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Nick LaMela, left, and John LaMela, who are twins, and their sister, Amanda LaMela, live in the same building in the financial district. The three siblings say they have one another's backs and a standing Monday night dinner date.Credit...Danny Ghitis for The New York Times Nick LaMela, left, and John LaMela, who are twins, and their sister, Amanda LaMela, live in the same building in the financial district. The three siblings say they have one another's backs and a standing Monday night dinner date. Last summer, Ana Villafane, 26, left behind her life in Los Angeles and moved to New York to make her Broadway debut playing Gloria Estefan in the musical "On Your Feet!" It could have been a very lonely introduction to a new city if not for the fact that her sister, Carmen Villafane, 28, was waiting for her. Carmen helped Ana find a furnished studio, a sublet in Times Square that is just a "forward roll" to the theater and about a 10 block stroll up Ninth Avenue to big sister. "Having her here is grounding," Ana said. "Yeah, I'm surrounded by people, but I don't know any of them. So when you're drowning in that crowd, I know there's one person that not only do I know, but she's family." Some adult brothers and sisters deliberately choose to live on different coasts or at least in different boroughs from one another, happy to leave behind a childhood rival. But others elect to stay near their siblings and help create a second phase of family life. "I've had quite a few siblings who wanted to live in close proximity, if not in the same apartment," said Tiga McLoyd, an associate broker for Citi Habitats in Manhattan. "Many of them are New York City transplants who have left friends and family behind. They love the city, but there's a sense of disconnect that never really goes away. Unless you're lucky enough to have roots in the city, spending time with family is not part of the routine." For Carmen Villafane, the director of communications at Complex, a digital media company aimed at millenials, having her sister nearby is not the same as living close to a friend. "It's different," she said. "I can sit around with her and not speak, which is a lot of our hangs." Ana's vocal rest schedule gives the pair plenty of opportunity to communicate in shorthand, whether they're camping out in her dressing room, or at the studio apartment that Carmen rents for 1,850 a month near Columbus Circle, an address well known to Seamless, the online food ordering service. "The stretch between our apartments, every spot has become 'our spot,' " Carmen said. Despite their opposite work schedules, the sisters are able to take yoga classes or get their nails done together, and meet up for breakfast at Margon, a Cuban place between their apartments that offers a taste of home. The siblings, who grew up in Miami, also look out for each other. When Ana was sick, Carmen dispatched a Postmates delivery of over the counter medicines to her. When Carmen succumbed to a seasonal virus, Ana was there for her. Here are more fascinating tales you can't help but read all the way to the end. None Getting Personal With Iman. The supermodel talks about life after David Bowie, their Catskills refuge and the perfume inspired by their love. A Resilient Team for a Broken Nation. With the Taliban in control, what, and whom, is Afghanistan's national soccer team playing for? The Fight of This Old Boxer's Life Was With His Own Family. A battle among Marvin Stein's family over his fortune broke out, and he suddenly found himself powerless to fight for himself. "I showed up at her office with all the Broadway remedies: Lemon Lozenge from Juice Generation, zinc and ginger." The sisters aren't sure if they will put down roots in New York City, but for now, it is home. "I eventually want to have a family and have them grow up the way I did, with the yard and the whole thing," Carmen said. "But right now I want to be close to her." According to John Logan, a professor of sociology at Brown University: "Family relationships are the strongest part of most people's social networks. So it makes sense that those who don't already have a family setting in the neighborhood where they live might want to create it. This is what people do all around the world." Michelle Mandara DeBellis, 34, and Ani Sandoval, 33, are known as "the sisters" in the Upper East Side building where they have lived for the past 10 years, before husbands and children were part of the picture. "I moved into the building first," said Mrs. DeBellis, a director of media relations at Golin for Nintendo of America. "We were in our 20s then. If the walls could talk!" "We rely on each other," said Mrs. Sandoval, a junior interior designer with Jennifer Flanders and Fifty Two Rooms. "Even for things as silly as one of our husbands is working late and we need coverage" for child care. The nearness of in laws "makes me feel wealthy, having them here for everything," said Ani's husband, Dre Sandoval, 34, the senior creative director at ABC News Marketing and Creative. "Having family built in, family dinners, activities. The ability to just get in a car together and go. Or go to the park. Or have them watch Desi," the Sandovals' 19 month old son. And when scary situations arise for example, when the DeBellises' son, Damian, took a tumble off the bed they know they can rely on their siblings. "I was at a work event," said Damian's father, Frank DeBellis, 36, a sales representative at Wilson Daniels Wholesale. "So Dre took him to the E.R. right away. Things like that, you can't put a price on." The DeBellis family recently welcomed a daughter, Rosie, who is 1 month old. "The boys, they're like brothers," Mrs. Sandoval said. "Because they share a nanny and are together every day and on the weekends, they almost look out for each other." Van C. Tran, an assistant professor of sociology at Columbia University, said: "At the absence of parents, siblings fill in a much needed void and are among the few people that we really trust. As family size has become smaller in recent decades, a greater value has been placed on the familial bond." "The other reason people value siblings," Mr. Tran said, "is the rise of the 'sharing economy' " services like Airbnb and Uber "which is meant to reduce transactional costs in an era of growing financial insecurity and rising unaffordability. In this context of 'sharing,' many people would rather share with their siblings than with strangers." This was certainly the case for the husband and wife team of Edward and Lien Lin when they opened Bricolage, a Vietnamese gastro pub in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Lien Lin, 35, the restaurant's executive chef, depends on her sister, Kathy Ho, 38, an adjunct professor of law/supervising social worker at Fordham University School of Law, and Kathy's fiance, Sean Mauch, 43, a mathematician, for a great deal of child care. Mrs. Lin and Mr. Lin, 37, a chef and a partner in the restaurant, have a 4 year old son, Jaxon. "I really can't imagine how I'd do it without her," said Mrs. Lin, who often puts in 16 hour work days, whether making her banh canh noodles with pickles and tofu in a coconut curry sauce, or washing dishes when short on help. Ms. Ho works at Fordham two days a week and Jaxon is enrolled in a preschool with flexible hours; Dr. Mauch often picks him up. Depending on how late her sister is working, Ms. Ho and Dr. Mauch may take Jaxon to their home and put him to bed there. The arrangement involved some reshuffling. When the Lins moved to New York from California in 2013, Ms. Ho was living on the Lower East Side. The Lins rented a two bedroom apartment for 3,000 a month in the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn, specifically because it was on the same subway line as Ms. Ho's apartment, to make drop offs and pickups of Jaxon that much easier. Then, as the opening of Bricolage drew near, they enticed Ms. Ho and Dr. Mauch to consider Brooklyn. After some deliberation, Ms. Ho gave up her rent regulated apartment and moved into a two bedroom apartment in Downtown Brooklyn, also for 3,000 a month. The sisters now reside on the same street, just a five minute walk from each other. The help has gone both ways, said Ms. Ho, who has been fed by her sister on countless nights as she completes her Ph.D. For the sisters, who are ethnically Chinese refugees from Vietnam, relying on relatives is nothing new. After the family fled to the United States in 1981, "We grew up in a house with 14 people in there," Mrs. Lin said, referring to her childhood home in California. "Our three aunts lived with us, our grandparents lived with us. While my parents were at work, my grandma would watch us and my aunties were there. We just lived with each other and took care of each other." John LaMela, an account coordinator with North 6th Agency, and Nick LaMela, a staff auditor at the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, are identical 23 year old twins. They grew up in upstate Marlboro, N.Y., attended Marist College together, and now share a 2,700 a month studio apartment in the financial district. Their beds are separated by a bookcase. "Sometimes I'll run over to his side and just, like, body slam him," John said. " 'Wake up, wake up! It's Saturday morning!' " Their sister, Amanda LaMela, 27, a men's wear buyer for Ross Stores, lives six floors up in a 2,900 a month studio that she shares with a roommate. The brothers split the rent, but otherwise operate on what they call "the college barter system." If one pays for dry cleaning, the other owes him beer. They do not worry about being too close for comfort. "It's a big enough building that everyone has their own privacy when they want it," John said. "And if we need space from each other, one of us will go upstairs and hang out with Amanda." The LaMelas are one another's backup. Take the night Amanda went to sleep early and was awakened by what she described as "an intense creditor knock" on the door. She texted her roommate, who was out and who promptly texted her brother John. He had not been at home, either, but he was nearby. "He runs over and sweat is dripping from his face," Amanda said, only to discover that the insistent visitor was Nick, who had deviated from their usual secret sibling knock. "So I know if anything did go down, they'd be here in 30 seconds," Amanda said. The LaMelas have a weekly pasta night tradition at Osteria Morini in SoHo, where pasta dishes can be had for 10 on Mondays from 9 p.m. to closing. "I knew they'd love the idea," Amanda said. "And I don't think anyone else would want to meet me at 9 p.m. I've got these two guys who have the same ideas of carbohydrates that I do. They're not the enemy." Aside from the outings, the LaMela siblings rely on one other for moral support. "Say I had a bad day at work," John said. "Amanda is the first person I call." Dr. Logan said: "The sort of social support most young adults need is having someone to talk to, somebody to rely on. That doesn't necessarily require living in the same building, but being in the same town is quite important." The call of homeownership will soon put the LaMelas under different roofs: Amanda is in contract to buy an apartment a four minute walk away, and she and her roommate are moving there. But, she said, if that roommate leaves, she would consider rooming with John Nick has a serious girlfriend. And maybe one or both of the twins will want to buy a place in her building; she'll be on the lookout. For the DeBellis and Sandoval families, real estate will also spell the end to the sibling setup. The Sandovals will move to Old Greenwich, Conn., this summer after the birth of their second child. Priced out of the city, they recently bought a three bedroom fixer upper for 646,000. And even though the DeBellises plan to eventually follow the Sandovals to suburbia, no doubt to a home within a short driving distance, the move marks the end of an era for the sisters. "The city can be tough," Mrs. DeBellis said, tearing up at the thought of the Sandovals' impending move. "I love the city. But it will be a much different experience without my sister being down the hall."
0
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Real Estate
The empty, echoing shopping malls of Western cities are a testament to the biggest crisis borne by global clothing and retail industries in over a generation. But the impact of the coronavirus on retail is a two part devastation, as the daily flow of thousands of orders placed by Western retailers to supplier factories in South Asia has suddenly slammed to a halt. Factory owners face financial ruin, while the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of garment workers hang in the balance. "Our situation is apocalyptic," said Rubana Huq, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), which represents Bangladeshi factory owners. "The cancellations and hold instructions coming in from Western fashion retailers are pushing us to the point of insolvency, with massive open capacity and raw materials liabilities." Fast fashion retailers rarely own the factories that supply them with their wares. Instead, the vast majority of garment and footwear orders are outsourced to suppliers in emerging markets like Bangladesh, where overhead is cheap and the cost of human labor is cheaper. Bangladesh, in particular, which has been the site of one of the most effective campaigns of the globalized era to improve labor and safety conditions for garment workers, has seen more than 2.8 billion worth of orders canceled or postponed since the start of the coronavirus crisis, according to Ms. Huq. Ready made garments comprised 84 percent of Bangladesh's total exports, worth 40.5 billion, in its 2019 fiscal year, according to data posted on the website of the BGMEA. This loss compromises the ongoing employment of more than two million Bangladeshi garment workers. "The situation is very bad. The Bangladeshi supply chain is in complete disarray with many foreign brands acting irresponsibly," said Sharif Zahir, the managing director of the Ananta Group, which owns seven factories with a total of 26,000 workers. His company supplies brands that include H M, Zara, Gap, Levi's and Marks Spencer. According to Mr. Zahir, most Bangladeshi factories had already faced losses or thin margins since last year because of government implemented wage increases in December 2018. Now, many buyers were canceling orders that had been produced, delaying payments and asking for discounts on already shipped goods. "We have been left with around 20 percent of our orders for April. Beyond that, everything is uncertain," Mr. Zahir said. On March 26, the country deployed soldiers and police to enforce the start of a nationwide 10 day shutdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The densely populated country of 160 million people is deemed to be at a high risk of increased infections because hundreds of thousands of overseas Bangladeshi workers had returned home in recent weeks, often traveling from virus affected nations to cramped and closely confined living conditions with little sanitation. In an indication of the importance of the garment sector, which provides 80 percent of the country's export earnings, retail factories are currently an essential industry, though the majority are currently closed. "Factories are likely to empty of orders from April onward and are not in a position to pay salaries to workers. We understand it is a difficult time for buyers but they must understand that garment manufacturers are currently the weakest link," said Mr. Zahir. "Workers are the responsibility of brands as well. They have better access to liquidity and governments offering much bigger rescue packages." A survey of factory owners in Bangladesh by Pennsylvania State University's Center for Global Workers' Rights found that millions of workers, mostly women from rural areas, had already been sent home without owed wages or severance pay. According to the survey, nearly all Western buyers refused to contribute to worker wages, and 70 percent of furloughed workers had been sent home without pay. Big name retailers have been at pains to stress that the cuts hit all areas of their businesses. After weeks of pressure, H M said, on March 30, that it would take and pay for the shipments of goods that had already been manufactured for the company, as well as those currently in production. It said it would not negotiate prices on orders that had already been placed. But the Swedish retailer has also warned that it will have to cut jobs; the pandemic has closed more than two thirds of its 5,000 shops worldwide and has threatened landlords with the possibility of leaving leases early if sales don't start to recover. "We are doing everything in our power in the H M group to manage the situation related to the coronavirus," said H M's chief executive Helena Helmersson. "My hope is that we will be able to get operations up and running again as soon as possible." On March 31, Inditex, which owns Zara among other retailers and has temporarily closed nearly 4,000 of its stores, said it too would pay suppliers for orders that had already been produced. PVH, which owns Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, and the British high street retailer Marks Spencer have also followed suit. The vast majority of brands, however, are a long way from similar commitments. Primark, one of the largest purchasers of garments in Bangladesh, does not sell online. All 376 Primark stores in twelve countries are now closed until further notice, which represents a loss of some 807 million of net sales per month, the company said. It has frozen all future orders. "The current situation has been so fast moving. We could not have foreseen that over the course of 12 days, our stores in every country in which we operate have had to close," said Paul Marchant, the chief executive of Primark, last week. "We have large quantities of existing stock in our stores, our depots and in transit, that is paid for and if we do not take this action now we will be taking delivery of stock that we simply cannot sell," Mr. Marchant continued. "We recognize and are deeply saddened that this will clearly have an effect throughout our entire supply chain. This is unprecedented action for unprecedented and frankly unimaginable times." Although there are now signs from China that some fashion production lines are slowly starting to resume manufacturing, few industry observers are expecting things to get any easier for retailers. "Though retailers are striving to entice spending with discounting and promotions, or with loungewear at the forefront of marketing campaigns, we expect these to have little impact at present as consumers acclimatize to new daily routines," said Kate Ormrod, the lead retail analyst at the market research company GlobalData. "Significant fallout across the fashion sector is expected this year as fundamentally weaker players fail to recover once demand finally picks up." The challenge now facing the country is not only to ensure that the bailout gets to the right place, but that safety standards do not slip as factory owners find themselves in an increasingly desperate situation. "It is essential for the government to engage in social dialogue with employers' organizations and trade unions to come up with practical solutions which will keep people safe and protect jobs," said Tuomo Poutiainen, country director for Bangladesh at the International Labor Organization. "Proven social protection measures like supporting job and income security, preventing poverty and unemployment, and strengthening economic and social stability and peace is critical," he said. Koen Oosterom, the manager for Bangladesh and Myanmar for Fair Wear, a membership organization paid for by brands to improve working conditions, said that the fashion business faced an "extremely grim and unprecedented" situation, far worse in terms of potential ramifications than the financial crisis of 2008. "There have been many tough conversations as of late about the sustainability of the industry. This situation is underscoring how unsustainable many of its practices really are," he said. "Many in precarious work have lost their income and in some areas, people have never been more exposed to exploitation." As some fashion retailers fight to stave off bankruptcy in the next few months, there is concern that recent ethical and environmental improvements in manufacturing will not be maintained. "Events are playing out in countries where there is very little in terms of social security and labor laws are not always upheld," Mr. Oosterom said. And as for the overtures by Western brands and retailers in recent weeks to making masks and hospital gowns for front line medical workers, Ms. Huq said that the change would offer little reassurance or practical solutions for the army of garment workers in lockdown. "We would need substantial support to change toward those sorts of product lines. The raw materials would have to be sourced and certified, it is stepping toward a totally new type of supply chain," Ms. Huq said. "For them, it's a question of the survival of the businesses," she said, of Western retailers. "For us, it's the survival of our 4.1 million workers."
0
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Fashion & Style
A populist insurrection is gaining force in much of the world, drawing middle class and blue collar recruits who lament that they have been left behind by globalization. This upheaval threatens to upend the economic order that has prevailed since the end of World War II. This was evident before Donald J. Trump's triumphant rogue campaign for the American presidency. Now it is beyond argument. National leaders in Europe and North America are scrambling to placate energized, often unruly groups of people demanding change and a more generous share of the economic spoils. But the options for addressing the deficiencies of capitalism are severely constrained both by traditional political realities and by the broader truths of the global economy. In Britain, which shocked the world in June with its so called Brexit vote to abandon the European Union, and now in the United States, with its stunning elevation of Mr. Trump, electorates have essentially handed governments a mandate to limit free trade. Voters have unleashed this action plan in the name of lifting the fortunes of working people. But trade is such an elemental part of the modern global economy that impeding it is almost certain to produce the opposite effect. It will damage economic growth, diminishing prosperity for all. Mr. Trump has promised to slap tariffs on Chinese imports and to punish American companies that manufacture their wares in Mexico. Britain's new Conservative government has signaled that it may depart Europe's vast single market as it negotiates divorce terms. All of this may make for satisfying politics among populists railing against the predations of elites. After the American election, like minded politicians, including Marine Le Pen of France, Nigel Farage of Britain and Viktor Orban of Hungary, welcomed the victory of Mr. Trump. But speeches do not translate into viable job creation strategies. The American economy depends on access to a global supply chain that produces parts used by innumerable industries, along with a great range of consumer goods. Mexico and China are central actors. Disruption threatens to increase costs for American households. Tariffs on China might provoke a trade war that could slow economic growth, while most likely just shifting factory work to other low wage nations like Vietnam and India. Mr. Trump's election and Brexit together underscore a central facet of these times. The old ideological divisions of left and right have effectively been eclipsed by a new economic taxonomy those who have benefited from globalization and those who have not. In Britain, affluent communities of professionals who hire Romanians to clean their homes and who enjoy getaways to Spain overwhelmingly voted to stay in the European Union. Industrial communities that have lost jobs as manufacturing has shifted east to Eastern Europe, Turkey and Asia generally voted to leave. In the United States, college educated urbanites making a comfortable living in the quintessential trades of globalization finance, technology and media disdained Mr. Trump. People in the center of the country who lack degrees and have seen jobs transferred to China and Mexico played a leading role in delivering the White House to Mr. Trump. What happened on Day 2 of Elizabeth Holmes's testimony. Kevin Spacey was ordered to pay 31 million to the 'House of Cards' studio after sexual harassment allegations. In northeastern England (something like the Rust Belt of Britain) people who voted to leave Europe speak openly about doing so to punish those who beseeched them to vote to stay people like the exceedingly unpopular former prime minister David Cameron. The situation is so depressed, it cannot get worse, the logic runs. Any economic pain will fall on wealthy Londoners, people say. But that is almost certainly nonsense. A rupture of trade with Europe is likely to hit these industrial communities hardest. And if that happens, the people living there will be angrier than ever. Mr. Trump drew support from factory town laborers who have traditionally voted for Democrats but did not trust Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. Many recall how her husband forged the North American Free Trade Agreement, which helped cause a shift of American manufacturing to Mexico. If Mr. Trump does not find a way to satisfy their high expectations, these people are likely to feel deceived. And any proposals need to navigate the reliably treacherous politics of Washington. The latest piece of Trump real estate, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, sits just down the street from a Capitol full of people who got themselves elected in part by railing against deficits and promising to cut federal spending. The soon to be President Trump has vowed to counteract the problems afflicting workers by unleashing a wave of infrastructure spending that will generate jobs for skilled hands. Perhaps he will have more luck than his predecessor, President Obama, whose own plans for infrastructure spending died time and again at the hands of Republican deficit hawks. Mr. Trump is at least on paper a fellow Republican. But whatever happens from here, one may assume that populist ferment is unlikely to exhaust its vast reservoir of grievances anytime soon. Eight years after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the people who caused it reckless investment bankers have bounced back almost as if it never happened, while many American homeowners and wage earners have yet to recover their lost wealth. Europe remains mired in stagnation. Some economies Italy, Greece and Finland among them have gone a decade without any collective economic progress. In Spain, nearly 44 percent of young people are unemployed. Many of Europe's problems represent a failure to reshape its policies to spur growth. Germany is the most powerful actor in Europe, and Germany maintains an obsession with budget austerity as the response to all economic problems. Since Britain's vote to leave Europe, some regional leaders have argued that Brexit amounts to a warning for the European Union: Absent a new economic philosophy, the situation will continue to generate hostility among a populace that cannot pay its bills. "If you want to close this divide and you want to persuade your citizens that there is opportunity in the internationalization of the economy and innovation, you need to invest a lot," said the Italian minister of economic development, Carlo Calenda, during a recent interview in Rome. "Otherwise populism will prevail, and this is a risk that we are seeing all around the world, also in the United States. And this will be a disaster for the economy, and for the geopolitical situation." He said this before Mr. Trump was elected. But Germany remains implacably opposed to spending more aggressively, continuing to put stock against all empirical evidence into the idea that cutting spending and eliminating worker protections are the keys to prosperity. Only Britain has taken the challenge as an opportunity to alter its fiscal policies. The new chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, has promised to scrap the deficit reduction targets of his predecessor, George Osborne. Democracy is fundamentally a means by which citizens get to tell their leaders what they want. What many now want is to banish their leaders. Either the new leaders will find a way to make global capitalism a more enriching proposition for larger numbers of people, or they, too, risk being swept aside as anger builds.
0
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Economy
A new documentary looks at the role of media in the Civil Rights era. And Nickelodeon's annual awards show is still "sliming" after all these years. HOPE FURY: MLK, THE MOVEMENT AND THE MEDIA 8 p.m. on NBC. In a March 1956 article, The New York Times described the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as "a rather soft spoken man with a learning and maturity far beyond his 27 years." It's an early example of the mainstream media's coverage of King. This new documentary, narrated by the NBC anchor Lester Holt, uses King as its center as it examines the power of the media and images in the Civil Rights movement, and features a discussion of present day activists' use of media. It begins by comparing Diamond Reynolds, who live streamed the aftermath of the 2016 shooting of her boyfriend, Philando Castile, to Mamie Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till whose decision to allow her son's remains to be published in Jet magazine helped bring the brutality of the era into the public record. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the activist Diane Nash and the Rev. Al Sharpton are interviewed. ATOMIC BLONDE (2017) 8 p.m. on HBO. What happens when you reimagine James Bond as a blond, female spy? According to the The Times's Manohla Dargis, you get "lavishly violent, inventively choreographed fights that have been glued together by nonsense and Charlize Theron." Ms. Theron stars as Lorraine Broughton, a British secret service spy who is on an assignment in Berlin shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, with a cast that includes James McAvoy and John Goodman. PACIFIC RIM (2013) 8 p.m. on F.X. If you're planning on seeing "Pacific Rim: Uprising," (and you might want to, our critic writes), this first installment directed by Guillermo del Toro will get you acquainted with the robots versus monsters story. "If you walk in expecting subtlety, or even novelty, you may find yourself more tormented than entertained," the Times's A. O. Scott wrote. "But 'Pacific Rim' is also a reminder either just in time or much too late that this kind of movie can and should be fun." 2018 KIDS' CHOICE AWARDS 8 p.m. on Nickelodeon. With everything else going on in the world, viewers might take comfort in the fact that they can still tune in to watch celebrities get doused in green slime during this annual children's film awards show. John Cena returns to host. RED TREES (2017) on Netflix. Marina Willer's documentary tells the story of her father's family, one of 12 Jewish families to survive the Nazi occupation of Prague during World War II. The cinematographer Cesar Charlone composes artful shots; the actor Tim Pigott Smith and Ms. Willer both provide narration. FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2009) on iTunes and Amazon. If Wes Anderson's "Isle of Dogs" isn't enough to fully scratch your itch for meticulously crafted stop motion animals this weekend, check the director's adaptation of this Roald Dahl story. George Clooney voices the devious titular character, in a cast that includes the voices of Meryl Streep and Bill Murray. It's a film that "not everyone will like," The Times's A.O. Scott wrote, adding, "And if everyone did, it would not be nearly as interesting as it is."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Television
DORAL, Fla. Talking is a skill most children take for granted. But not in this classroom. A dozen young children sit in a circle, dressed for pajama day. Some clutch their knees or a stuffed animal. A boy in Spiderman sleepwear looks worried but eager as he musters the courage to speak aloud. "Who can be the first person to tell me what day it is?" asks Alejandra Golik, a student therapist leading the session. All the children, ages 6 to 10, know the answer. After an achingly long pause, a 10 year old girl mouths, "Thursday." Her response is barely audible. Still, it's progress, and here the faintest whisper is applauded. It has been months, sometimes years, since these children have talked to anyone apart from family. The children have selective mutism, an anxiety disorder, and they are terrified of talking in social situations. They may be chatterboxes at home, but at school or around unfamiliar faces, they are stone faced and silent. Experts estimate that roughly one in 140 children are selectively mute; most elementary schools have at least one student with the condition. Selective mutism can impede academic achievement and socialization, and lead to isolation and withdrawal from rituals like birthday parties and playground friendships. The problem usually begins before age 5, and early intervention can help. Treatment usually involves cognitive behavioral therapy, with modifications for children who don't talk to unknown adults therapists included. If C.B.T. fails, drugs like Prozac may be prescribed in low doses. But now researchers are taking a different tack: intensive, weeklong immersion programs, like this one run by Florida International University, in which selectively mute children are put through a variety of exercises to practice what frightens them most. Classroom immersion may work more quickly than standard therapy, some experts say. And it exposes children to the need to speak in front of and with their peers. "With six hour days, they have time to process, adjust and practice multiple situations with repeated exposure," said Jami Furr, director of the selective mutism program at Florida International's Center for Children and Families. "The idea is to translate gains to a real school setting, where they have the most limited speech." Last month's program run by Florida International enrolled 26 children who were split into two classrooms, one for elementary school patients and one for those younger than age 6. Out of town families arrived days before the classroom immersion for several three hour sessions. Each child was assigned an adult counselor called a "brave buddy," and the first task was to try to speak to him or her. A parent was present until the listening therapist could slowly be brought closer. Later, during immersion sessions without the parents, counselors helped each child to navigate days of board games, scavenger hunts and other exercises gradually requiring them to answer questions and speak up. The classes culminated with a trip to a diner for hamburgers. "We think of it as a bravery ladder where each rung represents a step of increasing difficulty, say, speaking to a new person, speaking in a louder voice, or maybe speaking in full sentences instead of one word replies," said Rachel Merson, a psychologist at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University, which runs a similar program to treat selective mutism. Dr. Yulia Perch, a psychiatrist from Long Beach, Calif., brought her son Leo, 9, to the Florida program. From the first through third grades, she said, he never spoke to his teacher or classmates. After the conversation on the beach, his mother said, "he understood the human reward." During the second session, Dr. Perch was astounded when Leo managed a whisper to his counselor. On his fourth day of the immersion program, he was asked the date in front of the group. "The 30th," he said distinctly, abandoning the modest whisper he had used just three days ago. "He's had this so long that I wasn't sure he would talk at all," Dr. Perch said afterward. Children with selective mutism are often misdiagnosed; pediatricians, parents and teachers sometimes mistake mutism for shyness. But there are important distinctions. A shy child is always reserved, even at home, but may warm up to a new person after a few minutes. A child with selective mutism may be outgoing at home and never warm to strangers. Delayed treatment can exacerbate the problem, experts say. "Every day you are not better you are getting worse and getting better at being an avoider," said Steven Kurtz, a psychologist in Manhattan who treats selective mutism. Melissa Shattuck, of Huntsville, Ala., was shocked to discover that her chatty 6 year old, Lily, hadn't spoken a word to classmates at a holiday party. The girl's teacher had assumed Lily was withdrawn at home, too, Ms. Shattuck learned. "We saw two different Lilys," she said. Only after the party did Ms. Shattuck realize that her daughter needed treatment for selective mutism. Immersive programs now exist in several states. Dr. Kurtz helped start one at NYU Langone Medical Center and another at the Child Mind Institute in New York. Richard Gallagher, a director of the selective mutism program at NYU Langone's Child Study Center, said weekend sessions would be held this fall at a campus in Hackensack, N.J. In October, Dr. Kurtz plans to post free online educational videos for parents, teachers and caregivers who wish to help children with selective mutism. Even after intensive help in the Florida program, some children weren't able to speak audibly. By week's end, four of the 26 were still struggling to speak aloud. "Some take it and run with it, and for others, it's baby steps," Dr. Furr said. On the last day, many of the children were able to order burgers and fries on their own at the diner. But Elizabeth, a 6 year old redhead from Texas, only whispered her order to her counselor, who relayed it to the waitress. When the food arrived, Elizabeth was unable to tell another counselor that the chicken nuggets were hers. Given an iPhone that held recordings of her saying "yes" and "no" captured by her parents, Elizabeth pressed the yes button, then dug in. "It's definitely frustrating that we didn't see more progress," said Jonathan, the girl's father, who asked that the family's last name be withheld for privacy's sake. "On the other hand, with just four lead in sessions and a week of school, she's talking to someone she had never met," he added, brightening a bit. "It's huge."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Health
He Has Driven for Uber Since 2012. He Makes About 40,000 a Year. COTATI, Calif. Uber's public stock offering next month will make a bunch of people remarkably rich. Peter Ashlock is not one of them, although he has toiled for the ride hailing company almost since the beginning. Mr. Ashlock, who will be 71 next week, has racked up more than 25,000 trips as an Uber driver since 2012. His Nissan Altima has 218,000 miles on it nearly the distance to the moon. His passengers rate him 4.93 out of five stars. His favorite review: "Dude drove like a cabdriver." While he is an integral part of Uber's success, Mr. Ashlock is barely getting by. His 2018 tax return will show an adjusted gross income in the neighborhood of 40,000, better than 2016 and 2017. But he has maxed out his 3,200 credit limit at the local Midas car repair shop and needs to come up with 5,000 to pay his taxes. He has Social Security but no savings to buy a new car that will let him keep working. Silicon Valley has always been a lottery where immense wealth is secured by a few while everyone else must hope for better luck some other time. Rarely, however, has the disparity been on such stark display as with Uber. Its stock market value is expected to be about 100 billion, which would make it one of the richest Silicon Valley public offerings of all time. Among those with something to celebrate: Uber's founders, the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, the elite venture capitalists Benchmark and Google's GV, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and the mutual fund giant Fidelity. Some have already cashed in. Travis Kalanick, Uber's co founder and chief executive until he was forced out after a series of scandals, reaped 1.4 billion by selling fewer than a third of his shares to private investors in 2017. As independent contractors, drivers are not eligible for employee benefits like paid vacations or stock options. Uber said Thursday that it would offer bonuses of 100 to 10,000 to long serving drivers. Its chief competitor, Lyft, did the same when it went public in March. Mr. Ashlock illustrates the hollow promise of the so called gig economy, which billed itself as being superior to the usual manager employee relationship. It promised to harness the power of technology to liberate the struggling millions. "Uber is a new way of working: It's about people having the freedom to start and stop work when they want, at the push of a button," Mr. Kalanick said in 2016. The old style taxi companies were an ideal villain. Taxi drivers, Uber proclaimed, were oppressed workers. In a 2014 press release, it said cabdrivers were required to spend "over 40,000 per year just to lease their taxi, so that wealthy taxi company owners can reap the benefits of drivers having no other option to make a living." Being an Uber driver, by contrast, was "sustainable and profitable," the company said. Drivers were described as entrepreneurs with a median income of 74,000 in San Francisco and 90,000 in New York. A Denver cabby who switched to Uber was quoted: "I feel emancipated." The Federal Trade Commission found the claims to be false advertising, and the company agreed to a 20 million settlement. In 2018, working mostly for Uber and a small amount for Lyft, he drove and drove and drove. That produced gross receipts of 88,661. The companies took 20,000 in commissions and fees. He can deduct 30,000 on his taxes for gas and depreciation. A small class action settlement and Social Security helped his bottom line, but payments on an old student loan hurt it. The more Mr. Ashlock drives, the faster his car depreciates, but it also speeds closer the moment when he will need to spend 23,000 he doesn't have on a new Altima. He's driving to pay his car repair bills 5,000 in the last six months, plus new tires. "That was Uber's big innovation make the drivers absorb the overhead," he said. "It's your classic rat race," said Michael Reich, an expert on the economics of ride sharing and a co chairman of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California, Berkeley. "You get deeper into a hole over time." Getting out poses its own problems. In a country that values the young and cheap, Mr. Ashlock has few other options to make a living. "I am rather at Uber's mercy," he said. Driving for Uber is not a profession that lends itself to fame, but Mr. Ashlock has achieved more than any of his three million peers around the world. He has been quoted extensively, becoming one of ride sharing's public faces by presenting a driver's point of view. He is not an activist. There was a recent strike by drivers in Los Angeles. Mr. Ashlock didn't even hear about it. When he gets really mad at Uber, his rebellion goes only as far as driving for Lyft. That's what he did for much of 2017. His adjusted gross income that year was 22,378. On a recent Wednesday, Mr. Ashlock packed a corned beef sandwich, carrots, some C4 energy powder mixed with water, and a Kirkland Extra Strength Energy Shot. At 4:23 p.m., he set off for San Francisco, where the rides are. He was on a Quest. This is Uber speak for goals the company offers. If he completed 60 trips by Friday morning, for instance, he would get a 30 bonus. An additional 20 trips would yield a further 10. Uber needs drivers out on the streets if riders have to wait, they might take their own car. If Mr. Ashlock does not choose a Quest, he is assigned one. For full time drivers, the goals can be lucrative if undependable: Nearly a quarter of Mr. Ashlock's take home pay from Uber last year was in the form of incentives. This one, however, was too small to bother with. "Thirty dollars," he said, "is like 'I don't care.'" A few minutes after 3 a.m., Mr. Ashlock was home again. According to Uber, he had made 25 trips in nine hours. He earned 200 in rides after Uber's commission, plus 11 in tips and a 13 promotional bonus. That's nearly 25 an hour, which sounds impressive. But it cost 47 to fill up the Altima with gas. And he was actually working longer than he was on the clock. After he dropped off his last passenger and turned off the Uber app, it was 65 miles back to his house. He and his wife used to live in Crockett, which is 20 miles closer to San Francisco, but were evicted when their place was sold two years ago. Their Cotati home, a former farm building, is a bargain for the pricey Bay Area at 1,400 a month. There is lots of room to make art but little natural light. Mr. Ashlock is unsentimental about the cab companies of the past. He knew three cabbies who were murdered. Drivers are safer now, since a credit card is needed to establish an account and get a ride. And they serve people and neighborhoods they never served before. But vomiting is up. Before, he could choose not to pick up 22 year olds who seemed to have had too much to drink; now he must commit to riders before he sees them. A few times a year, passengers hurl in the back seat. Impersonality is up, too. For Uber to be worth 100 billion, it cannot afford to have lots of humans dealing with the drivers. On a recent Saturday night, just as he was winding down a week with 120 trips, Mr. Ashlock got an email from Uber. "Hi Peter," it said. "A rider mentioned that an argument on a recent trip with you made them feel uncomfortable." Which rider? When? What did Mr. Ashlock supposedly say? No details were provided. At other times, Uber's attempts to be chummy can be grating. In a review of Mr. Ashlock's March, it observed: "You drove the most at night. You must be quite the night owl." Uber and Lyft are the first two Silicon Valley companies to go public that rely on millions of low paid workers. That bothered an anonymous Uber employee, who recently wrote on Medium that "we need to do right by our drivers" and called for an end to "exploitative labor practices imposed on a systemically disempowered work force." On days off, Mr. Ashlock works on his art. He has created mixed media heads of loved ones, as well as of public figures who irritate him. Mr. Kalanick was an inevitable choice. The entrepreneur's hair is made of shredded currency, painstakingly glued on a strip at a time. A Yellow Cab is crashing into his left cheek. There is a tattoo of Ayn Rand, the high prophet of selfishness, on his neck. "The sculpture makes me smile," Mr. Ashlock said. "It's the only thing about Uber that does."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Technology
Michael W. Ferro Jr., the former chairman of Tronc, has agreed to sell all of his shares in the company, ending his relationship with the embattled newspaper publisher. Just months ago, Mr. Ferro had envisioned the company, whose publications include The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun and, for the moment, The Los Angeles Times, as a media powerhouse with global ambitions. But Mr. Ferro's decision to sell his shares representing more than 25 percent of the company signifies the further decline of Tronc. A newsroom rebellion at The Times helped lead to its pending sale and a similar revolt happened at The Tribune, whose journalists went public this week with a unionization effort. Tronc's chairman, Justin Dearborn, sent an email to employees on Friday saying that the move was a "private transaction" and did not alter "our business strategy" or the pending sale of the California News Group, which includes The San Diego Union Tribune and smaller publications, along with The Times. Negotiations over the sale of The Times, to Patrick Soon Shiong, a billionaire medical entrepreneur, have dragged but the deal is still expected to be completed in the coming weeks. Dr. Soon Shiong addressed The Times newsroom in person for the first time on Friday, and employees expressed optimism about his pending ownership.
