Even Ms. Schutz's ardent fans, including Gary Garrels, the senior curator for painting and sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art who called her an "exceptional colorist" said the debate was a "wake up call" for the art world, adding that the salient question for an artist now was, "To what degree do you take for granted your own perspective?" In person, Ms. Schutz, smiling and casually dressed in a sweater and jeans, seems an unlikely art world lightning rod. She grew up in Livonia, Mich., and studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art before getting her M.F.A. at Columbia University. She comes across as determined, if prone to self doubt. "I definitely feel conflicted about it and very bad about it," she said. Known for her inventive and muscular way of shaping space on canvas to build what her friend, the painter Cecily Brown, called "bulletproof constructions," Ms. Schutz spoke about the controversy in spatial terms. "The painting is what it is," she said. "And then there should be space for other people to say what they want to." It was the decision of Ms. Schutz and the Whitney to keep the painting on the walls after an artist, Parker Bright, called it a "black death spectacle." "I felt that people could see it for themselves and make up their own mind," Ms. Schutz said. But he added a sentiment echoed by many in the art world: "I feel bad she's the one it happened to." "Open Casket" is tucked away in Ms. Schutz's possession, unlikely to see the light of day anytime soon. "When there were suggestions for the painting's destruction, I took that as a call for it to be out of circulation," she said. "I wanted that, too. The painting was never for sale, and I didn't feel like it was appropriate for it to circulate in the marketplace." GROWING UP IN SUBURBAN Michigan, the only child of an art teacher and a guidance counselor, Ms. Schutz showed an early independent streak. Around 7 years old, she began striking off on her own, taking walks into the woods or to the pet store. "I think about it now, and I think, 'That's insane,'" said Ms. Schutz, who is married to the artist Ryan Johnson. Based in Brooklyn, the couple have two young children, and Ms. Schutz has been experimenting with schedules to come to the studio very early or very late, when they're asleep. Mr. Garrels, who has acquired her works for SFMoMA, said that Ms. Schutz has "a ferociousness in her, but a vulnerability at the same time. This is an artist who wears her heart on her sleeve." She added that she enjoyed solving a three dimensional problem like, "How do you make a soap bubble out of clay?" Reto Thuring, who put on a solo show of Ms. Schutz's work in 2018 for the Cleveland Museum of Art, and is now the chairman of contemporary art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, pointed to how "her work has become more layered over time." He added, "There's more variety in how the paint is applied. It has become almost sculptural." The blowback from the Whitney controversy has followed Ms. Schutz to her 2017 solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, as well as the Cleveland exhibition. "We received negative feedback" for showing her work, Mr. Thuring said. "And I welcomed that. It was a learning experience for us." For her part, Ms. Schutz seemed resigned to the fact that the debate over "Open Casket" was "not quite resolved." Setting out on new adventures not so different from when she was 7 seems like the only way forward. "Painting itself kind of actually felt more urgent, after all that," she said of the last two years. "It was a relief where you just felt grateful to be able to paint. For me at least, that feels like the only way to get through something."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
Our guide to new art shows and some that will be closing soon. AFFORDABLE ART FAIR at the Metropolitan Pavilion (through March 25). This biannual event for art lovers on a budget will include 72 exhibitors from cities like Bangkok, London and Toronto, showing works that range from 100 to 10,000. The fair will also feature an Under 500 Wall and a Young Talent Exhibition, showcasing the art of Hanna Washburn, who fashioned soft sculptures from her old clothes for the collection "Bodies Forth." Additional activities will cater to those who want to paint and drink, make art with their children, get tips on how to collect art or learn about art conservation efforts. As a bonus, the Affordable Art Fair will be even more affordable on Friday from 6 to 8 p.m., when admission is free. (Danielle Dowling) 212 255 2003, affordableartfair.com/fairs/new york 'TARSILA DO AMARAL: INVENTING MODERN ART IN BRAZIL' at the Museum of Modern Art (through June 3). The subtitle is no overstatement: In the early 1920s, first in Paris and then back home in Sao Paulo, Brazil, this painter really did lay the groundwork for the coming of modernism in Latin America's most populous nation. Tired of the European pretenders in Brazil's art academies, Tarsila (who was always called by her first name) began to intermingle Western, African and indigenous motifs into flowing, biomorphic paintings, and to theorize a new national culture fueled by the principle of antropofagia, or "cannibalism." Along with spare, assured drawings of Rio and the Brazilian countryside, this belated but very welcome show assembles Tarsila's three most important paintings, including the classic "Abaporu" (1928): a semi human nude with a spindly nose and a comically swollen foot. (Jason Farago) 212 708 9400, moma.org 'BIRDS OF A FEATHER: JOSEPH CORNELL'S HOMAGE TO JUAN GRIS' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through April 15). This small, hyper specialized, stunning exhibition brings together a grand total of only 13 works a dozen shadow boxes by Joseph Cornell, the Queens based assemblage artist, and the Cubist masterwork that he cited as their direct inspiration, Gris's "Man at the Cafe" (1914). It might seem like a surprising obsession for Cornell, who was not a painter nor a Frenchman. He and Gris never met. But Cornell was deeply moved by Gris, the overlooked, tag along third wheel in the Cubist movement