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The Alabama Shakespeare Festival will commission 22 plays in the next five years, with more than half of the commissions set to go to female playwrights and playwrights of color. Rick Dildine, the artistic director of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, the state's largest professional theater, announced the initiative on Wednesday. He emphasized that the plays will focus on "transformative moments in the South that caused important and lasting changes to its people, culture and land." This comes on the heels of Mr. Dildine's first major project as artistic director, the revitalization of the Southern Writers' Project, the company's program for developing new plays that was founded in 1991 and is now known as the Southern Writers Festival. Last summer, Mr. Dildine took a group of Southern playwrights including Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder and David Lee Nelson on a 10 day tour to seven states to interview local residents about how they experience life in the South. At the writers festival in October, Mr. Dildine reported on the group's findings: "One of the themes we heard from this trip is 'stories matter.'"	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
ON THE WAY The view from a terrace off a model apartment at Walker Tower in Chelsea. IN the darkest days of the housing crisis, paralysis was the word of the day. Even in the rarefied world of high end New York real estate, developers and buyers alike had to put their dreams on hold, at least for a while. The day that Lehman Brothers crashed in September 2008, instantly deepening the crisis, Michael Stern, a New York developer, took his first tour of the 1929 Walker Tower in Chelsea. He closed on the building in December 2009 for 25 million, hoping to convert much of it to condos. But then he made a strategic decision that is likely to pay big dividends: he leased the building back to Verizon for two years while he waited out the chaos. "The first time I ever looked at the building was the day the world fell apart," Mr. Stern said. A little patience can go a long way. At least that's the lesson to be drawn from developers who have crawled from the ashes of the housing crisis or from behind the barricades where they waited it out to a Manhattan high end market that has become a first choice destination for the cash of the world's wealthy. New downtown buildings that were shelved during the financial crisis, like One Madison Park and 56 Leonard, are moving forward again, while conversions like Walker Tower are surging into a market constrained by low inventory, soaring prices and seemingly inexplicable sales to Russian oligarchs and Las Vegas casino titans. "It is a very powerful moment in new development right now," said Kelly Mack, president of the Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group. "Developers are seeing a very strong opening in the market to really push their projects forward. These two years were really worth the wait." Consider how much the landscape has changed. By the fall of 2008, contract signings for new development essentially stopped. By the first quarter of 2009, buyers were too afraid to buy. "Open houses were packed, but no one could make a decision," recalled Jonathan J. Miller, president of Miller Samuel, a real estate appraisal firm. But this year has seen a stunning turnaround. Across the Manhattan market, contracts are up 26 percent across the board from the second quarter of 2010, while new development inventory is down 58 percent over the same period. Things are getting tighter, and that has encouraged developers beaten down by the market to get off the canvas and back in the match. Some 58 percent of the projects that Corcoran Sunshine is planning were conceived before the downturn, Ms. Mack said. Some projects on the drawing board in the boom years when even newcomers fancied themselves developers have ended up in steadier hands. Consider the situation at a troubled condo project called One Madison Park. It is moving forward after its original developers, Ira Shapiro and Marc Jacobs, ran out of money and the project went into bankruptcy. The Related Companies, along with HFZ Capital Group and Amalgamated Bank, took title on the building in April, shepherding it through bankruptcy and settling most of the lawsuits involving the debtor, a Related spokeswoman said. The original developers sold 12 apartments out of a possible 69, generating only 38 million, far too little to cover outstanding debts. Desperate for cash, the developers were looking for money anywhere they could, to help cover cost overruns. Among those still involved in litigation is Ian Bruce Eichner, a developer whom Mr. Shapiro offered an unfinished apartment for 5 million, in exchange for a 4.5 million loan. Construction has begun again, and Related plans to sell 54 more apartments (3 fewer due to combinations). The company says it expects to start sales early next year. The Related spokeswoman would not comment further. The project was conceived in 2008, but the developers were able to hold off because they bought the land and paid predevelopment costs for just under 300 million. "We own the land debt free," he said, "so there is no pressure of any kind." It's significant that more banks are moving back into construction loan financing, developers say. "It is excruciatingly difficult to accomplish yields today" in other investments, Mr. Silverstein said. Still, even with the reinvigorated market, the construction loan arena is a long way from what it was in the boom years. Most projects require equity of 40 to 60 percent, said Ziel Feldman, the managing principal of HFZ Capital Group. During the peak, developers could wrangle construction loans requiring equity of no more than 10 to 15 percent. "There is a lot more at risk money required today," Mr. Feldman said. "That is one reason why the inventory is as low as I have seen it since the 1980s." That is about to change as more projects push their way into the pipeline. Some 1,500 new development units will be introduced each year over the next three years, Corcoran Marketing calculates. None Testing the Limits: Only three of New York's 25 tallest residential buildings have completed safety tasks required by the city. The Downside to Life in a Supertall: 432 Park faces some significant design problems, and other luxury high rises may share its fate. Luxury Developers' Loophole: Soaring towers are able to push high into the sky because of a loophole in the city's labyrinthine zoning laws. An Evolving Skyline: The high rise building boom has transformed the city's skyline in recent years. Its impact will echo for years to come. Hidden Feats: Our critic looks at some supertall N.Y.C. buildings and how the ingenuity of engineers helped build landmarks. Where will all this demand come from, since Wall Street is no longer as flush as it once was? Mr. Feldman and others believe the gap is being filled by media and high tech companies like Google that have been moving into the city, especially into the Midtown South area. "We are creating our own Silicon Alley here," Mr. Feldman said. Then there is the international demand, which by most indications will remain strong, at least for a while. New York has become a magnet for foreigners who are essentially converting their currencies to dollars and buying hard assets. The decision to convert the building into very high end condos about half of which will have outdoor space reflects where the market is taking developers. "That upper echelon of the market is improving much more rapidly," he said. But will patience be enough for the rest of the New York housing market, if the froth at the top doesn't bubble its way down?	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
BOSTON YouTube said on Monday that it planned to remove misleading election related content that can cause "serious risk of egregious harm," the first time the video platform has comprehensively laid out how it will handle such political videos and viral falsehoods. The Google owned site, which previously had several different policies in place that addressed false or misleading content, rolled out the full plan on the day of the Iowa caucuses, when voters will begin to indicate their preferred Democratic presidential candidate. "Over the last few years, we've increased our efforts to make YouTube a more reliable source for news and information, as well as an open platform for healthy political discourse," Leslie Miller, the vice president of government affairs and public policy at YouTube, said in a blog post. She added that YouTube would be enforcing its policies "without regard to a video's political viewpoint." The move is the latest attempt by tech companies to grapple with online disinformation, which is likely to ramp up ahead of the November election. Last month, Facebook said it would remove videos that were altered by artificial intelligence in ways meant to mislead viewers, though it has also said it would allow political ads and would not police them for truthfulness. Twitter has banned political ads entirely and has said it will largely not muzzle political leaders' tweets, though it may denote them differently. In dealing with election related disinformation, YouTube faces a formidable task. More than 500 hours of video a minute is uploaded to the site. The company has also grappled with concerns that its algorithms may push people toward radical and extremist views by showing them more of that type of content. In its blog post on Monday, YouTube said it would ban videos that gave users the wrong voting date or those that spread false information about participating in the census. It said it would also remove videos that spread lies about a political candidate's citizenship status or eligibility for public office. One example of a serious risk could be a video that was technically manipulated to make it appear that a government official was dead, YouTube said. The company added that it would terminate YouTube channels that tried to impersonate another person or channel, conceal their country of origin, or hide an association with the government. Likewise, videos that boosted the number of views, likes, comments and other metrics with the help of automated systems would be taken down. YouTube is likely to face questions about whether it applies these policies consistently as the election cycle ramps up. Like Facebook and Twitter, YouTube faces the challenge that there is often no "one size fits all" method of determining what amounts to a political statement and what kind of speech crosses the line into public deception. Graham Brookie, the director of the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, said that while the policy gave "more flexibility" to respond to disinformation, the onus would be on YouTube for how it chose to respond, "especially in defining the authoritative voices YouTube plans to upgrade or the thresholds for removal of manipulated videos like deepfakes." Ivy Choi, a YouTube spokeswoman, said a video's context and content would determine whether it was taken down or allowed to remain. She added that YouTube would focus on videos that were "technically manipulated or doctored in a way that misleads users beyond clips taken out of context." As an example, she cited a video that went viral last year of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California. The video was slowed down to make it appear as if Ms. Pelosi were slurring her words. Under YouTube's policies, that video would be taken down because it was "technically manipulated," Ms. Choi said. But a video of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. responding to a voter in New Hampshire, which was cut to wrongly suggest that he made racist remarks, would be allowed to stay on YouTube, Ms. Choi said. She said deepfakes videos that are manipulated by artificial intelligence to make subjects look a different way or say words they did not actually say would be removed if YouTube determined they had been created with malicious intent. But whether YouTube took down parody videos would again depend on the content and the context in which they were presented, she said. Renee DiResta, the technical research manager for the Stanford Internet Observatory, which studies disinformation, said YouTube's new policy was trying to address "what it perceives to be a newer form of harm." "The downside here, and where missing context is different than a TV spot with the same video, is that social channels present information to people most likely to believe them," Ms. DiResta added.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
BENSALEM, Pa. Two men, one in a Ford F 150 truck bedecked with Trump decals and the other in a Chevrolet Malibu, were stopped at a traffic light, arguing about politics. The light turned green, the truck pulled into a parking lot and the Chevy followed. The man in the truck jumped out, brandishing a trailer hitch head like a war hammer. The parking lot led to the Trump Store, a tiny shop selling MAGA merchandise. It has turned the strip mall here in Bucks County, north of Philadelphia, into a never ending Trump rally. This was Saturday afternoon. Less than an hour later, someone leaned out of the window of an S.U.V., punched a Trump Store customer in the face, and took off. "It feels like I'm surrounded by Trump people," said Kendall Messick, 25, a warehouse worker for a phone company who was sitting in the passenger seat of the Chevy Malibu, which had moved to an adjacent lot when a store manager threatened to call the police as the argument escalated. "Look where you are," said the car's driver, Jamear Seals, 27, a Peloton employee. He gestured toward the growing group of Trump supporters with whom he had nearly come to blows. "You're in a Philadelphia suburb." This town and others like it will decide which way Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes will swing in next week's election. President Trump won the state by less than one percentage point in 2016 and pretty much can't eke out a victory again without it. "We win Pennsylvania, we win the whole thing," he said at a rally an hour from here on Monday. Saturday morning, before the contretemps at the Trump store, Joe Biden was just down the road, speaking at a community college. "It may come down to Pennsylvania," he told the crowd. Polls show Mr. Biden leading by five to 13 points, but I grew up around here and am dubious. This place the land of hoagies and Bradley Cooper and Rocky Balboa worship and Tina Fey's "Cousin Karen" accent has transmogrified into Trumplandia. "He has so much more support than in 2016, because it's been four years of accomplishments," said Darinna Thompson, 49, a homemaker who was talking with a group of women outside the Trump Store. They were part of a caravan that had just encircled the Democrats' rally "to say bye bye to Biden" and let his supporters know they were outnumbered. "We just drove all around and people were coming out of their houses and cheering us on as we paraded through their neighborhoods," Ms. Thompson said. Pollsters say that suburban women are President Trump's kryptonite, that they've turned on him. At another Pennsylvania rally, the president pleaded, "Suburban women, will you please like me?" "I feel like that's wrong we're the majority," said Jennifer Girard, 41, a single mother working in consumer goods who was standing near a pink Dodge Challenger emblazoned with "Women for Trump." Ms. Girard said that she was part of a group that raised enough money to erect a "Women for Trump" billboard over the stretch of 1 95 that crosses from the city into the suburbs. Isn't she bothered by the president's loud mouth and tetchy Twitter fingers? "There's a shock factor, for sure," Ms. Girard said, "but I think we know what to expect now." She added, "He's not a politician, and that's why he works for us." What about his flirtation with white supremacists? "I'm sick of people coming to me and telling me I'm a racist because I'm Republican," Ms. Girard said. "My son is half Puerto Rican. I don't understand where that comes from." Granted, these women were voluntarily at the Trump Store, but there seemed to be nothing about the past four years that gave them pause. Not Charlottesville. Not the Bob Woodward tapes. Not the pathetic pandemic response and the ruinous economy. Not the president's suggestions that he might not accept the results of the election. A schoolteacher in the group said, with a shrug, "This is Trump country." My parents, who are divorced and haven't agreed on anything in 20 years, both plan to vote for Joe Biden. They say that, in their respective circles, this makes them unique. My father's wife will vote for Mr. Trump ("401(k)," she says), as will all his friends. My mom says many of her girlfriends will go for Mr. Trump, and she hasn't been able to match with any man on Bumble who isn't a Trump voter. She lives in Montgomery County, just southwest of here, and went to the same high school as Jill Biden. The front yards of the houses flanking my mom's, the one across the street and three more on the block feature Trump signs. There is one Biden sign on the street. One of my mom's acquaintances recently held a Trump themed birthday party for her child. Icing on each cookie read, "Make ninth birthdays great again." On Sunday, I went back to visit the neighborhood I grew up in, in Hatboro, where the most febrile of Fox News talking points are in bloom on many of the front lawns. One house, belonging to Richard Gottshall, is in a league of its own. Hand painted posters sprout like weeds from every corner of his yard. "We the people are tired of the dirty Demo rats," says one. "Liars idiots troublemakers news media as well the best is yet to come." Mr. Gottshall, a retired carpenter and volunteer firefighter, said that some 20 like minded people had congregated on his lawn that morning to show support for their candidate. His neighbor was not pleased about the gathering. "The people across the street here, they're Democrats," said Mr. Gottshall. "They tried to outdo me they had 29 signs. They called the police." But, he added, "First Amendment." Mr. Gottshall explained to me how the media was corrupt. I told him I grew up on the next street over. He offered me a hot dog. I asked him if posting signs calling his neighbors "rats" was crazy. "Not really, because it's on television," he pointed out. "Judge Jeanine, she calls them that. They don't like it? That's tough." A few doors down was a pad with an even nuttier setup. Trump 2020 flags billowed in the wind and a digital sign crawled a message in the front window: "Bidens received millions of illegal money from China, Russia, Ukraine. Biden is a crook should be locked up." It belonged to who else Mr. Gottshall's twin brother, William. A couple unloading groceries in their driveway around the corner said that they planned to vote for Mr. Biden but were too intimidated to talk openly about it. The whole neighborhood, they said, seemed to be going for President Trump. Ms. Lochel said Pennsylvania is unknowable. "If I was a gambling woman," she said, "I wouldn't gamble on this." She doesn't disclose her political views and said, with utmost seriousness, that "the bakery does not make an endorsement." So far, the count stands at 3,367 blue cookies, 18,241 red. "I do think that Trump supporters are more competitive," said Dan Rutledge, standing in line outside of the bakery in the spitting rain on Sunday. Mr. Rutledge, 44, a manager at a clinical research organization, was there to snag some red cookies. "I'm hopeful that he'll win PA, but I don't see it happening myself," he said. "Trump has turned so many people anti him he's a little arrogant," said Mr. Rutledge. But he "liked that in a leader." He added, "It's going to be closer than people say." Shawn McCreesh is an editorial assistant for the Opinion section. 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
Mr. Schrager, 68, is the chairman and chief executive of the Ian Schrager Company, a hotel and real estate developer. Before starting the company in 2005, he founded the Morgans Hotel Group with Steve Rubell, with whom he also created the legendary nightclub Studio 54 in 1977. Q. Looks like business is pretty brisk. A. We're busy. The hotel market is very strong. The residential market is also very strong, particularly when you have a distinctive product. But it's funny because there's just been a tremendous amount of new supply that's been coming on of late not all of it meritorious. Q. You're adding to that supply now with an 11 unit condominium at 215 Chrystie, in the Bowery. How is that project coming along? A. We're in the ground now; we'll probably be complete sometime in 2016. We have contracts back on two half floors and we have contracts out on three others. We got our asks; we didn't negotiate. It comes out to about 4,000 a foot. You're probably paying close to about 8 million for a three bedroom apartment. We've been calling it a "tough lux," because the building is made out of very honest, authentic materials concrete that's used in a new and novel way. You combine those materials with the refinement of the apartments and of the hotel, so it's kind of a refined gritty. Q. There's been increased interest in that neighborhood. A. I think the neighborhood is right in the center of what's going on. When we went to 40 Bond, it wasn't quite there yet and we were the catalyst for turning it around. I think it's one of the most charming blocks in the city. Q. You live at 40 Bond. Could you see yourself moving to Chrystie Street? A. I don't think my wife would stand another renovation. But my daughter may take an apartment there. It's a spectacular building you know it's always great to live on top of a hotel. Q. What's the status of the condo project at West and Leroy Street? A. We got our approval and we're finishing up our plans, getting ready to go out and bid for the construction. We're using Herzog and de Meuron: They're brilliant and they don't have a specific look. Groundbreaking will be sometime in the middle of next year. Q. Are you worried at all that the market could soften by the time you begin sales? A. You know, I never do a project based upon the market. I don't time the market. The best way to deal with the vagaries of an economic cycle is to have a very distinctive and unique product. So if the market turns, I think I can find 45 people in the world that think this is a really unique apartment. The same thing with hotels. I opened up my first Morgans Hotel when interest rates were 22 percent under Reagan. People asked, When are you going to open? When we're ready that's when we're going to open. Q. Let's talk about hotels, specifically your partnership with Marriott. It seems almost counterintuitive that an inventor of the boutique hotel would join forces with a big hotel chain. I did invent the boutique hotel. Been there, done that. I wanted to do something on a much, much larger scale and that was much more accessible to a larger group of people. It's been a learning curve for me, because they come from a different place than what I come from. But you know what? We want the same thing. We want to be special and successful. Q. What is the status of the Edition hotels at Madison Avenue and in Times Square? A. They're in construction. The Edition Clock Tower should open up in the first quarter of 2015. The Times Square Edition, which is quite a large project, on 47th and Seventh, will probably open up in 2017. Q. How will your hotels with Marriott be distinctive from all the other big hotels out there? A. What distinguishes Apple phones from everybody else? You can't quite put your finger on it, but you're in a special place.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
In crucial moments of an opera, despite what characters on stage may be singing about, the orchestra can signal what's really going on and suggest subliminal emotions and disguised feelings. So the composer Nico Muhly was smart to seize on Winston Graham's 1961 novel "Marnie," which inspired Alfred Hitchcock's strangely stylized 1964 film, as an intriguing subject for an opera. This story's baffling central character is a glamorous and troubled woman in late 1950s England, who moves from job to job, changing her look and identity, compulsively embezzling money from employers. But who is she? Why does she do it? Graham's novel is written as Marnie's first person narrative. Even so, the more this Marnie seems to reveal, the less you trust her voice. Mr. Muhly's "Marnie," with an effective libretto by Nicholas Wright, had its much anticipated American premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on Friday. This is Mr. Muhly's second Met commission. ("Two Boys" opened there in 2013.) With his keen ear for unusual harmonies and eerily alluring sonorities, Mr. Muhly painstakingly tries to use his imagination and his proven skill at orchestration to flesh out Marnie's inner life. But despite passages of richness, ambiguity and complexity, especially in the orchestra, the music seldom plumbs the darkest strands of this psychological drama. Mr. Muhly opted, it would seem, to maintain mystery through whole stretches of the score, to suggest emotions rather than making everything explicit. He may have held back too much. The music sometimes seems like an accompaniment to the drama, rather than a realization of it. It starts off strongly by depicting a bustling day at the office of the accounting firm where Marnie works. The chorus sings a gaggle of overlapping phrases ("An invoice for our services," "I like your nails that color") that had an intriguingly manic feel. We first hear Marnie (the plush voiced mezzo soprano Isabel Leonard) exchanging meek pleasantries when introduced by her officious boss, Mr. Strutt (the clarion tenor Anthony Dean Griffey), to a self assured client, Mark Rutland (the sturdy, suave baritone Christopher Maltman). All the while the orchestra teems with fragments of skittish lines, piercing sonorities with notes that mingle into needling dissonances, chords that unfold in halting bursts atop pulsing rhythmic figures, and ominous, heaving bass lines that sometimes seem eerily disconnected. The best scenes in "Marnie" come when Mr. Muhly, in sync with Mr. Wright, takes creative chances. Rather than providing Marnie with any sort of tell all aria, the opera gives her short transitional "links," as Mr. Muhly calls them, disoriented soliloquy like passages where in broken bits of restless, leaping lines she voices bitter, confused ruminations. "What shall I be?" she sings after robbing the safe at the accounting office and deciding she must move on with a new identity. In a later link, after Mark forces a kiss upon her, she spouts disgust at his "slobbery lips," his "flickering tongue," in shards of phrases over a hurtling orchestra. And the shadows were crucial to another compelling scene in the office of a psychoanalyst. Earlier in the opera, after Mark catches her stealing from his office safe, Marnie agrees to marry him, seeing no way out. But frustrated that she recoils at his touch, he makes a bargain: If Marnie will see an analyst he will place a horse she owns, the only thing in life she loves, in a stable for her. In this scene, over a stretch of fraught and suspenseful music, the Shadow Marnies take turns on the analyst's couch, which proved a powerful metaphor: Don't all people reveal multiple personalities in a therapist's office? Ms. Leonard brings a rich voice, a deceptively demure look and moments of poignant vulnerability to Marnie. Despite this, the extended scenes when Marnie interacts with her employers, her sullen and secretive mother (the mezzo soprano Denyce Graves, back at the Met after a dozen years, and riveting), and even Mark lack dramatic definition and depth. Too many stretches of dialogue are written in a declamatory, slow moving style that becomes ponderous. Early in Act II, Mark has a monologue infused with wistful stretches that made me realize how few other times the score opens up lyrically. Marnie, dressing for a business dinner, is in earshot of Mark as he describes coming upon a frightened deer in a meadow. He likens the animal's panic to the way Marnie resists him. His plaintive lines float atop undulant orchestral ripples and bucolic woodwind harmonies tweaked with clashing intervals. For a moment Mark seems not stiff and domineering, but needy and perplexed. Mr. Muhly channels the most visceral music of his score into episodes of crude propositioning and sexual aggression that Marnie has come to expect from nearly every man she encounters. In this MeToo cultural moment, the depicted behavior seems not a throwback to earlier times in gender relations but all too relevant. A major offender is Terry Rutland, Mark's younger brother and his "wayward deputy" in the family business, a role for countertenor (the dynamic Iestyn Davies). Terry's defensiveness about a large red birthmark on the side of his face only fuels his boorish behavior with Marnie. After a poker game at his home, he corners Marnie, who threatens to slap him. "Do it!" Terry shouts, as the orchestra has a rare eruption of gnashing, fitful vehemence. In the final scene of Act I, Mark turns out to be ever worse. Frustrated at their sexless first week of marriage during a miserable honeymoon cruise, Mark tries to force himself on Marnie, who flees into the bathroom and slashes her wrists. "Marnie" benefits from the director Michael Mayer's sleek and fluid staging, with inventive sets and projections designed by Julian Crouch and 59 Productions. (It was first seen last year in London for the work's premiere at the English National Opera.) Scenery changes are deftly rendered through sliding and descending panels on which evocative images are projected. Mr. Muhly's music could not have had a better advocate than the conductor Robert Spano, making an absurdly belated Met debut at 57. He highlighted intriguing details, brought out myriad colorings, kept the pacing sure and never covered the singers. Where has he been? Whatever one's feelings about the Hitchcock film, it was inspiring to see its star Tippi Hedren, now 88 and looking wonderful, come on stage during final ovations with the operatic Marnie at her side.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Despite major challenges created by the coronavirus pandemic, the United States Tennis Association is set to announce this week that it will hold the 2020 United States Open with the support of the men's and women's tours. The tournament is expected to run as originally scheduled from Aug. 31 to Sept. 13, but without spectators, at the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Formal government approval still needs to be secured for the Open to take place, Chris Widmaier, a U.S.T.A. spokesman, said on Monday. "From the beginning, we've built this plan in a very collaborative manner," he said, adding that the U.S.T.A. had consulted regularly with medical and security experts. "We also recognize in order to move forward that we need government approval, approval from the state of New York and any other entity." Even if the tournament is soon confirmed, more than two months will remain before it begins, and outside forces, including the path of the virus and global travel restrictions, may still scuttle the U.S.T.A.'s plans. The field is also likely to be thinner than usual, with athletes making individual decisions about whether to compete. Still, after lengthy meetings and negotiations with tennis's other governing bodies, the U.S.T.A. intends to proceed with the U.S. Open in its traditional late summer dates with the support of its primary sponsors and ESPN, which is paying more than 70 million annually in rights fees to the organization mainly to televise the tournament. In a normal year, the U.S. Open would be the fourth and final Grand Slam tournament. But the men's and women's tours have been shut down since March because of the public health crisis. The start of the French Open, normally the second Grand Slam tournament of the year, has been postponed until late September. Wimbledon, the oldest of the major tournaments, was canceled for the first time since 1945. "Our team has literally worked around the clock to figure out a way we can have the U.S. Open and do it in a safe way," Patrick Galbraith, the president of the U.S.T.A., said in a conference call with more than 400 men's players and coaches on Wednesday. Players will be subject to frequent coronavirus testing. Many will be lodged together at a hotel outside Manhattan, and some restrictions are expected to be placed on their movement to protect their health. "Without having close social contact, we feel if one player gets it, it's not going to spread," Galbraith said in the conference call. "Our infectious disease specialists are confident on that. They are going to be pulled out of the environment, but you have to have close contact to get this." To reduce the number of people at the National Tennis Center, the U.S.T.A. also plans to reduce the amount of support staff that players may bring to New York, potentially to as few as one team member. That would represent quite a change for the game's biggest stars, who typically travel with large entourages including family. The men's top ranked player, Novak Djokovic, who is from Serbia and based in Monaco, has criticized the restrictions as "extreme." As if to underscore the point, he organized a series of exhibition tournaments this month in the Balkans that began with an event last week in Belgrade, Serbia's capital, with fans in the stands, ball kids on the court and players hugging and high fiving. Several top women's players have expressed uncertainty about playing in the Open, including top ranked Ashleigh Barty and second ranked Simona Halep. But Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic, the women's No. 3 and a U.S. Open finalist in 2016, said she was confident the U.S.T.A. could keep players safe. "At some point it needs to start, the season," she said by telephone. "Even if it's next year, I'm sure there is still going to be some sick people, so it's never going to be like super, super safe, so I think the earlier we start the better it's going to be." Pliskova, like others, lobbied for an increase in the size of her team so she could bring a coach and a physical therapist, which would not force her to rely on a busy tournament supplied therapist for treatment. "I would appreciate if two people could go at least," she said. Widmaier said the number of team members could increase. "At its core, the plan is about mitigating risk," he said. He added, "The absolute number of people who will be on site at any one time is not a fixed number here in mid June." New York has had a steady decrease in new cases and deaths. Eric Butorac, the U.S.T.A.'s director of player relations, said during Wednesday's conference call that the U.S.T.A. did not expect players to have to isolate upon arrival in the United States before playing. Last week's call was often contentious, with one former U.S. Open singles champion, Marin Cilic of Croatia, even clamoring for more prize money given the conditions. But the ATP board of directors, which governs the men's tour, ultimately supported the decision to go forward, according to an ATP official familiar with the board's decision who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans had not been announced. The U.S.T.A. does not require approval from the tours to hold the U.S. Open, but it did want to secure it before proceeding. The plan still includes moving the Western Southern Open, a combined men's and women's tour event, to Queens from Mason, Ohio, to create a tennis doubleheader. It would be held primarily the week before the U.S. Open. The Citi Open, a combined men's and women's event in Washington, could still be the comeback event for the tours earlier in the month. The U.S. Open singles qualifying tournaments are not expected to be played. But the U.S.T.A., which has committed to roughly 52 million in prize money, is providing more than 2 million apiece to the men's and women's tours to compensate lower ranked players affected by the absence of qualifying. The reluctance of some stars to commit and the absence of qualifying have led some players to argue that in the interest of fairness, the Open should offer reduced ranking points this year or even none at all. The U.S.T.A. has rejected that idea because it could compromise its existing contracts by turning the event into an exhibition. Despite internal disagreements in recent weeks, the ATP Player Council did not oppose the decision to stage the Open. Djokovic is president of the 10 member council, which includes Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and leading American players like John Isner and Sam Querrey. Though Federer, a five time U.S. Open singles champion, ultimately backed the Open being played this year, he announced that he would not compete again in 2020 after having surgery twice on his right knee this year. But his rivals could have difficult decisions to make as they manage their priorities and preserve their bodies. The schedule will be tightly packed if the tours are able to resume as planned. Nadal, who just turned 34, is the reigning U.S. Open champion, but he is also the reigning champion at the French Open, where he has won a record 12 singles titles. If he were to play in New York, he would have to make a quick transition from American hardcourts to European clay with the French Open expected to start on Sept. 27 with lead in events likely in Madrid and Rome. That is a great deal of top flight tennis to ask of a veteran superstar after a five month layoff, particularly if the U.S. Open and French Open stick to their traditional format of best of five set singles matches. Another concern is whether European authorities will require players to quarantine upon arrival from the United States. "That would be very tough," Galbraith told the players in last week's conference call. "But Europe is starting to open up, and by July 1 most of the countries are waiving their 14 day quarantine. So that makes me optimistic. The main thing is just watching the virus, to be honest with you, to see, does it increase in the U.S.? Is it increasing in Europe? Is it hard to travel?" There is also concern about quarantine requirements in Asia, where the women's tour and men's tour have numerous events scheduled near the end of the season. But for now, the plan is to proceed in New York. "The constraints and policies will be a bit of an adjustment and are certainly not ideal," Danielle Collins, an American player, said in an email last week. She added, "We want to be doing what we're passionate about, and if that means making adjustments for the short time being, so be it."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
PARIS The Kanye West fashion revival tour was announced the day before it began, and came with an invitation containing rattlesnake eggs and dried sage. It kicked off Sunday morning in the peeling 19th century environs of the Bouffes du Nord theater (formerly home of Peter Brook's International Center for Theater Research) with a rousing gospel choir serenading 250 of fashion's sinners. It continued the next evening at 9 through a personal reveal of the new Yeezy Season 8 collection in the bowels of the Espace Niemeyer, the Brutalist building that is the headquarters of the French Communist Party and that is famous for the alien landing looking white dome in its forecourt that crowns an underground council room. And because Mr. West cannot do anything in half measure, what was supposed to be a small presentation to the industry instead culminated about half an hour later on the sloping lawn outside the building as thronged masses those who had been invited and those who had been waiting on the street in the cold and rain were treated to a fashion show en plein air and from afar: pea size models strolling round the outside of the dome and projected onto the curving sides of the building as security people attempted to herd attendees off the actual lawn and onto some artificial grass that had been laid for the occasion (though it was so dark and crowded, no one could tell the difference) and everyone jostled for position and a choir of car horns rose and fell in unison, which at first everyone thought was a manifestation of traffic rage, but then turned out to be part of the performance. All around, people started to giggle. Then flat out laugh. Until a 6 year old voice barked out, "My name is Northie," and began to rap. Then everyone got excited. Thus did Mr. West return to Paris Fashion Week: with family in tow, outreach on the mind, a dose of bombast, a dollop of absurdity and a piece of home. Thus did he return eight years and one brand since he first tried to conquer the industry with skintight leather, bugle beads, broadtail and go karts, only to retreat after two seasons. Thus did he return approximately five years after he re emerged in New York with a whole new idea called Yeezy Season 1; and three and a half years since his Season 4 debacle on Roosevelt Island, where the heat and the wait and the lack of water led to fainting models and furious guests. (In fashion, and Kanye time, seasons and years have nothing to do with one other.) Once upon a time he had tried to be part of the system and Paris had judged him and his aspirations harshly. But the world is very different today, in the wake of Instagram and influencers, Rihanna's incursion at LVMH, the rise of streetwear and Mr. West's own position as a sort of combination Delphic oracle/court jester/cultural harbinger/sneaker supremo. He's a new man. He said as much preshow as he shook every one of the various hands of a group of editors and critics while smiling beatifically beneath Gucci shades and surveying an assortment of models arrayed in Vanessa Beecroft choreographed performance art positions, showcasing the collection like statuary. He was here to face the music. Or make the music. Something like that. But not to talk about some of his more recent controversies. President Trump did not come up. Trousers and jackets had a cloudy texture wool pulled apart and whorled together in cirrus swirls and a loose, swaddling feel; padded jackets turtled over the head and rose in front of the mouth like protective hazmat gear ("I've always been obsessed with hazmat," Mr. West said). Waist length or cropped puffers were seamed to bulge in various cumulonimbus forms. Axel Vervoordt, the Belgian antiquaire who was the interior designer of Mr. West's California home and has a penchant for rawness, nature and the wear and tear of a life well lived, was name checked. Mr. West said he stopped making what he described as "merch" four months ago because he was no longer pushing himself. "When I started," he said, "everyone said, 'Just do a T shirt. The Row just did a T shirt,' because people had to do a celebrity comparison. But we fought really hard not to do T shirts, and then I looked up, and I was only doing T shirts." So he decided that he should try something different. Which was this. Which was meant to "dress the service industry the nannies and housekeepers and chefs," he said people he suggested had been overlooked by fashion. Then he said, "The idea is to be of service, like Sunday Service." Presumably the idea was not to dress them for their day (or night) jobs, given it's unlikely that a service professional might wear a knit bikini top or cropped puffer to work, but rather for their off duty life. Though when he was asked it he would keep prices down to make the clothes affordable, Mr. West said cheerfully, "We haven't priced them yet." Then he said the idea was to have all the wool come from the 700 sheep on his Wyoming ranch. Had the wool on view come from his sheep? No, not these looks. These were "experimental." They were probably? going to be produced (it was hard to tell by the answer). They were "the beginning of a new language." They were in "the infant stage." Which was true. Clothes and show and conversation were like one big work in progress; the gestations of ideas not yet fully realized, but introduced to the world nonetheless. Was it ego? Was it fashion? (Is there a difference?) Well, kinda. There's nothing revolutionary about the silhouettes or the structures, but in the end the clothes are the least of it as they increasingly seem to be for other, more formally entrenched designers, who focus on production and atmosphere over product. The Yeezy merch (it's still merch, but so is Balenciaga and Dior when you come down to it) acts as a souvenir of kinship, not classic taste. Not taste in the old highfalutin' definition of the word, as a kind of elite aesthetic judgment woven in brocade and silk faille and passed down from on high, but rather taste in community, attitude, achievement. That's what the whole shebang the monumental, entirely last minute vision of the show for the street, the rickety execution, the screaming crowds, the editors rolling their eyes but still attuned to his every word was about. This time, he did it his way, rather than the system's way. Like it or not, that's the way a big chunk of this whole shebang may be going.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
A few years ago, Pierre Thiam packed up his two restaurants in Brooklyn and headed to his home continent where he hoped to elevate West African street food to gourmet status. The result is Nok by Alara in Lagos, Nigeria, a restaurant whose celebratory feel is informed by both its hip ambience and its new takes on regional staples. Mr. Thiam, who is from Senegal, clearly enjoys bringing West African tastes to the rest of the world. "I was hoping to show that African food can be elevated and presented in a contemporary setting without losing its identity," he said about the food at Nok, which is best described as familiar tastes, but with refreshing twists. Too often, restaurants in West Africa cater to an upscale clientele by recreating American or European favorites and offering the same single dish or two that hints at their own region's specialties. Sometimes the local fare is neglected altogether. Nok, which opened in late 2015, is in the city's posh Victoria Island area, tucked behind a furniture store full of chairs, tables and other objects from African designers, mostly from the shop. Reni Folawiyo, who owns both Nok and the store, envisioned an integrated shop and restaurant that amount to a greatest hits of food and designs from across the region.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
I have no idea if Oprah Winfrey could be president. I have no idea if she should be president. I certainly have no idea why she might want the demotion. (Can you really get used to "President Winfrey" after earning pop culture's highest title, the mononym?) But anybody who does run for president could do worse than to study her speech at Sunday night's Golden Globes. The moment has inspired a mini "Oprah 2020" boomlet of speculation in political media. Even NBC saluted Ms. Winfrey with a tweet, since deleted: "Nothing but respect for OUR future president." (You'd think the home of "The Apprentice" might want to recuse itself from the future president business by now.) After a year with a reality TV ratings junkie in symbiosis with "Fox Friends," there are many reasons to wonder about a turn to another television star. Is politics becoming permanently celebritized? Do we want the presidency to become the ultimate Cecil B. DeMille Award? But to argue that Ms. Winfrey should run for president or shouldn't simply because she's a celebrity oversimplifies the issue. Most celebrities would make terrible candidates. (No offense, Kid Rock.) The real consideration here is why Ms. Winfrey is a celebrity, and all those qualifications were on display in that speech. It's a master's stage performance. It builds from kitchen confession to mountaintop thunder. It shifts perspective cinematically close in on young Ms. Winfrey sitting on the linoleum floor, pull back to a panorama of America. It uses preacherly rhythms and even cliffhangers ("a young worker by the name of ... Rosa Parks"). But above all, it's a story. And it's a story about stories. It moves from the personal (young Ms. Winfrey watching Sidney Poitier win an Oscar) to the communal (women in Hollywood, and women working on farms and even "some pretty phenomenal men"). It links "your truth" and "absolute truth." It tells the audience: I have my struggle, and I know you have yours, and that connects us all in the sweep of a global struggle. Conventional politicians can do that too, though it's not easy or common. Barack Obama was no one's idea of a shoo in when he announced his campaign. But he synthesized his biography (as the "kid with a funny name"), his country's current struggles and an idea of generational social progress into one evocative narrative change. People are drawn to stories for a reason: In politics as in art, they say more than a list of bullet points. In 2008, John McCain's campaign tried to turn the young senator's crowd appeal against him, with an attack ad that sneered, "He's the biggest celebrity in the world," juxtaposing Mr. Obama with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. The language and images cast his "celebrity" as slight, unserious and, unsubtly, feminine. But then, what celebrities do well is what politicians aspire to: They make themselves the protagonists of a story their followers want to share in. That's powerful. Of course, powerful is another word for dangerous. One danger of TV savvy as a political tool is that it makes politics about delivering whatever agitation keeps the red camera light on. It can be an emotional machine gun for demagogues, obliterating rational argument. If she were to run, Ms. Winfrey might be a more old fashioned celebrity candidate than Mr. Trump. Her brand is about empathy and consensus, the model of 20th century big tent daytime TV. Pundits were talking about the "Oprahfication" of politics way back in the feel your pain presidency of Bill Clinton. Mr. Trump's brand, on the other hand, is about confrontation and us vs. them. This had been a tack of protest candidates like Pat Buchanan (star of "Crossfire"), but it became a more feasible path to victory in the polarized America of 2016. In TV terms, she's a broadcaster (despite now having a cable network), he's a niche programmer (despite having been on NBC). It would be something to see how "You get a car!" fares against "You're fired!" should it ever come to that. Ms. Winfrey would bring her own vast following, helpfully overlapping Democratic base groups including African Americans and women. Ms. Winfrey would bring TV baggage, too, including having used her talk show as a platform for self help panaceas. (Mr. Trump has his "truthful hyperbole" and "alternative facts"; she has the dream it and you can be it mantra of "The Secret.") She gave the world Dr. Mehmet Oz, who in the 2016 campaign let Mr. Trump flash a piece of paper on his program and declare himself in big league health. Whether or not America needs Oprah, though, "Oprahesque" is not a terrible goal for a politician to aim for. The ability to captivate an audience does not itself pass legislation or make disarmament deals. But it's not nothing. Elections are contests of stories. Scoff at the idea of Oprah 2020, if you will. But if you're looking for your own path to 2020, you might just want to look under your seat.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
Capping the celebration of its 100th anniversary, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on Wednesday announced a gift of 46.4 million from the William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation, among the largest donations ever to an American music school. The gift will help fund construction of a 185 million, 12 story building on a site just south of San Francisco City Hall. Designed by Mark Cavagnero Associates and scheduled to open in 2020, it will include two concert halls, rehearsal spaces, high tech studios and classrooms, and will provide housing for the student body. "It will shape the future of the conservatory, in one of the most exciting pieces of real estate in the world," David H. Stull, the school's president, said in a phone interview. Founded in 1917 by Ada Clement and Lillian Hodghead, the San Francisco Conservatory is the oldest independent music school on the West Coast, with luminaries like Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern among the alumni of its youth program. While the school has long emphasized risk taking and an expansive view of the field, Mr. Stull has pushed it and its curriculum toward the future since becoming president in 2013. Its program in Technology and Applied Composition (TAC), which began offering courses in 2015, has been forging a new identity for the 21st century composer.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
When the Dodgers won the National League pennant last week, Dave Roberts, the Los Angeles manager, was unusually emotional as he spoke at a lectern about how this would prove to be the Dodgers' year. Roberts is normally seen as an unflappable, self possessed figure standing in the dugout, calmly writing snippets of tactical information and other managerial data into a small blue notebook. Some of those attributes are innate, but Roberts credits an early mentor named Jeff Manto for teaching him the value of a measured and composed approach to baseball through a specific technique that still serves him, as he seeks to block out the tumult while attempting to guide the Dodgers to their first World Series title in 32 years. "You want to make sure it doesn't speed up on you," Roberts said on Friday before his Dodgers beat the Tampa Bay Rays, 6 2, in Game 3 of the World Series. Baseball may appear ponderously slow to some. But for a manager, time can move rapidly during games, as crucial decisions roll by in speedy succession, especially late in games when vital elements stack up: the status of each of the manager's own players and the other team's players; the state of the game; how someone looked in a previous at bat; weather conditions; field conditions; piles of statistical information that need to be sorted, prioritized and applied at the right moments. And all of it measured against gut instinct. Roberts, who has led the Dodgers to three World Series since he was hired in 2016, had much less to worry about when he was a 26 year old minor leaguer simply hoping to break into the majors. In 1998, he had just been traded by the Detroit Tigers to the Cleveland Indians and sent to the Class AAA Buffalo Bisons. It was there that he met Manto, a veteran minor league third baseman for several organizations. Roberts describes Manto as a Crash Davis type, referring to the main character in the movie "Bull Durham" a sage veteran of the minor league circuit with much to teach. Roberts, known for his curiosity, soaked up a good deal of it. None Everyone Loves Ohtani: The Angels' two way star was a unanimous pick for A.L. M.V.P. and his superfans redefine devotion. Phillie Phavorite: Bryce Harper truly committed to Philadelphia and now he's back on top of baseball, winning the N.L. M.V.P. Cy Young Winners: Milwaukee's Corbin Burnes and Toronto's Robbie Ray had hit rock bottom before they worked their way up to stardom. Baseball Is Stuck in Neutral: The potential of a lockout has a star studded group of free agents waiting for the dust to settle. Free Agency Tracker: Get the latest updates on signings, contract extensions and trades. "When he came to our ball club, he was high, high energy," Manto said of Roberts last week in a telephone interview. "But the main thing was that he wanted information. He was always asking quality questions to the veteran guys about how to do everything. It made an impression on you." The feeling was mutual, because Roberts recalled how Manto, who now runs a player development academy in Pennsylvania, explained to him one of the keys to success in professional baseball, a method to prevent the game from spinning out of control. "It was one of the tricks I learned over the years," Manto said. "When things started speeding up and something was going too fast maybe even off the field, like a family situation I would do everything slower. "I drove the speed limit to get me back to point, I'd eat slower. Whatever that means, it meant a lot to me." It also meant something to Roberts, who still recalled the advice 22 years later. On game days, Roberts would drink his coffee slowly, move around his house slowly, get to the park early and get dressed slowly. And when it came time to hit, he would walk slowly to the batter's box. This is perhaps a bit unexpected for a player whose singular moment of fame stealing second base in Game 4 of the 2004 American League Championship Series to ignite the Red Sox's historic comeback against the Yankees was all about speed. But mentally, the approach needs to be relaxed enough to make the game appear slow. "When Dave stole that base, I knew there was some element of it that he had learned by asking a question," Manto said. "There is no doubt. Maybe it was his lead, how to read the pitcher, checking the catcher. Maybe all of it. But that is what made him unique." Manto described Roberts as extremely respectful, not only to him, but also to the game and to the process of being a player and a teammate. Once, in 1999 in Buffalo, Roberts was responsible for the shoebox that contained the fine payments for the players' kangaroo court. But he lost it, and the money inside. Some of the players told Manto, who was the judge that week, and he waited to see how Roberts would respond. "He came up to me a couple days later and just told me the truth," Manto said. "He said he left it on the bus. In Double A, you use the same bus all the time. But in Triple A, one bus leaves and another one picks you up. He was really apologetic, and I just told him to pay it back. But it showed how seriously he took it, because it was about being a part of a team." Roberts made an impression on many people back then, including Mark Shapiro, now the president of the Toronto Blue Jays. In 1998 Shapiro was Cleveland's assistant general manager, and even though the two spent only a couple of years in the same organization, they remain friendly. Shapiro calls Roberts one of five or six people in his career with whom he shares a special connection. Three years after Roberts left Cleveland, he ended up in Boston on a team that would make history in October 2004. Shapiro told Roberts at the time that his brother David, who worked for a nonprofit, lived in a modest home in Boston and that he should visit for dinner. "And he went," Shapiro said. "Here he is, a big major league player for the Boston Red Sox, and he goes to my brother's little house in Jamaica Plain and plays with my brother's little kids." Shapiro said he wished he could claim he always knew Roberts would make a successful manager, but he admits he never really through of it, mostly because he was focused on him as a player and later as a friend. Now, even when Roberts gets criticized for a decision that backfires, he realizes it makes perfect sense.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Ford is recalling about 92,000 sedans and crossovers in North America because of a problem with the front, right half shaft, which means the vehicles can cause drivers to "experience the loss of drive function" suddenly, the automaker said on Monday. The models covered by the recall are the 2013 14 Ford Taurus, police interceptor sedans and Flex; the Lincoln MKT and MKS; and the 2012 14 Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX. About 83,000 of the vehicles are in the United States, about 8,200 in Canada and 600 in Mexico. The problem was detected through warranty claims, said Kelli Felker, a spokeswoman for Ford. Other recalls announced by Ford on Monday covered about 200 Fiesta compacts from the 2014 model year because the gas tank may leak and about 2,100 Ford Escape crossovers from 2014 because a weak bond could cause the panoramic glass sunroof to leak or break away from the vehicle. The automaker said it was not aware of any accidents or injuries related to any of the recalls.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Automobiles