0
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Media
The drug maker Pfizer said on Friday that it had submitted an application to the Food and Drug Administration to authorize its coronavirus vaccine for emergency use, setting in motion an accelerated regulatory process that could allow the first Americans to get a vaccine by the middle of December. Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, announced Wednesday that the vaccine was safe and 95 percent effective, and that it also worked well in older people and in preventing severe Covid 19. Another front runner, Moderna, said on Monday that its vaccine, which uses similar technology, was 94.5 percent effective and that the company also expected to apply soon for emergency authorization. The two vaccines use a synthetic version of coronavirus genetic material, called mRNA, to program a person's cells to churn out many copies of a fragment of the virus. An emergency authorization would allow limited groups of Americans to get the vaccines before the F.D.A. has completed the typical monthslong approval process, but agency officials have made clear through new guidelines that their bar for emergency authorization will be high. In a video message Friday, Pfizer's chief executive, Dr. Albert Bourla, called it a "historic day," and said: "It is with great pride and joy and even a little relief that I can say that our request for emergency use authorization for our Covid 19 vaccine is now in the F.D.A.'s hands." Both of the companies' vaccine candidates began large human trials on the same day, July 27, leading the pack of six vaccines the federal government has invested in through its crash vaccine development program, Operation Warp Speed. If the two vaccines are authorized for emergency use, federal and company officials have said there could be enough doses to immunize about 20 million Americans before the end of the year, a group that would most likely include health care workers and nursing home residents. There are an estimated 17 million to 20 million health care workers in the United States, and about a million people living in nursing homes. After lowering expectations for how many millions of vaccines they can produce this year, the companies expect to ramp up their manufacturing early next year. Like with other kinds of vaccines, mass producing them for the coronavirus has proved to be a complex and delicate process requiring sterile conditions and precise control of temperature and humidity. The mRNA technology has also never been commercially manufactured. If other vaccines are also authorized, hundreds of millions of doses could be available by the spring, according to federal officials. Both Pfizer and Moderna have arranged deals with the government so that the vaccines will be free to Americans and distributed according to plans worked out between the federal government and the states. CVS and Walgreens also have federal deals to begin immunizing nursing home residents. On Tuesday, Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said that 99 percent of the country's nursing homes had signed up to be part of the program. A Canadian senator has died after being hospitalized for Covid. Disney puts worker vaccine mandate on pause after Florida ban on restrictions. How to get a coronavirus booster shot in New York City. Regulators at the F.D.A. plan to take about three weeks to review Pfizer's vaccine before an outside panel of experts meets to review the application the second week of December. That meeting has been scheduled for Dec. 10. The agency typically, though not always, follows the advice of its advisory committees. If committee members reach a consensus about the effectiveness of Pfizer's vaccine, the company could receive emergency clearance by mid December. Because Moderna is also on the verge of submitting its vaccine for review, the outside panel could review the company's vaccine soon after Pfizer's. Pfizer said on Friday that the company has begun regulatory submissions in Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan and Britain, and that it plans to apply in other countries "in the immediate future." Inside the F.D.A., Pfizer's application will be reviewed by the agency's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which has organized large teams of medical and compliance officers, epidemiologists and statisticians to dig into thousands of pages of data about the safety and effectiveness for each vaccine, as well as information on how companies plan to safely and consistently manufacture large batches of the product. The process could take longer if the reviewers come across errors, or if they need to ask for additional data. Regulators expect the manufacturing data to spur intense deliberation, as companies have scrambled to turn over that information in time.
0
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Health
Credit...Hilary Swift for The New York Times Ryan and Moira Goepfert were elated when they were selected for student housing at Columbia University. The move would put them in a renovated doorman building across from campus, and it would save them 600 a month in rent. But after Mr. Goepfert visited the quiet hallways of the university building, the couple turned down the offer. "Almost 100 percent of the reason was our daughter, Grace, and the relationships she's built on our floor," said Mr. Goepfert, 34, who is pursuing a degree at Columbia's School of General Studies. The Goepferts live in a one bedroom rental on West 119th Street in Harlem. Their floor has six children between the ages of 4 months and 7 years and the family next door has a baby on the way. Especially in the winter, the children hang out in the 12 by 15 foot landing outside the elevator. They ride their scooters down the hallway and kick around a ball. While their children are playing, the families keep their doors unlocked. "As the kids have come together, so have the parents," said Mr. Goepfert, whose daughter is 2. "We have dinners together, share toys, hand me downs, get help with last minute babysitting. That kind of community isn't all that common in New York, and it fosters an environment that's so valuable that we turned down a significant amount of money." Then there are the families who stay put sometimes under less than ideal real estate circumstances because of close knit neighborhood relationships, especially those forged among children. These parents are willing to make significant sacrifices in space and living expenses to preserve the uber local community their families have formed with others in nearby blocks or even inside the same building. With the impending arrival of a third child, many families would begin plotting their suburban escape. For the Gilmores, a family of five in South Park Slope, Brooklyn, this wasn't an option. For the last three and a half years, they have lived in a 500 square foot one bedroom on 11th Street, for which they pay 2,100 a month. "Living here means so much to my family," said Lauren Gilmore, 34, who home schools her older child in a neighborhood co op. "We'd rather work out the tensions of being in each other's business all the time and learn to deal with what we have for the sake of all this community." When Ms. Gilmore became pregnant with their third child, she and her husband, Jacob Gilmore, 31, who works for the online clothing company JackThreads, realized they'd have to get creative with the sleeping arrangements. "We had so many things taking up floor space, but we weren't utilizing our nine foot ceilings," Ms. Gilmore said. She began searching online for adult bunk beds and eventually found a company that would custom build a queen over a queen. Now the two older kids sleep on the top bunk together and the baby sleeps with his parents below. For the Gilmores, the lack of privacy is a small price to pay for the network of children. In the frigid winter months, up to eight local families switch off hosting each other's toddlers and preschool age children indoors for daily art projects, baking and dress up. In the summer, these families gather for a weekly barbecue in Prospect Park. Most important to the Gilmores, is a family one block over. Their 5 1/2 year old daughter and the other family's son have become especially close a friendship that has fostered a similar intimacy between the parents. Each Friday night, the Gilmores and their friends around the corner cook a large dinner. "My family is in Columbus, Ohio, and my husband's family is in Columbus and Massachusetts, so my friend operates as our family," Ms. Gilmore said. The Fergusons' 7 year old daughter, Lucia, was born within weeks of Arlo Davis Bivins, who lives one flight up, and their 3 1/2 year old daughter, Senia, is friends with Levi Ullmann, 4, who lives one floor below. The children are inseparable. "There's a flow between apartments; the kids just go up and down," said Ms. McMaster, an associate broker with the Corcoran Group. Ms. McMaster said that having these families in such proximity to her daughters is like having two additional sets of parents. "They're so familiar and familial," said Ms. McMaster, who like her husband is in her 40s. "Arlo's parents will even reprimand Lucia, if the kids get out of hand." Meanwhile, the parents said they try to abide by each other's household rules. Arlo isn't allowed to watch much TV, so the family turns it off when he comes over. Some of the building's older residents have become surrogate grandparents, teaching the children how to garden in the shared backyard and cooking them breakfast. "It's a big intergenerational building," said Mr. Ferguson, an administrator at the Department of Education. "We all grew into families together. It's like what I imagined 1930s or 1890s New York to be." David Favaloro, director of curatorial affairs at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, is quick to point out that city residents at the turn of the last century "would not have romanticized" these types of relationships as we do now. Tenement living would have made the Gilmores' 500 square foot shoe box seem palatial. Many standard tenements in the late 1800s fit three rooms into 325 square feet of space. And if Mr. Ferguson has occasionally felt claustrophobic, crammed into the family's stall size half bath with his daughters and wife, at least he doesn't have to share that toilet with everyone on the floor, as tenement residents once did. But a building doesn't have to be low rise to generate tight bonds. Michele Gold, 44, lives with her husband, Rob Ichelson, 45, and two sons, ages 10 and 11, in the Park Royal, a 15 story luxury building near Central Park West. Ms. Gold, a consultant for the skin care company Rodan and Fields, likens the interaction between her youngest child, Max, and his best friend, Jaret Solomon, 10, three floors up, to her own experience growing up on a cul de sac in Toronto. "There were no fences, so you could run through all the yards," she said. "I had sleepovers all the time at my best friend's house. It almost feels like a similar experience in the building." The boys use an internal house phone to call up and down to see if the other is home, and they frequently eat dinner at one another's apartments. On weekends, they run through the hallways or play hockey in the building's playroom. Soon their parents will allow them to go to the park and playground together without adult supervision. Not that every member of the Gold Ichelson household feels so strongly about their two family suburbia. For the last year, Mr. Ichelson, who works in advertising at DirecTV, has been eyeing the real estate listings and driving his wife to open houses. "He wants more space," she said. "He's over sharing a living room with the kids." But Ms. Gold is loath to leave and not just because of the boys. Through Max and Jaret, Ms. Gold and Jaret's mother, Hillary Solomon, have become close. Now the families have Thanksgiving together: Appetizers and dessert are in the Gold Ichelson apartment; dinner is at the Solomons'. It's a friendship, in fact, that Ms. Gold anticipates outlasting the children's. "I can't make sure that relationships the boys have now will remain strong into the future," she said. "I don't know a single person that I was friends with in fifth grade. But Hillary and I will carry through regardless of what happens with the kids." In Brooklyn, the Fergusons recognize that their children and the neighbors' children might eventually grow apart, but they don't anticipate this happening anytime soon. "They're at the age when girls and boys separate and that just isn't the story for these kids," Mr. Ferguson said. "They'll stay like siblings or cousins, even if Lucia goes punk rock and Arlo goes Celine Dion." But not all relationships are without tension. Children, like adults, can blow hot and cold on their friends, and the periods of frost can be awkward. It's difficult enough in the suburbs, but even worse when you're stuck in a painfully slow prewar elevator with the parents of your child's frenemy. In Brooklyn, Ms. Gilmore has learned to turn neighborhood tensions into teachable moments. One recent encounter, she said, presented the "perfect opportunity for my daughter to learn how to talk to people who rub you the wrong way." For the Gilmores, the surrounding blocks seem like a small town, their own urban microcosm. And if that means bumping into some people you'd rather not, it also means having close friends nearby. Ms. Gilmore is hoping to make her queen bunk beds work as long as possible. "For now, it's really doable," she said.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Real Estate
HONG KONG As the White House prepares for a Washington visit by the man who is expected to run China for the coming decade, trade tensions between the United States and Beijing are on the rise. On Tuesday, a coalition of big American labor unions, Democratic politicians and trade advocacy groups plans to start campaigning for the Obama administration to file a series of trade cases against China in the auto industry. They accuse Beijing of unfairly subsidizing Chinese auto parts makers and illegally restricting the exports of crucial raw materials that foreign parts makers need to stay competitive. The group says a 900 percent increase in auto parts imports from China over the last decade, to nearly 12 billion a year, is to blame for job losses in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania three swing states that the administration cannot easily ignore in a presidential election year. "The Chinese have cheated," said Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, who is a Congressional leader of the trade effort along with Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan. The group has been preparing its campaign for months. But it may be sensing a new opportunity after President Obama signaled a tougher trade stance against China in his State of the Union address last week, saying he would set up a trade enforcement unit to investigate unfair Chinese practices. Separately, the Commerce Department is considering whether to levy punitive tariffs against China over green energy technology. And on Monday, Washington was on the winning side of a World Trade Organization ruling against China for its export restrictions on industrial minerals. Senator Brown said Washington's appetite for a more assertive trade policy was whetted last month by China's imposition of steep tariffs on 4.9 billion a year of imports of sport utility vehicles and large cars from the United States. Hoping to reduce the trade tensions just before Mr. Xi's visit, Chinese officials are preparing to send at least six business delegations on buying trips to the United States, people familiar with the plans but not authorized to discuss them said. Similar delegations have preceded past visits by top Chinese leaders to Washington and have focused on bundling planned purchases of Boeing jets, American grain and other exports into multibillion dollar contracts that can be signed at elaborate ceremonies. The Obama administration has also made a few small conciliatory moves. The Commerce Department planned to issue a preliminary ruling on Feb. 13 on whether to impose tariffs on Chinese solar panels to offset reported Chinese export subsidies. But when the United States and China agreed last week that Feb. 14 would be the date for Vice President Xi's visit to Washington, the department pushed back its ruling until March 2. But small gestures may not overcome the shock among American trade officials and auto industry executives last month when China imposed the tariffs on American vehicles. An adviser to the Chinese commerce ministry, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to comment, said that decision had been based mostly on jockeying among Chinese factions over the need to show toughness toward the United States and did not signal a broader shift in Chinese policies. The Chinese move came as American labor unions, Democratic politicians, policy research groups and trade lawyers were already in the final stages of the auto parts campaign that they plan to announce in Washington on Tuesday. Besides numerous Democratic members of Congress, the coalition includes the United Steelworkers union, the United Automobile Workers union, the labor backed Economic Policy Institute and the trade law firm Stewart Stewart, as well as the Wessel Group, a trade strategy firm. Although the U.A.W. and the Economic Policy Institute are new to the group, the others are the same parties that persuaded the Obama administration in September 2010 to start a broad investigation of whether China had violated international trade rules with policies like subsidies for renewable energy manufacturing. For the new campaign, the coalition has been preparing legal briefs arguing that the administration should file trade cases at the Commerce Department and at the W.T.O. to challenge a wide range of reported Chinese subsidies for auto parts exporters. They also seek United States challenges to China's export restrictions on rare earth metals, which are needed for many auto parts. The legal briefs also call for a W.T.O. challenge to Chinese rules that pressure American automakers to transfer to China their latest electric car technology, like that for the Chevrolet Volt, if they want these cars to qualify for green energy subsidies when sold in China. Notably, the complaints are coming from labor proponents, and not auto parts makers, which have many factories in China as well as in the United States. Like companies in most industries, they have been reluctant to risk retaliation by questioning Chinese policies. Auto parts from China now dominate the American market for many replacement parts used by body shops, and they are starting to be used as original equipment in the United States as well. Parts categories with big surges in imports from China include radiators, ignition components, wheels and bearings. The auto parts industry accounts for three quarters of the approximately 600,000 people directly employed in auto manufacturing in the United States. That proportion has been slowly rising for many years as automakers have concluded that it is cheaper to buy large modules, often made at nonunion factories, instead of using expensive, unionized labor at assembly plants to put together a lot of parts and then install them in cars. But the auto parts jobs have been a growing share of a shrinking pie, according to a paper from the Economic Policy Institute, which calculated that 400,000 parts jobs were lost from November 2000 to November 2011. The institute's paper, to be released on Tuesday, did not calculate how many of those job losses were the direct result of factories moving to China, as opposed to other causes, like greater automation of American factories. The Chinese shipments "have had a big impact, and the impact is growing," said Bob King, the president of the U.A.W. In separate telephone interviews, Mr. King and Leo W. Gerard, the president of the United Steelworkers union, sketched different views on how the auto parts coalition would proceed this spring. Mr. King, of the auto workers union, said he wanted the administration to confront China but did not favor legislation by Congress that would force specific actions on the issue. The administration's bailout of General Motors and Chrysler in 2009 saved the American auto industry from collapse, he said, and so the White House should be entrusted with "the flexibility to figure out the best way to protect the interests of the American people." But Mr. Gerard, for the steelworkers, said he was already working with Democrats and Republicans in Congress to force the administration to file trade cases. "We're going to take the case to the Congress and push the government to take the case," he said. Senator Stabenow, of Michigan, said in an e mail that there was broad interest in Congress in the issue. "At first there were just a handful of us working on these issues. Now momentum is building in both parties for measures that help level the playing field," she wrote.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Global Business
GAME ON Erin Morgenstern made two important moves in preparing to work on her second novel, "The Starless Sea," which lands at No. 3 on this week's hardcover fiction list. First, she relocated from Manhattan to western Massachusetts, moving into a house that wasn't wired for cable or the internet. Morgenstern says, "It was a strange time not to have internet from the summer of 2016 to mid 2018 but it took the outside noise away, and also some of the pressure of the sophomore novel after the big debut." Morgenstern's 2011 debut is a tough act to follow: "The Night Circus" was a No. 1 best seller, and has been translated into 37 languages; a movie version is in the works from Lionsgate. In the wake of the hoopla, which she says was a surprise "I thought it was going to be a weird book that maybe a few weird people would like, and there were far more weird people than I expected" Morgenstern started another project, then abandoned it. She wondered why she was writing another book at all. And then Morgenstern made her next important move: She started playing video games. She says, "I'd always played a little bit, but in that era after 'The Night Circus,' it was hard for me to write and sometimes hard for me to read. I got into Dragon Age: Inquisition, where you create your character and make decisions that affect where the game goes. I found this malleability really compelling from a narrative point of view, and it ended up impacting the way I write." She estimates that she played for more than 100 hours in the next six to eight months. At first, Morgenstern thought "The Starless Sea" was going to be a book about books. But her experience with Dragon Age: Inquisition helped her figure out what she really wanted to write: a book about stories. She says, "The difference to me is a story can have different versions and iterations and it feels like a living, growing thing."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Books
The quiet neighborhood of Coyoacan captures the capital's understated cultural soul and, in many ways, is a getaway within Mexico City itself. Call it a case of FOMO Fear of Missing Out. I'm usually resistant to pangs of envy inspired by social media photos of friends and families on perfect getaways around the world. And seeing that multiple acquaintances had all visited the same destination would, if anything, make me decidedly less likely to visit a place. But this was different. Everyone I knew, it seemed, was going to Mexico City, and having the times of their lives. And I wanted to go, too. But I was determined not to retread not entirely, at least the same attractive parks and tree lined avenues dotted with Instagrammable restaurants and coffee shops as my peers. I would stay away from popular neighborhoods like La Condesa and Roma Norte during this trip, preferring instead to hone my focus about six miles south, on the quieter neighborhood of Coyoacan. Best known as the location of Frida Kahlo's Blue House, this "place of coyotes" proved to be equal parts serene and invigorating the understated cultural soul of a city and, in many ways, a getaway within Mexico City itself. And my budget, modest as it was, didn't limit my enjoyment during a four day, three night trip. Jose Antonio Albanes, my spry middle aged tour guide whom I'd found through an Airbnb Experience ( 50, which included a mountain of food), was born and raised in Coyoacan (which refers to both the neighborhood and the larger borough of the same name, one of 16 that make up the city) and had a laundry list of reasons it was the best area in the city. "Everything," he said, "is better. The water, the climate, the culture." The climate? He was adamant. "It is better," he said. "It's cooler." I couldn't verify that intel, but there was a lot about Coyoacan that seemed different from the rest of the city. While bustling, it also felt inviting, almost suburban, and largely unruffled from the masses of tourists that crowd neighborhoods like the Centro Historico. Much of that might be attributable to the lack of big hotel chains in the area you won't find Sheratons or Hiltons in Coyoacan. That left me with a handful of options, primarily small inns and Airbnbs. My first night in the neighborhood, I stayed just a couple blocks away from the Blue House at the cozy Chalet del Carmen Coyoacan, where I found a room for 1,330 Mexican pesos, a little over 70. I spent the next couple of nights in a private room with attached bathroom in a great central location near Plaza de la Conchita, booked through Airbnb for 30 per night. My host, Gustavo Hernandez Clark, waxed rhapsodic about his adopted home, saying he loved "everything about Coyoacan." He emigrated from Cuba 20 years ago, murkily referring only to "the situation there" when discussing his homeland. After checking me in, we walked around the corner to one of his lunch haunts, Taqueria los Parados de Coyoacan. I had a lovely plate of enchiladas suizas stuffed with chicken and drowning in a tangy green chili salsa for 91 pesos, less than 5, plus a freshly squeezed orange juice for another 35 pesos. It was the first of many excellent meals. Unsurprisingly, the volume of inexpensive street food and casual cafes in Coyoacan didn't disappoint. My first afternoon in the city was brightened considerably when I stopped by La Casa del Pan Papalotl, where I got a creamy banana licuado (something between a milkshake and a smoothie) for 32 pesos. The cute vegetarian restaurant sits on a lively plaza on Calle Xicotencatl, and I spent some time hanging out, perusing jewelry and bootleg DVDs peddled by sidewalk vendors. I also couldn't resist an enormous basket spilling over with churros. I picked up a bag of four of the fried sugary treats for 15 pesos. Sweet, doughy delights are in abundance, and you'd be remiss to visit Mexico without trying a concha, a kind of pan dulce (sweet bread) caked with a cracked, crumbly topping. Rafaella Panaderia does a nice, chocolate version (18 pesos) that's worth the walk to the northwest corner of the neighborhood. A few blocks down on Avenida Division del Norte is El Rey del Taco, which does a decent taco al pastor (12 pesos), but is really worth visiting for the selection of tasty pickled chilies and onions that come with it. Not all the food is quite as casual. Jake Lindeman, a friend and expat photographer based in Mexico City, recommended I check out La Barraca Valenciana. I enjoyed a Gallega torta (135 pesos), a crusty white roll stuffed with tender bacalao a lo tio, or salted cod, alongside an Espanta Pajaros pale ale (65 pesos). Another good seafood option is just down the block at Tu Ceviche, where the quality product made up for what began as an uneven experience. I walked in well before their advertised closing time one evening only to be told they were shuttering early. Fortunately, they allowed me to get take out a generous portion of ceviche negra (170 pesos), zesty cubes of wahoo fish served with a bag of fresh tortilla chips. And, of course, there are the markets. The Mercado de Comida de Coyoacan, which specializes in food, and the larger Mercado de Coyoacan, which takes up the better part of a city block and sells nearly anything you could imagine, are worth a few hours of your time. Besides the fresh produce, spices, slabs of queso fresco and containers of organic honey (80 pesos for a small jar) at the larger market, there's also clothing, toys and numerous casual sit down restaurants where you can enjoy a fresh enchilada or tostada. It also happens to be a stone's throw from the Frida Kahlo Museum, also known as the Casa Azul or Blue House, obligatory during a visit to Coyoacan. Here are a few tips: Buy your timed tickets online (200 pesos during the week, 220 on the weekend) and show up early; the lines, even for ticketed customers, are formidable. Also, it's worth the 30 extra pesos to buy a photo permit so you can snap pictures in the museum employees are very aggressive about enforcing the permit rule. Once inside, you'll get a fascinating glimpse into the life of Mexico's two most internationally famous artists (the other being her partner, Diego Rivera). The museum begins with family portraits "Mi Familia" and "Retrato de Mi Padre Guillermo Kahlo" and accelerates from there, displaying pencil drawings, private photographs, and a collection of ex votos, small panels depicting 19th and 20th century Mexican life. A separate exhibition (included with admission) focuses on Kahlo's wardrobe, bringing into focus an aspect of her life I hadn't given much thought: childhood polio and a near fatal bus accident that had lifelong effects on her health and work. Different crutches, braces and girdles even a prosthetic leg are on display. A couple of blocks away is the Taller Experimental de Ceramica, or Experimental Ceramics Workshop, a must visit for anyone interested in the craft. It's a little tricky to find you enter on Centenario, not Aguayo, as you might think from looking at a map. And don't expect anyone to let you in or greet you. I let myself in, reaching through and opening up the big metal gate despite the (ultimately harmless) yapping and snarling of several dark blue tinged xoloitzcuintli, Mexican hairless dogs. Once inside, I wandered around the sprawling half indoors, half outdoors facility, largely unsupervised. Eventually I made it into the main showroom, where I surveyed the gorgeous collection of plates, cups, saucers and other decorative pieces before finally settling on something: A small juicer for 216 pesos. The workshop also has a few shelves of broken and flawed pieces, which sell by weight. Coyoacan has an artistic heart, as demonstrated by the multitude of cultural activities I was able to find in just a short period. Just south of the Viveros de Coyoacan, a big public park, I attended an energetically presented black box theater performance of "Todo" by Janne Teller at the Teatro Santa Catarina (150 pesos, half off for students and teachers). Across the street is the Casa de Cultura Jesus Reyes Heroles, a beautiful cultural center with salsa classes and free performances that is open to the public. I also enjoyed the Centro Cultural Elena Garro, another cultural center that is notable for its large and gorgeous bookstore. I splurged a little and purchased Acridofagia y Otro Insectos, a fascinating book about the consumption of insects, for about 475 pesos. And I was particularly smitten with the Cineteca Nacional, a large, multifaceted cinema and arts complex that's technically just north of the Coyoacan border. There are bookstores, cafes, a movie memorabilia shop called Belahugozzi (guess the reference) and, naturally, movie theaters. For just 30 pesos, I attended an evening showing of the Best Picture winning "The Shape of Water." Jose Antonio was explaining the history of the city to me as we wandered through Coyoacan's tree shaded public parks, filled with vendors, young couples and tarot readers. We walked and talked over the better part of the day, munching on tostadas at the Mercado de Coyoacan and crunching on chapulines (grasshoppers) while sipping mezcal at the restaurant Mezcalero. We covered a good deal of the neighborhood on foot and even had a casual run in with Rina Lazo, a 94 year old artist who was an associate of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Finally, we turned down Avenida Francisco Sosa and began heading west, away from the Jardin Centenario park. "Now," he said, "You will see what I'm talking about with the climate." Suddenly, the heavy traffic all but vanished. The hubbub from the buskers and kids listening to Top 40 music on boomboxes disappeared. All that remained were thick trunked trees and leaves trembling slightly in the breeze. We continued walking as the breeze picked up, and the branches swayed and leaves rustled. I could feel it and I had to admit he was right: It was definitely cooler in Coyoacan.
0
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Travel
President Trump attacked CNN on Wednesday, writing on Twitter that the network had been "caught in a major lie" in connection to an article it published in July about claims made by the president's former personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen. The article, which was written by Jim Sciutto, Marshall Cohen and Carl Bernstein, the high profile Watergate reporter, said Mr. Cohen was claiming that Mr. Trump knew in advance about a now infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in which Russians were expected to offer damaging information on Hillary Clinton. The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, is investigating possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia's election interference. In the meantime, a flurry of statements in recent days from Mr. Cohen's lawyer, Lanny J. Davis, has, for some, muddied the water around the sourcing and validity of CNN's report. In essence, Mr. Davis has admitted he was an unnamed source for the article, and has backed away from the claims he made about Mr. Cohen. (More on this later.) Mr. Trump, who has long been a vocal critic of the network, seemed on Wednesday to seize the opportunity to renew his disapproval. "CNN is being torn apart from within based on their being caught in a major lie and refusing to admit the mistake," Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. "Sloppy carlbernstein, a man who lives in the past and thinks like a degenerate fool, making up story after story, is being laughed at all over the country! Fake News." In a tweet replying to Mr. Trump, CNN wrote: "Make no mistake, Mr. President, CNN does not lie. We report the news. And we report when people in power tell lies. CNN stands by our reporting and our reporters. There may be many fools in this story but carlbernstein is not one of them." Late Wednesday, Mr. Bernstein himself responded to the president, tweeting: "I have spent my life as a journalist bringing truth to light, through administrations of both parties. No taunt will diminish my commitment to that mission, which is the essential role of a free press. CNN stands by its story, and I stand by my reporting." If this seems confusing, it is. Let us give you some more context. In addition to reporting that Mr. Cohen was claiming that Mr. Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting beforehand, the CNN article in July also reported that Mr. Cohen was willing to "make that assertion" to Mr. Mueller.
0
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Media
WASHINGTON The longest government shutdown in United States history resulted in a "shocking" number of taxpayers' calls to the Internal Revenue Service going unreturned or being left to languish on hold for unusually long periods, according to a government audit released on Tuesday. The audit, by the office of the National Taxpayer Advocate, found that over five million pieces of mail went unanswered and 87,000 amended tax returns were not processed during the shutdown, when thousands of I.R.S. workers were furloughed or working without pay. The issues were especially acute since they followed significant changes to the tax code ushered in by President Trump's 1.5 trillion tax overhaul that left many people with questions about filing their returns. The problems continued even after the shutdown, the audit found. In the week that ended Feb. 2, shortly after agency employees returned to their jobs, fewer than half of the calls to the I.R.S.'s accounts management lines were answered, compared with nearly 90 percent during the same week last year. The typical hold time for such callers increased to 17 minutes from four minutes in 2018. There were similar frustrations for those who called the agency's so called balance due line in hopes of making payment arrangements for taxes they owed. Fewer than 7 percent of such calls were answered, and the typical wait for those that were stretched to more than 80 minutes. I.R.S. officials said they were reviewing the taxpayer advocate's findings. "We are continuing to assess the impact of the shutdown on our various operations across the agency and remain proud of the many I.R.S. employees who have risen to the resulting challenges," the agency said in a statement. "The I.R.S. is committed to continue making improvements across our information technology, tax enforcement and taxpayer service operations." Data released by the agency last week showed that Americans had filed 12 percent fewer returns through Feb. 2, compared with the same point in 2018, and that the I.R.S. had processed 26 percent fewer returns. The agency has given no indication in Tuesday's statement or otherwise that it might consider pushing back April's tax filing deadline in order to account for shutdown related snags. The taxpayer advocate's audit did not focus solely on the shutdown's impact and reflected an effort by the office, which is led by Nina E. Olson, to capture the typical taxpayer experience when dealing with I.R.S. The audit said many Americans' feelings about the process could be boiled down to two words: "extreme frustration." The audit found that a policy change made by the Trump administration intended to simplify the tax filing process the creation of a "postcard size" 1040 form has made filing more difficult because the new form does not include much of the information that many taxpayers need to complete their returns. "The new schedules will force some taxpayers to cross reference and transfer data such as credits, deductions and income, increasing the potential for errors to occur since the tax information is dispersed over many pages and needs to be tracked down and reported on different schedules and forms," the report says. The problems that became apparent during the 35 day shutdown, which ended Jan. 25, underscored some of the agency's deeper flaws, including a reliance on 1960s era technology, the audit found. The systems that contain the official record of taxpayer accounts are the oldest in the federal government. "For the last 25 years the I.R.S. has tried and been unable to replace them," the audit says, citing budgetary constraints. The outdated systems deprive the I.R.S. of a comprehensive view of taxpayers' accounts, hampering the agency's ability to properly identify who should be targeted for outreach, collections and audits. Inadequate financing is a primary cause of the agency's failings, the audit found. Congress has long beat up on the I.R.S., routinely condemning its performance while cutting its budget. For example, money for technology improvements in the 2018 fiscal year was reduced 62 percent, to 110 million, from the year before. Taxpayers who called the I.R.S. last fall for advice about how the new tax law would affect them were frequently told that there was "no tax law personnel at this time due to budgetary cuts" and were disconnected, the audit found. Part of the reason was a decision by the agency to answer tax law questions only during the three and a half months from January until tax filing day. A lack of information has also meant that the vast majority of taxpayers eligible to use free software to file their returns electronically do not take advantage of the program. Of the 106 million taxpayers who could qualify for the free program, fewer than 2.5 million use it.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Your Money
Cindi Leive, the editor in chief of Glamour, and Howard Bernstein, a film producer, and their children, Lucy and Isaac, have elbow room indoors and out. They treated their four story house to a yearlong renovation and filled the spaces with art, midcentury furniture and a beloved piano. For Cindi Leive and Howard Bernstein, the need to upgrade arose in 2004. Ms. Leive, the editor in chief of Glamour, and Mr. Bernstein, a film producer whose credits include "The Myth of Fingerprints" and "Wet Hot American Summer," had spent a decade in a fantastic SoHo loft, but there was a young child now at home, and they were planning for another. It was time to move. But the couple searched in vain as their broker took them to one disappointing Manhattan apartment after another. A year later, Ms. Leive was pregnant again, and the couple were no closer to finding an apartment big enough for four. Ms. Leive's new instructions to their broker: "Take us to places that are psychotically priced." "Just so we would know what's out there," she recalled. Soon enough, Ms. Leive and Mr. Bernstein were standing in a 4,000 square foot loft in TriBeCa that they were told had once belonged to P. Diddy. And to her total surprise, it wasn't all that impressive. "The ceilings were kind of low," Ms. Leive said. "There was a nice media room, but the bedroom window essentially looked out at a brick wall. And I thought, 'If this is how P. Diddy has to live, we're sunk. We're never finding anything.' " So they expanded their search to include Brooklyn. "There was no emotional hurdle for me to get over," said Mr. Bernstein (who is no relation to this reporter). "The world I worked in and the world of my friends, I would say half of them were already in Brooklyn." Ms. Leive was a harder sell. "I grew up in Virginia fantasizing about what it was going to be like to live in New York City," she said. "My fantasy was definitely a Manhattan fantasy. Brooklyn was the place my grandparents had worked really hard to get out of." For one thing, there were soaring ceilings, the sort Casa Diddy lacked. For another, there was ample outdoor space in the back, the kind they could use to entertain. They bought the building understanding that it needed to be more or less gutted. The renovation, by the architect Frederic Schwartz, took more than a year. Floors were redone, moldings changed and banisters spruced up; the living room was given a more lofty feel. In came a grand piano that Ms. Leive had inherited from her parents. Also, lots of art, like a large cityscape photograph by Michael Wolf and a Vik Muniz painting of Cupid and Venus surrounded by junk. For the furniture, the couple turned to Corey Delany, an interior designer, who shared with them a predilection for midcentury modern stuff. Because Mr. Bernstein has more flexible hours than his wife, a walk in closet was inserted between the master bedroom and the bathroom, so that Ms. Leive could get dressed and go to work in the morning without waking him with the sound of clomping Louboutins. As for the basement, it turned into a media room where Ms. Leive and Mr. Bernstein could watch old movies and the kids could have play dates.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Real Estate
The truth squad website PolitiFact crashed just 30 minutes in. A C Span shot of Representative Nancy Pelosi, scowling and clad entirely in black, quickly became a meme. And the former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, making her debut as a prime time NBC political analyst, declared that President Trump "did a fine job but I think he's going to tweet something and we'll forget all about it." Depending on your news venue of choice, Mr. Trump's State of the Union speech on Tuesday was pronounced "gloomy" (ABC's Martha Raddatz), "well confected" (MSNBC's Chris Matthews), "way too long" (Fox News's Chris Wallace), or "amazing" (Sean Hannity). The Drudge Report blared, "Trump Shows Heart," and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC called the speech "lumbering." If the White House had previewed Mr. Trump's 80 minute address as a gesture toward uniting a divided nation, the sharply divergent reactions among journalists on Tuesday suggested that the president may have fallen short, at least among the partisan pundit class. The general public had a lot of opinions, too: Twitter said that the speech generated upward of 4.5 million tweets, making it "the most tweeted" of any presidential State of the Union or joint address to Congress. But on television, where a State of the Union can draw tens of millions of viewers, the address offered commentators a chance for star making moments and, in some cases, redemption. Van Jones, the CNN commentator, was castigated by his fellow liberals last year when he effusively praised Mr. Trump's first joint address to Congress, describing one passage as "one of the most extraordinary moments you have ever seen in American politics, period." On CNN on Tuesday, Mr. Jones was not going to allow any highlight reel editor or YouTube wag to catch him in the act of applauding the president. He came out swinging and kept on swinging. "He was selling sweet tasting candy with poison in it," Mr. Jones said. He built up to denouncing Mr. Trump's subtextual suggestion that many immigrants are violent or dangerous, calling out, "It's wrong! It's wrong!" On Tuesday, Ms. Kelly drew on the trademark spitfire that made her a sensation at Fox News, only this time it was aimed squarely at the Republican president in office. 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. "I expect very little," she said before Mr. Trump gave the speech. "Because these events tend to be utterly forgettable, and this one probably will be, too." She scoffed at the notion, pushed by the White House, that Mr. Trump would take a conciliatory approach. "How can the man we've watched all this time come out and be conciliatory?" Ms. Kelly said. "To whom? To the 3 percent of Democrats who approve of him right now?" Also in the hot seat on Tuesday was Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, who spent his first evening as an ABC political analyst defending Mr. Trump's remarks as "a traditional State of the Union speech." He was the sole Trump fan on ABC News's broadcast, where Matthew Dowd, a political consultant, quipped: "Calling this a healing speech is almost like calling going on a diet by drinking a Diet Coke and eating a pizza." Conservative media outlets focused on the facial reactions of Democrats in the audience, accusing the scowling Ms. Pelosi and Senator Bernie Sanders who was seen looking deeply bored, and halfheartedly clapping of disrespecting military veterans and the grieving relatives whom Mr. Trump had invited to the event. Even Gayle King, of CBS, said the Democrats "looked like they had bitten a couple of lemons." In his post address remarks, Mr. Hannity, incredulous at the Democrats, asked his guest, "How can you sit down and not want to cheer?"