that also included Picasso and Braque, and the show succeeds in tracking the fluttery ways of artistic inspiration. (Deborah Solomon) 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org 'DIAMOND MOUNTAINS: TRAVEL AND NOSTALGIA IN KOREAN ART' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through May 20). Mount Kumgang, or the "Diamond Mountain," lies about 90 miles from Pyeongchang's Olympic Stadium, but it's a world away: The august, multipeaked range lies in North Korea and has been impossible to visit for most of the past seven decades. Featuring stunning loans from the National Museum of Korea and other institutions in Seoul, South Korea, this melancholy beauty of a show assembles three centuries' worth of paintings of the Diamond Mountain range, and explores how landscapes intermingle nostalgia, nationalism, legend and regret. The unmissable prizes here are the painstaking paintings of Jeong Seon, the 18th century artist who is perhaps the greatest of all Korean painters. And later impressions of the mountains, including a blotchy vision from the Paris based modernist Lee Ungno, give a deeper historical weight to very live geopolitics. (Farago) 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org 'THE FACE OF DYNASTY: ROYAL CRESTS FROM WESTERN CAMEROON' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Sept. 3). In the African wing, a show of just four commanding wooden crowns constitutes a blockbuster in its own right. These massive wooden crests in the form of stylized human faces with vast vertical brows served as markers of royal power among the Bamileke peoples of the Cameroonian grasslands, and the Met's recent acquisition of an 18th century specimen is joined here by three later examples, each featuring sharply protruding cheeks, broadly smiling mouths and brows incised with involute geometric patterns. Ritual objects like these were decisive for the development of Western modernist painting, and a Cameroonian crest was even shown at MoMA in the 1930s, as a "sculpture" divorced from ethnography. But these crests had legal and diplomatic significance as well as aesthetic appeal, and their anonymous African creators had a political understanding of art not so far from our own. (Farago) 212 535 7710, metmuseum.org 'THE JIM HENSON EXHIBITION' at the Museum of the Moving Image. The rainbow connection has been established in Astoria, Queens, where this museum has opened a new permanent wing devoted to the career of America's great puppeteer, who was born in Mississippi in 1936 and died, too young, in 1990. Henson began presenting the short TV program "Sam and Friends" before he was out of his teens; one of its characters, the soft faced Kermit, was fashioned from his mother's old coat and would not mature into a frog for more than a decade. The influence of early variety television, with its succession of skits and songs, runs through "Sesame Street" and "The Muppet Show," though Henson also spent the late 1960s crafting peace and love documentaries and prototyping a psychedelic nightclub. Young visitors will delight in seeing Big Bird, Elmo, Miss Piggy and the Swedish Chef; adults can dig deep into sketches and story boards and rediscover some old friends. (Farago) 718 784 0077, movingimage.us 'PETER HUJAR: SPEED OF LIFE' at the Morgan Library and Museum (through May 20). It's hard to say which is more surprising: that Peter Hujar's photographs of underground life in New York in the 1970s and '80s have found their way to the Morgan Library and Museum, or that the classically minded institution has become unbuttoned enough to exhibit them in this heartbreaker of a show. Hujar (1934 87) lived most of his professional life in the East Village and, through studio portraits and cityscapes, captured a downtown that has since been all but erased by time, gentrification and AIDS. Although he was little known by the mainstream art world in his lifetime, this show, startlingly tender, reveals him to be one of the major American photographers of the late 20th century. (Holland Cotter) 212 685 0008, themorgan.org 'THE INCOMPLETE ARAKI' at the Museum of Sex (through Aug. 31). It remains a bit of a tourist trap, but the for profit Museum of Sex is making its most serious bid yet for artistic credibility with a two floor exhibition of Japan's most prominent and controversial photographer. Nobuyoshi Araki has spent decades shooting Tokyo streetscapes, blossoming flowers and, notably, women trussed up in the baroque rope bondage technique known as kinbaku bi, or "the beauty of tight binding." Given the venue, it's natural that this show concentrates on the erotic side of his art, but less lustful visitors can discover an ambitious cross section of Mr. Araki's omnivorous photography, including his lastingly moving "Sentimental Journey," picturing his beloved wife, Yoko, from honeymoon to funeral. (Farago) 212 689 6337, museumofsex.com 'ZOE LEONARD: SURVEY' at the Whitney Museum of American Art (through June 10). Some shows cast a spell. Zoe Leonard's reverberant retrospective does. Physically ultra austere, all white walls with a fiercely edited selection of objects photographs of clouds taken from airplane windows; a mural collaged from vintage postcards; a scattering of empty fruit skins, each stitched closed with needle and thread it's an extended essay about travel, time passing, political passion and the ineffable daily beauty of the world. (Cotter) 212 570 3600, whitney.org 'THE LONG RUN' at the Museum of Modern Art (through Nov. 4). The museum upends its cherished Modern narrative of ceaseless progress by mostly young (white) men. Instead we see works by artists 45 and older who have just kept on keeping on, regardless of attention or reward, sometimes saving the best for last. Art here is an older person's game, a pursuit of a deepening personal vision over innovation. Winding through 17 galleries, the installation is alternatively visually or thematically acute and altogether inspiring. (Roberta Smith) 212 708 9400, moma.org 'MILLENNIUM: LOWER MANHATTAN IN THE 1990S' at the Skyscraper Museum (through April). This plucky Battery Park institution transports us back to the years of