What Negative Oil Prices Mean and How the Impact Could Last None A main benchmark for the price of oil fell negative for the first time ever this week. The decline more than 300 percent in daily trading raised fresh questions about the damage the coronavirus is having on the global economy. What does it mean for oil prices to be negative? A benchmark price for a barrel of oil to be delivered next month fell to 37.63 on Monday, which means that sellers would have to pay someone that much to take it off their hands. But that historic plunge was exacerbated by a quirk in how the oil markets work. The negative price concerned only contracts for delivery of barrels in May that are traded on so called futures markets. At the same time trading happens for May deliveries, people trade on contracts ending in June, in July and so on. Demand for oil has collapsed in recent weeks as the coronavirus pandemic has devastated practically all corners of the economy, eliminating much of the need for fuel to ship goods, ride on airplanes or commute to work. Without a use for it, the world's biggest producers the United States is high on that list are running out of places to store all the oil that companies have continued to pump out of the ground. As a result, traders this week were willing to pay to get rid of oil rather than figure out how to keep storing it. The May contracts that fell so much ended on Tuesday. (The price of the June contract is still in positive territory, though it has fallen a lot in recent weeks, too.) OK, then, why am I still paying for gas at the pump? The price of gas has been precipitously falling around the United States in the last few weeks as the oil industry has been jolted. The national average price of gas was 1.81 as of Monday, a 1.03 drop from a year ago. But crude oil is only the raw material from which refineries make gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other products. And the price of crude even if it's negative right now accounts for only a fraction of the cost of the gasoline or diesel you put in your car or truck, according to the Energy Information Administration. It costs companies like Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell, which employ tens of thousands of people around the world, a lot of money to refine oil and transport it to gas stations. In addition, federal, state and local taxes account for about one fifth of what you pay at the pump in the United States. Taxes can make up a much greater share of the price in many European and Asian countries. Will the price of oil stay or become negative again? This had never happened before, and experts do not expect prices to stay negative for days or weeks. Demand for oil is likely to remain tepid for months because few experts believe the economy will quickly rebound to where it was before the pandemic. Cryptocurrency group loses bid for copy of U.S. Constitution. The company that produced 'Parasite' is in talks to buy Endeavor's scripted content arm. Critic of Teamsters leader claims victory in race to succeed him. But the low prices will also put pressure on oil companies and countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia, huge producers, to pump less oil because they themselves will run out of room to store it. That should, over time, help lift prices or at least slow down declines. Can I buy barrels of oil and store them, say, in my backyard and make money? No, you can't. The contract for oil traded in the United States is for delivery of oil at Cushing, Okla., a critical storage hub where lots of oil pipelines converge. In addition, each contract is for 1,000 barrels of oil, or about five tanker trucks' worth. Even if you had a place to park five tanker trucks filled with oil, you would be hard pressed to find a trader willing to sell you a single contract. Most trades are for many times that amount. Monday's abnormal fall in prices was a reminder that the industry and for that matter, the world economy has changed a lot since the last oil crisis. For one, the United States is now one of the biggest producers in the world, and the country has in recent years been pumping out crude oil as fast it can. The steep rise in output has outpaced the world's need for energy, a problem that is magnified by the coronavirus. What's not known is how long this slowdown will last, as well as the long term consequences of an economic recession, and if that will fundamentally change how much oil the world needs.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
By the time of the Civil War, evangelical churches were so dominant, Kidd writes, that they represented a de facto establishment. But the issue of slavery tore the Northern and Southern churches apart, and divided black from white churches. Kidd tells us evangelicals would never again reach the same level of cohesion that they did before the 1840s. Still, white evangelicals remained the de facto establishment in both the North and South, making laws on such things as prayer in the public schools. In fact, the first real split in evangelicalism came in the Northern churches at the end of the century over the issues of theology and Darwinian evolution. Kidd describes the doctrinal splits, but says, "Promoting anti evolution laws was one of the most misguided evangelical ventures ever," and the Scopes trial of 1925 "illustrated the temptations of media access, establishment politics and celebrity politicians in evangelical history." The trial, he writes, "was a major precedent for the crisis of politicization that bedevils evangelical Christianity today." Interestingly, Kidd traces what he calls the crisis of the movement to the 1940s, when Billy Graham and many other preachers blended their gospel with anti Communism. The turning point, he says, came when Graham made an alliance with President Eisenhower, and evangelicals began to conflate pollical power and access to Republican leaders with the advancement of God's kingdom. Kidd describes the Republican efforts to woo evangelicals while President Johnson's civil rights acts were turning white Southerners against him. Throughout the book, Kidd does a good job of including the perspectives of black clergymen. However, he, like many other evangelicals, often equates "evangelicals" with "Christians," and negates the role Northern white Catholics and mainline Protestants played in the civil rights movement. He continues his historical narrative through the rise of the Christian right (or what he calls "Republican insider evangelicals"), plus the "conservative resurgence" in the Southern Baptist Convention. Only in his last pages does he get to the election of Donald Trump, and after all he has said about the corrupting effects of political power on a religious community, the coda is disappointing. He recites the familiar excuses: Evangelicals voted against Hillary Clinton rather than for Donald Trump; among Christians in politics, the media care only about evangelicals; polling doesn't differentiate between nominal evangelicals and those who hold to traditional beliefs, etc. He admits that evangelical fealty to the Republican Party is real and has done considerable damage to the movement, but he insists that evangelicals should not be defined by the 81 percent because being a real evangelical entails conversion, devotion to an infallible Bible and to God's discernible presence on earth. But since polls show that evangelicals who attended church frequently voted for Trump at much the same rate as nominal evangelicals, he is left with no explanation for why so many evangelicals voted for an adulterer who boasts about his sexual conquests. Ben Howe is not the scholar Kidd is, but his book comes closer to an explanation; for, unlike Kidd, Howe was a conservative activist who went through a change of heart during the 2016 primaries. A writer, podcaster and filmmaker, he grew up in what he describes as an "ideal" evangelical family. As the family moved about, he went to W. A. Criswell's church in Dallas and later to Jerry Falwell Sr.'s church in Lynchburg, Va. The two pastors were fundamentalists, heavily involved with politics and, as a boy, Howe supported the Moral Majority. Later, he had great hopes when George W. Bush was elected. He liked the idea of "compassionate conservatism," and he also liked the president's "moral clarity" when, after 9/11, he told America's allies that they had to be either for the United States or for the terrorists. Many evangelicals, Howe writes, had come to believe that the cultural tide was shifting, putting the idea of a Christian nation at the forefront of popular conservative thinking.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
AWAY FROM CHAOS The Middle East and the Challenge to the West By Gilles Kepel In 2016, the French political scientist Gilles Kepel was condemned to die for being "an experienced Arabist." Immediately after the French born terrorist Larossi Abballa murdered a police officer and his wife, he took to Facebook Live to call for the murder of seven public figures in France, with Kepel's name nearing the top of the list. A government security team guarded Kepel round the clock. His crime? Railing against ISIS on television. The French public knows Kepel well. A public intellectual in a country that still celebrates public intellectuals, he spent years making the rounds on chat shows as a Middle East expert when he wasn't busy teaching and researching at the Paris Institute of Political Studies. His latest book, "Away From Chaos," comprehensively surveys the turmoil in the Middle East over the past four decades. While there isn't much new or groundbreaking here, it's an excellent primer for anyone wanting to get up to speed on the region, and it's devoid of the crippling ideological blinders that sometimes disfigure books about a part of the world so rife with ideology. Until the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the Arab Israeli conflict defined the region. Afterward, a steep rise in oil prices and profits financed the first wave of a rising tide of radical Islamism. The most pivotal year was 1979, when the Iranian revolution and the siege of the Great Mosque in Mecca kicked off a deadly rivalry between Tehran and Riyadh that has yet to abate. Equally momentous that year was the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan, an accelerant for the movement of international jihadists willing to martyr themselves in battle, this time against heathens from Eurasia.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Using screens before bedtime impairs children's sleep and may diminish their quality of life. British researchers studied 6,616 children, average age 12, who reported their use of screens mobile phone, tablet, e reader, computer, portable media player, television or game console during the hour before bedtime. They also filled out a well validated 10 item questionnaire measuring worries and stresses, social functioning and other determinants of quality of life. The children reported their bedtimes, how long it took them to fall asleep and how long their sleep lasted. More than two thirds said they used at least one screen at bedtime. The study is in Environment International. Nighttime screen use was associated with poor sleep both difficulty falling asleep and waking too early. Mobile phones and televisions were associated with 60 percent higher odds of waking up late, and children who used screens at bedtime consistently scored lower on quality of life tests. "These findings need to be confirmed in future studies," said the lead author, Michael O. Mireku, a lecturer at the University of Lincoln. In the meantime, he said, "Parents should just be aware of this possible association."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Well
The recent history of the Academy Awards is littered with puzzling and short lived plans. Remember the pandering popular film Oscar, or the show's decision to present several categories during the commercial breaks? Both ideas were so roundly derided that they never made it past the point of a news release. Such tweaks are usually desperate moves meant to goose ratings, and the same could be said of another radical change, when the academy announced after the ceremony in 2009 that it would expand the best picture field to include more than five movies. Against all odds, it's an experiment that has managed to stick, and your Carpetbagger is willing to give credit where it's due: 10 years after the first expanded lineup was released, I'm convinced it should be considered one of the best moves the Oscars have ever made. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it saved the show. Of course, the decision to blow up the best picture category wasn't greeted with nearly as much enthusiasm in June 2009, when the academy president at the time, Sid Ganis, declared that the best picture category would suddenly field 10 nominees. Industry veterans worried that the expansion would sap a nomination of its prestige factor, and many of the publicists and producers who had won previous best picture fights felt particularly aggrieved, like high achievers learning that the SAT had become easier after they took it. Still, the best picture formula had by then become stale, too often finding spots for twinkly Miramax films like "Chocolat," "Finding Neverland" and "The Cider House Rules." Without big hits in the mix, viewer interest was fading, and after the 2009 best picture lineup snubbed well reviewed blockbusters like "The Dark Knight" and "Wall E" in favor of middlebrow dramas like "Frost/Nixon" and "The Reader," Ganis huddled with academy decision makers to figure out a new path forward. "I would not be telling you the truth if I said the words 'Dark Knight' did not come up," Ganis told reporters after the big announcement. His hope was that the next year would bring a best picture list filled not just with prestige dramas but also with the kinds of movies that had previously possessed little shot at penetrating Oscar's inner circle: "Who knows," Ganis said, "there might even be a comedy." He got his wish, and then some. The expanded 2010 best picture lineup turned out to be the most exciting and diverse collection the Oscars had ever produced, containing sci fi blockbusters ("Avatar" and "District 9"), auteur driven dramas ("Inglourious Basterds," "Up in the Air"), an acclaimed animated smash ("Up"), a heartland hit ("The Blind Side"), and a Coen brothers comedy ("A Serious Man"). Until that year, no best picture lineup had ever featured more than one film directed by a woman, but 2010 gave us two Lone Scherfig's "An Education" as well as the eventual best picture winner, "The Hurt Locker," directed by Kathryn Bigelow while the next year gave us two more. With Lee Daniels's "Precious" on the 2010 list, it was also the first time that a best picture nominee had been helmed by a black filmmaker; since then, two movies by black directors have gone on to win best picture: "12 Years a Slave" and "Moonlight." Of course, the Oscars couldn't leave well enough alone, and the academy soon caved to naysayers who felt that 10 best picture nominees might be too much. From 2012 on, contenders would have to meet a more exacting threshold to be nominated, and the end results could vary based on the number of votes, delivering us eight or nine best picture nominees instead of an even 10. It was a tweak that seemed to fundamentally misunderstand the point of the expansion in the first place: No Oscar year has ever lacked for 10 great movies, though they may have lacked voters with the imagination to recognize them as such. That's what the expanded best picture field is meant to redress, and it's why the category should return to a consistent 10 nominees. The fuller list is able to provide a far more accurate snapshot of that year in film: Imagine if we'd had it for 1999, an exciting cinematic year that is nevertheless represented by so so best picture nominees like "The Green Mile" and "The Cider House Rules" and lacks all time classics like "Election" and "The Matrix." A best picture list of 10 also encourages the academy and the public to watch more than just a handful of worthy films: Though "The Farewell," "Knives Out" and "Uncut Gems" didn't ultimately make this year's best picture lineup, the presumption that they might helped them become even more widely seen and discussed. And at a time when diversity is at the forefront of the Oscar conversation, the expanded best picture field may be one of the sole reasons this awards show hasn't completely collapsed under the weight of controversy. If you cut the category back to the five movies that also received corresponding best director nominations over the last decade, so many of the best picture nominees that starred people of color would be lost: No "Black Panther," "Selma," "Hidden Figures" or "Fences," to name just a few. Most of the female fronted movies would go, too, including "Little Women," "Brooklyn," "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Winter's Bone," not to mention nearly all the modern day stories, films about queer people, and sci fi and genre films that have recently been nominated: No "Call Me by Your Name," "Her," "Marriage Story" or "Inception." Those are the movies that have helped expand the notion that an Oscar contender can be more than just a British period drama or a weighty war film, and without them, the Oscars would appear even more insulated and homogeneous than they already do. This show will stay relevant only if it can still excite and surprise us, and the potential for that is considerably lessened unless a wider net is cast. You can see the ripples from 10 years ago in this year's imperfect but fascinating best picture list: A decade after "The Dark Knight" provoked the rule change, "Joker" is now our nomination leader. With "Little Women," Greta Gerwig has become only the second woman to direct more than one best picture nominee, after Bigelow began her run in 2010.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
MIAMI BEACH Two blocks from the beach, overlooking a small patch of green, the home of Miami City Ballet rises like the prow of an ocean liner, all gleaming white curves. This is where the 51 dancers of this troupe, founded in 1985, spend their days, rehearsing in spacious studios bathed in Florida sunshine. "Ballet companies are different from each other, and I think a lot of it comes from the city you're in," Lourdes Lopez, the artistic director of the Miami City Ballet, said recently in her office, on the third floor. In class one morning a few weeks ago, the dancers moved with energy and finesse, the curve of their arms streamlined, their bodies alert. Nobody lagged behind the beat. "Don't accessorize your plie!" the ballet master called out. It hardly seemed necessary. Off to one side, Jeanette Delgado, one of the company's most admired dancers, was particularly eye catching. Each movement seemed to involve her entire body, out to the tips of her fingers and up through her shoulders to her head and eyes. Energy, fullness, musicality these are all qualities the company is known for. Maybe it's the sunshine, or maybe it's the dynamism and elan of its founding director, the former New York City Ballet star Edward Villella, whose aesthetic Ms. Lopez has chosen to preserve, but it's difficult not to be struck by the warmth and attack of the company's dancers. New Yorkers will get to see them April 13 to 17, in the first visit by the full company since its debut in 2009, and its first with orchestral accompaniment. (It will be presented by the Joyce; the New York City Ballet orchestra will be in the pit.) Over Labor Day weekend, Ms. Lopez packed her bags and rushed down to fill the void. At the time, she was living in New York with her family and directing a small experimental ballet ensemble, Morphoses. She found herself at the helm of a company in turmoil with more than 3 million of debt. (According to the company, it is now on track to be debt free within a year.) Those first weeks and months were not easy, but it seems that her calm, steady energy noticeable in conversation and in the studio and her natural inclination to listen to those around her, helped the company ease into its new phase. So far, she has emphasized continuity over change. "It's still a Balanchine company," she said in her office. "It's the same philosophy." Or, as Michael Sean Breeden, a longtime corps member, put it, "We were lucky that she wasn't interested in disposing of what made the company special." She quickly got down to business. It helped that she knew the city Ms. Lopez was born in Cuba and lived in Miami until she was 14 and that the company's Balanchine based repertory was second nature. (The company will be bringing three works by Balanchine to New York.) "She has the big picture and the smallest picture," Robert Gottlieb, a former editor of The New Yorker and a critic who has acted as an unofficial adviser to Mr. Villella and Ms. Lopez and is now on the company's board, said recently. She is involved in the smallest details even a pleat on a costume but also teaches morning class two or three times a week, coaches dancers in rehearsals and hosts an informal performance series called Open Barre. She has preserved the company's family like atmosphere, something that had been part of Mr. Villella's original idea. ("We used the premise of the company as a family," he said in a 2013 interview.) Slowly, she has begun to introduce ballets by Richard Alston, Nacho Duato, Christopher Wheeldon and others nothing revolutionary. (The company already had works by Twyla Tharp, Liam Scarlett and Alexei Ratmansky, all of whom will be represented in the New York run.) Perhaps most significant, she has forged a partnership with the wunderkind of the ballet world, Justin Peck. His "Heatscape," created for the company last year and inspired in part by the overflowing street art of Miami's Wynwood district, will be performed in one of the company's three programs in New York. (The tattoo like designs are by Shepard Fairey, of "Hope" poster fame.) "Justin made a ballet that belongs to the company and to Miami, as we exist right now," said Patricia Delgado, sister to Jeanette and also principal dancer (and, as it happens, Mr. Peck's girlfriend). The ballet has a high energy, impulsive quality "a little bit in your face," in Mr. Peck's words. Much like the city itself. Several dancers noted that under Ms. Lopez's direction, the company is starting to feel more connected to the culture of Miami, rather than like an outpost of New York City Ballet. This is also reflected in its roster, which includes a higher than average number of Latin Americans, including a large contingent from Brazil. Its most ambitious project to date, timed for its 30th anniversary season, was the company premiere of Balanchine's evening long "Midsummer Night's Dream," which opened on March 18. Ms. Lopez drew on local talent, retaining the original choreography but giving it a new, aquatic look, designed down to the last starfish by the Miami born artist Michele Oka Doner. (Bottom is turned into a manatee instead of a donkey.) The production, which opened March 18, has been a success with local audiences and even won over the Miami Herald's critic, Jordan Levin, who had previously expressed reservations about the vibrancy of the company's dancing during Ms. Lopez's tenure. "I think she has cleaned up certain aspects," Ms. Levin said in a phone interview. "But to me it often doesn't have the same urgency or the same intensity." She expressed no such reservations about "Midsummer." Like the New York tour, which signals the end of the anniversary season, new works help to raise the company's profile in its hometown and to attract new audiences. Ticket sales and donations are up. "It all comes down to programming," Ms. Lopez insisted. "You've got to get the dancers challenged and growing. The audiences see dancers at the top of their game, really on a high. And they think: I kind of want to feel that again. I want to go back."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
LONDON In the first episode of season two of "Fleabag," which debuts on Amazon Prime in the United States on May 17, the heroine, played by Phoebe Waller Bridge, wears a black jumpsuit to a magnificently awful dinner with her family. The jumpsuit cost 38 pounds, or about 50, was made by the London based label Love, and once British viewers of the show found it online, it sold out in a day. Since the episode aired in Britain on March 4, Love has sold 2,200 jumpsuits; in the whole of 2018, they sold 800, a spokeswoman for the company said. "All of a sudden, sales jumped," Teri Sallas, a co founder of the family run label, said. "We didn't have enough. We have had to manufacture 2,000 since then." In the second episode, Fleabag shares a drink with the season's new lead character, a "cool, sweary" and "hot" (as she describes him) priest, played by Andrew Scott, who has been asked to preside over her father's second wedding. "Do you want a proper drink?" he says, his eyes lighting up. "I've got cans of G and T. From M S." And lo, in the week after the broadcast, the British supermarket Marks Spencer saw sales of its pre mixed gin and tonic spike, according to the magazine Radio Times. A troubled 30 something and a man of the cloth might seem unlikely influencers, but these are just two examples of "the Fleabag effect." When the new season aired in Britain, it became a rare phenomenon in these days of fragmented TV viewing. The final episode was watched on the BBC by 2.5 million, a high figure for an alternative comedy and nearly a quarter of all 16 to 34 year olds who were watching TV at the time were tuned in. Read our review of Season 2 of "Fleabag." It also became one of the most talked about shows in Britain in years, thanks largely to the odd couple chemistry between the attractive priest and the nihilistic heroine. As viewers debated the ins and outs of their relationship on social media, the show became daily fodder for newspaper columnists. "Is Fleabag good for Catholicism?" asked one. "Fleabag is a work of undeniable genius. But it is for posh girls," declared another. Just as the fervor was dying down, on May 2, Waller Bridge announced a revival of her original "Fleabag" stage show in the West End of London, after a run at the SoHo Playhouse in New York last month. She tweeted a single word "London!" and a winky face emoji, and all 30 dates sold out in an hour. Some fans waited online for three hours to get tickets for the 65 minute monologue, which cost up to the equivalent of about 198. (Some tickets on a resale website were selling for around 775.) And yet, Waller Bridge initially didn't want to write a second season. The first was a sleeper hit which grew out of a one woman show she performed at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2013. In a recent telephone interview, Waller Bridge said that the BBC had eventually convinced her and that she had decided she "wanted to write about something bigger, something outside of her own psyche." She turned to God. Waller Bridge said she had been jotting down ideas in a draft email, and when she read it back, she found mainly jokes about religion. (In the first episode, the priest reveals that his brother is a pedophile. He rolls his eyes: "I'm aware of the irony of that.") A further catalyst was a conversation she overheard between two young women dressed "in really sexy clothes," debating which part of the Old Testament spoke to them the most. "And something clicked," said Waller Bridge. "Modern life and religion felt like the perfect imperfect companions." In the priest, she found a perfect imperfect companion for Fleabag, too. "I thought it was the thing that would surprise and fascinate Fleabag the most," Waller Bridge said. "He is the absolute opposite to her in what he believes and how he wants to live, and yet there is a connection. Fleabag chose a life of casual sex, he chose a life of celibacy. Both choices are informed by their personal lives and what they believe they need to survive." Waller Bridge didn't have a particularly religious upbringing, she said, but at a Roman Catholic girls' school in West London, she attended Mass and would "stare at crucifixes in the corridor between maths and chemistry." Catherine Pepinster, a former editor of the Catholic newspaper The Tablet and a commentator on religion in Britain, said in a telephone interview that she thought the show was a "refreshing" portrait of modern religion. "It has depth, and it shows that a priest is a normal human being, with normal human instincts." "Although," she added, "I have never met a priest who swears like that." Pepinster went on to say that, "In our secular age, a lot of people find religion abhorrent, and that notion is given a lot of publicity. But there are other people who almost wish they could believe, who find something attractive about religion." In the fourth episode, Fleabag attends a Quaker prayer meeting with the priest. She describes it as "very intense ... very quiet ... very, very ... erotic." (In the weeks after the British broadcast, a pornographic streaming service issued a news release saying that searches for religious material on its platform had increased. "Immediately after the Season 2 premiere, searches for 'religious' increased by 162 percent, 'nun' by 145 percent and 'priest' by 103 percent," the statement said.) The official Quakers in Britain group quoted Fleabag's summary of the prayer meeting on Twitter and other social media. "Our account lit up, and many Quakers were sharing clips in Facebook groups," Juliet Prager, a spokeswoman for Quakers in Britain, said in an email exchange. "Most commented that it is more accurate than how most people perceive us. Some responses showed a yearning for Quaker stillness and requested details of local meetings." While there is a tradition of sitcoms in Britain set in the church, such as "Father Ted," "The Vicar of Dibley" and "Rev," they rarely tackle issues of faith head on. Secular comedies which feature religion as a theme are even rarer. It remains taboo, and writing about "the side of religion that is hopeful and good" was part of the appeal, Waller Bridge said. Not everyone, however, was pleased by Waller Bridge's irreverent take. Pepinster, the commentator on religion, said she found some scenes "disturbing." "There were some aspects that I thought hinted on the abusive," she said. "There are things about it that are ludicrous: Catholics don't get married in gardens. But there are also things that are really interesting." Waller Bridge said "Fleabag" was "never an attack on the church." But, she added, "If we can't look at religion and religious people through the same flawed lens as we do the rest of the world, then it's hypocritical." The London theatrical run of "Fleabag" will be the end of the character, Waller Bridge said. For now. She is already moving on, to a third season of "Killing Eve," the Golden Globe winning show she created after "Fleabag," and to writing for the 25th movie in the James Bond franchise, which is set to be released in April 2020. "I will miss her, but I hope there will always be a little bit of Fleabag in everything I write," she said. "I'd love to bring her back when she is 50. Only God knows what she'd have to say then."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
At the heart of "The Image You Missed," an intriguing documentary from Donal Foreman that takes a sidelong look at the Troubles, is a quote that, elsewhere (though not when it's heard in the movie), is attributed to the Derry activist Paddy Doherty: "An Irishman never speaks to the person in front of him, but to an image." That's an apt summation of this essay film's method. Foreman makes sense of the images left behind by his dead father, Arthur MacCaig, a New Jersey born Irish American who settled in Paris and made documentaries about Northern Ireland that showcased the perspectives of Irish nationalists. (The Metrograph, where "The Image You Missed" is opening, is showing some of MacCaig's movies in a sidebar.)	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
The government revised its estimate of economic growth in the third quarter down slightly on Tuesday, as consumer spending helped sustain a modest growth rate despite a dip in net exports caused in part by the stronger dollar. "The Achilles heels of the second half of 2015 are inventories and trade, which remain a drag on growth," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago. "The good news is that consumers are showing a willingness to carry the economy into the new year." At an annualized rate of 2 percent, the pace of expansion in the third quarter was not far out of line with the slow but steady gains registered since the recovery began in mid 2009. Last year, the United States economy as measured by changes in gross domestic product adjusted to eliminate the effects of inflation grew by 2.4 percent. In 2013, it expanded at a 1.5 percent rate. Businesses have been cautious about spending, while plunging oil prices have prompted energy companies to cut back on new investments. A weaker trade balance also exerted pressure, reducing growth by 0.3 percentage point. In a separate report on Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes fell by 10.5 percent in November, an unexpected plunge that the group and private economists attributed to the start of new government rules that may have slowed down mortgage closings. "We expect delayed sales activity to be recouped in coming months as the real estate industry adjusts to these new regulations," Barclays said in a note to clients on Tuesday. For all the blows the economy has absorbed in recent years, it has maintained a remarkably even keel. Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS, said he was struck by a seemingly obscure but telling data point in the third quarter report: a 2.9 percent increase in final sales to domestic purchasers, which strips out the negative impact of inventory changes and net exports. "That's a very respectable top line figure," he said. "The economy's underlying growth rate is more in the neighborhood of 3 percent than 2 percent." Elizabeth Holmes Hones Her Defense in Day 2 of Testimony Kevin Spacey was ordered to pay 31 million to the 'House of Cards' studio after sexual harassment allegations. Economists expect the growth rate in the current fourth quarter to be similar to that of the third quarter, with the economy's rate of expansion for 2015 expected to be just over 2 percent. One major source of weakness recently has been the strong dollar, said Torsten Slok, chief international economist for Deutsche Bank Securities in New York. The dollar's rise hurts American companies by making American exports more expensive for overseas buyers. At the same time, the picture for growth in both Asia and Europe remains cloudy. "Employment has been holding up but the big economic story has been downward pressure from a strong dollar," Mr. Slok said. "And the rest of the world, unfortunately, is still weak." Indeed, last week's interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve, which came as some other central banks overseas were maintaining more accommodative monetary policies, could push the dollar even higher. "The negative effect from inventories is temporary," Mr. Behravesh said, "but weak exports will be part of the U.S. picture for at least another year or two." Tuesday's revision is the last of three estimates by the Commerce Department of economic growth in July, August and September. The downward adjustment had been expected, with economists predicting before the report that growth would be revised down to 1.9 percent. The first estimate, in October, showed growth of 1.5 percent. That was revised upward to 2.1 percent last month. A fresher take on the economy's prospects will come on Wednesday, when the Commerce Department reports data for consumer spending and income in November. Economists are forecasting a pickup in spending, with incomes growing more modestly.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Economy
What if Michael Corleone hadn't been up for the job? That's the question that hangs over "The Godfather" after Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), the don of the Corleone crime family, dies of a heart attack and Michael (Al Pacino) takes the helm. At that point in the film, there's ample evidence that Michael is a shrewd and coolheaded decision maker, but he's also the youngest of Vito's sons and the most removed from the business, having served as a Marine in World War II and started a life with a woman who wants nothing to do with it. He is thrown into a feud among the "Five Families" of New York and coolly arranges a coordinated series of killings during a baptism. "Fargo" wonders what might have happened if Michael Corleone had been every bit as vulnerable as his adversaries might have assumed. Because the Faddas don't have a Michael. The Faddas have a Sonny (James Caan) in Gaetano, a macho thug who acts impulsively and violently to any perceived threat, and they have a Fredo (John Cazale) in Josto, whose weakness manifests itself as lethal ineptitude. Josto is the capo, but he's incapable of confronting problems directly, leading to a lot of behind the scenes machinations that wind up blowing up in his face. He's like a would be puppet master who keeps tangling up the strings. There haven't been many deep connections between this season of "Fargo" and the Coens' film, beyond maybe the "Minnesota nice" qualities of Oraetta Mayflower, who's a conspicuous out of towner in its Kansas City setting. But Josto embodies a common Coen type: the criminal dilettante who is undone by his own pettiness and amateurism. He and Gaetano are both sources of senseless violence, all of which has softened the Faddas' edge over the Cannons, who are outmanned and at a severe cultural disadvantage. And this week, Josto's mistakes continued to pile up. In this mostly lively episode, Josto and Loy are frequently juxtaposed for their leadership styles and their decision making, which usually result in forcing Loy to try to sort through Josto's missteps. For example, Josto's plan to have one of his henchmen execute Loy's son Satchel predictably failed, but his solution is to dig a deeper hole for himself. He tells Loy the boy is dead, pinning the blame on Gaetano's right hand, Constant Calamita, in the hope that the Cannons will take on the ugly business of killing Calamita themselves. Never mind that the lie about Satchel's death will almost certainly result in pushing Loy to kill the Italian boy they adopted as collateral in the original deal between the two families. Josto's true war is with his brother, and he wants the Cannons to fight it for him.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
As a salmonella outbreak that sickened dozens forced a recall of some cereal products this week, federal officials announced that a separate outbreak linked to cut fruit has expanded to almost two dozen states. The outbreak linked to Kellogg's Honey Smacks cereal had sickened 73 people in 31 states as of Thursday, according to a statement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 24 of them had been hospitalized and no deaths had been reported. The agency advised consumers to throw away cereal boxes that have a "best if used by" date of June 14, 2018, through June 14, 2019, on the tops of 15.3 ounce and 23 ounce packages of Honey Smacks, and to wash any containers used to store the cereal. The cereal recall was the second to involve a salmonella outbreak in food in the United States in about a month. In May, 60 people were sickened from the disease, and last week the C.D.C. linked their illnesses to pre cut watermelon, honeydew melon, cantaloupe and mixed fruit in eight states.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
ZHONGSHE, China A moribund coal mine here descends deeply, more than 3,800 feet underground. But the deal in which a Chinese state owned conglomerate bought it may be even darker and more labyrinthine. The Zhongshe mine and two others, in Shanxi Province in northern China, are at the center of unusually public accusations of mismanagement and corruption afflicting one of the nation's flagship state conglomerates, China Resources. Critics say that the 1.6 billion purchase was vastly overpriced and illegal and that large sums may have been squandered or, as some are claiming, improperly diverted. Leaked documents about the deal, and a court case in Hong Kong, have shed an unusually harsh light on the usually secretive workings of a major state owned company. The disputed deal raises a stark question: Are China's economy and resources held hostage by privileged state corporations and their executives, who can use influence and gain access to easy credit in ways that undermine long term growth? The dispute has become a chief exhibit in a debate in China about the wisdom of investing so much of the nation's money in state owned companies, especially when China's economy has slowed. For the Communist Party leadership, the case distills concerns about the grip that state owned conglomerates exert. The problems for China Resources began in 2010, when its affiliates as well as a partner state company agreed to pay 9.9 billion renminbi ( 1.6 billion) for the three coal mines and related assets, according to documents submitted to a Hong Kong court. The seller was a businessman, Zhang Xinming, a man with a reputation as a swashbuckling gambler, who also gained a 20 percent stake in the new joint venture. The deal appeared to give China Resources a foothold in the coal industry here in Shanxi, the hub of China's coal industry for more than a century and close to the energy hungry cities and factories on the coast. But the company's monthly business operations statements show that since the mines changed hands in 2010, the mines have not produced any coal. "Legally speaking, this was a totally abnormal transaction," said Chen Ruojian, a lawyer with the Duan Duan law firm in Beijing. Mr. Chen is helping to represent the minority shareholders in Hong Kong, where the subsidiary behind the deal, China Resources Power Holdings, is listed on the stock exchange. "It's impossible to understand why they'd do this pay so much for mines with expired exploration licenses," he said. "State owned companies have all sorts of problems, but we think it's rare to have something as stark as China Resources." Political unease over the case grew after two Chinese journalists made accusations of corruption about the deal, and one singled out Song Lin, the chairman of the parent conglomerate, China Resources. The Web site of People's Daily, the Communist Party's newspaper, has reported that the party's discipline unit has received an accusation of corruption against Mr. Song and other senior executives at China Resources and is processing the complaint. Mr. Song has not been detained or charged with any wrongdoing, judging from the reports on the company's Web site of his various public appearances. China Resources has denied wrongdoing and has hinted it might take legal action against Chinese journalists who have raised corruption accusations. China Resources "is a major global player," said David Zweig, a specialist in Chinese natural resource companies at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. If the claims about the coal mines are proved true, he added, "it would show that these companies can be ripped off or tricked. It doesn't bode well for the globalization or professionalization of these companies." China Resources traces its roots to the days of Mao Zedong's revolution, when it was established in 1938 in Hong Kong to raise money and buy military supplies to support Communist forces. By 2012 it was China's 18th largest state owned industrial company by sales, with revenue of 52 billion. Its wide ranging products include medicine and beer, coal and real estate. Its chairman, Mr. Song, holds the same government rank as a vice minister. The controversy over the coal deal has made China Resources a lightning rod for criticism of all state owned enterprises, which produce about two fifths of the nation's economic output. "Chinese shareholders have been treated like little lambs being slaughtered," said Li Jianjun, a Chinese journalist who has taken up the accusations against Chinese Resources. "Companies like this need to be taught a lesson." "Marx forgot the problem that whoever manages a company tries to become its owner," he added. "State owned enterprises try to spend as much as they can, so they have an excuse to demand more support and take more kickbacks." Open or closed on Thanksgiving? Here are stores' plans for Thursday and Friday. The high cost of gas is forcing families to cut back on activities and essentials. In the late 1990s, Zhu Rongji, then the prime minister, pushed hundreds of thousands of state owned enterprises into the private sector, but the 120 or so largest of these businesses had the political muscle to resist privatization. Instead they won official backing as pillars supporting the state's role in the economy. They gained wealth and influence over the last decade, partly from their almost unlimited access to low interest loans from state owned banks. But since taking office in March, Prime Minister Li Keqiang has dropped hints that he wants to rein in the privileges of state owned enterprises, so that private companies win a bigger share of bank loans, investment projects and market opportunities. "State owned enterprises and private business should be regarded equally," Mr. Li said at a meeting with economists and executives in April. Party insiders and economists have said, however, that the issue of state owned enterprises is so contentious that a party leadership meeting in the fall is likely to put off any big decisions. The biggest state owned enterprises possess enormous political sway, employ hundreds of thousands of people and extend a global reach. Many, like the State Grid, the monopoly electricity transmission company in most of China, or China Telecom, the giant mobile phone carrier, are widely criticized within China both for their inefficiency and for the fat profits they earn from charging high prices. Those profits allow them to hire and promote the offspring of senior government officials, who in turn ensure their longevity. Mr. Wang had few specifics regarding Mr. Song, but the Chinese media and Internet discussion groups have been full of speculation over where the sums paid for the mines ended up. Another journalist, Li Jianjun, used the Internet to distribute excerpts from what he said was a government auditor's report last year that said the deal appeared plagued by missteps, overpayment, uncertainties and risks. "It remains unclear whether individual economic problems are involved," the report said. Others in the industry still see value in the mines. Shi Chunping, an independent coal trader specializing in coal from Shanxi Province, said in an interview that at least two of the three mines had valuable reserves. He said that he had been down into the Zhongshe mine to inspect the coal, and that the reserves there were plentiful and of high quality. The problem is that the reserves are quite deep. "The main issue is that the investment needed to develop the mine is huge," he said. He declined to comment on the price paid by China Resources because he said he did not know the details of the transaction. The economics of the deal have not been helped by a steep decline in coal prices since China Resources bought the mines three years ago. The output of strip mines in Inner Mongolia now exceeds Shanxi's mine, while demand has grown more slowly than expected. As a result, coal prices have tumbled to 400 renminbi a ton (about 68) from 750 renminbi in 2010. The region is economically troubled and residents in Zhongshe are eager for China Resources to start the mine here after years of inaction. "It's pitiful there's no mining, so we have no jobs," said a 48 year old farmer who gave only his surname, Kang, as he hoed a hillside cornfield across a gully from the back of the mine. "If we had jobs, we'd have some money and wouldn't be doing this." The Hong Kong lawsuit asserts that the seller, a privately held company called Shanxi Jinye Coking Group, had held only mineral exploration rights for the mines it sold, as opposed to mineral production rights. And before the venture involving China Resources acquired the mines three years ago, according to the lawsuit, even those exploration rights had expired. Thus, the lawyers for the shareholders say, China Resources paid heftily for assets that the seller did not have the right to sell. The company has not publicly responded in detail to the claims. In a statement on July 18, China Resources Power said that the transaction was aboveboard and that it was in the process of obtaining mining rights for two of the three mines; it obtained mining rights for the third this spring and is now starting mining there. A few days after the initial statement, the parent company, China Resources, said on its site that the accusations were part of "a carefully planned, organized and concerted campaign of vilification orchestrated behind the scenes and using big rewards to buy off Internet enablers." On Wednesday, the chairman of China Resources, Mr. Song, issued a statement on the company's Web site, denouncing the accusations of improper dealing as "utterly false charges." Mr. Song called the mines purchase a "normal business activity," and said he could take legal action against his accusers. The big question now lies in how widely an official inquiry will extend and what it will disclose. The national audit office has said that it is reinvestigating the deal, and the Communist Party commission for investigating corruption has also said that any misdeeds will be punished.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Global Business
Sarah al Amiri is the head of science operations and the deputy project manager for the Emirates Mars Mission, the U.A.E.'s first space mission. The Hope orbiter will make contributions to research on the red planet. But the Emirati government really hopes it will inspire future scientists. As a girl growing up in Abu Dhabi, one of the United Arab Emirates, Sarah al Amiri looked at an astronomy book with a photograph of Andromeda, the giant galaxy neighboring our Milky Way. "I can't describe it," Ms. al Amiri said in an interview, "but just to realize that something that was printed on a page was larger than anything that I've ever seen and dwarfs the planet that I live on." When she was in college, there were few opportunities in the Middle East to pursue studies of the universe, and Ms. al Amiri majored in computer science instead. But now, the U.A.E. is aiming to inspire its youth to pursue science and technology careers, and Ms. al Amiri has forged a career pursuing the heavens. Just 33 years old, she is the head of science operations and the deputy project manager for a space probe that the U.A.E. is about to send to Mars. Mars will be much in the news for the next month, a once every 26 month interlude when Earth and Mars line up to allow robotic spacecraft to make a relatively quick trip. After several delays, NASA's next Mars rover, Perseverance, with instruments to search for chemical signs of past life, is scheduled to launch on July 30. China will also launched an ambitious mission to Mars, Tianwen 1 on July 23. A fourth mission, which would put a Russian European rover named Rosalind Franklin on Mars, was pushed off the calendar because of technical hurdles that could not be cleared in time. Because the U.A.E. does not yet have its own rocket industry, it bought the launch for Hope aboard an H IIA rocket from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a machinery maker in Japan. Because of bad weather at the launchpad on an island in Japan, liftoff was delayed a number of times to Sunday, July 19, or Monday local time. About the size of a Mini Cooper car, Hopeis to arrive in orbit around Mars in February. The spacecraft which cost about 200 million to build and launch will carry three instruments: an infrared spectrometer, an ultraviolet spectrometer and a camera. From its high orbit varying from 12,400 miles to 27,000 miles above the surface Hope will give planetary scientists their first global view of Martian weather at all times of day. Over its two year mission, it will investigate how dust storms and other weather phenomena near the Martian surface speed or slow the loss of the planet's atmosphere into space. That, however, is not the main reason that the Emirates government built Hope. "A lot of you might ask us, 'Why space?'" Omran Sharaf, the Hope project manager, said during a news conference on Thursday. "It's not about reaching Mars." Rather, Mr. Sharaf said, the country's primary aim is to inspire schoolchildren and spur its science and technology industries, which, in turn, will enable the Emirates to tackle critical issues like food, water, energy and a post petroleum economy. "It's about starting getting the ball rolling," Mr. Sharaf said, "and creating that disruptive change, and changing the mind set." The Emirates previously built and launched three earth observing satellites, collaborating with a South Korean manufacturer and gradually taking on greater shares of the engineering. The country even has a nascent human spaceflight program. Last year, the U.A.E. bought a seat on a Russian Soyuz rocket and sent its first astronaut, Hazzaa al Mansoori, for an eight day stay at the International Space Station. For the Mars mission, the country took a similar approach to the earlier satellites by working with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, where Hope was built before being sent to Dubai for testing. By design, Emirati engineers worked side by side with their counterparts in Boulder, learning as they designed and assembled the spacecraft. "One of the requirements that the government gave us since the beginning," Mr. Sharaf said, "they told us, 'You have to build it and not buy it.'" The science piece of the mission was an even bigger gap to fill for a country without Mars scientists, which until recently constituted an unfathomable career choice. Ms. al Amiri is the head of science even though she never formally studied planetary science. After she graduated college with a computer science degree, the likeliest job prospects working at a networking company performing troubleshooting and maintenance did not enrapture her. She wanted to design and build new things. She saw a job posting at what is now known as the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center in Dubai. She joined in 2009, working as an engineer on the satellite programs. When that assignment wrapped up in 2014, she moved on to her current roles on the Hope mission. She now also serves as the country's minister of state for advanced sciences and chairs an advisory council of scientists. If the U.A.E. had tried to train planetary scientists from scratch to work on Hope, the mission would have been long over before the scientists were ready. Instead, Emirati officials took a quicker approach: converting some of the space center's engineers into scientists by offering apprentice like training with researchers in the United States. "I was put there to develop scientific talents within the organization and be able to transfer knowledge in a nontraditional way," Ms. al Amiri said. The coronavirus outbreak tossed in more challenges. Once construction of the spacecraft was complete in Colorado, a large Ukrainian transport plane ferried it to Dubai, where it was to undergo a round of testing before heading to the launchpad in Japan. But at the end of February not long before the European Space Agency and Russia postponed the launch of the Rosalind Franklin mission in part because of the logistical hurdles created by the pandemic Mr. Sharaf and Ms. al Amiri realized the outbreak could disrupt their carefully planned schedules if airports were shut down. "Based on that, we started working on a plan to get the team across to Japan as soon as possible," Ms. al Amiri said. They shuffled some of the tests in order to hurry the spacecraft to Japan, three weeks earlier than originally planned, and where some of the testing would instead be completed. Travel restrictions meant team members could not travel back and forth. A small team went ahead in early April to wait out a quarantine. Two weeks later, the cargo plane with Hope flew to Japan with another small team from the Emirates. In Japan, the people who flew with Hope then went into quarantine and then those who had gone ahead joined the spacecraft on the barge trip to the island that is home to the launch site. Mr. Sharaf and Ms. al Amiri said the mission was now ready, and the nation's space program would continue regardless of the outcome. "The Emirates fully understand the risk associated with this mission," Mr. Sharaf said. "So does the team. Let's be honest. Fifty percent of the missions that have been to Mars have failed." The greatest success is the training of the people, he said. "For the Emirates, it's more about the journey," Mr. Sharaf said. "It's more about the impact. Reaching there is one of the goals. But that doesn't mean that the mission has failed, if we didn't manage to get there. So failure is an option."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
MORE than 50 vehicles made their world or North American premieres at the 2012 Los Angeles auto show, organizers proclaimed, during two days of press previews before the doors were opened to the public on Friday. But to torture a baking analogy, by the time one separated the wheat from the chaff among the new models here, there were barely enough ingredients left to make a decent loaf of bread. This long running but product challenged show is about half a loaf short. Important new models do lurk in the manufacturers' displays, including the latest Toyota RAV4, the redesigned Acura RLX, the next Subaru Forester, an expanded Hyundai Santa Fe, the latest Mazda 6 and, just 18 months after the introduction of a new generation, a refreshed Honda Civic. These are high volume models, but they rank firmly in the meat and potatoes categories of the industry. The fantastical, futuristic concepts and design studies that populate a major auto salon were fewer and farther between than usual here.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Automobiles
In "White Dragon," new to Amazon Prime Video on Friday, the hero is a London university lecturer named Jonah Mulray. Since the show is a dark, complicated, tortured family mystery set in Hong Kong, his name can't help but call to mind the neo noir touchstone "Chinatown" and its doomed Mulwrays. The connection lurks in the back of your mind, where you think, no, they can't really be asking for the comparison. But then in the fifth of the mini series's eight episodes, another character tells Jonah he needs to temper his expectations of an answer to the mystery (his wife's murder) because, after all, "This is Hong Kong." She doesn't say, "Forget it, Jonah," but we get the point. "White Dragon," shown on ITV in Britain last year with the supremely dull but less Orientalist title "Strangers," is no "Chinatown." But it has its merits: the minor but distinct pleasures of location filming in Hong Kong, and the more serious attraction of compelling casting. The show's emotional core is familiar the arc of Jonah and David Chen, a disgraced ex cop, from antagonists to reluctant buddies but it's made fresh by the pairing of the British actor John Simm ("Life on Mars," "State of Play") and the Hong Kong actor Anthony Wong ("Hard Boiled," "Infernal Affairs"), among the most dependable and appealing performers in their respective industries.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