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Media
A protest outside Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., last month. Google and other Silicon Valley companies said that a ban on visitors from seven largely Muslim countries could hurt the economy. In late September, a group of tech leaders started a well publicized effort to raise 100,000 for Hillary Clinton. In flush Silicon Valley, that is spare change. But by the time the election was over, the campaign had pulled in only 76,324. For all its visceral dislike of Donald J. Trump, the tech community did not worry too much about him being elected or, once in office, carrying through with his program. Lulled by favorable polls, distracted by its own destiny, Silicon Valley was above all else complacent. After President Trump's Jan. 27 executive order restricting immigration, high tech has gone full tilt political. Companies are being pushed by their employees, by their customers and sometimes by their ideals. They are trying to go far enough without going too far. "Silicon Valley is stepping up," said Sam Altman, who runs the valley's most prominent start up incubator, Y Combinator. "The companies are working on three fronts: They are vociferously objecting to the Trump policies they think are bad, they are trying to engage with him to influence his behavior, and they are developing new technology to work against policies and political discourse they don't support." It is an improvised and complicated strategy. The companies are among the richest and most popular of American brands, which means they have a good deal of leverage. Yet they are also uniquely vulnerable not only to presidential postings on Twitter and executive orders, but to the sentiments of their customers and employees, some of whom have more radical ideas in mind. Many of the companies initially placed their bets on engagement after an upbeat meeting with the president elect in December. That modest approach, which even the most risk averse executive can endorse, showed its limits last week. After widespread customer defections, Travis Kalanick, the chief executive of Uber, was forced to step down from one of the administration's advisory councils. "People voted with their feet, and Travis listened," said Dave McClure, who runs the 500 Startups incubator and started the Nerdz 4 Hillary group that tried to raise the 100,000. "We need to hold the other tech leaders accountable in the same way." "You don't have a voice with the president if you didn't vote for him," he said. "But employees and customers have a voice with the tech companies. Silicon Valley should be demonstrating at the front doors of Google, Facebook and Twitter to make sure they share our values." Several factors are propelling Silicon Valley to the front lines of opposition to Mr. Trump. Some have been widely noted: The companies are often founded by and run by immigrants, which made the executive order on immigration offensive and a threat to their way of doing business. Tech companies frequently stress the importance of talent from other countries to their businesses. Less remarked on has been the political homogeneity of tech workers. "It's not like you have 60 percent of the employees on one side and 40 percent on the other," said Ken Shotts, a professor of political economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. "They all have the same leanings." Mr. Trump does have some support in Silicon Valley, most notably the venture capitalist Peter Thiel. Yet another factor pushing the companies is the perennially tight job market in technology. Executives cannot afford to alienate a large bloc of workers. Beyond this, there is the mythology of Silicon Valley, which holds that the work being done there is building a better future. Google's former slogan "Don't be evil" is the most forceful expression of this. "If you go around making a lot of statements about your exalted role in society, at some point your employees might just make you follow through," Mr. Shotts said. Since the executive order was issued, the companies have struggled to keep on the same page with their employees. Microsoft, for instance, initially made relatively muted comments that mostly celebrated immigration. Twenty four hours later, it was much blunter, calling the order "misguided and a fundamental step backwards," and saying it would create "much collateral damage to the country's reputation and values." At an all hands meeting at the beginning of the week with the chief executive, Satya Nadella, who was born in India, Microsoft employees expressed their concern. The company did not file a formal declaration supporting Washington State's effort to block the order the way Amazon and Expedia did, but its public comments assisted the effort, Bob Ferguson, the state attorney general, said. The immigration battle is in Microsoft's self interest. Seventy six of its employees were affected by the order, the company said. Some in Silicon Valley have more expansive hopes for the tech companies there. "In 2016, we saw how technology could be used to polarize ourselves to extreme levels," said Mr. Altman of Y Combinator. "The most important thing we could do is figure out how to use technology to depolarize the nation." Mr. McClure of 500 Startups said it was ridiculous "for the chief executives of the valley to suggest things like hate speech and bullying speech aren't solvable problems. Google has been solving the problem of spam for the last 10 years. No reason they can't fix the monetization of fake news." Perhaps the companies just need a little push. On Sunday night, the Super Bowl was in overtime and a dreary winter rain was falling in San Francisco. That was not enough to deter more than 100 tech workers from showing up for a meeting of a new group, Tech Solidarity, that hopes to tackle some of these issues from the bottom up. Maciej Ceglowski, the organizer, canvassed the crowd. How many of you are immigrants? How many work for big tech companies? How many work for big tech companies that attended the Trump tech summit in December? In each case, numerous hands went up. Under the rules of the meeting, participants were not identified. It was a very geeky event. Much of it was a fund raiser for three legal aid groups that have been working to assist travelers caught in the ban. The speaker for the Council of American Islamic Relations was asked what she needed. She replied that she was having trouble with her customer relationship management software. "I've actually been pretty obsessed with C.R.M.s lately," said a woman in the audience, volunteering to help. Mr. Ceglowski is a software engineer who runs the one man start up Pinboard. He was visiting the United States in 1981 with his mother when martial law was declared in their native Poland. He is now an American citizen. Best known in tech circles as a caustic critic of the large tech companies and their attitude to issues like privacy, he took on the activist mantle shortly after Mr. Trump was elected. Since then, Tech Solidarity has held rallies in Portland, Ore.; New York; Seattle; Boston; and other cities. He talked about Facebook's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, the author of "Lean In," which asks women, "What would you do if you weren't afraid?" Mr. Ceglowski noted that Ms. Sandberg found time to go see Mr. Trump, but not to go to the women's march on Washington. The crowd laughed. Ms. Sandberg has said that she had a personal obligation that kept her from the march. When Facebook employees did their own protest last week, he pointed out, it was done in secret so no one knew about it. "We have to protest in public," he said. The event raised 30,000 for the legal aid groups. "It looked like two thirds of the room were newcomers," Mr. Ceglowski said after the event was over. Unlike the great Silicon Valley companies, which seemed to blossom overnight, he said he knew progress here would be slow. But he was hopeful that some of the attendees were previously apolitical folk who had taken their first steps to engagement. "I want pressure from below to counterbalance the pressure management is already feeling from above," he said. "We have to make sure we're pushing at least as hard as Trump is."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Technology
Starting with Robert Downey Jr.'s "Iron Man" in 2008, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has grown to include Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Ant Man (Paul Rudd), Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), the Guardians of the Galaxy and more. The trailer brings back memories, some more vivid than others. Remember when the Incredible Hulk got his own movie? The footage avoids showing Edward Norton, who originated the role before Mark Ruffalo took it over. Or when Robert Redford played the villain in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier"? That was weird.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Movies
After three decades of failure, researchers have found a treatment that greatly improves the prognosis for people having the most severe and disabling strokes. By directly removing large blood clots blocking blood vessels in the brain, they can save brain tissue that would have otherwise died, enabling many to return to an independent life. The study, published online Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine and conducted by researchers in the Netherlands, is being met with an outpouring of excitement. One reason the treatment worked, researchers suspect, is that doctors used a new type of snare to grab the clots. It is a stent, basically a small wire cage, on the end of a catheter that is inserted in the groin and threaded through an artery to the brain. When the tip of the catheter reaches the clot, the stent is opened and pushed into the clot. It snags the clot, allowing the doctor to withdraw the catheter and pull out the stent with the clot attached. "This is a game changer," said Dr. Ralph L. Sacco, chairman of neurology at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine. "A sea change," said Dr. Joseph Broderick, director of the neuroscience institute at the University of Cincinnati. About 630,000 Americans each year have strokes caused by clots blocking blood vessels in the brain. In about a third to half, the clot is in a large vessel, which has potentially devastating consequences. People with smaller clots are helped by the lifesaving drug tPA, which dissolves them. But for those with big clots, tPA often does not help. Until now, no other treatments had been shown to work. The new study involved 500 stroke patients. Ninety percent got tPA. Half were randomly assigned to get a second treatment as well. A doctor would try to directly remove the clot from the patient's brain. The study did not specify how the removal would happen. There are several methods, but the vast majority were treated with the new stent. One in five patients who had tPA alone recovered enough to return to living independently. But one in three who also had their clot removed directly were able to take care of themselves after their stroke. And that, said Dr. Larry B. Goldstein, director of the Duke Stroke Center, is "a significant and meaningful improvement in what people are able to do." It has been a long road to this success, explained Dr. Walter J. Koroshetz, acting director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. It began in the 1980s when researchers began testing intravenous tPA. In 1995, when the first large study was published demonstrating tPA's effectiveness, stroke experts were jubilant. They were left, though, with the problem of helping people with large clots. Companies began marketing various clot snaring devices, but there were no studies showing they helped. Using them could be risky some involved pushing wires through twisting blood vessels that often were damaged already from atherosclerosis, Dr. Koroshetz explained. "You could puncture an artery and if you do and get bleeding in the brain, you have a problem," he said. Another problem was that sometimes fragments of a clot could break off and be swept deeper into the brain, causing new strokes. A stent, basically a small wire cage, on the end of a catheter is inserted in the groin and threaded through an artery to the brain. The systems were also expensive. Giving a patient tPA cost about 11,100. Using one of the new devices could cost 23,000, Dr. Koroshetz said. But some neurologists were enthusiastic. The Food and Drug Administration cleared the first device for clot removal in 2004, allowing it to be marketed. The clearance was granted because the agency considered the device to be equivalent to something already in use devices used to snare pieces of wires or catheters that might break off in a blood vessel during a medical procedure. That, other neurologists said, was not at all the same as going into the brain to grab a clot. "There was a lot of controversy," Dr. Koroshetz said. But the devices quickly came into widespread use. It took time and experience for doctors to learn to use the devices, and not everyone had the necessary expertise. Even so, said Dr. Diederik Dippel, professor of neurology at Erasmus University Medical Center and principal investigator for the new study, when his study was about to begin, people questioned why it was even needed. "People said why bother with a clinical trial. Just do it," Dr. Dippel said. The Dutch study began in 2010. In the meantime, several other large clinical trials testing clot removal were well underway, including one sponsored by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and headed by Dr. Broderick. By 2012, with 650 out of the planned 1,000 patients enrolled, the American study was ended. "Because of futility," Dr. Koroshetz said. It had become clear that, if anything, those randomized to have their clots directly removed were doing no better. Two other clinical trials also ended without showing benefit. All too often, attempts to remove clots resulted in uncontrolled bleeding in the brain.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Health
Joe Biden is the Democratic presidential nominee, and though the primary was, by historical standards, quite tepid, there is still a lot of work to be done on unifying the party. Many young Democrats are rightfully skeptical of Mr. Biden and his record on many issues that matter to them. But Mr. Biden's team has at its disposal a number of concrete actions that would not just help to unite the party but also help it win persuadable voters. By embracing progressive ideas, Mr. Biden and his allies will be able to make a persuasive positive case for himself that will appeal to voters, as opposed to just focusing on anti Trump messaging that isn't as persuasive. Research, in fact, shows that most voters have fairly fixed views on Mr. Trump but can be persuaded about Mr. Biden. These policies were all necessary before the pandemic, but the coronavirus has only made the case for them stronger, both to address the pandemic and to rebuild afterward. Americans cannot afford to stay home from work, because we have no paid leave policy and too often cannot afford to be at work, because we lack affordable child care. The progressive agenda already had more support than many realize, but the pandemic has added urgency and helped make voters comfortable with more ambitious policy positions. Passage of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's Family Act, for example, which would guarantee paid family leave, and Senator Elizabeth Warren's proposal for high quality, affordable child care would, especially if they became law together, increase affordability and foster resilience for American families. At Data for Progress, we tested these policies in the most robust way we could. To begin, we informed voters that these were Democratic proposals, which cues the partisan instincts that will take over as the policies become law. We also tested four arguments for and against each, which voters were randomly assigned. Even after hearing these arguments, these paid leave, pharmaceutical and climate policies had strong majority support. These are places where Mr. Biden can embrace the progressive agenda and win. Americans have long been unable to afford prescription drugs, and support for reform transcends partisan lines. Mr. Biden has growing strength among older voters, which means that pointing out Mr. Trump's fealty to big pharmaceutical companies can strengthen his hand. As voters' minds focus on a coronavirus vaccine and potential treatments, Mr. Biden could embrace Bernie Sanders's Innovation Prize Fund, which would help us develop vaccines quickly and make them accessible to all Americans and not monopolized by one company. The American Drug Manufacturing Act proposed by Senator Warren and Representative Jan Schakowsky of Illinois would allow the government to manufacture the coronavirus vaccine, as well as other drugs like insulin that have become unaffordable to millions of Americans. A proposal from Representative Lloyd Doggett of Texas to break the patents on high cost drugs is one of the most popular policies we've ever tested and could be done on Day 1 by executive order. Polling shows that after years of Mr. Trump's climate change denial, Americans are also eager to see serious action on climate change, particularly if solutions create good paying jobs and bring down the exorbitant monthly costs of housing and heating. Research I conducted with two political scientists, Brian Schaffner and Laurel Bliss, shows that climate is a top issue for persuadable voters, and recent research suggests that it could excite the young voters Mr. Biden has had trouble reaching. The Green New Deal for Public Housing, championed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of New York, would reduce the emissions that come from public housing while also reducing toxic pollutants that disproportionately affect people of color. It would also save taxpayers money on their electricity bills. And the climate standards set by Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington and Senator Warren would decarbonize our economy on the timeline that science demands. Mr. Biden has made meaningful overtures to environmental justice groups who are calling for clean air and water, and he has committed to the idea that climate investments should be aimed at low income communities that suffer the most from pollution and Covid 19. These policies, too, would create the framework for putting Americans back to work rebuilding a clean economy and have broad support with the American public. Interestingly, they maintain majority support even after partisan framing, and they are also policies that have a credible chance of passing a Democratic Senate, making them effective policies not just for winning an election but producing a legacy. On these types of health and environmental reforms, voters trust Joe Biden over Donald Trump. Civis Analytics has built a persuasion experiment to measure the impact of associating a Democratic candidate with a specific issue relative to a Republican. It shared with Data for Progress two climate policies it tested: working to protect the environment against climate change while expanding the clean energy economy and preventing corporations from emitting toxic chemicals that kill Americans. While many progressive policies are actually quite popular, these two perform better than the average policy by a strong margin. There are also areas where Mr. Biden can improve upon the legacy of the Obama administration, in which he played a key role. First, the Affordable Care Act did not focus on direct government interventions that people could see in their daily lives and instead made private marketplaces the core of the law. Since passage, however, the public provisions in the act, like Medicaid expansion, have provided much of the most positive impact on society and on increasing turnout among voters. Powerful policy results can persuade and mobilize. Mr. Biden's team should apply this lesson in championing government production of drugs, government investment in clean energy and public pre K. A growing political science literature shows that public provision creates positive feedback loops as people see the benefits of government action. Second, Mr. Obama could have been more demanding about personnel. He ran as an economic populist, but his first term economic team included too many people with ties to corporate power, making it harder for him to take on these entrenched interests. There are a lot of ways that Mr. Biden could create a more progressive cabinet, and given the widespread destruction of agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency under Mr. Trump, he has his work cut out for him. When Mr. Biden thinks about a vice president, he should consider a woman who has the know how, plans and staff to carry out this ambitious but achievable agenda, someone, in other words, like Senator Warren. Last, the Obama White House was constrained by deficit cynicism from the right. When Mr. Biden takes office, the deficit will be quite high, in part because of the government's response to the coronavirus emergency. But we will still need far more work to build an economy that actually improves the lives of working people. That means Democrats can't allow Republicans to be deficit doves under President Trump and deficit hawks under President Biden. Voters overwhelmingly say that we should spend more in response to the coronavirus pandemic, even if it means increasing the national debt. There have been positive signs here: combining economic stimulus with clean energy jobs is something that Mr. Biden has experience with, and something voters would embrace. Mr. Biden can combine these policies with the message that Mr. Trump has favored the rich while immiserating working people, using race and place of origin to divide and distract working people from his economic plunder. The Democratic Party is strongest when it reminds voters that it is the party of all working people, no exceptions. Sean McElwee ( SeanMcElwee) is the executive director of Data for Progress. 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.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Opinion
Read all of our classical coverage here. The opera world lost a beloved diva on Sunday: Inge Borkh, a spine tingling soprano who specialized in some of the most difficult roles in repertory, died at 97. (In classic grande dame fashion, there was some mystery about her age; some said she was 101.) Borkh wasn't a household name. But she was a favorite of aficionados especially as Strauss's Salome and Elektra with her white hot voice and her gift at being simultaneously imperious and vulnerable. Of her Elektra, one fan wrote: "I can honestly say that I have never been so shaken by an individual performance in my entire operatic life." Enough said! When I was growing up, one of my favorite CDs featured Borkh in the big scenes for those two characters alongside Fritz Reiner and a frighteningly gleaming Chicago Symphony. It was an honor to write her obituary and listen deeper into her recorded legacy. Here's a playlist, with those Reiner collaborations up top: As the summer season draws to a close and we look forward to fall with excitement and a tinge of terror at the onslaught, Anthony Tommasini, recently back from the Salzburg Festival, brings word of its director's ambivalence about commissioning new operas an unusual but interesting perspective. In other reading, you've likely never heard anyone play the tangent piano, a brightly percussive neighbor of the harpsichord, produced briefly in the late 18th century. Well, hear it! Here's a preview from the pianist Alexei Lubimov's recording of music by C.P.E. Bach: Outside our pages, I was stimulated by this calmly ferocious piece by Brin Solomon, in the online music journal Van, about the Tippet Rise Art Center in Montana and its relationship not thought about nearly enough by its founders with the history of the land on which it's situated. Last, but not least, it was pleasure to speak with Mark Peskanov, the jack of all trades at Bargemusic, the floating concert hall by the Brooklyn Bridge, as part of a lovely feature about those working behind the scenes to bring you culture this Labor Day weekend. As for that weekend, enjoy it! ZACHARY WOOLFE Grassy Tanglewood has long been my summer music destination of choice. But this August I discovered yet another reason to return to Western Massachusetts: the Berkshire Opera Festival, which, for the second year in a row, has struck me with awe. I discovered this baby opera company quite by accident last summer, when I took a driving detour near a McDonald's and wound up at a performance of "Ariadne auf Naxos" at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield. It was one of those productions that change the way you think about things, and I vowed I'd be back this summer. This year's production of "Rigoletto" proved the experience was no fluke. While their budget remains visibly tiny and their runs lamentably short, Jonathon Loy and Brian Garman, the founders, have recruited a youthful cast and given them a take on Verdi's classic that allows both tragedy and oom pa pa to emerge. The Romanian born baritone Sebastian Catana plays Rigoletto as a dry, lunky doofus, yet finds touching ways to play up the paternal sentimentality that ultimately undoes him. The soprano Maria Valdes has already proven herself in more modern fare; she was a standout this past January in New York City Opera's mariachi opera "Cruzar la Cara de la Luna." Here she was a first rate singing actress and a perfectly charming Gilda. The real treat, however, came in the Duke sung by the tenor Jonathan Tetelman, memorable as a last minute replacement for Piotr Beczala in Tanglewood's concert performance of "La Boheme" last month. I was lucky to catch him then, and it was even better seeing him up close in a small theater: The guy's a total star. He provided one of the show's highlights: "La donna e mobile," delivered in a shiny space cape that would have made David Bowie jealous. JOEL ROZEN The adventurous Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor is presenting what could be called a chamber version of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Evita." The director Will Pomerantz places the action in a working class tango bar in Buenos Aires on July 26, 1962, the 10th anniversary of Eva Peron's death. So the drama is presented by the patrons, a dynamic ensemble of singer dancers, who retell and, in a way, relive the story. A small band of keyboards, bass, accordion, trumpet and guitar plays a thinned arrangement of Mr. Webber's score, and without all the big orchestra plushness, some harmonically pungent details came through with striking clarity. The young leads are excellent: a charismatic Trent Saunders as Che, a virile voiced Omar Lopez Cepero as Peron, and the beguiling Arianna Rosario as Evita. The sweetness of Ms. Rosario's voice brought a welcome vulnerability to the character, something that comes through in her cabaret performance of the character's showstopping "Don't Cry For Me Argentina." ANTHONY TOMMASINI
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Music
Turkish officials announced Thursday that a vaccine from the Chinese company Sinovac has an efficacy rate of 91.25 percent, but the finding was based on preliminary results from a small clinical trial and none of the data was published in a journal or posted online. The announcement came a day after another ambiguous news conference, also about Sinovac's vaccine, in Brazil. Officials there were expected to provide detailed results from another trial, but only reported that the vaccine had an efficacy rate over 50 percent. A total of 7,371 volunteers were involved in the Turkish trial, but the efficacy data presented by Serhat Unal, an infectious diseases expert, was based only on 1,322 participants, 752 of whom got a real vaccine and 570 of whom received the placebo. Dr. Unal said that 26 of the volunteers who received the placebo developed Covid 19, while only three of the vaccinated volunteers got sick. He and his colleagues did not share their data in written form.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Health
Craig Sakowitz could be considered a technologically adept driver. As an e commerce project manager for the Gap in San Francisco, he often rents cars and relies on hands free technologies to get work done. But that's when he can make them work. When he rented a car recently, he had problems with the Bluetooth system. "I'm a technology guy, and I couldn't figure out how to get my phone paired to the car," he said. "And once I was connected, it seemed like it would randomly decide to either connect or not connect." The road to the autonomous future, it seems, is not as smooth as it appears. Problems related to cars' rapidly advancing technology are now at the top of the list of consumer complaints, according to the 2016 J. D. Power Vehicle Dependability Study. The biggest issues are balky voice recognition systems and problems with Bluetooth pairing, accounting for 20 percent of all customer complaints. Over all, the discontent drove a 3 percent decline in vehicle dependability in the study. "That's a pretty big shift," said Renee Stephens, vice president for United States automotive at J. D. Power. She added that problems like those with Bluetooth suggest that automakers face a challenge as they introduce increasingly sophisticated technologies in cars. Complaints about technology have gone from being fifth most troublesome in the 2014 study, to third last year, to now being first. The vehicle dependability study, which is closely watched in the industry, measures problems experienced during the last 12 months by the original owners of three year old vehicles. In this case, the study covered 2013 models; in that model year, many newer technologies were becoming more common in cars. Of owners who had a problem with Bluetooth pairing and connectivity, 53 percent said the vehicle did not find or recognize their mobile phone or device. Among those who had a problem with voice recognition, 67 percent said the system did not recognize or misinterpreted verbal commands. And the problems are not limited to communications. Another J. D. Power study found that owners of cars with blind spot monitoring had been getting false readings in which the system said it was safe to change lanes when it was not, and the other way around. If automakers don't get it right, "consumers will not trust that they can take their hands off the wheel and their eyes off the road," Ms. Stephens said. Some of the problems with these technologies may be because of operator error, said Mark Boyadjis, an analyst at IHS Automotive. "It is naive for anyone to think they can get into a vehicle that has 100 million lines of code, 10 times more than that of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and operate it without having to do any learning," he said. "That said, it does not mean an automaker is fine with making systems overly complex. If you don't care about designing with the user in mind, you are going to lose." Overall dependability is determined by the number of problems experienced per 100 vehicles. The lower the score, the higher the quality. The overall industry average for dependability was 152 problems per 100 vehicles, compared with 147 problems in last year's study. One reason for the increase, Ms. Stephens said, is that more 2013 models have in vehicle communications than did the 2012 models in last year's study. And problems that owners had with these systems when they first bought the vehicles were still bothering them three years later, despite software patches meant to fix them. The challenge for automakers is that there is a range of systems in vehicles, a range of phones and a range of drivers, each with its own quirks, said Karl Brauer, senior analyst for Kelley Blue Book. "Technology keeps moving and adding more capability, which keeps the manufacturers running to integrate these new things to be competitive," he said. "But then they are redoing the interface so that all those new things can be added, versus having an interface that's fairly stable for a few years in a row." The study covered 177 specific problem symptoms grouped into eight major vehicle categories such as exterior, driving experience and engine and transmission. This year's study was based on the survey responses of 33,560 owners, and 32 brands were included in the brand rankings.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Automobiles
In Milan, Ermenegildo Zegna and Ralph Lauren Zero In on the One Percent MILAN Horizontal is not the only direction for market expansion in the rag trade. Increasingly, designer ambitions are turning vertical. Considered in global terms, the population of the One Percent amounts to a nationality of its own, a new reality duly reflected in With models either wearing or toting numbers as at classic women's couture shows of yesteryear and parading around a fake fur runway to tracks from David Bowie's "Young Americans," (deftly remixed by Michel Gaubert), Mr. Pilati homed in on textures, on the complexly woven materials one expects from a textile powerhouse like Lanificio Zegna, and on embellishments stitched by hand. Ralph Lauren was early to the superrich, of course; his romance with their queer folkways dates back decades. Locust Valley never looked quite as good as it did after Mr. Lauren got through with it. His West Egg homages were retailed to the masses, however and still are, under the Polo label. At the upper end of his offerings, Mr. Lauren doubles down on the Jay Gatsby fantasia with arrays like the Purple Label suits shown at Casa Campanini, his Liberty style palazzo built in 1941. Out on the street, hundreds of fans grew delirious whenever Lucky Blue Smith the male model with the Windex blue eyes and 1.9 million Instagram followers gazed out a window. Indoors all was serenity as guests sipped Champagne and nibbled tartlets of salt cod mousse passed by liveried waiters. The models arrayed in tableaux had a time capture aspect. Whether dressed in lean double breasted suits, brocade evening jackets out of Wong Kar wai, feather light shearling dusters, trucker jackets of shearling manipulated to resemble ponyskin, or the custom ski wear that is Mr. Lauren's latest venture (amboyna burl ski poles, anyone?), the image conveyed was of a freeze frame shot depicting young Mr. Moneybags, circa the winter of 2016. True, the slouchy "athleisure" sweatpants were a lot like those regular Joes will wear while watching Super Bowl 50 in February. But Purple Label customers won't be sitting feet up on the coffee table between a six pack of Bud and a bowl of Doritos. They'll be nibbling bacalao mousse tartlets while clad in knitted cashmere sweats from Ralph Lauren, gazing down at the rest of us from the window of a Gulfstream G650. So lightning quick are fast fashion chains at getting designer runway looks to consumers that designers like Mr. Capasa can no longer keep pace. "They are vampirizing our creativity," he said, before sending out a tidily edited collection inspired, as usual, by rock musicians like his friend Mr. Bowie and whose high point was a sequence of reed thin suits in colors like electric blue, aquamarine or grass green. No fortune teller was required to know that those same suits at a fraction of what Costume National charges will soon be seen on the floor at Zara or Topshop or H M. In many ways, the true design challenges lately have had less to do with runway offerings than with back office strategies for mapping and reconfiguring markets. The majority owner of Pal Zileri, an Italian mass market label, is the Qatari group Mayhoola for Investments, which also owns a majority stake in Valentino; it not long ago brought in Mauro Ravizza Krieger as creative director to revamp the Zileri image. Adding fancy stuff like suits in degrade finishes or threaded through with Lurex, Mr. Krieger aims to introduce male consumers to "avant craft," whatever that is. While the phrase is vaporous, his ambitions are far from it: "We want to do it all at a point that is not crazy on the price." Milan sometimes seems about equally a destination for gifted journeymen and nut job divas. Neil Barrett falls so squarely into the former category one sometimes wishes he'd have the occasional tantrum or throw a phone. Once again, he showed here that few in the business are his equal at walking a line between sports and work wear. Once again, he riffed on familiar themes and motifs: anoraks, biker jackets, Harrington bombers in soccer jersey colors reminiscent of the 1970s. And as in past, his collection left at least one observer willing him to cut loose, smoke a spliff or go on a tear. Ostentation, not discretion, is Versace territory, as are inspired and even occasionally wacko flights of creative fancy. Astronomy, astrology and space travel were all evoked in a delightfully theatrical show that opened with runners sprinting in the dark beneath black lights, their track suits illuminated in patterned fiber optics. The most audacious element of a collection mostly without gimmicks had almost nothing to do with NASA, high technology or anybody's rising sign, however. In a world dominated by clerical black, we tend to forget about the color wheel as a design tool. Suddenly a pang of longing for chromatic dispersion can overcome you when a designer like Donatella Versace does something as simple as send out a few handsome lugs wearing enormous coats and big wooly sweaters in colors like lilac or baby blue.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Fashion & Style
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 (2011) Stream on Amazon, Hulu and Tubi. Rent on Google Play, iTunes, Vudu and YouTube. This installment of the found footage horror franchise is a prequel to the 2009 low budget hit. It explains how Katie, the main character of the original movie, and her sister Kristi, the star of the sequel, came to be connected to the demonic force that terrorizes the women and their partners in the first two movies. The trouble begins when Kristi started conversing with an imaginary friend, Tobi. It's clear from the beginning that he's no figment of the imagination, but even once Julie, the girl's mother, recognizes the threat, it's far too late. It turns out that the family's connection to Tobi runs deep. BALTHAZAR Stream on Acorn TV. In the second season of this French crime series, Tomer Sisley returns as the gifted but eccentric forensic pathologist Raphael Balthazar. His ability to coax answers from the dead is unparalleled but one case continues to stymie him even after more than 13 years: the killing of his wife. Balthazar pursues new clues in her case while working with the taciturn police commander Helene Bach (Helene de Fougerolles) on others.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Television
During the golden weeks of autumn, it seemed as if everyone in the world wanted to go for a walk with William B. Helmreich. The journalist from Norway. Students who have lapped up his courses at City College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. The publicist at Princeton University Press, which just published "The New York Nobody Knows: Walking 6,000 Miles in the City," his doorstop size account of four years of trekking into every corner of the five boroughs, dead end streets and desolate industrial areas included. "New York is so varied," said Mr. Helmreich, who has practically made a second career out of explaining so ambitious an undertaking. "But if you don't walk the streets, you never really understand that. Plus my philosophy is, everything's interesting." Mr. Helmreich, who is tall and blue eyed with close cropped gray hair, likes to call himself a flaneur, in a tip of the hat to the boulevardiers who strolled the streets of 19th century Paris. This particular flaneur is 68, the child of parents who immigrated to New York from Switzerland in 1946 and settled in a tenement apartment on the decidedly unchic Upper West Side. Mr. Helmreich, who also describes himself as the ultimate city kid "I was a member of the little gang on my block" stayed put in New York until 1984, the year that he and his wife, Helaine, a writer, moved with their three children to Long Island, albeit to a town just a 15 minute walk from the Queens border. Mr. Helmreich's popularity as a tour guide is hardly surprising, because his 449 page book is a chatty, buoyant and, despite his four decades in academia teaching classes on New York City and sociology, an unstuffy love letter to the delights of street smart walking. His publisher described the work as "four years plus nine pairs of shoes plus 6,000 miles equals an epic journey," and judging by the reactions of people who study the city for a living, the approach has much to recommend it. "Too many of the current crop of book length urban analyses rely on statistics, policy, and critiques of earlier theories of city life," said Cassim Shepard, the editor of Urban Omnibus, an online publication of the Architectural League. "Mr. Helmreich's book should provoke all urbanists worth their salt to leave their desks and get out into the street." Fran Leadon, a City College architecture professor who is writing a history of Broadway, agreed. "New York is much more complex than people think," Mr. Leadon said. "But nobody knows the whole story because the city is too big and too complicated. So the discussion about New York gets reduced to a few predictable topics: politics, restaurants, the supposed death of the middle class. That's the reason Mr. Helmreich's project is so important." Mr. Helmreich doesn't just walk. A gregarious man who seems hard wired to strike up conversations with strangers, he pokes his head into one storefront after another, engaging the occupants in chat. As his wife affectionately summed up his approach: "Bill will talk to a stone. What's more, the stone will answer." A mile long trek along Ninth Street one recent Friday gave Mr. Helmreich a chance to display his expertise and revisit a few haunts. He ticked off a few famous occupants of the long defunct Women's House of Detention "Dorothy Day, Ethel Rosenberg, Angela Davis: Can you imagine if they were all under that roof at the same time?" Then he ducked into World Class Cleaners, at 66 West Ninth Street. A plaque proclaimed that the business had been honored by the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences. "Good customer service," said the woman behind the counter when Mr. Helmreich inquired about the award. He asked what it would cost to have a Hermes tie cleaned, and was told it would set him back 21. Hermes might not be Mr. Helmreich's designer of choice, although he was looking dapper this day in chinos and a natty blue and white striped Ralph Lauren shirt. Generally, he said, he avoids bright blues and reds that might be read as gang colors, but attire provocative in this way is hardly an issue in the manicured West Village. A reminder that this neighborhood once served as an epicenter of Japanese culture stood at Third Avenue. A nondescript doorway led to a second floor emporium overflowing with everything from Japanese language editions of Golf Digest to packages of mascara emblazoned with bold Japanese lettering. At Whiskers Holistic Pet Care, 235 East Ninth Street, where sales clerks remembered Mr. Helmreich from a visit five years ago, he leafed through a binder bulging with handwritten tributes to the store's remedies and employees. "Phil has rejuvenated my 5 year old English setter," one grateful customer wrote. Once in a while the streetscape offers up flashes of Mr. Helmreich's personal history, as it did at Mud, a cafe at 307 East Ninth Street. A beatnik brother in law of Mr. Helmreich's lived for a time in an apartment in the rear, and a portrait of his bearded face gazed out from a mural near the front door. A few steps down, another local boy, named Jimi Hendrix, was memorialized by a sign that urged passers by to write him letters and place them in an orange mailbox nearby, promising that they'd go "directly to heaven." At Veselka, the Ukrainian restaurant at Second Avenue, Mr. Helmreich took time to trace the roots of his passion for urban walking. His father, who died recently at 101, had been a prodigious walker, helping him to come to know and love the city early on. "I feel at home on any street in New York," he said. "East New York, South Jamaica, the West Bronx. You name it." Over the decades he has walked in cities and countries around the world, even clocking 500 miles in car obsessed Los Angeles. This book, Mr. Helmreich's 14th, grew out of a suggestion by his department chairman, Philip Kasinitz, and an early plan was to focus on 20 iconic streets, like Myrtle Avenue and Broadway. Then came second thoughts: "I asked myself, what's iconic in a city of 120,000 blocks?" So he began walking, his tape recorder and pedometer in a pocket along with little maps annotated like tick tack toe games, a line drawn through each street after he completed it. He walked in the heat, in the cold, in the rain, covering at least two miles a day. "People thought I was crazy," he said cheerfully. And although he had walked the city's streets many times before, this time he approached the task systematically, sometimes joined by his wife (800 miles) or by his second most reliable companion, Heidi, who appropriately is part Swiss mountain dog (400 miles). He also did more than walk. He danced the bachata in a club in the South Bronx. He attended community meetings. He conducted formal interviews with mayors past and present. "And I have to admit that I cheated a little," Mr. Helmreich said. He skipped 300 miles, mostly in homogeneous residential neighborhoods like Marine Park, Brooklyn. But such lapses were rare, and by the end he had covered 6,048 miles and come away with vivid observations about everything from the transcendent impact of immigration on the city to the clues that a neighborhood was poised for gentrification.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Real Estate