Rudy Giuliani, Lauryn Hill and 128 kilobit modems to reveal the enduring urban legacy of a decade bookended by recession and terror. In the wake of the 1987 stock market crash, landlords in the financial district rezoned their old skyscrapers for residential occupancy, and more than 20 towers were declared landmarks, including the ornate Standard Oil building at 26 Broadway and the home of Delmonico's at 56 Beaver Street. Battery Park City flowered; yuppies priced out of TriBeCa came down to Wall Street; a new Guggenheim, designed by a fresh from Bilbao Frank Gehry, nearly arose by South Street Seaport. From this distance, the 1990s can seem almost like a golden age, not least given that, more than 16 years after Sept. 11, construction at the underwhelming new World Trade Center is still not finished. (Farago) skyscraper.org 'OUTLIERS AND AMERICAN VANGUARD ART' at the National Gallery of Art, Washington (through May 13). Tracing the interaction of taught and untaught artists over the past century, this exhibition tackles an impossibly immense subject and starts stronger than it finishes. But it presents quantities of stunning art in all mediums, revealing the vastness of American creativity and the many attempts by museums to do it justice. It proves more forcefully than ever that the distinction between the works of the self taught and that of the professionals has outlived its relevance. (Smith) 202 737 4215, nga.gov 'REBEL SPIRITS: ROBERT F. KENNEDY AND MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.' at the New York Historical Society (through May 20). Delve into the ties that bound these progressive standard bearers through photographs that document their rise to the national stage in the 1950s and '60s and the struggle for the societal changes they championed, and ephemera such as magazines, campaign buttons, protest placards and an R.F.K. M.L.K. spinning pendant. You can even listen on a transistor radio to the song Dick Holler wrote after their assassinations in 1968, "Abraham, Martin and John." (Dowling) 212 873 3400, nyhistory.org 'ALBERTO SAVINIO' at the Center for Italian Modern Art (through June 23). The paintings of this Italian polymath have long been overshadowed by the brilliant work of his older brother, Giorgio de Chirico. This show of more than 20 canvases from the late 1920s to the mid '30s may not change that, but the mix of landscapes with bright patterns and several eerie portraits based on family photographs are surprisingly of the moment. (Smith) 646 370 3596, italianmodernart.org 'SCENES FROM THE COLLECTION' at the Jewish Museum. After a surgical renovation to its grand pile on Fifth Avenue, the Jewish Museum has reopened its third floor galleries with a rethought, refreshed display of its permanent collection, which intermingles 4,000 years of Judaica with modern and contemporary art by Jews and gentiles alike Mark Rothko, Lee Krasner, Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman and the excellent young Nigerian draftswoman Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze. The works are shown in a nimble, nonchronological suite of galleries, and some of its century spanning juxtapositions are bracing; others feel reductive, even dilletantish. But always, the Jewish Museum conceives of art and religion as interlocking elements of a story of civilization, commendably open to new influences and new interpretations. (Farago) 212 423 3200, thejewishmuseum.org 'STEPHEN SHORE' at the Museum of Modern Art (through May 28). Not staged, not lit, not cropped, not retouched, the color photographs of this American master are feats of dispassionate representation. This must see retrospective curated with real wit by Quentin Bajac, MoMA's photo chief opens with Mr. Shore's teenage snaps at Andy Warhol's Factory. Then it turns to the road trip imagery of "American Surfaces" and the steely precision of "Uncommon Places" landmarks in photographic history that scandalized an establishment convinced the camera could find beauty solely in black and white. Mr. Shore is revealed not only as a peripatetic explorer but also a restless experimenter with new photographic technologies, from stereoscopic slide shows to print on demand books. The only flaw is his recent embrace of Instagram, allowing museumgoers to lazily flick through images on MoMA's smudged iPads. New technologies are great, but not at the expense of concentration. (Farago) 212 708 9400, moma.org '2018 TRIENNIAL: SONGS FOR SABOTAGE' at the New Museum (through May 27). This Bowery museum's fourth triennial exhibition, "Songs for Sabotage," is the smallest, tightest edition of the show so far. Immaculately installed, it's also the best looking. There's a lot of good work, which is global in scope and not by a list of prevetted up and comers. (Zhenya Machneva, Dalton Paula and Daniela Ortiz are artists to look for.) Less admirably, it's a safe and unchallenging show. Despite a politically demanding time, it acts as if ambiguity and discretion were automatically virtues. In an era when the market rules, it puts its money on the kind of art easily tradable, displayable, palette tickling objects that art fairs suck up. (Cotter) 212 219 1222, newmuseum.org 'THE VIETNAM WAR: 1945 1975' at the New York Historical Society (through April 22). In contrast to the PBS series "The Vietnam War," this exhibition delivers historical data, a lot of it, quick and dirty, through labels, film and audio clips and objects, some of which fall under a broad definition of art. Along with paintings by contemporary Vietnamese artists, there's graffiti style drawings on combat helmets and Zippo lighters, and period design in album covers and protest posters. Words and images work together in murals labeled "Home Front" and "War Front" that put you in the middle of the war's primary issues and events. (Cotter) 212 873 3400, nyhistory.org 'ZURBARAN'S JACOB AND HIS TWELVE SONS: PAINTINGS FROM AUCKLAND CASTLE' at the Frick Collection (through April 22). More devout than Velazquez, more shadowy than Murillo, Francisco de Zurbaran was little known outside Spain until the mid 19th century, when Manet and his friends found the seeds of modernism