In a step by step account in his new book, the investigative journalist Ronan Farrow accuses high level executives and producers at NBC News of interfering with his monthslong effort to report on the film mogul Harvey Weinstein, an investigation that would become part of the prizewinning series he published in The New Yorker after leaving the network in 2017. The book, "Catch and Kill," which is scheduled to be released on Tuesday, describes instances when, Mr. Farrow says, top NBC News executives failed to grasp the larger significance of his reporting and instructed him to slow down or halt his pursuit of a story that Mr. Weinstein was trying to squelch. At one point, Mr. Farrow writes, the president of NBC News, Noah Oppenheim, questioned the newsworthiness of "a movie producer grabbing a lady." NBC News has fought back against that allegation. Mr. Lack and Mr. Oppenheim have said Mr. Farrow's story was not fit for broadcast by the time he and the network parted ways in August 2017, arguing that he did not have an accuser on the record (a point that Mr. Farrow has disputed). Mr. Lack defended the network again in a memo to the NBC News staff on Wednesday, as details from Mr. Farrow's book emerged in news reports, saying the author "uses a variety of tactics to paint a fundamentally untrue picture." Mr. Farrow had largely kept his silence on his disagreements with NBC News until "Catch and Kill." He started working there as the host of an afternoon show on MSNBC, "Ronan Farrow Daily," in 2014. After it was canceled in 2015, he started reporting investigative segments for "Today." In 2017, he embarked on his investigation of Mr. Weinstein. For years, stories had circulated about the alleged transgressions by Mr. Weinstein, who has denied ever having had nonconsensual sex, but no journalist had been able to work them into publishable form. At several points early in the reporting process, Mr. Farrow writes, his bosses seemed less than enthusiastic about his leads. He writes that Mr. Oppenheim had a habit of "scrunching his nose and holding journalism at arm's length" when discussing the Weinstein investigation. He says the head of NBC's investigative unit, Rich Greenberg, told him to put the story "on the back burner" at one point. Mr. Greenberg disputed that assessment. Mr. Farrow also describes "tiptoeing" around NBC producers and executives with Mr. McHugh, the producer, as they gathered more material. Mr. Farrow likens the situation to a Catch 22: He needed more reporting, but he no longer felt comfortable doing it openly. Mr. Farrow came into possession of a portion of a tape recording, made during a New York Police Department sting operation, in which Mr. Weinstein admitted to the Italian model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez that he had groped her. With that, Mr. Greenberg became more enthusiastic, saying, "If this airs, he's toast," according to the book. Susan Weiner, NBC News's top lawyer, also seemed on board after listening to the recording, telling Mr. Farrow he could go to Mr. Weinstein for comment, he writes. "For the 'Today' show," Mr. Oppenheim said, according to the book, "a movie producer grabbing a lady is not news." 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. Oppenheim disagreed with how Mr. Farrow characterized their interactions, saying in an interview with The Times, "I'd have to write my own book to refute all the ways Ronan willfully distorts our interactions." He added: "We concluded the same thing The New Yorker apparently did. The tape was best used to support that larger claim, alongside on the record accounts from at least one victim or witness which we never got." Mr. Farrow also writes of Mr. Weinstein's campaign to kill the story, an effort that relied on a network of people including the lawyers Charles Harder, David Boies and Lisa Bloom. Also aiding Mr. Weinstein, he writes, were the National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard and the undercover operations outfit Black Cube. Mr. Farrow also adds significant detail to the allegations involving Matt Lauer, the star anchor of "Today," whom NBC fired in November 2017 after an accusation of sexual misconduct. The book includes the first on the record interview with Brooke Nevils, who worked at NBC and said Mr. Lauer had raped her on a work trip in 2014. Mr. Lauer denied her accusation in a statement on Wednesday, saying the sexual encounter between him and Ms. Nevils was "completely consensual." As Mr. Farrow continued reporting on Mr. Weinstein in the summer of 2017, he found that he was facing competition from two reporters at The Times, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey. At roughly the same time, he writes, his sources were growing impatient, and Mr. Oppenheim slowed down the process, expressing misgivings over whether the Weinstein story was newsworthy. Mr. Farrow says he was told several times to stop reporting. NBC News disputes that contention. "It didn't make sense," Mr. Farrow writes. "Discouragement was one thing, but there was no rationale, journalistic or legal, for ordering us to stop reporting." After Mr. Farrow believed that NBC News would not move forward, he met with David Remnick, the longtime editor of The New Yorker. Mr. Farrow played the audio recording for him and another editor at the magazine, Deirdre Foley Mendelssohn. Their reaction, he says, was the "polar opposite of Oppenheim's." Mr. Remnick made no promises about publication, saying the story needed additional reporting but he made it clear that if NBC passed on it, The New Yorker would be interested. "For the first time that summer, a news outlet was actively encouraging me," writes Mr. Farrow, who took his Weinstein reporting with him to The New Yorker and built on it. In response, Mr. Oppenheim said in an interview, "We're the news organization that assigned the story and supported it for seven months." He defended letting Mr. Farrow leave with what proved to be a significant story. "We could say to him, 'No, you can't leave,' and face the risk that he would never get his reporting to the place where it was ready for air, in which case we really were worried that he could accuse us of somehow suppressing it," Mr. Oppenheim said. "Or I could take the competitive blow of not owning it, but allow him to get the material out in the world in the way that he said he wanted to." The Times and The New Yorker shared the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in public service for exposing wealthy and powerful sexual predators, including Mr. Weinstein, for articles by Ms. Kantor, Ms. Twohey, Mr. Farrow and others. In response, Mr. Oppenheim said, "I receive unsolicited emails from all sorts of odious people and routinely reply politely." He added that everyone at NBC News was "acting with integrity," and that Mr. Farrow "has refused to even entertain that possibility." After Mr. Farrow's articles on Mr. Weinstein appeared in The New Yorker starting in the fall of 2017, he reported for the magazine on the many accounts of sexual misconduct against the CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves and the New York State attorney general Eric Schneiderman. Both men lost their jobs.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
Responding to changes in health care, big hospital groups are expected to get even bigger. And some hospitals will join forces with once unlikely partners, health insurers and for profit companies, a new report says. The difficult business environment and the changes expected in how hospitals will be paid for delivering care are driving many smaller, stand alone hospital groups into the arms of larger and better financed organizations, said Lisa Goldstein, who follows nonprofit hospitals for Moody's Investors Service and is one of the authors of a report expected to be released Thursday. The report by Moody's predicts even more consolidation. "We think the pace will accelerate," she said. While hospitals have always looked to mergers as a way of becoming larger, partly to demand higher payments from insurers, they are now also looking for ways to become more efficient. Hospitals are expecting to see lower reimbursements from Medicare and to find it increasingly difficult to persuade private insurers to pay more for care.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Health
SAN FRANCISCO Slack is the classic Silicon Valley accidental success. Born three years ago, with roots in a failed video game, the messaging software is now used by five million people. The company behind it, Slack Technologies, found success by combining something that Silicon Valley fetishizes rich data on how people use a product with something it often overlooks: How do people actually feel while using it? This combination produced an unlikely hit that, when it became available in 2014, grew mostly by word of mouth, which is unusual for corporate software. Last year, the privately held company was valued at nearly 4 billion. Now Slack faces a significant new challenge. It has become big enough to draw a competitive response from giants like Microsoft, but not big enough to have the roster of large corporate clients it needs to compete with the giants. Last fall, Microsoft announced a direct Slack rival called Teams, to be given free to all 85 million users of its Office 365. At the same time, Facebook made its work collaboration tool, Workplace, widely available free. Atlassian, a smaller company, has signed big customers, too. As a result, Slack, which built up momentum as a lovable underdog, must fend off some of technology's largest and fiercest competitors if it wants to be more than a niche tool for small businesses and teams. Microsoft, for instance, already offers ways for employees to collaborate. And while its offerings have not been viral hits, they have offered boring but important features that big companies demand, like strong data security and regulatory compliance controls. There is no illusion within Slack that success is certain. But Stewart Butterfield, the chief executive, said small tech companies with new ideas had long defeated larger rivals that tried to copy them. Think of Apple's beating IBM in personal computing, Google's beating Microsoft in search and Facebook's crushing Google in social networks. One advantage Slack does have is focus, Mr. Butterfield maintains. Microsoft, for example, has numerous Slack like products including Yammer, SharePoint, Skype for Business and now Teams. The executives who run those businesses within Microsoft must "compete for budget and mind share and attention," he said, providing an opening for Slack to gain users while Microsoft managers wage internal wars. Microsoft said users would embrace Teams because it had strong encryption and global support and worked seamlessly with software they already used, like Excel. "We think customers value coherence," said Bryan Goode, the general manager of Office 365 at Microsoft. Slack is the product of Mr. Butterfield's second failed attempt to make a video game. His first, called Game Neverending, had a photo sharing feature that became more popular than the game. It became Flickr, which was sold to Yahoo for 25 million in 2005. In 2011, he introduced another game, Glitch, in which people cooperated to build a shared world. (Misbehaving players got a timeout.) At its height, the game was costing the company 500,000 a month and bringing in 30,000, so Mr. Butterfield shuttered it in late 2012. A few employees stayed on to build out the messaging platform that Glitch engineers had used to talk among themselves. That project became Slack. Slack was officially introduced in February 2014 and today has five million daily users, up from four million in October. Most users are on a free version, but about 1.5 million pay Slack 6.50 to 12.50 a month for features like message storage and search. The 800 person company is on track to generate more than 200 million in revenue this year, but it is not profitable. Initially popular with small teams of software engineers who wanted to work remotely without cumbersome videoconferences or email, Slack was not designed for big companies. Users chat in "channels," typically organized around a few well defined tasks. "The overhead of working among different offices becomes less of an issue" with Slack, said Nick Coronges, chief technology officer at R/GA, a 2,000 person design and marketing agency with offices in several cities. Collaboration software like Slack is not new. Google's Wave, which started in 2009 and shut down in 2012, was supposed to replace email with a messaging tool, but conversations were too hard to follow and track. Atlassian, an Australian software company, released a team collaboration platform in 2004 and acquired Slack's nearest start up rival, HipChat, in 2012. In Slack's office in Vancouver, British Columbia, designers think about things like color choice, layout and Slack's sign in greeting, and how they might affect a customer's peace of mind. Back at San Francisco headquarters, data jockeys pore over the kinds of signals that tech companies normally study, like time spent with the product and whether moving a button elicits a change in behavior. "Building a product that allows for significant improvements in how people communicate requires a degree of thoughtfulness and craftsmanship that is not common in the development of enterprise software," Slack wrote in an open letter to Microsoft that ran as a full page ad in November in The New York Times. Unlike some Silicon Valley companies, Slack believes humans are as important as robots. All executives, including Mr. Butterfield, have fielded the 6,000 customer support calls and 2,800 Twitter messages that come in each week. The average turnaround time for a help request is under an hour. "I get worried if I see customer satisfaction scores dip below 97 percent," said Ali Rayl, Slack's head of customer experience. If Slack can dovetail seamlessly with how people behave, feel like second nature to use and strongly appeal to employees, taking it away could become "like taking off your astronaut helmet in space," Mr. Butterfield said. When it began, Slack had fewer features than its rivals had, but that wasn't seen as a problem at first. Tens of thousands of small teams were creating accounts, some even paying for them, without much prompting. Smaller customers still account for more than 50 percent of Slack's revenue. But Slack knew it would always be a niche product without basic features like "threading," a standard email and chat room feature that groups together replies to a message, and an easier sign in process. Originally each team required its own sign in, even if an employee worked on many teams in the same organization. As competition heated up, Slack started to elicit feedback from companies like Capital One. The bank's teams wanted to log in at one place and get access to all of their Slack rooms. They wanted each channel to allow more people, and they wanted to customize features, like file sharing, to comply with regulations. Slack made those changes, and employees "latched on," said Jennifer Manry, vice president for work force technology at Capital One, "an indication that it was filling a critical need." At the end of January, Mr. Butterfield unveiled Enterprise Grid. Aimed at companies and governments, it can manage the conversations of up to 500,000 employees at once. IBM, Jet.com, NASA and Home Depot have all used the product. But Slack has not taken over. Capital One still uses collaboration tools from Microsoft and Atlassian. Facebook and smaller companies like Asana share customers with Slack, too. Microsoft Teams is available in 181 markets around the world in 19 languages. Slack is available only in English, wherever the app is available for download. The battle between Slack and its competitors is essentially a fight over who will make the next piece of workplace software that no one can live without. Many businesses, large and small, depend on Excel from Microsoft, Photoshop from Adobe and Gmail from Google. Slack wants to be in that pantheon as the place where people collaborate and hang out online, the world's virtual conference room and water cooler. Slack's name an acronym for Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge underscores its big ambition. But to become a Microsoft size success it needs workers to choose Slack over its competitors. "Companies want their employees to collaborate more, because better collaboration reduces the need to jump ship," said Sean Ryan, the head of partnerships at Facebook's Workplace. "The No. 1 reason people leave their jobs is they feel isolated." "We're trying to build empathy at scale," Mr. Butterfield said. Slack's office walls are covered with customer feedback, and soothing French pop music is piped into the restrooms. Company engineers say being a good designer is like being a good host, and they use shorthand like "set out the towels" as they create new user features. "I've been building software for 15 years, and I've become more attuned to how the average person will interact with and experience software in the last 18 months here than in the prior 13 years," said April Underwood, who joined Slack as vice president of product in 2015. Whether this approach translates into profits for Slack depends largely on how fast the company can expand into more countries and whether employees at big companies push their information technology departments to pay for it. That would necessitate an unusual level of devotion to a piece of workplace software, which is why Slack says it is so devoted to its users' well being. "There are people who will die, get divorced, have children with cancer," Mr. Butterfield said. "You really have to put yourself in their frames of mind. If we preoccupy these people for a minute longer than we have to, we'll lose them."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
When you're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to stage a fashion show, the fine points matter not just the clothes, but the when, the where and the how, too. So it was hardly a coincidence that Proenza Schouler's fall show happened to be at the Whitney Museum of American Art on Gansevoort Street. Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler gravitate toward the art world, and it to them. They constantly make reference to art to explain their work; their circle of friends includes artists and gallery owners; and their show, held in the empty Whitney galleries that until recently contained a Frank Stella retrospective, drew an art crowd, including the MoMA PS1 curator Klaus Biesenbach and the artists Rachel Feinstein and Nate Lowman, in addition to the usual passel of stars, including Parker Posey, Liv Tyler and Natasha Lyonne. It came as no surprise to learn that the collection, of cinched, lace up knitwear and billowing trousers, patchworked furs and grommeted dresses, was inspired by artists: in this case, Mr. McCollough said, the process artists of the 1960s, like Richard Serra and Robert Smithson. "They were more interested in the process than the actual outcome," he said. That's a complicated model to follow when women need to wear the outcome of your process. But the pieces did wear their process proudly, twined tightly together in some cases, hanging loosely in strips elsewhere. It seemed to speak to the artists present. After the show, Ms. Feinstein, dressed in Proenza Schouler, was in raptures. She zeroed in on a shade of yellow used in the collection: "It made me think of a powdery chemical color on a sheet of glass," she said. "An artificial yellow versus a natural yellow. As an artist, that's something you really notice." The venue, she said, added to the experience. She pointed out that fashion shows in art spaces are nothing new "My friend L'Wren Scott had a show at Gagosian Gallery many years ago," she said. "I know that space very well, showing there. And my husband shows there." (He is the painter John Currin.) But, she added, the insinuation of fashion changes such spaces. "It does feel so different for me," she said of the Whitney area. "I don't think of this how I remember it with the art in it; it feels totally like I'm in a completely different space, which is nice. I don't think of it as the Whitney Museum now. I did when I walked up. Then I quickly forgot about it."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
Mr. Barrere was not an original member; he had auditioned as a bassist when the band was being formed but was passed over for Roy Estrada who, like the band's lead singer, lead guitarist and chief songwriter, Lowell George, had worked with Frank Zappa. (The other original members were the keyboardist Bill Payne and the drummer Richie Hayward, who died in 2010.) "As a bassist," Mr. Barrere later said, "I make an excellent guitarist." After Mr. Estrada left the band in 1972, it grew from a quartet to a sextet with the addition of Mr. Barrere on rhythm guitar and vocals as well as Kenny Gradney on bass and Sam Clayton on percussion. The reconstituted Little Feat incorporated a strong dose of New Orleans funk into what had been essentially a country rock approach. The resulting sound, as captured on the new lineup's first album, "Dixie Chicken" (1973), won the band a legion of new fans, although chart success remained elusive. Mr. Barrere wrote or co wrote some of Little Feat's best known songs, including "All That You Dream," "Time Loves a Hero" and "Old Folks Boogie." He occasionally sang lead, although Mr. George remained the band's focal point. Mr. George died in 1979, and Little Feat broke up that year. Mr. Barrere went on to work with the group the Bluesbusters and recorded two albums as a leader, but he was largely inactive until Little Feat reunited in 1987. To fill the gap left by Mr. George's death, the band added two members, and Mr. Barrere began doing more of the lead singing and songwriting, as well as taking more of the guitar solos. Little Feat has remained together ever since, with relatively few changes in personnel, and recently toured in celebration of its 50th anniversary. Mr. Barrere did not take part in the tour but had said that he hoped to rejoin the band next year.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
"Five p.m. at the Sloppy Tuna and the Christians are party ready." There's a casual absurdity in the opening sentence of the essay "Jesus Raves" in Jordan Kisner's debut collection, "Thin Places." The ambience at the Sloppy Tuna, a beachfront mecca for day drinking young capitalists in Montauk, N.Y., on the eastern tip of Long Island, is generally as grimy as its name. "The mixture of sweat and sand and other people's beer," Kisner writes, makes the "air thick with energy that is not quite joie de vivre and not quite a collective, ecstatic denial of mortality but something ineffable and in between." That "in between" state is the common denominator of this collection, the theme on which the 13 essays are a variation. Certainty, the book suggests, is an illusion. Real life exists in the gaps, which, in the case of "Jesus Raves," is a mostly substance induced gray zone between earthly and transcendent elation. Kisner has brought us to the far reaches of both Long Island and 20 something depravity to witness "tawny," model looking church members luring coked up, Wayfarer wearing sinners toward God. Her point: If conversion can happen here, it can happen anywhere. According to a Celtic proverb, Kisner explains, "thin places" are where "the barrier between the physical world and the spiritual world wears thin and becomes porous." These are not limited to the religious. They include sexuality (Kisner's mother "couldn't understand why if I wasn't going to be straight, I couldn't just go ahead and be gay"); and an electrode "the width of angel hair pasta" being threaded into a patient's skull en route to the area of the brain that controls consciousness and empathy. In "Habitus" we cross a stretch of the Rio Grande as narrow as a "straight pin" that bisects the Laredo Nuevo Laredo metropolitan area, "a city that's American on its north side and Mexican on the south." Only 50 yards divides our countries in this place that is both one city and two.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
The nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice have set off conversations in nearly every industry about the treatment of Black workers, and book publishing is no exception. The industry has long been criticized for hiring and retaining so few employees of color according to a survey of the work force released this year by the children's book publisher Lee Low Books, only 5 percent are Black. But the calls to diversify have intensified in recent weeks, as Black professionals have publicly shared long suppressed frustrations about how racial prejudice has affected their work. In publishing, that has included discussions of hiring practices, workplace microaggressions and publishing companies' treatment of books by Black writers. Publishers say they are listening. They are seeing books about race and racism dominate best seller lists, and several companies have committed to changing their hiring practices and the books they publish. Eight publishing professionals working in different facets of the industry, including an author, literary agent, marketer, publicist, editors and booksellers told us what they are seeing now and what they've seen before, how being Black has affected their careers, and what they hope the future will bring. Here are their responses, which have been condensed and edited. 'The only really painful thing about racism in publishing is the books that are not around.' It took seven years of interviews for an editorial assistant position. I used to make a joke that I was the oldest editorial assistant in the world. But it didn't matter to me because I was very, very happy to be working with books. Once I discovered that this could be a career, there was nothing that was going to stop me. And I think that's the spirit of all the Black editors in publishing: There's nothing that's going to stop them from doing this job. I think publishers hold certain beliefs about what is universal, and oftentimes we don't fit, our stories don't fit into that equation. At Amistad, I'm trying to feed our community by shining a spotlight on Black stories, Black culture, Black history. Because oftentimes what's in the headlines is not the full story of our humanity. What I think has changed or not changed in publishing is that there's more diversity in terms of what is being published in the African American marketplace, in terms of the variety of stories that are being told. But there's only like seven of us Black editors who have some authority, real authority and power and it's not full authority and power. Given my sales history, I think if I weren't a Black woman, I would probably have a higher title. But titles don't really matter to me, just the opportunity to publish books for my people is what matters most, so I don't really focus on that. People who have racist ideas and racist actions do not bother me. I don't let any of those issues influence what I do or the way I think or what I publish. That is a personal problem. I don't let it become my problem. Racism is prevalent in all aspects of American society, and publishing is no different. Sometimes there are proposals that come along, and you know in your heart that this is an important book on an important subject, but because the editorial room is all white, you may not be able to acquire it, so the only really painful thing about racism in publishing is the books that are not around, the books that didn't get to be published. When I was interviewing for those seven years for an editorial assistant position, I was told multiple times that Black people didn't read. That's an unfortunate belief. Because it's just not true. We saw this moment in the '70s and late '60s, and that's how Toni Morrison, Marie Brown, Charles Harris, all of those people got into publishing. And then it happened again in the 1990s when Terry McMillan, Alice Walker, they landed on the New York Times best seller list at the same time, and most of the people in publishing did not know who they were, particularly Terry McMillan. They were like, "Where did she come from?" Whereas we had been always reading Terry McMillan, and this was her third book, "Waiting to Exhale," so we expected it to be on the best seller list. We knew, her fans, because we're part of the community. I don't feel comfortable overpaying for a book as an editor of color. I feel a responsibility to watch out for my authors' careers so that they can continue to publish. If an author gets a particular advance, they need to ask their agent, "How many copies do I need to sell to earn this out?" Because it's going to be tougher for them to publish again if they don't earn it out. It hasn't been proven to be the case, from my observations, for white authors. A white editor can be rewarded for acquiring an expensive Black author. If you did the research, you'd probably find that most people who have acquired a book by a Black author for a large advance, they're promoted, get a new job. I've seen people make their careers off of it. Why do I think that is? Because if a white person puts their stamp on a Black book, it suddenly becomes more valuable. Black editors most definitely must be fiscally responsible to keep your job and to have the pleasurable opportunity of publishing our voices. It's assumed that Black editors don't know white books and white publishing, but we do, because what do you think we've been reading all these years? Tracy Sherrod is the editorial director of Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins. Author, 'Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter' If there's one thing I would say about my own story in terms of racism in publishing, it's that whatever breakthrough successes I have had have been due to Black women who have steered me in the right direction. Black women have been the ones who have guided me and told me how to navigate situations. In that sense, I've been very lucky. But until I plugged into that, it was very, very frustrating, in terms of being told that no one was going to read certain Black stories, despite the fact that I had a doctorate and presumably had a little bit of expertise. 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. The reception for the book was not something I expected. I just wanted to get the history out there and change the narrative we have about Black history and about Black New England and Blackness in spaces that we don't think about it being in. That was my goal, and the accolades are just the icing on the cake. I tend to think, being a historian, that triumph over racial discrimination or racial bias isn't like, one person gets through and then the floodgates open and everyone goes in after them. I don't particularly have any belief that this moment is going to fundamentally change the industry. I think that what that will take is a fundamental change to all of the avenues through which people produce work. All of that has to change before publishing can change. Particularly in this moment, there is this idea that what America has to do is come to a moment of reckoning and we'll all learn the error of our ways and things will be reformed, and from a historical perspective that's not the way history works. I point out to my students that the first time the phrase "postracial" was used was the 1910s. That's not to say that I don't think the current moment is a significant moment in a long struggle for rights and equality for Black people, because I think it is. But I also think people are very shortsighted about history and what it takes to make a sustained change. In terms of publishing and academia, I think those two fields will only catch up if the political momentum on the streets turns into something. Seeing young people starting a movement in the streets in the middle of a pandemic gives me hope and confidence. Seeing this generation of young people turning years of trauma into something that's exploding around the world is inspiring. Kerri K. Greenidge is an assistant professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism and Diaspora at Tufts University. JANIFER WILSON: I opened this store because, as a child growing up in southwest Georgia, I never saw any depictions of anybody that looked like me in the books that we were studying. I grew up feeling invisible. I wanted to give back to the community where I chose to live, so when the children would come, they could see books presented and housed, to let them know: "I can have my own business" or "I can be an adventurer." The struggle of the book business has been astonishing. I've not made money as a book vendor over the last 20 years. That placed the business into the area of a labor of love versus a business that is earning income. Thank God, I had a job, and I made enough money where if the store didn't make money, I was able to pay the store's bills. Someone actually told me, "Oh, she's not going to make it because Black folks don't read." But 20 years later, I still exist. This is the first time we actually made money to pay our bills and actually be in the position to order a lot more books. We saw thousands of dollars paid into our bank account. This whole surge that we have now with Covid and Black Lives Matter, I have some sort of feeling deep in my spirit in terms of sustainability. To have our business surge in a matter of weeks as the result of an unfortunate incident with a man losing his life and the whole world getting to see it has just impacted my spirit and soul. I get so tearful when I think about how this came about. I'm just prayerful that this is going to be the new way. KORI WILSON: This is one of the first times in our history where what our mission is and what my mom created in this space is being recognized and actually is connecting to revenue. Definitely we were considered a niche in the business, just putting African diasporic literature at the forefront. It did make a difference as far as notoriety and being recognized in the industry as an independent bookseller. With the larger publishing houses, when they would have their book tours for upcoming seasonal releases, we weren't part of that group. JANIFER: I think the publishers are going to be forced to look at how they have done business in the past. I think it's going to cause a different relationship with booksellers and publishers. Before, we were just ordering books and there was no real relationship. But I think they're going to need our information and ideals on how they can best move forward in this industry. Now there are folks in marketing who are reaching out to us to partner. KORI: We really want to be outlets for independent and self published authors. We were one of the main places that people would come and ask to have a book event or a book launch, so they can try to get their name out there and get some sales because of that gap in the industry between them and the big guys. JANIFER: There needs to be Black and brown publishers. We need more publishers in our community that will publish the work and not change it. I think the only way that can happen is we need to get into the industry more ourselves. I have had some experiences along the way. For example, a colleague who didn't know I was a colleague there was at a gathering for a Black author, I was in the lobby of the building, and she didn't have her ID. I said, "Oh, great, I can get you upstairs," and she turned to me and said, "Oh, are you related to the author?" And the reason she asked me that was that the author was Black. The thing that was the most upsetting was this editor had worked on a book by this author, and the book was about the racist practices at the inception of this country. How many times have any of my white colleagues walked up to another white colleague and asked them if they were related to their white author? Probably never. I have friends who worked for the company well over 10 years and just said, I'm out. Enough is enough and I just can't take it any longer. My ability to be able to read my white colleagues has allowed me to last this long. I'm not suggesting every single day is a battle for me, that's not what I'm saying at all. But I am clear about the level of fear that white people seem to have concerning Black people. I'm clear about that. I think people have this false impression that this industry is great, it's books, and people love to read and write. But you bring all the baggage of the systemic racism right through the door with you, whether you know it or not. With all the conversation around Black Lives Matter, all types of publications are supporting and telling people to support independent black owned bookstores, which I think is awesome. But it does sadden me to know that the push for the sales is connected to that stacking of dead Black bodies. That thing is sad. So yes, buy books by Black writers, absolutely. But why can't we just buy books by Black writers, period. I hope to see more Black people and people of color at the executive level. I hope to see real training for all entry level employees. I hope to see managerial training being set up. And I really hope that people will start having real conversations. I don't care if they're difficult. So what? It's difficult when I'm driving down the highway and I get stopped by a policeman and I'm wondering, "Oh my God, am I going to be shot in my head?" That's difficult. And that's real. I'd like people, especially Black people and people of color, to know that they should invite themselves to this table we call publishing. Don't exclude yourself. We know the pay isn't great. We know that. But at the same time we have to be part of the dialogue and part of the creating of the culture. It's not an easy transition for a lot of folks. I always look at my training and by training I mean my white people training. I went to a Catholic school. So I had a different type of training. Working in publishing is very much an apprenticeship. You work for an editor, and they're teaching you the ropes, and they have to be your biggest advocate. They have to promote you, support you and propel you forward. I've had a lot of good sponsors in that way, people who recognized something in me and were ready to back me up. You really need older or more experienced editors to back you up when you're starting out. So in the case of Fauziya's book, I'm sure the editor I worked for got the proposal, knew immediately I would be a good person for it, so she kept pushing me in front of it. I'm drawn to books about maximizing life experiences: fitness, self help, a better love life, a better bank account, a better sex life. One of the things about being an editor is that you can't publish with cynicism. You have to absolutely believe it's important. The process of working on a book is nine months not only of editing, but telling everybody how important it is. I remember getting "Push," by Sapphire. I read it and felt like I understood the book and what it was trying to do, and saw that it did that well. But I personally didn't want to spend the next year in such a dark novel, so I passed. It wasn't meant for me. Maybe it wouldn't have had the huge impact it did if I'd edited it, because I didn't feel it was right for me. Even as modern and progressive and as Black as I am I'm super Black publishing has this way of battering into you its assumptions about Black readers. I got in "Letters to a Young Brother," by Hill Harper, aimed at men between the ages of 15 and 25. I thought to myself, Who's going to want to read this? How do we penetrate that audience and stimulate those guys to read? I knew that Black women were avid readers because I was surrounded by them. I knew Black men were avid readers for the same reason. As an editor, I don't think I believed at that moment that young Black men were interested in reading books. Now that I'm an agent, I don't feel that same splitness anymore. I remember the period when several publishers were developing special imprints focused on African Americans: One World, Amistad. Many of those imprints went away because the publishing companies weren't really invested. It's one thing to acquire those books. It's another to have a full team doing their best to penetrate that market, knowing how to market: what magazines to promote in, having a sales force that understands the market and having retailers that know how to sell those books. The late 1990s were glory days. Places like Borders, Waldenbooks they moved books by Black authors by the ton. When we lost those retail outlets, sales of those books took a dive. There is an engine in publishing houses. Not every book gets the same amount of gas. Some books get premium. Some get regular. My hope is that the books people are purchasing right now have the full buy in from the company. This interest and rush to acquire is fantastic, but we need to take it all the way so those books have a fair chance of success. Their success will be a determining factor for future books by diverse voices. Publishers are large corporate conglomerates. They're not cultural institutions they're businesses. The other issue is the pay. You have a lot of assistants I remember coming up in the industry who would tell me that their parents bought them an apartment in the East Village or they're paying for their rent, and I had two jobs up until I became a manager. I was leaving right at 5 and going to tutor. But when you present that to white counterparts, they're like, "Oh, you have another job?" I've been thinking a lot about, especially in the past few weeks, how race has played an impact in me and my work and my mental health, and I keep coming back to Audre Lorde's quote, "My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you" silence from white people but also my own silence and respectability politics. I think a lot of Black publishing professionals are becoming exhausted from being heard only when it benefits the company's bottom line. I'm constantly giving myself, my voice, my thoughts, when I shouldn't have to prove myself or my knowledge over and over again. White colleagues are able to speak their mind, but when it's my turn, I can't be direct or forthcoming without coming off as aggressive. I know that I and a lot of people like me have spent hours trying to figure out a way to write an email that appeals to a white colleague or make myself more pleasant in some way, because they can't handle honest criticism. I'm just tired of tiptoeing around my feelings to protect theirs. That's another thing that people are going to have to check if they really are about change. You have to check your feelings at the door. Ebony LaDelle is an associate director of marketing at HarperCollins. There is, in a curious way, a greater openness to books by and about Black people, but that has not necessarily changed the structure of the industry. Every major publisher now is singing the "diversity of voices" blues. They want to increase diversity of voices, but diversity of voices doesn't have anything to do with anti Black racism in publishing. Many a publisher is issuing lists of books that mostly white people should read to inform themselves about the issue. It almost seems as if these books are being bought and read as if they were a genre of self help book. The scandal for me is that, as a result of reading these self help books, will there be self improvement? As with most self help books, the answer might be no. After all of this hoopla, after all of this self education, I worry that we're going to wake up and be exactly where we were before any of this happened. I don't think that as a result of white people reading certain books, we're going to be living in a postracial America. The industry is predominantly a white industry. The number of Black editors in New York City is shockingly de minimis. I work for the largest American book publisher, and I cannot name more than a handful of Black editors there. That is not particular to Penguin Random House, that is endemic to the industry. And I think unless you have systemic change from top to bottom, publishing will remain a conflicted cultural force, that preaches something but doesn't practice it. Race has affected my career both positively and negatively. Black editors are subject to a certain kind of racial profiling that white editors are not subject to. I've had to, to one degree or another, fight against that fight against presumptions of what kinds of books I should be interested in or publishing. Positively because it's allowed me to spread my wings, publish all kinds of things against imagined stereotypes. Several years ago, in the wake of outrage at police violence, I was able to simply go out and commission a book called "Policing the Black Man." It was simply assumed that I would do such a book, so it facilitated things in a certain way. But I have interests that extend far and wide. There have been occasions where the very fact that I was proposing something seemed especially fascinating because it was coming from an unexpected source. My condition as a Black man in racist America and, by extension, in the publishing industry, which is informed by systemic racism, has not changed in 40 plus years. What has changed are responses to that condition. It's a far better place to be at a publishing company nowadays than it was, say, 40 years ago, when people would say overtly racist things. Now that is not that case, but that doesn't mean that the plague has disappeared. It is there and one has to deal with it in one way or another every single day. But the industry claims to be open to change, and that is a huge difference. Publishers 40 years ago were not talking about these issues. These issues just simply didn't exist. You shouldn't be able to walk into a publishing company and imagine apartheid. And by that I mean there should be integration from the lowest positions on up to the highest positions. Every aspect of the publishing chain, from marketing to sales to publicity, should contain a rainbow coalition of people. That is my dream, as opposed to having a mostly white hegemony that seems that it would never change. Erroll McDonald is the vice president and executive editor of Knopf and Pantheon, imprints of Penguin Random House.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Anyone who thinks that mixed emotions are wishy washy never met the work of August Strindberg. This unnervingly prescient Swedish dramatist, who lived from 1849 to 1912, portrayed relationships propelled by an ambivalence that scorched and withered. His plays' explosively fraught alliances anticipated the dangerous domestic war games of writers like Edward Albee and the destructive passions of film noir. When you watch George and Martha square off in their private connubial boxing ring in Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" or the lovers in the 1946 Rita Hayworth movie "Gilda" murmur breathlessly, "I hate you," to each other, know that the ghost of Strindberg is chuckling somewhere in the shadows. Listen, for example, to how one of Strindberg's combative spouses explains why she's stayed with her husband for nearly a quarter of a century: "Finally, we had to recognize that we were bound by some evil force." Another character echoes, "Yes, I know that emotion hate and love forged together in the foundry of hell." You can hear those damning words in the Classic Stage Company's revival of Strindberg's "The Dance of Death" (1900), which opened on Sunday in repertory with "Mies Julie," Yael Farber's 2012 adaptation of Strindberg's 1888 shocker, "Miss Julie." In both works, just you so know, men are commanded, most debasingly, to kiss the feet of their ... well, I was going to say "beloveds," but that's not quite the word. As directed by Victoria Clark ("Dance") and Shariffa Ali ("Mies Julie"), neither show fully musters the infernal heat that Strindberg's love hate dynamic can generate in performance. "Dance," in particular, seems to take place entirely at room temperature. But each production featuring an efficient and evocative oval shaped set by David L. Arsenault provides an accessible and assimilable introduction to a complex and uncomfortable world. Cautious theatergoers unacquainted with Strindberg may dip their toes into his work without being blistered. And this "Mies Julie," set in post apartheid South Africa, allows those audience members left reeling by Ms. Farber's own, more intense staging of the show six years ago (at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn), to grasp more easily the rhyme and reason of her political recontextualizing of a dark classic. In "Dance," fluidly translated by the Irish playwright Conor McPherson, Edgar (Richard Topol), an army captain stationed on an island garrison, and Alice (Cassie Beck), a former actress, are anticipating their silver wedding anniversary. Judging by the way they snipe at each other so mercilessly, in a home that was once a military prison, it would not seem to be an occasion to celebrate. Anyway, it isn't altogether guaranteed that Edgar, who has a habit of collapsing into comas, will survive long enough to see that day. Is this a cause for sorrow or jubilation, for Alice? As she tells a rare visitor, her cousin (and perhaps former lover), Kurt (Christopher Innvar), the answer, of course, is both, or neither. In a way, witnessing Alice and Edgar's exchanges here feels like a weekend visit to anybody's long married, aging parents, with the attendant longueurs. Mr. Topol in a role that has been portrayed with volcanic force by Laurence Olivier and Ian McKellen seems more grumpy than enraged. And Ms. Beck's brisk and composed Alice comes across as merely waspish instead of vitriolic. The virtue of such underplaying is that, when what the performers are saying so calmly fully registers, your jaw drops in wonder at the harshness of it. It's an experience not unlike reading Strindberg for the first time and being jolted wide awake by its outrageousness. The disadvantage is that while Alice and Edgar are sometimes funny, they're never scary. Mr. Innvar gives the most passionate performance here, as Kurt finds his own dormant beast awakening. Still, when he tells Alice "I want to bite your throat and rip out all your blood like a wolf," you can't fathom what inspired such vehemence. It's easier to understand the fury that animates "Mies Julie." Strindberg's original characters, a willful young aristocrat and her father's valet, have been reimagined as the daughter of an affluent Boer farmer and his favorite black servant in contemporary Karoo, South Africa. Most interpretations of Strindberg's original text are centered on the psychosexual unraveling of its title character, an imperious, death courting figure. That Ms. Farber's emphasis lies elsewhere is suggested by the epigraph by Sol Plaatje appended to her script: "Awakening on Friday morning, June 20, 1913, the South African Native found himself, not actually a slave, but a pariah in the land of his birth." He was referring to the enactment of the Natives Land Act, which enforced territorial segregation in South Africa while denying most of its black population the right to own land. Though "Mies Julie" is set in 2012 on Freedom Day, which commemorates the first postapartheid elections, Ms. Farber suggests that the baleful spirit of 1913 lives on. The toxic love that develops between Julie (Elise Kibler) and the black servant John (James Udom) is strangled almost from its inception by societal sins past. (Vinie Burrows stalks the edge of the stage as an ancestral spirit.) That perspective is heightened by the performance of Ms. Kibler, who looks defenselessly young and unformed. By the end, when she is reduced to saying pathetically, "I haven't got a self," you believe her. Julie is less a destructive protagonist here than a pawn of history, whose confused, antagonistic attraction to John transforms their sexual encounters into acts of reciprocal rape, which are graphically embodied onstage. Julie's passivity shifts the emphasis from the play's title character to John and his mother, Christine (Patrice Johnson Chevannes). They are both excellent, making it clear that their different responses to their servitude awakening rebellion in his case, obdurate resignation in hers are cut from the same suffocating cloth. That Ms. Farber overstates the didactic is more evident here than in the previous production I saw. Then the sustained torrent of emotion kept you from hearing the bluntness of some of her lines. (Julie: "You think my body is your restitution? My body your land grab?") The regional accents used here can be thick to the point of incomprehensibility. But the sense of a world in which everyone is terminally rootless comes across with haunting acuteness. Strindberg's sexual ambivalence dissolves into something even more all devouring in this landscape of stolen pasts and indeterminate presents. As John says, after a bruising bout of sex with the girl he once worshiped, "Love is not possible in this mess."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
WASHINGTON For 50 years, the official paintings of the nation's former leaders at the National Portrait Gallery have been composed of white presidents painted by white artists. But when the curtains fell from two official portraits Monday morning, they revealed the first black president and first lady, Barack and Michelle Obama, painted, for the first time in the gallery's history, by black artists, Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley. "I'm also thinking about all the young people particularly girls and girls of color who in years ahead will come to this place and they will look up and they will see an image of someone who looks like them hanging on the wall of this great American institution," Mrs. Obama said in her remarks. "I know the kind of impact that will have on their lives, because I was one of those girls." While they were interviewing artists for the portraits, Mrs. Obama said she knew immediately that Ms. Sherald, 44, was the one. "We started talking and Barack kind of faded into the woodwork," the former first lady said. "There was an instant sister girl connection. That was true all the way through the process." When Ms. Sherald walked in, "she was fly and poised," Mrs. Obama added. "She had this lightness and freshness of personality." Mr. Obama, in his remarks, said he, too, bonded with his artist of choice, Mr. Wiley, 40, though "maybe not in the same way this whole sister girl thing. "He and I make different sartorial decisions," Mr. Obama continued, a joking reference to the Mr. Wiley's bold clothing choices (he wore a black and white patterned suit to the ceremony). "But what we did find was we had certain things in common. Both of us had American mothers who raised us with extraordinary love and support. Both of us had African fathers who were absent in our lives." Mr. Wiley, 40, whose father is Nigerian, was raised along with four siblings in South Central Los Angeles by his African American mother, who relied on welfare benefits and earnings from the family thrift shop. His mother was present at the Portrait Gallery ceremony, and Mr. Wiley thanked her from the stage, with tears in his eyes. "We did not have much but she found a way to get paint," he said. "The ability to picture something bigger than that piece of South Central L.A. you saw it, you did it, thank you." The artist also thanked Mr. Obama "for giving me a chance" and "for giving this nation a chance to experience your splendor." Part of what Mr. Obama saw in Mr. Wiley's work, the former president said, was the capacity to elevate ordinary people to the level of royalty, those "so often out of sight and out of mind." "Kehinde lifted them up and gave them a platform and said they belong at the center of American life," Mr. Obama said. "That was something that moved me deeply, that's part of what I believe politics should be about not simply celebrating the high and the mighty and expecting that the country unfolds from the top down but rather that it comes from the bottom up." On a lighter note, Mr. Obama said that, while he and Mr. Wiley saw eye to eye on most elements of the painting, there were a number of negotiating points during their two sittings. "I tried to negotiate less gray hair, and Kehinde's artistic integrity would not allow him to do what I asked," Mr. Obama said. "I tried to negotiate smaller ears. Struck out on that as well." "I had to explain that I've got enough political problems without you making me look like Napoleon," Mr. Obama said. "You've got to bring it down just a touch." The former president also thanked Ms. Sherald "for so spectacularly capturing the grace and beauty and intelligence and charm and hotness of the woman that I love." Ms. Sherald, in her remarks, paid tribute to Mrs. Obama. "You exist in our minds and hearts in the way that you do because we can see ourselves in you," she said. "What you represent to this country is an ideal a human being with integrity, intellect, confidence and compassion. And the paintings I create aspire to express these attributes." Among the prominent figures who turned out for the ceremony were Steven Spielberg, the filmmaker, and his wife, the actress Kate Capshaw, who helped fund the commission of the portraits. Also in attendance were several former members of Mr. Obama's administration, including Eric H. Holder Jr., the former attorney general; David Axelrod, the former senior strategist; Jay Carney, the former press secretary; and Sam Kass, Mr. Obama's senior policy adviser for nutrition (who sat with his baby in his arms). "We miss you guys," Mr. Obama told them, in his remarks. Mr. Wiley's work often features African Americans in the regal poses of emperors and kings, his own distinctive riff on historic portraiture. The Obama portrait, too, has its own majesty. But the former president is also depicted in a chair, with his hands crossed and elbows on his knees a posture of informality and intimacy. The two men paged through Mr. Wiley's collection of art history books and thought about "the grand tradition of presidential portraits," Mr. Wiley said, in an interview after the unveiling. "Then we decided very quickly that we were just going to strike out a path of our own and try to create a type of singular narrative surrounding what this picture looks like discarding history but also embracing it at once." "We're really trying to engage contemporary artists today to be doing portraits," said Kim Sajet, the Portrait Gallery's director, in an interview after the ceremony, "to be thinking about the importance of what portraiture does in communicating with people." By choosing two black artists, Ms. Sherald said, the Obamas sent a strong message that people of color and paintings by people of color also belong on museum walls. "Something big happened, something that wasn't supposed to happen happened: we had our first black president and our first black first lady," Ms. Sherald said. "Their choices of Kehinde and I represent that."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