When my oldest son was 3 years old we got him into a preschool class at an elite private school across the street from Prospect Park in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. It was more than we could afford we couldn't even afford to live in Park Slope, but instead lived in the neighboring Prospect Heights section but, nervous and stressed by the unreasonable pressure new parents often feel with a first child to give them the absolute best at all costs, we found the money anyway. I thought my son was well adjusted. I had worked evening or late shifts since my son was born. He spent his mornings with me. I took him to the park and to play spaces with other children. He always seemed to socialize well with them. In the interview for the preschool yes, there was an interview for a 3 year old the admissions officer dumped a tub of toys on the floor, watched him play with them, and asked him questions. Apparently, he passed. On the first day of school, I took him to class. He seemed fine, navigating the space with comfort and ease. But, then they told the parents that it was time for us to go. We nervously shuffled out and stood near the door in the hall, peeking through the gaps in the artwork taped to the window. Some of the children cried, but none of them like my son. He threw a full tantrum, fighting and scratching the teachers who tried to calm him, screaming and crying until he finally threw up. I was stunned and anxious and mortified. I came back into the room and they let me take him home. His tiny body heaved in my arms as I walked him home until the crying stopped and he dozed off. I realized that he was always so comfortable when in the park or in play spaces because I was always there. I was the comfort. I was the safety. I was his power. For a week, I took him to class, and the scene repeated itself every day: fighting, scratching, screaming, crying and then the vomit. At which point, each day, I would collect him and take him home. This could not continue. I asked his teachers if I could sit in the back of the class with him his school day ended at noon until he got comfortable. They allowed it. So, every day I would sit in the back of the class in a chair design for a preschool yes, they are very, very, very small and low, like sitting on a small stack of books with my coffee and newspaper, him glancing over every now and then to make sure that I was still there. When they snacked, I snacked. When they went out for recess, I went out for recess. This went on for months until one day when we were heading out for recess, he turned to me and said, "Dad, it's OK, you don't have to come." And that was it. That was the last day I stayed with him at school. I am reminded of that story now that President Trump is refusing to concede the election and throwing into question whether or not he will peacefully relinquish power: He is acting like a child throwing a tantrum because he is being displaced from his comfort and power. The smattering of states that four years ago handed Trump the presidency abandoned him this year and he is unable to handle that idea. But, my son didn't hold the power of the presidency. Americans simply don't have months to let Trump grow up and get comfortable with his loss. So he is doing, and has done, everything in his power to undermine the legitimacy of this election. And, among his supporters, that is working. A poll this week by The Economist/YouGov found that 86 percent of Trump voters believe that Joe Biden didn't legitimately win the election. That would represent about 62 million voters under Trump's misinformation spell. Trump is of course being aided and abetted in his deceit by a devout, deceitful conservative press and the conservative cowards in Congress who don't want to get crosswise with him, even if Trump does damage to our democracy. Trump has essentially thrown in the towel on fighting the surging coronavirus pandemic, instead choosing to fight the will of the majority of the American electorate. Many legislators think that they can simply ride Trump's anger as he works his way through the stages of grief, finally to acceptance. That's the mistake they made when Trump was first elected. They thought he would grow into the normalcy of the presidency. He didn't. He took their silence as license. And by the time they thought they needed to confront him, he had grown too strong for them to do so. Trump is once again taking Republicans' silence as license, and by the time they speak up, he could be too invested in the idea of resisting the Election Day reality. 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.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Opinion
"We believe that the ban has had its intended effect of promoting freedom of artistic expression at the national level," Joel Wachs, the foundation's president, said in the statement announcing the repeal. "The Smithsonian has also demonstrated a strong track record of highlighting underrepresented artists over the past eight years, which aligns well with the Foundation's core values." Mr. Wachs said that the Foundation has reviewed its decision every year, but until now hadn't been comfortable reversing it. "We thought that a period of time has to go by before you know whether someone has really changed," he said in an interview on Friday. The Oscar Howe show, he added, came along and seemed like a perfect example of what the foundation wants to support. Wojnarowicz's video came under fire from the Catholic League and members of the House of Representatives for its perceived disrespect to Christianity. One image of ants crawling on a crucifix was singled out for criticism. At the time, Martin E. Sullivan, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, said that the aim of the work was to articulate "the reality of the suffering of the AIDS epidemic in Latin American culture," not to criticize or demean Christianity. Nevertheless, the piece was removed from the exhibition. (Wojnarowicz died at age 37 of AIDS related complications in 1992.) The Oscar Howe retrospective will include approximately 75 of his paintings, some of which have never been publicly exhibited. Mr. Howe, who died in 1983, was a pioneer of contemporary Native American art whose style combines abstraction with passionate, expressive dynamism. The remainder of the Warhol Foundation's fall 2018 grants will be announced next week.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Art & Design
Half a dozen students, some in Syracuse University T shirts, sat around a conference table joking about appropriate job interview outfits. No bathing suits, pajamas or Halloween costumes. Added their instructor, not joking: "No tank tops." Then Brianna Shults, leading the workshop with a kindhearted but no nonsense approach, launched into the Q. and A. section. "So if I identify my interview outfit, should I wear it to bed the night before so I'm all dressed and ready?" "And before you put your clothes on, what's the most important step?" Ms. Shults, an internship and employment coordinator, closed the conversation with a sartorial tip that experience has taught her needs mentioning: "No dirty clothes!" Why not? Meghan Muscatello piped in: "Because then you'd be smelly." The room erupted in laughter. "And if you have a cat or a dog, make sure you leave it hanging so they don't get it all hairy." This might sound like a typical lesson in the age of anything goes office wear, but these millennials aren't so typical. Ms. Muscatello and her peers belong to a pioneering group of students with significant intellectual disabilities who are enrolled in Syracuse's InclusiveU. The students about 60 are expected this fall have various degrees of disability, often with related developmental disorders. One communicates through a picture board and an iPad; a helper supports her arm as she taps out words. Another, a movie buff who wrote a play for his theater class, has Asperger's syndrome. A sports enthusiast who interned this past spring with the Syracuse Orange men's basketball team has Down syndrome. During the first three years, the students choose "majors" and audit five to six college classes that align with their interests. They complete homework and take tests, ungraded, with the help of note takers, who are supplied by the university to sit with them in class. Popular majors: disability studies, sport management and food studies. Favorite classes: first aid, "Animals and Society" and "Peoples and Cultures of the World." The students also take a spattering of electives, like hip hop dance, jewelry making and photography. For their fourth year, they intern on campus. All the while, they attend workshops on email etiquette, workplace chitchat and resume writing and spend time with student volunteers at trampoline parks, basketball games and pizza parlors. The goal: to become employable. Fifty years ago, young people with intellectual disabilities were often institutionalized or kept home, out of the public eye. Thanks to 1975 legislation now called the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, more than 90 percent of them now go to public schools with mainstream students. The hope for their children is that they can learn to shoulder jobs and live quality lives. Today, there are some 265 work readiness college programs for students like the ones at InclusiveU, according to Think College, a federally funded coordinating center at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. That's a big leap from 2004, when there were just 25. Unlike programs for high functioning students on the autism spectrum, these award certificates, not degrees. What the students want upon graduation are good jobs, not short term gigs restocking shelves or handing out fliers on street corners but employment that relates to their interests and plays to their strengths. Therapists, economists and philosophers have long equated happy, fulfilling lives with meaningful work, no matter one's intellectual ability. Some research indicates that college helps. A 2015 survey by Think College of some 900 intellectually disabled students found that those who spent most of their time in traditional classes, soaking up campus culture and fine tuning their social skills, had better job rates than those who spent most of their time in specialized classes. The length of time a student spent in a program also increased their chances of employment. But the same survey found that only 40 percent of students exiting programs in 2015 were in paid jobs within 90 days of leaving. That's a lot better than the 7 percent employment rate for similarly disabled adults within the general population, as reported in a 2011 study. But it's still a dispiriting number. Syracuse University, which has offered a loosely monitored class auditing program since 2009, has struggled to get its students paid positions. It has not tracked employment, but informal interviews with 30 certificate recipients indicated that only about a third were employed for at least two days a week this past spring, making at least a minimum wage. One graduate had landed a position in the campus parking permit office after an internship there. Not so lucky was a 2012 graduate who got a job wearing a billboard sign outside a pizza chain. He promptly quit. Another did volunteer work checking patients in at a hospice. To improve outcomes, the university overhauled the program in 2014, rebranding it as InclusiveU. And with a 2 million federal grant, Ms. Shults was hired to design the internship year and workshop curriculum, which replaced a fourth year that had been purely academic. The first class will graduate in 2019, but already Cate Weir, Think College's program director, cites InclusiveU as a model. Syracuse has a longstanding reputation for commitment to disability advocacy, starting in 1946 when it opened a special education research department and began attracting top talent in the field. In recent years, the university has done high profile work in communication methods for individuals with disabilities, and now has 10 disability related centers. One is the Lawrence B. Taishoff Center for Inclusive Higher Education, which houses InclusiveU. Beth A. Myers, the director of the Taishoff Center, said that students in the newly revised program begin brainstorming their career plans when they arrive as freshmen, and are guided to think deeply about their interests, their strengths and their weaknesses. The challenge is striking an honest balance between being too optimistic and not stretching them enough. "Low expectations is a serious issue with this population," said Bud Buckhout, who oversees the program. "But you don't want to overwhelm people, either." For some, striking that balance has led to disappointment. Bob Pangborn, a 22 year old dramaturge with autism, spent his teens performing in community theater. At Syracuse he learned that acting was an unreliable profession. He was encouraged to consider something more practical, like ushering at a movie theater. The room was silent as Ms. O'Reilly, who has a speech impairment that can make it difficult to understand her, stood next to a podium and went through the locations on the map, displayed on a whiteboard. "These ones are good, these ones are bad and these ones are half not O.K., half good," she said, pointing at green, yellow and red dots on the map a color coded grading scale. After her presentation, her professor wondered if crosswalks deep inside the campus were more problematic than ones in areas popular with visitors. Ms. O'Reilly said yes. Then a student told the class that she herself had noticed how unsafe one of the crosswalks Ms. O'Reilly had mentioned was, even for students who are not impaired. Ms. O'Reilly nodded knowingly. "Yeah, you don't know where you can walk across the street." Ms. O'Reilly, who is in her first year in the program, said the presentation had given her a sense of her own power. "I felt very proud of myself," she told me. Ms. Shults sees her getting an internship at one of the campus's disability centers. Ms. O'Reilly says she thinks she'd like to work with children. Ms. Muscatello, who at 28 is in her final year, knows exactly what kind of career she wants. She envisions herself in an office wearing nice clothes, answering phones, filing papers and having lunch with colleagues. With an I.Q. around 65, she finds simple things like work manuals and basic textbooks challenging. Big words confuse her, and her math skills don't go past third grade. But she is funny and warm, with an easy smile. She likes Harry Potter books, natural disaster movies and her cat. And "I love it here," she said of the campus. Ms. Muscatello spent her teens in a special program in high school and then entered a life skills program for students with intellectual disabilities. On completion, she landed a job at a Price Chopper, stocking shelves. At first, she liked unloading jars of applesauce and cans of tomato soup. But eventually the work felt demeaning. When mayonnaise jars broke or one pound bags of flour cracked open, it was Ms. Muscatello who was asked to do the cleanup. "I'd go home all covered in flour," she said. "You could stick me in the oven and bake me like a cake." She would cut her hands when cleaning up glass. Her mother, a labor and delivery nurse, wanted more challenging work for her daughter and more respect. "I wanted more of a people job for her." Ms. Muscatello did, too. This past year, she participated in three campus internships. In the fall, she interned in the repair shop. The first few days, the program's job coach shadowed her as she learned how to fill out work order forms when complaints came in that light switches or elevators weren't working. Once on her own, Ms. Muscatello found the work manageable but boring. For her second job, she worked in the day care center reading to preschoolers, helping them with yoga poses and, once, calming them when a raccoon got stuck in the playground. But she found the work exhausting. She found her sweet spot in her third internship, working as an assistant in the quiet, carpeted offices of the Institute for Veterans and Military Families. The hope was that maybe she could stay on after the internship. I first met Ms. Muscatello in the office break room at the institute. She was learning how to deliver mail and deal with the stubborn paper shredder, and trying to remember who was whose assistant. When an officemate teased her that the boxes she was delivering might be too heavy for her, she insisted: "I'm capable of carrying some of the heavy boxes." She does not want to be underestimated. One spring morning on the North Shore of Long Island, dozens of eager parents, some from as far away as Illinois, meandered around the tree lined campus of New York Institute of Technology, which houses the Vocational Independence Program, a three year residential program with about 45 students. Staff members stood behind folding tables inside a sprawling lobby to hand out glossy promotional material, while parents nibbled on muffins and bagels. More than 1,000 students have enrolled since its inception in 1987. Once the group had settled in the auditorium, Paul Cavanagh, the senior director, told parents about the 3:1 student to staff ratio, the extensive job training (traditional college classes, internships at nearby hotels and restaurants) and life skills classes (banking, budgeting, cooking, apartment living). But the school has not kept records of postgraduate employment. Parents took notes. During the questions segment, one parent wanted to know whether there were enough athletic activities. (Yes, baseball and volleyball games are organized by the students.) Was there an I.Q. cutoff? (No.) What is the screen time policy? (Students manage their own screen use.) Touring classrooms, computer labs and a coffee house where students hold meetings, talent nights and parties, parents talked about their dreams and concerns. A New Jersey mother of an 18 year old with a developmental disability thought the time away from home would be good. "For him, not me," she said woefully. Many of the parents said they were looking for something new for their sons or daughters: an environment where not everybody catered to their every whim, where they were allowed to stumble a bit and take some risks, which they hoped would allow them to build the kind of resilience necessary for independent lives and fulfilling jobs. New York Institute of Technology has the priciest of the programs, at 50,730 in tuition a year (plus 12,220 for room and board). The Syracuse program averages around 23,200, depending on what classes a student takes. (It will host its first boarder this fall.) Both fees include the cost of mentors and note takers. Nationally, the average cost without support staff, according to Think College, is 11,000. Such revenue contributes to the proliferation of work readiness programs. The growth is also a result of a 2008 rewrite of the Higher Education Opportunity Act, which led to the establishment of Think College. It allowed these students, many without a high school diploma or comparable, to use federal financial aid for the first time if they attend an approved program. Syracuse expects to be able to award financial aid by this fall. (Students in some states can use a special Medicaid fund to pay their expenses. School districts required by law to support educational opportunities for disabled students until age 21 also help foot some of the bills.) "If we are going to really help people with significant disabilities, it's not by pretending they can go to college and do college work," said James M. Kauffman, a professor emeritus of education at the University of Virginia who has written extensively on special education. Ms. Weir of Think College says such thinking too narrowly defines how a college education benefits students, ignoring much of the socio emotional learning that happens for those in their late teens and 20s with disabilities and without while clocking time on a campus. Further, she says, just because students don't get 100 percent of what is taught in a class does not mean they haven't benefited. "This isn't for everybody," Ms. Weir said. "But it should be a choice. Students with disabilities shouldn't be told, 'You can't have a choice other people have.' " But even as she stridently supports the existence of the programs, Ms. Weir concedes that there are serious challenges. Programs are not accredited, leaving many families more or less in the dark about their quality. For the past few years, a 15 person task force organized by Think College has worked to develop a set of accreditation standards. The report was delivered to Congress last year. Ms. Weir says the next step is to persuade colleges to agree to an accreditation process. Advocates say that the biggest issue isn't so much with the programs as with the work force. Many employers worry about the expense and training required when hiring someone with a disability. And low skilled jobs that might have once been appropriate for this population are disappearing in our increasingly tech centered economy. Jonathan Lucus, managing director of the Arc, a job training service that connects companies with applicants who have intellectual and developmental disabilities, says college programs need to do intense outreach with local businesses. "You've got to constantly go out there," he said, "and shake hands and greet people and kiss babies and talk to these employers and say: 'Look what we are doing. How can we work together?' " Ms. Muscatello's journey illustrates how hard that can be. When I went to visit her a second time at her internship, she was sitting quietly behind the front desk dressed in black slacks and golf shirt. She had a laminated cheat sheet on the desk by her side that her job coach, Angela McPheeters, had made for her. It had all the staff names, their job titles and their extensions in large print. An administrative assistant sat by her side, giving her the day's assignment: to empty black binders that had been used for a recent conference, remove the tabs, and place them in a box on the floor. Ms. Muscatello also worked the phones. But when she picked up a call for someone in the entrepreneurship office, she got confused and couldn't say the word. Another time, pressing the buttons gave her trouble. Her supervisor had told her that if she got better with the phones, there was a good chance they'd hire her. When Ms. McPheeters got wind of this, she sent Ms. Muscatello home to practice with a photocopy of a telephone with the numbers pad on it and her cheat sheet. She spent days on it, after work and on weekends, announcing: "Hi, I.V.M.F. This is Meghan. Can I help you?" She tapped on the paper numbers with her index finger, as if she were transferring the calls. But when the semester ended, the supervisor said that funding had been cut and they were not going to be able to hire Ms. Muscatello. "I was a little bit disappointed," she told me. A few weeks later, in a cap and gown ceremony at a chapel on the main quad, this year's graduates received their certificates. One now has a job doing clerical work in a municipal office. Another has a position as a shop technician at a carpet cleaning company. As for Ms. Muscatello, she spent weeks eagerly waiting, her resume, letter of recommendation and interview outfits, free of cat hair, ready to go. Then one morning she was called in for an interview and aced it. This month she is expected to begin working the front desk at a YMCA. She got her dream job.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Education
Donations to a food bank outside a Newcastle match. Soccer's billion dollar business is often disconnected from its far more local connection with its fans. Clutching his phone in one hand and his passport in the other, Ruben Gabrielsen sprinted through his apartment. Duty had called, and he would answer. He had even tied a makeshift cape around his neck for the occasion. He would be the one to save his country in its hour of need. A 28 year old defender playing in France's second division, Gabrielsen probably would not have chosen these to be the circumstances in which he made his first international appearance. Not long ago, he probably would not have been able to imagine them. Gabrielsen was one of a host of players called up by Norway this week after its entire first choice squad was forced into quarantine after one of its members recorded a positive coronavirus test. One game, against Romania, had already been forfeited, but the country's soccer authorities did not want to sacrifice a second, in Austria. Bars and restaurants across Europe are shuttered. Offices stand empty. City streets are deserted. Much of the continent is locked down again, in one form or another, as the second wave of the pandemic bares its teeth. And yet soccer barrels on, bullish and determined, if not unaffected then grimly undeterred. It has been impressive, in a way, how smoothly elite soccer has transitioned to its new reality, a nonnative species thriving in a hostile land. In the spring, a single positive test that of Mikel Arteta, the Arsenal coach opened the eyes of the Premier League to the fact that it was not, as it had previously believed, immune to the coronavirus. Now, when 16 Premier League players test positive after the international break, not a single eyelid is batted. Occasionally, games are postponed Olympique Marseille has three fixtures backdated, the result of outbreaks either within its ranks or those of an opponent but mostly, soccer plows on, plays through. Shakhtar Donetsk took a team of teenagers to Real Madrid in the Champions League, and won. The game must always go ahead. That perseverance occasionally drifts into the realms of the absurd, but soccer has a remarkable ability to tolerate that, too. As mentioned last week, Denmark played Sweden even though both teams' managers were self isolating, and both teams had been deprived of a raft of players. England considered playing Iceland in Albania. Norway cobbled together a last minute team. Indeed, Norway's case was something of an anomaly: a rare example of reality intruding. Norway needed to take emergency measures because the country's government insisted it could not make an exception to its stringent quarantine rules even for the country's national team. That is unusual: Soccer, generally, is given a pass. Players cross borders without needing to self isolate upon arrival. Rules are changed and allowances made so the game this great cultural phenomenon that absorbs so many of us so much of the time can go ahead. In almost every other sphere of life, the problem now is that there is too little: too little culture, too little business, too little foot traffic, too little social contact, too little hope. Only in soccer do managers, players, executives and fans worry about whether there is too much. At times, it all feels a little brazen, a touch gauche. It is easy to see why some have fallen out of love with the game. It is even easier to see why those who never had much time for it feel vindicated by the crassness, the chutzpah of soccer during the pandemic. There are moments in empty stadiums and in vacuous controversies when it seems as if its mask has slipped and its inner workings are laid bare: a grinding, grasping, cash grabbing machine, a sports industrial complex locked in a spiral of "abusive self addiction," as the writer Jonathan Liew put it. And yet for all that soccer determined it had to continue because of an inflated sense of its own importance and an immediate understanding of its own financial model, its decision has been tolerated only because of something else. We accept it, in all its absurdity and gall, because none of that completely clouds its worth. As the Marseille owner, Frank McCourt, put it when we spoke a few weeks ago, a club is "a societal symbol of sorts." What has struck him most forcibly since he took charge of France's most popular team four years ago is how it is at O.M. he is studious in referring to the club as its fans refer to it that "the whole city of Marseille comes together and functions." "Someone said to me a little while ago, and it has stuck with me, that not everyone in the city of Marseille loves football, though of course a lot of them do," he said. "But everyone loves O.M." That is what gives every team and by extension, the game of which each one is a small but significant constituent part its power. That affection enables soccer to be an exception, even in the most trying times. It is the guarantee that, no matter how much the sport might try our patience with its egotism and self reverence and greed, we keep coming back. But it is not only a source of power; it is a source of responsibility, and one that ought to be more keenly felt now than ever. "It is in moments of crisis that sports, and soccer particularly, shows up," McCourt said. "It's when you see the great importance of it all." The last few months have brought plenty of examples of that, too, from the advocacy of Manchester United's Marcus Rashford in helping to feed the vulnerable to Jurgen Klopp's urging residents of Liverpool to take part in a mass testing program. Countless players have made donations, or used their platforms to promote the work of others. In 2017, McCourt set up an educational foundation, to use O.M. as a way of helping the city; the pandemic, and its economic consequences, has convinced him that it has to be not a sideline, but central to the work of the club. "In times of crisis, what we give back to the community is crucial," he said. "We have to demonstrate who we are, what we stand for. At a time when some of the civic institutions we used to lean on do not have the strong shoulders they had before, sports still shows up as a way for us to work together. It does not replace the thrill of winning, but it brings energy. The more you win, the more impact you can have." There have been plenty of moments, these last few months, when soccer has been hard to love, when it has tried our patience to its very limits with its petty squabbles and its headstrong self absorption. We allow the game to go ahead because each of its teams, its tiny empires, matter to so many of us. We are there for soccer when it needs us. But we expect the favor to be returned. We expect soccer to be there for us, too, in our hour of need. Since then, Germany's fortunes have been at best mixed. It finished at the bottom of its inaugural Nations League group, failing to win a game against France and the Netherlands. It qualified with ease for the delayed European Championships, as it qualifies with ease for basically every major tournament. And yet now it must prepare for next summer on the back of its heaviest defeat in 90 years, the evidence of its decline laid bare in Seville. It is easy and not entirely wrong to suggest that Low's employers have been too contented, too slow to read the warning signs, to believe that disappointment in Euro 2020(1) will be punishment for institutional stasis. But it is also testament to a very specific problem the major nations face. For those countries, like Germany, that qualify with ease for tournaments, qualifying is almost too much of a cakewalk. It makes it difficult to gauge exactly where the team is in relation to its rivals for the crown. Running up the score against Estonia and Andorra can disguise a multitude of sins. Perhaps, then, it is in Germany's favor that Spain should have exposed its flaws in such brutal fashion. Germany can be under no illusions, now, of where it stands in the pecking order. The question is what Low, or his bosses, intends to do about it. What he has not done, at any point in his career, is rebuild: to tear down one successful team and establish another, even more successful one in its place. In England, certainly, this is held up as the ultimate challenge for any manager, something only a handful of greats Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger, Matt Busby, Bill Shankly have ever managed to do. Now that he has signed a two year contract extension at Manchester City, Guardiola must add his name to that list. This is already the longest job of his career; if he sees out this new deal, he will have spent more than twice as long in Manchester than he did in Munich. Previously, Guardiola has always insisted that after three or four years a manager's message grows repetitive, starts to lose its power. At Barcelona and at Bayern Munich, he walked as soon as he sensed that moment. At City, if he is staying, that means some of the players will have to go. That process has already started in Ruben Dias and Ferran Torres, City has the outline of its next team but it will be a challenging one. Guardiola has already waved farewell to David Silva and Vincent Kompany, two of the cornerstones of City's rise. Fernandinho and Sergio Aguero will probably be next. It is not just, then, that Guardiola must demonstrate that he can refresh a team on the move. It is that he must do so without the players who have contributed so much to the very identity of the club. In a way, this may be his greatest test. An excellent point from James Armstrong, who took issue with my assertion that perhaps the international break we have just endured should not have happened. "To that, I say: Scotland," he wrote. And he's right: seeing the Scots qualify for a first major tournament since Bannockburn was heartening. That's the important thing to remember about international breaks: They aren't really for the dominant teams. They get their moment in major tournaments. These windows are about everyone else. Daniel Jones has been indulging in a little soothsaying: "It appears the men's national teams for both the United States and Norway have the potential for a golden generation. A bold prediction for the 2026 World Cup final: United States 2 1 Norway." Bold is the word for that, to be honest because success at a major tournament is as much about having a mix of good generations, rather than being great in one age bracket but both should be peaking around then. And Ed Taylor wants to add Diego Forlan to the list of unfairly maligned players, alongside Patrick Bamford and James Rodriguez. In the 2010 World Cup, he wrote, "the pundits were dismissive of a player who hadn't shown the best of himself at Manchester United at a young age, but who had scored over 120 goals in the six seasons after leaving, and who was named Best Player at the tournament." Forlan is an extremely good example of the phenomenon. Fine work. That's all for this week, other than to remind you all that the best story in soccer this year should have its conclusion in the next couple of days: Bodo/Glimt will, most likely, win its first Norwegian championship by Sunday evening. This newsletter is, like the rest of The Times, entirely impartial, but makes no bones about its long held passion for Bodo. Remember that askrory nytimes.com is the place to send the constructive kind of feedback; Twitter is the best place for the unconstructive sort. This week's Set Piece Menu asks what makes a great game, but begins with a whole thing about teeth that I neither condone nor advocate. And, as ever, it's hugely appreciated when you tell your friends and family and Tinder dates to sign up to receive this newsletter.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Sports
Have questions about recipes, cooking and food? My job is to answer them. Ask me anything: foodeditor nytimes.com. I live in a modest house in the country, just outside Olympia, Wash. I love to entertain, especially for dinner, but I have a small (seriously small) kitchen that creates complications and adds to my stress. What can I do to make the most of my limited space? It's actually laid out fairly well, but there's not a lot of counter space. I've done the easy stuff new, efficient stove with double oven, logical organization of cooking ingredients, pans and dishes, and I have a modest but well stocked pantry. Life is about perspective. You're stressed because your kitchen is small and you love to entertain. But you have a "house." You have a "double oven." You have a "pantry." So you're doing all right, at least from the point of view of the couple out in Brooklyn with the stove set up on the wall opposite their bed, next to the slop sink and the toaster oven resting on a table made of cinder blocks and plywood. They have friends over for supper, and someone's going to eat with a plate on her lap. That said, I think you should get one of those long cutting boards that can fit over your sink. It's a work station where there was no work station before. I think you should do the same with a cutting board set over a couple of the burners on the stove. These are both easily cleared aside when the time comes to cook, or clean. I think you should look at your walls to see if there isn't room on them to hang pans or utensils. I think you should look to the ceiling for the same reason. And could you get a little kitchen island into the space, maybe one on wheels? It might live in your pantry when you're not cooking or entertaining.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Fashion & Style
Comfort food for the young at heart, Richard Loncraine's "Finding Your Feet" is as cozy as old slippers and as familiar as the British character actors who populate its London locations. Led by a charming pairing of Imelda Staunton and Celia Imrie as the long estranged sisters Sandra and Bif, this creaky romantic comedy (with a side order of death and dementia) is by turns warm, silly and thoroughly mortifying. When Sandra, a suburban toff, surprises her husband mid clinch with his mistress, she grabs her fancy luggage and lands at the door of Bif's cluttered council flat. Within days, Sandra is joining Bif's dance class, smoking her weed and making eyes at a two stepping retiree named Charlie (the wonderful Timothy Spall).
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Movies
How to Make It as a Paparazzo in a Pandemic? Focus on Influencers None Fletcher Greene, 38, is a paparazzo and the creator of the Hollywood Fix, a media brand that has become the go to source for news about Gen Z celebrities. Here, he shoots a TMZ style interview with the TikTok star Tony Lopez. David Walter Banks for The New York Times Fletcher Greene, 38, has an encyclopedic knowledge of the internet's dramas and daily displays. He can tell you which influencers are feuding, who hosted a socially undistanced party last weekend, and where the Sway Boys ate lunch on Tuesday. This wasn't always the case. But in recent months, as paparazzi in Los Angeles have worked tirelessly to track down the few masked A listers in town, Mr. Greene has turned his focus to subjects in plain sight: the social media stars of Gen Z. His brand, the Hollywood Fix, has become an essential source for on the ground coverage of their daily outings in pandemic era Los Angeles. While drama channels and tea accounts like TikTokRoom share screenshots and recordings of influencers' online behavior, the Hollywood Fix captures their offline lives. Mr. Greene's videos have become so ubiquitous on the teen internet that they're now a meme. Hundreds of young people on TikTok have posted Hollywood Fix parody videos, and YouTubers like Emma Chamberlain have referenced the Hollywood Fix in their videos. People often parrot Mr. Greene's signature catch phrase "The fans wanna know!" in videos and replies on Twitter. Mr. Greene outside one of his usual haunts, BOA Steakhouse, on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, Calif. David Walter Banks for The New York Times "Whenever I have nothing to do, I'll watch the Hollywood Fix," said Alana Lintao, 16, a TikToker in New Jersey who creates parodies of Mr. Greene's videos. In January, she spent hours consuming content on his YouTube channel. "I kind of got caught in a loop and I was binge watching all of the videos," she said. Becoming a celebrity documentarian not to mention an authority on Gen Z wasn't Mr. Greene's plan when he moved from Dallas to Los Angeles in 2013. He had come to the city for a change of pace. At the time he was working as a music producer. Soon after his arrival, he noticed the number of famous people walking around his West Hollywood neighborhood. "I used to live down the street from Karrueche Tran, and I'd see Chris Brown," he said. One day, he began snapping pictures of the two with his phone. He called up TMZ to see if someone there would be interested in buying them, and to his surprise an editor offered him 1,000 in exchange for a few photos. So began his career as a paparazzo. Mr. Greene started chasing celebrities around town, building connections with valets and service workers who tipped him off to the whereabouts of celebrities. Mr. Greene, left, stands outside the back entrance of Cookies N Kicks, a shoe store on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood, alongside a fellow paparazzo after receiving a tip that Mr. Lopez was shopping there. David Walter Banks for The New York Times In 2014, he decided to put some of his content on YouTube. He was doing more video interviews and wanted a home for the stuff that the tabloids weren't buying. At the time, he said, People magazine and The Daily Mail weren't interested in footage from, say, outside Jake Paul's home, but the fans of his young influencer subjects ate the videos up and his subscriber base ballooned. By 2016, Mr. Greene was making decent money off his YouTube channel. This spring, it surpassed 1.4 million subscribers. Then, the pandemic hit in March, and suddenly everything changed. Celebrities began keeping a lower profile, stepping out only to walk their dogs or run small errands. Mr. Greene decided that rather than park outside Jennifer Lopez's house all day hoping for one photo, like other paparazzi, he would cover the stars who were posting openly about their house parties and public outings. "The TikTokers are always in groups," Mr. Greene said. "All the popular ones pretty much only hang out with popular ones. If you catch one you catch two or three or four. It's not like if you get Ben Affleck you also get Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez and Madonna. They don't hang out like that." When BOA Steakhouse, an upscale American restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, opened for outdoor dining in June, it became an overnight hot spot for Gen Z influencers. Mr. Greene parked himself out front and began interviewing the young stars about their lives and drama as they came and went. "The Hollywood Fix is very much covering what's happening on the internet rather than who's a big celebrity," said Kai Watson, 19, a founder of The Sync, a commentary channel and podcast. "You watch a video of a huge celeb walking down the street and it has like 10,000 views, but right next to it is a Hollywood Fix video 'Catching up with Charli D'Amelio at BOA' with 10 million views." Part of what has made the Hollywood Fix the go to outlet for influencers is the relationship Mr. Greene has with his subjects. They know that he has done his research and takes their careers seriously. Many of these young stars consider a Hollywood Fix interview to be a marker of status. "A lot of up and coming creators will say, OMG! I was finally on Hollywood Fix," Mr. Watson said. For many TikTok stars, Mr. Greene's channel is a conduit to the broader news media; his outlet is the first they go to when they want to discuss something new or big that they hope will be covered elsewhere. On Aug. 17, when the YouTuber Elijah Daniel hosted a joke event for his new collab mansion, the Alt Haus, he rang up the Hollywood Fix for coverage as a form of commentary on the publicity seekers of "straight TikTok" (the dancers and lip syncers most readily associated with the app). The reality star Spencer Pratt compared Mr. Greene to Ryan Seacrest, whose radio show has always featured celebrity guests and news items. "Back in 2008, when we were famous, Ryan Seacrest would text you and you'd call in and he'd ask what's going on," Mr. Pratt said. "All the TikTokers use the Hollywood Fix how we used Seacrest." Mr. Greene has also built an authority with influencers' fans. "My stuff is really fan driven," he said. "A lot of people make fun of me for saying 'The fans wanna know!' but I have hundreds of fans a day saying 'Can you please find this person and ask them this or that? We need to know the answer!' So I specialize in what people want to know about." The openly cozy relationship between Gen Z influencers and the paparazzi represents a sea change in the industry, said Mr. Pratt, who described being "shamed" for the same behavior just years ago. "These TikTokers have reinvented everything," he said. "Now it's cool to film yourself and call the paparazzi and self promote." Mr. Greene said that TikTok influencers have breathed life into the young Hollywood landscape. "All these kids are young, rich, good looking and live in these mansions," he said. "It's like a current version of '90210.'"