in his frisky, open brushwork and streamlined form. The Frick is now showing a baker's dozen of the Spaniard's biblical portraits, of aged, hunched Jacob and the sons who would become the founders of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, with most of the paintings on loan from a castle that until recently belonged to the Church of England. The gents pose in a startling variety of crisp, supple fabrics, whose glamour or grittiness echoes Jacob's foretelling of their destinies in Genesis. Two are especially compelling: Judah, child No. 4, decked out in a fur trimmed coat and vamping alongside a kindly lion, and Joseph, who forgoes the Technicolor dreamcoat for a blue sash and a belt stitched with gold. (Farago) 212 288 0700, frick.org 'THE BEAUTIFUL BRAIN: THE DRAWINGS OF SANTIAGO RAMON Y CAJAL' at Grey Art Gallery (through March 31). The first United States museum exhibition devoted to the scientific illustrations of this Spanish giant of neuroscience is among the year's best so far. Its 80 freehand renderings of different brain cells, as viewed through a microscope, helped prove that they are unconnected, communicating across tiny gaps called synaptic clefts, which earned Cajal a Nobel Prize in 1906. His exquisite images, still used in textbooks, ignite synaptic charges throughout 20th century art, from Surrealism onward. (Smith) 212 998 6780, greyartgallery.nyu.edu	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
Supporters From Both Sides of the Rittenhouse Trial Await Verdict Psaki Returns to White House After Recovering From Covid 19 Murphy Wins New Jersey Governor's Race for a Second Term Almost Famous: The Unchosen One	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
To turn the Trump administration's proposal from a bad plan to end the conflict into a good plan to transform the conflict, all references to ending the conflict should be removed. The Palestinians cannot be expected to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, formally renounce the right of return or sign a document announcing an "end to claims." What would Israel gain from a plan to reconfigure the conflict? Plenty. Most Israelis are trapped between two national aspirations. On the one hand, they don't want to rule over the Palestinian people, but on the other, they don't want to live under the threat of rockets from a Palestinian state. The tension between these two impulses has paralyzed Israel's ability to address the conflict. A plan to reconfigure the conflict would dramatically reduce Israel's control over the Palestinians and do so without putting Israel in danger. In other words, for Israelis, the Trump plan would smash the zero sum game between security and ending the occupation. Israelis would be able to greatly reduce their rule over the Palestinians without being any more threatened by them. And what do the Palestinians stand to gain from a plan to reconfigure the conflict? Also plenty. The Palestinians, too, are trapped. On the one hand, they want an independent state of their own, but on the other, most of them want the Palestinian refugees to "return" that is, to be relocated to Israel. Moreover, a large section of Palestinian society is unwilling to recognize non Muslim sovereignty over any part of the Holy Land. Reconciling with Israel would be a religious concession, and relinquishing the "right of return" would be a national concession. For many Palestinians, those two concessions would mean renouncing their most sacred beliefs, which form a part of Palestinian identity. For many years, the various peace plans proposed to the Palestinians expected them to forgo these two axioms. But the Palestinians have always refused a deal in which they would have to relinquish core elements of their national identity as the price for independence. A plan to rearrange the conflict would give the Palestinians a state without expecting them to pay for it by renouncing their demand for a right of return and thereby conceding a plank of their national identity. Under the plan, the new Palestinian state will not be completely sovereign, but it will be mostly sovereign, and the elements of the occupation that immiserate Palestinians in their day to day lives namely restrictions on movement, construction and economic growth will be swept away. In other words, any plan would need to drop the pretense of realizing either side's perfect deal. This plan begins to do that. Under it, the Palestinians could dramatically enhance their sovereignty without conceding their aspirations, and Israel should control far fewer Palestinians without conceding its security. Neither side will give up on what is truly important to it, and both will reduce what is truly painful. It won't be peace. It won't be a new Middle East. But it will be progress.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
A roundup of motoring news from the web: Jim Farley, the global vice president of marketing and sales for Ford, has retracted a statement he made at International CES on Wednesday regarding Ford's ability to gather and store G.P.S. data from its cars. Mr. Farley said Thursday that he left the wrong impression when he said, "We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it. We have G.P.S. in your car, so we know what you're doing." He later said that Ford did not track customers without approval and consent. (Business Insider) Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla Motors, told Bloomberg Friday that the automaker would upgrade wall charger adapters, which could overheat. Mr. Musk said he wanted Tesla customers "to have absolute comfort." (Bloomberg) With weak sales at home, European automakers are looking for growth in the United States and China. Mercedes Benz increased sales by 14 percent in the United States and 11 percent in China for 2013, and Porsche sales grew by about 20 percent in both markets. Other Volkswagen owned marques had similar growth, and Volvo increased sales in China by 46 percent. (The Wall Street Journal, subscription required) Within the elite ranks of cars that cost upward of 250,000, Rolls Royce, which sold 3,630 cars, emerged on top for 2013. Sales grew 11 percent in China and 17 percent in the Middle East, and although the United States continues to be a crucial market for Rolls, sales also grew in Canada, Japan and Qatar. (Forbes)	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Automobiles