This article was first published in 2002. He calls grown up women child, and his coterie of young friends muffin. Bill Cunningham has been a habitual presence on the streets of New York for nearly 50 years, and Paris and London know him, too. But as a subject, he has been elusive, a shadow on the run with his camera, who still worries, at 73, about falling into "the traps of the rich." Here, people who have known or observed him since his hat making days in the 1950s turn their gaze on him. My mother, Edna Morris, was one of the last of the grandes dames. She was very tall, very thin, with every hair always in perfect place. She knew Bill from around town and from Saratoga, too. You know, Bill loves the old time people. It was a time of great style and gentility, and wonderful clothes. One day, many, many years ago, I had gone clothes shopping with my mother. I think I was just out of college. We were walking down 57th Street, and Bill was there, at the corner of Fifth. He snapped our picture and then sent a copy to my mother. It was one of her favorite pictures until the day she died. All big smiles. I don't know how many times he has taken my photograph, but we all dress for Bill. You feel he's the only one who notices or cares how you dress. I wonder if Bill will like this. And it's always a flattering picture he chooses. He picks everything carefully, so you will look your best. He's a very seductive guy. I was this punk rocker with pink hair. I couldn't believe he was interested in me, because no one else was. But Bill was interested. Why are you wearing that plastic bag, Muffin? I was totally fascinated by this man. I had come from Detroit, and he was exactly what I thought New York would be. Then I realized Bill was one in a million. He photographed me a lot. And sometimes I didn't even know he was photographing me, which was the whole point. I remember he photographed me in a pair of trendy Comme des Garcons shoes with fox pompoms. He's very hung up on shoes. He's very hung up on originality. He does make you run, Bill. He once said to me, "Baby, can you stand on top of that grille?" We were outside the Louvre, and I had on a white chiffon dress. He could see right up to my pants. I was walking on the street recently in Paris when he just grabbed me and said, "Come, kid, get out there!" You don't mind because you know the voice. More than anyone else in the city, he has the whole visual history of the last 40 or 50 years of New York. It's the total scope of fashion in the life of New York. And he's such an unbelievably discreet man. I don't know anything about his life, except his bicycle. One day I was having lunch at the old Le Cirque, and I mentioned how beautiful the flowers were. And someone said, "Oh, they're done by Bill's lady friend, Suzette." When I saw him, I said, "Bill, you sneaky guy." He just smiled. TONI CIMINO, Friend and floral decorator known as Suzette I met him when he was 26 or 27, and he was a milliner. Can you imagine? I moved into an apartment on the third floor of his building, on West 54th Street. When I first met him, all these fashionable people, Mrs. Astor, were standing on the sidewalk to get into one of his fashion shows. Errol Flynn was across the street, waiting for his girlfriend, who was a model. I couldn't get out of the building that day. In the 1950s, I lived across the street from him when he was William J. His studio was in a brownstone on 54th Street, and I remember he had this hat in the window with fringe hanging from the brim to the ground. It was a bathing suit hat, and you were supposed to change your clothes behind the fringe. I called up Sally Kirkland, who was the fashion editor at Life, and I said, "You've got to see this!" She put it in Life. Bill was an absolute innovator right from the get go. His hats were the grand opera of all time. ELIZABETH CORBETT, Former model and owner of Chez Ninon I met Bill in 1960, when I was a model at Chez Ninon. The shop was then at 487 Park, and it was owned by Sophie Shonnard and Nona Parks. They were two crafty old women you couldn't put anything over on them. Once, when someone in Paris gave them a price for a dress, they said, "Now you go back and sharpen your pencil, and give us another price." Balenciaga would run when he saw them. The shop was a wonderful place. We'd have openings from Tuesday to Friday at 3 p.m. Everybody was there, from Diana Vreeland to Babe Paley to her sister Betsy Cushing. When Jackie Kennedy went to the White House, she'd come in for fittings. All the Kennedy sisters came. Rose, too. And Bill was always there. Ms. Shonnard and Ms. Parks brought him a long way from his beginning. I think they taught him a lot. They introduced him to a lot of people. Bill used to have an old Rolls Royce, and he'd drive his women friends out to Southampton. He was quite a character around town. When the husbands of these women died, they said to him, "Do you want to come and look at the clothes?" So he always had a tuxedo. When Bill came to Women's Wear in the 60s, I was covering Seventh Avenue. We knew that John Fairchild was capable of anything, and in comes Cunningham. He looked wide eyed and dazzled. I don't think he was prepared for the environment of a newsroom this grubby newsroom right out of "The Front Page" the unbelievable noise, the pounding of the manual typewriters, the clattering of the Teletype machines, people shouting across the room. This raffish newsroom, which was just wonderful. In comes this hat designer, and Fairchild is giving him a column. I mean, a column! Immediately everybody resented him. Just resented him. But once you met Bill, you stopped resenting him. He sure knew the fashion business, and he was a terrific reporter. He got the stuff. I hired Bill to work at Women's Wear because he had pep and energy and lots of grace. And he knew everybody. He didn't sit in an office and talk. He went out and came back with the best stories. Everybody in the office was jealous of him. I met Bill in 1967, when I opened my store, Abracadabra, and he was working for The Chicago Tribune. My idea was to introduce designers who were sewing at home and put them in a retail space. Quite a few went on to very good careers, including Willi Smith. Bill just loved the store. Then I left the country for three years, and when I returned, I ran into Bill, and he encouraged me to go back into fashion. In 1976, I started working for The SoHo Weekly News, and I asked Bill to do the fashion reports. We founded Details almost literally on the night that The SoHo News closed, in April 1982 myself, Ronnie Cooke, Stephen Saban, Lesley Vinson, Megan Haungs and Bill Cunningham. I was 24 when I met Bill, and he was to become the formative influence of my life. He taught me how to tell a story with pictures and that it didn't always involve the best image. I'd say to him, "But isn't this a better photo?" And he'd say, "Yes, child, but this photo tells the story better." For him, it wasn't about the aesthetics of photography. It was about storytelling. Bill was always the first to know who was great, whether it was a new designer or a new collection. He was the first journalist in America to write about Azzedine Alaia and I think the first to write about Gaultier. If he picked up on something in the fall collections, then by the spring collections everybody else would be raving about it. He was absolutely the leader I remember he once put an Armani dress next to one designed for Diaghilev, to show that Armani's wasn't original. The people at Armani went nuts and pulled all their advertising. Forever. When Bill ran a photo of something that Isaac Mizrahi had copied, Isaac couldn't have been lovelier. He made sure we had front row seats after that. Bill's fashion reports in Details were so cinematic. It was like watching "Yellow Submarine." He took you up, down, sideways. He just sucked you in with his knowledge. ARTHUR GELB, Former managing editor of The Times I loved the way Bill worked. One of his favorite corners to capture the most perplexed, surprising looks on people was 57th and Fifth, near Tiffany. He would stand there for hours, you know, spotting people only Bill would recognize. And Garbo would traipse past with her coat collar up and her hat pulled low over her brow. The next day we ran Bill's picture of her, along with other photos from that corner. That was one of the most talked about second fronts of that time. And it was a turning point for Bill. It gave him recognition beyond fashion. And his street photography was a breakthrough for The Times, because it was the first time the paper had run pictures of well known people without getting their permission. The Times had always been prissy about that. PAUL CARANICAS, Painter and president of the Antonio Lopez Foundation I met Bill around 1971, through the illustrator Antonio Lopez and his partner, Juan Ramos, who art directed Antonio's projects. I think Antonio and Juan had just moved from 13th Street to the Carnegie Studios, where Bill was. Antonio was the first fashion illustrator to bring a sampling of the art world into his work, and to bring people of color into fashion. Bill always knows what you're wearing. He once said to me, 'That's an early Michael Vollbracht." He's aware of every seam. I met Bill about 15 years ago. I was always going to nightclubs, all of Suzanne Bartsch's parties, Sauvage and Copacabana. And Bill was always out there photographing. I'd spend hours on my outfits for those parties. And sometimes Bill wouldn't recognize your face, because he was looking at your clothes. I don't believe it when Bill says he doesn't recognize the people he photographs. My God, he saw the elusive Garbo. STEPHEN GAN, Founder of Visionaire and art director of Harper's Bazaar I was an art student at Parsons when I first met Bill, in 1986. I was 18 and walking around SoHo one day when this funny man came up to me, taking pictures. I had on some skirt and pants outfit, I'm embarrassed to say. Jean Paul Gaultier had just done his collection for men, showing banker striped suits with skirts. I loved it, though I did my own cheaper version. And Bill came up to me and took some pictures. And then he said, "You look hungry, kiddo, let me buy you a cookie." We went into Aggie's, a place in SoHo, and he did buy me a coffee and a cookie. I told him I was having trouble with my mom because she didn't want me in art school. And Bill said: "Well, you go out and get yourself a job, child. Here's a quarter. Call Annie Flanders. She's doing this magazine called Details." At some point Bill said to me, "You've got to go to Paris. Every kid your age who wants to do something in fashion has to go to Paris." So I went to live in Paris for nine months, and I would run into Bill at the shows. He would help me sneak into shows by giving me his invitations. Once, as I was leaving a show, I felt something in my pocket. It was a 50 bill. He had slipped it into my pocket. Bill always kept telling me not to fall into the traps of the rich. Between the eight years at Details and the four years at SoHo News, it was quite a lesson. I learned such standards and morals about the business from him. And I had to keep my value system up, because I didn't want to do anything to offend Bill. He would never take any money from us, ever. After the first issue, we gave him a check and he brought it back, ripped up. He told me he wouldn't do it if he had to take money. All the founders worked for a percentage of the magazine. So I kept a record of every single thing he did. And every time we got a new publisher or owner, I said, "This amount will always be honored." When Advance bought the magazine, I explained Bill's situation to S. I. Newhouse, how the amount had to be honored. It was quite a lot by then. And S. I. would always call me, begging me to get Bill to take the money. But every time I spoke to him, he wouldn't. It's still on the books as far as I know. RONNIE COOKE NEWHOUSE, Stylist and a former editor of Details I met him when we started Details, and I became one of the muffins. When I started going to Europe for the shows, we'd go around together. Everyone else was getting into sedans, and we were walking, in the pouring rain. Bill would say, "Oh, no, child, you can't fall into the traps of the rich." And I would watch my shoes dissolve into the sidewalk. Or, we'd be at a show, and I'd say, "Bill, it's really hard to see from the last row." He'd say, "All the people who tell the truth are in the last rows." It was like the movie "Life Is Beautiful." Here we were, working in these terrible conditions, and Bill would make you feel: How lucky am I! He's been asked by many museums to have exhibitions of his work. His photo archive is priceless. It's a real period, like a Ken Burns thing. He always says, "After I'm gone." Or: "I don't care. I'm not an artist. I'm a reporter." And sometimes I get mad at him. It's a false modesty. I say, "Bill, if you don't take control of this, someone else will just do their view of you." One time he did a favor for me, and to thank him, I made a reservation for lunch at the Russian Tea Room. When we got there, he said, "You know, there's a place I like better across the street." It was a Chock Full o' Nuts. However, he knew the waitress who worked there, and she wouldn't take my money for the lunch. So, you see, he wouldn't let me return the favor. He once did something for me I'll never forget. Some of the ladies got together, about 15 years ago, and gave a masked ball for me at the Plaza. Bill said, "I'll make your mask." It was beautiful, in gold and silver, dangling with ribbons and sequins. He sent it to me: "This is my present for you." I was in Mike Gallagher's magazine shop recently, and there was this extraordinary mask on the counter. Black and white, dripping with pearls. And I said, "What is this mask doing here?" Mike said: "Bill Cunningham designed it for Truman Capote's Black and White Ball I think for Candice Bergen." It was the most beautiful thing. You know, he's like a pixie on a bicycle. You're at some dreary event. Suddenly, there's a flash, a wonderful word, and he just lifts you up. I think society people trust him because he's such a nice guy. When he sees you, it's always, "Hi, fella!" He's so down to earth. It's as if he genuinely enjoys taking the pictures, rather than participating in the event. For him, it's not about who's who. I think he's one of the great guys of New York. Brooke Astor wanted Bill at her 100th birthday party. When she didn't see him on the list, she said, "I would like him included." We didn't invite other members of the media, but she wanted him there as a friend. There's a sense of correctness about Bill, a right and a wrong. He's very proper, as well as sweet and loving. It's as if he's saying, "This is what happened in fashion, and you can't say you did it first because you think you did it first." When I first showed him Visionaire, it was just a loose folder with pictures, because all the first issues were portfolios. And he said, "Ah, let me pull out something for you." And he brought out Gazette du Bon Ton, the first magazines from 1910. He said, "Look, all the first fashion magazines were done as portfolios." He wants to show you that someone may have done something similar before. That's what I mean by correctness. With Bill, I think of credibility, not credits.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Fashion & Style
After Donald Trump's ridiculous and dangerous suggestion last week that household disinfectants injected into people's bodies might be a treatment for Covid 19, Republicans intensified their hand wringing over whether his daily briefings were doing more harm to his political fortunes and theirs than good. The coronavirus has completely reshaped the coming election. The economy is in dire straits. Trump's polls have taken a dip. People are anxious and afraid. The outlook isn't good ... at the moment. As The New York Times reported last week, some in the Republican Party see similarities to 2006: "In 2006, anger at President George W. Bush and unease with the Iraq war propelled Democrats to reclaim Congress; two years later they captured the presidency thanks to the same anti incumbent themes and an unexpected crisis that accelerated their advantage, the economic collapse of 2008. The two elections were effectively a single continuous rejection of Republican rule, as some in the G.O.P. fear 2018 and 2020 could become in a worst case scenario." But I would caution all those who take this fear as encouragement that Trump is weakened and vulnerable: Trump is not George W. Bush. This is not the Republican Party of 2006. This is not a cultural environment in which social media is in its infancy. Trump, as a person and politician, is riddled with flaws. But he also has an ignominious super power: He is completely unencumbered by the truth, the need to tell it or accept it. He will do and say anything that he believes will help him. He has no greater guiding principles. He is not bound by ethics or morals. His only alliances are to those who would support and further his devotion to self promotion. I don't look back to the 2008 campaign for parallels, but to the 2016 one. When the "Access Hollywood" tape, on which Trump bragged about groping and sexually assaulting women, came out, Republicans were worried. They began to openly reject him. Some called for him to drop out of the race. As this newspaper reported at the time: "But the image of Republicans running for the exits, a month before a presidential election, is as extraordinary as a party's nominee using vulgar, violent language that seemed to reduce an entire gender to sexual anatomy. And this time, no amount of spin seems sufficient to control the damage Mr. Trump has wrought." But, as we now know, that damage was short lived. The Republican Party would rally to Trump's side. Indeed, the party would be completely remade by him, and become loyal to only him. Before a debate with Hillary Clinton and just two days after the release of the tape, Trump invited a panel of women who had accused Bill Clinton of sexually inappropriate behavior and one whose rapist was defended by Hillary Clinton as his guests for the event. No one is as shameless a showman as Trump. He was in survival mode. Nothing was too far, nothing was too crass. At that debate Trump dismissed his comments as locker room talk and denied that he had ever done the things he himself boasted about doing on the tape. As Trump said on the debate stage: "Nobody has more respect for women than I do." This says nothing of the fact that within hours of the "Access Hollywood" tape being made public, the first of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's stolen emails began to be released by WikiLeaks. After the tape's release, Trump saw a dip in some polls, but not all. His base is religiously loyal. A Politico/Morning Consult poll at the time showed only a one percentage point drop. As Morning Consult's Meghan McCarthy wrote at the time: "Trump's numbers remained stable thanks to the loyalty of the Republican base, a fact that could give pause to party leaders considering publicly abandoning the nominee." To state the obvious, Trump would go on to win the election. I say all this to say: Don't fall prey to false hope that defeating Trump will be easy, that his horrifically incompetent response to the coronavirus has doomed him. It hasn't. Trump will fight with everything he has to the bitter end to stay in power. He will never admit any fault. He will lie and lie and lie and lie some more. And the people who support him will stick with him every step of the way. Joe Biden even believes Trump will try to alter the election calendar, saying, "Mark my words: I think he is gonna try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can't be held." I put nothing past Trump, absolutely nothing! And neither should you. Be prepared for Trump to do anything and everything to win re election in November. A man who can dismiss a recording of his own voice bragging about assaulting women is capable of anything. 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 and Twitter ( NYTopinion), and Instagram.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
Naomie Harris often says her breakout role was in the 2003 post apocalyptic thriller "28 Days Later" with Cillian Murphy, but that is not exactly true. Because even as the film was scoring at the box office and drawing critical plaudits, Harris found herself unemployed and sending out dozens of resumes and letters to casting directors, begging for work. The same thing happened after she landed parts in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" and the James Bond movie "Skyfall." People told her that now the work would come flooding in but it never did. Then along came "Moonlight," the 2016 indie that ended up winning an Academy Award for best picture. Harris' performance as Paula, a drug addict and mother, earned her a best supporting Oscar nomination. "This is going to change everything," people told a skeptical Harris yet again. Finally, they were right. "With 'Moonlight,' it was fundamentally different,'" Harris said, calling from her home in London. "It has been nonstop offers and nonstop work." It also led Harris, who is 43, to secure her first leading role in the new movie "Black and Blue," about a rookie police officer in New Orleans grappling with suspicion from the African American community and deep corruption in the police force. A taut, gritty thriller, the film, which also stars Tyrese Gibson, puts a spotlight on the deep distrust between many African Americans and the police. Harris will return to the big screen in 2020, reprising her role as Eve Moneypenny in the next James Bond picture, "No Time to Die," and is also appearing in the forthcoming HBO and Sky One series "The Third Day." She is, she said, relishing every minute of this career high. "You want a woman that's going to drive the story , you want a woman with depth and layers, and that happens with maturity," she said. "We all become much more interesting with life experience." These are edited excerpts from the conversation. Even though you're British, you seemed to have an intuitive grasp on Paula, your character in "Moonlight," and Alicia, the officer in "Black and Blue," who both come from marginalized communities in a country where race issues are fraught. I don't know whether it's intuitive, because it requires a tremendous amount of hard work. It's about as much exposure as possible to the kind of upbringing that the person you're playing is from. I was really lucky I had Tyrese to act opposite. He grew up in South Central L.A. but was able to tell me about his experiences growing up. And I always talk about YouTube, and the incredible mine of information there. I researched African American policewomen in New Orleans, and also juvenile detention centers, because that's Alicia's experience. How do relations between black communities and the police compare in Britain versus the U.S.? It's an endemic problem, and it's so sad, it's so dark, and it's hugely depressing. We have all the same issues that you have in the States, though it's on a much more extreme scale in the U.S. We have the Black Lives Matter movement here, we have the whole issue with police brutality and police corruption and cases of black people who've been taken into detention and end up dead. It seems as though the system is designed in such a way so to protect officers and not to protect civilians. I don't feel terror when I see the British police here. But, especially in New Orleans, from speaking to a lot of people on our movie set, that's their experience when they see the police. I'd like to go way, way back in to "Simon and the Witch," the 1980s British TV show that marked your first role. Is it right that you did not have to do auditions until later in your career? I did do auditions, but I got every single role I ever went up for as a kid. I never heard no, which actually set me up quite badly for the adult acting profession. I spent the first year outside of drama school completely unemployed, completely unable to get any work. It was one of most depressing periods of my life. That "Moonlight" changed everything is wonderful to hear. Do you hear comments on the fact that your biggest role came after you turned 40? People always ask me, 'What it's like, you're past 40 now?' This is the best point of my career ever. I'm getting the most interesting roles. So I hope that myth will be laid to rest. Can we go back to Oscar night in 2017, when "La La Land" was mistakenly named the best picture winner and then "Moonlight" ended up winning. That must've been so surreal. Did you expect it to win? I remember being frozen in my chair. I was so in shock that I literally couldn't move. And all the cast and the producers and Barry Jenkins, the director were going up onstage, and I was just left in my chair. I would have stayed there if it wasn't for Jeremy Kleiner a producer on "Moonlight" who came back and grabbed me. You've talked previously about an audition in your 20s when a major actor put his hand up your skirt in front of the casting director and director, who said nothing. I just chalked it up as this hideous experience that I was aware a lot of fellow actresses had experienced at some point. I wasn't particularly traumatized by it. I just kind of though, "O.K., now it's my turn," and I just got on with it. I realize now that we in that period, going back 15 years, we had to develop that resilience. It's so indicative of the extent and scale of the problem at that time that I felt, "O.K. this is what I should almost expect as actress in this business." It's absolutely hideous. I really feel that for the next generation and current generation of actresses, that the landscape has changed in such a huge way, that it's not acceptable anymore, and that the behavior of men fundamentally has changed as well. I'm on a project at the moment with Jeremy Kleiner the HBO series "The Third Day" . Before we started the read through they read a whole statement about having a zero tolerance attitude to any form of intimidating, bullying or sexual violence against women. It was extraordinary. It actually made me well up. Once you state that at the beginning of a job, you set the whole tone for everybody on the film. And that never would have happened 15 years ago. That's the power of the MeToo movement and it's extraordinary how quickly things can change.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
FRUGAL Hermanns an all day restaurant, event location, test kitchen and film studio in one is one of the stops on a budget friendly itinerary in Berlin. In November 1989, Potsdamer Platz was known as the "death strip" a wasteland between the two parts of the Berlin Wall. But after the wall fell, Potsdamer became a major site of celebration and reunification. Today, old graffiti tagged slabs stand as harmless relics, and the long scar of the wall's foundation runs through the bustling intersection. It is also near the posh Ritz Carlton, Berlin, where I found myself during a recent visit, on a mission to discover how to conquer Berlin already a relatively cheap European city on a tight budget. To get a sense of the city's high end options, I walked from the Potsdamer U Bahn station through the plaza and into the lobby of the hotel, where I was greeted by Thomas Munko, its chief concierge. Mr. Munko happens to be born and raised in Berlin an advantage as a concierge, certainly. But to achieve success in the hospitality industry, Mr. Munko emphasizes other, less tangible skills. "It's more important to have the right service attitude and, it sounds very old school, bu t: m anners," he said. Mr. Munko then related a story when a guest nearly forgot a wedding anniversary and needed a handwritten poem delivered, last minute, to his wife in Los Angeles. A courier from Berlin would have taken 48 hours, Mr. Munko explained, so he arranged to have a member of his staff fly it to the United States and deliver it by hand. With that same make it happen attitude, Mr. Munko agreed to assist me with my own project: designing a day itinerary for a fictitious wealthy client in Berlin with a budget of 1,000, about 830 euros. I would then endeavor to tweak that itinerary so that it fits my slightly more modest budget of 100. Berlin proved more than up to the challenge and made my job easy; while the city certainly features a fair number of luxury options, it hasn't lost its populist edge. To begin the day, Mr. Munko suggested Kafer, the restaurant on the roof of the Reichstag, the German parliament building. Panoramic city views await, as does the large glass Reichstag dome, designed by Norman Foster. For about 30 euros, diners can tuck into a Wohlfuhlfruhstuck, a vast breakfast spread that includes coffee or tea, freshly squeezed juice, various breads, eggs, house made marmalade and a number of different meats like Truthahnsalami (turkey salami) and luftgetrockneter Schinken (air dried ham). I opted to start my day at the spacious, bright Hermann's on Torstrasse, just a stone's throw from the Rosenthaler Platz U Bahn station. Hermann's describes its offerings as "comfort food with a twist" and also experiments with ingredients and sourcing. The space was gorgeous, but I also appreciated the fact that they specifically set aside no technology tables for diners like me who were not camped out with their laptops. A filling bowl of black rice porridge with coconut creme set me back 4.90 euros, and a tangy, satisfying rhubarb hazelnut tart cost 4.50. Mr. Munko would then put his wealthy client in the hands of tour operators Albrecht Kuhsel for a personal walking tour of historically significant sites in central Berlin. One of Berlin's great strengths is its walkability and what's not easily walked to can usually be accessed by train. Sites during the tour might include the Brandenburg Gate, the Holocaust Memorial and the German Bundestag and Chancellery. Total cost, without gratuity, is 250 euros. I tackled my activity and transportation for my entire trip in one fell swoop, purchasing a Berlin Welcome Card Museum Island upon arrival for 45 euros. This afforded me 72 continuous hours of free public transportation (within travel zones A and B you can pay extra to travel to zone C, which encompasses the outskirts of the city), as well as free entry to the five museums on Museumsinsel, or Museum Island. The card pays for itself if you visit three of the five museums, and allows you to skip the ticket lines, which can get long. The island, which sits in the Spree River in the center of the city, is a Unesco World Heritage Site and was where the Prussian royal family kept prized art and archaeological pieces. The Pergamon Museum may have been my favorite; it featured the stunning reconstructed blue Ishtar gate of Nebuchadnezzar II, unearthed in Babylon between 1899 and 1917. Admission without the card is 12 euros. I spent time in the Neues and Altes Museums, the latter of which was constructed in 1830 and is Berlin's oldest museum. The Altes, with a beautiful neoclassical facade, is heavy on Greek antiquities. The Neues has, among other highlights, a gorgeous limestone and plaster bust of Nefertiti from 1340 B.C., taken during a 1912 German expedition. For lunch, Mr. Munko suggested heading toward one of Berlin's busiest shopping streets, Friedrichstrasse, for an Italian feast at Bocca di Bacco. Our faux client's meal might include a starter of sesame crusted tuna with a fennel and orange salad and an entree of giant grilled prawns with a Catalonian vegetable salad; the cost, with some good wine from their extensive list: 75 euros. I instead hopped on the train and headed to the west side of the city, home to Preussenpark, a big public green space that is also home to some of the best Thai food vendors in the city. From Friday through Sunday most of the year (but not during the winter), you can expect to find a great selection of noodles, spring rolls, grilled meats and salads all informally prepared on the park grounds. For 5 euros, I picked up a huge plate of freshly made papaya salad with tomato, peanut and shredded green papaya, carefully prepared by a nice woman named Nu. I made the mistake of asking her to make it spicy my mouth paid the price. It was delicious nonetheless, and being able to wander around the park with other hungry visitors made the experience all the more enjoyable. Alternative option: I'd be remiss not to mention the doner kebab, the popular Turkish street food of roasted stacked meat, usually eaten with different vegetables and sauces in sandwich or wrap form. Mustafa's Gemuse Kebap is the most famous in Berlin (as are the long wait times) but I quite enjoyed Doner Dach, a small shop in Friedrichshain. A chicken gemuse doner was 3.50. The flea market in Mauerpark is a perfect place to spend a Sunday afternoon. Packed with food vendors, merchandise, street performers and graffiti artists, it's got just about anything you could imagine and how much, or little, money you spend is entirely up to you. The atmosphere is fun and festive for pedestrians: a band called The Suns of Shine, dressed in matching bright yellow and purple leopard print pants, were playing some upbeat pop songs for passers by. Nearby, another group called Blouzouki played bluesy numbers with just a banjo and a tuba. Within the shopping area lay seemingly endless amounts of vintage clothing, posters of mythical creatures, patches and buttons, old furniture and crates of old records. I ended up spending 10 euros on a windbreaker I found at one of the clothing stalls. The food isn't bad, either. I enjoyed some Korean cuisine (a savory jijimi pancake with kimchi cost 4.50) from one of the vendors, Kuem Ja. The real attraction, though, is the people watching it felt like every twentysomething in the city had descended on the park. We ate our dinners, talked, and then shared a typical Indonesian dessert called es teler. Somewhat reminiscent of Filipino halo halo, it's a cold, slushy concoction with avocado, jackfruit, durian and kolang kaling, the small immature fruits of the feather palm. While refreshing and sweet, and a great ending to a meal, the durian makes it particularly, ahem, potent (it's called "stinkfrucht" in German for a reason). The cost is 5.90 4.50 without the durian. Just around the corner from Slate, where our wealthy visitor would have dined, is Buck and Breck, a speakeasy style cocktail bar. The small, chic spot is exclusive and discreet, and accessed by ringing a small buzzer outside. The bar, which is a regular on annual "best of" bar lists, has a strict no technology policy (silence those phones). Mr. Munko advises ordering a bottle of Egly Ouriet Champagne, which will lighten the wallet by about 150 euros. I couldn't very well visit Berlin without visiting a typical German pub fortunately there was a good one just a short walk from my hotel. Zum Nussbaum, a centuries old inn originally located in a different part of the city, was rebuilt after it was destroyed in an Allied air raid during World War II. Now sitting on a cobblestone street by the Nikolaikirche (the oldest church in Berlin), it exudes the warmth and ebullience you'd expect from an old fashioned German drinking establishment: dark wood, lively conversation and lots of kitsch on the walls. Better still, the beer is cold and flows freely my small Pilsener set me back just 3.10 euros. It was a fitting finale to a few days in this richly historical and multicultural hub. Because let's face it even if I were wealthy, I'd still take a cheap beer over some fancy Champagne any day of the week.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
A media mystery popped up a week before Christmas: Leslie Moonves, who had just been fired as the chief executive of CBS after multiple accusations of sexual misconduct, appeared to give an exclusive, on the record interview to a little known publication in which he bluntly addressed his dismissal. Agenda, a news service owned by The Financial Times, quoted Mr. Moonves in an article as saying, "How quickly the board forgets the job I did for CBS. They were a rudderless ship when I went there, when I took over." Later in the article, the interview subject addressed the board's decision to deny him a 120 million severance payment, saying, "I think the board will do the right thing, ultimately." It was an unlikely seeming exclusive. Mr. Moonves had shunned all interview requests since the publication of an article in The New Yorker last summer that included detailed, on the record accounts from women saying that he had sexually assaulted them. For much of 2018, reporters at major outlets, including The New York Times, had aggressively sought Mr. Moonves, with little success. The idea that Agenda, a niche outlet with 6,000 subscribers focused on corporate governance issues, had scored his first on record comments since his firing struck many observers as implausible. It turns out the interview, published on Dec. 18, may have been bogus. On Thursday, Agenda removed Mr. Moonves's comments from the article and attached an editor's note that read, in part, "A spokesperson for Mr. Moonves issued a statement denying that Mr. Moonves spoke with reporters from Agenda." At the same time, the publication did not admit error, adding later in the note, "We stand by our reporters' portrayal of those conversations but, in light of the statement from Mr. Moonves, we have removed the quotes from the article." Before the retraction, a number of publications, including The Times, had reprinted the executive's supposed comments. The statements attributed to Mr. Moonves in the Agenda story were potentially significant, since he can appeal the board's decision on the 120 million within 30 days of Dec. 17, the date the CBS Corporation board formally decided to characterize his ouster from the company as a firing with cause. The board was unequivocal in firing Mr. Moonves. It determined that he had misled the company about the allegations made against him and found that he had tried to hide evidence from investigators in "breach of his employment contract." (Mr. Moonves has said that any sexual contact with the women was consensual.) The Agenda article suggested, through Mr. Moonves's now retracted comments, that he was contemplating action against CBS. 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. The reporters, Stephanie Forshee and Jennifer Williams Alvarez, did what most writers do when trying to track down a high profile subject: They trawled the Nexis database. After they entered his name, the database spit back several phone numbers. The reporters tried each one, until someone on the other end of the call identified himself as "Les Moonves." The interview lasted a few minutes. In a follow up, the reporters called the same number which has a Maryland area code to ask a few more questions, according to two people who spoke on condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to discuss what happened publicly. They also shared relevant emails with The Times. A few days after the article appeared, Chris Giglio, a spokesman for Mr. Moonves, said the former executive had not spoken with Agenda. Mr. Moonves himself called Lionel Barber, the editor of The Financial Times, to complain, according to the two people. Mr. Barber, who used to be the managing editor of the newspaper's United States operation, had become friendly with Mr. Moonves over the years. Mr. Barber told Mr. Moonves that he was unaware of the article and would look into it, one of the people said. But Agenda is editorially independent of The Financial Times, and the decision on how to handle the complaint fell to the Agenda newsroom. Mr. Moonves, through a spokesman, issued a statement on Tuesday: "Mr. Moonves did not speak with reporters from Agenda in December 2018 or at any other time. Any suggestion that he did is without any factual basis whatsoever." Agenda added an editor's note to the article reflecting the statement, but did not make any substantial changes to the piece. After inquiries from media reporters, the publication removed the comments attributed to Mr. Moonves.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
The Justice Department said Tuesday that there had been no federal crime in the placement of a noose that was found this week in the Talladega Superspeedway garage stall assigned to Darrell Wallace Jr., the lone black driver in NASCAR's premier series. It was there last year, long before Wallace was assigned to the spot at the Alabama track for a race this week, the federal authorities said. NASCAR said that a pull rope for the garage door had been "fashioned like a noose" and left there. "We appreciate the F.B.I.'s quick and thorough investigation and are thankful to learn that this was not an intentional, racist act against Bubba," NASCAR said in a statement, using Wallace's nickname. Richard Petty Motorsports, which owns Wallace's No. 43 car, said it was "grateful the findings conclude there was no direct threat" to the driver or others associated with his team. In an interview on CNN on Tuesday night, after hours of debate on social media over whether the episode was a hoax, Wallace emphatically denied that he had any role in placing the noose and said he had never before seen a knot like that at a track. "I'm mad because people are trying to test my character," he said. Neither the federal authorities nor racing officials gave any public indication of who might have tied the knot, which Wallace described on CNN as "a straight up noose," or their intention in doing so. Wood Brothers Racing, a fixture of the stock car circuit, said in a statement that one of its employees had this week recalled "seeing a tied handle in the garage pull down rope" last year and that the team quickly notified investigators. The disclosure of the noose late on Sunday came as NASCAR confronted its history on race and its record as a safe haven for the Confederate battle flag. And the inquiry's swift conclusion could help the motor sports empire to edge away from one of the most tumultuous periods in its history, even though the country remains engaged in far reaching debates about endemic injustice. That national turmoil, which intensified after George Floyd's death in Minneapolis police custody in May, helped prompt Wallace on June 8 to urge NASCAR to banish the battle flag. The company did so two days later, barring it at the organization's events and properties. Then, after a competition in South Florida, the racers and their crews headed to Talladega, a track renowned for its speed and etched into the culture of Southern stock car racing. Finished in 1969, after the crucial support of George C. Wallace, the segregationist Alabama governor, the track has drawn millions of fans but also earned a reputation as a place particularly welcoming of Confederate symbols like the battle flag. Although NASCAR's flag ban appeared to work on Sunday in spite of protests from some fans the noose was soon spotted in Wallace's garage stall, prompting anguish and fury within a sport that had sometimes only tepidly tried to put distance between its past and its present. By the time of the green flag in the weather delayed Geico 500 on Monday afternoon, competitors had rallied around Wallace, the Justice Department had announced its review and NASCAR had vowed to expel any wrongdoers from its ranks. With access to Talladega, especially its work areas, tightly controlled because of the coronavirus pandemic, officials indicated that they were focused on whether someone directly tied to NASCAR was responsible. The investigation ended quickly: Jay E. Town, the United States attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, and Johnnie Sharp Jr., the head of the F.B.I.'s office in Birmingham, Ala., said that their evidence, including video footage, showed the noose in the garage as early as October 2019. "Nobody could have known Mr. Wallace would be assigned to garage No. 4 last week," they said, adding that "the decision not to pursue federal charges is proper after reviewing all available facts and all applicable federal laws." Although the government's intervention signaled the gravity of the episode, the Justice Department and outside experts said from the inquiry's start that there was no guarantee that prosecutors would pursue charges. A charging decision, current and former U.S. officials said, would be based on a number of factors, including a person's intent and the capacity in which that person was in the garage at Talladega.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
The letter sent Monday criticized the museum for a "failure to create a diverse and equitable workplace." Responding to criticism by staff that its executives had created "a culture of institutional racism," the Guggenheim Museum's board of directors has hired a lawyer to conduct an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding its 2019 exhibition of the artist Jean Michel Basquiat. The decision, announced Wednesday evening, is the museum's latest attempt at soul searching following a letter last week signed by the Guggenheim's curatorial department that described the cultural institution as having "an inequitable work environment that enables racism, white supremacy and other discriminatory practices." On Monday, another letter circulated throughout the office. Seventy one former Guggenheim workers joined 100 current employees about a quarter of all staff in saying that the museum's "failure to create a diverse and equitable workplace has resulted in a museum culture that refuses to take accountability for the violence and injustice inflicted upon its BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) constituents." "The Guggenheim cannot claim to be a leading arts institution without first atoning for its wrongdoings and committing to concrete action and change," the letter added. The letter's organizers have proposed 22 guidelines for the Guggenheim to correct course, including mandated anti racist training for all staff, an overhaul of the museum's whistle blower system and the creation of a director level position with the role of promoting racial equity. Employees also asked for an independent investigation and a public report on the museum's treatment of last year's Basquiat exhibition and the show's guest curator, Chaedria LaBouvier, an art historian. Last month, Ms. LaBouvier posted a tweet saying that working with Nancy Spector, the museum's artistic director and chief curator, "was the most racist professional experience of my life." Ms. Spector has declined to comment on the matter. She started a three month sabbatical on Wednesday, though there was no indication the decision was related to staff complaints. A spokeswoman for the museum confirmed receipt of the letters. "We are engaged in an open dialogue about important changes that need to be made in our organization," the museum's director, Richard Armstrong, said in a statement. "I am committed to working closely with the board and the staff to take immediate action to implement our plan and set us on a course to a more equitable Guggenheim." Blake Paskal, a former employee of the Guggenheim, said, "I believe the museum owes Chaedria an apology." Mr. Paskal said that Ms. LaBouvier's experience reflected his own struggles working at the museum as a queer, Black person. He joined the Guggenheim as a public engagement coordinator in 2017 but left two years later, he said, after being passed over for promotions while his white, younger colleagues quickly advanced in their careers. He said that attempts to address these concerns with managers during yearly reviews and in feedback after all staff meetings went largely ignored. During his time at the museum, Mr. Paskal said he spent two months working remotely with Ms. Spector on a series of speaking events known as "Summer of Know." When the pair finally met in person during the program's opening night, he became crestfallen. "She just asked me if I was an intern," he said. "It was one of the most demoralizing experiences I had as a young professional, and I felt it was entirely because she thought she was emailing a white person." Asked about Mr. Paskal's remarks, the museum said that it would not comment on personnel matters related to individual employees. Ms. Spector said, "I have nothing but admiration for Blake Myers's contribution to Public Programs at the Guggenheim, and I was sorry to see him leave the museum." Mr. Paskal previously went by the name Myers. As accounts such as these surface, the Guggenheim's board of directors is putting pressure on museum executives to broaden its diversity, equity and inclusion plans. "The time for these actions is long overdue," the board said in its Thursday letter to staff, adding that it would add more diverse members to its ranks over the next year. "The board is undertaking a review of all structures and policies to ensure that no person is bullied, mistreated, disrespected or discriminated against in any way." The same staff members who sent the Monday letter met the board's response with cautious optimism in another letter sent Thursday, asking that more of their requests be met, including the election of one staff member to attend executive and board meetings. "The Guggenheim has everything to gain," they wrote, in creating "a concrete, lasting measure to ensure accountability and build a future for this museum based on trust."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
If Joe Biden isn't careful, Donald Trump might have a new nickname for him: "Shutdown Joe." Or maybe, "Shut Down Joe." Those monikers came to mind after the former vice president's biggest blunder in the campaign thus far. I'm referring to Biden's comment, in his interview last week with ABC's David Muir, that if scientists advised him to shut down the country again to contain a winter surge of Covid 19 and the flu, "I would shut it down; I would listen to the scientists." It's the sort of remark that surely plays well with voters who already support him. It might even have notional majority support. But it doesn't help with the voters Biden needs to avoid antagonizing in swing districts. Few stories bring that reality into sharper focus than Simon Romero's report in Monday's Times on New Mexico's neck and neck congressional race between first term Democratic incumbent, Rep. Xochitl Torres Small, and Yvette Herrell, her Republican challenger. New Mexico has trended Democratic in recent years, and a June poll had Biden with a comfortable lead in the state. But Romero reports red hot anger in the district over the restrictive coronavirus policies of the Democratic governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, that have helped keep case counts low at a painful economic price. There is "open defiance by sheriffs, business owners and many others of Ms. Lujan Grisham's policies." Turnout in the G.O.P. primary surged by more than 40 percent over 2016, as against a Democratic increase of 5 percent. "The strategy of running hard to the right by avowing loyalty to Mr. Trump while blasting Democrats for problems associated with the pandemic," Romero adds, "could be working for Ms. Herrell, who lost the 2018 race by fewer than 4,000 votes." What's happening in Torres Small's district, which in 2016 went for Trump by a 10 point margin, isn't going to decide the presidential race, even in New Mexico. But it offers a taste of a powerful current of anxiety and resentment that Trump has positioned himself to exploit, and that to judge by his shutdown remark Biden doesn't seem to grasp. The anxiety is from people hanging on by their fingernails (if they're still hanging on at all) to jobs, businesses, livelihoods and homes on account of a pandemic whose toll in lives and health can be weighed against the costs of fighting it. In the hierarchy of fears, what is Covid 19 to a healthy 35 year old restaurateur next to the prospect of losing everything except a meager government check? The resentment goes just as deep among those who feel talked down to by people whose own track record as experts leaves something to be desired. Remember when (on Feb. 29) the surgeon general tweeted, "Seriously people STOP BUYING MASKS"? Remember when the most urgent national need was for more ventilators until those fears proved largely unfounded? Remember the scientists who hypocritically failed to abide by the sort of strictures they demanded of the public? None of this is a failure of science per se, or an excuse for reckless personal behavior. It is certainly no justification for Trump's appalling management of the crisis, particularly his failure to promote and provide for adequate testing. But it is a failure by people who claim to speak, with unassailable authority, in the name of science. And loose talk of nationwide shutdowns plays into the fears of voters who feel they have been both impoverished and patronized. The danger Biden now courts is twofold. He is promising to hand over his decision making authority to unelected people who, whatever their education, expertise or virtues, haven't gained the trust of fence sitting voters. And he is proposing to resort to a strategy that, as Wall Street Journal reporter Greg Ip reported on Monday, is now being viewed by some economists and even health experts as "an overly blunt and economically costly tool" that could have been avoided in favor of "alternative strategies that could slow the spread of the epidemic at much less cost." All of this creates a dangerous opening for Trump. Voters won't necessarily turn to Biden if they feel he will merely rubber stamp the same set of policies that they wanted to avoid in the first place. Democracies elect leaders to lead, not defer; to occasionally buck conventional wisdom, not parrot it. Biden and his advisers may suppose they're on a glide path to election against a manifestly flawed and failed incumbent. But they face an opponent who fights best when he's cornered, and who will take the same ruthless political advantage of Biden's line that George W. Bush's campaign did of John Kerry's calamitous classic about the Iraq war, "I actually did vote for the 87 billion before I voted against it." The Hippocratic oath for the Biden campaign should be, "First, do no self harm." The next time Biden is asked about lockdowns, he might cite a line from John F. Kennedy: "Scientists alone can establish the objectives of their research, but society, in extending support to science, must take into account its own needs." That's a line to win over a wavering voter. 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
LONDON Lady Elizabeth Anson, Queen Elizabeth II's cousin and her party planner for more than 50 years, was raised in a Downton Abbey like home where servants ironed the newspapers, and was married at Westminster Abbey. But on a recent Friday, Lady Elizabeth the orchestrator of some of Britain's most aristocratic parties was in her white azalea filled sitting room. She was wearing a gray Tomasz Starzewski jacket bought on sale more than 40 years ago, drinking tea from a purple flowered tankard (an eBay find) and discussing her recovery from her weekly lottery ticket buying addiction. "I still do a lucky dip if it's a huge amount of money," said Lady Elizabeth, who has also organized events for Tom Cruise and other celebrities seeking discretion. On her feet were what looked like Roger Vivier court shoes, but when a reporter suggested she might like to remove whatever was stuck to the bottom of them before having her photograph taken, Lady Elizabeth, 75, handed the footwear to her liveried butler. "Certainly, my lady," he said, before getting rid of the price tags that revealed that the shoes cost PS25 (about 35). "Marks Spencer's best," Lady Elizabeth said, looking delighted at this evidence of her frugality. And really, why shouldn't she be? Among her "grander family," as she calls them, frugality is a trait to be celebrated. The queen has been known to take public trains. Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge (whom Lady Elizabeth refers to as "Catherine"), is applauded for wearing dresses more than once. Let somebody else be the embarrassingly profligate relative that makes the monarchy look bad. Lady Elizabeth daughter of Princess Anne of Denmark, goddaughter of King George VI is just another hard working entrepreneur, albeit possibly the only one with the word "lady" in her email address. "I do not know how to be a lady who lunches," she said. "I love my work, and my work pays for my home." She asked the butler to bring her her nicotine sweets. She gave up smoking in the '60s, picked it up after 17 years, then quit with difficulty again 11 years ago. Hers is a nerve racking business. One of her projects is the queen's 90th birthday this month. The milestone is being marked with street parties, pageants and ceremonies, but Lady Elizabeth handled the private family celebration, which, like all of her events, she was "not prepared to discuss." Still, she is as unguarded as one can possibly be when bound by confidentiality agreements, referring to one of Ivana Trump's post Donald husbands as "looking like a frog." (Mrs. Trump is a former client. Things did not end well.) Of the overweight king of Tonga, whom she was looking after, along with all the other foreign heads of state, at the 2011 royal wedding, she said, "He thought he'd break the furniture in Buckingham Palace." The chairs there are "very low," she said, "very wonderful Louis Quatorze. It looks as if you sat on it, it would break. But it doesn't." During a discussion about the lost art of conversation because of cellphones, she took her incessantly ringing land line off the hook, letting the receiver dangle at her stockinged feet, and leaned in, saying: "I think I can tell this. It's a bit about the royal family." She described how the queen had had her grandchildren over for dinner. "And she said to me that she found it really difficult," Lady Elizabeth said, "because they didn't really know how to talk each other. And she said, 'I suppose it's because they're always getting up and down and helping somebody and putting something in a dishwasher or whatever they're doing, because they don't have enough staff.'" On the subject of Her Majesty: For the record, the queen is a "most meticulous hostess," though she does not insist only on Malvern water or yellow freesias, as has been reported. "People love creating myths," Lady Elizabeth said. "It makes them feel very self important." In fact, it was a gardener at Windsor Castle who decreed the yellow flowers. For the wedding of William and Kate, for which Lady Elizabeth was an adviser (and planned the wedding eve family dinner), the couple had very strong ideas that the queen "was marvelous and listened to," she said. Traditional royal weddings have no reception afterward guests just depart after the service but William and Kate wanted one after seeing that was what their friends had had. "And so the palace had to learn quite a lot about different canapes, because they weren't used to doing them," Lady Elizabeth said. Her code name around the office for the queen is (or was until it's been published) Shirley Temple, though Lady Elizabeth said she can't remember why. Referring to her staff of five, she said: "We literally had the funniest names possible for everybody. And the people who were the most aware of their celeb importance that I've ever had got names that were truly extraordinary." While looking at wedding sites with the actress Isla Fisher, who was marrying Sacha Baron Cohen, Lady Elizabeth was amused that Ms. Fisher (code name: Sally Dangletrot) kept three different wigs in the car to disguise herself. "I wouldn't have known her if she was passing down the street," she said. "I shouldn't say that because it's quite rude." Lady Elizabeth started her business at age 18, in 1960. Her inspiration was the stress of planning her own 1959 debutante party, which prevented her from enjoying the evening. Chasing down R.S.V.P.s was a particular headache, and she claims credit for inventing "this ghastly thing called the reply card" to solve the problem. The first time she created one, she forgot to leave a space for people to write their names, and so she ended up with a bunch of yeses and nos but no clue who they were from. Her first event for the queen was a disco at Windsor Castle for Prince Charles, then 15, and Princess Anne, then 13. "My business started before the discotheque was invented," she said. "So when this man told me he was going to charge me PS25 to put on records for the evening, I thought, 'Is this man absolutely crazy?' Anybody can put on a gramophone record." She soon learned it was "an art form." A party for the Rolling Stones ended with the police showing up as guests were drunkenly throwing unopened bottles of Dom Perignon into the Thames, but generally Lady Elizabeth's events are known for their calm elegance and thoughtful touches. At a white themed dinner for 40 people last month hosted by royalty at the cavernous, drafty Victoria Albert Museum, Lady Elizabeth marched over to "my little Indian caftan man on the Portobello Road" and bought a load of white pashminas to drape on each chair. She hid hot water bottles underneath cushions. (She also suggested to guests that they wear "heat tech from Uniqlo.") "It's that ghastly boring phrase 'the devil's in the details.'" she said. "The devil is in the detail, and the detail doesn't need to cost very much." She can do strict protocol working out what year various marquesses or earls were created to determine seniority (and thus seating arrangements) but she is not afraid to break it, along with convention. Glynn Woodin, who has worked with her for 30 years as the managing director of Mustard Catering, a society favorite, recalled that recently she decided the damask tablecloth (Mr. Woodin described its color as "eau de vie with a bit of olive") would look better flipped upside down, using the rougher textured side. "We were doing a party absolutely littered with royals," he said. "You and I would be horrified to use a cloth on the wrong side, but it was exactly right." She has never advertised. Instead, she attributes her success in part to being "terribly, terribly shy" she still bemoans a party she never quite made it to years ago where, dressed in a red velvet trouser suit and with her hair freshly done, she stood by the elevator watching people go in, unable to summon the nerve to do the same. And so she arranges party spaces with the timid in mind. "The downfall of any party in the countryside is to walk into a hall and be confronted by a dance floor," she said. "And some young man has driven you down, so he's got a girl on both arms, and what do you do with yourself?" Her solution: a well lit bar, which she calls a "picking up and dumping ground." With multiple events a week, she said she has little time for hobbies, though she was an avid "Downton Abbey" watcher (dismayed as she was by the dining room tablecloth "a well polished table was a butler's pride and joy"). She has a fondness for foraging, especially for mushrooms. "There's a wonderful book called 'Food for Free,' and it's quite amazing what you can eat from the hedgerows," she said. She paused to contemplate what she would do if she retired, but then quickly got back to work.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
"Gay Chorus Deep South," an understated documentary about the tour (the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir joined in) directed by David Charles Rodrigues, soon uncovers a more personal story behind the political statement. Seelig says he was once a minister of music at a Baptist Church in Houston, and when he came out, the church "absolutely left no stone unturned to try to ruin my life," he says. While he's not looking to settle scores, he is haunted and seeking reconciliation. So are several other choristers. One, who has cancer, has been estranged from his homophobic father who lives in Mississippi. Ashle, a singer in transition, worries about restroom laws in some states.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