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Style
"End Times Fun," a state of the nation special, is his most ambitious production, sometimes to a fault, veering from reflective to raunchy, covering everything from the anti vaccination and MeToo movements to evangelical politics. Some of his premises, about the shadiness of Trump or the sexuality of Pence, are too familiar. What stands out is his anchoring theme: a skepticism of unshakable belief of any kind. Speaking in a deadpan that gets raspier the longer the sentence goes, Maron, who wears jeans, a vest and a bushy beard, has left his old anger behind. He sounds more seen it all weary, impatient with anyone who thinks they have answers, including his fellow podcaster Joe Rogan, whom he needles for selling health supplements before saying he'll get some flak about it online from "the monoculture of freethinkers," a salvo that seems aimed at the class of commentators and comics reflexively at war with political correctness. Maron describes himself as "85 percent woke, the other 15 percent I keep to myself." He singles out three major American religions: Fox News, Christianity and the Marvel Universe. He spends the least time with Fox, while he is quick to point out that Marvel and Christianity were both "created in Jewish writers' rooms." In Jewish comedy, pride has always hidden right underneath self hatred, a paradox Maron examines (and inhabits) as well as anyone. After three and a half decades in comedy, Maron has evolved into a sneakily clever joke mechanic. Smuggling punch lines into asides or seeming tangents, he attempts to approximate more of a conversation than a setup and punch line structure, one full of Socratic dialogues, short stories and barroom theories. Sometimes he seems more interested in a literary flourish than a belly laugh. His final joke is not hilarious but it calls back to no fewer than four different ones from the previous hour. In earlier specials, he almost fetishized spontaneity, but his work now is more overtly writerly, intricate and structured. Over the years, Maron has been on several comedy vanguards, from the birth of the alt scene in the 1990s to the podcast revolution more than a decade ago, but with age and success, he has become firmly part of the establishment, a television star whose podcast is as likely to feature Brad Pitt gushing over the host's self titled IFC show as a scrappy comic talking shop. (Full disclosure: I have appeared on it, and on a recent episode, he discussed me reviewing his special, the first time I have received a review invite by podcast.) Maron is now the old guard. It's not uncommon to hear young comics poke fun at him. It's part of the price you pay for a decade of nostalgizing in public as well as the inevitable hypocrisies you engage in if you live long enough. Maron hates comic book culture, but of course he appeared in the movie "Joker."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Television
What's Almost as Certain as Death? Not Talking About the Inheritance IF there is a boogeyman when it comes to family conversations about inheritance, it is not death. That happens whether people talk about financial plans or not. It's the 40 trillion that financial advisers say their baby boomer clients are going to pass to their children either in an orderly way or in a chaotic mess. A report by UBS on why families should talk about inheritance confirms the reluctance of people to talk about death and money. It's easier to have a will (83 percent of respondents have one) than discuss the will with your children (about half have) and harder still to tell them what the assets are (34 percent of respondents have). Wealthy and less wealthy people are equally bad at talking about their plans with their children. (Fifty five percent of people with more than 1 million talk to their children about an inheritance, while 53 percent of people with less than 1 million do.) And most parents want the transfer of money to their children to go smoothly (84 percent), without creating bad feelings among siblings (66 percent.) Martin Halbfinger, a private wealth manager at UBS Wealth Management, said clients typically didn't talk about inheritance with their children for four reasons. They don't want to confront dying. They are uncomfortable disclosing financial matters to their children. They don't want their children to know how much they're going to receive, lest it curb their motivation. And they are concerned about their heirs' financial acumen. Of course, the logic of all four excuses is easily refuted. But there is a bigger issue making the conversation about inheritance more angst ridden than it was for previous generations. "We just lived through an incredible era of wealth accumulation that is going to turn into one of the biggest topics out there today, which is how much money is going to be passed on from parents to heirs," said Mr. Halbfinger, who has been a financial adviser for 37 years. "The generation before the baby boomers never dreamed how much money they could have accumulated. Now there is a critical need to plan more properly." Like other areas of life in which there is strong data that should be dictating our behavior like cigarette smoking, global warming and baseball statistics people know what they should do but still struggle mightily to do it. Here are some lessons on some of the more common problems that arise when conversations about inheritances do not go as smoothly as they might. SIBLING NEGOTIATIONS Getting parents to discuss inheritance plans is surely difficult; getting them to put a plan in place that will not cause years of fighting among their children can be even more challenging. Janet, 58, who is retired and lives outside of Boulder, Colo., said her older sister marshaled their parents to make plans for their six children, one of whom has special needs. The process has taken eight years and her parents, who are in their 80s, are still not finished. "Neither one of my parents is college educated," said Janet, who asked that her last name not be used to protect her relationship with her siblings. "They're smart people, but they've never been trained in financial matters. It took a while for them to understand it." She said the estate was valued at about 3 million and her parents chose to divide it equally among the six siblings. This sounds fair but it's not the best way to do it, she said. She and the sister who initiated the conversation do not need their share; her brother with the medical problem needs more than one sixth to pay for the lifelong support system he needs. She is the executor for his special needs trust. "Recently the conversation came up that instead of giving him merely one sixth of the liquidated assets in cash, why don't you give him one house and one sixth of the remaining assets," she said. "My parents kind of liked that idea because they're concerned about him having a roof over his head. But I anticipate that if that comes to fruition there could be some disagreement among the other siblings." Nathan Weber for The New York Times Janet said some of her family members felt little sympathy for this brother and wanted their full share of their parents' money. "People will be upset about it, but we can hide behind the codification of their wishes," she said. "If they decide to give him an unequal share in the form of a house, my other sister and I will just hide behind what they want. We can say we've disagreed with them for 40 years," she said, referring to her parents. While this sentiment doesn't evoke tender feelings, there is a pragmatism to it that works. The parents have put their wishes down on paper, and there will be no surprises when they die and their children receive their shares. TOUGH DEAL Fighting among children is always unpleasant for parents. But when what children might fight over is something that cannot be split, a resolution becomes more challenging. A prime example is a memory packed vacation home. Sheri Rothenberg, a 70 year old lawyer in Chicago, said she and her husband started talking to their two children, both in their 30s, about their plans a few years ago. "Both of our children are very attached to our summer cottage in Sawyer, Mich.," she said. "It was still very important to them even though my daughter lives in Los Angeles and my son is in Washington, D.C. They have wonderful memories of it." But she knew only one of them could get it. The daughter, who works for a firm that does risk management for hedge funds, will get the cottage, Mrs. Rothenberg said, because "she'll always have more money than my son and houses need maintenance." Her son, who runs a small think tank, will get two rental properties of similar economic, but no sentimental, value. "It was an easy choice and he understood it, I think," she said, adding that there was another practical reason for the choice. "My son's wife is highly allergic to many things and the summer cottage is surrounded by trees of all sorts." At least with this family, there will be no surprises. "One of my goals is not to leave a mess of anything," she said. SILENT TREATMENT Joshua Burke, 28, of Brooklyn, said he could never imagine asking his parents, who live in San Diego, about their estate plans. "Both sets of my grandparents have passed away in the last five years and the inheritances were handled by my parents," he said. "I was not in the loop on that. I haven't spoken to my parents about inheritance." Nor does he plan to do so. "My father has told me they have a plan in place," Mr. Burke said. "I trust that my father is not lying to me." A potential heir's reluctance to ask for more detail is common and understandable. "They don't want to be perceived as greedy," said Paula Polito, chief client officer at UBS. But she had words of encouragement for reluctant parents: "If you focus on your death, you're not going to want to have this conversation. If you focus on my kids having peace of mind, it's different." For Beverly Hicks, 65, disclosing everything to her executor was essential even though she is divorced and has no children or siblings. It comes from her experience with the estate of her mother, who died in 2003. It took Ms. Hicks, who lives in Antioch, Tenn., nearly two years to get her mother's estate settled, even though it was modest and her mother had told her where everything was. When her stepfather died, decades earlier, he left everything to her mother, but Ms. Hicks learned that no one had changed the titling of the assets since then, from certificates of deposit to ownership of their home. "I had to go to court three times to get it handled," she said. "I had to run an ad in the newspaper. I had to take copies of the will to the bank to get the CDs straightened out." This was not what she had imagined happening, since her mother had been so open. "I thought truly that if anything ever happened I would know where everything was and it would be handled," she said. "One detail can make the biggest difference in the world."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Your Money
Debra Messing and Eva Longoria used their red carpet interviews on E! to side with Catt Sadler, the former E! host who left the network in December because she said her male colleague, Jason Kennedy, was paid twice as much. "I was so shocked to hear that E! doesn't believe in paying their female co host the same as their male co host," Ms. Messing, an actress on NBC's "Will Grace," said on live television to the E! commentator Giuliana Rancic. "I miss Catt Sadler, so we stand with her. And that's something that can change tomorrow." "It's heartbreaking in one sense, but I believe that you have to act in alignment with your beliefs," Ms. Sadler said in that interview. "As much as I wanted to stay, I do know my worth, I do know the inner workings of the network, and I just wanted what was fair and reasonable." The network, which would not provide pay details of the two hosts, denied that it paid Ms. Sadler less because she is a woman, saying in a statement that it "compensates employees fairly and appropriately based on their roles, regardless of gender." It also said the roles of Ms. Sadler and Mr. Kennedy were not comparable. Ms. Sadler was one of three hosts on "Daily Pop," and she co hosted the network's flagship "E! News" twice a week. She co hosted both shows five days a week for several months but cut back on "E! News" because of the strain of doing both every day, she said in December. Mr. Kennedy hosts "E! News" five nights a week, and co hosts "Live From the Red Carpet" before major awards shows. Ms. Sadler said that even after cutting back on her "E! News" appearances, she was hosting seven hours per week compared with Mr. Kennedy's five. "I inherited a lot more work and several more work hours, and I did all of that all year long without a single extra dime," she said. "I did that in good faith because I'm a team player and I wanted both shows to succeed. I trusted that, come time to renegotiate, I would be compensated fairly for all of that work moving forward."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Movies
DENVER The harrowing set of photos taken by a Denver Post photographer of a fatal shooting after street protests on Saturday did not make the newspaper's front page the next day. The photographer, Helen H. Richardson, wasn't dawdling. After capturing the shooting frame by frame, she spent three hours at police headquarters being questioned as a witness. "It's 4 o'clock, and I have a deadline," she recalled telling the police. Ms. Richardson described how she came to take the photographs in a phone interview on Monday. She was near Civic Center Park in Denver on Saturday afternoon covering a far right "Patriot Muster" rally while a far left counterprotest took place nearby. After people started to disperse, she was at the southern end of the park, near the Denver Art Museum, when an argument broke out. "I don't really know what compelled me to walk that way," Ms. Richardson said. The fatal shooting that followed left a man who attended the rally dead. A private security guard, hired by a television news station, was in police custody. And the news photographer found herself in the middle of a first degree murder investigation.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Media
To walk with the actress Brooke Shields through her West Village townhouse is to spend time with someone in the nascent stages of becoming a collector. She does not go to art fairs, and the only live auctions she has attended have been at her daughters' school. In a global art market that one estimate recently valued at 45 billion, the most Ms. Shields has spent on a painting is about 7,000. The Keith Harings and Andy Warhols hanging on her walls were not purchases, but gifts from the artists, who were her friends when she was growing up and a high profile model. Ms. Shields, 51, has come to realize that those pieces have significantly more than sentimental value. And through her increasing involvement with the New York Academy of Art, where she joined the board last year, Ms. Shields has begun to take collecting more seriously. "I want stuff," Ms. Shields said, sitting on a couch in her home recently, "and I really have to not make rash decisions." Ms. Shields's Harings include a heart over her bed, inscribed, "For Brooke Merry Christmas 1984," and a Buddha in the study of her husband, Chris Henchy, inscribed, "For Brooke ... one of the sweetest (honestly) people I've met, with lots of love and respect." A Warhol is in the laundry room.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Art & Design
WHAT IS IT? A five passenger all wheel drive relative of the Nissan 370Z sports car. HOW MUCH? 52,950, which is 6,850 more than an FX35 AWD. But the Limited Edition includes the Premium Package ( 4,150 on other versions), with an around view monitor, navigation system and front seats that can be heated or cooled. WHAT MAKES IT RUN? 3.5 liter V 6 (303 horsepower, 262 pound feet of torque), 7 speed automatic. IS IT THIRSTY? The FX prioritizes performance over fuel economy; the E.P.A. rating is only 16 m.p.g. in town and 21 m.p.g. on the highway. I'M on the phone with a fellow automotive journalist when his end of the conversation is pre empted by the raspy snarl of an engine straining toward its redline. I can't identify many engines just by their sounds except for oddballs like a Bentley W 12 or Subaru flat 4 but even over the phone, I recognize this sonic signature. "Are you driving an Infiniti with a V 6?" I ask. He replies, "Yes, I'm driving an FX35." I feel as though I should win a prize or maybe Infiniti's engineers should, for tuning a mainstream V 6 to produce a hard edged burble that's recognizable even through a tiny iPhone speaker. The FX is a fundamentally strange beast, a crossover that shares its rear wheel drive platform with Nissan and Infiniti sports cars. Those rear drive bones help to distinguish the FX from the sea of quasi S.U.V.'s that ride on stretched front drive sedan platforms, an ever growing mob that includes Infiniti's new three row JX (a branch of the Nissan Maxima family tree.) After nine years, the styling is familiar, but let's not forget that Infiniti once described the FX as a "bionic cheetah." I think it looks like a jacked up extraterrestrial insect, and I mean that as a compliment. The FX's last redesign came in 2009, so Infiniti needed to create some midcycle interest. You know what that means: it's time for a special edition. The FX35 AWD Limited Edition is essentially a trim package with distinctive blue paint and exclusive graphite finish 21 inch wheels. Only 550 Limited Editions will be built for the United States. A special color scheme sounds like a weak excuse for a distinct model, but the Iridium Blue paint is so striking that passers by stop for a second look. In shadow, the color mimics a sedate shade of navy blue, but in sunlight the hue changes into bright, bottomless metallic liquid. Unlike other distinctive paint jobs (like a matte finish or the unfortunate shade that Ford calls "cinnamon"), I suspect this one will age well. However, Iridium Blue won't repair its own scratches. When the current FX was introduced, it included Scratch Shield, a novel coating that could "heal" scratches under exposure to sunlight. Infiniti quietly dropped Scratch Shield after a year, because customers suffered from overly high expectations of its rehabilitative capabilities. The technology was meant to handle a light scratch in the clear coat, but when a deep gouge didn't magically repair itself like the bad Terminator, the complaints rolled in. Now we're back where we started, with paint that can't fix itself at all. See, people, this is why we can't have nice things. The deletion of Scratch Shield shows that Infiniti cares about its customer satisfaction ratings, as does a new perk called Infiniti Personal Assistant. For the first four years, FX owners have access to a personal concierge service. If you need a restaurant reservation, travel help or "assistance on a range of topics and tasks," there's a team of assistants operating a 24 hour hotline. Remember, it's their job to help, not to ask why you need a clown sent to Denny's at 4 a.m. If you want to test the personal assistants further, you might call and ask them to help you distinguish the difference in front end styling between the 2011 FX and the 2012 model. I'd say that the 2011 grille looked rapacious and the 2012 appears self satisfied, but only FX owners are likely to notice the change. Behind the grille, the engines are the same. Infiniti offers a 390 horsepower V 8 in the FX50, but the FX35's high revving V 6 is enjoyable in its own right. Its 303 horses are put to good effect by the 7 speed gearbox; visits to the 7,500 r.p.m. redline are accompanied by that singular bark. The FX is nominally rear wheel drive, sending torque to the front as needed, so it drives like an overgrown sports car agile, balanced and willing to frolic in a way that front drive crossovers can't match. Somehow, the Limited Edition even has a decent ride despite its colossal wheels. Before the FX, I might have wondered why anyone would want a high riding, low roof utility with sports car pretentions. Nearly a decade later, the FX has spawned a genre populated by mutants like BMW's X6 and Acura's ZDX. While the release of a limited edition hints at a fear of showroom stasis, last year the FX maintained its steady clip of about 10,000 sales, more than the X6 and ZDX combined. It's hard to catch up to a bionic cheetah.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Automobiles
There are five gigantic changes happening in America right now. The first is that we are losing the fight against Covid 19. Our behavior doesn't have anything to do with the reality around us. We just got tired so we're giving up. Second, all Americans, but especially white Americans, are undergoing a rapid education on the burdens African Americans carry every day. This education is continuing, but already public opinion is shifting with astonishing speed. Third, we're in the middle of a political realignment. The American public is vehemently rejecting Donald Trump's Republican Party. The most telling sign is that the party has even given up on itself, a personality cult whose cult leader is over. Fourth, a quasi religion is seeking control of America's cultural institutions. The acolytes of this quasi religion, Social Justice, hew to a simplifying ideology: History is essentially a power struggle between groups, some of which are oppressors and others of which are oppressed. Viewpoints are not explorations of truth; they are weapons that dominant groups use to maintain their place in the power structure. Words can thus be a form of violence that has to be regulated. Fifth, we could be on the verge of a prolonged economic depression. State and household budgets are in meltdown, some businesses are failing and many others are on the brink, the continuing health emergency will mean economic activity cannot fully resume. These five changes, each reflecting a huge crisis and hitting all at once, have created a moral, spiritual and emotional disaster. Americans are now less happy than at any time since they started measuring happiness nearly 50 years ago. Americans now express less pride in their nation than at any time since Gallup started measuring it 20 years ago. Americans look around the world and see that other nations are beating Covid 19 and we are failing. Americans look around and see state sponsored violence rhetorical and actual inflicted on their fellow citizens. America doesn't seem very exceptional. In times like this, you've got to have a theory of change. The loudest theory of change is coming from the Social Justice movement. This movement emerged from elite universities, and its basic premise is that if you can change the cultural structures you can change society. Members of this movement pay intense attention to cultural symbols to language, statues, the names of buildings. They pay enormous attention to repeating certain slogans, such as "defund the police," which may or may not have anything to do with policy, and to lifting up symbolic gestures, like kneeling before a football game. It's a very apt method for change in an age of social media because it's very performative. The Social Justice activists focus on the cultural levers of power. Their most talked about action is canceling people. Some person, usually mildly progressive, will say something politically "problematic" and his or her job will be terminated. In this way new boundaries are established for what has to be said and what cannot be said. The Social Justice activists sometimes claim that if you don't like their tactics then you are not fighting for racial equity or economic justice or whatever. But those movements all existed long before Social Justice affixed itself to them and tried to change their methods. The core problem is that the Social Justice theory of change doesn't produce much actual change. Corporations are happy to adopt some woke symbols and hold a few consciousness raising seminars and go on their merry way. Worse, this method has no theory of politics. How exactly is all this cultural agitation going to lead to legislation that will decrease income disparities, create better housing policies or tackle the big challenges that I listed above? That part is never spelled out. In fact, the Sturm und Drang makes political work harder. You can't purify your way to a governing majority. The Social Justice methodology is ultimately not a solution to our problem, it's a symptom of our problem. Over the last half century, we've turned politics from a practical way to solve common problems into a cultural arena to display resentments. Donald Trump is the ultimate performer in this paralyzed arena. If you think the interplay of these five gigantic changes is going to fit into some neat ideological narrative, you're probably wrong. If you think we can deal with a racial disparity, reform militaristic police departments and address an existential health crisis and a prolonged economic depression by taking the culture war up another notch, I think you're mistaken. Dealing with these problems is going to take government. It's going to take actual lawmaking, actual budgeting, complex compromises all the boring, dogged work of government that is more C SPAN than Instagram. I know a lot of people aren't excited about him, but I thank God that Joe Biden is going to be nominated by the Democratic Party. He came to public life when it wasn't about performing your zeal, it was about crafting coalitions and legislating. He exudes a spirit that is about empathy and friendship not animosity and canceling. The pragmatic spirit of the New Deal is a more apt guide for the years ahead than the spirit of critical theory symbology. 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.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Opinion
It was not exactly a perfect night in Washington for Fourth of July fireworks this year, when fog and rain blanketed the sky and made the Independence Day show from the National Mall less impressive than usual to those who had staked out a spot nearby. But if you had tuned in on Monday to watch the fireworks on PBS or watched it on your cellphone, you might have figured the sky was cloudless and the fireworks were crystal clear. You might also have wondered if someone had removed the scaffolding that has been on the Capitol dome for two years. But many eagle eyed viewers suspected something was not quite right, and PBS later admitted as much: It had spliced in firework footage from previous years with live shots.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Media
That was largely the reaction on Monday to the news, reported by Business Insider, that Verizon plans to house two giants of the early days of the internet, AOL and Yahoo, under the new name Oath. Tim Armstrong, the head of Verizon's AOL division, confirmed the announcement in a Twitter post on Monday afternoon: "Billion Consumers, 20 Brands, Unstoppable Team. TakeTheOath. Summer 2017." The brand will apply to the digital media division of Verizon after it buys Yahoo's internet assets for 4.48 billion, a deal that is expected to close by the end of June. But do not count the legacy brands out just yet: Yahoo, AOL and The Huffington Post will continue to exist and operate with their own names under the Oath umbrella. Verizon has said that much of Yahoo's value lies in its deep relationship with its customers, and services like Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports engender deep loyalty among users. Similarly, AOL.com and AOL Mail still have followings. But Oath will be a way for Verizon to present its family of digital content services to advertisers and other partners as a single entity. The company could also develop some new services under the Oath brand. Many greeted the announcement with bewilderment, with some suggesting that Oath sounded like the name of a heavy metal band.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Technology
LOOKING to jump start its stalled American car sales and meet environmental targets around the world, Mitsubishi is placing a big bet on electricity. Under a global plan announced Thursday, the company will offer six new plug in hybrid and battery electric models by 2015. Mitsubishi's American unit will drop three slow selling models by 2013: the Galant midsize sedan, the Eclipse sporty coupe and the Endeavor S.U.V. In their place, Mitsubishi will offer some of the smaller hybrid and electric models, which will also be aimed at developing markets. The Japanese automaker will sell its first electric car in America, the Mitsubishi i, this November, starting in Hawaii, California and other Western states. That four seat city car known as the i MiEV in other markets will offer a roughly 70 mile range for under 30,000, not counting tax incentives that can chop thousands off the price. Moe Durand, a Mitsubishi spokesman, said the drastic lineup shift would let the company focus its resources entirely on compact, or smaller, models. He said the Eclipse, Galant and Endeavor, which are currently built at Mitsubishi's plant in Normal, Ill., were too large to be exported successfully to foreign markets, including China.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Automobiles
"Now more than ever": The phrase is all over the publicity for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's season at City Center this year. It's easy to imagine why the inspiration and solace for which this company is known might be newly relevant, newly needed. Near the start of "Revelations," the work this troupe has danced in most of its performances for decades, torqued bodies express the pain of the oppressed to the sung words "there is trouble all over this world." At the end, those bodies rock in joyful redemption. That arc is an Ailey guarantee, but the season's premieres have promised a timeliness as well. Two deliver to varying degrees, but not "Walking Mad," the 2001 calling card of the Swedish choreographer Johan Inger, new to the Ailey repertory. It's a pretentious farce, set to "Bolero," in which people in trench coats and bowlers push around a wall on wheels, followed by an overwrought duet about intimacy issues. "Now more than ever, we need dance to express what words cannot." So says the Ailey publicity, but that doesn't mean we hear no words. In Kyle Abraham's "Untitled America," we hear voices of people who have been in prison, speaking of the damage wreaked upon their loved ones by enforced separation. Despite this terrible context, the words are flat, banal, their tone almost numb; Mr. Abraham's choreography has a lot of expressing to do. The work, which has been unveiled piecemeal over the past year in sections billed as "movements," has been advertised as a three part suite about the impact of the prison system on African American families. At the premiere of the full production on Wednesday, those earlier sections were revealed to be less installments in a trilogy than work in progress segments for a dance of many parts and one mood: melancholy. The dance now begins with the cast in a row, cycling through gestures to the sound of quick clapping and slammed cell doors. Their hands go up, behind their heads, behind their backs, as if ready to be handcuffed. The hands behind the back posture recurs throughout the work, as the dancers gently lay one another down, or lie down without prompting only to get up and go down again, as if from habit, as numbed as the voices. That's political commentary, but it doesn't go beyond mourning. More emotionally expressive voices enter: an old Alan Lomax recording of the prison holler "No More, My Lord"; Laura Mvula's rich and recent broken family lament "Father, Father." Mr. Abraham mixes in embraces with a hint of forgiveness, and brief, shuddering collapses. His choreography sometimes achieves a delicacy of line that exposes more intense pain. Yet when one of the voices says, "My body was inside, but my mind was always outside of prison," the words exceed what Mr. Abraham is able to show. As Hope Boykin's "r Evolution, Dream" opens, Matthew Rushing seems to be gesturing in some silent language, his hands and fingers flashing and pointing. Near the end of the work, which had its premiere on Friday, he repeats this solo and we hear his sermon, taken from the gospel song "If I Can Help Somebody": If he can help somebody with his art, his life shall not be in vain. We hear these words in the mellifluous recorded voice of Leslie Odom Jr. of "Hamilton" fame. Mr. Odom also recites Shakespeare and inspirational verse about inner beauty ("be the best whatever you are") and about how skin shades may differ but everyone has feelings, along with some rhymed lyrics about dignity by Ms. Boykin, a longtime Ailey dancer. Ms. Boykin's 1960s costume design divides the cast by fabric color: black, white, fuchsia, grass green. The potential triteness of all this is partially offset by the hipness of the music, an original score by the jazz drummer Ali Jackson. It summons the '60s with swinging elegance in various meters and moods. Ms. Boykin's choreography, often compositionally complex, is closely attuned to the rhythms of both the music and the speeches. Always pleasing, sometimes delicious, it never quite finds its own song. There are many fine moments, though, often in the universalizing mode of Ailey tradition: sophisticated and youthful romance and an especially touching mother and daughter section, using younger dancers from Ailey's junior troupe. The way Akua Noni Parker holds her head as she walks expresses dignity better than Ms. Boykin's rhymes. "r Evolution" builds to an acceleration more exciting than "Bolero" and concludes with a lovely twist, as cast members, heading for one exit, turn to advance on another diagonal, still on the path. "Now more than ever, we need dance to bring us together" is another Ailey slogan this season; the thing is, this company can do it.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Dance
BOSTON While school officials and parents here were debating how to assign students to Boston's public schools, a lanky young man was quietly observing their public proceedings. He quickly saw the Rubik's Cube like puzzle: How could the school system design a plan that would send children to a good school, close to their homes in a city that had too few good schools? And could that plan also ensure that students from poor neighborhoods had the same chance of attending good schools as those from more affluent neighborhoods? The current system, for kindergarten through eighth grade, divides the city into three large zones, a holdover from its traumatic experience in the 1970s with forced busing to end segregation. Today, many students are still bused far from home, yet many disadvantaged students are still in lower performing schools. Over the last year, a 27 member advisory committee pored over its options and weighed competing proposals, but became hopelessly tangled up as it considered proposals that created more zones to fix the inequality. The young man, Peng Shi, a 24 year old doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, began asking questions and talking to parents. Then he made a suggestion: why not drop the idea of zones altogether? For Boston, it was a breakthrough moment. Mr. Shi made some suggestions about how to assign the almost 40,000 students to the 96 schools without using zones and his proposal quickly rose to the top of a pile of about 10 others. It went through several iterations. The final one gives families a list of at least six schools starting with the two closest high quality schools, then the next two closest of at least medium quality. Last month, after a year of study and more than 70 community meetings, the advisory committee voted overwhelmingly to recommend that the Boston School Committee adopt Mr. Shi's model. The school committee was planning to vote on it Wednesday night. Not everyone is happy with the plan. Critics say it perpetuates inequities. But if it passes, the plan would represent the most significant change in the city's student assignment system in nearly a quarter century, finally dismantling the remnants of the notorious busing plan. That it took a dispassionate outsider with coding skills but no political agenda to formulate the model is a measure of the complexities facing urban school districts today. Many such districts, like Boston's, are plagued by inequities, with too few good schools and children mostly of color trapped in low performing schools. Overcoming that legacy here has been so emotionally charged that previous attempts to redraw the zones have failed (though in 2005 the district did change the algorithm it uses to assign students). Mr. Shi has no ties to the Boston school system; he was born in China and grew up in Canada. But he is deeply interested in market design, which helps policy makers think about complex trade offs to bring about positive social results. "It's groundbreaking in that it doesn't look at just geography but at quality," Carol R. Johnson, the school district's superintendent, said of Mr. Shi's model. (It was innovative for Boston though some other cities, including Chicago and San Francisco, have used a similar approach.) The overhaul of the assignment system started last year, when Mayor Thomas M. Menino said he wanted students to attend schools closer to home, hoping to stimulate more parental involvement and neighborhood cohesiveness. But many parents complained that there was not enough focus on the issue of equity and the district's fundamental problem the scarcity of good schools. One fear expressed by families of all socioeconomic backgrounds was that their children could be crowded out of the district's few good schools and end up at ones that are lower performing. Some families would most likely opt out of the public school system, if not leave the city altogether, they said. Whites make up about 47 percent of Boston's population but only 13 percent of the public school population. "He started saying things like, 'What I'm hearing is, parents want close to home but they really care about quality,'" Ms. Wolf said. "He said, 'I'm working on something to try to meet those two goals.' He didn't have a political agenda." Mr. Shi became interested in school assignment last year after his national kidney exchange proposal had fallen through. "I prayed about finding another project," said Mr. Shi, who is active in Christian fellowship groups. He was born in Kunming, China, where his father was a statistics professor and his mother an abdominal surgeon. When he was 11, his family moved to Canada for his education. He graduated from high school in Toronto and was accepted at M.I.T., Princeton and Duke. Money was tight, so he chose Duke for its offer of a full scholarship. He likes "to use mathematics and quantitative thinking," he said, "to try to use the gifts God has given me." But Boston was not an easy project. With his father ill with lung cancer, he worked 18 hour days from Toronto over the Christmas break, communicating long distance with his economics professors, Parag Pathak at M.I.T., and Tayfun Sonmez at Boston College. The school district and Mayor Menino had commissioned Dr. Pathak's lab, at M.I.T.'s School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative, to try to forecast what schools parents might choose under various new proposals. Using choices that the parents had made in the past, Mr. Shi built computer simulations, did demand modeling and generated hundreds of thousands of files and graphs. But the advisory committee members still had to weigh the importance of things like distance from home, standardized test scores, whether a sibling attends the school, and overall equity. "It boils down to what is fair and whose claims to a school are most deserving," Professor Pathak said. "In the end, these are value judgments." A controversial element of the plan is the "walk zone priority," which gives preference to students living within walking distance of a school. Research by Dr. Pathak and Dr. Sonmez shows that the walk zone priority does not actually give much of an advantage to students living nearby. But Mr. Shi's original proposal had no walk zone, and he said in an interview that he personally saw no reason for it; it was added in later. The walk zone priority has become intensely symbolic, and Ms. Johnson, the superintendent, said last week that she was "rethinking my position on walk zone." She said she expected some attempt on Wednesday night to eliminate it from the plan before the school committee casts its final vote. Still, even critics say that Mr. Shi helped everyone think outside the box and that without him, the end product would have been worse. For his part, Mr. Shi said he found the work humbling. "We can only contribute one piece of this, and we don't claim we have solved anything," he said. "If you reduce this to a math problem, you think you can solve it. But real life is much more complicated."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Education
After nearly 40 years as a reporter and editor at The New York Times, Susan Chira will depart next month to become the editor in chief of The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that focuses on criminal justice issues. In her new role, Ms. Chira, a senior correspondent and editor covering gender issues for The Times since 2016 and a member of a team that won a 2018 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of workplace sexual harassment, will succeed Bill Keller. Mr. Keller, whose own 30 year run at The Times included eight years as the paper's executive editor, joined The Marshall Project at its founding in 2014. Since then, he has guided it to a bevy of awards, including a Pulitzer Prize and two National Magazine Awards. Upon Ms. Chira's arrival, Mr. Keller will become a board member while pursuing teaching opportunities at Princeton University and Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y. Ms. Chira was chosen as Mr. Keller's successor after a monthslong search, during which more than 20 people were interviewed for the position. "It's such an exciting opportunity to join something that, although so new, has already accomplished so much," she said in an interview on Monday. "I think the ambition that we all share is that it's already made an impact, and we can widen the lens." Working out of offices about a mile north of The Times's Midtown Manhattan headquarters, Ms. Chira will oversee stories about America's courts, police departments, prisons and more. She said that she hoped to help The Marshall Project dig more deeply into injustice stemming from race, ethnicity and gender, and to pursue more investigative projects. Marshall Project reporters, often working with other news outlets, including The Times, have investigated how law enforcement authorities handle rape cases, the practice of solitary confinement and private companies that profit from transporting prisoners. Conceived in 2013 by Neil Barsky, a onetime hedge fund manager and former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, The Marshall Project is financed by donations and grants from the Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation, the Rockefeller Family Fund and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Its current budget is 7.2 million. Named for Thurgood Marshall, the former Supreme Court justice, the organization is often compared to ProPublica, another nonprofit journalism organization that teams up on articles with other publications. The Marshall Project began with 26 employees; it now has 38, with 26 in the newsroom. 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. "We've reached the point where we don't think of ourselves quite as much as a start up," Mr. Keller said in an interview. "We're doing all these grown up things like making sure that we have policies on paid leave and sexual harassment, the things you would sort of take for granted when you're brand new, but we're at the stage where you have to institutionalize them." Ms. Chira started her career at The Times as a trainee on the metro desk in 1981 after graduating from Harvard. Since then, she said, she has had "the most wonderful time" covering topics like education and business, reporting from Tokyo and writing a book about motherhood. She is, according to Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times, "one of the finest editors I've known." "We will miss her, but it is great for journalism that she will be running something as important as The Marshall Project," he said in a statement. Ms. Chira was one of the longest serving foreign editors in the history of The Times, managing more than 50 correspondents and overseeing reporting that won several Pulitzers. She is also known for encouraging other journalists in their careers and recently developed a mentoring program at The Times. At The Marshall Project, she said, she plans to make diversity a priority in recruiting. Many employees of The Marshall Project are early in their careers, Mr. Keller said, "the kind of environment perfect" for Ms. Chira. "She's got quality journalism in her DNA, and I've watched her work with lots of people," he said. "She has a gift for getting the best work out of people."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Media
Storm clouds have piled up around "Wild Noise/Ruido Salvaje," an exhibition of contemporary Cuban work at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. The show was planned a few years ago as a two part mutual exchange of permanent collection work between the Bronx Museum and the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana. In May 2015, the Bronx material, a juicy globalist grab bag, made the trip to Cuba without a hitch and returned home safely. The prearranged shipment of Cuban art from the National Museum to New York, however, hit a roadblock when, according to the Bronx Museum, Cuban authorities refused to let any of it leave the island. Whatever the full story of that setback, the Bronx Museum moved ahead with a make do version of the project. Working with two National Museum curators, Corina Matamoros and Aylet Ojeda Jequin, it patched together the present show from its own holdings and American loans. And even then there were problems. One scheduled artist in the Bronx Museum's collection, Tania Bruguera, was under government house arrest in Cuba in May 2015 and not included in the Bronx show there, though she could and should have been. She recently backed out of the New York leg of "Wild Noise," protesting the museum's failure to speak out critically to the Cuban government. (The museum, for its part, harbors hopes that a Cuba to New York exchange will at some point come off.) There's no question that the exhibition as it will finally open here is a far less challenging affair than Ms. Bruguera would have wished. Although it claims to be "an exploration of contemporary Cuban art from the 1970s to the present," it is in no way a representative survey. Like the Bronx collection display in Havana, it's a sedate sampler, one without a shaping point of view. Wild and noisy are exactly what it is not. This is disappointing. At the same time, the show doesn't lack for political content; there's plenty, however discreetly framed. And there are advantages to having no ironbound curatorial concept in play: At least the 30 or so artists get equal time with their varied voices, some mild, some strong, several new to New York. Still, some thematic structuring would have been a help, even at the risk of reinforcing stereotypes of tropical exoticism, revolutionary fervor, etc. One obvious theme is the presence of nature, a universally loaded one in the age of climate crisis. It's everywhere here. The performance artist Glenda Leon notates music and dance scores with images of raindrops. The Cuban American conceptualist Maria Elena Gonzalez punches holes in photographs of palm trees. Humberto Diaz, currently an artist in residence at the Bronx Museum, extends the active life of fallen tree branches he scavenges from the city's parks by attaching industrial brooms to their tips. For a long unseen installation from the early 1990s, the artist Alexis Leiva Machado, known as Kcho, transforms a set of palm saplings into what look like giant oars, a reminder of earlier waves of exodus from the island by boat to escape political persecution. The Cuban born Ana Mendieta (1948 1985) was part of that refugee generation and came to the United States as a child. Her attachment to Cuba remained profound, often expressed as an intimate, sacrificial identification with the natural world. In a series of works called "Siluetas," she virtually merged with it, buried herself, by tracing and burning the shape of her body into the earth, as documented in a dozen photographs from her art school years at the University of Iowa in the 1970s. "Silueta Works in Iowa (Tree and Fire, Old Man's Creek)," from 1976 78, by Ana Mendieta. In such images, Ms. Mendieta was indirectly referring to a specific aspect of Cuban cultural history: the forced mass migration that was the Atlantic slave trade. Beginning in the 16th century, hundreds of thousands of slaves were shipped from Africa to Spanish colonial Cuba to work on sugar plantations, bringing their languages, arts and spiritual lives with them. The spirit of Afro Caribbean religions that developed on the island was central to much of Ms. Mendieta's work, and to that of several other artists in the show. In the 1980s, Jose Bedia became a priest of Palo Monte, a religion with roots in the Kongo kingdom of Central Africa, home to many New World slaves. Belkis Ayon, who took her own life in Havana in 1999 at age 32, was inspired by Abakua, an all male, Nigerian derived secret society that she, heretically, infuses with female energy in a magnificent body of black and white figurative prints. These hybrid faiths, and others, are still widely practiced. And skin color continues to be, even in a country that once made utopian claims to colorblindness, a social and economic determinant. This is a reality that the artist Maria Magdalena Campos Pons has been addressing for years in ritualistic whiteface performances one took place, unannounced, in Piazza San Marco during the 2013 Venice Biennale and in role playing photographic self portraits, like the ones in the show. Ezequiel Suarez, who with the artist Sandra Ceballos founded Havana's oldest alternative space, Espacio Aglutinador, was hounded by censors in the 1990s. In response, he took to writing secret, tweet size messages to Castro on the reverse side of his abstract embroideries, literally hiding subversive content in his art. 4 Other Names to Know in Latin American Art Paving the way. Frida Kahlo is internationally renowned for the emotional intensity of her work. But she is not the only woman from Latin America to leave her mark in the art world. Here are four more to know: 1. Luchita Hurtado. For years, Hurtado worked in the shadow of her husbands and more famous peers. Her paintings, which emphasize the interconnectedness of all living things, didn't get recognition from the art world until late in her life. 2. Belkis Ayon. A Cuban printmaker, Ayon was a master in the art of collagraphy. She worked almost exclusively in black, white and gray. She used her art, focused on a secret religious fraternity, to explore the themes of humanity and spirituality. 3. Ana Mendieta. Mendieta's art was sometimes violent, often unapologetically feminist and usually raw. She incorporated natural materials like blood, dirt, water and fire, and displayed her work through photography, film and live performances. 4. Remedios Varo. Though she was born in Spain, Varo's work is indelibly linked to Mexico, where she immigrated during World War II. Her style is reminiscent of Renaissance art in its exquisite precision, but her dreamlike paintings were otherworldly in tone. For decades, to the outside world, Cuban art meant propaganda. Portraits of Castro and Che Guevara were best sellers because that's all that was on the market. The curators of "Wild Noise" put an antic spin on this phenomenon, without abandoning it. But they also include some genuinely moving political work. In 1996, Mr. Toirac and Ms. Marrero did a series of 12 portraits, from news photos, of corpses found in a city morgue after the Cuban president, Fulgencio Batista, had been overthrown by the Revolution in 1959. Who these people were, and why and how they died, is unrecorded. The military has memorials to unknown soldiers; these are unknown citizens. The artists treat them with reverence, painting their features with wine and gold leaf. They take a refined, even delicate approach to a large subject. There are other examples. Diana Fonseca Quinones distills the texture of a crumbling Havana in small abstract collages made of paint scraps harvested from building exteriors. Pedro Pablo Oliva portrays Jose Marti, the apostle of Cuban independence, as a slumbering saint in dapper tropical whites. And the conceptualist Wilfredo Prieto sketches, in the faintest of ink lines on a long paper scroll, images of every project he has completed in a prolific career. In the end, Ms. Bruguera's resistance to a show that she found to be too unprotestingly in line with the Cuban government's dictatorial control of art is well taken. And this leads to a natural question: If work from the permanent collection of the National Museum in Havana had traveled, would it be any more radical than what we see here? In short, "Wild Noise" maybe as good as we could expect considering the official sources and compromises involved. We may find a bolder take on truth in history in a larger show, "Adios Utopia: Dreams and Deceptions in Cuban Art Since 1950," which opens at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, on March 5. In terms of point of view, the title alone speaks volumes.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Art & Design
The International Center of Photography will reopen in a four story, 40,000 square foot space in the massive new Essex Crossing development on the Lower East Side on Jan. 25. It is the fourth location for the museum since its opening in 1974 and brings the exhibition and education spaces under the same roof for the first time this century. "The drive behind the new building is to put the exhibits, the collection and our students back in dialogue with each other" Mark Lubell, I.C.P.'s executive director, said in an interview on Monday. "The exhibits will be worked into our curriculum for our more than 3,500 students from around the world in programs ranging from a two year M.F.A. program to classes for teens and everything in between." The new space will provide significantly more exhibition space than any of the previous sites on East 94th Street and Fifth Avenue, West 43rd Street and Avenue of the Americas, and the Bowery, near Houston Street. It will include media labs, classrooms, darkrooms, public event spaces, a research library, a store and a cafe. The museum galleries will be visible through a glass facade on Essex Street.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Art & Design