"Dolemite Is My Name" starts out as a comedy of failure and foolish hope. When we first meet him, in Los Angeles in the early '70s, Rudy Ray Moore is a multi hyphenate might have been. As he slides toward middle age, popular culture seems to be running in the other direction. His novelty R B singles can't even get played in the record store where he works as assistant manager. His semi naughty stand up routine ("What did the elephant say to the naked man?") is too corny for a generation discovering the matter of fact raunchiness of Redd Foxx. Rudy, a real life actor, comedian and dedicated self promoter, is played by Eddie Murphy, one of Foxx's heirs. Murphy's celebrity, which has faded a bit recently (he's been scarce on the big screen for a decade or so), both overshadows Moore's and illuminates it. For much of the movie, we're being treated to two wildly profane, bracingly inventive performances in one. But more is going on here than just one electrifying comedian impersonating another. There has always been something a little mysterious about Murphy, an edge to his charm, a suggestion of loneliness and suspicion in his eyes. Here, in the midst of mile a minute verbal acrobatics and slow burn slapstick, those eyes register a dimension of sadness of hunger, of hurt and defiant pride that the film itself doesn't really explore. Directed by Craig Brewer from a script by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (with Murphy as a producer), "Dolemite Is My Name" sticks to the surface of a rambunctious, sometimes rousing show business saga in which adversity is faced down, called all kinds of names and triumphantly overcome. It's a superhero origin story of sorts, sparked by some desperate folkloric research. Rudy, in a last ditch bid to scare up some new material, tape records the rhymes, jokes and tall tales of a group of homeless men. Their filthy, braggadocious verbal flights I wish I could quote just one word look back to southern black oral traditions and ahead to hip hop. Accessorizing a series of brightly colored suits with silver topped canes and feathered fedoras, Rudy reinvents himself as Dolemite, a one man symphony of outrageous archetypes. Accompanied by drumbeats and keyboard riffs, he spins out insults, sexual boasts and old time fables, like the story of the signifying monkey. He hits the road, packing nightclubs and juke joints across the South, and releases a series of albums whose salacious covers hint at the exuberant obscenity inside. When Rudy decides to make a Dolemite movie, "Dolemite Is My Name" shifts gears into backstage farce, and Murphy shares the screen with a growing ensemble of accomplices, all of them great fun to watch. Early on, we catch a glimpse of Snoop Dogg as a D.J. later, Chris Rock will man the microphone at a radio station but the real scene stealers are Tituss Burgess, Keegan Michael Key, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Craig Robinson and above all the irreplaceable Wesley Snipes. Snipes plays D'Urville Martin, an accomplished actor whose resume includes "Rosemary's Baby" as well as a number of blaxploitation titles. "Dolemite Is My Name" name checks a few of those movies, a nd makes clear that by the time Rudy is ready to go into production with "Dolemite," the blaxploitation genre is ripe for parody. The film he envisions will be a kitchen sink stew of humor, sex and violence. Kung fu and bare breasts are central to his aesthetic. His screenwriter, Jerry Jones (Key), has aspirations to socially conscious realism. D'Urville, hired to direct as well as to play the heavy, can barely tolerate the amateurish anarchy on the "Dolemite" set. The whole thing seems headed for disaster. Even if you were unaware of the indelible existence of "Dolemite" and its sequels, you wouldn't be inclined to worry too much. "Dolemite Is My Name" is mostly free of the glowering melodrama and puffed up machismo of some of Brewer's other projects ("Hustle Flow," "Black Snake Moan"). It has a loose, friendly, house party vibe, and it's impossible not to have a good time watching the actors have a good time with one another. If there's a problem, it's that the good humor has the effect of lowering the film's dramatic stakes, and risks turning its cultural reference points into cartoons. Not that the Dolemite character and the "Dolemite" movie weren't broadly silly and militantly anti serious. They weren't only that, though, and one of the striking things about "Dolemite Is My Name" is how hard it works to push history and politics to the margins of the screen. The movie collapses the difference between Rudy Ray Moore and the character he created, treating his creativity as another kind of high spirited clownishness, and his struggle for recognition as a comic hustle. But if the filmmakers are careless with the dignity of the characters, the actors Murphy and Snipes in particular step in to defend it, upholding a tradition at least as old as Hollywood. "Dolemite Is My Name" is not bad, but it isn't quite what its stars and its subject deserve.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