The opening on Thursday evening of Phelim McDermott's staging of Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte" at the Metropolitan Opera was in many senses more successful than I had feared. The fairground, 1950s Coney Island setting baffled me even as it lent some gorgeous imagery, not least Amanda Majeski's Fiordiligi circling on a Ferris wheel for her great aria, "Per pieta." But David Robertson's conducting, the playing of the orchestra, and some of the singing at least gave the affair more of the depth and darkness that other Mozart productions at the house have lacked. For properly dignified Mozart, however for Mozart which takes us beyond ourselves we must go back a few decades, to Karl Bohm, the Vienna Philharmonic and the sainted Gundula Janowitz. DAVID ALLEN While saluting the young cast of the Met's "Cosi," I'll join David in celebrating a recording of the opera from the past: an exquisitely urgent, blooming rendition of "E amore un ladroncello" by the mezzo soprano Tatiana Troyanos. In the aria, inexplicably once a frequent target of cuts, Dorabella begs her sister to give herself over to love, even of the unfaithful variety. Troyanos one of the great artists of opera history, who died in 1993, just 54, of cancer makes it all rendingly persuasive. ZACHARY WOOLFE Kelli O'Hara, the Tony winning Broadway star, brought her lovely soprano voice, vibrant dramatic instincts and quite good Italian to the role of Despina, the sassy maid in "Cosi." When she sings a rich musical theater score, Ms. O'Hara exudes the kind of vocal and verbal elegance that should be common in opera. Here she is singing "Almost Real" from Jason Robert Brown's distinguished score for "The Bridges of Madison County," during the 2014 sessions for the original cast recording. Listen to the way Ms. O'Hara, playing an Italian immigrant in rural Iowa lost in thoughts of Siena, lifts her voice effortlessly in phrases that crest on luminous high notes, while still making every word count. ANTHONY TOMMASINI The gifted young tenor Ben Bliss is also appearing in "Cosi"; his sweet voice, youthful energy and touch of mischief suit the character of Ferrando. It must be fun for him to be working with Kelli O'Hara, since he has often sung musical theater songs in recital. In this video, taken during a performance in the crypt of a church in Harlem, Mr. Bliss shows classic Broadway style, including putting words across effectively, in "Maria" from "West Side Story." Even in the climactic moment of the song, when he clings to a high note, Mr. Bliss sings with full voiced intensity without sounding generically operatic. You'll seldom hear a finer performance. ANTHONY TOMMASINI Yannick Nezet Seguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra opened their Carnegie Hall program on Tuesday evening with the New York premiere of a scintillating work by the Dutch composer Michel van der Aa: his Violin Concerto of 2014, conceived for Janine Jansen. Mr. van der Aa, who typically delights in multimedia works steeped in theater, here confines the drama to the music itself, conceived around the magnetic personality of Ms. Jansen, who performed it on Tuesday. Rather than cast the orchestra as mere accompanist or equal combatant, Mr. van der Aa set up a synergy of near constant interaction, as exemplified when Ms. Jansen's line spawns tendrils in the orchestral strings, which make it, in the words of Paul Griffiths's program note, "dribble away." JAMES R. OESTREICH Mark Berry who blogs, indelibly, as Boulezian was kind enough to write for us about the grim life and grimly gorgeous music of Bernd Alois Zimmermann, who was born 100 years ago on March 20. His piece brought me to Zimmermann's music for cello, an instrument with which he had clear affinity and affection, including this intense, melancholy solo sonata from 1960, played with lucid elegance by Thomas Demenga. I love in particular this strange two string harmony, followed by a fragment of filigree passagework that's almost Rococo. ZACHARY WOOLFE The music of veteran New York School composer Christian Wolff has long been powered by unpredictable melodies and startling silences. Yet the lyrical quality of his writing often shines through, regardless of the overall oddity of his structures. "Going West" is a 2013 Wolff piece for solo electric guitar. Its premiere recording, released this week by Mode Records, shows that Mr. Wolff can still fashion passages of disarming beauty. Even after the short work has made a detour into the woods of complexity, the guitar lines played here by Sergio Sorrentino retain a songful style. The piece's easygoing abstraction suggests a traveler setting up camp for the night, secure in a mood of peculiar solitude. SETH COLTER WALLS Baroque composers now obscure keep turning up in the hotbed of early music that New York has lately become. Last Saturday at Corpus Christi Church, the Academy of Sacred Drama performed "Giuditta," a small, attractive oratorio by Antonio Draghi (1634 1700), based on the biblical Book of Judith and recounting in a few simple strokes the heroine's beheading of the tyrant Holofernes. Not a lot of Draghi's music has found its way to YouTube, though there is a staged performance of a larger scenic oratorio, "La Vita Nella Morte" ("Life in Death"). Here is his Stabat Mater, which the Academy used as a striking exit processional last week, and much of the work's musical charm survives through an indifferent performance in dismal acoustics. JAMES R. OESTREICH	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
Two top N.B.A. teams battling into double overtime. Memorable individual performances. And points, points, points. Thursday night's game between the San Antonio Spurs and the Oklahoma City Thunder set a handful of records, but it was the Spurs who won, 154 147. LaMarcus Aldridge had his best night. Although he has averaged 20 points or more regularly, and frequently winds up in the 30s and 40s, Aldridge had never scored 50 points in an N.B.A. game until Thursday. And at halftime, it didn't look as if Thursday would be the night, either; Aldridge had only 14 points. But a strong second half took him to 43, and the two overtimes gave him the extra minutes he needed to reach 56, a new career high. He tallied the 56 with six layups, three dunks, 11 midrange shots and 16 free throws. Notably, the 6 foot 11 Aldridge attempted no 3 pointers, which have powered most of the recent record setting offensive performances in the modern N.B.A. (That was not surprising; Aldridge is only 2 for 14 on the year from distance.) Still, in padding his scoring in 1s and 2s, Aldridge became the first player to score 50 points without attempting a 3 pointer since Jermaine O'Neal had 55 for the Indiana Pacers in 2005. It was the most points by a Spurs player since David Robinson scored 71 in 1994, and the most against the Thunder franchise since Tom Chambers of the Suns poured in 60 against the team then still the Seattle SuperSonics in 1990.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Hello and happy (late) Fourth of July. Hopefully, most of you got some time off the stop and watch the fireworks. I, of course, did not, as on the Fourth of July I was watching: (1) Maison Margiela; (2) Elie Saab; (3) Jean Paul Gaultier; (4) Viktor Rolf; (5) Fendi; and (6) Valentino. Admittedly some of those shows produced fireworks of a different kind. I'm not going to give away what happened, since you can read all about the shows below, but I will say this: There were some pretty extraordinary collections. I could never afford couture, and I wouldn't even wear most of it if I could. (It's too decorative for my personal taste.) But for sheer artistry, and exploration of the limits of what clothing can do and say, it is captivating. Anyway, it has been a busy week because in between all the shows are meetings and presentations, plus there was the World Cup to surreptitiously watch on the phone, and all the excitement over Roger Federer his changing sportswear sponsor. No more Nike! It's Uniqlo now. Shock, astonishment and all that. But back to the Fourth. It almost always falls during the fall couture, and it's always a little discombobulating to have this particular American holiday in France. Sometimes there are events for displaced Americans, but this time around, for reasons on which I won't speculate (though they seem obvious), there's less sympathy for our situation. So I have developed a little ritual of my own: I sneak away between shows and go to the funfair in the Tuileries and go on some rides, which feels a bit like a declaration of independence to me. My favorites are the swings and the rainbow. I took a little video for you, just because. That's the view from the swings. In any case, thanks to everyone who responded to last week's newsletter about all the unemployed designers. We are going to follow up to investigate what they are doing now, so stay tuned. For some weekend reading, catch up on this piece about Jackie Kennedy's packing list for that fateful trip to Texas; mull over the stylishness of "Incredibles 2"; and take a step back to consider how luxury's chess masters are moving their pieces around the board. Also, a reminder: Use your sunblock! Talk to you next week. Q: I am a guide of walking tours, sometimes carrying pounds of microphones, and can tour on foot for two or four hours. Wearing New Balance 990's with an added gel heel, I am less tired at the end than if I wear oxfords, but the sneakers look tacky with some outfits. Any suggestions for supportive footwear that looks more professional? Joyce, New York A: I hear you. During fashion weeks, I am generally running from show to show from 9 a.m. until 9 or 10 p.m. up and down subway stairs, on cobblestones and concrete and lugging a tote bag with notebooks, a kindle, water, snacks, phones, chargers, etc. In the winter, my footwear of choice is always an ankle boot they are best if they have a rubber sole because of the support they provide and because you can wear comfy socks. Last year I did a live talk with the photographer Annie Leibovitz, and she arrived at the theater in hiking boots, which she says she wears all the time for exactly the same reason, In the heat it's more complicated because feet swell. Sneakers are the default answer, but they are generally sweaty and, as you point out, do not go with every outfit though the current trend of every designer under the sun offering up their own version does give me hope. I did some reconnaissance while at the couture shows, and was struck by the fact that almost the entire front row had abandoned their former stilettos and platforms and opted for either Nikes or what are effectively jazzed up Birkenstocks. I first saw the Birkenstocks on the jeweler Marie Helene de Taillac, who was wearing a Prada version with green satin straps. Roger Vivier does a diamante pair. Those are obviously very pricey, but Birkenstock itself has appropriated the appropriators and now offers all sorts of cooler options. There's something very high/low about wearing them with a crisp summer dress. Some additional tips come from the footwear maestro Stuart Weitzman, who is all in favor of checking out the fashion sneakers (I am currently drooling over the Alaia options, which are less expensive than some Yeezys these days), but he notes that "a very comfortable alternative would be an oxford or slip on shoe, so long as it has a 3/8 to 1/2 inch flexible latex or rubber sole, probably bought a half size larger so that gel insoles can be added." And a final note: The old stereotype has it that shoe designers don't think about women's comfort when they are creating, but that's really no longer true. When I asked Paul Andrew, the Ferragamo designer, what he would suggest, he revealed that his Rolo loafer has memory foam padding under the ball of the foot. It's expensive, but the hardware on the front reverses from silver to gold, so you're essentially getting two for one, which helps defray some of the cost.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
When it comes to decor, money isn't everything. To create a stylish room, all you really need is imagination and the patience to find the right piece. When you're designing a home, it's easy to get carried away dreaming about pricey sofas, rugs and art. But big ticket items aren't as important as they seem, and plunking down the money to buy them is no guarantee you'll end up with a home you love. Often it's the small touches that make a space feel truly inviting and memorable. "Style is in the mix of things," said Cliff Fong, founder of the Los Angeles interior design firm Matt Blacke. "It doesn't take any imagination, or any level of taste, to go to a big box store or an Italian design store and buy everything. That just takes deep pockets." If you're willing to take your time hunting for special yet affordable pieces and doing the work yourself he said, "There's a way to approach design at any budget." To help, we asked Mr. Fong and other interior designers for ideas about how to make a big impact on a small budget. "We all know that the biggest bargain in the world is a gallon of paint," said Jeffrey Bilhuber, an interior designer whose upscale clients include Anna Wintour and Iman, but whose new book from Rizzoli, "Everyday Decorating," offers punchy decorating tips for everyone. A fresh coat of paint on walls that have become smudged over the years will immediately renew a room, and a change of color can transform it. "Color connotes confidence," Mr. Bilhuber said, and painting the walls a bold one "means that you're confident in the place that you live." "It made a huge difference and changed the whole atmosphere," he said, by making the space seem bigger and brighter. In smaller rooms, he recommended painting brick walls after giving them a light skim coat of plaster to reduce surface irregularities. Although many people prize exposed brick, he said, "it can suck energy and light from a room." Painting it lightens things up, while leaving an appealing texture. Mr. Fong suggested using a contrasting paint color to play up attractive molding, or even to create a wainscot effect. "Painting a line of color that's about three feet high and goes to the ground is a really nice, interesting way to add a visual vector," he said. "If you want to get fancy with it, put a chair rail at the top." Changing a room by swapping out throw pillows is such a well worn concept, Mr. Bilhuber said, that "if somebody says 'change your pillows' one more time, I'm going to change my job." But, he admitted, that doesn't make the strategy any less effective. Adding pillows and a throw in a bright color to a sofa can make a statement in a living room, Mr. Bilhuber said, and you can do the same in a bedroom with minimal expense. "You can change your bedding in a flash by just changing the pillowcases. They could be daffodil yellow, garnet or sapphire blue boom," he said. "Keep everything else straightforward." Another easy, affordable way to bring color into a space, Mr. Bilhuber suggested, is with new lampshades. "Buy yellow instead of white," he said or choose aubergine, as he did for his home in Locust Valley, N.Y. Mr. Cooper offered similar advice. "You can get off the shelf shades in all different shapes, sizes and colors, which will change the look of a lamp super easily," he said. For a client in TriBeCa, Mr. Cooper installed black shades on vintage 1970s Pierre Cardin lamps, which gave them "a whole new point of view and a little glamour." Or try painting white lampshades with stripes, as Mr. Cooper sometimes does, to make them a striking visual feature. "Change your light bulbs it can be that fast and economical," Mr. Bilhuber said. "I walk home at night and see some of the most egregious mistakes when I look up into apartment houses." Specifically, Mr. Bilhuber said, he sees too much bright bluish white light. "You should always use warm light, whether it's incandescent or LED," he advised, which typically means installing bulbs with a color temperature of 3,000 Kelvin or lower. Next, he said, "Bring down the wattage. You do not need to be cutting diamonds in your apartment. Low levels of lighting improve the mood." Not every piece of furniture and accessory needs to be a showstopper. A single distinctive object can create a focal point and enhance the appearance of a larger space. "One special thing can elevate a whole room," said Vanessa Alexander, the founder of Alexander Design, in Santa Monica, Calif. "We always try to include something vintage or one of a kind in every room. It's something that can't be easily replicated and has a story." In one Malibu, Calif., home, Ms. Alexander added a 1950s chair by Osvaldo Borsani to a corner of the living room. It is as much a sculptural element, she noted, as a place to sit. For her own home in Malibu, she found a perforated, brass globe pendant lamp at a flea market and had it rewired as a statement piece for a sunroom. "It adds a textural moment," she said. "And at night, it gives off a pattern" when illuminated. "A lot of those mirrors came from flea markets and thrift stores," Mr. Fong said. "You go to the flea market and find an amazing tray, interesting tabletop items or interesting art, and it can really do a lot for an environment." In his new book, Mr. Bilhuber writes that "art can animate a room even if it isn't trophy art." Expanding on that idea, he explained that you don't need to spend thousands of dollars to put art to work in an interior. "Some of the chicest projects I've ever worked on had masterworks next to framed posters," he said. "Go to MoMA and get a 100 masterwork in poster format, and make no excuses. It's human, it's real, it's humble." Or buy pieces by lesser known or unknown artists simply because they appeal to you. Better yet, Mr. Bilhuber said, work with what you already have. "You're always going to have those five pictures you've had since your first apartment," he said. "Take them down and start fresh. Lay them all out on the floor and look at them together. Just rehanging them in a way that is more uniform, or like a collage, can make the difference." "Find a room scent you love," said Mr. Bilhuber, who prefers home fragrance sprays over scented candles. "There can be a difference between your apartment and everyone else's. There can be a difference between what's happening in the hallway and your living room." His favorite, he said, is Amber Smoke from Paddywax's Apothecary collection. "I use it every night before I go to bed," he said. "Two or three spritzes and you're transported to a completely different place than where you were two seconds before." For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: nytrealestate.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
For many, a pleasant evening in the company of such tunes is probably entertainment enough. Mr. Bergasse has quite an array of talent and professionalism at his disposal not just the cast of five men and four women, but also the excellent musicians, whose bandstand emerges every now and then from the alcove in the set where it's tucked away. (The bassist, Yuka Tadano, is particularly appealing.) That's why it's disheartening that this version of the revue, its song list slightly different in makeup and order from the original, largely doesn't do what a jukebox musical or even a great cabaret set ideally ought to: make you hear long familiar songs in a new way, remind you of beloved melodies that you'd forgotten and send you home raring to take a deep dive into Spotify. Something about most of these numbers feels factory made, as if the artists had been pressed into a creative mold rather than entrusted to interpret the songs anew and let their own personalities come through. The production errs on the side of caution, and that is an error, indeed. When Leiber and Stoller's songs first came out of the radio, sung by Elvis Presley or the Drifters or Ben E. King, they may have been produced to the hilt, but there was passion in them. There are moments in the production when fresh energy breaks through, though, and they often occur when the show pulls back and goes for simplicity. Dionne D. Figgins and Dwayne Cooper infuse "You're the Boss" with a teasing romance and sexual heat, and "Loving You" is a gorgeously unadorned display of doo wop harmonies. Nicole Vanessa Ortiz is a terrifically cool customer in her dry take on "Hound Dog," while Alysha Umphress is at her best with the mournful, country flavored "Pearl's a Singer." Ms. Umphress, by the way, is bigger than the other women onstage, and the costume designer, Alejo Vietti, doesn't seem to have known how to work with that, dressing her in an unnecessarily unflattering way. He does better with the skimpy, yet not overly revealing, pink fringe outfit Emma Degerstedt wears, and jiggles in, for the leering number "Teach Me How to Shimmy."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
"Autumnal." Patti Smith pronounces the word carefully, with the accent on the first syllable. And as she speaks it, an adjective acquires the weight of a noun, while a season is somehow transformed into a pervasive state of mind. Such a state, both misty and ruefully clear, shimmers like a bright fog in the small, venerable Minetta Lane Theater, where "Patti Smith: Words and Music" opened on Saturday night for three performances. The Greenwich Village location has special significance for the 71 year old Ms. Smith, the singer, poet, activist and best selling memoirist. As "a very young girl," new to the city, she used to walk past this theater, she says, wondering wistfully about what was inside. Now occupying its stage with a team of musicians made up of her son and daughter, Jackson and Jesse Paris Smith, and her frequent band mate Tony Shanahan she announces she's a little unsure as to what she's doing there. "This is supposed to be sort of a play," she says. "So just go along with it." When her daughter, who has been at the piano, slips offstage after the opening number, Ms. Smith looks concerned. "Where did you go, Jesse?" she asks anxiously. She grins at the audience. "I'm just the leader," she says. Ms. Smith is often described as "the godmother of punk." But even during her first flush of fame in the mid 1970s, when she was a galvanizing presence at gritty downtown venues like CBGB, she had a radiant sentimental streak, a precocious awareness of time passed and passing. She begins "Words and Music," which is being recorded as part of the Audible theater program, by wishing her audience "Happy autumn equinox," a salutation she follows with the poem "Autumn Day" by Rainer Maria Rilke. "The summer was immense," she reads, and one woman's bright, storied history seems to hover before us. Ms. Smith captured long stretches of that history in two lyrical autobiographies, "Just Kids" (2010), an account of her early days in New York with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (1946 1989), and "M Train" (2015), about life with and after her husband, the musician Fred (Sonic) Smith (1948 1994). She keeps paperback editions of both books, marked with slips of paper, close at hand to read from. And two long dead men, whose names she speaks with proprietary pride, become electrically present in their absence. The production inevitably brings to mind another memoir of a show, the current hit "Springsteen on Broadway," in which the rock star Bruce Springsteen alternates recitations from his autobiography with introspective performances of his songs. Mr. Springsteen collaborated with Ms. Smith in writing the ballad that became her one Top 40 hit, "Because the Night" (1978), a number she performs here as a hypnotic rhapsody. "Words and Music," though, is a much cozier affair than "Springsteen on Broadway." The homey, lived in looking set was assembled by Jesse Paris Smith, and includes the family's battered looking "sacred chair," as well as a shabby orange sofa. (Ms. Smith pauses over the color choice, but then concludes that its evocation of pumpkins is appropriate to the autumn theme.) Clad in her signature black stovepipe pants, jacket and vest, with small braids at the front of her leonine gray mane, Ms. Smith dons spectacles whenever she reads and never seems to know quite where to put them afterword. She makes a few entertaining flubs, including calling "Ode to Billy Joe," the Bobbie Gentry song, "Ode to Billy Joel." "Did I really say that?" she asks. "Considering my intense dislike ..." She intones the vamp from the theme song of "The Twilight Zone," adding, "That sentence never happened." The songs, delivered in that shimmering clairvoyant alto, include "Peaceable Kingdom," which she and Mr. Shanahan wrote in honor of the slain pro Palestinian activist Rachel Corrie, and two collaborations with her late husband: the haunting lullaby they created for their infant son, and the anthemic "People Have the Power." Ms. Smith also performed the thrilling "Dancing Barefoot," a portrait of falling into vertiginous love, from her 1979 album "Wave," with its explosive insistence on the word "She." Ms. Smith had yet to record "Wave" the first time I saw her onstage, when I was a college student. It was in a village club just a few blocks away from Minetta Lane. With her radioactive energy and fierce stare which seemed to bore into a dimension only she could see she seemed gloriously, transcendently alien. I remember thinking she was too wildly otherworldly to live much longer than her hero, the symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud, who died at 37. Now here she was, her hair the color of ashes, some 30 years later and still blazing, to conjure the immense summer of a life on this night of the autumn equinox.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
Ivan Kral with Patti Smith in concert in Amsterdam in 1979. He helped smooth Ms. Smith's transition from poetry into music and played guitar and bass on her early albums. Ivan Kral, a Czech born musician whose integral role in the Patti Smith Group, along with his work as a filmmaker who chronicled the earliest days of the CBGB scene, made him a key figure in New York's creative underground of the 1970s, died on Sunday at his home in Ann Arbor, Mich. He was 71. His wife, Cindy Hudson, said the cause was cancer. Mr. Kral also played in an early incarnation of Blondie and worked with Iggy Pop, John Cale, John Waite and Noel Redding, the former bassist with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, either co writing songs for them or contributing bass, guitar or keyboard parts to recordings by them. A romantic song he wrote with Ms. Smith, "Dancing Barefoot," was covered by myriad acts, including U2, Pearl Jam and Simple Minds. A throbbing new wave piece he wrote with Iggy Pop in 1981, "Bang Bang," was covered by David Bowie six years later on his album "Never Let Me Down." On Monday, Iggy Pop posted a tribute on Twitter: "Dear Ivan, you were a great guitarist/writer, a handsome guy, a true rock believer, and a great credit to me and the Czech Republic." John Waite, who wrote songs with Mr. Kral on three albums in the 1980s including "Every Step of the Way," which reached No. 25 on the Billboard pop singles chart described Mr. Kral in an email as "a gifted songwriter," "a cultured European" and a "kick ass NYC guitarist." Ivan Kral was born in Prague on May 12, 1948, and came to the United States in 1966 with his parents as refugees. His father, Karel Kral, was the United Nations reporter for the Czechoslovak news agency C.T.K.; in that capacity he helped alert the world to the threat of a Soviet invasion of his country, which came about two years later. His mother, Otylie (Hajmaarova) Kral, was a botanist who played classical piano. Mr. Kral had refugee status in the United States until 1981, when he became an American citizen. Before settling with his family in New York, he had played with a rock band in Prague named Saze, which later became successful in Czechoslovakia. Amid the gritty New York of the early '70s, he formed a band, Luger, which became part of the glam rock scene at Max's Kansas City and was the opening act on Kiss's earliest shows. He later played in the singer Shaun Cassidy's backing group before joining the nascent Blondie. Mr. Kral, a poetry fan, met Ms. Smith at one of her downtown readings and helped smooth her transition from poetry to music. He played bass and guitar on her debut album, "Horses" (1975), one of the first punk albums and one of the most influential albums of its era for its stripped down sound, its integration of music and poetry and its presentation of women. In 2020, "Horses" was entered into the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress. He went on to play on, and write for, all of her band's crucial early albums: "Radio Ethiopia," released in 1976; "Easter," which made Billboard's Top 20 two years later; and "Wave," which had similar chart success in 1979. Mr. Kral collaborated with Ms. Smith on two of her most high energy songs, "Ask the Angels" and "Pumpin' (My Heart)," from "Radio Ethiopia," as well as the grinding rocker "25th Floor," from "Easter," and three compositions on "Wave," notably the poignant "Citizen Ship." That song's poetic lyrics alluded to Mr. Kral's life as a refugee and ended with Ms. Smith violently shouting his name toward the end to assert his identity in a new world. "Ivan was my guitar brother in the group," Ms. Smith's guitarist Lenny Kaye said in an email. "He brought a pop sensibility to our improvisations, and helped us along our path to becoming a true rock 'n' roll band." During his time in Ms. Smith's group, Mr. Kral, using a 16 millimeter camera, began filming acts at local concerts, including the New York Dolls, Jayne County and Queen. He assembled the footage into a film, "Night Lunch." He went on to focus on shooting then unknown punk groups like the Ramones, Television and Talking Heads, working with the filmmaker Amos Poe to add sound from the bands' demo recordings to footage they had shot silently. "I had all these three minute rolls of film," Mr. Kral told The Ann Arbor News in 2010. "I decided I had enough to make it into 50 minutes. I spliced it together in one day."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
They Liked It So Much They Bought the Brand DO you believe in love at first sight? Consider this: One look was about all it took when executives of Tata Motors, who in late 2007 were deciding whether to buy Jaguar from Ford Motor, saw sketches of what would become the 2011 XJ. "What we had coming to market," Gary Temple, president of Jaguar North America, said in a recent interview, "was what made them buy the company." Developed largely before Tata, of India, took over, the new XJ is a bold, mold breaking styling statement. The old XJ's long running retro theme traditional grille, quad headlamps, sculptured hood, low beltline and long tail has finally been exorcized. While unmistakably a Jaguar, the new XJ is a thoroughly modern, flamboyant, unfettered expression of luxury. Some loyalists feared that such a radical departure might alienate the typical Jaguar owner (known inside the company as the fictional "Mrs. Schwartz on Long Island"). But based on early sales figures, two things seem apparent. The Jaguar faithful (presumably including Mrs. Schwartz) are still happily on board. And the new car's wow factor has smitten those who thought the XJ had become too old school. For more than 40 years, the XJ has been Jaguar's flagship. When originally introduced in 1968, the company's founder, Sir William Lyons, appeared in grainy television commercials extolling it as "the greatest Jaguar ever!" Indeed, while the original XJ was a landmark car it has been called the most beautiful sedan ever the XJ's iconic status within the company has for decades cowed those who longed for a bold update. The previous three major redesigns hewed closely to the look of the original. "We were almost afraid to mess with it," Mr. Temple said. "There was a limit to how far we wanted to take the design; we didn't want to lose the look we had nurtured for so long. But in doing that, to some degree, we will admit we lost our way." As an example, Mr. Callum cited the new instrument panel: "It's nine inches lower than the previous car's dashboard. That wasn't just all hollow space behind there; it was full of components. All those things had to be relocated." The lowered dash gives the entire cabin a feeling of spaciousness the interior seems much larger than its predecessor. "It's not," Mr. Callum assured me. "We're talking about millimeters." The new interior ranks among the most elegant in the auto industry, irrespective of price. I slipped into the cabin of a top line Supersport XJL, which is offered only by special order at a starting price of 114,075; it was like being admitted to an exclusive English club. The scent of glove soft leather was intoxicating; the seats are a select "aniline" hide, with contrasting piping, and embossed headrests. (Could I replace the Jag logo with my family crest? Yes, there is a bespoke order department.) There is leather, leather and more leather on the headliner, the door posts, the dashboard, the backs and sides of the seats, the center console. My only wish was for a wood trimmed steering wheel instead of one wrapped solely in leather. The cabin is rimmed with choice wood materials other than wood, like carbon fiber, are available forming what Mr. Callum calls the "Riva line." It is meant to evoke the shape of a classic Riva Aquarama mahogany speedboat. In the back seat, matching "business trays" fold down from the front seatbacks. In long wheelbase versions, stretched by five inches, the rear legroom is positively limousine like. The vast expanses of leather, especially in look at me combinations like the wine and cream "Bordeaux" trim, can border on the garish. But isn't owning a Jaguar supposed to be about standing out? Outside, a tall shoulder designers call it the "tornado line" runs the length of the body. This subtle design element visually links the feline inspired headlamps to "cat's claw" taillights that sweep up from the bumper onto the top of the fender. The wheel arches bulge gracefully but muscularly from this line. The side window frames are blacked out, so the sleek silver accent around them stands out. Much of the roof, along with the rear pillars, appears to be dark glass. On black cars, this treatment blends nicely; in lighter colors the contrast looks like two tone paint. The effect may not be appreciated by everyone. Even as the new XJ thumbs its nose at the old car, it does so while continuing to use many components carried over in the interest of cost savings from the midrange XF sedan and even the sporty XK coupe and convertible. Jaguar lacks the development resources of larger competitors like Audi, BMW, Lexus or Mercedes Benz. So Jaguar economizes by doing what custom coachbuilders did until World War II: creating elegantly appointed new bodies for existing mechnical components. The new XJ has basically the same running gear and chassis with key refinements as the car it replaces. This is far from an impediment. Jaguar's distinctive all aluminum chassis (another legacy of the Ford era) significantly reduces the car's weight and gives it a performance advantage over the competition. The base XJ, with a 385 horsepower engine that breathes conventionally, has a fuel economy rating of 16 miles per gallon in town, 23 on the highway. The Supercharged version is rated 15/22, and the more powerful Supersport, which is also supercharged, is 15/21. The 385 horsepower base model hustles to 60 m.p.h. in less than six seconds; the 470 horsepower Supercharged models can do it in less than 5. Jaguar says the 510 horse Supersport has an official 0 to 60 time of 4.6 seconds, but Mr. Temple said with a wink, "You can do better than that!" Driving a Supersport on hilly roads near here, I found the off the line performance electrifying. In a straight line, the XJ tracked straight and true, although uneven pavement could unsettle it. Some body roll and suspension softness is expected in the land yacht class, but in hairpin turns I appreciated the electronically self adjusting shocks and competition quick steering. The car seemed rather tame in Standard driving mode, but the Dynamic setting imparts a more sporty feel. With firmer shock settings, more precise steering input, a torque curve that holds a gear longer and improved throttle response, the driving experience was richly improved. But the 510 horsepower engine is so over capable that it seemed bored on the highway. Even the 470 horsepower version burbled and stumbled when asked to obey speed limits. I preferred the efficient, direct response of the engine without the supercharger; when you punch the throttle in that car, the results are immediate, satisfying and much more than adequate. All six XJ versions have a 6 speed automatic transmission and variants of a 5 liter V 8 from Ford, which remains Jaguar's powertrain supplier. (Because Jaguar sales are outstripping projections, Ford has been asked to exceed its contractual obligations and provide more engines.)	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Automobiles
Mounira Al Solh at the Art Institute of Chicago. The Art Institute's show, "I strongly believe in our right to be frivolous," is the first exhibition of her work in the United States. CHICAGO When the civil war in Syria escalated in 2012, the violence forced many residents to flee to neighboring Lebanon. Mounira Al Solh, an artist, remembers seeing a wave of immigrants enter her native Beirut, only to encounter racist behavior there. "I was seeing hundreds of new faces in my neighborhood," said Ms. Al Solh, now 39, who has a Syrian mother and Lebanese father. "I was curious. I wanted to meet those people, welcome them and help them feel at home." So she began inviting some of the newcomers to her studio or a cafe to hear their stories and draw their portraits. Six years later, she has not stopped. Her portraits of refugees, mainly Syrians but also Afghans, Bengalis, Somalis and Ethiopians, currently number more than 450. Now, the Art Institute of Chicago is showing about 250 drawings from the series, along with some related embroideries, in the first exhibition of Ms. Al Solh's work in the United States. The series and show are called "I strongly believe in our right to be frivolous" after a statement by Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian poet known for writing about the emotional roller coaster of exile. Ms. Al Solh's portraits too find, in the current refugee crisis, moments of personal resilience or hopefulness amid the trauma. Beyond Beirut, Ms. Al Solh has also made portraits in the Amsterdam area, where she lives part time, as well as in Athens and Kassel, Germany, where she showed a selection from the series in last year's Documenta. At Documenta the portraits were exhibited along with her re creation of a Beirut bakery that her father ran to provide jobs for people with special needs. It was bombed in 1989. Ms. Al Solh often completes a portrait during a single sitting, and tries to capture sitters' individuality along with snippets of stories they share, in Arabic text. Her sketchbook is a yellow legal pad, "reminding us of the painstaking bureaucratic processes through which immigrants must go in order to obtain citizenship," said Hendrik Folkerts, an organizer of Documenta who also curated the Art Institute's show. He recently helped her locate Syrian immigrants in Chicago to draw. At times Ms. Al Solh has found herself sharing her own wartime accounts with her sitters, including her experiences growing up during the Lebanese war in the 1980s, when she fled to Damascus for periods to stay with relatives. "It sounds ironic now but Syria was our refuge," she said. "So making this work has also been a way for me to understand my own childhood, a way to process the trauma we all went through." In these edited excerpts from an interview, Ms. Al Solh recalls the encounters behind her portraits of three displaced Syrians. Um Mayssah means "the mother of Mayssah," so this is her nickname, not her real name. This naming is a traditional way of showing respect in Arab countries for elderly people. She told me she's the mother of five daughters. I met her through neighbors the year I moved to a new studio in the Raouche neighborhood of Beirut, on the sea. It's an exciting and very mixed neighborhood, with Lebanese, Syrians, Iraqis and Palestinians an expensive neighborhood originally but also worn out because of war, and the wind and sea too. There's one Starbucks there, and if you go early it's not too busy, so I could draw. That's why she's carrying this walnut cake. Believe it or not, it's from Starbucks. What I really loved about her was her face, with all of her wrinkles, suggesting such a tough life tougher, I imagine, because she had no sons, a problem in the Arab world. I like to carry a box of supplies and in this case I chose black and white ink, black gouache and brown watercolor to try to capture these wrinkles. We didn't talk too much I'm not a journalist, not a secret agent, I don't need to know everything about everyone. Sometimes it's more about the story, but here I just wanted to do a good drawing. I met Waad through good friends and finally I asked her if I could draw her. She reminded me of myself in some ways. She's probably 10 years younger than I am, and she's an example of all these young women in the Arabic world who are pursuing their own studies, not just waiting to get married. When I first met her she had finished her studies in Damascus, where she lived far from her family. She loved the theater and was working in film, dubbing Turkish voices into Arabic with a Syrian accent. In the text she talks about how she's more of a Damascus person, though she's really from Sweida a city close to the Jordan border . It's like someone saying they're from New York, even when they didn't grow up near there. The orange splotches I added to suggest wind. And you can see a hint of that in her clothes too. I'm not a big believer in the idea or ideal of the finished drawing. The series is really performative it's about the moment of sitting down with someone, facing each other, sharing something. The moment of making the drawing is really what matters to me. When I was in Kassel, Germany, preparing for Documenta, I was introduced to Tamim, a Syrian restaurant owner. His restaurant, which has maybe 10 tables, became my studio. He would give us coffee or tea and we could sit for an hour or more. That's where I met Ali, who is from Al Zabadani, a Syrian town close to the Lebanese border where there was a big battle. He told me that 60 percent of his friends in Zabadani died, and his home was destroyed. He said there's not a single stone left standing in Zabadani. I used black ink for this but I put some green watercolor on the brush. I was trying to evoke the color of ash, the feeling of when a city is burned out. We sat for a few hours, a very long meeting. He was confident and open and ready to share. This is something I found more with the men I met in Europe than the women the men more urgently needed to speak. While the women I met had children or husbands to take care of and were too busy to talk, these men were mostly on their own, away from family in Syria or Jordan. They carried the stigma associated with being a refugee in Europe but of course they're not supposed to cry or say they're in trouble when they call home, so this became a great platform for them. I had men telling me: It's been five years since I've seen my children; I've missed out on their lives. And some men had lost the people they love, which was very heavy. Sometimes I had to refrain from making portraits. I wasn't able to it was too intense for me. Ali also talked about how he doesn't feel like a typical Syrian. He asked me, What's the difference between a young German man and a Syrian? He said, We all want a cool life, we all want a girlfriend.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
An official who led the American Folk Art Museum's exhibition program for 25 years will step down from her post at the end of June, the museum said in a written statement on Tuesday. The statement said that Stacy C. Hollander, the deputy director for curatorial affairs, chief curator and director of exhibitions, "is leaving the museum to pursue independent curatorial work and writing projects." Jason T. Busch, the museum's director, said in the statement: "Stacy Hollander is a curator with deep knowledge and boundless curiosity; her exhibitions have been critical in establishing the American Folk Art Museum as the leading institution of self taught art." Ms. Hollander said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that she had enjoyed her time at the museum, which she called a "wonderful, open and embracing" institution, and was looking forward to new projects.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
The Rockets Tried Small Ball. Did It Work? Well, They Beat the Lakers. LOS ANGELES Among his many pregame duties whenever the Houston Rockets are on the road, Tony Nila scrawls each player's nickname on a strip of masking tape and affixes it to the top of that player's locker. Nila, the team's equipment manager, refers to Russell Westbrook as "Why Not." Tyson Chandler goes by "OG." P.J. Tucker is "Champagne Papi." Before the Rockets faced the Lakers on Thursday night at Staples Center, Nila added a new player to his list: Robert Covington, a 6 foot 7 forward whom the Rockets acquired this week before the N.B.A.'s trade deadline. The name on Covington's strip of masking tape was straightforward: "Rob." Its simplicity, though, ran counter to everything that Covington's presence represented: the latest and perhaps boldest experiment in Coach Mike D'Antoni's long history of doing funky stuff on the basketball court. The Rockets are going small really small and not even D'Antoni is sure how it will pan out. "We don't know," D'Antoni said. "I do feel that this is the best way to go, and we'll see. We'll adjust the other way if it isn't." D'Antoni began toying with the concept last week when Clint Capela, who was then the team's starting center, was sidelined with a foot injury. D'Antoni shifted Tucker, who is 6 foot 5, to the center position. The Rockets proceeded to win three in a row without Capela, then traded him to the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday as part of a four team deal the same deal in which the Rockets landed Covington from the Minnesota Timberwolves. Before his team played the Lakers, D'Antoni described the game as a "big test" and "one we're not quite ready for yet." He was worried about how his new look rotation would handle LeBron James, who is a slab of chiseled granite, and Anthony Davis, who is a redwood. D'Antoni was starting a bunch of shrubs by comparison: no one taller than 6 foot 6. "It's like taking a test, and you haven't studied for it yet," D'Antoni said. "So that's not good." The Rockets must have crammed at the last minute. They came away from their 121 111 victory over the Lakers feeling much more reassured about the new direction they were taking. "Any time you try something different, these guys have got to believe in it," D'Antoni said as he gestured toward the locker room behind him. "This helps. This helps a lot. Because if you come in here and get spanked, we're all little, and it's, 'Oh, maybe we can't do this.' So they're fired up, and we'll keep trying." Perhaps the basketball world should have seen this coming. A couple of years ago, Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey made his first foray as the producer of a Broadway style musical, which was about a team of 6 inch tall Lilliputians vying for respect in an international basketball league. It was called what else? "Small Ball." There is something refreshing about a contender coming to the hard realization that its approach is not working and changing course and doing so in dramatic fashion. For D'Antoni and Morey, that meant finding a way to help Westbrook do what he does best: produce off the dribble. When Capela was on the floor, Westbrook often found his path to the basket impeded. Capela spent a lot of time in the paint, and so did his defenders. It created traffic for Westbrook to navigate. "We've got Russ, who's a unique talent," D'Antoni said. "And I think we need to play to his talents." Against the Lakers, D'Antoni stationed five players on the perimeter a scheme that dragged defenders to the 3 point line, and Westbrook had seams to the hoop, scoring 41 points while shooting 17 of 28 from the field. Teammates enjoyed all the open space, too. Late in the second half, on a designed play that caught the attention of the analytics gurus who run the Twitter account Positive Residual, the Rockets' Danuel House Jr. slipped a screen near the top of the key, and Covington whipped the ball to him for a dunk. For D'Antoni, it was a game that fulfilled his vision in other ways. He saw a scrambling defense that caused problems for the Lakers, who were limited to 18 points in the fourth quarter. He watched his team sink 19 of 42 3 pointers. And he delighted in the seamless addition of Covington, who was Rockets' most versatile player in his debut. "He did a lot of things," said D'Antoni, whose team improved to 33 18 ahead of its game against the Phoenix Suns on Friday night. Covington came off the bench and played terrific defense he blocked a shot by Davis on a critical possession in the fourth quarter and sank two 3 pointers in the final three minutes. He finished with 14 points, eight rebounds and four assists just hours after joining the team in Los Angeles. "My teammates put me in the right position," Covington said, "and I just did what I was told." D'Antoni, long celebrated for his creativity, knows that his latest experiment is a gamble. He was asked whether he had considered going with a small ball lineup earlier in his career.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
WHEN a troupe of Porsche engineers arrived here on a Monday afternoon early this month, the flamboyant graphic designs covering their cars prototypes of the 918 Spyder, a supercar that is more than a year from its market debut barely distracted tourists from their preoccupations. Instead of stopping the show, the two otherworldly supercars slipped unobtrusively into a hotel driveway. The engineers were jubilant: a two week shakedown run, which started in Denver and proceeded through Phoenix on a meandering, blazing hot route to San Francisco, revealed nothing to imperil the 918 Spyder's scheduled production start up of Sept. 18, 2013. A plug in hybrid that combines electric drive and a midmounted gasoline V 8, the 918 Spyder is capable of highly efficient travel (when relying exclusively on battery power) or heroic feats (when the gas and electric power plants fully combine for 795 horsepower). Only 918 examples will be made; delivery to United States customers who have made a 200,000 deposit begins in January 2014, with each car priced at 854,000, not including shipping. While Porsche is experienced in creating ultrafast cars and knows its way around hybrid powertrains and the production of carbon fiber chassis, the 918's complexity presents new challenges. The Western road test was intended to verify hot weather performance, which was reported as satisfactory. The project director, Frank Walliser, and his colleagues also worked on harmonizing the car's myriad systems. The engineers looked for hiccups in drivability that would signal a need for further development of the car's software. "The biggest job today is the integration of the car," Mr. Walliser, 43, said during a ride along session held later that 97 degree afternoon in the Beehives section of the Valley of Fire State Park, northeast of here. The park's landscape of odd sandstone formations, eroded in the 150 million years since the Jurassic period, provided a contrasting setting for the futuristic Porsche. Against a low sun, with the rocks changing hues to sometimes match Mr. Walliser's orange T shirt, it seemed as if a John Ford western might break out. Those who found the 918 Spyder design study so mesmerizing when it was introduced at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show would not be disappointed with the prototypes. Spattered and smudged from the journey up and down mountains and across searing basins, the cars closely resembled that sparkling concept. Key aspects that remain true include the huge wheels, 20 inches in front and 21 inches at the rear, and a signature swooping line that starts just behind each front wheel. The line continues rearward, opening up to intake scoops that supply radiators, one on each side, that cool the midmounted powertrain. The 918 Spyder has removable roof panels, similar to those of past 911 Targa models. The roof's pronounced "double bubble" contours draw straight into a similarly undulant rear cowling. The Geneva car's electric lime exterior and interior accents survive. And by standing directly in back and staring, as an early critic observed, you can still see the face of Donald Duck. Evolving to meet practical considerations like crashworthiness, the 918 Spyder has grown by six inches, to an overall length of roughly 183 inches. The gasoline engine has expanded, to 4.6 liters (580 horsepower) from the concept car's 3.4 liters. There are three electric motors, one at each front corner and a third integrated with the engine and transmission. A 7 speed dual clutch automatic transmission regulates all this might. To lower the car's center of gravity, the transmission has been flipped upside down, placing the weighty gear clusters closer to the road. One notable change from the concept car is the deletion of exhaust pipes that emerged through the bodywork just ahead of each rear wheel. Hot gases now exit upward through the rear cowl, with the two pipes looking like ship's funnels. "The temperature problem in back is very challenging," a powertrain engineer, Christian Hauck, said. "We decided to get the heat as soon as possible out of the back." According to Mr. Walliser, the project is on target to meet its three main goals, which include delivering an evocative design, excelling at hotlaps around the Nurburgring and realizing a fuel economy equivalent of 70 m.p.g. when the car runs in electric mode. (As an E.V., it can go up to 15 miles on power from the 6.8 kilowatt hour lithium ion battery with a top speed of 90 m.p.h.) Glancing through the windshield at the square crowned fenders and the desert shrubs beyond, I buckled into the passenger seat as Mr. Walliser demonstrated the small knob on the steering wheel used to select the driving mode settings: electric, hybrid, sport and race. He took off forcefully with the car in its electric mode; aside from the lack of a clanging bell, it sounded and felt like an old fashioned streetcar, grumpily urging us forward. Hybrid mode wakes the gas engine for variable assist between the two systems. Sport mode, with added assistance from the electric drive, knocked off my hat as I shot backward against the headrest. Race mode acceleration was something else entirely, with all the raucous sounds of a cattle drive compressed into three surf guitar seconds about how long it takes to go from 0 to 60 m.p.h. Abrupt crests and random whoop de dos on the park road did not flummox the suspension. But because of the dusty interior and the swarm of cables and electrical boxes, I kept thinking of the 918 Spyder prototype as a kit car instead of the state of the art machine that will cost as much as four Bentley Continental GTs with enough left over to buy a Panamera S. Undoubtedly, this perception will recede as the 918 takes on its final polished form. Putting aside these subjective responses, though, questions linger about Porsche's special sports car. Foremost is the daunting task of finishing development work in less than a year. Both prototypes balked at times, and the gray one was momentarily stilled at the side of the road during one ride along. The second question is about the necessity of the hybrid electric drive system. Are the benefits really worth the cost and complication?	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Automobiles
PIERCE, NEB. It was early in the bidding, and the auctioneer was still warming her pitch and trying to fire up the crowd of thousands around her mobile stage, a flatbed trailer in a soybean field in the middle of the country. A 1964 Impala, a two door hardtop with just four miles on the odometer, had stalled at 75,000. The auctioneer, Yvette VanDerBrink, tried to nudge the price higher: "Where are you guys going to find another one?" A bidder laughed and responded, "Uh, how about right next to it?" Indeed, the next car was a 1963 Impala, also a two door hardtop, showing just 11 miles. Ms. VanDerBrink sold it for 97,500. After that came two more Impalas, a pair of Bel Airs, a trio of Corvairs: 500 cars in all, most of them old, most of them American, many of them coveted by collectors, and all of them accumulated by a small town Chevy dealer, who for decades refused to sell hundreds of trade ins or dozens of new models he liked to set aside.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Automobiles
Politics. The good news is that globalization really has, on average, made the world a better place for most people. Not for everyone, but on average, it has helped people who didn't have opportunities. It helped take hundreds of millions, if not billions, out of poverty. That's long term. Short term, there is an incredible backlash in this country and in Europe and pretty much every country in Asia. You see regimes that are more reactionary and defensive in nature. It's a reaction to globalization and technology. How are you managing those concerns? You do what we do, which is to spend time working on political thinking and ideas. You come up with ideas and build bridges. From an investment standpoint, you can take one of two views you can say the political backlash is going to win and you stop investing. Or you say to yourself, globalization is going to win and you keep investing. I take the second one. I'm an optimist. What are you investing in? I spend less and less time on investments. We're moving more and more to an endowment model long term, more passive. If you want to do something well, it's hard to do a number of things well. The only area I'm actually interested in being more active is technology. It's more to learn than make returns. If you're not close to what's happening in technology, you don't really understand where the world is going. Where are the biggest opportunities? The biggest opportunities are going to be and it sounds a little too obvious in two areas. One, you have a part of the world that used to not be part of the economy but has become part of it, as a contributor and an actor and a consumer. All the so called emerging countries these are huge opportunities. The other is technology. Technology destroys jobs, but it creates new ones. But it also compresses costs. That's a big political and social issue. How do you see your life five years from now? Hopefully, we make good progress with the institute. The institute works on things that are hard. That's one reason we exist. It's not like looking at things with specific milestones. In California, we've changed the referendum system.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Your Money