Michael Oreskes, who led NPR's news division and was formerly a high ranking editor at The New York Times, resigned on Wednesday after being accused of sexually harassing women. Jarl Mohn, NPR's president and chief executive, said in a memo to employees that he had asked Mr. Oreskes to resign "because of inappropriate behavior." On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported the accounts of two women who said Mr. Oreskes had sexually harassed them in the 1990s, when he was the Washington bureau chief at The Times. The women said Mr. Oreskes made unwanted sexual advances as they were discussing career opportunities and advice with him. After The Post published its report, a current NPR employee, Rebecca Hersher, said she had filed a complaint about Mr. Oreskes with NPR's human resources department in October 2015. NPR hired Mr. Oreskes in March 2015. Mr. Mohn said in his memo to employees that NPR had been acting on accusations against Mr. Oreskes before the news reports were published. "Some have asked me if it took published news reports for us to take action," Mr. Mohn said. "The answer is that it did not. We have been acting. Some of the steps we took were visible, and others weren't. We have a process in place, and we followed that process." In a statement, Mr. Oreskes said: "I am deeply sorry to the people I hurt. My behavior was wrong and inexcusable, and I accept full responsibility." On Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Mohn addressed Mr. Oreskes's resignation during a segment on NPR's "All Things Considered" program. Mr. Mohn confirmed that NPR had first learned of a sexual harassment allegation involving Mr. Oreskes in the fall of 2015, calling Mr. Oreskes's actions "unacceptable" and "deplorable." NPR investigated the complaint, Mr. Mohn said, and put Mr. Oreskes on notice. Last fall, another woman told NPR that Mr. Oreskes harassed her roughly two decades ago, while he was working at The Times. And last month, a third woman complained to NPR about Mr. Oreskes's behavior when he was at The Times.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Media
THE LOST GUTENBERG The Astounding Story of One Book's Five Hundred Year Odyssey By Margaret Leslie Davis Whether we're browsing in an antique store or perusing an auction catalog or walking through a museum, our imagination takes leaps. We are fascinated by the history of objects. We can't help wondering where these timeworn treasures have been, what human dramas they have witnessed and what stories they could tell. She first encountered the Bible while researching her 1998 biography, "Dark Side of Fortune: Triumph and Scandal in the Life of Oil Tycoon Edward L. Doheny." (He was the California magnate deeply implicated in the Teapot Dome scandal, which shook the Harding administration.) After Doheny's death in 1935, his widow, Carrie Estelle Doheny, sought to redeem her husband's name by building a magnificent library at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, Calif., stocking it with her collection of rare spiritual tomes. 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 Lost Gutenberg" revolves around Doheny's pursuit of her trophy and what became of it after her death. The author does a loving job of conveying Johann Gutenberg's spectacular innovation in movable type and the experiments in his workshop in Mainz, Germany. This particular Gutenberg Bible, printed before Aug. 15, 1446, is listed as No. 45, one of fewer than 50 copies that survive. Even fragments of Gutenbergs are highly prized, but this volume has its original calfskin cover and the pages are intact. Its first owner, Davis notes, "had not scrimped on ornamentation. The volume is filled with elaborate, richly colored illuminations" twisting tendrils and flowers and birds. Perhaps because of the absence of records, the author omits the first 390 years of the Bible's existence and picks up the story in 1836, when it begins to make its way around Britain, moving from one Downton Abbey style castle to another. Possessing such an important religious object might have held out the promise of grace, but time after time the Victorian era owners of this Gutenberg suffered one misfortune after another financial reversals, crime and untimely deaths. The secretive Archibald Acheson, the third Earl of Gosford, found refuge in the family library while his father persisted in a 40 year attempt to build the largest Norman Revival castle in Northern Ireland. The construction of the unfinished 242 room edifice left the family with crippling debt. After Acheson's death in 1864, his son liquidated the Bible along with the entire collection.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Books
SelfiePal, a steel stick with a clamp to secure a smartphone, arrived in the mail on a recent afternoon along with some advice. "Shoot down from a slightly elevated viewpoint for a more flattering effect," said an accompanying postcard from Kimpton Hotels Restaurants, which has begun loaning guests selfie sticks as if they were as practical as umbrellas and toothpaste. Guests who borrow one and then post their selfies on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag AdoreThySelfie may win a stick of their own, a 150 Kimpton gift card, and for aspiring Dorian Grays a framed enlargement of their selfie. Kimpton, which owns more than 60 boutique hotels, is among the latest wave of brands trying to parlay selfie culture into tourist dollars. JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort Spa in California is offering a "Your Spring Selfie" vacation package through May that starts at 399 and includes a selfie stick and map of scenic "selfie spots" around the resort. (Those who share their selfies on social media using hashtags such as SpringSelfie may win an upgraded return visit.) The promotion comes in the wake of several others around the world, including selfie packages offered at the Mandarin Oriental in Paris and La Concha Renaissance Resort in San Juan, P.R. Over the last few years, during which the word "selfie" (or "selfy") was added to the Oxford English Dictionary, there's been a steady stream of selfie contests from travel companies and organizations as varied as Turkish Airlines and the city of Pagosa Springs, Colo. Cheaptickets.com currently has a contest for the best spring break "trelfies" (travel selfies, for the uninitiated), with vacations going to the winners in various categories such as Road Trip and Beach/Pool. Little wonder that there's a nascent museum, Art in Island in Quezon City, the Philippines, designed for visitors to take selfies in front of three dimensional artworks, some of which are meant to resemble masterpieces like Van Gogh's "Church in Auvers sur Oise" and Leonardo's "Mona Lisa." With the practice now ubiquitous among travelers, selfie hating is also in vogue. Yet to dismiss all selfies as artifacts of modern narcissism is to dismiss the centuries long history of self portraits, which stretches back to antiquity and flowered in the Renaissance, as James Hall points out in "The Self Portrait: A Cultural History." Museums are filled with self portraits by artists including Rembrandt, Titian, Kahlo, Picasso, Hopper, Cassatt, Munch, Warhol and Chuck Close. Michelangelo is thought to have painted his own face as the visage on St. Bartholomew's skin in "The Last Judgment" in the Sistine Chapel, according to Vatican Museums; Caravaggio painted his likeness onto the severed head of Goliath in his "David With the Head of Goliath" (1609 10). And while self portraits are hardly devoid of vanity, they have long served deeper purposes. They have been forms of self expression, ways to explore or reveal identity, historical records and a means for artists to hone their craft. That said, the travel selfie snapped while standing before Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" or trekking amid the Amazon rain forest has some particular drawbacks. "The very activity of taking pictures is soothing, and assuages general feelings of disorientation that are likely to be exacerbated by travel," wrote Susan Sontag in the 1977 book "On Photography." "Most tourists feel compelled to put the camera between themselves and whatever is remarkable that they encounter." What happens when the tourist is both spectator and subject? To stop watching a sunrise or hiking a mountain to try and immortalize the moment is like trying to catch fireflies. You typically end up killing the very thing you're striving to preserve. Then there's the matter of how selfie taking affects other travelers and locals. For centuries the process of creating self portraits was done in the solitude of studios or private homes. But the selfie stick, indiscriminately extended and held aloft like a golf club in front of monuments and in museums, is visually disruptive and, depending on its wielder, precarious. Museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago have banned the sticks (which typically extend three feet or so and could damage works of art) even as the practice of taking selfies with art is widely encouraged. But let's say you really want to take travel selfies. It seems that one thing to ask yourself should be how much of your vacation you want to spend looking inward. In the 19th century, early travel photography was about looking outward. It brought the world the land, culture and customs of other people and places to those who could not experience it firsthand. Where do you want to place your attention? Another question worth mulling is what snapping selfies will do to your memory of your trip. Some studies suggest that taking snapshots may hurt our ability to remember what we have seen. One such study, published in the journal Psychological Science in 2013, found that people touring a museum remembered fewer objects and details about the objects when they photographed them as a whole than if they simply observed the objects without photographing them. The French literary and social critic Roland Barthes theorized in "Camera Lucida" that a photograph "blocks memory, quickly becomes a counter memory." After sifting through some of his old photographs, he finds himself robbed of the richness of memory because the images are all too concrete. "I could no longer console myself with Rilke's line: 'Sweet as memory, the mimosas steep the bedroom,' " he wrote, referring to the poet. "The Photograph does not 'steep' the bedroom: no odor, no music, nothing but the exorbitant thing." I'm about to begin packing for another trip. SelfiePal won't be tagging along. As a journalist, I am sympathetic to, and tempted by, the impulse to record. As a frequent solo traveler, I appreciate that a selfie stick allows you to be in your own vacation photos without the unintended fun house mirror effect. But then, there's something sweet about the fleeting exchange that occurs when you ask a stranger to snap a photo of you. And there is relief and dare I say pleasure in letting a moment go undocumented, in deciding to be there instead of proving you were there. I think it's called living.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Travel
The writer Nora Roberts on Wednesday sued a Brazilian romance novelist for copyright infringement, accusing her of copying or paraphrasing material from 10 of Ms. Roberts's books. In the lawsuit, Ms. Roberts, the author of best sellers such as "The Liar" and "Vision in White," is asking for damages of at least 25,000 from the novelist, Cristiane Serruya, as well as for sales of her books to be stopped unless all plagiarized material is removed from them. Ms. Roberts said she would donate all of the money to a literacy organization in Brazil. The suit follows other plagiarism accusations against Ms. Serruya. She couldn't be reached for comment on Wednesday, but in an email to Ms. Roberts's publicist, Ms. Serruya said she "never intentionally plagiarized anyone." "I was fooled by some 'mentors' and 'coachers' who told me that 'More, more, more, fast, fast, fast,' " she wrote, and blamed ghostwriters she had hired on the freelance marketplace Fiverr for the overlap between her books and others.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Books
In the vast areas of the planet covered by water, human activity threatens the survival of countless species. There was a time, for example, when manta rays were tossed back, dead or alive, when they were accidentally trapped in fishermen's nets in places like Sri Lanka. Now their dried gills are prized in China for treating everything from cancer to measles without any proof that they are effective and one of the sea's most majestic creatures is being fished nearly out of existence. In Pakistan and India, the blind Indus River dolphin, one of the most endangered species, swims a shrinking stretch of water, trapped by development and dams. Overfishing, habitat loss and pollution threaten species in so many places that research and conservation organizations cannot do all that is needed. So, with the aim of making a dent through small, targeted efforts, the New England Aquarium, which sits on Boston's downtown waterfront, has for 15 years awarded microgrants to projects across the globe. The aquarium's Marine Conservation Action Fund has paid out 700,000 since 1999, supporting 122 projects in 40 countries on six continents. Elizabeth Stephenson, the fund's manager, calls these projects "stories of hope for the ocean." The grants are modest. One researcher, Rohan Arthur, used his 6,700 payout from the fund to buy a "secondhand, beat up compressor" to fill his scuba tanks. But the support allowed him to maintain his critical assessment of coral reefs in the Arabian Sea off the west coast of India. Dr. Arthur, a senior scientist at the Nature Conservation Foundation in Karnataka, India, said that in some ways, he preferred the scale of the New England Aquarium gifts. "There's a lot to be said for large grants," Dr. Arthur said, but "often they're fairly limiting in what they allow you to do." Small grants, he said, offer more freedom, but can still be transformative. "They've been change points in the amount we've been able to engage in the ecology of these reefs." The fund has also created a network of like minded people. Researchers working on protecting similar species in different places have learned from one another by connecting through the program, Ms. Stephenson said. She often helps researchers apply for larger grants elsewhere. When grantees come to the United States, she brings them to speak to audiences at the aquarium. Ms. Stephenson says her small grants nourish a huge amount of work from researchers committed to protecting the oceans. Some of the grantees have stared down bandits on her time. They've been attacked by biting sand flies. They've spent days seeking out old fishermen who hold the only memories of certain species and what precipitated their decline. Gill Braulik, a dolphin expert based in Tanzania, used a 5,000 grant from the aquarium in 2005 to conduct the first assessment of cetaceans in Iran, at a time when few others would sponsor work in the politically isolated nation. "I don't think it would have happened with any other organization," she said. Dr. Braulik used a second grant in 2011 to teach Pakistani scientists to take over her research on a blind dolphin species that lives only in the Indus River. Scientists knew that the dolphins' numbers had declined since the 1870s, when their range stretched from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean, 2,000 miles downstream. Now they are split into six populations by dams and limited to 20 percent of their former habitat, making it tough to keep track of them. These animals, which can see only light and dark, went blind over the generations because vision was not needed in the river's muddy depths. They have long snouts, pinhole eyes and thin, spiky teeth. Organizers of the Asian Games rejected a request by conservationists to use a similar, now extinct South Asian river dolphin as its mascot, because the dolphin was so unappealing. Dr. Braulik acknowledges that these dolphins look different from the camera ready ones at SeaWorld. But "they are the coolest creatures," she said. Dr. Braulik had twice led expeditions for Pakistani researchers down the Indus in wooden rowboats to count the dolphins. For a third trip, in 2011, a 6,000 aquarium grant allowed her to train the local researchers in complex survey methods and analysis. Now, two groups of local scientists have led the work. "They really don't need me anymore," she said. Dr. Arthur said he turned to the Marine Conservation Action Fund to fill "funding shaped holes" in his data. He had had a grant to track coral reefs off the west coast of India beginning in 1998, but he missed four years when he could not afford to dive. Collecting more complete data sets and the aquarium's vote of confidence may have helped Dr. Arthur win funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts, which is now supporting his efforts to rebuild local knowledge about the reefs. He is documenting the knowledge local fishing communities have about the reefs. One of the oldest local fishermen showed him how he travels through the archipelago without a compass, navigating from the reflection of the lagoon on the clouds. "If you just look at navigational systems, that in itself is a treasure trove of information," which is lost every time an old fisherman dies, Dr. Arthur said. Even old recipes give a sense of what foods and resources were readily available in the area, Dr. Arthur said, but these were being lost with the aging population. Daniel Fernando, a marine biologist and associate director of the Manta Trust, a Britain based charity, has been working to change fisheries management policies in places like Sri Lanka, India, the Philippines and Malaysia to protect manta rays and their smaller cousins, the mobula. He used an 8,000 grant from the New England Aquarium to conduct an additional year of fish market research following the rays from sea to customer to better understand how and why they were being caught and sold. Mr. Fernando, also a founder of Blue Resources, a marine research and conservation organization based in Sri Lanka, hopes to discourage the manta's use in Chinese medicine, and to encourage American consumers to demand that the tuna they eat is fished by hand, rather than by nets that also trap rays. Hand fishing is more expensive than deploying nets, Mr. Fernando concedes, but "you have to make a decision." He added, "Do you want cheap tuna that's driving a species out of existence?" Fishermen's nets were also a point of concern for a conservation effort in Chile. In small fishing villages there, a 6,000 aquarium grant helped a nonprofit group install collection bins for torn nets that would probably have been thrown into the sea. The charity, run by the founders of Bureo Skateboards, a California based company, recycles the nylon nets to produce skateboards shaped like minnows. The villages receive some money back for projects. The grant was out of the ordinary for the aquarium, because it focused on a novel engineering solution to marine debris rather than on a particular species or habitat. But "having the structure we do and our willingness to take chances gives us great flexibility," Ms. Stephenson said. The project is now self sustaining. Ben Kneppers, a Bureo founder, said he hoped the story of the skateboards might inspire the next generation of marine conservationists, by showing young people "that there are solutions to what seem to be overwhelming problems."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Science
FOR several years my daily driver has been the F train, and it's been good to me. Indeed, it's where I met my wife, Sarah, a twist of fate that led us, in a roundabout way, to the San Francisco airport, where we stood outside the terminal one Sunday last September, waiting for the car we'd be driving on our honeymoon. I'd managed to keep the car a secret, so this was the big reveal. It appeared from nowhere, as if a wand had been waved: a steel gray Mercedes Benz E550 Cabriolet, practically glowing among the dusty airport vans and rental car shuttles. We stood by our suitcases, gaping like two rubes at a state fair. From the moment I took the wheel, I knew I was out of my depth. How do you assess a thing so far removed from your everyday experience? Our last rental was a Kia Rio, for Pete's sake. Besides, I'd be test driving this vehicle on the Pacific Coast Highway, in pharmaceutical grade sunshine, on my honeymoon. These are not real world driving conditions. Still, I felt some obligation to remain objective about the car. So I came up with a methodology: every time something wasn't perfectly awesome, I wrote it down. What follows is a diary of petty grievances, any of which could be filed under "Problems, First World." DAY 1 We acquaint ourselves with the E Class cabriolet. Introduced for the 2011 model year, it replaced the CLK convertible in the Mercedes lineup. It's a four seater that wears its sportiness in a reserved way, like a light sweater thrown over the shoulders of a country club wife, with a high waistline that helps to maintain an impression of solid respectability. The front windshield, by contrast, is set at a sharp, racy angle, and the driving position is correspondingly low the window sill came up to my shoulder, meaning I wouldn't be able to prop my elbow on the door frame. Isn't that half the point of a convertible? Mercedes chose a fabric roof rather than a retractable hardtop, and its three layer construction damps exterior noise effectively. The interior is black leather with walnut trim and, equipped with a premium package, promises all manner of Bluetooth era technical coddling. I spend the drive from the airport playing with the 14 way power adjustable front seat while Sarah figures out the sound system. And already, a complaint! It appears the Sirius XM subscription has expired, so there will be no "70s on 7" satellite radio this week; fortunately my iTunes library basically replicates their playlist. We find the iPod/MP3 connection, and the system recognizes our iPhones immediately. Crisis averted. Other complaints: The fruit in the Mark Hopkins hotel's complimentary honeymoon gift basket was Cezanne quality to gaze upon we spent 10 minutes trying to photograph it but a little hard on the teeth. DAY 2 We make our first try at putting the top down at the Golden Gate Bridge scenic lookout, and something's not right. Though I can hear the whirring of a motorized contraption behind the rear seat, the top won't budge. After consulting the owner's manual and popping the trunk to examine the underpinnings of the retractable roof mechanism, I'm flummoxed. Sarah stands by patiently, pondering the prospect of several decades of this kind of thing. Finally she figures it out: there's a latch in the trunk that must be locked into place. She pulls it into position, and suddenly the roof unhinges from the front pillars and smoothly retracts. It takes about 20 seconds for the top to disappear into its cubby behind the rear seats, and several more minutes for Sarah to stop gloating. The next morning we realize there's no way to lower the roof with all of our luggage in the trunk. We spend the rest of the trip with my wife's large purple suitcase in the back seat. I can't speak to the comfort level for rear passengers legroom would appear to be compromised if the driver and front seat passenger choose to stretch their limbs but the suitcase never complained. DAY 3 Here are a couple of tips for your next driving tour of San Francisco. First, unless you're really willing to upset your fellow tourists, twisty Lombard Street, a k a "the crookedest street in the world," is not the place to test the limits of your car's handling. Second, it's tough to roar Bullitt style over the city's hills while also trying to follow Google Maps. And I have a genuine criticism. When the 7 speed automatic transmission is set to its default Economy mode, the E550 takes a moment to acknowledge a firm foot on the gas. I noticed this first on the drive from the airport to the hotel, and the last two days confirmed it. Each time I try to lead foot, the 382 horsepower engine seems to pause to ask "Are you sure?" After a half second it acquiesces with a deep, guttural growl from the 5.5 liter V 8, and a corresponding burst of speed. In Sport mode that burst is instantaneous, and the difference is that much more obvious now that we're officially on Highway 1, heading south toward Monterey. The solution is to keep it in Sport mode. You're on your honeymoon, fool. Complaints: We get all the way to Pacifica before realizing there's no In N Out Burger there, and make a 10 minute detour back to Daly City for lunch. DAY 4 The 17 Mile Drive at Pebble Beach is as visually stunning as promised. What the photos don't tell you is that a good portion of it smells like a Mrs. Paul's processing plant. It's the one failing of the Cabriolet's AirCap system, a spoiler that rises above the windshield at the push of a button, with a corresponding air dam behind the rear seats. AirCap does an excellent job of reducing wind turbulence in the cabin, but alas it's not a force field. Next time we'll bring air freshener. This leg of the trip poses a serious problem: the deep, winding curves north of Big Sur are the ideal performance challenge for the E550, but those same curves offer breathtaking vistas of the jagged cliffs and rocky shore of the Pacific. The thin metal guardrails separating us from the edge of those cliffs, bent crudely back into shape in many places, are a constant reminder that you cannot enjoy both the road and the view at the same time. I'd say the E550 is dialed in just right for someone like me, a novice who wants to play helldriver now and then but be forgiven for some occasional overexuberance. You can dive into corners and be cradled like a hammock; the wheels hang tight, not sliding a bit as you accelerate perhaps a little too quickly from the apex of a turn. The steering is responsive without being touchy, and the suspension provides a nice combination of comfort and seat of the pants feel. Complaints: The Caveman Room at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo is kitschy, roadside America fun until you try to sleep there, at which point the faux Stone Age walls become claustrophobic and a little creepy. DAY 5 The problem with my Nit Picker's Guide to the E Class is that it can't account for a day like today, when everything is just about perfect. So let's substitute a few quibbles about the mostly excellent 2012 model, which I drove more recently in New York. The smaller, more powerful engine of the 2012 sedan seemed overeager in Sport mode, as if the direct injection V 8 were in a hurry to prove its extra 20 horses were worth the trouble. It's hard to say whether this was a characteristic of the new powertrain or of the more leisurely mind set evoked by the longer, wider sedan. Whatever the cause, with the 2012 sedan I actually preferred driving in Economy mode. The car still lagged a bit in the lower gears, but as it approached highway speeds the E Class seemed to find its ideal rhythm. The same could be said of the 2011 Cabriolet, actually. Maybe it's because we've reached a flatter, straighter portion of Highway 1, negating the temptation for me to play with the paddle shifters in manual transmission mode, but the E550 seems best suited for this kind of casual daylong cruise. We approach Los Angeles in late afternoon with Katy Perry blasting from the speakers a husband quickly learns to make compromises and somehow this becomes the thing I'll remember most, driving into Malibu with the top down and the wind blowing and my wife singing along to "Teenage Dream." I'm iffy on the song at first, but Sarah's winning me over with an impromptu dance routine, acting out the lyrics and throwing her arms up into the wind, and at that moment I am head over heels in love, not just with the girl, but with the car, the music, the ocean, the sunshine, California, everything. Complaints: It is embarrassing to have a half dozen valets at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel tripping over themselves to help us unload the E Class. How much do you tip a guy for carrying a pair of sandals? DAY 6 It's the last full day of our trip, and I'm already nostalgic. Despite the prospect of a long drive back to San Francisco, we spend the early afternoon curling through Topanga Canyon and along Mulholland Drive, squeezing a last few hours of playtime out of the E Class. After refueling in Studio City, we get to experience an authentic L.A. traffic jam just before sunset. I haven't mentioned mileage because, to be honest, I didn't keep track of it. For the record, the E.P.A. rates the latest E550 Cabriolet at a mediocre 16 miles per gallon in the city, 25 for the highway, which is actually an improvement over the 2011 model, whose larger engine's thirst was rated at 15/22. But I'm guessing that, with a list price approaching 75,000 with options, fuel economy isn't a top concern of the E550 customer. Complaints: Kitchen worker at Jack in the Box on Interstate 5 south of Bakersfield is seen leaving the bathroom without washing his hands. DAY 7 After saying a wistful goodbye to the E550 at the airport valet stand, we fly back to New York to resume our regular, pedestrian lives. The harsh reality doesn't truly set in until we've landed at La Guardia, where in the taxi line a dispirited Crown Vic waits, like a yellow pumpkin, to carry us home. It's amazing how fast one can become a snob about these things.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Automobiles
THE CROWN Stream on Netflix. After winning the Oscar for her role as Queen Anne in "The Favourite," Olivia Colman plays another British monarch in this historical drama series. Colman brings Queen Elizabeth II into middle age, taking over from Claire Foy who played the ruler in her young adulthood, as the series follows the royal family through the 1960s and '70s. Season 3 finds the Windsors grappling with the fact that Britain is no longer a far reaching global empire, as well as dealing with the challenges of putting duty before their personal lives. The latter becomes an issue for Prince Charles (now a teenager, played by Josh O'Connor), whose family disapproves of his girlfriend, Camilla Shand (Emerald Fennell). Tobias Menzies takes over for Matt Smith as Prince Philip, while Helena Bonham Carter plays Princess Margaret, following Vanessa Kirby's run in the role. EARTHQUAKE BIRD (2019) Stream on Netflix. This mystery thriller centers on the unlikely friendship of two expats in 1980s Tokyo: an outgoing American named Lily Bridges (Riley Keough) and the reserved Swedish translator Lucy Fly (Alicia Vikander). After Lucy is called in for police questioning regarding Lily's mysterious disappearance, the film revisits their bond in a series of flashbacks. Lucy's romantic interest Teiji, a Japanese photographer, enters the fray by joining the women on a weekend trip to Sado Island, where simmering flirtations lead to disastrous consequences. The film, which is based on a novel by Susanna Jones, "is well shot and well acted, and with its attention to novelistic detail it does more than give lip service to themes of sexuality, jealousy and the way different cultures categorize and fetishize each other," Glenn Kenny wrote in his New York Times review.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Television
SAN FRANCISCO At this stage of Tiger Woods's career, unpredictability is as sure a bet as a red shirt on Sunday. Concerns about loosening his surgically repaired back linger over his every appearance. The much discussed summer fog and cool air at T.P.C. Harding Park constantly threaten Woods's ability to function without pain or fatigue. In the past few years, he's changed golf club manufacturers, his brand of golf ball and, this week, even his putter. He wore a neck gaiter Thursday, a sign of the pandemic times. A laborious Friday round of two over 72 put Woods at even par for the P.G.A. Championship tied for 44th, eight shots behind leader Haotong Li just clear of the one over par cut line. His performance through two rounds have shown how, even with the most considered approach, no one knows what will come from what used to be the most reliable wager in sports: Tiger Woods at a major. For starters, his Thursday morning round was excellent, a competitive 68 that looked fresh and included some of his best putting of the year his combined total of 114 feet, 9 inches of made putts signaled a season high. Another sign of the times: Woods's switch to a slightly longer putter was made, he said, in part so he didn't have to bend over as much while practicing. If Tiger Woods was back to making putts could another major win be possible? From his first swing of the day Friday, a piped 301 yard drive from the first tee, his back looked healthy, perhaps a benefit of the afternoon tee time that allowed him to rest and warm up. His next swing was sound, though his missed 7 footer for birdie was a disappointment. Another missed putt, a 12 footer for par on No. 3, which stayed left despite Woods's body language urging it right, led to bogey and questions about the blade. They deepened over a missed 9 footer for birdie on the 4th hole after a perfect drive on the par 5. Another missed birdie try on No. 5, from 10 feet, left him walking off the green, a stern expression etched. The switch to the new putter, celebrated on Thursday, looked like a curse on Friday. Woods tried to appease the golf gods with solid ball striking, hitting six of the first nine greens in regulation. Another missed try, a 14 footer for par on the difficult ninth hole showed the gods' callousness. Woods made the turn at a two over 37, even par for the tournament. He was on his own as the cut line loomed. "I drove it great today. That's one of the things I wanted to clean up from yesterday," Woods said. "And I really struggled with getting the speed of the greens today. They looked faster than what they were putting." Woods finally sank a nine footer for his first birdie of the day on No. 10 and saved par on the 12th. Even though no fans are allowed at Harding Park, a die hard group of two dozen or so fans lined Lake Merced Boulevard by the 12th tee box, peering through a fence. "Even the 12th hole, the tee box there alongside the road, Tiger gets on the tee and everyone goes crazy and you have to wait for them to settle down," Rory McIlroy, who was paired with Woods and Justin Thomas, said. But the momentum didn't last, as he failed to get up and down out of a bunker at No. 13, missing another makeable par save from seven feet. At this point, Woods's countenance hid none of his disgust. Woods blew the approach over the 15th green for another bogey, his body language teetered along with his weekend status. His survival instincts kicked in, though, and a decision to lay up off the tee at the short par 4 16th led to a 12 foot make for birdie, his longest made putt of the day. He'd make the cut, after all. Keen to maximize his budgeted golf swings for a calendar year, Woods told reporters earlier in the week that he had been preparing his body for the major tournament stretch of the schedule, delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. Since hosting and playing at the Genesis Invitational in February, where he finished 68th, Woods did not play again until the Memorial Tournament in July, where another Friday rally helped him make the cut on the number before finishing 46th. The FedEx Cup playoffs fill out August, leading to the United States Open at Winged Foot in September and the rescheduled Masters just before Thanksgiving. Since an emotional 2019 Masters win, Woods missed cuts at two of his next three majors, the 2019 P.G.A. Championship and the 2019 Open Championship, suggesting perhaps that the win taxed him both physically and mentally. "I celebrated winning the Masters for quite some time," he said this week, with a smile. He arrived ahead of the field on Sunday for a practice round, comfortable in a region a half hour drive north of Stanford University, Woods's alma mater. After growing up playing munis in Southern California, Woods looked almost at home when TV cameras caught him changing his shoes in the parking lot before his Friday round. Like a muni duffer, Woods experienced the travails of golf over the next five hours. He'd been asked earlier in the week if, given his back and his layoff, can he win? "Of course," Woods said. That view looked gloomier after an exhausting Friday for Woods and his fellow competitors in the group. McIlroy shot a one under par 69, tied for 31st, and Thomas went into the clubhouse with a 70 for the day, one over par for the tournament and just inside the cut. It was clear that Harding Park had worked them to the bone. "Once Tiger and I got our tee shots off 18," McIlroy said, "I just gave him a look like, 'phew, glad that's almost done.'"
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Sports
On a cloud free day, just as the sun is rising and dew drops cling to blades of grass, go out onto your lawn. Turn your back to the sun. Now, look at your shadow. A dazzling white light will glow like a halo around your head. This optical phenomenon is known as heiligenschein, which is German for "holy light" or "saintly appearance." And early in the morning, when the air is moist and the temperature is still cool enough to prevent dew from quickly evaporating about 55 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit is a lovely time to become a shadow angel. (Check out this map to know what temperature is best for dew at what time of day.) "It's best viewed when the sun is low and you have a nice long shadow," said Steven Ackerman, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin Madison, who has experienced the phenomenon numerous times.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Science
Q. What are symptoms of heart disease? Can you tell if you have heart disease without having tests done? A. The classic warning signs of heart disease and heart attacks are chest pain, often described as a feeling of pressure or a tight band around the chest, and shortness of breath during physical exertion that subsides when you're at rest, said Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association. But symptoms may be more subtle. If you find yourself suddenly struggling to carry out normal daily activities, breaking out in a sweat, or becoming nauseated when walking or going upstairs, she said, "the first thing you should think of is your heart." Call 911 and seek medical care immediately; you could be having a heart attack, the first symptom of heart disease for many. "The one who knows your body best is you, and the more you keep track of how you feel, the better off you are," Dr. Steinbaum said. "The one message I try to get across to people is to get checked out if they're having any symptoms. If you're wrong, it's fine so what? But if you're right and you don't go, you could die."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Well
A comedian named on Thursday as one of the newest "Saturday Night Live" cast members made racist remarks mocking Chinese people and used a racial slur in a podcast episode last year. The comments were uncovered by a comedy journalist several hours after NBC announced that the comedian, Shane Gillis, 31, would be joining the cast along with two other performers, one of them the show's first Chinese American player. In the episode, which was also recorded on video and uploaded to YouTube a year ago, Gillis, a stand up comedian in New York, and his podcast partner, Matt McCusker, mimicked caricatures of Chinese accents. During their conversation, which was often vulgar, Gillis also called it a "hassle" to try to speak with a waiter in a Chinese restaurant and made other offensive remarks, including a slur referring to Chinese people.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Television
On Thursday, the French label Gerard Darel will open its first United States store, in SoHo. The elegant space, fitted with classic marble and vintage touches, will be filled with easy chic pieces like leather pants ( 795) and tailored jumpsuits ( 465). A 145 Spring Street. That same day, from 6 to 8 p.m., the blogger Chriselle Lim will be sharing how to get Insta perfect skin at the Armani Box pop up. Pro tip: Swipe on Armani Prima Glow On Moisturizing Balm ( 110) under Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk Foundation ( 64) for a dewy finish. At 490 Broadway. Also on Thursday, A.P.C. will open Magasin Generale, a shop in shop filled with items that make perfect gifts, like Japanese bath towels ( 85) and Montessori building blocks ( 30). At 131 Mercer Street.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Style
You Got a Brain Scan at the Hospital. Someday a Computer May Use It to Identify You. None Mayo Clinic, via the New England Journal of Medicine Thousands of people have received brain scans, as well as cognitive and genetic tests, while participating in research studies. Though the data may be widely distributed among scientists, most participants assume their privacy is protected because researchers remove their names and other identifying information from their records. But could a curious family member identify one of them just from a brain scan? Could a company mining medical records to sell targeted ads do so, or someone who wants to embarrass a study participant? The answer is yes, investigators at the Mayo Clinic reported on Wednesday. A magnetic resonance imaging scan includes the entire head, including the subject's face. And while the countenance is blurry, imaging technology has advanced to the point that the face can be reconstructed from the scan. Under some circumstances, that face can be matched to an individual with facial recognition software. In a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at the Mayo Clinic showed that the required steps are not complex. But privacy experts questioned whether the process could be replicated on a much larger scale with today's technology. The subjects were 84 healthy participants in a long term study of about 2,000 residents of Olmsted County, Minn. Participants get brain scans to look for signs of Alzheimer's disease, as well as cognitive, blood and genetic tests. Over the years, the study has accumulated over 6,000 M.R.I. scans. (Participants are not told the results of their tests.) After the participants agreed to the experiment, a team led by Christopher Schwarz, a computer scientist at the Mayo Clinic, photographed their faces and, separately, used a computer program to reconstruct faces from the M.R.I.'s. Then the team turned to facial recognition software to see if the participants could be correctly matched. The program correctly identified 70 of the subjects. Only one correct match would be expected by chance, Dr. Schwarz said. Admittedly, he added, this was a fairly simple test. The facial recognition software only had to search through photos of 84 people, not thousands or millions. But the fact that this was a straightforward test is "beside the point," said Aaron Roth, computer scientist and privacy expert at the University of Pennsylvania. "It is clear that eventually this will be a worrying attack " on stored medical data, he said. The more likely abuse may be even easier than the method tested by the Mayo researchers, Dr. Roth said. Imagine that a bad actor already knew that a particular person was a study subject, and perhaps had some information regarding age and gender. Under those circumstances, it should be far less difficult to find that person's M.R.I. than to start with the scan and discover the subject's identity. The task is "unfortunately reasonably straightforward," Dr. Schwarz said. The privacy threat is real, said Dr. Michael Weiner of the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Weiner directs a national study called the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, which has enrolled 2,400 healthy people in an effort to find signs of dementia before a person shows symptoms. With the publication of the research by the Mayo Clinic, he said, the initiative's administrators will send letters to participating research centers informing them of the potential for privacy breaches. The data in the study are stripped of identifying information, like participants' names and Social Security numbers, but their M.R.I. scans do include faces. The only privacy protection for subjects so far has been the fact that researchers who want to access data from the study have to sign agreements saying that they will not try to identify participants. "There have been millions of image downloads," said Dr. Arthur Toga of the University of Southern California, whose group sends out M.R.I. scans and other data to researchers who request them from A.D.N.I. About 6,300 investigators have received study data, he said. Dr. Weiner is himself a participant in that study, and his brain scans are included in the research data. "My genetics are there," he said. "All my tests are there. I bet there are a lot of images of me on the internet. You could match me to an A.D.N.I. subject code and look at all of my data." "The question is, what can we do now?" The obvious way to fix the problem would be to remove faces from M.R.I. scans stored in databases. That process, though, blurs the image of the brain. Also, fixing images in that way would not help protect the privacy of millions of subjects whose brain scans are already stored by A.D.N.I., the Mayo study and other large research projects. Dr. Schwarz said his group is working on another solution, but declined to say what it is. Yves Alexandre de Montjoye, a privacy researcher at Imperial College London, questioned whether an easy fix even is possible. "If it doesn't exist, that raises a lot of questions about how M.R.I. data is used," he said. The Mayo group's letter, he added, "is a good warning."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Health
On the other hand, if that's what it takes to get youngsters enraptured with dance, so be it. The most imaginative passages involved changes of footwear into bare feet, then flip flops, then flippers, with one hapless dancer (Ginner Whitcombe) most fully equipped for an ocean dip in a snorkel mask and inflatable armbands. Such is the sense of humor in "Untapped!" Vocal acrobatics sometimes upstaged physical ones, courtesy of the evening's beatboxer, Genesis, whose voice is as agile and as capable of multitasking as the dancers' feet. In the most giggle inducing section, he provided the beats (from offstage) as the drummer Brendan Ramnath jammed on an invisible drum set. The night wouldn't have been complete without a moment of audience participation, demonstrating that everyone has some "Untapped!" talent: a brief beatboxing lesson from Genesis for one brave young volunteer, who went home that night with a few new skills in her pocket.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Dance
DETROIT Craig Daitch needed to fly to Los Angeles on short notice, and he had more than the usual amount of baggage. In addition to a laptop and extra clothes, Mr. Daitch, manager for car communications at Ford Motor, was bringing an item for display at last fall's auto show: the largest part of a new Ford engine. Typically, that cylinder block would be crated and shipped as cargo, with loading handled by forklift drivers. But this time Mr. Daitch stuffed the engine block into his suitcase and checked it onto the flight after passing through airport security. At 52 pounds, the cast iron block of Ford's new 1 liter EcoBoost engine is a bantamweight among automobile power plants. (Mr. Daitch didn't even incur an overweight bag fee.) With the total capacity of its three cylinders equal to the volume of a large soft drink bottle, it's also tiny: placed upright on a desk, the block fits easily within the edges of a file folder. The compact dimensions of 3 cylinder engines, together with fuel efficiency and reasonably good performance, have pushed Ford and a growing list of competitors including Audi, BMW, Citroen, Mini, Peugeot and Volkswagen to introduce a new generation of triples, as they are often called. "Turbocharged 3s are now replacing nonturbo 4 cylinder engines, just as fours have been replacing 6s," said Eric Fedewa, an IHS Automotive analyst who tracks powertrain trends. He explained that in the new 3 cylinder engines, the combination of a turbocharger and features like direct fuel injection and variable cam timing "effectively serves as a fourth cylinder." The overall effect is to transform the 3 cylinder Davids into aspiring Goliaths. Ford's diminutive and technically sophisticated triple will be offered in the 2014 Fiesta in the United States. Its performance 123 horsepower and 148 pound feet of torque is the highest power output for its displacement of any Ford production engine, the company says. While offering the triple in the 2,600 pound Fiesta subcompact was a logical move, Ford surprised the industry by announcing it would make the engine available next year in the 3,350 pound Mondeo, the European version of the Fusion. (It is already offered in the European C Max.) In the five passenger Mondeo sedan, the 1 liter triple stretches the limits of how small an engine will adequately power a vehicle. The combination works, Ford engineers say, because the EcoBoost engine produces 90 percent of its maximum torque at a relatively low 1,500 r.p.m. Of course, small engines in larger cars are more common in Europe, where a gallon of gasoline costs up to 8 and Fiat even sells a 2 cylinder version of its 500 model. Ford aims to achieve best in class fuel economy, the equivalent of about 43.5 miles per gallon, when the Mondeo equipped with the 1 liter triple and a 6 speed manual transmission goes on sale, probably next year. Ford's success with the Mondeo could help influence similarly radical combinations across the industry, Mr. Fedewa said, even in the United States. Worldwide, 3 cylinder engines are best known from their wide use in motorcycles since the late 1960s by BMW, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki and Triumph, among others. In bikes, the triples fit neatly between 2 and 4 cylinder models. Their revered performance in the bike world contrasts with the buzzy, underwhelming triples that soured many buyers of econoboxes sold by Daihatsu, Subaru and Suzuki in the 1980s. Indeed, as automakers downsize their engines and coax more power from fewer cylinders, they're also challenged with making them run as smoothly and quietly as the engines they are replacing. The natural up and down shaking forces are more pronounced in engines with fewer cylinders. Another problem is so called second order vibration, according to Joe Bakaj, Ford's vice president for powertrain engineering, caused by the constantly changing angle of the connecting rods as the crankshaft rotates. The trick for designers is to minimize the natural vibrations occurring at different engine speeds by achieving balance, as much as possible, among the rotating and reciprocating parts. The task of making a triple with a high level of refinement is not simple, Mr. Bakaj said. "We calculated that to replace the 1.6 liter engine required just 1 liter with the EcoBoost, but to do a 1 liter with 4 cylinders meant 250 cc per cylinder," he said. "With that size, the ratio of cylinder volume to surface area is too big, so we'd lose much of the combustion energy to heat. We'd lose efficiency." Ford engineers settled on 300 cc for each cylinder, with a long piston stroke, which helps to minimize the engine's overall length. The short cylinder block helps to reduce what engineers call a rocking couple, which Mr. Bakaj described as the engine's tendency to rock end to end along its longitudinal axis as the crankshaft rotates. Ford's clever use of an unbalanced flywheel and pulley at opposite ends of the crankshaft smooth out shaking, so it does not require a balance shaft, a solution often used in small automotive engines. BMW's new 1.5 liter triple has a balance shaft, which consumes power and adds weight. The rise of smaller turbocharged engines does not necessarily mean that meeting future fuel economy standards will be a simple matter for automakers. In February, Consumer Reports said that its tests of a number of recent models, including the 2013 Ford Fusion equipped with the 1.6 liter EcoBoost 4 cylinder, failed to deliver better mileage and performance than the same models with larger, nonturbocharged engines. Ford engineers pledge that won't be the case when the 1 liter Fiesta arrives next year. In a test drive of that engine installed in a Focus at the company's Dearborn, Mich., proving grounds, I felt barely any vibration through the steering wheel or pedals when the car idled. There was still no objectionable buzz when I accelerated hard through the gears to 70 m.p.h. The limited peak power may raise questions about how the 3 cylinder will perform in the much heftier Mondeo, but its noise and vibration levels are, subjectively, equal to or perhaps slightly better than those of the 1.6 liter it replaces. And the 4 cylinder engine block will not so easily fit in a suitcase.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Automobiles