The ballooning costs of the coronavirus pandemic have put an unexpected strain on the finances of states, which are hurriedly diverting funds from elsewhere to fight the outbreak even as the economic shutdown squeezes their main source of revenue taxes. States provide most of America's public health, education and policing services, and a lot of its highways, mass transit systems and waterworks. Now, sales taxes the biggest source of revenue for most states have fallen off a cliff as business activity grinds to a halt and consumers stay home. Personal income taxes, usually states' second biggest revenue source, started falling in March, when millions lost their paychecks and tax withholdings stopped. April usually brings a big slug of income tax money, but this year the filing deadlines have been postponed until July. "This is going to be horrific for state and local finances," said Donald J. Boyd, the head of Boyd Research, an economics and fiscal consulting firm, whose clients include states and the federal government. Many state and local governments have already taken extraordinary measures to protect residents and keep public services running. New York lawmakers gave Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo a one year window to unilaterally cut spending if warranted, as the state faces a shortfall of at least 10 billion in tax revenue. In Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont directed an extra 35 million to the state's nursing homes so that they could pay retention bonuses, overtime and other incentives to keep workers on the job as the health crisis worsened. Oklahoma lawmakers authorized Gov. Kevin Stitt to tap into the state's 1 billion rainy day fund to make up a 415 million budget gap he attributed to delayed income tax payments. Even if states are able to stretch their finances temporarily by trimming budgets, appropriating funds earmarked for other purposes or passing emergency legislation, as many have done the economic recovery is expected to be slow. That means tax revenues from tourism, oil and gas drilling, conventions and other activities are probably not going to bounce back. "We can't spend what we don't have," Mr. Cuomo told the New York Legislature this month. The state is hoping to bridge its revenue gap through a mix of federal aid, loans and cuts. Companies are unlikely to hire back the millions of workers they have laid off until they can restart normal operations, and some businesses may fold entirely. High unemployment, low consumer demand and a wave of personal bankruptcies are likely to push up the welfare related expenses of states on top of their pandemic related bills. The governors of seven Northeastern states, including New York, said this week that they would coordinate efforts to reopen their economies as the rate of daily infections dropped; the governors of three West Coast states made a similar pact. The governors have been reacting to President Trump's statements on Monday that he had the ultimate power to decide when to relax stay at home orders and other restrictions that states have ordered to slow the spread of the virus. Last week, the National Governors Association called on Congress to provide additional fiscal assistance to states to meet budget shortfalls arising from the crisis. "In the absence of unrestricted fiscal support of at least 500 billion from the federal government, states will have to confront the prospect of significant reductions to critically important services all across this country, hampering public health, the economic recovery, and in turn our collective effort to get people back to work," the association's chairman, Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, and vice chairman, Mr. Cuomo, said in a statement. Ford and Rivian no longer plan to work jointly on electric vehicles. Elizabeth Holmes took the stand in her trial. Follow along with our reporters. Ken Griffin, head of Citadel, bid highest for a copy of the Constitution. No two states are being affected the same way. Some of the most drastic tax revenue losses have occurred in states like Texas, Oklahoma, Alaska and Louisiana, which rely heavily on taxing oil and gas. Oklahoma based its initial budget projections on 55 a barrel oil; lately, the price has been less than half that. The Texas Taxpayers and Research Association estimates that for every dollar decline in the price of oil, the state loses 85 million in revenue. "The things we thought would keep us from hitting the edge of the fiscal cliff oil prices rebounding, production coming up dramatically those prospects look awfully dim right now," Pat Pitney, the Alaska Legislature's chief budget analyst, who was budget director to former Gov. Bill Walker, recently told the Alaska Public Media news site. "None of us knows the future. But the signs are way less optimistic than they were just a few short months ago." Other states, like Hawaii, Nevada, New York and New Jersey, depend heavily on bringing in huge numbers of people sun worshipers, theatergoers, gamblers, conventioneers, sports fans and taxing their hotel rooms, tickets, restaurant meals and alcohol. The Congressional Budget Office studied pandemics in 2006, after a devastating viral outbreak in Asia, and warned that if a similar event happened here, "industries that require interpersonal contact" would be hit the hardest, losing 80 percent of their business for several months. And in fact, last month the New York City comptroller, Scott Stringer, reported an 80 percent decline in tourism related industries. "We're facing the possibility of a prolonged recession we need to save now before it's too late," Mr. Stringer said in a statement last month. He called on city agencies to trim 1.4 billion in their planned spending so the money could be redirected to help "the hotel, restaurant, social service and retail workers who are bearing the brunt of this crisis." States borrow money from the public markets by issuing bonds, but normally for specific projects, not to fund day to day operations. Last week, the Federal Reserve said it would buy up to 500 billion of short term debt from the states, the District of Columbia, and the largest cities and counties. But the Fed made clear that the new debt purchasing program was to be used primarily for bridging over a few months of low revenue, with repayment due when normalcy returns. In a term sheet, the Fed said the states could also borrow to pay interest and principal on their existing debt, and to assist smaller localities. All borrowings must be repaid within two years. Some policy analysts said the time frame was too short, given the bleak outlook. Thomas H. Cochran, a senior fellow at the Northeast Midwest Institute, said it would be better if the Fed made loans that could eventually be forgiven, as long as the states could show they had used the money to keep public services at pre pandemic levels after their revenue dried up. The institute studies urban and economic issues for an 18 state region. Such