Until recently, I would have said the three most painful hours I spent in a Broadway theater in 2017 were the ones watching Glenn Close gamely rasp her way through the lugubrious revival of "Sunset Boulevard," Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical version of the classic Billy Wilder movie. (Close had starred in the original Broadway production 22 years earlier, and time had not been kind to either her singing voice or the show itself.) But then, on the second to last day of the year, I went to a matinee of the recent revival of "Cats," also by Lloyd Webber, ending its year and a half run that night. (The original Broadway production of "Cats" ran for 18 years, making it the longest running musical in Broadway history until it was eclipsed by the still running "Phantom of the Opera," written by who else? Andrew Lloyd Webber.) Surrounded by enthusiastic fans, some of whom had come in costume, I sat through the frantically charmless first act before bolting for the exit at intermission. At least I got to hear "Memory." So perhaps I am not the ideal reader for Lloyd Webber's memoir, "Unmasked," the first of what the composer suggests will be two volumes. But as someone who has long been a devoted theatergoer (and can knowledgeably debate, for instance, the finer points of the Angela Lansbury versus Tyne Daly versus Bernadette Peters productions of "Gypsy"), I have a grudging admiration for someone who once had four shows running simultaneously on Broadway, tying a record that had been held by the legendary Rodgers and Hammerstein. And the original cast album of Lloyd Webber's "Jesus Christ Superstar" was certainly in heavy rotation during my youth, as was its hit single, "I Don't Know How to Love Him." Moreover, Lloyd Webber has worked over the years with some of the most compelling characters in musical theater among them Harold Prince, Patti LuPone and Cameron Mackintosh and I was hoping for some good dish, particularly on LuPone, the "Evita" star with whom Lloyd Webber later had a famous feud after he fired her from the Broadway production of "Sunset Boulevard" and replaced her with Close. But, alas, Lloyd Webber doesn't appear to be much interested in dishing the dirt in this volume at least not in the tradition of most kiss and tell theatrical memoirs, including LuPone's own, which doesn't shy away from naming names and settling scores. (LuPone spends two full chapters bitterly recounting the "Sunset Boulevard" tale, and Lloyd Webber points out that she once said "Evita" was clearly written by a composer "who hates women.") In his preface, Lloyd Webber implies that some readers may find his book lacking in dramatic narrative. "Autobiographies are by definition self serving and mine is no exception," he says, adding he was pressured to write it by friends and a literary agent, and finally agreed "primarily to shut them up." 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. Not exactly the promise of a page turner to come. Still, he soldiers on. And so must I. Andrew Lloyd Webber, who turns 70 today, was born in London's Westminster Hospital to a father who was a talented but unambitious composer who turned instead to the academic world, and a mother who poured her own dreams into Andrew and his younger brother. From the beginning, Lloyd Webber showed a distinct musical talent. And he was an early fan of musical theater seeing the London productions of "My Fair Lady" and "West Side Story" while still a child, beginning to write school theatricals when he was 11 and finding that his satirical portraits of the teachers suddenly made him popular with his peers. "Boys were shouting 'Lloydy, Lloydy!'" he recalls. The turning point in his career came in 1965 when he met Tim Rice, whom his agent had recommended as a potential lyricist for a project the precocious 17 year old was beginning to work on. The meeting seemed to go well: "Awe struck might be a better way of describing my first encounter with Timothy Miles Bindon Rice," Lloyd Webber says. The two later went on to write "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Evita," parting ways around the time that "Cats" was coming together (as a lyricist, Rice was replaced by a long dead T. S. Eliot). One recurring theme of Lloyd Webber's memoir is his increasingly fractious relationship with Rice. The two seem to have fallen out sometime around "Evita," their collaboration apparently complicated by Rice's affair with Elaine Paige, the leading lady in the original London production, and by tensions over which of the two men was getting more credit for their growing fame. A final break came when Rice was called in on "Cats" to help write the lyrics for what would eventually become "Memory," but his work never made it into the final product. "We had a great 10 years," Rice later told an interviewer. "Very few artistic partnerships last more than 10 years, and if they do they tend to go down the tubes." Lloyd Webber frequently drops hints that all was not well between the two at one point quoting his father saying, "You won't have a long term partnership with Tim" but he never states what exactly went wrong or demonstrates that he ever confronted Rice about what he apparently saw as his undermining and occasionally deceitful ways. The closest he comes is when he seems to suspect that Rice was trying to undercut the forthcoming production of "Phantom" by attempting to "hijack" its director, Hal Prince, for a show of his own. The other main character in Lloyd Webber's life, at least in the period covered in this book, is the singer Sarah Brightman, his second wife, with whom he had an affair while still married to his first wife (also named Sarah), and whom he later cast in "The Phantom of the Opera." Even if you knew nothing of Lloyd Webber's personal life, and that this union did not last, the author certainly foreshadows the fact that the marriage was doomed. While describing her otherworldly singing voice and delicate beauty, Lloyd Webber casually says that during their affair, Brightman was married to a man no one ever seems to have seen, and insinuates that she had a reputation for becoming romantically entangled with colleagues. Sure enough, when their split finally comes, Lloyd Webber mentions in passing that Brightman was apparently having an affair with a keyboard player in the "Phantom" orchestra. (Lloyd Webber seems to have found marital bliss with his third wife, Madeleine, to whom he has been married for 27 years.) The one revelation in the book has nothing to do with Lloyd Webber's music or his romantic affairs. It is the surprising assertion that in 1981, Milos Forman approached him about playing Mozart in his film version of "Amadeus." Lloyd Webber was appalled, telling Forman that he was "a hopeless actor." But the director was undeterred. "You are a hotheaded perfectionist who can be extremely obnoxious," Lloyd Webber quotes him saying. "I want you to play yourself." Lloyd Webber writes that Forman pursued him off and on for the next couple of years and that he managed to wriggle out of the director's grasp only when he insisted (jokingly, he says) in a meeting with Forman and some of the producers that Mozart's music be replaced by his own. Startlingly, the producers seemed willing to go along, until Forman stepped in and stated the obvious: "I think Andrew is saying he doesn't want to play the role." (The film, with Tom Hulce taking on the role of Mozart, went on to win eight Oscars.) My suspicion is that Lloyd Webber might have had a similar conversation with his book editor, arguing that he really didn't want to write a memoir. If so, readers may finish this book wishing the editor had agreed.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
The Weeknd's new album, "After Hours," lost 69 percent of its sales in its second week out, but in another slow week for new music it still had enough to stay atop the Billboard 200 chart. "After Hours" had the equivalent of 138,000 sales in the United States last week, according to Nielsen down from its opening of 444,000, which was the biggest debut for any album this year. The latest tally for "After Hours" included 47,000 copies sold as a complete package and 119 million streams (down from 221 million). Its total was helped by the addition of three new songs to the album, as well as what Billboard counts as more than 90 deals on the Weeknd's website offering copies of the LP with sales of merchandise. For about a month now, the coronavirus epidemic has been changing online listening patterns. The effect is complex, and may be tied to shifts in people's listening habits. Some genres, like classical and children's music, are seeing gains, as are older hits, perhaps as listeners seek solace in their favorites. But one change is clear: Streams of the top 200 songs on Spotify have been sliding. Last week, listeners in the United States streamed those songs 530 million times, according to publicly available data from the service. That is the third straight weekly decline in this metric, and its lowest for the entire year. It is even lower than the 554 million recorded for the last week of 2019, a period when listening usually drops. How much lower will it go?	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
We took our children on vacation, oh yes, of course we did. We took them to the beach. We never got it together to own a second home; no country weekend cottage, no beach house. We never even got it together to achieve a recurring rental, or to return to a particularly beloved motel or holiday cabin I'm not sure we ever stayed in the same place twice. We took what we could get, generally at the last minute. But we took our children to Cape Cod. We rented a series of tiny cabins, with thin walls so we could hear the children squabbling in their minute square bedroom, and with kitchens we generally didn't use, since what's the point of going on vacation if you're just going to stay home and cook? But we did manage to return multiple times to the late lamented Mildred's Chowder House; the restaurant closed in the 1980s, but everyone in my family has vivid memories of Mildred's signature dish. Actually, we always made resolutions about provisioning so at least we could give the kids a nutritious breakfast in the morning (vital to eat breakfast, just ask me, I'm a pediatrician), but often we didn't get it together to have breakfast fixings on hand that's why you might want to ask me about the Hole in One doughnut shop in Eastham (and while you're at it, you could ask me about the fresh cream doughnuts we used to get in Rhode Island at Allie's Donuts when we drove to Horseneck Beach; everybody remembers those as well, even though we haven't been there for a couple of decades). And we took them south to Chincoteague, even though none of us was particularly interested in horses or storybook ponies. So sure, there are family traditions that link us from summer to summer and beach to beach. I can see from my own 2001 article about Chincoteague that oysters were 6.95 a dozen back then, and I can think about all the platters of Wellfleet oysters we've been consuming this summer at around 2 an oyster (that article also reminds me to give full credit to the battered early paperback edition of "Roadfood" by Jane and Michael Stern which guided us to most of these restaurants, and in fact got us to Chincoteague in the first place, chasing Crab Norfolk, and, of course, those oysters). There were holiday cabins at Chincoteague as well, and convenient motel "efficiency" suites, overlooking the salt marsh, which is a place of great beauty. And we bent our principles and cooked every now and then, because there was a truck selling fresh, never frozen shrimp, up from the Carolinas. But I can proudly say that we never once ever grilled anything, even in cottages that provided the facilities. No, we just couldn't get it together. It is no coincidence that my own annual birthday dinner comes from a Laurie Colwin essay called "How to Avoid Grilling." North or south, the children squabbled. There was a legendary competition one summer on Cape Cod (was it maybe an Olympic summer?) with a running joke that was not quite a joke about who was getting gold and who was getting silver and who was getting pushed off the podium (I mean, we're talking about competitions that involved singing TV advertising jingles over and over again "We're having Chef Boyardee!"). Somebody once wept, into one of those famous Wellfleet ponds, over only getting silver. And as a matter of fact, we weren't having Chef Boyardee we never even turned on our stove. We were constantly resolving to get to the beach early and avoid the most intense hours of sun, as I would advise you all to do. We were constantly failing (I mean, what if there was a line at the doughnut shop?). And getting everyone out in the morning was such a production, we didn't always get it together to manage it while it was still morning. But we did get to the beach. Everybody learned to jump waves, in lifeguarded areas and under parental supervision. Once or twice I bought a boogie board, but no one ever wanted to use it. There was also always strict parental supervision of showers and other necessary ablutions; we were used to getting along at home with limited access to the bathroom (five people sharing one). Still, no question, those cramped quarters (and those thin walls) and the need to wash off sand and salt and sunscreen on a regular basis put the shower right at the center of family life. Also, the expression "I call dibs on the toilet" was sometimes heard as we struggled to get the cottage door open. One summer we had a vacation cottage with a small and cranky black and white TV which, as I remember it, got decent reception only when it was showing reruns of "Leave It To Beaver," and we watched religiously; jokes that were not quite jokes about Wally and the Beav became part of the texture of the summer (and I speak here as the person who was being measured against June Cleaver, with her pearls). All around us, families kayaked and sailed, they hiked and biked. They went fishing. They did sporty things that required special equipment, and modest amounts of vacation expertise. We never got it together to do any of those things. When it comes to equipment (or vacation expertise), I remained the one who wanted to avoid grilling at all costs; my kids are the ones who had no interest in the boogie board. We bought salt water taffy, even though no one ate it. We looked at the stars at night and marveled at how bright they were away from the city and tried ineptly to locate constellations. Several times over the years we went to the beach at night because the papers said the Perseid meteor shower was going to be particularly intense; no one ever saw a shooting star. Now that my kids are grown up, I go to the beach and I occasionally yearn for their younger selves. And as part of that pleasantly nostalgic summer beach yearning, I occasionally look at big happy families and imagine them going back to those sprawling weathered multigenerational beach houses that I never even aspired to rent, much less own, where the kitchens are well stocked with healthy local produce and there are more bathrooms than people and the closets teem with beloved battered sporting goods and the spigots run with sunscreen to apply as you leave in the very early morning on your family fishing trip. Even if I could go back in time to when my children were young and squabbling, I know of course that we still would not be able to get it together to be any other family. No equipment, no expertise, no grilling, no vacation home. It would all play out just as it always did just as it still does when we go on vacation as adults, with or without a grown up child along, from sour cream doughnuts in the morning to oysters in the evening. We haven't turned on the stove once this summer in our cabin. And I just checked the American Meteor Society website, and guess what? The Perseids should be peaking next week.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Well
Major League Baseball is like a beleaguered landlord with 30 frightened tenants. Flooding in one apartment damages several others. The pipes get fixed, and then mold spreads in the room down the hall. Nobody wants to condemn the building, but everyone knows it might collapse. So it was on Monday, when the Miami Marlins worked out in Baltimore, the Philadelphia Phillies prepared for a game in the Bronx and the St. Louis Cardinals' outbreak of positive coronavirus cases swelled to 13, forcing the postponement of four games this week in Detroit. The Cardinals have been quarantined since Thursday at their hotel in Milwaukee, where their three game series with the Brewers was postponed last weekend after St. Louis's first cases were confirmed. M.L.B. announced on Monday that seven Cardinals players and six staff members had tested positive, another body blow for the league after 20 people in the Marlins' traveling party 18 players and two coaches tested positive last week. "I think everyone is trying to look for someone or something to blame, and there isn't one person or one thing to blame," Derek Jeter, the Marlins' chief executive, said on Monday. "This is a health crisis that we're all dealing with a health crisis that not only our country is dealing with, but our world is dealing with." Baseball wants to insulate itself from that world, but its 30 teams are traveling throughout the United States to stage a 60 game season. The league determined that a so called bubble approach was impractical, and the areas it considered months ago Arizona, Texas and Florida to carry out a season in a contained environment have since become hot spots for the virus, anyway. Yet road trips have increased the risk of infection. "We weren't perfect," Marlins Manager Don Mattingly said. "We were in Miami for three weeks and we didn't have one positive. So I think we felt like we were being good at it. Obviously, we weren't being good enough and then we got hit in a big way." Jeter said the Marlins had been unfairly maligned for playing in Philadelphia on July 26 after they learned of four positive tests within their traveling party; in fact, he said, the Phillies and M.L.B. were also aware of those test results. He also disputed that the Marlins had acted recklessly in Atlanta, where they played two exhibitions before flying to Philadelphia. Mostly, Jeter said, the Marlins were careless, failing to adhere strictly to mask wearing and social distancing. While there was "no salacious activity" in Atlanta, he said, some players did leave the hotel for coffee or shopping. The subsequent outbreak, however it originated, has been sobering for a young team. "If there's any group that understands the seriousness of what we're dealing with, it's our group, because we've seen how it's gone through our clubhouse," Jeter said. "We've talked to our guys once again about the importance of being disciplined on the road. We've talked to them over and over again. In terms of giving them warnings, they've seen it. It comes down to discipline. I don't think there's any secret formula for a team to be successful through this. You have to be extremely disciplined." Who should get a booster shot? It depends, Dr. Scott Gottlieb says. Virginia's new lieutenant governor elect says she won't force vaccines. The Marlins' infected players took a bus home to Miami over the weekend, before the rest of the team left Philadelphia at last for Baltimore on Sunday night. To fill out the roster, Michael Hill, the Marlins' president of baseball operations, brought in six new players and promoted several others, including Eddy Alvarez, a 30 year old infielder who won a silver medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics as a short track speedskater and has never played in the majors. "In our jobs, we always plan for Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, Plan D, and that's normally one or two players at a time," Hill said. "To encounter the numbers that we had to place on the injured list and respond to that has been a challenge." The Marlins' crisis also affected the Phillies, who stayed idle for a week as they underwent extensive testing. A coach and a clubhouse staffer tested positive, but no Phillies players have. First baseman Rhys Hoskins acknowledged Monday that players sometimes wondered if the league was being overly cautious in sidelining them, but he stopped short of blaming the Marlins. "Look, I think everyone would be lying if they said they weren't frustrated, but we knew the volatility of the virus coming into the season, and we knew these things were a possibility," Hoskins said. "Not ideal, but here we are. We get to play again. We're getting ready to hopefully continuously play throughout the rest of the season." Phillies Manager Joe Girardi said he wondered how sharp his players would be after another unexpected layoff in a year now full of them. Yet he said he felt empathy for the Marlins, not resentment. "I don't think it's something they tried to go out and do," Girardi said. "There's 18 players that are affected, and they all want to play and they can't play for at least two weeks. So I feel for what they're going through; to have to ride home on a sleeper bus, and their healthy guys probably wondering every day, 'Am I going to be sick tomorrow? Am I going to be shut down?' They were locked up in a hotel, basically.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. Even without fans in the stands, cheerleaders on the sidelines or the national anthem performed live, some N.F.L. traditions have proven pandemic proof. Like this one: Two games into the season, and the Jets are already making their fans wish football hadn't returned. The Jets revisited their annual rite of autumn (and winter, too) on Sunday at MetLife Stadium, where a bad football team did lots of bad football things. In their latest venture into the tragicomic, the Jets' accumulation of missed tackles, foolish penalties and general clumsiness conspired to doom them against the San Francisco 49ers, who mustered enough healthy players to complete a 31 13 victory. On other days, against more competitive teams, the 49ers, already missing a flock of starters, might have struggled to withstand the losses of four critical players a group that included their quarterback, Jimmy Garoppolo, who missed the second half with a high ankle sprain, and the league's top defensive rookie last season, Nick Bosa, whom they fear tore his anterior cruciate ligament to injury. That assessment might as well have been appended with an "or else." The Jets do not have the roster quality or depth to compete with A.F.C. behemoths Kansas City or Baltimore or division rivals Buffalo or New England, even with the conference's playoff field expanding to seven teams. The general manager, Joe Douglas, has been afforded a modicum of time to transform the roster to his specifications, and the team's chief executive, Christopher Johnson, told reporters last week how much confidence he has in Douglas's ability to do so. While calling Gase "a brilliant offensive mind," Johnson also expressed a desire to see progress this season. Such progress might not be measured in wins and losses but the over all direction of the team, of the offense, of quarterback Sam Darnold, who has presided over a unit that, yet to score a first half touchdown, has trailed by 21 3 at halftime in consecutive weeks. Everyone has a threshold for humiliation and despair, and it's unclear whether a similar first half fiasco to last season the Jets started 1 7 before finishing 7 9 could imperil Gase's job security. 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. Unlike last week, when the Jets forced and recovered a fumble on Buffalo's opening series, there wasn't even a brief flirtation with competence. In fairness, they did win something Sunday: the coin toss. Deferring possession to the second half, the Jets kicked off to San Francisco, which, thanking them for their generosity, scored on its first offensive play, when Raheem Mostert who later left with a knee injury took a pitch from Garoppolo and darted down the right sideline for an 80 yard touchdown. Seven point deficits with 59:43 remaining are hardly insurmountable, but consider the state of the Jets' offense Sunday: They played without running back Le'Veon Bell and two receivers Denzel Mims and Jamison Crowder a third, Breshad Perriman sustained an ankle injury which is sort of like trying to start a car without a key. Gase said he liked how the Jets moved the ball early, but they do not earn points with 7 yard gains. They combusted in the red zone, failing to score touchdowns on both chances, and all but lost the game in the first half when the 49ers stoned Josh Adams on fourth and 1 from the San Francisco 20. The 49ers rampaged 80 yards in part because the Jets forgot how to tackle, forgot it wasn't wise to incur a personal foul penalty for roughing Garoppolo after stopping them on third down, forgot that tight end Jordan Reed merits elite coverage in the red zone. In the waning seconds before halftime, Reed all but yanked the ball away from safety Marcus Maye for a 4 yard score, his second touchdown of the game, to extend the 49ers' lead to 21 3. By then, the 49ers who entered the game without tight end George Kittle, cornerback Richard Sherman and defensive end Dee Ford had lost Bosa and defensive lineman Solomon Thomas, and Garoppolo had sustained the ankle injury that would knock him out. The culprit driving these injuries, the 49ers suspected, was as much the new synthetic turf at MetLife where they play next week, too, against the Giants as the occupational hazard of playing a dangerous sport. Coach Kyle Shanahan said players discussed how "sticky" it felt all game, and defensive end Arik Armstead afterward tweeted at the N.F.L.'s official account to "fix this trash met life turf. 2020 is so wack." No disputing the latter assertion there, though every season seems to unspool in a wack fashion for the Jets, who haven't made the playoffs since the 2010 season. Despite the result and the margin of defeat, despite plunging to 0 2 heading into next weeks' game at Indianapolis, the Jets could take comfort in a small measure, that a lack of crowd noise allowed their defenders to better hear Mostert sprint away from them on San Francisco's first offensive play, an 80 yard touchdown 17 seconds in. Without any immediate feedback from the fans, the Jets, then, were left to only guess whether boos would have cascaded then; or after, trailing by 24 3 late in the third quarter, they attempted a field goal on fourth and 7 rather than go for it ("There's not a ton of great plays on 4th and 7 when you're playing a great defense," Gase said); or, really, after any or all of the 10 drives Darnold led before he tossed his first and only touchdown on the 11th, with 83 seconds remaining. It was a cosmetic enhancement of a game but not a season, the Jets hope that had long been decided.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Lear deBessonet on her new role at Encores!: "When I listen to and experience musicals, I am filled with a giddy joy." Lear deBessonet, a theater director who grew up in Baton Rouge, La., didn't see a professional production of a musical until she was 17, when her school choir, on a trip to New York, got seats to "Rent" and "Les Miserables." But her love for the art form goes back much further to singing around the piano with her mother after dinner; to organizing neighborhood productions in the backyard; to working on four classic musicals a year in high school. Now Ms. deBessonet will have a chance to share that passion with the public, as the new artistic director of Encores!, a longstanding, popular City Center series that stages short run productions of decades old musicals , many of which are rarely revived . "In my childlike heart, musicals are the rhythm," said Ms. deBessonet, 39, who will take over officially with the 2021 season. "When I listen to and experience musicals, I am filled with a giddy joy, and also real awe , that is unlike any other passion in my life ." Ms. deBessonet has directed a variety of plays and musicals over the years, but she is best known as the founder of Public Works, a much lauded program of the Public Theater that once a year stages a new musical adaptation of a classic story, which is performed by a handful of Equity actors and more than 100 amateur performers drawn from across the five boroughs of New York. The program has proved influential, spurring similar ventures in multiple cities across the United States and in England. Ms. deBessonet will succeed Jack Viertel, who is stepping down next year after 20 years at the Encores! helm. She has been serving alongside him as the series's resident director since January; she directed "Big River" at Encores! in 2017; "Pump Boys and Dinettes" in 2014 at Encores! Off Center, a sister program focusing on revivals of Off Broadway shows; and next year she is scheduled to direct an Encores! production of "Thoroughly Modern Millie." Ms. deBessonet also serves as a resident director at the Public Theater, a role she will retain . The Encores! series offers three titles per season, for seven performances each, with orchestras of about 30 musicians. (That's larger, and allows for a lusher sound, than the ensembles at contemporary Broadway shows.) The program's budget next year is 4.1 million; ticket prices start at 35 (far lower than Broadway's). "Encores! is certainly one of our signature programs it is now in its 27th season; it is the longest program that City Center has produced; it's a very important and fundamental part of our history; and it's very popular with audiences, and our board, and donors," said Arlene Shuler, City Center's president and chief executive. "We chose Lear because we know she has a real passion for the Encores! mission, and she combines respect for the past and vision for the future." Ms. deBessonet said the longevity of Encores! (it has already revived dozens of shows) , and the politics of this moment (some historical works have content that is unacceptable to contemporary audiences), posed some challenges . "Do all works deserve to be seen again?" she asked. "Should we be allowed to correct things that are, thank God, not palatable to an audience now? I'm walking into a very rich set of questions without a preformed answer." Ms. Shuler pointed to Ms. deBessonet's plans for "Millie" as an indication of her strengths. Although popular, "Millie" has become controversial, particularly in school settings, because of its depictions of Asians and Asian Americans, which some people view as satirical, and others as racist. Ms. deBessonet has brought in a Chinese American playwright, Lauren Yee, as a creative consultant, and has cast a Korean American actress, Ashley Park, in the lead role (which is usually played by a white woman). "She is looking at the problems in that book, and trying to address it in a way that makes sense for today's audience," Ms. Shuler said. "We have to look at shows from the past in a new way, and Lear is very sensitive to dealing with the issues facing all of us today."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
There's a picture of me from the early '90s: I'm 13, leaning against the railing of the Golden Gate Bridge, peering down into the water below. I look somber, possibly because my father had shared on approach to the landmark that it was, at least then, the most popular bridge in the world to jump off. Or maybe it was some other reason. I was definitely freezing, my long legs in jean shorts exposed to the summer San Francisco air, which manages to look cold even in the photo. I would remember the unrelenting windy unpleasantness of that first trip to the city often after I moved to it more than a decade later, walking from work past tourists by the hundreds who were similarly underdressed, unable to fathom that there could be inclement weather in California. IF MY INITIAL EXPERIENCE OF CALIFORNIA doesn't sound instantaneously enchanting: well, it's a land of contradictions! And that land is stitched together from far north of Sacramento to almost San Diego by 659 miles of a highway that itself is dynamic and complicated. Most people who've driven the 1 mention wanting to throw up and the breathtaking beauty and danger in the same sentence, being carsick and awe struck and scared. The road was built in pieces starting about a century ago, partly with prison labor and explosives; pieces of it still close, for fires, for eroded bridges, for falling right into the ocean. Most recently, in July, a stretch south of Big Sur that had been impassable for more than a year was finally reopened, repaired after six million cubic yards of landslide buried it in its tumble toward the Pacific. In the most evocative parts of the drive, the drop, separated from your car by just a guardrail or not is hundreds of feet. I LEFT MY HOUSE IN THE CRISP, invigorating East Bay morning, elegant hills and gentrification shrouded in fog or wildfire smoke or both usually, recently, both and headed toward a bridge to the San Francisco peninsula, instantly sighing and celebrating. The city by the bay turns to bucolic beach town in about 15 minutes along the 1, as the ocean rolls into view on your right and cityscape empties out, and soon, you are in Pacifica, a seaside outpost that feels both remote and right down the street. But this time, I skipped Pacifica for a new (to me) stop, in Pescadero, 30 miles farther south. I pulled away from the water and into the tiny town, wandering the main road waiting for Duarte's, its 124 year old tavern and restaurant, to open for lunch. The coffee shop across the street was playing a weird old movie in a nine seat theater tucked in the back. Arcangeli, a grocery store and deli a block down, sells fresh baked cookies bigger than my face, and I ate one. I waffled about the detour right up to the last moment. Should I get on the unknown, even more winding path up into the forest? But there are no wrong decisions along the 1, Big Basin included. One could spend days there, on 80 miles of walking trails among the earth's tallest living organisms, many of these redwoods between 1,000 and 2,000 years old. And there are amenities to boot: a staffed headquarters, maps, all gender bathrooms and a form to fill out saying where you went, so someone can look for you if you don't come back. I took the Redwood Trail, a short, easy stroll through the wooden giants. I hike with some regularity among other Northern California redwoods, marveling at the scorch marks on their bark or through their middles, the way they withstand fire. The pamphlet I picked up at the beginning of the trail informed me that one of these trees burned and smoldered for 14 months before the fire in it went out. The pamphlet also told me to step inside the big hole in another one that has been ablaze multiple times and look up; I did, and there, a hundred feet above, was a circular window to the sky. Shocked to see blue overhead, I burst out laughing, the sound filling the space where the tree's heartwood should be, bouncing off its hollowed insides. Big Sur. The sound of it, even; the brevity and weight of both words. A road between rock faces, one side rising up and one sheer down amid a cloudscape, it looks like, when the fog hangs low over the water and it seems like you're driving above the sky. Or, when the haze is thinner, and blurs the line between water and air on the horizon, like you're driving next to infinity. Tucked among trees on the landside is Deetjen's, a 1930s era National Register of Historic Places designated inn, a rambling collection of dark wood structures with thin walls and entirely varying rooms inside. The map of the property that guests are given at check in lives in a frame in my house, from one of several stays; the room I booked this time had a shared hall bath, a twin bed and a kitchen sink. After dinner in the restaurant, I lay down and read one of the room journals that guests are invited to write in. A recent entry was from an elderly man on the precipice of a "scary and exciting" move alone to a new state, where he said he had no context. He also said that he left a joint in the teapot. I looked up and saw it sitting on a ledge. When I opened it, it was stuffed full of wishes written on scraps of paper. I SET MY ALARM FOR MIDNIGHT. I drove, in the dark, down the 1 to Esalen, a nonprofit institute with workshops and lodging that opens its cliffside hot springs to anyone who books one of the limited 35 spots online fast enough when same day registration opens at 9 a.m. The thing is: The spots are only available from 1 to 3 in the morning. The process of waiting by the side of the road and being rounded up and registered and led onto the property was not particularly warm or welcoming. But in the clothing optional, open air stone tubs, where the lighting is very dim and the crash of the waves far below is loud, the feel of it did melt off some as I soaked, breathing in eucalyptus, salt, redwood, pine. I opted for a daylight version of the same view ocean forever on the giant deck at Cafe Kevah for breakfast the next morning. I could talk for hours about what I did as I continued south that day: stopped at the 80 foot, roadside McWay Falls. Stood in an exhibit on Pelton wheels (a type of water turbine) at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. I took the steep and mildly dangerous footpath down to an abandoned beach at Ragged Point Inn and Resort and decided to strip down to my underwear and plunge into the sea. I pulled off the side of the highway to watch, with a group of other travelers, a pod of dolphins apparently mating below. At a beach near Point Piedras Blancas, hundreds of elephant seals were lying around or playing, some of them 16 feet long and 5,000 pounds. I waved at Hearst Castle as I passed it, high on the hill to my left a place I did visit with my parents, where the tiles of the Roman pool room glitter with real gold. I witnessed a 600 foot, 23 million year old volcanic remnant, visible for 10 miles, rising in the distance in Morro Bay. I parked at the foot of it, where otters were floating around in the water right in front of me, their little hands rubbing their faces, rubbing their chests, holding each other as they tumbled, a stuffed animal dream come to life. NONE OF THAT WAS PLANNED when I woke up that morning, excited about my actual destination: an anomaly of a resort in San Luis Obispo called the Madonna Inn. On our way through on that family trip, my parents bought a book of postcards depicting the 110 themed rooms, and though we didn't stay there, I had savored it, hoarded it, studied it so closely that I remembered the features and names of some of the rooms decades later, including a rock waterfall wall and shower in the Cave Man Room. Which is precisely the one I checked into, and which somehow exceeded my expectations, though I've been expecting them since I was 13 years old. The Madonna Inn is beyond garish, wild with over decoration and lack of subtlety and colors the steakhouse oozes with every shade of pink, because Alex Madonna, the second generation Swiss who opened this hotel in 1958 and was a ranching partner of John Wayne, was not concerned with what you thought about his masculinity. But every detail of the million details throughout the sprawling property is clean and classy and meticulous and beautiful. In my room, where the ceiling, floor and walls were made of real rock, there was a set of clubs cave person clubs hanging in wall mounted holsters at either side of the king bed. When I picked one up and turned it around in my hands, it was heavy: hand hewn from a solid piece of wood. The window in my bathroom was a stained glass rendering of a cave man overlooking a valley rich with jewel tones. I've been to countless hotels in dozens of countries since I looked at pictures of the Madonna Inn as a teenager. I am unconvinced I wasn't somehow looking for the Cave Man Room the whole time. The next morning, I had planned to wake up early. But I slept, in soft sheets and with animal print blackout curtains drawn, for 12 hours. I had planned to lunch at one of the classic seafood spots along the 1 in Malibu, where it's called the Pacific Coast Highway. Instead I stopped at another beach on the way and sat and stared in the wind and then had to head more directly to the airport, accounting for Los Angeles traffic. BEFORE THIS TRIP, THE LAST TIME I had been on the 1 was three springs ago, revisiting with my then husband, after we had moved away from the Bay. One morning, I found myself alone behind the wheel at a sharp curve in Big Sur with a strong enough urge to drive off it that I realized I needed to change my life. Within a year, I had separated. Within another, I was finalizing plans to move again, to find my way back, to the state. It wasn't just how you could die in California, on a famous bridge, that my father had taught me almost exactly 25 years ago. It was also how you could live. "Lot of gays here," he had said our first morning in San Francisco, over breakfast in the hotel restaurant. I'd wondered, heart racing, if he had brought it up because he had seen two men holding hands on the sidewalk outside the window next to our table; trying not to leap out of my chair to look, I asked how he knew that. Both of my parents sort of shrugged. Everybody knows that. It turned out to be my place for sanctuary, too. When I moved here in my late 20s, I drank too much, and built a career I barely could have dreamed, and got evicted by tech workers and had the time of my life and had to fight for it, too. Moving back a few months ago, in my late 30s, not just queer but also openly trans, I was new but rooted in a place that is capable of holding so much complexity. That expands the definitions of what's worthwhile, building and maintaining a road on an ever shifting stretch at an edge of the world. That is harsh and precarious and utterly nourishing. That understands how a person or a tree or a planet can be simultaneously burned out and voraciously alive; that gender can be a construct, and a spectrum, and a death sentence. That my path here was switchbacked but perfect, and that you don't have to be born someplace for it to be home.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Travel
Reruns are comforting. Gilligan always screws up the rescue, Lucy gets smashed on Vitameatavegamin every single time, and no characters on "Seinfeld" remain masters of their domain. At some point it's not about laughing at all the jokes, it's the satisfaction of knowing all the jokes. Audi's A3 sedan, new for 2015, is a rerun. Not of the two previous generation A3s (which weren't sold as sedans), but of the 1996 A4 sedan that single handedly hauled Audi back from the edge of oblivion in America. The new A3 is a car that buyers already think they know, one that instantly elicits warm and cuddly expectations. The A3 is the cheapest Audi and the next to smallest Audi after the two seat TT and it is the Audi that's easiest to love. In its silhouette and surface details, the new A3 is more tightly drawn and athletic than other current Audi sedans. Much of that is because it has an engine mounted sideways in its nose most Audis have longitudinal engines that stick out ahead of the front wheels and that shrinks the length of the hood. But it carries the brand's familiar styling cues, including a large trapezoidal grille and, with the optional LED package, the distinctive (or gaudy?) headlamp and taillight show that the company pioneered. The A3 is actually built using the Volkswagen Group's MQB architecture; this new structure is also the basis of the 2015 VW Golf and many other cars scattered among the VW owned brands. There's nothing particularly exotic about the MQB. Like most front drive vehicles, the body is made from steel stampings welded into a unit, the front is held up by a pair of MacPherson struts and the tail rides on a four link suspension. In the A3, however, that doesn't keep it from being impressively stiff, quiet and capable. Audi will initially offer the A3 sedan in two versions. The base front drive 1.8T uses a 1.8 liter version of a familiar turbocharged and direct injected 4 cylinder engine, rated at 170 horsepower. Above that is the 2.0T, with a 2 liter 220 horsepower 4 cylinder that feeds the quattro all wheel drive system. Both engines come lashed to a standard 6 speed automated dual clutch transmission that shifts brilliantly on its own or quickly when commandeered by the driver. I drove two A3 2.0T quattros, one modestly equipped and the other packing a full arsenal of sporty trappings and technological overkill. The base 1.8T carries a nominal 29,900 base price exactly the same as Mercedes Benz's new CLA250 but that doesn't count the unavoidable 895 destination charge. It's small comfort that Mercedes demands 925 for this petty extortion. The cheapest A3 2.0T Quattro is 3,000 more expensive at 33,795, including the destination charge. Add options like the advanced Multimedia Interface, or M.M.I., and the price races well past 40,000. With an overall length of 175.4 inches, the A3 is 2.6 inches shorter than the original A4 of 1996, but its wheelbase, at 103.8 inches, is about the same The A3's interior is also similarly proportioned to that old A4's: there's adequate legroom for front occupants, but those in the back may be cramped. The interior's clean design is what makes the A3 cabin so pleasant. While larger luxury cars overwhelm drivers with obscure controls, the A3 is a model of simplicity. The upper dashboard features four circular vents and a subtly rounded shape that minimizes the appearance of mass at the base of the windshield. The driver's primary instrumentation is a large circular tachometer and speedometer on a single plane with a digital information display between them. There's nothing innovative about any of this, and the simplicity pays off in how easy it is to read the controls. The design is also likely to age well. All that cleanliness is possible because Audi has gathered so many controls into a single LCD screen that rises from the dash when the car is started and a single push dial controller just behind the shifter in the center console. It's still somewhat frustrating to scroll through menus to perform simple tasks like changing the radio station, but the Audi system is at least headed toward intuitive operation. But while all A3s get the LCD screen, adding the 1,900 M.M.I. Navigation Plus and Audi Connect packages makes it even more impressive. Based on an advanced Nvidia graphics processor, the system uses a dedicated in car AT T 4G LTE cellular data connection to add Google Earth and Google Street View graphics to the navigation elements and present them with 3 D vividness. It's pretty brilliant to look at. But that initial wow dissipates after a little reflection on the system's cost and how technology like this seems to recede from the leading edge every six months. Still, the on board Wi Fi network that's also part of the system works great. It gives passengers access to the web over tablets and laptops even while the car is cruising at highway speeds. What separates the A3 from other cars of its size is how well it drives. According to Audi, the 2 liter turbo engine delivers a consistent 258 pound feet of torque from 1,600 to 4,400 r.p.m. In the regular cut and shoot of urban driving, that means there's always thrust available to squirt through holes in traffic or scoot comfortably into traffic during a merge. Audi claims a 0 to 60 m.p.h. time of 5.8 seconds for the 2.0T quattro. The driving position is more upright than in coupelike four doors like the Mercedes CLA, and that means it's easier to keep track of the car's four corners while driving or parking. The A3 feels as if it's been tailored for maximum driver awareness of the environment around him or her; outward visibility is excellent, the steering provides fine feedback and the suspension reports road hiccups without turning them into hard whacks or loud thumps. There's an authenticity to Audi's small sedan. Mercedes is reaching down market in the American market, at least with its CLA, but Audi has played in this size class in the United States ever since the 1970 Super 90 and the 1973 Fox. The light touch, easygoing personality and unpretentious qualities of the new A3 have been Audi traits for a long time. Later this year, additional A3 variations will join the line, including a Cabriolet convertible, a TDI diesel, a performance fortified S3 and a wagonlike Sportback gasoline electric hybrid. I expect them all to reflect this same familiar character. Ultimately though, it's that first A4 that this A3 sedan resembles most. My wife, Dana, had a 1996 A4, which we remember fondly as a perfectly poised sport sedan. It is reassuring that this new A3 feels so much like that car. After all, no one would want to watch old episodes of "The Cosby Show" only to find that Dr. Huxtable's sweaters had been digitally altered.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Automobiles
In one sense, this has been a difficult period for Fox News: a star anchor fired after being accused of sexual harassment, a lawsuit depicting a misogynist workplace, a top writer exposed as a racist internet troll, advertiser boycotts and outrage after Tucker Carlson called protesters "criminal mobs" and questioned the patriotism of a senator who lost her legs in Iraq. In another sense, business has never been better. In June and July, Fox News was the highest rated television channel in the prime time hours of 8 to 11 p.m. Not just on cable. Not just among news networks. All of television. The average live Fox News viewership in those hours outstripped cable rivals like CNN, MSNBC and ESPN, as well as the broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC, according to Nielsen. That three hour slot is a narrow but significant slice of TV real estate, and it is exceedingly rare for a basic cable channel to outrank the Big Three broadcasters, which are available in more households and offer a wider variety of programming. Even the return of live sports did little to stop the momentum: The Fox News programs hosted by Mr. Carlson and Sean Hannity drew more live viewers than competing baseball and basketball games, including a Yankees Nationals matchup on Opening Day. Fox News's big summer has been boosted by a rise in audience for news programming in general, an increase driven by interest in the pandemic, civil rights protests and the presidential election. ABC, CBS, and NBC, meanwhile, have more reruns on the summer schedule; the coronavirus has suspended most TV productions; and viewers are being lured away by streaming services and on demand Hollywood movies. But the Fox News ratings also demonstrate the size and resilience of America's audience for pro Trump opinion, and the loyalty of Fox News viewers who shrug off the controversies that routinely swirl around the network. "Massive news events that conservatives view through a highly partisan lens are driving the ratings, and none of the controversies really land with loyal Fox News viewers," said Nicole Hemmer, a scholar at Columbia University and a historian of American conservative media. Lachlan Murdoch, the executive chairman of Fox News's parent company, bragged on an earnings call last week about the network's "astronomical" ratings. He also said its ad revenue was up from a year ago a reminder that Fox News, for all the flak it takes from critics, politicians and the advertisers that fled Mr. Carlson, remains an unrivaled profit engine for the Murdoch empire. Complaints that Fox News prime time hosts downplayed the coronavirus and, in the case of Laura Ingraham, encouraged the use of hydroxychloroquine, a drug shown to be useless, and even dangerous, for Covid 19 patients made little difference. "The belief that hydroxychloroquine is something between a therapeutic and a miracle cure is wildly popular in conservative media, especially talk radio," Ms. Hemmer said. "Tucker Carlson's controversies have never really hurt his ratings, though they have cost him advertisers." Two days stood out when Fox News ratings fell significantly: the funerals of George Floyd, the Minnesota man who died after a police officer pinned him to the ground during a routine stop, and Representative John Lewis, the towering civil rights figure. Like its rivals CNN and MSNBC, Fox News carried the memorial services live. During Mr. Floyd's funeral, viewership on all three networks dipped. On both occasions, the drop in Fox News's audience was stark, down to numbers more typically seen during overnight hours. (CNN and Mediaite previously reported on the ratings dips.) Over all, viewers have shown a strong appetite for news on politics, public health and natural disasters. 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. The evening newscasts on ABC, CBS and NBC are notching their biggest audiences in years. David Muir's "World News Tonight" on ABC has been a standout: In July, its episodes were the top 18 telecasts across all of broadcast and cable television, drawing more viewers than usual summertime ratings leaders like NBC's "America's Got Talent." All three of the network newscasts, which air at 6:30 p.m., draw more viewers than Fox News's prime time shows, with Mr. Muir more than doubling Mr. Hannity's average in July. Cable channels define prime time as 8 to 11 p.m., but the Big Three broadcasters include the 7 p.m. Sunday slot in their average prime time audience counts. That is when "60 Minutes" airs on CBS another news show that is hugely popular with viewers and the broadcast networks' definition of prime time allowed CBS to eke out a win against Fox News in June and July. But Fox News was the king of 8 to 11 p.m., in part because conservative viewers have few options for right wing political commentary. Smaller networks like Newsmax and One America News have tried to siphon off viewers but lag far behind. MSNBC, whose liberal prime time is an ideological inverse to Fox News, has increased its audience from a year ago. But Rachel Maddow, once neck and neck with Mr. Hannity at 9 p.m., has fallen behind all three of Fox News's prime time stars in total viewers. Ms. Ingraham, who appears in the less desirable 10 p.m. slot, has drawn more viewers than Ms. Maddow for many months. Fox News won praise this summer thanks to several news making interviews with President Trump, including Chris Wallace's grilling on "Fox News Sunday" and an interview with Harris Faulkner in which Mr. Trump struggled to address racial grievances. Even Mr. Trump's June forum with Mr. Hannity yielded headlines when the president could not name a policy priority for a second term. But the network's critics say the language of its prime time hosts can be reckless. Mr. Carlson has faced a particular backlash since Mr. Floyd's death in Minneapolis in late May sparked nationwide demonstrations for civil rights. Major advertisers, including the Walt Disney Company, T Mobile and Poshmark, boycotted his program as Mr. Carlson denounced the protesters as violent anarchists. Later, the host called Senator Tammy Duckworth, a wounded veteran, a "moron" and questioned her patriotism. In recent days, Mr. Carlson called former President Barack Obama a "greasy politician" and wondered if Mr. Floyd's death had been caused by drug use rather than being pinned to the ground by a police officer. Mr. Carlson's ratings have never been higher. And based on Mr. Murdoch's telling, the boycott had little effect on Fox News's bottom line. Mr. Carlson's show has virtually no major sponsors, but many ads were redistributed to other programs on the network. Fox News also continues to make a fortune in so called carriage fees, the money paid by cable and satellite providers to keep the network in their lineups.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
SEATTLE Amazon's bid to become a bigger player in the grocery business took a major step forward Wednesday, as federal antitrust regulators approved the internet company's acquisition of Whole Foods Market. And earlier in the day, Whole Foods shareholders voted to approve the 13.4 billion deal, which will give Amazon a major bricks and mortar presence with more than 460 stores in a huge retail category where success has eluded the company. The Federal Trade Commission, which was handling the federal review of the deal, said in a statement Wednesday afternoon that the agency had concluded that the deal would not harm competition. "Based on our investigation we have decided not to pursue this matter further," Bruce Hoffman, the acting director of the F.T.C.'s bureau of competition, said in the statement. "Of course, the F.T.C. always has the ability to investigate anticompetitive conduct should such action be warranted."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
New test results suggest that automakers are quickly improving the safety systems that aim to keep a distracted driver from rear ending a vehicle or colliding with an object ahead. The results for 24 models were released on Thursday by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The institute, which is financed by the insurance industry, released results of its first round of testing last September. At that time, 25 of the 74 evaluated models received a Basic rating, and 36 either did not offer a front crash prevention system or had systems that didn't meet criteria set by the institute or by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But in the latest tests, 21 of the 24 tested models received either the highest rating of Superior or a medium grade of Advanced; only three got the lowest rating of Basic. The institute attributed the rapid improvements to automakers' adding automatic braking functions to their safety systems and to the availability of automatic braking on more models. Most of the vehicles rated were large family cars and large luxury cars from the 2014 model year. Four were midsize luxury or "near luxury" cars, three were midsize luxury sport utility vehicles and one was a midsize S.U.V. Front crash avoidance systems use radar or cameras to scan the road ahead while a computer calculates the closing rate between the vehicle with the system and the one ahead. If the distance closes too quickly, what happens next depends on the type of system. If there is an automatic braking system, the brakes are applied either to slow or completely stop the car in an attempt to avoid a rear end collision or at least reduce the severity of a crash. Other setups, called forward collision warning systems, use an audible alert to warn drivers of an impending crash. In general, they do not slow or stop the vehicle, although some systems also have automatic braking. The tested models were the Audi A3 and A6; the BMW 2, 3, and 5 Series and the X5; the Buick Regal and LaCrosse; the Cadillac CTS and XTS; the Chevrolet Impala; the Dodge Durango; the 2015 Hyundai Genesis; the Infiniti Q70, QX50 and QX70; the Lexus IS and GS; the Mercedes Benz CLA and E Class; and the Toyota Avalon. Three vehicles received more than one rating because they were equipped with different types of systems, which affected how they performed in the testing. The BMW 3 Series was one example. A 3 Series that had "collision warning with city braking function" an optional camera based collision mitigation system received an Advanced rating, whereas a 3 Series equipped with "collision warning with braking function," a system carried over on some 2014 models from the previous model year, got a Basic rating. The ratings of Superior (the highest), Advanced or Basic (the lowest) depend on whether the cars have automatic braking and on how much the systems reduce the vehicles' speed in track tests conducted at 12 and 25 miles per hour. In the most recent tests, eight models were rated Superior and 13 got Advanced scores. Four of the models received what the insurance institute said was a perfect score when equipped with certain options. They were the BMW 5 Series (equipped with collision warning and braking function), the BMW X5 (with collision warning and braking function), the 2015 Hyundai Genesis (with Automatic Emergency Braking) and Mercedes Benz E Class (with Pre Safe Brake). The insurance institute was the first group to rate these front crash prevention systems based on actual track testing. The ratings represent an effort to go beyond crash testing to evaluate systems designed to prevent some crashes. The decision to do the testing and ratings grew out of insurance claims data suggesting that forward collision warning systems alone reduced collisions with other vehicles by about 7 percent and by 14 percent when automatic braking was added. In these ratings, vehicles receive a Superior rating if they have automatic braking and can avoid a crash or reduce speeds by 10 m.p.h. or more in both the 12 and 25 m.p.h. test. Vehicles receive an Advanced rating if they have automatic braking and can avoid a crash or reduce speeds by 5 m.p.h. or more in one of the two tests. Vehicles with automatic braking also receive credit if they have a forward collision warning system that meets performance criteria set by the federal government.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Automobiles