It was about five miles from the Kudesa Homestay guesthouse in Kemenuh village to the Gianyar Night Market, on the Indonesian island of Bali. So I asked my host, Mangku, whether I could make it on the bike he had available for rent. No problem, he said, he knew people who do it all the time. It was a miscommunication. I was asking about the bicycle, but he meant the motorbike, which made sense since motorcycles and scooters are the main form of transportation on Bali, the fourth, final, and by far most touristy stop on my Indonesia tour. Alas, I don't know how to ride them. Still, he reluctantly let me take the tough looking red hybrid bicycle, warning me to stay out of the heavy traffic. I took his instructions literally, sticking just off the road in what I would call the anti bike lane. That meant bouncing over pebbly dirt shoulders and narrow sidewalks often blocked by parked cars and market stalls, edging onto the road only when there was a lull in the nearly constant scooter buzz. It was worth it, for two reasons. First, it gave me easy access to the unadulterated Balinese food sold at market stalls a spicy jumble of mixed vegetables called serombotan, a luscious goat satay (no beef, since the vast majority of Bali, unlike the rest of Indonesia, is Hindu). And, on the way back, drenched in sweat, I stopped to see a group of men scorching the hair off two slaughtered pigs and ended up with an invitation to spend the festival of Galungan with a new friend. Three days and four nights is a ridiculously short stay for one's first time on Bali. Ideally, I knew, getting away from the tourist crowd meant heading away from southern Bali's two tourist epicenters: Kuta, which has a reputation as a depraved Cancun for young Australians; and Ubud, for those seeking the more spiritual Bali described in Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love" without straying too far from a Starbucks. Instead, I stayed outside Ubud in the village of Kemenuh, which travelers visit for its woodcarving shops but not much else. Mangku himself was a retired woodcarver who became a village priest, which is what "Mangku" means. His family still runs a shop nearby, Sembahyang Wood Carvers, that ships its intricate, mesmerizing woodwork around the world, with the prices for some of the larger mahogany pieces stretching into tens of thousands of dollars. The guesthouse is a complex of elegant buildings in traditional Balinese orange brick and adorned with carved sandstone as elegant as the sculptures, with one big difference between the two family businesses: the price. My room cost 125,000 rupiah, or 9.41 at 13,279 rupiah to the dollar. But I had moved there only after spending a day in Ubud. On my first trip I had to at least see what the hype was about. (I did completely skip Kuta, with no regrets.) So, arriving after midnight on an indirect flight from Papua, I checked into the very pleasant Odah Ayu Guest House, just off Ubud's main strip, where a tasteful room cost me 400,000 rupiah. The next day was packed full of attractions. First, the Puri Lukisan Museum (85,000 rupiah), which offers an introduction to Balinese art on lush grounds. Many paintings depicted scenes from Hindu epics I knew nothing about; I struggled to understand them but still found their elegant floral style absorbing. Then there was the famed Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary, which is on lovely temple grounds and certainly worth the 30,000 rupiah fee, especially if you've never before had monkeys eat bananas out of your hands. And I was intrigued by online raves about the Sari Organik Warung Bodag Maliah, depicted as an organic restaurant in a pristine location amid rice fields. It wasn't quite as pristine as promised: A pedestrian (and motorbike) path ran through it, dotted with souvenir shops and cafes. I'd call them not so much rice fields as "Rice Fields," framed as a destination for travelers. Few agricultural features I've seen have signs directing you toward them. I get the appeal, but a week earlier, I had clambered over rice fields on Sulawesi for miles and miles, without a tourist in sight. In Papua, I had hiked hours to villages without seeing a single sign, let alone one directing you to the local sweet potato plantations. Still, the cafe was lovely. My salad was so fresh it tasted as if I were picking it directly from the earth, and with some surprising ingredients, with greens like leaves of both guava and soursop. At 48,000 rupiah, it was a bargain. As was my day in Ubud, which cost me, astonishingly, something like 20. But halfway through the day I paused and went to Booking.com, the site I turn to for lodging not listed elsewhere, and found Kudesa. (I didn't even find it on TripAdvisor.) During my stay at Odah Ayu, I had met Komang, a member of the family that owns it; as I checked out, he offered to drive me to Kudesa. Thirty minutes later, we passed through a lavish carved gate and entered what looked like a palace or temple: buildings made of that orange brick, their doors shrouded in ornate sandstone carving. Komang was impressed. "This is maybe rich family," he said. Perhaps, but one that charges less than 10 for a single. The place had undergone an expansion recently, and now included a handful of fancy looking rooms along a reverse infinity pool. (That's my new term for when the infinity edge points in the wrong direction to the rooms themselves). I never got to see my single; the place was nearly empty, so I was upgraded to one of the older doubles (regular price, 180,000 rupiah). It was a no nonsense room, with a single sheet and blanket on the bed, an air conditioner that leaked, and acoustics that allowed me to diagnose sleep apnea in the guest next door. Considering the elegant surroundings (and the dinner they served me by the pool the next night, no charge), it was still a deal. That dinner was lovely, a standard plate of rice, meat and spicy homemade sambal, but did not compare to that first night I ate at the market, after parking my bike among dozens of scooters. No taxis wait at the market, making it difficult for travelers to get there on their own, and English is a rarity, so those not willing to get on two wheels may wish to consider a tour offered by the Casa Luna cooking school for 400,000 rupiah to tame the chaos and choose the right dishes. I tried a more D.I.Y. solution. On the ride over from Ubud, I asked Komang to list a few Balinese dishes I should try. He gave me three: serombotan, betutu and sate langwan. I jotted them down (having no idea what they were) then asked him how to say "Where is the most delicious ?" in Indonesian. "Di mana yang enak?" was his suggestion. He also gave me the phrase in Balinese, just in case. It worked brilliantly. First, I tried asking for the serombotan, and was pointed to a woman standing at a no name cart behind an array of plates and bowls loaded with vegetables, bean sprouts, soybeans and more. She piled them all together for me, dashed on a combustible sauce and charged me 5,000 rupiah, a delicious, crunchy, tongue numbing bargain. Finally, sate langwan (which turned out to be a fish satay) was sold out. So I compromised at a stand labeled Sate Kambing Juprianto, which specialized in goat satay. A man tossed 10 two bite sticks of meat over glowing coals and whipped together a rich, surprisingly savory peanut sauce for me on the spot for 20,000 rupiah. I finished it off with some es campur, shaved ice and crazily colorful gelatins, fruit and coconut milk for an additional 6,000 rupiah. On the way back, in Blahbatuh, the village before Kemenuh, I saw a group gathered around the slaughtered pigs and pulled over. I immediately took a liking to Widi, perhaps in part because he reminded me, in both looks and boisterously welcoming manner, of a friend in New York. He explained that he and a few others had killed two pigs to divide among his extended family, to be used in dishes for Galungan, during which ancestral spirits are believed to visit. He invited me over the next morning for a breakfast of lawar, made of minced pork and vegetables and grated coconut, jumbled together with a spicy sambal. I had planned a tour of island temples and other attractions with Mank Jay, a driver and guide who was Mangku's nephew, so I stopped by early and met Widi's family, who lived in a traditionally structured family compound. I had read that every Hindu family in Bali had its own temple, or sanggah, but I hadn't imagined an entire section devoted to shrines representing different manifestations of the gods and the family's ancestors. Offerings of rice and flowers had been laid in front of each; Widi himself prays there three times a day when he can, two times when he is working as a bus driver. I was invited back to spend the first day of Galungan with Widi's family (more on that next week). But that day I still had my tour with Jay, for which he charged 600,000 rupiah, including gas. You may find others willing to do it for 400,000 or 500,000, but it's worth extra for a guide you like, and I recommend Jay (62 812 3739 8422). We motored around to numerous temples and historic spots, the highlight of which was Kerta Gosa, a partly restored complex that had served as a royal home and hall of justice for the Balinese king. Two elegant, typically Balinese buildings remain, one set dramatically in the middle of a pond, as if it were a ship connected to the shore by a sculpture lined gangplank. Inside, the ceilings are painted with mesmerizing depictions of the Hindu epics, most notably the Bhima Swarga story, in which a man enters the underworld to rescue his parents. In a scene now familiar to me, sinners were depicted being punished in hell in this version, for example, hanging from trees over a pit of fire as rats gnawed on the ropes. "We believe in karma," Jay said. "When you do a bad thing in your life, and the gods call you, your time is up. And then you see what they're going to do to you." I had asked Jay if there was a traditional rural village we could visit to get away from the temples and monuments. So he took me to Penglipuran, a beautiful village with an odd twist. Along its main street of beautifully laid out stone, families live in homes that date back centuries to pre Hindu Bali. One catch: You pay 15,000 rupiah at the ticket booth to enter, where you are handed a scrap of paper with a number, referring to the house you have been assigned to visit. The houses and people were lovely, but it felt as if I had entered a human zoo that was an apt metaphor for the island as a whole, particularly the more touristed parts: traditional families living traditional ways, as travelers pay to wander through their lives.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Travel
Re "Trump and Biden Diverge Sharply in Visions for U.S." (front page, Oct. 23): "They are so well taken care of." So said President Trump in response to the moderator Kristen Welker's question about the fate of 545 children who have not been able to be reunited with their parents because of Mr. Trump's sadistic family separation policy. There are no words to describe my disgust that more than 40 percent of the public still supports a man who can make such a remark. How can any parent or any self respecting Christian who believes in "family values" seriously consider voting for him? This is a man who, as his niece Mary Trump avers in her revelatory book about her uncle, comes from a family that equates kindness with weakness. Never mind all the obvious lies he spewed during the rest of the debate. This one breathtakingly callous comment should brand him forever as the heartless, cruel, emotionally stunted person he truly is. Vote him out! Your reporters' characterization of the second presidential debate as "more restrained" is at best damning by faint praise. The longer the debate went on, the more President Trump interrupted, went over his time limits and ignored the moderator's pleas to move on.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Opinion
In 1968, 17 year old Patrick Caddell polled a working class neighborhood in Jacksonville, Fla., about the upcoming presidential race for a high school project. He was surprised to hear, again and again, "Wallace or Kennedy, either one." This seemed to make no sense. Alabama Governor George Wallace, a segregationist, was the ideological opposite and avowed foe of Robert Kennedy, who had pushed civil rights as attorney general in his brother's administration. Young Caddell had an insight: In politics, feelings mattered more than policy. For all their apparent differences, Wallace and Kennedy were both tough guys; they both seemed to be mad at something most of the time. Voters could relate: The feeling abroad in the land in 1968 (not unlike 2020) was alienation. Later, working out of his college dorm room, Caddell became a paid political consultant. One of his clients in the 1972 election was Joe Biden, then 29, running for the United States Senate from Delaware. Caddell told Biden not to attack his opponent. That would just make him look like another politician. Rather, he should run against Washington. Biden took the advice and won. Rick Perlstein tells this anecdote early in "Reaganland," his absorbing political and social history of the late 1970s. More than 700 pages later, Perlstein notes that Biden, himself, went on to become "an exquisitely well calibrated politician." Perlstein doesn't point out the irony, but he doesn't need to. The joy of this book, and the reason it remains fresh for nearly a thousand pages of text, is that personality and character constantly confound the conventional wisdom. Perlstein's broad theme is well known, partly because he has made it so through his three earlier volumes ("Before the Storm," "Nixonland" and "The Invisible Bridge") on the rise of the New Right in American politics. In the 1960s and 70s, liberals overplayed their hand and failed to see the growing disaffection of Americans who felt cut out or left behind. (Sound familiar?) But Perlstein is never deterministic, and his sharp insights into human quirks and foibles make all of his books surprising and fun, if a little smart alecky at times. One of Perlstein's favorite sports is to poke fun at the cluelessness of establishment commentators from the mainstream media. In the summer of 1977, Perlstein reports, pundits were writing long "thumbsuckers" pronouncing the near death of the Republican Party. The Boston Globe's David Nyhan said "the two party system is now down to one and a half parties." That was because, "the party of Abraham Lincoln forgot its heritage and started neglecting minorities." In fact, Perlstein points out, the "party of Lincoln" knew exactly what it was doing: marching into the once Democratic Solid South to convert angry white voters into Republicans. In 1968 and 1972, Richard Nixon had made a start with his Southern Strategy, using code words like "states' rights" to appeal to racists, but by 1980, the Republican Party seemed to dispense with subtlety. Ronald Reagan's first major appearance of the 1980 general election campaign was at the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi. This was Klan country. In 1964, the bodies of three civil rights activists had been found buried in an earthen dam a few miles away. Families came to the Neshoba County Fair every year to enjoy the mule races and beauty and pie eating contests. "White families, that is," Perlstein archly notes. "Blacks only participated as employees." 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. In the hot sun, before an adoring audience, on a stage crowded with Confederate flags, Reagan began with a football story and some corny jokes, and then plunged into the red meat of his speech, about the wickedness of federal interference in the lives of ordinary Americans. But then, Perlstein notes, a strange thing happened. Reagan, one of the most sure footed stump speakers ever, began to get "wobbly." Instead of pausing for his punch lines, he rushed ahead. He seemed to want to get the speech over with. The enthusiasm drained from the crowd. The speech was a bust. Reagan actually dropped in the polls in Mississippi. He recovered later, taking every Southern state but Jimmy Carter's Georgia. Still, the plain fact was that Reagan was not comfortable playing the race card, and he couldn't hide it. It's a small, redeeming moment in Perlstein's overspilling narrative, but the glimpse into Reagan's conscience is characteristic of Perlstein's storytelling. Reagan is hardly a hero to Perlstein, whose own politics are to the left. But in this description, the former movie actor turned politician is intensely human, and capable of empathy, or at least shame. Reagan is also sly, especially at outfoxing condescending liberals. In 1980, Jimmy Carter's campaign advisers, along with most of the press corps, underestimated him. "They presumed the public would see what they saw. Which was that Carter was smart and that Reagan was stupid. And that therefore Reagan would lose any debate," Perlstein writes. "Which overlooked the fact that Reagan had won practically every debate he had participated in going back at least to 1967, when he appeared on the same TV hookup with Robert F. Kennedy to discuss the Vietnam War, and twisted his opponent into such knots that Kennedy subsequently yelled, 'Who ... got me into this?' and ordered staffers never to pair him with 'that son of a bitch' ever again." At their final debate in late October, virtually tied in the polls, Carter started in on Reagan for having advocated, "on four different occasions," for "making Social Security a voluntary system, which would, in effect, very quickly bankrupt it." After Reagan responded with a wandering anecdote about an orphan and someone's aunt, Carter bore in and attacked Reagan for opposing Medicare. Now, Carter warned, Reagan was trying to block national health insurance. As Perlstein tells it, Reagan looked at Carter smilingly, his face betraying "a hint of pity." Then the old cowboy rocked back, and with an easy, genial chuckle, delivered the knockout blow. "There you go again!" he said, beaming. The audience gave a "burst of delighted laughter. ... Jimmy Carter was being mean again." With one deft jab, Reagan had finished off his opponent. A few days later, the Republican candidate won in an electoral vote landslide. The 1980 election marks the end of this book, and, Perlstein says in his acknowledgments, the end of his four volume saga on the rise of conservatism in America, from the early stirrings of Barry Goldwater to the dawn of the Age of Reagan. One hopes Perlstein does not stop there. "Reaganland" is full of portents for the current day. Among the fascinating and disturbing echoes is his description of the night the lights went out in New York City in the midsummer of 1977. The city went feral. Looters ran wild. The police force, diminished by huge layoffs, seemed helpless to restore order. At the time, a congressman named Ed Koch was running for mayor. Koch was known as a liberal, but after the mayhem, he ran on a platform that featured bringing back the death penalty. He won. One wonders, in our own uncertain era, what the future will hold for Joe Biden, whom we meet on Page 8 of "Reaganland" as a Patrick Caddell made populist candidate on his way to becoming "an exquisitely well calibrated politician." Maybe, some day, Rick Perlstein will tell us that story.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Books
BRUSSELS The European Union's trade chief on Tuesday carried out his threat to impose tariffs on solar panels from China. But in a significant concession to Chinese lobbying and after opposition from some European leaders and industry executives, he significantly watered down the penalties. Karel De Gucht, the bloc's trade commissioner, said the tariffs would initially be 11.8 percent about a quarter of the amount he had been threatening to levy. But he said the tariffs would rise to 47.6 percent in August if the Beijing government did not remedy what he has claimed is a systematic effort by Chinese companies to sell solar panels in Europe below the cost of making them, a practice known as dumping. "The ball is in China's court," Mr. De Gucht said in a Brussels news conference Tuesday, referring to negotiations expected over the next two months. The period of the lower tariff "is a window of opportunity of 60 days," he said, adding that windows "can also shut." As recently as last week, Mr. De Gucht had warned he could impose the much higher duties to defend the credibility of European Union trade rules. But there had been mounting pressure on him to back off. Prime Minister Li Keqiang of China bypassed Mr. De Gucht during a visit to Germany last week and persuaded Chancellor Angela Merkel to call for further negotiations. China is a big export market for many German products, and Ms. Merkel is not eager to set off a Chinese European trade war. On Monday evening, Mr. Li went over Mr. De Gucht's head, in a phone conversation with the European Commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso. Mr. Li told Mr. Barroso that China was ready to retaliate if the European Union took action. Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, said Mr. Li had warned Mr. Barroso that "there would be no winners in a trade war." Solar panels represent more than 6 percent of China's exports to the Continent, making them one of the largest Chinese exports to the European Union. In 2011, Chinese exports of panels and their main components to the European Union were worth about 21 billion euros ( 27.4 billion). "Our action today is an emergency measure to give lifesaving oxygen to a business sector in Europe that is suffering badly from this dumping," Mr. De Gucht said. "This is not protectionism," he insisted, noting that the United States had also applied duties totaling about 30 percent to Chinese solar exports. But the Obama administration recently decided to seek its own negotiated settlement with China to replace the tariffs. The high cost of gas is forcing families to cut back on activities and essentials. Clearview AI does well in another round of facial recognition accuracy tests. Elizabeth Holmes will resume her testimony in her fraud trial. Saying Chinese exporters had captured 80 percent of the European Union's market for solar panels, he suggested that "massive overcapacity" in China had led the Chinese to flood the European market. China is "producing today one and a half times the amount of solar panels the world needs," he said. A majority of the European Union's governments were officially opposed to putting the preliminary tariffs in place. But under the bloc's rules, they faced significant obstacles to stopping Mr. De Gucht, who had the backing of the European Commission, the group's executive branch. Under European Union rules, preliminary tariffs can be turned into five year tariffs six months later. But that would require a majority of the bloc's member governments to approve the move. Individual Western companies, in the solar industry and other sectors, have been wary of taking any public stand against China, which has become the world's largest market in industries as diverse as steel, cellphones and automobiles. Chinese officials have considerable discretion in issuing factory permits, export licenses and even visas for visiting executives, making most companies leery of publicly voicing criticism of China or being seen as supporting trade actions against it. In a nod to the heavy lobbying in Europe against the duties, Mr. De Gucht said that "cheap and plentiful seems great, but ultimately this will lead to a race to the bottom" where "everyone loses." Asked Tuesday whether he had succumbed to political pressure, particularly from Germany, Mr. De Gucht insisted that he had chosen a "reasonable" middle ground by giving the Chinese 60 days "to come to an amicable solution" before imposing the maximum rate of 47.6 percent. But Mr. De Gucht suggested that the opposition to tariffs in many national capitals reduced his margin for maneuvering. "Whatever decision you take in politics, you always take it influenced, and sometimes even pressured," said Mr. De Gucht. "Decisions do not fall from heaven they are made in an environment, and a political environment always has pros and cons and influences and so on." Despite the reluctance from many parties to back Mr. De Gucht, Western governments and industry trade associations have long contended that Beijing has helped several Chinese industries take over global markets. Beijing's support, they say, comes through a combination of huge loans from state owned banks, extensive government research programs, protection of the domestic Chinese market from imports and sometimes even industrial espionage. China's rapid expansion in renewable energy, a national priority, has long been cited as an extreme example. China went from a negligible player in the solar panel industry as recently as 2006 to the dominant world producer now, with two thirds or more of global manufacturing capacity in the sector after 18 billion in loans from state banks. That expansion contributed to the bankruptcy of or capacity cutbacks at a score of American and European solar companies in the last three years. Chinese solar panel companies have also been hurt lately by overcapacity, with Suntech Power of Wuxi, China, putting its main operating unit into bankruptcy in March. Li Junfeng, a senior Chinese government energy policy maker who is also president of the Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association, expressed delight when told that the European Union had sharply lowered its target for the preliminary tariffs. "That's really good news," said Mr. Li, a senior energy official at the National Development and Reform Commission, China's main economic planning agency. "At 11 percent, the Chinese companies can do very good business it doesn't affect them very much."
0
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Global Business
Food delivery apps are reshaping the restaurant industry and how we eat by inspiring digital only establishments that don't need a dining room or waiters. SAN FRANCISCO At 9:30 on most weeknights, Ricky Lopez, the head chef and owner of Top Round Roast Beef in San Francisco, stacks up dozens of hot beef sandwiches and sides of curly fries to serve hungry diners. He also breads chicken cutlets for another of his restaurants, Red Ribbon Fried Chicken. He flips beef patties on the grill for a third, TR Burgers and Wings. And he mixes frozen custard for a dessert shop he runs, Ice Cream Custard. Of Mr. Lopez's four operations, three are "virtual restaurants" with no physical storefronts, tables or chairs. They exist only inside a mobile app, Uber Eats, the on demand meal delivery service owned by Uber. Food delivery apps like Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub are starting to reshape the 863 billion American restaurant industry. As more people order food to eat at home, and as delivery becomes faster and more convenient, the apps are changing the very essence of what it means to operate a restaurant. No longer must restaurateurs rent space for a dining room. All they need is a kitchen or even just part of one. Then they can hang a shingle inside a meal delivery app and market their food to the app's customers, without the hassle and expense of hiring waiters or paying for furniture and tablecloths. Diners who order from the apps may have no idea that the restaurant doesn't physically exist. The shift has popularized two types of digital culinary establishments. One is "virtual restaurants," which are attached to real life restaurants like Mr. Lopez's Top Round but make different cuisines specifically for the delivery apps. The other is "ghost kitchens," which have no retail presence and essentially serve as a meal preparation hub for delivery orders. "Online ordering is not a necessary evil. It's the most exciting opportunity in the restaurant industry today," said Alex Canter, who runs Canter's Deli in Los Angeles and a start up that helps restaurants streamline delivery app orders onto one device. "If you don't use delivery apps, you don't exist." Many of the delivery only operations are nascent, but their effect may be far reaching, potentially accelerating people's turn toward order in food over restaurant visits and preparing home cooked meals. Uber and other companies are driving the change. Since 2017, the ride hailing company has helped start 4,000 virtual restaurants with restaurateurs like Mr. Lopez, which are exclusive to its Uber Eats app. Janelle Sallenave, who leads Uber Eats in North America, said the company analyzes neighborhood sales data to identify unmet demand for particular cuisines. Then it approaches restaurants that use the app and encourages them to create a virtual restaurant to meet that demand. Other companies are also jumping in. Travis Kalanick, the former Uber chief executive, has formed CloudKitchens, a start up that incubates ghost kitchens. Yet even as delivery apps create new kinds of restaurants, they are hurting some traditional establishments, which already contend with high operating expenses and brutal competition. Restaurants that use delivery apps like Uber Eats and Grubhub pay commissions of 15 percent to as much as 30 percent on every order. While digital establishments save on overhead, small independent eateries with narrow profit margins can ill afford those fees. "There's a concern that it could be a system where restaurant owners are trapped in an unstable, unsuitable business model," Mark Gjonaj, the chairman of the New York City Council's small business committee, said at a four hour hearing on third party food delivery in June. Delivery apps may also undermine the connection between diner and chef. "A chef can occasionally walk out of the dining room and observe a diner enjoying his or her food," said Shawn Quaid, a chef who oversaw a ghost kitchen in Chicago . Delivery only facilities "take away the emotional connection and the creative redemption." Uber and other delivery apps maintain that they are helping restaurants, not hurting them. "We exist for demand generation," said Ms. Sallenave. "Why would a restaurant be working with us if we weren't helping them increase their orders?" D elivery only establishments in the United States date to at least 2013, when a start up, the Green Summit Group, began work on a ghost kitchen in New York. With Grubhub's backing, Green Summit produced food that was marketed online under brand names like Leafage (salads) and Butcher Block (sandwiches). But Green Summit burned through hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, said Jason Shapiro, a consultant who worked for the company. Two years ago, it shut down when it couldn't attract new investors, he said. In Europe, the food delivery app Deliveroo also started testing ghost kitchens. It erected metal kitchen structures called Rooboxes in some unlikely locations, including a derelict parking lot in East London. Last year, Deliveroo opened a ghost kitchen in a warehouse in Paris, where Uber Eats has also tried delivery only kitchens. Ghost kitchens have also emerged in China, where online food delivery apps are widely used in the country's densely populated megacities. China's food delivery industry hit 70 billion in orders last year, according to iResearch, an analysis firm. One Chinese ghost kitchen start up, Panda Selected, recently raised 50 million from investors including Tiger Global Management, according to Crunchbase. Those experiments have spread. Over the last two years, Family Style , a food start up in Los Angeles, has opened ghost kitchens in three states. It has created more than half a dozen pizza brands with names like Lorenzo's of New York, Froman's Chicago Pizza and Gabriella's New York Pizza, which can be found on Uber Eats and other apps. CloudKitchens, which Mr. Kalanick founded after leaving Uber in 2017, has leased kitchen space to several established restaurants in Los Angeles, including the farm to table chain Sweetgreen, to try the delivery only model. The Los Angeles facility is one of several ghost kitchens used by Sweetgreen, whose chief executive, Jonathan Neman, has spoken enthusiastically about them. And Kitchen United, a ghost kitchen company in Pasadena, Calif., is working with brick and mortar restaurants to set up delivery only establishments. It aims to establish 400 such "kitchen centers" across the country over the next few years. When it comes types of food, "consumers don't appear to be saying they're looking for additional options," said Jim Collins, Kitchen United's chief executive. "They appear to be looking for new modes of consumption." For Paul Geffner, the growing popularity of food delivery apps has hurt. He has run Escape From New York Pizza, a small restaurant chain in the Bay Area, for three decades, relying on delivery orders as a major source of revenue. Mr. Lopez said he figured he already had the ingredients for burgers and ice cream in stock. So it was a no brainer to create the virtual restaurants for Uber Eats. Now he uses Top Round's kitchen to serve hundreds of new customers across San Francisco. Though he wouldn't disclose financial information, Mr. Lopez said he had hired another employee to handle the influx of delivery orders. Those orders have stabilized the restaurant's income so that he no longer works 110 hour weeks just to keep the business afloat. "We used to close at 9 p.m., but demand has pushed us to stay open later we close at 2 a.m. now," Mr. Lopez said. "Most of the night, the kitchen is banging."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Technology
The news on Thursday that Bank of America is imposing a 5 monthly fee on people who have the nerve to use their debit card to buy things probably should not have come as much of a shock. Wells Fargo, the other giant coast to coast bank, had already revealed its plans to test a 3 fee in the wake of new federal rules that made the cards less profitable for many banks. Bank of America probably has bigger problems than any of its competitors. So it stands to reason that it would make a bolder move. After all, it is dealing with a pile of troubled mortgages, legal fallout from the sales of bonds made from those loans and questions about how it serviced its home mortgages. Still, the scale of its changes mean that most debit card shoppers who do not have Bank of America mortgages or more than 20,000 in account balances will need to pay that 5 monthly fee. It is a tax on pretty much every customer without a healthy salary or investment income, plus those who want to keep their savings elsewhere for whatever reason. Bank of America and Wells Fargo are hardly alone here, since other big banks have toughened the rules for people who want to keep free checking, or have killed off rewards programs to save money. And we probably haven't heard the last of the new rules either. All of these moves together, however, raise a simple and rather obvious question: Why is anyone still doing business with banks like these? Just after noon on Friday, Elvita Dominique, who lives in Harlem, was trying to answer that question for herself. She had just left a Bank of America branch on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan having made an appointment with a bank employee who could help her review her options. "I want to know if they are going to make exceptions," she said. (Later in the day, the branch employee said no.) She had already heard that Citibank did not plan to add monthly debit card fees, so she will investigate that possibility. She is also considering joining a credit union. Bank of America's move is part of a broader effort to overhaul its checking account lineup. As of sometime early next year, it will have four basic accounts, only one of which will waive the 5 monthly fee for debit card users who want to use the card for purchases. A.T.M. use will not incur the monthly fee, but charging recurring bills like gym memberships or mobile phone plans to your debit card will. Only Bank of America customers with more than 20,000 in combined checking, savings and certificate of deposit accounts or a bank mortgage (of any size) will be able to avoid both the debit card fee and any other monthly fee for falling below a required minimum balance level. Merrill Lynch and U.S. Trust customers will also get a waiver, as will unemployed people who use certain government issued Bank of America cards that have benefit money loaded onto them. While the bank will not say what percentage of its checking account customers it expects (or hopes) will be paying new fees, 20,000 is a much higher bar to clear than the direct deposit requirement or the 1,500 to 10,000 minimum balances that the bank currently places on many checking account customers who wish to avoid fees. As a result, plenty of customers will be looking at their options. What would cause people who count on debit cards to help them live within their means to stick around despite the 5 a month fee? The first factor is the perceived pain involved with switching. And it is a pain, though not as much as you may think. It shouldn't take much more than 90 minutes to reboot direct deposit of your paycheck and move all the automated payments from one account to another. There may be a few hiccups over the next couple of months, but they shouldn't take more than a few minutes each to fix. Try to leave some money behind in the old account for a few months just in case it takes billers a few cycles to make the switch. Much depends, then, on how much you value that 90 minutes, versus the 60 in savings you might achieve in Year 1 with your new financial institution. Then you need to weigh the value of your time against the good feeling that would come from rewarding a checking account provider that wasn't so fee happy. A.T.M. convenience is another factor that limits switching. Consumers who haven't looked at an online only institution in awhile will be pleasantly surprised by the developments here. Some of them have tapped into nationwide networks of fee free machines that are bigger than any one bank's collection of locations. Others let you use any A.T.M. you want and reimburse you for most or all of the fees you pay to withdraw money. Banks like ING Direct, Ally, Charles Schwab and USAA are all worth a look here. They may well pay better interest too, though it won't amount to very much these days. There could be plenty of people who have no problem with an extra 5 a month. Claudia Smith, who lives in Fayetteville, Ark., said she wasn't worried about the new fee, even though she used her debit card extensively. "It's well worth 5 a month to not have to carry a checkbook," she said. She rarely uses a branch but had visited one on Friday because the bank had notified her that her debit card information might have been compromised. It issued her a temporary replacement, and she was grateful that there was someplace she could go when the need arose. "I guess banks have expenses like everyone else," she said. "Do we want to be able to use live tellers?" (Indeed, we sometimes do, though we don't like to hear from their bosses; our Arkansas correspondent was booted from the sidewalk of the Bank of America Joyce Avenue branch in Fayetteville for "soliciting" customers on Friday.) Some people who live hand to mouth and collect a lot of paper checks like to be near a branch. That way, they can hand piles of them over to a teller and have the deposits clear quickly. That need may make it seem as if the community bank in the next town or a Web only institution is a poor option. In the last year or two, however, banks like Schwab and USAA have started letting many customers deposit a lot of their checks by snapping pictures of them with a smartphone and then sending the photos in. It's hard to beat that for speed of deposit. Chase does this, too, even though it has plenty of branches. It won't work for cash, however, so drug dealers are out of luck. The fed up have plenty of places to go to find a better bank these days. There is, in fact, a service operating out of findabetterbank.com that can help. The Web site of the Move Your Money project is worth a look, too. You can search for a credit union that will take you in at creditunion.coop. Lauren Peterson, a junior at the University of Arkansas, may soon be among the money movers. She hadn't heard about the new fee until Friday and wasn't pleased to learn that she would probably be paying it soon. Ms. Peterson opened her Bank of America account when she went to college because the bank has branches and A.T.M.'s in Fayetteville as well as in Dallas, which allows her to use them when she visits her family. But a 5 monthly fee gives her pause. "Honestly, I might switch," she said. "I feel it's an inconvenience, especially for students. No one carries cash."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Your Money
Credit...Justin T. Gellerson for The New York Times Jeannette Walls Settles Down Far From the Noise of New York ORANGE, Va. Early in the "The Glass Castle," the movie based on Jeannette Walls's memoir of growing up destitute, Rex Walls sidles up to his little girl, who lies burned and bandaged in a hospital bed. "Hey, Mountain Goat, it's time to skedaddle," he says, before swaddling her in blankets and hustling her past security toward his jalopy. Hasty retreats are a theme in the film, as they are in Ms. Walls's 2005 book of the same title. It is an alternately wrenching and exhilarating yarn of a childhood spent shuttling with her willfully shiftless parents from one parched Southwestern locale to another, and finally, when the family's resources dry out, settling in Welch, the dilapidated West Virginia mining town that was her father's childhood home. A life on the move seems to suit her. More than a decade ago, with her memoir in its seven year run on the New York Times best seller list, Ms. Walls chose to ditch New York, not to mention her career of more than 25 years as a gossip writer. She had few qualms about abandoning the cocktail fueled chatter and red carpet extravaganzas for the verdant seclusion of a 205 acre horse farm in Virginia. "When something doesn't work for you, you just get up and leave," she said. "I skedaddled out of Welch, and I skedaddled out of New York. There's nothing wrong with that." Ms. Walls, 57, got her start at New York magazine in the 1980s. She worked as the assistant to the editor Edward Kosner and eventually became the main writer of the Intelligencer column, a widely devoured rival to The New York Post's Page Six then. "She was very self contained," Mr. Kosner recalled. "She was always a grown up. With that kind of harrowing childhood, she had to be." He added: "There was always a degree of distance there. Nobody knew really very much about her." Not that Ms. Walls goes out of her way to cultivate mystery. "Ask me anything," she offered brightly the other day at her Virginia home. The move away from Manhattan, initiated by her husband, the writer John Taylor, was daunting at first. "I didn't think I'd like it out here," she said. "But I thought, let's give it a shot." Tucking a stray wisp of russet hair behind one ear, she added: "I will say that I have always had the compulsion to put down roots. I love having a house. I love belonging someplace." It took her a while to adapt to a setting that some would consider an idyll. Spirits rising, she found herself refurbishing the 19th century Greek Revival house with porticoes that is set on a slope overlooking the barns, pastures and hayfields of a working farm. Strolling the grounds, the crunch of wood chips underfoot, Ms. Walls gazed at her plump hydrangeas. "I'm more obsessive than I realized," she said. "This little garden patch, it just keeps on expanding." Her mother, Rose Mary, a radiant figure with no gift for conventional parenting, lives in a cottage on the property. (Naomi Watts plays her in the film.) An unabashed hoarder, she has filled her place and a neighboring shed with the vibrant art works she has painted over a lifetime. While the farm has given Ms. Walls a stability that long eluded her, she knows better than to count on it. Years of roving the country in junk cars, foraging for food in school trash bins, being pelted with rocks by bullies and being eyed with contempt by neighbors have left her wary. "If you grew up very self conscious, feeling that you're not as good as other people, I think that it defines you," she said. A sense of shame has never entirely departed. "Owning it, I don't know if that's a bad thing," Ms. Walls said. "It's important to tap into it and be in touch with it. For me, it's part of process of storytelling." With the writing of her memoir, she let go of trying to bury the fact that she slept in a rope bed, defecated in a ditch and lived in ramshackle quarters whose ceilings and floorboards threatened to crumble at any hour. "Somebody told me the secret to happiness is low expectations," she said. "I still can't believe that I have flush toilets, that I can go to a grocery store and buy whatever I want, which will never fail to amaze me." She was sipping nothing more lethal than tap water in her kitchen, its generous windows affording a view of undulating fields of grass bordered by a low rail fence. "The green rolling hills have always held some sort of spell for me," she said. "I feel at home here now." "I grew up without television; I don't really care about celebrities," said Ms. Walls, who as a girl aspired to writing about politics, poverty and social justice. She maintained a zest for reporting and grew accustomed in those days to sashaying to galas sheathed in a lustrous dresses, her sharply sculptured features softened by an up do and triple strand pearls. "I loved the glamour," she said. Still, she couldn't shake off a gnawing unease. "I think I was playing a role," she recalled, "acting the part of this perfect New York City media flinty gal, wearing this little dress for success outfit. Really, I was trying to fit in. The first time I was on a red carpet, I couldn't believe it." At the time, "I was all about work," she said. "I would get to my office at 9 o'clock and I'd leave at 11. I was all about deadlines." The rise of social media threw her. "I realized, I can't call people for comment anymore, because some of those people now have their own website," she said. "TMZ was taking off, and things just started getting iffy. Gossip was starting to cross into this really ugly zone, and I thought, 'Why would anybody want to be famous?' I didn't want to do this anymore. "I thought, 'What am I going to do?' I was looking into dog walking: I'm good with big dogs and I don't mind picking up poop." She fretted about the casualties she left in her wake. "I was snarky," she said. "I don't know the degree to which I hurt anybody. My column these flip little paragraphs that combined hero worship and schadenfreude they might have been accurate. But I was telling half truths. And I wanted to dig deeper." She wrote much of the memoir while still at MSNBC. "I thought I was going to get fired from my job," she said. She is well aware that her story strains credulity a stretch for even the most accommodating imagination. Destin Daniel Cretton, the "Glass Castle" director, said, "At first, I honestly thought, 'Oh, some of these stories are so extreme, they might be slight fictionalization of memory. It wasn't until I heard the details for the first time from her lips, in her own vernacular, that I realized, 'Oh, maybe it was true.'" A rangy figure who modeled himself after the ace pilot Chuck Yeager, Rex Walls, until his death in the mid 1990s, was given, between reckless bouts of drinking or slamming Rose Mary around, to sketching elaborate plans for a glass walled, solar powered family abode. Only its foundation saw light of day, gradually transformed into an outsize trash pit, an eyesore even in falling down Welch. The performance of Woody Harrelson, who plays Rex in the movie, which has its release on Aug. 11, struck Ms. Walls as eerie, especially in his interactions with Jeannette, who is played as an adult by Brie Larson. "During the filming, Woody was asking all the time: 'Tell me about your dad. Did he look you in the eye? What did he do with his hands?'" Ms. Walls said. "I said, 'Daddy liked to squeeze beer cans not the wimpy beer cans that we make now hard beer cans from the '60s, like 'Cool Hand Luke.' "When I watched the performance on tape, I was crying. I was trembling, pounding on the shoulder of the guy next to me. In the scene where he and Brie were getting into fights about her leaving, I was freaking out. Woody was saying things that Dad had said to me, things I'd never told him." Ms. Walls ultimately married her father's antithesis, settling for a time on Park Avenue with her first husband, Eric Goldberg, a well meaning "suit," as he comes off in the film, who was thrown, if not outright embarrassed, by her oddball relations, and, as it seemed to Ms. Walls, by the burn scars she carried since girlhood. Grappling with whether to leave him, she told her brother, Brian, "He never wrote a bad check; he's a good, honest guy, keeps a daily journal of his activities." Brian's reply still rings in her ears: "You're talking about a good accountant," he told her. "I'm not hearing the word love." Ms. Walls said: "I'd come to terms with the idea that I would never fall in love. I didn't need anybody. I had a career. I was independent. I had gay friends for intimacy." Her deepening friendship with Mr. Taylor, who worked with her at New York and at Esquire, spurred a change of heart. They married in 2002, and he teased the memoir out of her, bit by painful bit. The globe traveling son of a diplomat, he was not put off by her background or the burn scars that covered her torso. "John told me: 'Don't ever apologize that you have scars. They give you texture,'" she said. "That was such a revelation, that somebody would not only forgive me for what was wrong with me but see it as something to be admired." The two plan to stay put, though she has a soft spot for New York. "The city is like an old boyfriend with whom I amicably split," she said. Life on the farm has its merits. She has found the serenity there to write two more books, "Half Broke Horses: A True Life Novel" and "The Silver Star." She is working on a novel about a businesswoman in the 1920s. "I know I'll be O.K. here," she said. "In New York, I'm not so sure. A lot of those gossip columnists, they lose their platform. Walter Winchell spent the last part of his life hanging out on street corners and handing out mimeographed columns. That was just an eye opener for me." Nothing doing for Ms. Walls. "I wanted a place where I could go broke and still grow vegetables, bail water out of the creek and shoot deer," she said. "If worse comes to worst, I'll survive."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Fashion & Style
Note: Series' availability on streaming platforms is subject to change, and varies by country. If you're looking for more streaming recommendations, subscribe to the Times's Watching newsletter. France was the home of cool, midcentury crime pictures, and no Frenchman did them better than Jean Pierre Melville. He followed up his classics "Bob le Flambeur" and "Le Doulos" with this story of a hard case who escapes from prison and tries to fund his getaway with that most beloved of caper movie devices: one last, big score. That hook shows up in too many subsequent caper movies to be particularly noteworthy, but "Souffle" is about much more than its potboiler plot. Its detached style and deliberate pacing give it a somber, almost existential feel, while its breathless action beats still deliver the goods. Melville again, this time spinning the yarn of three trenchcoated tough guys out to rip off a jewelry store and the police inspector hot on their trail. This drama was Melville's penultimate picture, and it exhibits his firmly established style: cool, almost detached action; contemplative morality; characters that say more in a glance than in pages of dialogue; and unforgettable set pieces, this time in the form of the climactic robbery, which (in a nod to Jules Dassin's 1955 classic, "Rififi") unfolds in real time with no dialogue. But that big job isn't what "Le Cercle Rouge" is really about; it's about the rules of the crooks' game, the code they share, and the consequences of both. This action comedy from Lewis Milestone was the jumping off point for the American heist picture, for the lionization of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack, and for three Steven Soderbergh hits, but it hardly plays like a Big Bang. It feels more like an afternoon hangout, which by most accounts, it was. The film concerns a group of war buddies who plan to rob five casinos on New Year's Eve with military precision, but the pacing is casual, the tone is slight, and the ending is all but a shrug. And yet, when these would be criminals swagger through Vegas with their suits just so, they radiate more cool than a block of dry ice. Michael Caine is a Cockney crook leading a gang of thieves and drivers through an elegant plot to steal four million dollars in gold from Turin, Italy, and high tail it to Switzerland. In sharp contrast to most caper movies, in which the focus is on the mechanics of the theft, the key to "The Italian Job" is the escape, exuberantly executed by a pack of Mini Coopers in one of the most famous car chases in all of cinema. But there's more to this than just fancy driving: Noel Coward supplies elegance as a dapper crime boss; Benny Hill is on hand for low comedy; and Caine brings to it his inimitable style, adding a timeless admonishment to the cinema canon: "You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!" Few onscreen couples have smoldered as convincingly as Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, cast as a millionaire playboy bank robber and the insurance investigator who might be onto him and might be falling for him. Their cat and mouse game is winkingly sexy, and director Norman Jewison stages their interactions with the same tightly wound ingenuity that characterizes the robberies his hero pulls off for kicks. The film's trademark split screen editing was often replicated but rarely duplicated, giving the whole of "Crown" a giddy energy and bouncy vitality that matches the fireworks at its center. A crew of hackers, thieves, spies and revolutionaries work as security threats for hire (if they can't break into your business or its computers, no one can) until they're hired to recover a black box that seems capable of decrypting any computer system. That box, and the mischief it can cause, provides this breezy caper flick with some unexpected proto Snowden intellectual heft, but it's mostly a McGuffin; the fun here is in the device's thefts and recoveries, and the elaborate and often comic ruses that the team of misfits (Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Dan Aykroyd, River Phoenix) mounts to get it into the right hands. An armed robber (Clive Owen) takes over a Wall Street bank, holding its clerks and customers hostage, but this is no mere "Dog Day Afternoon" riff. The gunman's exact motives are a puzzle, confounding the brilliant N.Y.P.D. hostage negotiator (Denzel Washington) at its center. Director Spike Lee gives what could've been a bank job retread a palpable sense of time and place, and fills his frames with New York characters: wiseguy cops, seen it all looky loos, and slick power brokers (Jodie Foster and Christopher Plummer). But his most fascinating character is Owen's master criminal, whose true motives Lee keeps under wraps without ever seeming to withhold information. A dazzling and rambunctious crime movie, with a humdinger of an ending. This 2001 thriller from director Frank Oz is full of stock characters: the career criminal looking for one last big score; the cocky young hothead who wants to partner up; and the old timer who puts it together. But when those characters are brought to life by Robert De Niro, Edward Norton and Marlon Brando, you're willing to cut the movie some slack. The sheer joy of watching three generations of Method actors thrust and parry overpowers the archetypes' familiarity, and the heist itself is taut, suspenseful and pleasantly twisty. Sam Rockwell's unflappable, easy breezy charm makes him a natural for caper movies, and here he plays second banana to Nicolas Cage as the two men work a long swindle on a blustery businessman that gets complicated when Cage's teenage daughter (Alison Lohman) unexpectedly reappears. Ridley Scott directs, with a far lighter touch than you'd expect from his action and sci fi pictures, while Cage and Rockwell are convincing as longtime partners who have learned to riff and improvise off each other. The movie itself also has the wiles of a con man: It distracts you with its inventive twists while sneaking in a surprising dose of warmth.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Television
I AM I AM I AM Seventeen Brushes With Death By 288 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. 25.95. Two remarkable poems written in the latter half of the 20th century Wislawa Szymborska's "Could Have" and Jane Kenyon's "Otherwise" address the shadow life that presses itself against us in every living moment. "It could have happened. / It had to happen"; so begins the Szymborska. "I got out of bed / on two strong legs. / It might have been / otherwise," is the opening of Kenyon's. The poets remind us that our lives are at the mercy of near misses, catastrophes averted. We make our peace with this present danger or we don't. We embrace those we love more ferociously knowing we're not in control of their fates, or ours or we don't. The Northern Irish novelist is consumed with this shadow life in her transfixing "I Am I Am I Am," a memoir that trains its fierce intelligence on her 17 near death experiences. O'Farrell is acutely aware that her inner and outer worlds have been shaped at least as powerfully by what didn't happen as what did. In chapters with titles like "Neck," "Lungs," "Cranium" and "Bloodstream," inscripted above intricate black and white drawings of the body part in question, Farrell cuts through swaths of her life, using this anatomical structure to great effect as she builds tension and portent. At age 18, she encounters a stranger on a deserted country path and senses "the urge for violence radiating off the man, like heat off a stone." She evades him thanks to her preternatural instinct for danger, but her police report carries little weight. Soon thereafter he murders a different young woman. "It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that I think about her, if not every day then most days," writes the adult O'Farrell, the would be victim who has survived to tell the tale. "I am aware of her life, which was cut off, curtailed, snipped short, whereas mine, for whatever reason, was allowed to run on."