loan repayment periods should last at least three years, Mr. Cochran said, recalling the time after the financial crisis of 2008. State and local revenues fell for two consecutive years a first in postwar history and did not rebound until 2016. This time could be worse. Other states, including California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Colorado, as well as New York, have income tax arrangements that target high incomes and capital gains. This approach makes their revenue volatile, like the markets. Before the pandemic, Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois had called for a graduated tax, a move away from the state's current flat income tax with the goal of taxing high earners more. A referendum was scheduled for November. Illinois urgently needs the additional revenue. Even before the pandemic, the state owed its vendors 7.8 billion, for hospitals, health insurance, higher education and consulting services, among other things. Governor Pritzker's plan is supposed to help the state increase its tax collection, but given the recent market rout and the wobbly economy, there may not be so much high end income to tax.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
Let others speak of their winters of discontent. Big city dwellers know it's at the tail end of summer that life really turns rancid when heat clogs the veins, resentment festers and the sun itself seems to be asking for a punch in the kisser. Especially this year, when rancor is the default mode of the national conversation. And if you're stuck in the grimy sweat box called New York City and besieged by headlines about world leaders behaving like playground bullies your primal instinct may well be to reach out and hit someone. Of course, you could try singing instead. That was the alternative proposed by "Primer for a Failed Superpower," a concert held at the minimally air conditioned Roulette performance space in Brooklyn on Tuesday night (with a second, final performance scheduled for Wednesday). This production from the experimental theater troupe the Team assembled a diverse throng of performers (and a crowd of more than 500) to raise their voices in protest songs of yesterday, today and tomorrow. Like the variation on a Woody Guthrie standard, which here began, "This land ain't my land, this land ain't your land." And the union standard, "Which Side Are You On?," which opened the show. And pop anthems made famous by Lady Gaga, Kurt Cobain and even Diana Ross, whose 1980 hit "I'm Coming Out" was retooled into the more proactive "I'm Showing Out." (The name of the current occupant of the White House received few direct mentions; perhaps in these circles it has acquired the unsayable status of Lord Voldemort in the "Harry Potter" novels.) There was also that moment when an extraordinary singer and composer named Amy Leon (who sang Bob Dylan's "Ballad of Hollis Brown") asked the audience to breathe in and breathe out, breathe in and breathe out, and then, finally, yell as loud as it could on the exhale. Prettier sounds were heard that night, but that collective scream best summed up the experience. Directed by the eclectic and inventive Rachel Chavkin (whose credits include "Natasha, Pierre the Great Comet of 1812" now on Broadway), the first performance of "Primer for a Failed Superpower" became an active testament to the art of overcoming in ways its creators presumably hadn't anticipated. A failed air conditioning system guaranteed that the heat was all too, well, oppressive. So the show registered as an improbable act of summoning and sustaining vitality under energy sapping conditions. The cast members a multishaped, multicolored and multigendered mix of professionals and civilians, whose ages appeared to range from the teens to the far side of 70 were often required to stand (and sing, shout and dance) shoulder to sweaty shoulder. After all, one of the primary messages was that in union there is strength. At the end, Ms. Chavkin took the stage to announce that there was pizza ("not enough for a lot for everyone, but enough for a little for everyone") and to encourage the audience to return to hear about community service programs. Throughout the show, the singers emerged from and merged back into the audience, most of whom stood in the open ground floor area, as if at a political rally. The ensemble members were identifiable by their T shirts (Brenda Abbandandolo did the costumes), which read "Tomorrow will be the blank space century." The idea would appear to be that it is up to you (sorry, us) to fill in the blank as to what kind of future awaits. Video clips of interviews with left leaning political activists of varying ages and focus punctuated the show, emphasizing the necessity of political engagement and the idea that anger does not have to be a dirty word or a negative emotion. The music (supervised by Orion Stephanie Johnstone and directed by Nehemiah Luckett) was highly amplified, strong on percussion and surprisingly harmonious throughout. The songs (newly arranged by artists who included Justin Ellington, Yva Las Vegass, and Stew and Heidi Rodewald) covered a historical spectrum of styles, a reminder that singing truth to power is a venerable American tradition. But the tunes they are a changin'. Concerns that would never have figured in a Weavers' protest concert in the 1950s such as the rights of trans people and the freedom to choose your own gender were clearly much on the minds of the ensemble, particularly its younger members. And in one sequence, reminiscent of a scene from the prototypical rock musical "Hair," a man on the cusp of middle age read an open letter to his parents. The subject was the song he felt was the anthem of his generation: Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." He admitted that he didn't entirely understand it, which was part of the reason it spoke to him so directly. "I feel like your generation's protest music was so clear," he said. "It knew what it was protesting." A group sing of "Teen Spirit" followed. "Hello?" asked the performers again and again, in an ecstasy of confrontational vigor. "Here we are now. Entertain us!" If the lyrics remained enigmatic, the conviction in the voices could not have been louder or clearer.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