Joyce Johnson was 21 and not long out of Barnard College when, in the winter of 1957, Allen Ginsberg set her up on a blind date with Jack Kerouac. She took the subway downtown to meet him at a Howard Johnson's on Eighth Street in Manhattan. "I push open the heavy glass door, and there is, sure enough, a black haired man at the counter in a flannel lumberjack shirt slightly the worse for wear," she writes. "He looks up and stares at me hard with blue eyes, amazingly blue. And the skin on his face is so brown. He's the only person in Howard Johnson's in color. I feel a little scared as I walk up to him. 'Jack?' I say." Kerouac was older than Johnson, 34, and still largely unknown. The book that would make his reputation and upend American literature, "On the Road," had yet to be published. He was broke, hungry, distraught. She bought him a plate of frankfurters. He followed her back to her small apartment. A door had swung open in her life. Thus began an off and on relationship that lasted nearly two years, years that witnessed the publication of "On the Road" and life altering fame not only Kerouac's but also that of many of his closest friends, other Beat Generation writers. Joyce Johnson in 2009. More than a memoir of her time with the Beats, "Minor Characters" is a riveting portrait of an era. Johnson captures this period with deep clarity and moving insight in her memoir "Minor Characters" (1983). It's hardly an unknown book. It won a National Book Critics Circle Award, and it has remained in print since it was issued. I'm including it in this series of columns about neglected American books because I so rarely hear it mentioned, and because I continue to think it is hideously undervalued and under read. "Minor Characters" is, in its quiet but deliberate way, among the great American literary memoirs of the past century. Johnson's book takes its title from her realization that as was so common in every sphere of cultural life in the 1950s and beyond the Beats were a boy gang. She would always be, at best, on its periphery. Her memoir braids and unbraids, at length, the meanings of this fact. 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. She recalls how the women at the San Remo and other bars, hangouts for writers and artists, "are all beautiful and have such remarkable cool that they never, never say a word; they are presences merely." Johnson and her friends wanted to be among the yakkers, the all night arguers. "Minor Characters" is not just about the Beats. It's about many different subjects that bleed together. In part it's a portrait of Johnson's cloistered middle class childhood on the Upper West Side. Her parents wanted her to be a composer. She longed for escape and began sneaking down to Washington Square Park to be among the musicians and poets. She was round faced, well dressed, virginal. She'd never tasted coffee. It was "my curse," she writes, that "my outside doesn't reflect my inside, so no one knows who I really am." Her book is a riveting portrait of an era. It contains a description of a back room abortion that's as harrowing and strange as any I've read. Johnson had the abortion because she didn't love the boy and wasn't ready for a child. "Sometimes you went to bed with people almost by mistake, at the end of late, shapeless nights when you'd stayed up so long it almost didn't matter," she writes. "The thing was, not to go home." "Minor Characters" is a glowing introduction to the Beats. There are shrewd portraits of not just Kerouac and Ginsberg but people like Robert Frank and Hettie Jones. Johnson has a knack for summing up a character in a blazing line or two. Here's how she describes the Beat era figure Lucien Carr, for example, at the moment he first met Kerouac: "This rich, dangerous St. Louis boy with the wicked mouth who's already been kicked out of Bowdoin and the University of Chicago, who's amassed a whole dissipated history by the age of 19." Best of all, perhaps, this book charts Johnson's own career as a budding writer. She worked in publishing when she was young; she was secretary to John Farrar of Farrar, Straus and Cudahy (later Farrar, Straus Giroux). He wanted to promote her; she left instead to visit Kerouac in Mexico and write. She published her first novel, "Come and Join the Dance," when she was 26. By then, she and Kerouac had separated for good. There was a final scene on a sidewalk. "You're nothing but a big bag of wind!" she shouted at him. Kerouac, constitutionally unable to remain with one woman, shouted back, "Unrequited love's a bore!" Johnson looks back on the young woman she was, while with Kerouac, and realizes she was "not in mourning for her life. How could she have been, with her seat at the table in the exact center of the universe, that midnight place where so much is converging, the only place in America that's alive?" I remember tracking down a first edition of "Minor Characters" this was harder in the late 1980s than it is today to give to my college girlfriend as a graduation present. She looked at its title, wrinkled her brow and asked, "Why this book?" Why a book, in other words, about women who are minor characters? I fumbled my answer. I knew only that I loved the book and wanted to share it. What I wish I had said is this: "Minor Characters" is better than all but a handful of books the boy Beats themselves wrote. It's a book about a so called minor character who, in the process of writing her life, became a major one. American Beauties is a column by Dwight Garner, appearing every other week, about undersung American books of the past 75 years.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Meconis's drawings, full of heart and humor, beautifully evoke Margaret's many moods, and the rhythms and routines of life in an island convent. Types of holy orders, the breviary, the differences between saints and martyrs these topics are an unusual addition to the canon of graphic novels for young readers, but Margaret's wry descriptions of everything from hand signs used during the nuns' silent meals, to types of needles and stitches used in their embroidery, to holy relics and even a recipe for really terrible gruel, fascinate. They enrich the reader's understanding of Margaret's bygone world, and of Margaret herself. Childhood, like the island in the Silver Sea, is a realm unto itself, safe in its remoteness, but the things that protect can also confine, and eventually Margaret learns that her paradise is actually a prison for those who have offended the king. Every nun in the convent was once a lady in his court. Each was accused of a treasonous act and banished. Margaret discovers that she herself is a prisoner, forbidden from ever leaving the island. "Everyone that I loved, every place on the Island I cared for, every answer I had ever gotten to every question I had ever asked was a part of one huge and terrible lie," she tells the reader. Unmoored by this knowledge, Margaret hears something new in the lapping waves the urgent whispers of the wider world. Things rich and strange wash up on the shore for her to find a sailor's shoe, a jewelry box, the huge wooden hand from a ship's figurehead. And then the sea brings a darker gift a mysterious young woman and her cruel warder. The woman is locked away in the convent, and Margaret again wants answers. This time she gets them. The new prisoner teaches Margaret how suddenly, and ruthlessly, fortune can turn a queen into a pawn, and that sometimes the only difference between loyalty and treason is where you stand on the game board. But the most important discovery Margaret makes is about herself, and the place that awaits her in the wider world if she's brave enough to take it.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
Years of efforts to prevent sexual harassment in science, engineering and medicine have failed, and universities need to make sweeping changes in the way they deal with the issue, a searing new report by a national advisory panel concluded on Tuesday. "There is no evidence to suggest that current policies, procedures, and approaches have resulted in a significant reduction in sexual harassment," said the report, which was more than two years in the making, starting well before the MeToo era. It was issued by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, independent agencies that advise the government and the public. The panel offered 15 detailed recommendations, some of which would upend long entrenched practices in academia. Institutions should overhaul their academic advising systems, for example, it said, so students and junior researchers are not dependent on one senior researcher for advancement and access to grants. The report also urged legislators to pass laws so people can file harassment lawsuits directly against faculty and not just the university, and so employees who settle harassment complaints cannot keep them confidential from another prospective academic employer. The 311 page document is the national academies' first report addressing sexual harassment, a problem that has long simmered in labs and classrooms, and some people predicted it could help spur meaningful change. "Reports from the National Academy carry substantial weight," said Dr. Carol Bates, associate dean for faculty affairs at Harvard Medical School and a co author of a recent article calling for "zero tolerance for sexual harassment in academic medicine." But, she noted, "none of it is easy or we would have fixed it already. We haven't fixed it in any other domain in society either." Academic workplaces are second only to the military in the rate of sexual harassment, with 58 percent of academic employees indicating they had such experiences, according to one study cited in the report. Among the data involving students in scientific fields, the report cited a 2017 survey by the University of Texas system, which found that about 20 percent of female science students, more than 25 percent of female engineering students and more than 40 percent of female medical students experienced sexual harassment from faculty or staff members. The issue is also a sensitive one for the National Academies because some of their own members have been found to have committed sexual misconduct at their universities. Responding to questions at a briefing on the report, Bruce Darling, the executive officer of the academies, said the institutions were considering trying to oust members who committed harassment, but doing so would require a lengthy process dependent on voting by members, so other measures are being considered in the interim. The panel said universities and other institutions have been too focused on "symbolic compliance with current law and avoiding liability and not on preventing sexual harassment." Fear of being held liable may have kept many institutions from even evaluating their prevention programs, the report asserted; if they did, "they would likely find them to be ineffective." "We really have to move beyond a mind set of legal compliance and liability and think about the ways we can change the climate," said Dr. Paula A. Johnson, the president of Wellesley College and a co chairwoman of the committee that produced the report, in an interview. Dr. Paula A. Johnson, the president of Wellesley College, co chaired the committee that produced the report. The committee identified three types of sexual harassment: sexual coercion, unwanted sexual attention and gender harassment. It said gender harassment, "verbal and nonverbal behaviors that convey hostility, objectification, exclusion or second class status," was by far the most common type women experienced. "As opposed to the come ons, you can kind of think of them as the put downs," said Dr. Johnson, who is also a cardiologist and former chief of the women's health division at Brigham and Women's Hospital. She said gender harassment creates a culture that fosters the other types of sexual harassment. The committee said gender harassment was more pervasive in medicine than in the other sciences, partly because harassment can come from patients, as well as colleagues. In any form, the costs for women and for the ability of scientific fields to retain the full range of talented people can be great, even if the consequences can seem subtle at first, the panel said. It "undermines work and well being in a whole host of ways," triggering symptoms like depression, sleep disruption, cardiac stress, and post traumatic stress disorder, said Lilia Cortina, a panel member and professor of psychology and women's studies at the University of Michigan. She said experiences can be worse for women of color and lesbian, bisexual or transgender women. But they also affect witnesses to the behavior, further impeding the scientific work. "Women leave, their co workers leave, even the men leave they don't' stick around to watch their valued colleagues being disparaged and they certainly don't want to become the next victim," Dr. Cortina said during the briefing. One paradox is that academia's emphasis on merit based advancement can discourage women from reporting harassment and limit their career progress, the committee noted. "The system of meritocracy does not account for the declines in productivity and morale as a result of sexual harassment," says the report. "It can make her question her own scientific worth. Additionally, it can make scientific achievement feel like it is not worth it." That may partly explain another paradox. "There are more women in these fields, yet there's still sexual harassment," said Elizabeth L. Hillman, a committee member who is president of Mills College and an expert on sexual assault in the military. Billy Williams, a committee member and director of science for the American Geophysical Union, said simply complying with laws like Title IX has not worked because the laws assume women will file formal complaints, when fears of retaliation have made that "the least common response." As a result, Dr. Johnson said, universities should establish less formal ways for women to report their experiences. The report did not evaluate investigative processes, imposing discipline or the rights of accused harassers, except to say that procedures and consequences should be fair to all sides. The panel said institutions should adopt training programs that focus on changing behavior, not beliefs. The programs should be evaluated for effectiveness and "not be based on the avoidance of legal liability." When institutions survey people about their experiences with sexual harassment, they should use validated questionnaires and "avoid specifically using the term 'sexual harassment'" in the questions. In recent years, the University of Texas system has been taking many of the steps the report recommended, said Wanda Mercer, associate vice chancellor for student affairs, including making survey data public and providing more informal ways to report harassment allegations. But, she cautioned, "I think it's very difficult to change the climate. I think that's a hard thing to do because higher education has been around a long time and those power structures are in place, the people are in place."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
On an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday evening, I found myself facing a stranger, swinging my arms back and forth, and hooting like an owl. I was warming up for an ecstatic dance session at Union Square Ballroom in Manhattan, which I attended with about 250 other people. Ecstatic dances are essentially free form dance parties, and the directions for the one I attended hosted each month by Ecstatic Dance NYC were pretty simple: no shoes, no drugs or alcohol, no phones or cameras, and no talking on the dance floor. The only directive: Allow your body to move exactly how it wants to move. This was no small challenge for me, as my body is much more accustomed to slouching over a laptop, or contorting itself into knots to avoid touching people on the subway. But something about ecstatic dance drew me in. On the designated evening, I fought my way through an aggressive crush of commuters in Union Square to get to the location and entered a different world. A gentle horde of 20 to 50 somethings in exercise clothes and loose palazzo pants were affectionately touching each other's faces and greeting one another with slow embraces. The smell of incense wafted from a makeshift altar that was outfitted with crystals, a rock painted with the words "We Are the Medicine," and what appeared to be an animal jawbone. A flyer on the wall dictated how one could gently rebuff a prospective dance partner (hands in prayer position at the heart). As I settled into what I hoped was a discreet corner of the room, a small woman in teal sweatpants paced the floor, gently guiding us through a series of warm up exercises that seemed designed to make me twitch with anxiety. Make a shape with your body and let out a sound to go with it, she instructed. Initiate unspecified physical contact with a stranger while dancing. Stare into someone's eyes for 90 seconds. "Try to get ahead of your thoughts," she said. I found this hard to do while staring into the eyes of a woman I'd never met. I was wondering whether it was impossible to stare into two eyeballs at once or if there was something wrong with me, specifically when it was announced that our 90 seconds were up. "Thank you," my eye contact partner murmured gracefully. "Uh huh!" I said too loudly, shuffling away. But as we transitioned into the dancing segment of the evening, I began to twist and sway, losing my stiffness. "Yummy yummy yummy yummy," the facilitator sang over the microphone. With the thump of a heavy beat and an explosion of cheers and howls, the pace quickened. "I love you, and have a wonderful journey," one of the D.J.s said. Dancing as a means of release isn't a new phenomenon. But ecstatic dance parties much like other substance free "conscious" dance parties, including Barefoot Boogie, Morning Gloryville and Daybreaker seem to fill a growing need for physical expression in a time of technology driven isolation. "The idea is free form movement to music in a judgment free space," said Sarah Monette, 41, an ecstatic dance facilitator and D.J. who co founded I Opener, an all ages version that takes place in New York and Boston on Sunday mornings. "The idea is not to put a label on what ecstatic dance is. It can be so many amazing things." Most adherents I talked to framed it as a less structured offshoot of 5Rhythms a meditative "dynamic movement practice" that guides dancers through a "wave" of five distinct sequences. Legend has it that Max Fathom, 50, now a craft services professional in Austin, Tex., began blending the 5Rhythms concept with electronic dance music after a trip to Burning Man in the early 2000s. Mr. Fathom (Fathom is his Burner name) put on popular Sunday morning dances at the Kalani Retreat Center in Hawaii, and from there, the practice spread to such disparate places as Kansas City, Mo., and Christchurch, New Zealand.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
Last spring, New York received a gift from Cuba: a premiere by Ronald K. Brown courtesy of Malpaso Dance Company. For its return visit to the Joyce Theater on Tuesday, the troupe, formed in 2012 by Osnel Delgado, Daile Carrazana and Fernando Saez, hosts another impressive guest choreographer, Trey McIntyre. This prolific and much admired dancemaker expresses playfulness without settling into a frivolous place. Leading off the opening night program, which includes a premiere by Mr. Delgado, is Mr. McIntyre's "Under Fire," the choreographer's first new dance since he decided to shift the focus of his Boise, Idaho, troupe from a traditional company model in order to pursue individual projects. (He'll still make dances, and that's a good thing.) Set to music by Grandma Kelsey, or Kelsey Swope, an Idaho singer and songwriter with an unadorned voice, "Under Fire" is inspired by Mr. McIntyre's transitional status. As he writes in a program note, he made a bonfire to burn his documents; when the fire went out, he discovered white paper under the ashes, which led to a realization that the more we try to change, "the more our essential born selves become evident and manifest." Throughout the piece, which builds gradually while never relinquishing its silky flow, Mr. McIntyre mirrors his ideas about transformation with the choreographic structure of peeling away. Dancers stand in a cluster and dash offstage, leaving others behind to melt against one another and then separate in windswept abandon. There's a meditative quality to his swinging, circular patterns, in which slicing arms and legs serve, rather than hinder, an illusion of weightlessness.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
Thomas Scott appears to be a loving father, a decent neighbor and an all around jolly good fellow. But the benevolent smile lurking under the pre World War I mustache is deceiving: The man is a sanctimonious prig who siphons all the fun out of life. When time comes to choose between his faith and his family's happiness, he hesitates, but not that long. Sorry, family. This is a meaty premise, and it's easy to see what drew the Mint Theater Company, that esteemed excavator of long forgotten works, to "The Price of Thomas Scott." The only problem is that Elizabeth Baker's drama, from 1913, is not very good, making for an inauspicious introduction to the Mint's "Meet Miss Baker," a multiyear project dedicated to the British playwright that will involve two more productions, readings and a book. Thomas Scott (Donald Corren) is a draper with a struggling store he's desperately trying to sell. His wife, Ellen (Tracy Sallows), dreams of moving to the London suburb where she met her husband. Their daughter Annie (Emma Geer) is a gifted milliner who'd love to polish her craft in Paris, while their son Leonard (Nick LaMedica) aspires to a school the Scotts can't afford.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Theater
Seth Rogen's 2011 shot at superhero stardom (based on the 1930s radio serial and its subsequent, "Batman" style TV series adaptation) mostly fizzled with critics and audiences, and it is now considered one of the lesser entries in the spandex centric subgenre. But this one has a good deal more style than the blockbuster template typically allows, thanks primarily to the eccentricities of the director Michel Gondry ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"), who eschews much of the usual computer generated effects work in favor of his own, handmade aesthetic. And Rogen resists the urge to tamp down his comic sensibility, penning a script (with his regular collaborator Evan Goldberg) that's thankfully, winkingly aware that it's a little nutty for a guy like him to play a role like this. Stream it here. Noah Baumbach received some of the best reviews of his career (at that point, at least) for his 2013 indie hit "Frances Ha," which with uncommon sympathy and sensitivity showcased the emotional and financial woes of New York millennials. This 2015 follow up takes a far more cynical approach, as a Brooklyn couple well on their way to middle age (Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts) find themselves freshly invigorated by their interactions with a much younger pair (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried). Generation gap hilarity ensues, but Baumbach goes deeper, asking tough questions about ambition, inspiration and artistry. Stream it here. The first attempt to bring E.B. White's perennial favorite of children's literature came in the form of an ill advised 1973 animated musical (about which the less said, the better). Luckily, filmmakers were able to use computer animated technology most pointedly, that which had made the chattering animals of "Babe" possible to create this far superior 2006 adaptation with little Dakota Fanning as the farm girl Fern and all star cast voicing the barnyard animals (including Oprah Winfrey, Steve Buscemi, Robert Redford, Andre Benjamin and Julia Roberts as the web spinning spider of the title). It's delightful family entertainment, full of laughs and whimsy and plenty of pathos. Stream it here. The director Neill Blomkamp made his feature film debut with this 2009 nominee for the best picture Oscar. Set in an alternate timeline in which extraterrestrials landed in Johannesburg in 1982 (significantly, the year "E.T." was released), the film makes clever use of faked "found footage" surveillance videos, news reports and interviews while following a government bureaucrat's attempt to relocate an alien encampment. The effects dazzle, but Blomkamp has more on his mind than mere spectacle, using the conventions of science fiction as a cloak for smuggling in his pointed commentary on xenophobia, segregation and apartheid era South Africa. Stream it here. For a time in the mid 1990s, you could barely visit an American multiplex without stumbling into a film adaptation of one of John Grisham's best selling legal thrillers. The director Sydney Pollack ("Tootsie," "Three Days of the Condor") kicked off that cycle with this 1993 take on Grisham's breakthrough book, starring Tom Cruise as a hot shot young lawyer who is aggressively recruited by a big deal Memphis firm only to discover that their main clients are mobsters. Pollack executes several tense set pieces with panache (and Cruise does a lot of his signature running) while filling out the picture with an enviable supporting cast, including Gene Hackman, Holly Hunter, Hal Holbrook, Ed Harris, Jeanne Tripplehorn, David Strathairn, Gary Busey and a shockingly menacing Wilford Brimley. Stream it here. 'The Girl With All the Gifts' (Oct. 31) This 2017 British zombie film (adapted from the Mike Carey novel) similarly uses the standbys of genre filmmaking to tell a story that is about far more than jump scares and oozing gore. Sennia Nanua (in her feature debut) plays the title character, one of a generation of children who could hold the key to the survival of the human race. She lives and learns on an army base, and when that seemingly impenetrable fortress is attacked by zombies, she and a handful of other survivors attempt a perilous escape. Gemma Arterton, Paddy Considine and Glenn Close round out the stellar ensemble. Stream it here. The story goes that while the director Steven Soderbergh was making "Haywire" (also streaming, and recommended, on Netflix), he was so entertained by Channing Tatum's stories of his early years dancing in an all male revue that he realized there might a movie there. And there certainly is something of a gender flipped "Flashdance," with Tatum as a likable guy who uses his enviable abs and bump and grind skills to make his dreams come true. Soderbergh takes this tale with the right amount of seriousness (which is to say, not much), and Matthew McConaughey steals the show in the role he was born to play: one that never, ever requires a shirt. Stream it here. Children of the '80s had their hearts broken and dreams haunted by this 1984 fantasy adventure, which was the English language debut of the German director Wolfgang Petersen ("Outbreak," "Air Force One"). Based on the novel by Michael Ende, it tells the story of a typical young boy who stumbles upon a magical book set in a faraway world on the brink of collapse. Soon he finds himself drawn into it in ways he could never expect. The music and effects are undeniably dated, but the central story of escape into youthful imagination remains timeless. Stream it here. Only three motion pictures have won all of the "big five" Academy Awards (best picture, best director, best screenplay, best actor and best actress): "It Happened One Night," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and this 1991 adaptation of Thomas Harris's best seller from the director Jonathan Demme. Jodie Foster stars as Clarice Starling, an F.B.I. agent in training tasked with interviewing and analyzing the serial killer Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins). It's a fast moving, busy thriller, blessed with several memorable sequences (including a shocking escape scene and a heart stopping climax). But the heart of the film lies in the dialogue duets between its stars, as both the actors and characters push each other to their psychological limits. Stream it here. Tom Hanks is a sensitive widower who pours out his heart in a searching monologue on a radio call in show; Meg Ryan, listening in, is so smitten that she travels across the country to track him down. That's the premise of this sparkling 1993 romantic comedy from the writer and director Nora Ephron, who infuses her tale of love lost and found with plentiful homages to the classic tear jerker "An Affair to Remember," including a climactic meet up atop the Empire State Building. This was Hanks and Ryan's second onscreen collaboration (after "Joe Versus the Volcano"), though they spend most of it apart amusingly so, as their near misses prove both funny and poignant. Stream it here. Johnny Depp and the director Tim Burton teamed for the third time for this 1999 take on the classic Washington Irving story, with Depp's Ichabod Crane reimagined as a police constable who visits the titular village to investigate a serial killing Headless Horseman (played by Christopher Walken that is, in his scenes with a head). Burton unapologetically ladles on the Gothic atmosphere and supernatural overtones, drawing much inspiration from the classic Hammer horror movies of the 1960s, while Depp finds exactly the right note of self important bluster and barely concealed cowardice for his Crane. Stream it here. In 1987, Mel Brooks focused the satirical laser he had previously aimed at Westerns ("Blazing Saddles") and horror ("Young Frankenstein") on the only logical target: the "Star Wars" franchise. The gag happy writer and director shrewdly spoofs the story beats of George Lucas's space saga, as Lone Starr (Bill Pullman) and his sidekick, Barf (John Candy), help Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) battle the evil Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis). But Brooks's sharpest barbs are saved for the series's tie in products, which now play as a prescient prediction of the inescapable ubiquity of blockbuster marketing. Stream it here. The mere idea of remaking "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three," a film so tied to its time and place (the grimy New York City of the mid 1970s), was a big swing, particularly considering how much the city had changed between debuts of the 1974 original and this 2009 remake. The director Tony Scott certainly doesn't top that picture, but his "Pelham" offers pleasures of its own, particularly from its cast: a typically workmanlike and engaging Denzel Washington; a wildly unhinged John Travolta; and James Gandolfini, proving his range as a meek, ineffectual New York City mayor, a character miles removed from Tony Soprano. Stream it here. The director Jon Favreau started his career making chatty indies like "Swingers" and is now the go to guy for Marvel ("Iron Man") and Disney ("The Lion King"). This 2005 family adventure was the bridge he built between those worlds. Based on a 2002 novel by the "Jumanji" author Chris Van Allsburg, it tells a similar story in which children are drawn into the world of a board game that is perhaps too immersive. The special effects are jaw dropping, and the adventure elements are enthralling (particularly for young audiences), but Favreau's background in small scale, character driven narratives shines through in the sweet and surprisingly moving conclusion. Stream it here.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
Believe it or not and I know many people will refuse to believe it right now New York City may be among the best places in America to avoid catching the coronavirus. In New York State as a whole, the number of people dying daily from Covid 19 is only slightly higher than the number killed in traffic accidents. In New York City, only around 1 percent of tests for the coronavirus are coming up positive, compared with, for example, more than 12 percent in Florida. How did New York get here from the nightmarish days of April? It's no mystery: partial herd immunity might be a small factor, but mainly the state did simple, obvious things to limit virus transmission. Bars are closed; indoor dining is still banned. Above all, there's a face mask mandate that people generally obey. New York isn't the only such success story. At first, Arizona's Republican governor, Doug Ducey, did everything wrong; not only did he keep the bars open, but he refused to let the (mostly Democratic) mayors of the state's biggest cities impose local face mask mandates. The result was a huge spike in cases: For a few weeks in July almost as many people were dying daily in Arizona, population seven million, as in the whole European Union, population 446 million. But by then Ducey had reversed course, closing bars and gyms. He didn't impose a statewide mask mandate, but he allowed cities to take action. And both cases and deaths plummeted, although not to New York levels. In other words, we know what works. Which makes it both bizarre and frightening that Donald Trump has apparently decided to spend the final weeks of his re election campaign deriding and discouraging mask wearing and other anti pandemic precautions. Trump's behavior on this and other issues is sometimes described as a rejection of science, which is true as far as it goes. After all, his mask skepticism isn't just at odds with what almost every outside expert has said, it's in direct conflict with what his own health officials people like Robert Redfield, the Trump appointed head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are saying. Just hours passed between Redfield's declaration, in congressional testimony, that masks are "the most important, powerful public health tool we have" in fighting the pandemic and Trump saying that "there's a lot of problems with masks." But I think it's also important to understand the point I was trying to make with my New York and Arizona examples: The case for masks doesn't rest merely on detailed scientific research that laypeople may find hard to understand. At this point it's also confirmed by the lived experience of regions that suffered severe coronavirus outbreaks but brought them under control. So how can anti masker agitation still be a major factor impeding America's ability to cope with this pandemic? You sometimes see people suggesting that wearing face masks is somehow inconsistent with America's individualistic culture. And if that were true it would be a condemnation of that culture. After all, there's something very wrong with any definition of freedom that includes the right to gratuitously expose other people to the risk of disease and death which is what refusing to wear a mask in a pandemic amounts to. But I don't believe that this is a deep seated cultural phenomenon. Some might dismiss the widespread compliance I see all around me by saying that New York doesn't represent Real America(tm). But even leaving aside the fact that 21st century America is mainly urban almost half of Americans live in metropolitan areas with more than one million people would they say the same about Arizona? And bear in mind that as long as I can remember, many shops and restaurants have had signs on their doors proclaiming "no shirt, no shoes, no service." How many of these establishments have been stormed by mobs of bare chested protesters? In short, anti mask agitation isn't really about freedom, or individualism, or culture. It's a declaration of political allegiance, driven by Trump and his allies. But why make a partisan issue out of what should be straightforward public health policy? The fairly obvious answer is that we're looking at the efforts of an amoral politician to rescue his flailing campaign. The economy's partial snapback from its plunge early this year hasn't given Trump the political dividends he hoped for. His attempts to stir up panic with claims that radical activists are going to destroy the suburbs haven't gained traction, with voters generally seeing Joe Biden as the better candidate to maintain law and order. And it's probably too late to change the views of the majority of voters believing that he has given up on fighting the coronavirus. So his latest ploy is an attempt to convince people that the Covid 19 threat is over. But widespread mask wearing is a constant reminder that the virus is still out there. Hence Trump's renewed push against the simplest, most sensible of public health precautions. As a political strategy, this ploy probably won't work. But it will lead to a lot of unnecessary deaths. 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
You've found a home that suits you in terms of price, location and design, and you've decorated it in a style that reflects your personal aesthetic. All should be good, right? Well, not if your furniture is a pain in the neck, back, hips or shoulders. When Jennifer and Roland Palmer bought a second home in Hilton Head, S.C., they wanted to furnish it stylishly, but they were even more concerned with comfort: Mr. Palmer, who is 70, had a few aches and pains and, at six feet, is taller than his wife by a foot. So Ms. Palmer, 44, ordered seating in custom sizes his and hers from Ekornes, a Norwegian company that specializes in ergonomic design. Now, she said, she can't bear to sit in the furniture back home in Michigan. "Up there, I have to sit with my legs tucked underneath me, because the chairs and sofa are so big," she said. "I end up getting sore in certain positions. But in the new furniture, the way your body is supported, you don't have your muscles being pulled." Unlike office furnishings, which tend to adhere to basic ergonomic or body friendly principles, home decor can be surprisingly bad for your musculoskeletal health. The result is various strains, aches and pains that no amount of yoga and Pilates can undo. "When people decorate their homes, it's all about what looks good, fits in the space, matching colors, with no thought to how it will impact their body," said Margo Fraser, a kinesiologist and ergonomics consultant in Calgary, Alberta. "And then they mistakenly attribute their pain and discomfort to getting older or an exercise injury, when it's really their furniture." Buying furniture specifically sofas and chairs, with which you are going to have extended bodily contact should be like buying shoes. You can have your showpieces that are collectible, sculptural or fashionable, just like that pair of Manolo Blahniks. But to truly relax, what you need is seating that fits you as well as a pair of running shoes, with the right amount of support and cushion. Finding what is best for your body, however, can be a challenge, given the way home furnishings are made and marketed today. As a culture, we have come to equate comfort with a big, squishy seating experience in which you are swaddled, if not swallowed, in plush. "I call it the sit and sink style, which over time is going to cause you real problems," said Alan Hedge, a professor in the department of design and environmental analysis at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Regardless of your age, health or flexibility, he said, sinking into a cushy sofa or chair pulls down on your spine and pelvis, causing strain. And this is exacerbated by the effort required to get in and out of the pillowy abyss. While you may not feel it immediately, day in and day out, it can prove injurious. Apart from the Scandinavian companies Ekornes and Fjords, few manufacturers make truly ergonomic, supportive home seating. If you're not into the no nonsense Nordic look, though, there are other options. You can find spine friendly furniture in a range of styles, if you keep a few fundamental rules in mind. First, you want firm. "Not hard like a wooden bench," said John Dunnigan, the head of the department of furniture design at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. "But firm cushioning that will support you over a range of compression," because your body will have various contact points that exert more or less downward pressure. Mr. Dunnigan recommended looking for furniture with a foam density rating (a measurement indicating the amount of weight the foam can support over a cubic foot) of at least 2.4, or hand tied coil springs, which can be found in some antiques and higher end furniture. Examples include seating from the Federal or midcentury periods, when styles were more tailored, slim and firm. You can find similarly supportive contemporary looks from manufacturers like Natuzzi, R. Jones and Poltrona Frau. In addition to firm, you want furniture that holds you in an upright position, vertically aligning your ears over your shoulders over your hips, said Dr. David Rempel, a professor of medicine and bioengineering at the University of California, San Francisco and Berkeley. "Resting your back against the back support, you should be able to rest your feet flat on the floor," he said, with your knees at a 90 to 110 degree angle to your hips. Moreover, there should be some space between the edge of the seat and the back of your knee, so you don't have pressure on the veins and arteries there. Of course, the right height and depth vary from person to person, because we are all different statures and girths, so you need to try furniture in the showroom (sit for at least 20 minutes, experts suggest) or else be prepared to pay the charges to send it back if you choose to order online. "A lot of chairs and sofas I see put you in the same terrible position you are in fancy sports cars, where you're cocked back, sitting low to the ground, with your legs out in front of you," said Laurie Johnson, a physical therapist in Houston who frequently finds that her patients' furniture causes or aggravates their musculoskeletal issues. "That pulls on your hamstring and sciatic nerve, and transfers all that tension to your back." Design Within Reach, Room and Board and SmartFurniture.com certainly sell some furniture that will put you in that awkward pose, but they are also among the few retailers that have some options that won't. They offer custom made pieces, too. You might also have good luck shopping at stores that sell office furniture. Often, couches and lounge chairs made for corporate environments by manufacturers like Knoll and Herman Miller are both attractive and ergonomically sound. Another piece of advice from ergonomic and physiology experts: Choose and arrange your furniture according to what you will be using it for most often. If you like to binge watch television, a supportive chair that reclines to take pressure off your back and neck or a firm sofa that allows full extension of your body in a reclining position might be the ticket, provided you put the television where you don't have to turn or crane your neck up or down to see it. Avid readers would do well to choose upright chairs that support the lower back, as well as some surface even just a large pillow on which to rest their books. Otherwise, you will stress your arms and put strain on your neck and shoulders looking down at the page. Knitters, on the other hand, might want a firm chair with armrests that support their elbows so they don't have to slouch or shrug their shoulders while knitting. If your living space will be where friends gather for lively or intimate conversation, then consider chairs that pivot or arrange the furniture in a circle so guests don't have to twist around to face each other. "The spine is a series of bones stacked up on each other like a column of blocks," said Dr. Hedge of Cornell. "So if you twist, what you're doing is twisting position of bone relative to other bone and asking for back pain and disc problems." Twisting and craning also happen when people use mobile devices, torquing the spine to use a laptop beside them on the couch or curving the neck downward while texting on a mobile phone. "When you focus your eyes on your device, your body is going to follow, often into an unhealthy position," said Mark Goetz, a furniture designer in Brooklyn who designed the supportive Goetz sofa for Herman Miller. "Think of your head as a heavy bowling ball. If it gets out of alignment looking at your cellphone, it's going to cause tremendous tension and strain." So make sure you sit without undue slouching or bodily torque, he said. And use armrests, pillows or other props to raise your devices to eye level. Furniture is like any other kind of equipment: It's most effective when you use it properly and when you don't overuse it. "Our bodies are not meant to watch television four hours straight," said Ms. Johnson, the physical therapist. "Get up and move every once in a while."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
As protests around the country against racism and police violence extend well into their second week, demand for books about race and anti racism has surged. As of this writing, almost all of the top best selling books on Amazon (seven out of 10) and at Barnes Noble (nine out of 10) take on these topics, including "How to Be an Antiracist," by Ibram X. Kendi, "White Fragility," by Robin DiAngelo, and "So You Want to Talk About Race," by Ijeoma Oluo. On the most recent New York Times list of best selling nonfiction in e books and print, five of the Top 15 titles address racism. One of them, "The New Jim Crow," Michelle Alexander's book about mass incarceration, was published 10 years ago. The week before, there were none. "People want these books in hand today," said Kelly Estep, one of the owners of Carmichael's Bookstore in Louisville, Ky., where Breonna Taylor, a black emergency room technician, was shot and killed by the police in March. "They feel like it's something they can do right now." Jason Reynolds's book "Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You," adapted from a book by Mr. Kendi, was No. 1 this week on The New York Times's young adult hardcover list. "Stamped" distills the history of racist ideas into three kinds of people, Mr. Reynolds explained: segregationists, assimilationists and anti racists. The goal of the book, he said, is to help young people identify what is racist. Mr. Reynolds said that seeing his book return to the top of the list, where it had debuted at No. 1 in March, leaves him hopeful but cautiously so. "I'm grateful that people are working to seek out information to help them better understand what's happening in our country, and I hope it's not a knee jerk reaction due to shame and guilt and not wanting to be on the outside," he said. "I hope people understand that this book is the beginning of a journey of a lifetime." 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 added: "I mean, it's a wonderful thing to say I'm a New York Times best seller, but it would be more wonderful to be able to say we live in a world that is a little more anti racist." Even board books for very young children where current events are not usually a consideration are reflecting this demand. "Antiracist Baby," by Mr. Kendi, is scheduled to be published this month. Penguin Young Readers had originally planned a first print run of 50,000 books, but in response to the demand it is seeing in pre orders, it is printing an additional 100,000 copies. "These numbers are extraordinary for any children's book, and in particular one that is in the board book format aimed at readers 0 3," Elyse Marshall, executive director of publicity at Penguin Young Readers, said in an email. "It's rare to see a board book hit and stay on a best seller list weeks before it goes on sale, and the sustained presence reflects the moment that we are in." The demand for some titles has been so high that stores are having trouble keeping them in stock. Miriam Chotiner Gardner, a buyer for Three Lives Company bookshop in Manhattan, said she had seen increased demand every which way. Some people are ordering just these books, while others are buying them along with unrelated novels or essay collections. There are customers purchasing just one title, and others stocking up on whole reading lists of five to seven books. Publishers, she added, are working to help the store restock quickly. "Books that are out today will come back next week," she said. "Usually it takes weeks to get a reprint." Ms. Estep of Carmichael's said Thursday that she didn't have any copies left of her biggest sellers on the subject, including "White Fragility," "How to Be an Antiracist" and "Between the World and Me," by Ta Nehisi Coates. "We did get a couple copies of 'So You Want to Talk About Race' today," she said, shortly before 5 p.m. "But I haven't been at the store since about 3 p.m., and I would be surprised if they were still there." These titles are dominating audiobook sales as well. Libro.fm is a company that partners with 1,200 bookstores in the United States and Canada to sell audiobooks, and on Friday, every one of its Top 10 best sellers was about race. The company said its Top 10 list on the first day of June, again consisting entirely of books about race, had sold 500 percent more than the Top 10 list did on the first day of May. But buying books and reading books, Mr. Reynolds said, is not enough. "If you read this book and you feel like you're ready to do some good work, and you happen to be a white person, it is imperative to know you do not deserve cookies for being a good human being," he said. "This is an opportunity to be good for good's sake. Imagine that."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Books
A few months ago, the actor Corbin Bleu was sifting through some old boxes, assembling materials to make a wedding gift for his fiancee (now his wife). Among the childhood photos, he found a school paper he had written in eighth grade about Fred Astaire. "Every generation to come will watch with open mouths at this amazing artist," Mr. Bleu's paper concluded. "To you, Mr. Fred Astaire, I tip my top hat." Fourteen years later, Mr. Bleu, 27, is making good on his promise to honor Astaire. In the new Broadway musical take on the 1942 film "Holiday Inn," he plays the song and dance man Ted Hanover, a role Astaire originated. For Mr. Bleu, finding that paper felt like kismet. "As I was gearing up for the role," he said recently in his dressing room at Studio 54, where "Holiday Inn" is playing, "I was like, 'Oh, my God, he's always really been there in my life.'" Dancing, too, has been a constant for Mr. Bleu, practically since he could walk. He grew up in Brooklyn with parents who introduced him to the performing world early. "I got my first pair of tap shoes, and I was in love," he said. When he was 7, his family moved to Los Angeles, where he enrolled in the Debbie Allen Dance Academy. "She threw everything at us," he recalled. "That was really where I found my true heart for dance everything from modern and jazz to African and cirque." At the academy, Mr. Bleu studied tap with the celebrated dancer Jason Samuels Smith, whose style rubbed off on him. "He has this very down, hunched, raw kind of vibe," Mr. Bleu said, "and usually when I tap, I'm very much a hoofer I like to be low." Mr. Bleu realized that was antithetical to Astaire's style. "You watch him extend, and it's like he could extend all the way into the audience," Mr. Bleu said. "I wanted to be sure I had that old school jazzy, proper feel. A lot of me is still loosey goosey, but I'm trying to keep that form." Mr. Bleu went on to attend the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts; then, at 16, in 2006, he became one of the breakout stars of Disney's "High School Musical." In the years after, he proved his Broadway bona fides as Usnavi, the lead of Lin Manuel Miranda's "In the Heights," in 2010, and as Jesus in "Godspell" in 2012. Neither role required much of him as a mover, though Mr. Bleu would soon showcase those skills on national television: In 2013, he was the runner up (with Karina Smirnoff) for Season 17 of "Dancing With the Stars," in which the judges often praised his musicality and physicality. Still, at the time of his "Holiday Inn" audition, Mr. Bleu hadn't worn tap shoes for five years. But, as he put it, tapping already felt ingrained in his body and came back to him quickly. "It was like riding a bike," he said. "It just felt so good to have everything released through my feet again." Denis Jones, the choreographer for "Holiday Inn," was immediately impressed. "As soon as he put on his shoes, you could tell he had the goods," he said. "I do like a good loud foot, and his taps have both clarity and musicality." Mr. Bleu, whose father is of Jamaican descent, said he doesn't see his casting as a direct response to that scene (Astaire, in fact, isn't part of it in the film) but acknowledges its significance. "You can't deface an artist or a movie because of that one scene," he said. "It's important to recognize, 'O.K., that was there, it's not O.K., and we're not going to do it.' And hey, now we actually have a lead character who is black." Mr. Jones noted that in Astaire's best known sequence in the film, "Let's Say It With Firecrackers," Astaire benefited from more than a day of shooting and some effects enhanced in postproduction. Mr. Bleu must perform the dance live, with the firecrackers already built into the floor. "Every tap step has to move directly to the spot where you throw down a firecracker," Mr. Bleu explained, "and building that was very difficult. When you first learn it, you're just working on rhythms. Then you realize" his eyes widened "I have to go ta ta ta ta ta ta just to make it over here!" Adding to the challenge, "we're dealing with a floor that is not real wood," he said, making for a slippery surface for tapping. "It's like dancing on eggshells, but you can't make it look like that." Onstage, Mr. Bleu never looks stressed out by the sound of his taps or by anything else, for that matter: His smile is wide and warm, and there often appears to be an actual twinkle in his eye. Mr. Bleu said that this is something he learned from "High School Musical." "How to please your fans: You smile, you say a lot of 'yeses,'" he said. "But is it something that's necessarily me? I don't think so." His director disagrees. "He understands what it is to give yourself to an audience," Mr. Greenberg said. In his review of the show for The New York Times, Charles Isherwood said Mr. Bleu "brings a lively, knockabout charm to the role of Ted." If that sounds like a certain famous singer and tapper of yore, Mr. Bleu acknowledges that his most obvious similarity to Astaire might be in spirit. "He's tall, lanky," Mr. Bleu said. "And, no, I am not a very tall person. I've got some butt! I've got some shoulders." Instead of trying to dance exactly as Astaire did, Mr. Bleu has adopted a kind of "What Would Fred Do?" attitude. "I think to myself, just keep smiling, keep breathing," he said. "When you watch him in the movie, it's like it's nothin'."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Dance
Three years ago, Bayard Winthrop, the chief executive and founder of the clothing brand American Giant, started thinking about a flannel shirt he wore as a kid in the 1970s. It was blue plaid and bought for him by his grandmother, probably at Caldor, a discount department store popular in the northeast back then. The flannel was one of the first pieces of clothing Mr. Winthrop owned that suggested a personality. "I thought it looked great," he said, "and I thought it said something about me. That I was cool and physical and capable and outdoorsy." Since 2011 American Giant, or AG, has mass produced everyday sportswear for men and women, like the Lee jeans or Russell sweatshirts once sold in stores like Caldor from the ginned cotton to the cutting and sewing entirely in the U.S. Mr. Winthrop, a former financier who had run a snowshoe firm, made it the company's mission to, in his words, "bring back ingenuity and optimism to the towns that make things." He's been very successful, especially with a full zip sweatshirt Slate called "the greatest hoodie ever made." AG has introduced denim, leggings and socks, among other products. L.L. Bean, Woolrich, Ralph Lauren and Pendleton all made their reputations on rugged, cozy flannel shirts, but not one of those brands make them domestically today. In fact, "flannel hasn't been made in America for decades," said Nate Herman, an executive for the American Apparel Footwear Association, a Washington D.C. based trade group. Some small family run brands, like the Vermont Flannel Company and Gitman Bros., sew shirts in the U.S., but the fabric is woven overseas. Portugal and China are today the main producers of yarn dyed flannel, Mr. Herman said. Although it originated in Wales in the 17th century, flannel is a classic American garment, worn by Wyoming ranchers and California surfers, deer hunters and rock and hip hop musicians. It was a key reference in Marc Jacobs's then notorious grunge collection for Perry Ellis in 1992, which was recently reissued. Like a pair of bluejeans, a flannel shirt conveys laid back comfort and rugged durability. Bringing its manufacture back to America, Mr. Winthrop thought, could be deeply symbolic. Both of the capability of U.S. manufacturing and of the need for big fashion brands to invest here again. It was a quixotic artisanal project, perhaps, but one with potentially high business stakes. "Forty years ago, we were able to make great shirts here, great jeans here, sold at a price that made sense to mainstream consumers," Mr. Winthrop said at the outset of his project. "We've lost that capability in 40 years? We can't make a flannel shirt in America? I'm not going to accept that answer." "Made in America" has become a marketing catchphrase espoused by both Brooklyn 400 selvage denim enthusiasts and Trump isolationists. And brands like American Apparel have led a renaissance of sorts in domestic manufacturing. But producing clothes in the U.S. today is exceedingly complicated. Over the last 30 years, the textile industry has been decimated by outsourcing and unfavorable trade deals, shedding 1.4 million jobs in the process, said Augustine Tantillo, president of the National Council of Textile Organizations. Communities that produced clothes for generations, like Fort Payne, Ala., the former sock capital of the world, were mortally wounded when mills closed. Sometimes the expertise or work force have dissipated. Sometimes it's the machinery, the looms, that have gone overseas. Each time AG develops a new product, Mr. Winthrop must patch together its supply chain from what remains. To help him navigate the process, he relies on "old dogs in the industry," he said, though AG is based in San Francisco and runs like a tech start up, with sales almost entirely online. At 50, Mr. McKinnon is not that old (Mr. Winthrop is 49). But he is the third McKinnon to run Cotswold Industries, the textile manufacturer his grandfather started in 1954. Cotswold made the woven fabric for headliners inside Ford cars. Later, the firm manufactured pocket linings for Lee, Wrangler and Levi jeans. Cotswold still handles pocketing business for many U.S. brands, part of a diverse portfolio that includes making fabrics for culinary apparel. The fabrics are woven at its mill in Central, S.C. Mr. Winthrop called Mr. McKinnon at his office in midtown Manhattan and ran through the list of questions. Why is flannel gone? What would it take to bring it back? How would you do it? Mr. Winthrop specified that he wanted to make yarn dyed flannel, not flannel in which the pattern is simply printed onto the fabric. Mr. McKinnon was familiar with the story of American Giant and the hoodie. In an industry that has been waging a 40 year global economic war of attrition, and mostly losing, it is heartening to see an apparel company committed to America. You don't survive as a U.S. textile manufacturer without being smart and nimble, and without being a little battle scarred. Mr. McKinnon is all of these things. Lately, he had been thinking about more than just surviving. "Do we want to develop products that we are proud of? That aren't just, you know, what we've always done but trying to do it cheaper," he said. "You get tired of always playing defense. Let's play some offense." Besides, Mr. McKinnon had his own positive if hazy memories of flannel. "I spent four or five years touring with the Grateful Dead," he said. "I think I wore one flannel shirt for two years." Here was a partner who could "quarterback" a project that would prove to be incredibly challenging. Shirting in general is more complicated than a T shirt or fleece because it's woven rather than knit. Wovens typically require more needlework, which means higher labor costs, which means that they have been outsourced more aggressively than knits or denim. And a flannel is a very complicated woven shirt. For a T shirt, raw material is fed into a circular knitting machine and a roll of fabric is cranked out and dyed red or blue or purple. But flannel requires the dyeing of each individual yarn, which is what gives it the patterned look of, say, Buffalo plaid. Those dyed yarns are put on a weaving machine, or loom. There are lengthwise, or warp, yarns and crosswise, or weft, yarns. To get the famous red and black squares even and blended, the warping must be done precisely right. And the more intricate the pattern or numerous the colors, the more complex the warping and the harder the weave. As anyone who loves one knows, flannel shirts are soft, which is achieved through a finishing process called napping. "Flannel, of all the things in your wardrobe, is the one thing that you know intuitively if you like or not," Mr. Winthrop said. "It has to feel right in your hand." He had to find suppliers who could dye the yarn; weave the flannel; finish and nap it; and finally, cut and sew the fabric into shirts. And those partners, if they still existed, would also have to tolerate risk, because American Giant would begin with small test runs. Would a mill gear up its machinery and work force for 8,000 yards, instead of 80,000 or 800,000? Mr. McKinnon convened a meeting with his team, drawing up a chart of all the stages. "I said, 'Guys, take a look. This can be done here. This can be done here. This can be done here.'" Claiming impossibility at first, "finally the team looked at me and said, 'Huh.'" What gave Mr. McKinnon confidence initially was that Cotswold held onto a tiny piece of the yarn dyed shirting business that involved uniforms for the Metro North and Long Island Railroads. "The transit workers that take your ticket wear a yarn dyed shirt," Mr. McKinnon said. "They've got that little pinstriped shirt." The shirts weren't sportswear, the pattern wasn't complex, but it meant the manufacturing of flannel was theoretically possible. Now she was in close communication with the manufacturer, collaborating on the design. This was how Mr. Winthrop had made the famous hoodie, working with a finisher called Carolina Cotton Works, or CCW, to painstakingly recreate the napped feel of old Champion sweatshirts. Ms. Aris and Mr. Winthrop waited nervously throughout March to learn if Cotswold's technicians could weave their designs. Mr. Winthrop wanted the shirts to go on sale for Christmas 2018. Any delays or roadblocks might cause AG to scrap the winter season, or the entire project. In early April, Mr. McKinnon had called to say the patterns could be woven at Cotswold's mill. Now, as Mr. Winthrop and Mr. McKinnon talked over coffee, they addressed another concern the yarn dyeing. Mr. McKinnon had introduced Mr. Winthrop to "the best people I know," in the domestic yarn dyeing business, a North Carolina company called Burlington Manufacturing Services, or BMS. Cotswold used BMS to dye the blue Oxford fabric it made for Catholic school shirts, another niche business. When Ron Farris, sales representative for BMS, was contacted by the men, he couldn't believe he was talking about flannel in 2018. BMS, Mr. Farris wrote them, was onboard. "It tickles me to no end," is how he put it. "The last 20, 25 years have been very, very frustrating," Mr. McKinnon said at the coffee shop. "It's been rolling rocks uphill trying to figure out how to be competitive. Now, because of this collaboration, you get up in the morning and you've got a hop to your step. Let's go make something awesome." What was being woven on this day was flannel for American Giant. Mr. McKinnon led Mr. Winthrop into a fluorescent lit room the size of a football field with looms spaced every few feet. The machines were new but noisy. The men had to shout to speak, though the big smiles said everything. One of Ms. Aris' three patterns, a black plaid, was coming off the section beam in stiff sheets. Mr. Winthrop got his face right down to the sewing needles, to examine the warping for flaws. He found none. The yarn color was rich and beautiful. The old dogs at BMS had delivered as promised. "You are looking at the first weaving of flannel in America since probably the mid 90s," said Mr. McKinnon, who himself was seeing it for the first time. Mr. Winthrop was unusually reticent, seemingly in shock. He had pulled it off. "All the detail ... Actually seeing the pattern come together...," he said, trailing off. "This is the hardest technical engineering aspect of this entire adventure," Mr. McKinnon said, satisfied. "Bayard has been asking me every week on a scale of 1 to 100 what my confidence level is. Right now, it's 95." Months passed. Spirits remained high. Mr. Winthrop, who is built low and squat like a wrestler, had "put his shoulder into it," as he likes to say, and pushed through. Mr. McKinnon, along with every worker up and down the supply chain, proved that the technical capability had never left, only the appetite to do business here. They were nearing champagne popping time. It involved what was supposed to be the easy part the napping and finishing. Mr. McKinnon had recommended a finisher that returned to American Giant flannel with all the softness of an outdoor carpet. The fabric was sent back. Five times. Additional rounds yielded little improvement, and weeks flew by. All of August into September, wasted. Mr. McKinnon called Mr. Winthrop one day. They discussed the Christmas deadline and its unlikelihood now. They discussed chalking up the whole thing to a noble failure. Mr. McKinnon apologized and took the blame. In September, in a last ditch effort, Mr. McKinnon and Mr. Winthrop sent a few rolls of fabric to Carolina Cotton Works and its president, Page Ashby. CCW had not been hired for the flannel project, because it couldn't do every finishing process under one roof. Still, it was Mr. Ashby who had collaborated on the famous hoodie, and now he and his workers "huddled up" with the fabric. Over the phone, Mr. Ashby explained how flannel becomes soft. "You have to raise those fibers out of the yarn. Get it to be a little bit fuzzy, if you will. Not like a blanket. We just wanted to tickle it a little bit." CCW did the right amount of tickling. The fabric finally felt like the flannel shirt Mr. Winthrop had worn as a kid, the one that made him feel cool and capable. Another finisher, Yates Bleachery Company, in Flintstone, Ga., would handle the crucial step of preshrinking. Then onto Jade Apparel in Philadelphia for the cutting and sewing of shirts. Now that they'd fully reassembled the supply chain, a new, modified plan was hatched: American Giant would do a limited run, 2,000 yards, or enough fabric to make about 1,200 shirts, priced at around 100 apiece . BMS, Cotswold, CCW, Yates, Jade all would have to rush production. But American flannel would be available for winter , with more to come in the new year. Was it worth all the trouble, for a shirt? Mr. Winthrop did not have to think about his answer. "We wanted to start an American made business and build it to scale," he said, over lunch at a restaurant in Lower Manhattan earlier this month. "The consistent narrative was, 'You can't do that, it's all gone overseas.' We heard that with the fleece, with premium tees. This was the next chapter." Mr. Winthrop leaned across the table, as if putting his shoulder into his reply. "Set the business part of it aside," he said. "The thing I continue to be so struck by in the supply chain is this latent undercurrent of, 'Give us a shot.' It's worth it for that alone to prove the ability to do it."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