President Trump has finally played the delay the election card, and that he has is a measure of how desperate he is to stay in power. He is, as this and other articles point out, unmoored, isolated and sinking in the polls. However, the fact that many Republicans did not join the Democrats in condemning him shows how strong the political class feels he still is. Mr. Trump and his enablers are still powerful and capable of great mischief between now and the election. We cannot let our guard down. Isolated and sinking or not, Mr. Trump and his cronies remain a potent menace to society and American ideals, and must be taken seriously right up to the end. President Trump should be called out for the absurd hypocrisy he is showing by whining about the possibility of a rigged election. If he is seriously worried about the election being rigged against him (as opposed to being rigged for him), there is still time to fix the situation. He should allot more (not less) funding to the post office to handle the absentee ballots. And he should give the states funds so they can open up more and safer polling places, and so they can hire more monitors to allow people to drop off their ballots in person, perhaps even a drive through.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
HAVERTOWN, Pa. On Saturday morning, a jogger wearing a mask passed our house. I was planning to run for an hour that day in solidarity with a colleague who was raising money for coronavirus aid by hosting a virtual race online. But first, my wife, Debby, and I drove 45 minutes to see our daughter. We seemed like spies making a dead drop, leaving mail order steaks on her porch and giving her a virtual hug, while she left frozen fruit and Lysol wipes in return. "That's the worst part," she said. "You can't even hug your own daughter." There are ways to escape home confinement during the pandemic. Running has come to feel vital and now seems to be as much about reconnaissance as exercise. My runs begin in my basement. To kick start this soon to be 66 year old body, I have made space for a mat, a stretching strap, ankle weights, resistance bands and an oversize exercise ball that scares the cat the way the rolling boulder scared Indiana Jones in "Raiders of the Lost Ark." I do the usual planking and bridging and plying of knees that crackle like a yule log. Then it's upstairs for makeshift squats while holding a 20 pound bag of birdseed. Finally, I'm out the door, walking first to warm up, climbing the hill past the restaurant that made a run of it serving takeout but is now temporarily closed. No one is happier to see me go than Debby. I'm driving her crazy. The other day, I complained that there was too much air in the water of the bathroom faucet. "I'm a possum," she keeps telling me, "pretending to sleep so you won't bother me." Haverford College, nearby, has closed its nature trail. Paths are blocked by signs and yellow "Do Not Enter" tape, as if Covid 19 is a crime as much as a pandemic. So I run instead along the main roads in this Philadelphia suburb, past stone churches and homes and my shuttered gym, once a movie theater, its walls painted with caricatures of Jack Nicholson in "The Shining" and the Three Stooges being squeezed by Hercules. Individual footsteps echo in the quiet. Friends stand apart while talking, as if about to play invisible table tennis. Two men argue in a language I cannot understand but maintain social distancing guidelines, walking single file along the sidewalk, more than six feet between them as they continue their disagreement. Early spring here feels like summer at the Jersey Shore. Families walk unhurriedly, dogs on leashes, children riding bikes, perhaps stopping at the ice cream store that remains open but seems to limit the number of customers inside. Cherry trees blossom and chalk drawings decorate the sidewalks. A radio station plays Christmas songs to cheer us up. People give slight nods and waves that signal we are all in this together. But we know from 9/11 that the nods and waves are probably temporary and will fade once impersonal normalcy returns. Wariness accompanies geniality. I turn a corner and jog slightly uphill near the post office. A man and his young son are hitting tennis balls in the road. I get no closer than 30 feet before the father says, "Other side," and the boy hurries with his racket across the street. On my route, I pick up snippets of conversation as if listening to a radio on search: "Children don't understand that growth comes from hardship." "I undress in the laundry room so my clothes don't spread germs everywhere." I am running more than I want. I miss the gym. Stupidly, I hobbled the 26.2 miles of the New York City Marathon on a bad knee in November and have been in physical therapy since. Before the pandemic intervened, I changed my workout routine, running less, going to the gym more, lifting weights to strengthen the muscles around my knee and to tone my upper body. One night, I came home and told Debby, "I got arrested." I flexed my biceps and said, "Carrying guns without a permit." In the evening on Saturday, I finally got my five miles in for coronavirus aid. Green lights came on in a sober township ritual, honoring several high school students who have cancer. A firehouse siren pierced the silence. But it soon grew quiet again in the gloaming, and I could hear another runner breathing across a four lane road. On Sunday, I spoke to Meghan Hicks, an ultrarunner from Silverton, Colo. We met a year ago in Morocco when I was covering the Marathon des Sables, a six day race through the Sahara that she won in 2013. On Saturday, she and her husband, who operate the website iRunFar.com, hosted one of many virtual races that have popped up. Some allow runners to register online, pick a distance and a starting line, whether it's a street or a treadmill, upload their finishing times and receive a medal in the mail.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports

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