The century old artists' retreat known as the MacDowell Colony is removing the word "colony" from its official name in response to a petition from staff members that pushed for the change, the organization said on Tuesday. Founded in 1907, MacDowell offers a haven in Peterborough, N.H., for artists to work without distraction in private studios during the day, then invites them to gather together for dinner. Some of the artists and writers that the program has hosted include James Baldwin, Leonard Bernstein, Thornton Wilder, Audre Lorde and Meredith Monk. The program's board of directors voted unanimously on Tuesday to "remove terminology with oppressive overtones," according to a news release. The petition arose from staff members hearing from the organization's fellows and some artists outside the organization that the term "colony" was an objectionable and outmoded term, said Jonathan Gourlay, a spokesman for the organization. The change comes as predominantly white arts institutions across the country are grappling with their own histories of racism and inequity amid the national protests following the police killing of George Floyd. MacDowell recently released a statement saying that it was committing to fighting "internal and external racism."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
It might be the beginning of the end of one of the country's most prestigious magazine publishers. Time Inc., which publishes titles like Time, People and Sports Illustrated, agreed on Sunday to sell itself to Meredith, a Midwestern publisher that had long courted the company. The deal is valued at nearly 3 billion roughly the amount of revenue that Time Inc. brought in last year. Like many of its competitors, Time Inc. failed to keep pace with the industrywide transformation from print to digital platforms. Management disagreements and cost cuts in the first decade of this century led to high profile departures that bled the company of talent and left it without a clear succession plan. Now the nearly 100 year old company must turn to its new owner, a publisher known for magazines like Better Homes Gardens, to chart a path for its future a future that will perhaps not be built on the iconic photography, swimsuit models and ambitious journalism that helped Time Inc.'s titles become household names.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Media
Juice WRLD, the 20 year old singing rapper of the moment, is spending a second straight week atop the Billboard 200 chart with his new album, "Death Race for Love," thanks to a slow period for major music releases. No new albums reached the Top 150 this week, leaving the streaming success of "Death Race" (Grade A/Interscope) in the No. 1 spot with a total of 74,000 units by the industry's math, combining streams and sales. In Juice WRLD's case, just 3,800 album sales were lifted by 106 million song streams, according to Nielsen, outpacing the runner up, Ariana Grande's "Thank U, Next" (Republic). In its sixth week on the chart, Grande's second album in six months added another 78 million streams and 6,400 in sales, for a total of 66,000 units. Juice WRLD has died at 21. Read the Times obituary. The rest of the Top 5 has been hanging around for some time. Though it had the highest sales total of the week (about 16,000), the soundtrack to "A Star Is Born" (Interscope) held steady at No. 3 with 40,000 units in its 24th go round on the Billboard chart. A Boogie Wit da Hoodie's "Hoodie SZN" was carried to the No. 4 spot by 50 million streams in its 13th week, while the Queen soundtrack to the biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody" is No. 5 in its 22nd week.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
After years of buildup, a debate about the nature of humor that verged on the metaphysical and the specter of a trial featuring testimony from Patton Oswalt and Andy Richter, Conan O'Brien settled a lawsuit against him Thursday, ending a standoff with a freelance comedy writer who had accused the late night host of stealing jokes. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. But in an open letter shared with Variety by turns defiant, droll and erudite O'Brien said that he and his accuser, Robert Alex Kaseberg, had agreed to "resolve our dispute amicably," aborting a trial that was set to begin May 28 in San Diego. "I decided to forgo a potentially farcical and expensive jury trial in federal court over five jokes that don't even make sense anymore," O'Brien wrote. "Four years and countless legal bills have been plenty." Through a lawyer, Kaseberg released a statement describing the resolution as amicable and explaining that as a professional comedy writer, he wanted to make people laugh and stand up for what he believed in. The statement went on to say, "I am proud my case helped shed light on an issue facing all comedy writers."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Television
As "Captain Marvel" swooped into its second weekend in theaters on Friday, the question wasn't really whether it would top domestic ticket sales, but by how much. Disney Marvel can breathe easy. Their latest superhero origin story, the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe dedicated to a female superhero, sold an estimated 69.3 million in tickets nationwide this weekend, bringing its North American total to around 266.2 million. That's a higher figure than the lifetime domestic gross of "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" ( 259.8 million), and already makes "Captain Marvel" the 13th best selling film in the current 21 movie Marvel series with room to grow. "Captain Marvel" has done well internationally, too, with 120 million in overseas sales this weekend, according to the studio, for a global total of 760 million. While the figures aren't earth shattering, they indicate a solid success for Disney Marvel.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Movies
BERKELEY, Calif. In an engineering laboratory here, a robot has learned to screw the cap on a bottle, even figuring out the need to apply a subtle backward twist to find the thread before turning it the right way. This and other activities including putting a clothes hanger on a rod, inserting a block into a tight space and placing a hammer at the correct angle to remove a nail from a block of wood may seem like pedestrian actions. But they represent significant advances in robotic learning, by a group of researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, who have trained a two armed machine to match human dexterity and speed in performing these tasks. The significance of the work is in the use of a so called machine learning approach that links several powerful software techniques that make it possible for the robot to learn new tasks rapidly with a relatively small amount of training. The new approach includes a powerful artificial intelligence technique known as "deep learning," which has previously been used to achieve major advances in both computer vision and speech recognition. Now the researchers have found that it can also be used to improve the actions of robots working in the physical world on tasks that require both machine vision and touch. The group, led by the roboticist Pieter Abbeel and the computer vision specialist Trevor Darrell, with Sergey Levine, a postdoctoral researcher, and Chelsea Finn, a graduate student, said they were surprised by how well the approach worked compared with previous efforts. By combining several types of pattern recognition software algorithms known as neural networks, the researchers have been able to train a robot to perfect an action such as correctly inserting a Lego block into another block, with a relatively small number of attempts. "I would argue this is what has given artificial intelligence the whole new momentum it has right now," Dr. Abbeel said. "All of a sudden there are all of these results that are better than expected." Roboticists said that the value of the Berkeley technology would be in quickly training robots for new tasks and ultimately in developing machines that learn independently. Previously, the Berkeley lab had received international attention for training a robot to fold laundry. Although it was viewed almost one million times on YouTube, the laundry folding demonstration noted that the video had been sped up more than 50 times. The new videos show the robots performing tasks at human speeds. Despite their progress, the researchers acknowledge that they are still far away perhaps more than a decade from their goal of building a truly autonomous robot, such as a home worker or elder care machine that could perform complex tasks without human supervision. The researchers said that while their new approach represents an important leap, it is also fragile. For example, the bottle cap threading technique will work reliably when the bottle is moved from one location to another or if the bottle is of a different color. But if the bottle is tilted at an angle before it is picked up, the robot will completely fail. "There is nothing better to ask a roboticist, 'If you change the conditions, will it still work?' " Dr. Abbeel said. To explain the new approach, the researchers draw the analogy of how baseball players track and then catch balls. Humans do not do mathematical calculations to discern the trajectory of the ball. Rather, they fix the ball in their field of vision and adjust their running speed until they arrive at the spot where the ball lands. This, in effect, short circuits a complicated set of relations between perception and motion control, substituting a simple technique that works in a wide variety of situations without having to worry about details like wind resistance or the ball's velocity. Until now, robots have generally learned with a variety of techniques that are laboriously programmed for each specific case. The Berkeley researchers, who will present their results in a paper at the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society's conference next week in Seattle, instead connected the neural networks, which learn from both visual and sensory information, directly to the controller software that oversees the robot's motions. As a result, they achieved a significant advance in speed and accuracy of learning. "We are trying to come up with a general learning framework that allows the robot to learn new things on its own," Dr. Abbeel said. The advance underscores the rapid impact that the deep learning approach has had on the field of artificial intelligence. Pioneered several decades ago by a small group of cognitive scientists, the techniques were blended in 2012 with the "big data" power offered by cloud computing systems. Researchers were then able to capture billions of images or samples of human language. Their software was able to show rapid progress in accuracy in recognizing objects and in understanding human speech. Now computer scientists are pushing the techniques in new directions, including self driving cars and a host of other applications. In December 2013, Deepmind, a British start up, first demonstrated deep learning techniques that could be used to play video games with more skill than most human players. The company, which Google acquired for an undisclosed sum in 2014, published a paper describing its advance in the journal Nature in February.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Science
Sunil Yapa was bouncing from college to college, searching for a career, when he decided to return to a familiar place: his hometown, State College, Pa. There, he found himself in the building where he had often visited his father, Lakshman, a geography professor at Penn State. He took his dad's classes, helped him write a draft of a book about the social construction of poverty and earned a bachelor's degree in geography in 2003. "I was getting ready to take over the family business," Mr. Yapa said. He planned to complete a doctorate after an extended trip to China. But once he landed on the other side of the world, away from his family and culture, he returned to the writing practice he had loved as a teenager but abandoned. "I was lucky," Mr. Yapa said. "In the end I didn't have to choose just one. If I had walked away from writing, I would have been a mess." He earned a Master of Fine Arts from Hunter College in 2010 and started a novel about Seattle's 1999 World Trade Organization protests. "Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist," which includes themes about geography, came out in January. "It seems so stupid, looking back on it," he said of his struggle to accept a career that should have been obvious. Being a writer has not been without a downside, though; before he sold his book, he took on side jobs, including selling posters to college students, to get by. According to behavioral economists, he is not unusual. Career choices are not obvious or simple to make. Experts have found that biases that we are not aware of skew our perception of our options and create blind spots on our choices. Understanding these biases can help young people succeed in selecting a profession that will earn them a living and also yield fulfillment, a sense of purpose and a chance to master a skill that fascinates them. In pursuing geography, Mr. Yapa nearly fell into the trap of what is called status quo bias. "People generally don't like change," said Alain Samson, a behavioral science consultant and editor of the Behavioral Economics Guide. "It's human to go down the path of least resistance and stick to what we know best." While the narrowest definition of this bias is individual behavior that involves inertia or avoidance of change, it is also a tendency that can influence children to follow their parents into the same line of work. It is important to keep long term happiness in mind, because another bias can lead to an overemphasis on the next few years rather than the next few decades. "Many of us avoid actions that are costly in the short term, even if they present payoffs in the future," Mr. Samson said. "In behavioral economics, this is called present bias." He added, "The younger you are, the more difficult it is to think about the future." Present bias could prevent someone from pursuing a job that requires an initial investment in education, Mr. Samson said. The bias could also encourage a person to choose a job that offers high pay initially, but has limited opportunities for advancement. To combat these biases, economists suggest speaking to professionals in various stages of a career. Experienced mentors can offer a longer term perspective on what it will be like to work in that area for most of your life; younger workers can offer a view of what it's like to start in the field now. This kind of investigation, economists say, will help job hunters avoid another serious mistake: making choices based on the most obvious factors. "Behavioral economics tells us that people often focus too much on the wrong things, and tend to focus on aspects of the job that are salient," said Alan Krueger, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University. "So, for example, the pay is salient, especially the starting pay." When making decisions under this salient bias, people may place more importance on visible or quantifiable features, such as the Corvette a lawyer drives, without considering the less readily visible, such as how satisfied that lawyer may be with his career. "One of the things we know from behavioral economics is that social interactions are very important," Mr. Krueger said. "Do people feel like they're treated fairly? Do they get along with the people they work with? I think that's an aspect of the job people should focus on to a greater extent. Do they find the work intrinsically rewarding?" Richard Freeman, a professor of economics at Harvard University, advises students to explore the world hands on as much as they can through internships or a gap year. He suggests that if students do not like what they find that way, they could try a different employer or another job in the same field to see if that helps.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Your Money
The meeting, nearly 14 months ahead of Election Day, illustrates how tech companies are preparing for the 2020 race after Russian operatives used Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms to spread disinformation and sow discord in 2016. Since then, many of the tech companies have been under scrutiny. Some have said they can do better and have made internal changes to reduce disinformation and foreign interference. In May 2018, for instance, many of the same tech companies met at Facebook headquarters to discuss ways they could collaborate before the midterm elections that year. Tech companies and the federal government have gone to greater lengths to cooperate on threat modeling, intelligence sharing and building stronger ties between the public and private sector agencies, said a person briefed on the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the information was confidential. The companies have also tried other tactics to get a handle on how their platforms and products can be misused in elections. Facebook has tried to monitor and ward off threats to elections in many countries beyond the United States, including Brazil, Mexico, Germany and France. Last week, for example, the social network said it was strengthening how it verified which groups and people place political advertising on its site. And Twitter said last month that it would bar state backed media from promoting tweets on its service. Bloomberg earlier reported Wednesday's meeting between the tech companies and government officials. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment about the meeting. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the F.B.I. confirmed they attended. An F.B.I. official said the agency was invited by the tech companies to "discuss our shared goal of protecting democracy and securing the 2020 U.S. state, federal and presidential elections." A Twitter spokeswoman called the meeting "a joint effort in response to a shared threat, and we are committed to doing our part." A spokeswoman for Microsoft confirmed the company participated in the meeting, as did a spokeswoman for Google.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Technology
Could you name the postmaster general before this year? I couldn't. It's a position that, like Emily W. Murphy's role at the General Services Administration, enjoyed relative obscurity until our democracy suddenly seemed to depend on it. Which is why Louis DeJoy, a Trump campaign megadonor who took up the postmaster general job in June, became a household name when his changes to the Postal Service threatened to endanger the unprecedented demand for mail in ballots this election season. The post's integral role in the election was fitting this year, when mail has been unusually indispensable. Homebound by the pandemic, so many of us have turned to deliveries to get by. Strangers exchanged old fashioned letters through the writer Rachel Syme's PenPalooza program; restaurants repurposed themselves as meal kit suppliers; the package room in my apartment building has been filled with shipments as surprising as a greenhouse, a room spanning rug and a pallet of paper towels. If you can mail all those, why not opera? It turns out all you need is an envelope. Three of them, sharing a slim box, arrived at my door recently. Together they were On Site Opera's first production by mail, "The Beauty That Still Remains: Diaries in Song." Each of the three actually encloses a song cycle: Janacek's "The Diary of One Who Disappeared" (1921), Dominick Argento's "From the Diary of Virginia Woolf" (1974) and Juliana Hall's "A World Turned Upside Down" (2016). But their packaging elevates them to something more like a real opera. The envelopes unfold to reveal, in side flaps, the standard program notes and artist biographies. In the center, though, are diary facsimiles with ephemera like family photos and dried flowers. The books and the music, experienced together, play off each other for an immersive and tactile drama.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Music
The little book is a relic from the years after the Civil War, when autograph crazy Americans collected signatures, a central building block of identity before fingerprinting, Social Security numbers or credit cards. A jeweler named Lafayette Cornwell collected more signatures than most people did 400 or so, starting when he was a teenager. In time, eight presidents and several first ladies signed Cornwell's autograph album. So did Mark Twain, Harry Houdini and Thomas A. Edison. For decades, well into his own middle age, Cornwell had a knack for turning up where well known people were and persuading them to sign. Sometimes they did more than that. Herman Melville wrote a quote from Shakespeare. Oscar Wilde quoted his own poetry. John Philip Sousa wrote three measures of "The Stars and Stripes Forever." Mary Todd Lincoln signed "Mrs. Abraham Lincoln," which David Lowenherz, a collector and dealer, said was unusual. After her husband's assassination, she usually just signed "Mary Lincoln," Mr. Lowenherz said. "Cornwell somehow ingratiated himself into so many different situations," Mr. Lowenherz added. "It was unusual to get more than a signature. He must have said more than, 'Mr. Melville, would you sign my book?'" Mr. Lowenherz plans to sell the Cornwell autograph album on Wednesday through the online auction platform invaluable.com. The presale estimate is 30,000 to 35,000. When Cornwell approached the actress Sarah Bernhardt, she made a demand, to which he complied: She insisted that her signature be the last in the album, even though it was far from filled when Cornwell boarded her private rail car in 1911. "I write the last!" she had announced, according to Cornwell, who spoke to The New York Times for a 1927 article about the album. She signed the last page and then pasted that page to the inside back cover. "No one must write after me." The album began in the 1880s and ended in the 1930s, shortly before Cornwell gave it to a niece. How Cornwell organized the signatures in the book is as unclear as how he obtained so many they are not in chronological order. Melville and the oil and railroad magnate Edward Stiles Stokes signed on the same day, but 12 pages apart. President James A. Garfield's son put his signature beneath his mother's at least 20 years after she had signed. Mr. Lowenherz attempted to unravel the mysteries of the album by creating spreadsheets tracking Cornwell's travels. But for all the famous people Cornwell encountered, he himself remains a question mark. "Here's a guy who's so undocumented that it makes his ability to show up and be allowed in to get these autographs all the more astonishing," Mr. Lowenherz said. This helped him get around. When the Statue of Liberty was dedicated in New York in 1886, Cornwell was there and the French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, who had designed the new monument, signed his album. "He was a little like Zelig," Mr. Lowenherz said, referring to the nondescript title character in a 1983 Woody Allen film whose "chameleon disorder" enabled him to resemble the people he encountered. "How did he get into these places? What has been fleshed out is he obviously had an interest in politics. And it could build on itself: 'President Grant signed it in 1880. Would you mind signing it?' 'Oh, sure, young man,'" Mr. Lowenherz went on. "But by the end of it, he wasn't a young man anymore."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Art & Design
As soon as a 60 game baseball season was made official, the consternation began over how to handle teams playing 102 fewer games than they would in a normal year. What would the leaderboard look like? What would happen if records were broken? Would they even be able to get through all 60 games? With the regular season having wrapped up on Sunday, we finally have some answers, and a few things to debate. How we interpret these numbers going forward is up to each individual fan though, it should be noted, baseball emphatically does not deal in asterisks. To help give some context to a leaderboard that is a bit hard to reconcile, here is a breakdown of some of the more interesting accomplishments of the season, many of which are adjusted to what they might have looked like in a full season. While 32 pitchers have led their individual league in all three categories since the American League began play in 1901, just 12 led the majors in all three before Bieber, which was one fewer than the 13 qualified batters who hit .400 or better in that span. Bieber's line looks far different than that of the other players on the list, as he had eight wins, a 1.63 E.R.A. and 122 strikeouts. But his feat stands, and he joined Johan Santana (2006) and Dwight Gooden (1985) as the only players to do it since Sandy Koufax's retirement in 1966. And Bieber will almost assuredly join Santana and Gooden in winning the Cy Young Award, as well. But that didn't make this year's batting race any less significant, as D.J. LeMahieu of the Yankees became just the second player in major league history to win a batting title in both the American and National leagues, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. LeMahieu, who led the A.L. with a .364 average this season, and the N.L. with a .348 average in 2016, joined Big Ed Delahanty one of the legends of the late 19th century in this unusual feat. There is even some debate as to whether LeMahieu should be recognized as the first player to do it, as some researchers outside of Elias believe Nap Lajoie should be considered the 1902 A.L. champion, rather than Delahanty, because of a different standard at that time for how a player qualified for the title. Either way, LeMahieu may want to avoid trains and water for a while. Delahanty won the N.L. crown in 1899 and the A.L. one in 1902, and just a year after his second batting title, he was kicked off a train near Niagara Falls and plunged to his death from the International Railway Bridge in a mystery that has fueled speculation for years as to whether he fell, jumped or was pushed. Jimmie Foxx spent years telling people that his 58 homer season in 1932 should have had 60 or more if not for a series of ballpark quirks in Philadelphia that cost him what would have been legitimate home runs in any other stadium. Luke Voit, a first baseman for the Yankees, might understand Foxx's pain, as Voit's 22 home runs in 60 games this season are the equivalent of 59 in a 162 game season. Voit was the only player this year to have more than 20 Jose Abreu of the Chicago White Sox was second with 19 and his rate of one home run per 9.68 at bats has been beaten only by Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Babe Ruth, Sammy Sosa, Jim Thome, Mickey Mantle, Hank Greenberg and Roger Maris. That's fairly good company to keep. He managed to play in 59 of his team's 60 games, and was as dominant as expected on the base paths. He led the majors with 24 stolen bases the equivalent of 64 in a full season. He had eight more than any other player, and while that may not sound like a wide gap, a player with eight steals this season would have tied for the 16th most in the majors.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Sports
Working it: Mitchell Moore, of PortraitEFX, demonstrates a popular pose with Indy Gleave, 5, during a workshop at the 1 Original School Sports Photography Boot Camp, at the MCM Elegante Hotel in Dallas in March. DALLAS Chris Wunder, who has spent the better part of the last four decades photographing schoolchildren or managing those who do, used to tell kids they could bring a "personal prop" for spring portrait day. When he forgot to qualify the invitation, some, especially in rural areas, would arrive with shotguns, venomous snakes and, once, even a pony. Other dangers were self abetted. He no longer provides hair spray, after a young mischief maker in North Carolina used a lighter to turn the canister into a flamethrower. Mr. Wunder's toughest battles, however, haven't been getting youngsters to stand still and smile, or getting their parents to fork over 27 for three portraits and a few wallet size photos, but with Lifetouch, the school picture behemoth that photographs roughly half of America's 50 million schoolchildren every fall. The company is based in Eden Prairie, Minn., though, if you ask Mr. Wunder, there is little Edenic about its business practices. In his early days as a manager at Inter State, the country's second largest photo company, Mr. Wunder watched as Lifetouch gobbled up competitors and grew to 1 billion in annual revenue. Now, as the owner of the photo franchise PortraitEFX, he has lost contracts to Lifetouch salesmen with fat expense accounts. Last year, Shutterfly, the online photo printing giant, acquired Lifetouch for 825 million, unlocking even cheaper production costs and a more seamless online sales machine. The "dark side," as Mr. Wunder calls Lifetouch, is set to expand its empire. But there is a resistance, and Chris Wunder is its leader. And so, on a Monday morning in March, the first day of the 1 Original School Sports Photography Boot Camp, at a Dallas airport hotel surrounded in all directions by chain restaurants and strip clubs, Mr. Wunder strutted before a projector screen. He barked advice to three dozen independent school photographers, a mix of veterans and newbies, all of them looking for big paydays. Victor Rosas, 45, of Amarillo, Tex., is trying to make the transition from shooting weddings and quinceaneras that can last 12 hours. Casey Craig, 33, from Conroe, Tex., quit her job at an engineering firm during an energy downturn to shoot full time. Michael Feldman, 62, joined his father's photo business 15 years ago, but with two new high school contracts this fall with 4,000 students, he wants a tuneup. They've paid up to 300 each to be here. Over the next five days, Mr. Wunder, 65, would teach them how to beat not only Lifetouch, but also such regional powers as Strawbridge Studios and Barksdale School Portraits. He would flip PowerPoint slides like "You NEED to earn a good IX FIGURE income" and "Fundamentals of Posing Head Tilt." He would confide the secret to defeating head lice when 100 kids use the same mortarboard: Buy lots of coffee filters and call them "hygienic cap liners." And he would stress the importance of reading obituaries in the local newspaper. "The industry rule is you do three days of mourning before you go in and make a sales call to a new principal," Mr. Wunder said. In Dallas, Mr. Wunder hammered home again and again the need for speed. "Seconds! Seconds! Seconds!" he shouted, pacing the room. He told his pupils to photograph each subject in 39 seconds or less. Mr. Wunder once dreamed of taking down Lifetouch himself. Maybe it's the underdog in him, the coal miner's son, but he just doesn't like its business practices, which he believes are dirty. They lowball competitors and drive them out of business, then hike prices, he said, and lie about competing companies. Other photographers also complained about Lifetouch. Susan Sheridan, a sales rep for Barksdale, said: "A couple of years ago we got some bad press coverage that was totally slanted against us, and we know their reps were sharing that with our customers." And David Alishayev, of the School Photo Company, a small outfit in Queens, said that Lifetouch had angered a school client when it raised the price at the last minute on photos. Lifetouch sales reps, according to Mr. Wunder, are instructed to weep in front of principals when they lose a contract. Asked about Mr. Wunder's allegations, a Lifetouch spokeswoman replied in an email: "There's plenty of room for national and local players alike." Mr. Wunder wanted to get his PortraitEFX franchises into all 50 states. He set his sights on poaching large national preschool accounts. But he ran out of time. He is nearing retirement, and he knows he needs help slaying the dragon. Boot camps like this one are his last, best hope. Over the first 48 hours, Mr. Wunder showed scores of PowerPoint slides. Amid the more generic life coaching platitudes were concrete tips gleaned from years in the field. Ever thought about head tilt? Allowing for the odd sideways angle, there are basically two d irections a subject's head can go. Years ago, the choice was framed as Peter Pan/Macho Man. Later, informed by changing sensitivities, it was rebranded as orchid/onion. Today, tilting toward the knees is known simply as a masculine pose, and away from the knees as feminine. And God help you if you position a boy the wrong way, Mr. Wunder warned. "Mom may not know why she doesn't like it," he said. It'll be a gut reaction, he added, but she'll either ask for a reshoot or not buy photos. Pens scribbled furiously around the room. Smiles need to land between cheesy and nothing at all. "Get her Mona Lisa look," Mr. Wunder advised. "That's an expression she'll never outgrow." To get there, try "cheeseburger" for young kids, "money" for adolescents and "weekend" for teachers' own portraits. And no touching. Mr. Wunder could not stress this enough. Female photographers can still get away with moving subjects' shoulders or hair, but men can't. Years ago, he got a phone call from Arizona, where one of his photographers was about to be arrested on charges of harassing two girls. The girls later withdrew their accusations, Mr. Wunder said. Over lunch, some of the more experienced photographers bemoaned this last point. They used to enjoy getting hugs from excited students, but no more. "That's a way to race to the bottom," said Kelsey Kleiman, who, with her husband, Dennis, runs Stomping Ground Photo, in Brooklyn. Their studio distances itself from Mr. Wunder's high volume, assembly line techniques. Stomping Ground's photos lots of bright colors and kids jumping in the air could be promotional material for a new NBC prime time comedy. And yet the traditional financial arrangements between photographer and school remain, even in this comparatively progressive corner of the market. During an interview, Kelsey and Dennis, who were on speakerphone, were asked how much they give schools. "Our baseline for fund raising ...," Kelsey said, then went silent. It was hard not to imagine frantic pantomiming from Dennis . "What?" Kelsey continued, seemingly to Dennis. "I can't say that? What?" They muted the call. When they returned, Kelsey and Dennis were on the same page. "I think we probably raise the same or more than our competition," she said. They don't want rivals, be they Lifetouch or Chris Wunder, to outmaneuver them. Before they arrived, Mr. Wunder gave a pep talk. He warned that after the models went through a few times, he would instruct them to start messing up on purpose. And he wanted newbies up close and shooting. Inexperienced photographers shifted uneasily. A few of them sneaked away to the hotel bar to settle their nerves. There's plenty to be anxious about for new entrants to the market. Start up costs are relatively low; 5,000 can buy the equipment needed to photograph a small school. But in April 2018, when Shutterfly purchased Lifetouch, Shutterfly instantly gained access to 10 million American homes, and it wants to shunt parents into its online store and keep them there for life. Even the bigger regional school photo companies are nervous. Ms. Sheridan, of Barksdale, said the acquisition lets Lifetouch turn around photos in days, not weeks, and offer schools an 8 percent cut when parents buy mouse pads and coffee mugs on the Shutterfly website, which the company confirmed. "When Shutterfly's stock goes down, we all get excited," Ms. Sheridan said. (Shares rose to more than 100, an all time high, after the Lifetouch acquisition, but have since lost more than half their value. The stock has traded around 40 a share for the last month.) But Lifetouch is vulnerable too. The company has a one star rating on Yelp, where reviews include a scathing October 2018 takedown with Lifetouch photos attached of a young girl sobbing. In an all caps littered review, her mother curses at the company, apologizes for cursing and says, "I want my money back." Chris North, the C.E.O. of Shutterfly, said in an interview that he is aware of complaints, but that internal data shows parents and schools are largely satisfied. "At the end of the day, we have to delight two parties or we won't be in business," he said. A continuing class action lawsuit by former and current employees alleges that Lifetouch may be less sound than Shutterfly thought. In the mid 2010s, Lifetouch was in financial trouble, according to filings in the suit, and company executives inflated sales figures and cashed out of the employee stock ownership plan as the plan lost more than 840 million in value. Lifetouch declined to comment on the litigation. (A lower court judge had ruled against the plaintiffs in November, and employees are currently appealing.) In a March financial filing, Shutterfly admitted: "We may not realize the benefits we expect to receive from the transaction." Mr. Wunder remains impassioned. In January, he led a panel at the School Sports Photographers Conference in Las Vegas about Lifetouch. One of his PowerPoint slides read: "Never before have high volume photographers been faced with a threat so insidious, it threatens our very livelihood; and not years down the road It begins right NOW." "Turn this way," a photographer shouted. Kylie Marie stood still, with a confused, frozen smile. "Turn this way, honey!" Nothing. Mitchell Moore, 52, Mr. Wunder's business partner and resident kid whisperer, shook his head. Mr. Moore chalks up his easy rapport with children to being "just a bit A.D.D." and also to his stint working at the restaurant chain Golden Corral, where employees were urged to remember names and personal details about diners. "Watch this," Mr. Moore said, then moved his own feet and asked Kylie Marie to copy him. She immediately responded. The photographers oohed and aahed. Moments later, Mr. Moore guided her away, his hand never closer than an inch to her back, blocked by some invisible force field. More children arrived. Mr. Wunder paced the room, urging his students to pick up the pace. "Pretty soon they're going to be ready to go to prom and they'll still be waiting to get their pictures taken!" he said. In a studio setup for tiny tots, Mr. Moore massaged the bald head of a Miami based photographer to elicit a laugh from a toddler . "The things we do to get them to smile," Mr. Wunder said, then laughed. "Might be a little creepy." Two hours and hundreds of photos later, mock picture day was nearly done. Mr. Wunder palmed 20 bills into kids' hands and thanked them for their good work. He still had plenty to cover in the next three days. He would encourage psychological warfare against principals: Contact them two weeks after Lifetouch delivers its pictures, when "mommas" are complaining about poor photo quality and customer service. He would explain how to close deals with Jedi mind tricks: End a bargaining counteroffer with "Fair enough?" And he would outline the school sports industry. Throughout the sessions, Mr. Wunder preached that school pictures are a business, not an art. But as 11 year old Oliver Chen, a late straggler, mugged for the camera and flash bulbs went chunk chunk, he got more expansive. "The real reward comes when you got up on that real crisp autumn morning, and you drove across town, and you set up the equipment and you get greeted by the lunch ladies and sometimes they bring you a biscuit out of the oven," Mr. Wunder said. "And then you see this entourage of little bodies with big smiles and little bow ties and they're looking up to you like, 'The picture man is here.'" He was still in a reflective mood a few minutes later at the hotel bar, whiskey in hand. When floods and fires strike family homes, his photos are the treasures first spirited out, he said. And then, at least once a year, a car crash means the portrait he took of a schoolchild is her last. Mr. Wunder always rush orders and frames a 16 by 20 inch photo for the funeral. The fiercely competitive mask had slipped. Mr. Wunder sat up straighter and took a sip of his drink.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Style
Recent job losses have been nothing short of apocalyptic. Almost 17 million workers more than 10 percent of the work force filed for unemployment benefits over the course of just three weeks. Independent economists suggest that the unemployment rate may already be close to 20 percent, which is similar to its level in the depths of the Great Depression. So how are the Trump administration and its allies responding to this Covid 19 generated jobs crisis? Are they taking it seriously? Or are they doing what they did as the pandemic spread dithering and refusing to take necessary action out of some combination of wishful thinking and political pettiness? You can probably guess the answer. By all accounts, Donald Trump, who insisted until very late in the game that the coronavirus wouldn't be a problem, is now obsessed with the idea of reopening the economy in a few weeks a move epidemiologists say would be disastrous. At the same time, he's balking at taking action to help America cope with the extended shutdown we actually need. Thus, the Trump administration has flatly ruled out any bailout for the U.S. Postal Service, which is in financial crisis. Aside from being an essential part of our nation's life even more than usual in these times, when mail deliveries have become an essential lifeline to families sheltering at home the post office employs 600,000 workers. But apparently those workers don't count.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Opinion
Backlash reigns in schools nationwide after the introduction of Common Core standards. Critics say they are overly difficult, but others say they challenge students to become better thinkers. He could have written about the green toy truck he kept hidden in his room, a reminder of Haiti, a place he did not yet fully understand. He might have mentioned the second place trophy he had won for reciting a psalm in French at church "le bonheur et la grace m'accompagneront tous les jours de ma vie..." his one and only award. He could have noted his dream of becoming an engineer or an architect, to one day have a house with a pool and a laboratory where he would turn wild ideas about winged cars and jet packs into reality. But on a windy April afternoon, as the first real sun of spring fell on Public School 397 in Brooklyn, and empty supermarket bags floated through the sky, Chrispin Alcindor's mind was elsewhere. Almost all of the fourth graders who arrived in Ms. Matthew's classroom in September had failed state exams the previous spring. Only a few students could form persuasive arguments; most filled their notebooks with meandering personal memories. Many struggled with basic math skills. Ms. Matthew, concerned about morale, called each student to her desk at the beginning of the year. "Please don't think you are a failure," she told them, one by one. Ms. Matthew, 32, an immigrant from Grenada who had taught for a decade, knew that her students carried unusual burdens. There was Stella, who had arrived in New York four years earlier without knowing much English, fleeing the horror of an earthquake in Haiti. There was Lamott, who dreamed of one day dribbling down the court of Madison Square Garden, but whose parents rarely took time to read to him at home. And there, at the front of the classroom, was Chrispin, a reserved boy whose cheery glances obscured his own struggles. He was one of three Alcindors in the fourth grade, triplets born during a thunderstorm in Port au Prince on Dec. 27, 2004. Chrispin had little recollection of Haiti; the only reminder he kept was a toy truck given to him by his father too long ago for him to remember. Sometimes he asked his mother, Carline Alcindor, why the family had left for America. Life in Port au Prince was pleasant, she said, and then one day it was not. Ms. Alcindor lost her job as a receptionist and the family could not survive on the money sent by the triplets' father in America. It was time for a change. With the first round of exams finished, Ms. Matthew asked the class to debate the merits of standardized testing. She expressed her own doubts about the value of tests, and she spoke about the No Child Left Behind Act and the Common Core, and how schools sometimes felt pressure to increase test scores. Most of the fourth graders in her class seemed opposed to the idea of tests. But Ms. Matthew pushed them to consider alternatives. If tests were eliminated, what would replace them? But what if a student, by no fault of his own, had trouble finishing his homework? Chrispin, who rarely volunteered to speak in class, raised his hand. "Sometimes when you don't know how to read," he said, "you're going to struggle with everything you have to learn and it's just going to be harder." In mid May, with the end of the school year looming, Chrispin tried to move beyond the stress of exams. He was busy practicing doo wop for a student production of "Grease." He was learning African dance through a program at school. And he had become one of the fastest runners at recess, circling the playground until his lungs gave out. But Chrispin's life was filled with reminders about tests, summer school and the Common Core. His mother had taken to praying daily for his academic success. Haelleca had won another academic award, this one from the City Council, and she had made a habit of reminding her brothers that there was no doubt that she had aced the exams. At P.S. 397, Ms. Matthew was relieved. She thought the tests had been fair, unlike those in the previous year, and she predicted that P.S. 397, as a whole, would do better. She believed the Common Core had made Chrispin a more discerning student, and she had watched his confidence improve over the year. During an end of year evaluation, Chrispin flawlessly read aloud a 100 word passage on apple trees. And in class, he had grown more adept at using evidence to support his arguments. But his comprehension was still weak and his writing could be disorganized, and in math, he was still having trouble with word problems. "Chrispin is going to make strides, it's just going to be a long, long journey," Ms. Matthew said. "To expect him to master all of this very quickly is, I think, ludicrous." In early June, Chrispin's outlook brightened. Preliminary test scores came in, and the results were promising: Chrispin was not among the bottom 10 percent of students in the city. He would be promoted to the fifth grade along with his siblings, and he would not have to attend summer school. Though he would not know until August whether he had passed the exams, he was elated. "Yes!" he said. "I feel so proud of myself. I thought I would do really bad and feel guilty. This gives me a second chance." Without pause, Chrispin began plotting out his summer: days filled with "Assassin's Creed," dinners at Applebee's, Bible school on weekends and a visit to the National September 11 Memorial Museum. Then, with equal certainty, he listed his plans for the next school year: He would get into a good middle school. He would keep up his grades so that he could go on the fifth grade trip. And he would dance across the stage at graduation, a trophy in his hands.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Education
JOHN D'ANASTASIO owns three vacant parcels in South Jersey that he is hoping to develop once the housing market turns around. Based on last year's dismal numbers, that might not happen quickly enough, especially as several of his building permits are to expire by the end of the year. Barbara and James Chiusano are in a similar kind of limbo as they negotiate over a seven acre property in Hammonton approved for 42 garden apartments: They are hesitant to move forward not knowing the fate of their project's approvals. Mr. D'Anastasio and the Chiusanos are among the hundreds of New Jersey builders counting on the state Legislature to renew the Permit Extension Act, which would extend all current building permits until Dec. 31, 2014. Building permits dating back to January 2007 had already been extended for two years in 2008, and again in 2010 for another two. This third renewal is necessary, according to those in the building industry, because of the housing slump. (The Permit Extension Act was enacted in 1992, during an earlier economic downturn, and renewed once in 1994.) "We're starting the sixth year of recession," said Rick Van Osten, the executive vice president of the Builders League of South Jersey. "I don't think anyone expected when the bill was first introduced that we'd need an extension, and then an extension on the extension." The bill (A 1338) passed out of the Assembly Housing Committee on Jan. 30 and now goes to the full Assembly. A similar bill (S743) has been assigned to the Senate Economic Growth Committee. But this latest version of the Permit Extension Act is contentious among environmentalists and smart growth planners, because in addition to extending permit deadlines, it covers "environmentally sensitive areas" in the Highlands, the Pinelands and other rural zones excluded from the permit extensions in the last two rounds. The new bill not only expands the areas that will now qualify for permit extensions, but also retroactively renews permits that had expired in those areas in a rule that New Jersey Sierra Club's director refers to as "the Dracula clause." "This bill puts environmentally sensitive areas back in play," said Jeff Tittel, the director of the Sierra Club's New Jersey chapter. "If they ran out in the last two years, they can come back to life." Chris Sturm, the senior director of state policy for New Jersey Future, said her group, which promotes smart growth planning, was concerned with sections of the Highlands and the Pinelands beyond those in the designated "growth areas" included in the permit extensions. "We understand the need to extend permits in times of economic downturn," she said. "But we're asking, why the expansion into two regions that are designated important for water resource protection?" Carol Ann Short, the chief operating officer of the New Jersey Builders Association, described the new bill as clarifying "what the Legislature had intended with the original Extension Act," by including "certain areas in the Highlands and Pinelands where growth was planned and approvals were granted." The Chiusanos' Hammonton project is in one such area, in the Pinelands; Ms. Chiusano said there were already other apartment complexes adjacent to their property. There is a need in that area for the type of housing they want to build, she said. "There's so much uncertainty in the housing market," she said. "If we had to go back in and do it all over again, that's just not a risk we're willing to assume." Measured by the number of state building permits, the pace of new housing has slowed considerably in the last few years. From January to November 2011 (the period for which the most recent statistics are available), the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs issued building permits for 10,474 residential units, versus 36,870 residential units over the same period in 2005, and 23,374 in 2007. Even so, when combined with more than six million square feet of approved office and retail space, the department estimated, the net value of approved projects yet to be built was in excess of 10 billion in 2011. Failure to renew the Permit Extension Act would mean additional costs for builders throughout the state, and possibly the death of planned projects. Basing his estimate on earlier studies, Mr. Van Osten says permissions and regulations account for 25 to 35 percent of a project's cost. Mr. D'Anastasio estimated that for projects of the size he is planning 112 town houses in Woodstown, 25 single family homes in Deptford and 60 town houses in Magnolia the permit renewal process would cost him an additional 20,000 to 50,000 per project. That amount would cover application fees, engineering escrows, and paying his professional team to reappear before local governments. Should a project be rejected, the cost of redesigning it would be far greater.	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate
Sixteen years after he agreed to buy the last large undeveloped site on the Far East Side, the billionaire developer Sheldon H. Solow has finally begun construction on a new residential tower there. Designed by the Pritzker Prize winning architect Richard Meier, the 556 unit building, 685 First Avenue, is going up just south of the United Nations headquarters on the westernmost lot of the long dormant site, which stretches along the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive from 35th Street to 41st Street. It will be the first building that Mr. Meier, known for his Modernist style and white aesthetic, has designed in black. Rising to 42 stories on the west side of First Avenue between 39th and 40th Streets, the tower will wrap 408 rentals and 148 condominiums in a black glass curtain wall. On the western facade, 69 balconies will offer city views of Midtown. On the eastern side, a recessed niche cut into the 27th and 28th floors, which marks where the rentals end and the condos begin, will light up at night, making its imprint on the city skyline. At about 460 feet, 685 First Avenue will be the architect's tallest in Manhattan, but just shy of the United Nations Secretariat Building's 505 feet. Unlike some other glass sheathed buildings that put residents on display or end up looking like a patchwork of uneven drapes, the black glass facade will shield the interiors during the day. "You would not see all the drapes and the people inside, so the building looks very uniform," said Dukho Yeon, an associate partner at Richard Meier Partners Architects, who is working on the building with Mr. Meier and Mr. Solow. From the inside looking out, however, the black glass will be transparent. The interiors will be shades of white, incorporating white oak flooring, white lacquer kitchen cabinetry, and light colored stone counters. Prices have not yet been determined for the condos or rentals, which are expected to open by early 2019. The building has certainly been a long time coming. Mr. Solow entered into a contract in 2000 to buy three East Side parcels across some nine acres from Consolidated Edison in a partnership with the Fisher real estate family. The total price was 630 million. Over the years, the partnership dissolved, and Mr. Solow proceeded alone with the proposal to rezone the area from manufacturing to allow for residential, commercial and open space uses. He negotiated with city agencies and tussled with the community board en route to approval, and spent more than 100 million on environmental cleanup. In 2008, the city approved a master plan designed in collaboration with Skidmore, Owings Merrill and Richard Meier Partners that originally included six residential towers, an office building, five acres of public parks and walkways, a public school and affordable housing. But work stalled after the recession. In 2010, Mr. Solow sold a slice of the site at the northeast corner of First Avenue and 35th Street to the city's School Construction Authority for 33.25 million, where Public School 281, also known as the River School, now stands at 425 East 35th Street. In 2013, he sold just over an acre between 35th and 36th Streets for 172 million to the JDS Development Group, which is building two luxury rental towers with some 800 units, with leasing expected to begin by the end of the year. Called the American Copper Buildings, the two bending towers, designed by SHoP Architects, are clad in copper and are connected by a three story skybridge that contains a lap pool on one of the floors. It wasn't until March that construction finally began on the foundation for 685 First Avenue. "It's very, very unusual in Manhattan, given the way the market has been now for years, that this land would remain empty," said State Senator Liz Krueger, whose district includes Midtown East. Mr. Solow still has intentions to develop the rest of the site but declined to offer further details. A publicist gave this statement on his behalf: "I really prefer to build one building at a time."	N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification	Real Estate

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