0
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Books
Fox News fired Ed Henry, one of the network's most prominent anchors, this month after the network investigated a former employee's accusation of sexual misconduct against him. On Monday, the former employee sued Mr. Henry and Fox News, describing a history of workplace harassment and a relationship with the anchor that she said included violent sex and rape. The woman, Jennifer Eckhart, a former associate producer at Fox Business, said that Mr. Henry had coerced her into a sexual relationship by promising to advance her career. A co plaintiff, Cathy Areu, a frequent guest on Fox News programs, alleged in the lawsuit that Mr. Henry had harassed her, as well, by sending sexually explicit messages. Ms. Areu also described exchanges with other Fox News stars, including the anchors Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Howard Kurtz, that she called inappropriate and sexually charged. Fox News, in a statement, said that it had retained an outside law firm to investigate Ms. Areu's claims and determined them to be "false, patently frivolous and utterly devoid of any merit." Fox News issued the statement on behalf of the network as well as Mr. Carlson, Mr. Hannity and Mr. Kurtz, who were also named as defendants in the suit. The network did not challenge Ms. Eckhart's allegations against Mr. Henry, noting: "Fox News already took swift action as soon as it learned of Ms. Eckhart's claims on June 25 and Mr. Henry is no longer employed by the network." A lawyer for Mr. Henry, Catherine Foti, said in a statement that the lawsuit's allegations against her client were "fictional," adding: "The evidence in this case will demonstrate that Ms. Eckhart initiated and completely encouraged a consensual relationship. Ed Henry looks forward to presenting actual facts and evidence." Fox News has said previously that it suspended Mr. Henry as soon as executives learned of Ms. Eckhart's allegations against him; the anchor was fired several days later. His dismissal was an echo of Fox News's past scandals involving workplace harassment and sexual misconduct, which prompted the exits of its founder, Roger E. Ailes, and the host Bill O'Reilly. 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 lawsuit, filed on Monday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, depicts an environment where powerful male hosts regularly flirted with junior female personnel and promised career help in exchange for sexual attention. Ms. Eckhart, who joined Fox Business in her early 20s, alleged that Mr. Henry, an established star at Fox News, "preyed upon, manipulated and groomed" her. The lawsuit, which includes cropped screenshots of sexually explicit text exchanges, describes Ms. Eckhart being coerced into a relationship with Mr. Henry in which he demanded sadomasochistic sexual favors, culminating in a "violent, painful rape" in a Manhattan hotel room in 2017. Ms. Eckhart said in the lawsuit that she complained to a human resources executive about "a toxic work environment" in February 2020, but that the network did not follow up with her. On June 12, Ms. Eckhart was let go. She approached the network on June 25 with her claims about Mr. Henry, who was fired on July 1. Ms. Eckhart and Ms. Areu are represented by the law firm of Douglas H. Wigdor, a prominent lawyer in workplace harassment cases who has sued Fox News on several occasions. A partner at the firm, Michael J. Willemin, said on Monday that the law firm retained by Fox News to investigate his clients' claims "did not even speak with either of our clients," and he called on Fox News to release a copy of its internal investigation. Fox News said that its investigators "requested in writing the opportunity to speak directly with each plaintiff with their attorneys present." The network said that Mr. Wigdor's firm would make the plaintiffs available only if the interviews "could not be used in any future litigation or proceeding," a position that Fox News called legally "unreasonable." Ms. Areu, who was a frequent guest on Fox News shows but not employed by the network, said in the lawsuit that Mr. Hannity, on set in 2018, urged male members of his crew to take her on a date and referred to her as "a beautiful woman." She said that Mr. Carlson, after she appeared on his show in 2018, told Ms. Areu that he was staying alone in a Manhattan hotel without his family. She said that Mr. Kurtz, in 2019, invited her to meet him in the lobby of his hotel and was miffed when she declined. In all three instances, according to the lawsuit, Ms. Areu said that she suffered career repercussions and was rarely invited back to appear on the hosts' programs. Ms. Areu also said that Gianno Caldwell, a Fox News contributor, inappropriately asked her to lunch in exchange for a meeting with the star pundit Ann Coulter. Ms. Eckhart and Ms. Areu are seeking damages against Fox News and the defendants for sexual harassment, creating a hostile work environment, retaliation, and in the case of Ms. Eckhart and Mr. Henry, violations of laws against sex trafficking.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Media
Some music sets out to conjure eternities. Extended drones, chantlike repeating phrases, tolling chords, spacious reverberation: Those are meditative sounds, defying fracture or interruption, tuning out the momentary and the trivial, invoking concentration, absorption, ritual and rapture. It's the kind of music Nick Cave has chosen for "Ghosteen," his 17th studio album leading the Bad Seeds. Cave has been prolific and chameleonic since the early 1980s, when he emerged with the Birthday Party, the Australian post punk band whose jagged songs introduced Cave's lifelong fascination with humanity's extremes: evil and transcendence, desire and violence, perdition and redemption, creation and annihilation. He started the Bad Seeds after the Birthday Party disbanded in 1983; since then he has written books, acted in and scored films (with the Bad Seeds' longtime musical director, Warren Ellis) and also led a raucously collaborative band, Grinderman. His music never settled into any idiom for long. "Ghosteen" is an eerie, somber monolith, a set of 11 songs that stretches over an hour and is grouped on two CDs. "The songs on the first album are the children. The songs on the second album are their parents. Ghosteen is a migrating spirit," Cave wrote. Throughout "Ghosteen," the tempos are slow and slower, as songs circle through a handful of chords or hover in place while tension builds. Although the Bad Seeds still have the lineup of a rock band, on "Ghosteen" drums and guitars are almost entirely absent, replaced by the disembodied, sustained tones of synthesizers and string sections built from Ellis's violin behind Cave's brooding baritone, singing or speaking. Cave foreshadowed the approach with songs on "The Skeleton Tree" in 2016 "Girl in Amber," "Magneto" and "Distant Sky" but those were interludes. This is a whole.
0
N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Music
DESERT HOT SPRINGS, Calif. If only electric propulsion could operate at low voltage, maximize the motor's performance and do without the cumbersome array of batteries. That's the proposition advanced by KLD Energy Technologies of Austin, Tex., which suggests that it has come up with the next great innovation in electric vehicle powertrains. Kicking off a Southern California media tour to showcase the oneDrive system the company introduced in June, Christian Okonsky, KLD's founder and chief executive, and Ray Caamano, its chief scientific officer, expressed high expectations for the company, which is named for Mr. Okonsky's sons, Keil, Luke and Dean. To demonstrate what KLD is capable of, the two men brought along three vehicles fitted with oneDrive: a scooter, a small utility truck styled like the Volkswagens Mr. Caamano has always loved and just in time for Halloween a two seat rolling chassis nicknamed the Skeletor. The Skeletor is what's known as a neighborhood electric vehicle, which is a class unto itself, distinct from golf carts. Mr. Okonsky, 49, is an engineer who worked for Dell, and is leading KLD's adoption of regionalized production by contract manufacturers, patterned after Dell's own method. Mr. Caamano, 50, is an inventor who claims 28 patents, most pertaining to the motor at the heart of KLD's oneDrive integrated electric power system. KLD has 20 employees in Austin and 10 more at its Morgan Hill, Calif., research facility. "We raised a lot of money to develop our technology over five years, and literally this month is the first that we've started shipping product," Mr. Okonsky said in an interview. Mr. Caamano worked on Volkswagens after high school, perhaps informing the Skeletor's compact rear mounted drive system. It uses direct drive, with halfshafts supplying the power unit's motive force to each rear wheel. Two motors, linked by an electronically controlled differential, are paired inside a drum, and master and slave controllers are mounted on top. A small battery pack supplied by Samsung is sandwiched under the seats. KLD created its own power management software. Mr. Caamano said that California's air pollution problems in the 1970s instilled in him a deep revulsion toward internal combustion that oriented him toward electric drive. He said he had spent 20 years working out his thoughts on oneDrive. On KLD's website, specifications for the neighborhood electric vehicle based on the Skeletor chassis list a top speed of 25 miles per hour and range of 24 miles from the 3.12 kilowatt hour battery pack. In a test on local streets, the Skeletor accelerated smoothly and ran quietly, although its vaporous steering would have been rejected by a clown car manufacturer. "We set the motor controller here in the States at half speed," Mr. Caamano said, referring to restrictions imposed by federal and state governments. "It's capable of 50 miles per hour." But KLD's claims of a big step forward in electric propulsion "set off all my alarm bells," said Tom Gage, chief executive of EV Grid, in a telephone interview. His organization seeks to integrate electric vehicles into the existing power network. "The efficiency of electric drive systems isn't the problem," Mr. Gage said. "They're all very, very efficient. I think the ship has sailed now for standard drive systems. What the car companies want now is low cost and high reliability." But Mr. Caamano said the use of amorphous metals, which have unique microstructures, makes for a power dense, low cost compact motor and a smaller array of lithium batteries. He explained that neodymium iron boron permanent magnets that are cheaply made and easily configured provide another cost advantage. These materials overcome the limitations of conventional, easily demagnetized metals and heavy copper windings that retain heat. Scalability, meanwhile, comes from the use of varying numbers of torque generating stator blocks within the motor, Mr. Caamano said. Rather than a one piece element wrapping around the motor's circumference, KLD's stator which stays in fixed position relative to the rotor is assembled as a triangular module. Varying numbers of stator blocks are installed according to the application thus, the claimed adjustable power output levels, reduced magnetic losses and potential economies of scale. The Vmoto scooter in KLD's exhibition fleet had four stator blocks in the motor, which was integrated with the rear wheel. Like the Skeletor, the Cenntro Motors Kombi Green Space utility truck had dual oneDrive motors with six stator blocks. Mr. Okonsky, whose name is written in English and Mandarin on his business card, said the company's first focus will be on scooters. The Vmoto didn't accelerate like a racehorse out of the gate, but soon enough it was cruising silently through the neighborhood at 35 m.p.h. But interest in oneDrive extends beyond the two wheel world. Brad Jaeger, vice president for engineering and operations at Edison2, the creator of the Very Light Car that won the Automotive X Prize in 2010, looked at KLD's website and said in a telephone interview, "The technology that KLD is shopping around would fit perfectly with the flexibility and modularity Edison2 has been working on with its new vehicle." Could KLD's oneDrive ultimately find a home in Detroit? "Oh, absolutely," Mr. Caamano said. "It all adds up to less battery, which is the most expensive component in the electric car today."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Automobiles
4202 Second Avenue (between 42nd and 43rd Streets) This blocklong, 19,750 square foot warehouse, in an opportunity zone offering a potential break on capital gains taxes, features 20 foot ceilings, eight drive in bays and about 1,000 square feet of office space on the mezzanine level. It also has 20,000 square feet in air rights. Zoning allows for retail, office space or manufacturing uses. The holder of the building's 49 year triple net lease, set to expire in December 2022, subleases it to two distributors one of auto parts and another of paper plates, plastic utensils and other disposable dining products. A development company has bought this 14,060 square foot site, where three vacant buildings are to be demolished. Nos. 1211 and 1213 are identical four story buildings, and No. 1209 is a two story commercial building. The buyer is going through the approval process to build a mixed use condominium. The empty lot next door, at No. 1215, used to be the site of the Slave Theater, a center of political rallies and events led by the Rev. Al Sharpton in the 1980s and '90s, and an African American cultural center. The theater was demolished in 2017. Three Sisters Yoga, a Yoga Alliance registered school that offers 200 hour and 300 hour yoga teacher certification programs, as well as continuing education workshops and classes, signed a three year lease for an 800 square foot space on the 15th floor of this 23 story building in the garment district. The yoga school, which opened Friday and was previously at 135 West 29th Street, is owned by Jen Whinnen, and Kate English is the assistant director. The school received a one month concession for its build out.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Real Estate
How do you know when you are in love? No 1 800 line psychic will tell you. No notice sent by registered mail. Not even a ping from your iPhone. But there are a million ways of figuring it out, and we've asked some people when they knew. Here is one way: When you are suddenly always in a good mood. While Mario Lopez, 43, was performing in "A Chorus Line" on Broadway in 2008, one of the dancers, Courtney Mazza, caught his eye. Mr. Lopez, now host of the entertainment news program "Extra," asked her out, but she said no. Then he asked her out again. "It wasn't easy to get her to go out with me," he says, but she finally relented. When the show ended, Mr. Lopez planned to return home to Los Angeles. The couple dated from opposite coasts for a bit, but during one of Ms. Mazza's visits, he begged her to stay. "I knew I was in love when I told her, 'Let's propose a deal,'" he says. He offered to pay for her apartment back in New York for the rest of the summer, just so he could spend more time with her. "Nothing with us ever felt forced," he says. "It was effortless, and I just knew then that her staying was right." Lucky for him, he says, the timing was right: She wasn't particularly happy with her job in New York, and she was falling for him, too. His producer noticed how chipper he was when Ms. Mazza, 34, was around. He had even more energy than usual and couldn't stop smiling. When the three months were up, Mr. Lopez begged her to stay longer, and then, forever. And she did. They married in 2012 and have two young children.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Fashion & Style
Mathew Frost, an economics teacher at Sunset High School in Dallas, Tex., teaches his students how to create a budget based on the average income for the area about 21,000 to 40,000 a year. Most Americans aren't fluent in the language of money. Yet we're expected to make big financial decisions as early as our teens Should I take on thousands of dollars of student debt? Should I buy a car? even though most of us received no formal instruction on financial matters until it was too late. While no course in personal finance could have prevented many Americans from getting caught up in the housing bubble, it's clear that most of us need some help, preferably starting when we're still in school. And I'm not just talking about learning to balance your checkbook. It's understanding concepts like the time value of money, risk and reward, and, yes, the importance of savings. All of this raises the question: What's happening inside our classrooms? And how many schools even broach the topic? As it turns out, for a country that prizes personal responsibility, we're doing very little. "We need to teach the basics of economics and finances so people can make financial decisions in a changing world," said Annamaria Lusardi, economics professor at Dartmouth College and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. "It's the compounding of interest, the problem of inflation. These are the principles. And these are really scientific topics." While more states are beginning to require some sort of personal finance instruction, there aren't enough that do, financial literacy experts say, and there is little consistency in the quality of the education. Just 13 states require students to take a personal finance course or include the subject in an economics course before they graduate from high school, up from seven states in 2007, according to the Council for Economic Education. Meanwhile, 34 states (including those 13) have personal finance within their curriculum guidelines, up from 28 states in 2007. But that doesn't guarantee that the subject will be taught. It's no secret that state budgets are tight, and courses not seen as core are more likely to be cut than added. "The adage 'if it isn't tested, it isn't taught' is unfortunately true in this case," said Gary Stern, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and acting president of the Council for Economic Education, which provides economics and personal finance educational programs. But that hasn't stopped enterprising teachers like Mathew Frost, who teaches 11th and 12th graders American history and economics at Sunset High School in Dallas, from working the topic into his student's school day. The Texas economics curriculum carves out time for personal finance, but it doesn't test students on the material. Mr. Frost says it's just too important to ignore. So he tries to bring the lesson to life for his students by pairing them up as married couples and giving them a couple of children. The students must then create a budget based on the average income range for their neighborhood, or about 21,000 to 40,000 a year. As in the board game "Life," the students are dealt real world circumstances. Mr. Frost has them randomly pick "chance cards" from a bag, which might tell them they need new brakes for their car, broke an arm, suffered a death in the family, or found 20. "I try to make it a realistic as possible," he said. "We talk about building budgets, expenses, investing money," he added, as well as "how to use credit wisely, insurance and careers." One of his students later wrote about the experience. The 11th grader, who simulated life with a wife and two children on 21,000 a year, told of balancing needs versus wants, trying to find an apartment in a safe neighborhood that fit the family budget and the effect of an unexpected rent increase on their savings. "I first learned that real life isn't going to be as nice as this game," he said. "I also learned that good budgeting has to be maintained throughout a person's life no matter the income, no matter the living conditions." Research shows that this type of financial education tends to resonate with the students later. Michael S. Gutter, an assistant professor of family financial management at the University of Florida, studied the issue in 2009, after he surveyed 15,700 students at 15 universities who came from states with different (or nonexistent) personal finance schooling requirements. The study was financed by the National Endowment for Financial Education, a nonprofit organization in Denver that provides financial education curriculums. "College students who came from states where there was a course required were more likely to budget, were more likely to be saving, and were less likely to have maxed out their credit cards in the last year and were more likely to be paying off their credit cards fully," Professor Gutter said. But his research also suggested that "social learning is also very powerful as well," he said. "What your parents tell you matters." Parents can help, but many don't know the answers. In fact, part of the challenge is that many teachers don't either. "We should develop a national standard for teacher training," said Ted Beck, chief executive of the endowment, which recently conducted a study that found that 64 percent of kindergarten through 12th grade teachers (in states with financial education guidelines) reported feeling "not well qualified" to teach those standards. The standards most commonly referred to were developed by the JumpStart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, which provides the outlines of a recommended personal finance curriculum. The topics cover everything from income and careers to credit and debt, savings and investing to risk management and insurance. Many educators and financial literacy experts agree that smart, comprehensive course materials already exist (You can find a sample in the online version of this story). The challenge is delivering them to classrooms, and then encouraging states to mandate that it's taught. And ideally, it would start much earlier than high school. "It's hard because there is no silver bullet to get this into every school," said Matthew Yale, deputy chief of staff to Education Secretary Arne Duncan. "It's not as simple as saying, 'We're going to institute this in the 100,000 public schools in America.' But our plan for reauthorization does make room for financial literacy in schools, which is a really big, big deal." Mr. Yale was referring to the Obama administration's plan to revise the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, commonly known as No Child Left Behind. He said the Department of Education's next step is to work with districts and teachers and help them find the money they need, whether it's through the many literacy minded nonprofits or the private sector. Mr. Yale also said that department officials were working on competitive grant programs, which would allow schools to compete for money to pay for the financial literacy programs. As a joint effort with the Treasury Department, the Education Department is currently running the National Financial Capability Challenge, an online exam for high school students that measures financial know how and recognizes outstanding performers, to help raise awareness. President Bush created the first Advisory Council on Financial Literacy in 2008, and President Obama plans to assemble his own team. In its annual report, the first council recommended that Congress or state legislatures mandate financial education in all schools for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. But will the new administration follow through with that recommendation? Mr. Yale said education officials were "not interested in introducing unfunded mandates." So what can we do? According to Scott Truelove, who teaches personal finance as part of a work study program for seniors at Chesterton High School in Indiana, "It will take a parent movement." Mr. Truelove has already seen the power of financial education in his schools' hallways, where a student told him and another personal finance teacher that she set up a Roth I.R.A. given what she learned in class. "That, to me, is huge," Mr. Truelove said.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Your Money
ATLANTA The first Atlanta school administrator to face trial in the largest school cheating scandal in the country was found not guilty on Friday. The case, heard by a Fulton County Superior Court jury, centered on whether Tamara Cotman, a former administrator, influenced a witness during the investigation of widespread cheating in the 52,000 student district. That investigation resulted in 65 indictments against 35 teachers and administrators, among them Beverly Hall, the superintendent once highly regarded for her work turning around a district plagued by poor academic performance. Ms. Cotman's three week trial was narrowly focused, and it was far from clear whether the acquittal could be counted as an indicator of how the broader case, scheduled to start next spring, would fare.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Education
In the past two weeks, Instagram has been overrun with viral challenges. On Tuesday, thousands of teenagers began posting unflattering photos of themselves to their feeds with the cryptic caption "until tomorrow." Anyone who liked the photos, which are intended to only stay up for 24 hours, received a message from the user daring them to do the same. "It's all that's on my feed right now," said Ophelia Parisi, 16, of Whitesboro, N.Y., who participated in the challenge herself. "Literally everyone is doing it." That might be because literally everyone is home right now or should be! What else is there to do? There's the couch challenge for those who consider push ups to be too easy. (You're supposed to lift up your entire couch.) Star athletes began taking part in the "toilet paper challenge" last week, which consists of kicking a toilet paper roll around so as not to let it touch the floor. And some celebrities have even tried to start their own. The country musician Tim McGraw posted the deepcutschallenge on Sunday, imploring followers to play their favorite throwback song on guitar. Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez posted a "couples challenge" where they try to guess how the other would answer questions about their relationship. "These challenges all started when people began to stay home and go into quarantine," said Taylor Loren, head of content marketing at Later, an Instagram marketing platform. "Instagram usage has risen a lot in the past couple weeks and these challenges are way for people to interact with their friends and stay entertained while they have to stay home." Historically, internet challenges have taken hold when people have some time on their hands to get creative usually during the summer. Planking, icing, and the Ice Bucket Challenge all took hold in summer months, their growth spurred by out of school teenagers looking for something to do. The summer of 2018 also brought a rush of dance based challenges, including the InMyFeelings Challenge and The LevelUp Challenge. Social media has been getting more participatory for some time now, in large thanks to TikTok, where challenges are a big part of interacting on the platform. As challenges become more popular, they spill over onto Instagram. "We've seen a huge increase in TikTok content coming over to Instagram," said Ms. Loren. Many of the most viral challenges in the past week have centered around relatable quarantine habits. There's one where you take a shot, or drink a glass of wine then tag 10 friends to do the same. There's the "post what you're doing right now" challenge which seems, anecdotally, to have taken off among parents. (The challenge is simple: post exactly what you're doing in the moment, then tag friends to do the same.) These challenges are "based around themes that everyone feels like they can relate to now in some way," Ms. Loren said.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Style
WASHINGTON President elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. warned on Monday of a "very dark winter" ahead and called on Congress to pass a large economic stimulus package immediately to help workers, businesses, and state and local governments struggling to cope with the coronavirus pandemic. Mr. Biden gave his first major policy speech since he won the election after participating in a virtual meeting with business and union leaders, including the chief executives of General Motors, Microsoft, Target and the Gap and the head of the United Auto Workers. The group, meeting over Zoom, discussed how to safely reopen the American economy when virus cases continue to surge across the nation, prompting renewed lockdowns. The president elect's decision to highlight his meeting with labor groups and businesses underscores the immense challenge facing his administration, which will have to contend with a spike in coronavirus infections and deaths, a faltering economic recovery and a public weary of restrictions on everyday life. Many businesses continue to struggle with reduced activity and are eager to bring workers and customers back, while unions continue to insist that corporations don't needlessly expose workers to risk. Participants said the discussion, which was closed to reporters, focused heavily on how to keep businesses operating and on workplace safety, including union leaders' push for enhanced worker protections through the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. "The majority of the discussion with G.M. was on Covid protocols and the importance of keeping manufacturing running," said a G.M. official familiar with the discussion. "There's a lot of interest in how we are working with the U.A.W. to keep the work force safe and keep the plants running." Rory Gamble, the president of the autoworkers' union, said in an interview that he had urged Mr. Biden to make sure OSHA issued "strong enforceable standards" to keep workers safe during the pandemic. Under the Trump administration, OSHA has declined to put out specific coronavirus related regulations, opting instead for recommendations, and has largely avoided inspecting facilities outside of a few high risk industries like health care and emergency response. Mr. Biden sought to project unity among the group, saying, "We all agreed that we want to get the economy back on track, we need our workers to be back on the job by getting the virus under control." But the United States is "going into a very dark winter," he said. "Things are going to get much tougher before they get easier." To help businesses and workers make it through, Mr. Biden said, Congress needs to quickly pass another round of stimulus, but he offered no hint of the sort of policy compromise that could help break a partisan impasse in Washington over a new round of economic assistance. He instead reaffirmed his support for a 3.4 trillion plan that House Democrats approved in May and that Senate Republicans have rejected for months. Mr. Biden said he hoped that a dozen or more Republican senators would join Democrats in passing the type of expansive package they approved in the spring. That aid included 1,200 checks to low and middle income Americans, new loans for hard hit small businesses, state and local government assistance, and expanded federal testing and tracing programs. As Mr. Biden warned of economic darkness, financial markets rallied Monday after the drugmaker Moderna announced that its coronavirus vaccine was 94.5 percent effective, fueling hopes that deployment of a highly effective vaccine could hasten the end of the pandemic and its economic damage. The disconnect highlights the dangers for the economy in the coming months. Rising optimism for a vaccine could breed complacency among lawmakers when it comes to supporting the recovery, which is already losing steam and could be further hindered as critical spending programs expire at year end. It could also encourage individuals to disregard health officials' warnings against activities that raise the risk of contracting the virus before a vaccine can be widely deployed. States and cities have already begun to impose new restrictions on economic activity in an effort to tamp down the spread. Chicago announced a new "stay at home" order on Monday and advised residents to avoid travel, keep guests from their homes and cancel Thanksgiving celebrations. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said on Monday that he was pulling an "emergency brake" to stop the state's reopening plans. 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. A variety of indicators suggest that the recovery from the depths of the pandemic recession is nowhere near complete and that, in many ways, the economy is stalling or backsliding. Ten million fewer Americans are working now than in February. Supplemental benefits for the unemployed expired months ago, and federally funded benefits for the long term unemployed are set to run out at year's end barring congressional action. Credit card data and other indicators suggest consumers began to pull back spending this month as infection, hospitalization and death rates from the virus surge nationwide. Widespread distribution of a vaccine that would allow Americans to resume anything close to normal levels of travel, dining out and other types of spending on services that have been crushed by the pandemic is most likely months away. Economists continue to call for a new and immediate round of aid from Congress to help people and businesses weather the difficult time before the rebound is complete. There is little chance that lawmakers will use the lame duck session after the election to approve anything close to the 3.4 trillion House bill that Mr. Biden championed on Monday. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, has called for a "highly targeted" bill, and his Republican caucus has backed a package that would cost around 500 billion. Republicans suggested that Mr. Biden's comments had done little to sway them. "I don't think it's helpful," Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri said, adding that Mr. Biden has "plenty to be thinking about right now" besides the scope of the relief package. A deal, Mr. Blunt said, "is less and less likely the more divergent views are out there." Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, said she did not believe "it was a reasonable ask" for a package close to 3 trillion. Business leaders in Washington have pressed the sides to compromise. "There's no advantage for Democrats or Republicans in waiting until the new year," Neil Bradley, the executive vice president and chief policy officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said this month. Among the business and labor leaders Mr. Biden and Vice President elect Kamala Harris spoke with were Mary T. Barra, chief executive of G.M.; Sonia Syngal, chief executive of the Gap; Satya Nadella, chief executive of Microsoft; Brian Cornell, chairman and chief executive of Target; Richard Trumka, president of the A.F.L. C.I.O.; Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union; and Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Economy
THE BOOK OF ATLANTIS BLACK The Search for a Sister Gone Missing By Betsy Bonner When we meet Atlantis Black in 2002, she is onstage, an up and coming musician performing at the Sidewalk Cafe in New York City's East Village. Atlantis "tossed her head like a horse assailed by flies" as she sang about "sex, drugs and a love of pain, death and transformation." Watching Atlantis from the crowd is her younger sister, Betsy. The scene elegantly establishes the dynamic at the core of Betsy Bonner's haunting, mind bending memoir: Atlantis as the charismatic, troubled performer; Betsy the stable observer, witnessing her sister's life unfold. Six years later, a body is found in a Tijuana hotel room with Atlantis's identification. The death looks like an accidental overdose, but inconsistencies pile up. The autopsy photographs do not appear to match the body Betsy's mother identifies at the morgue. Are the toxicology reports forged? Could Atlantis still be alive? "The Book of Atlantis Black" traces Bonner's search for the truth. It is also a wrenching portrait of Atlantis and her role in Bonner's life. From an early age, the sisters seem bound for different fates. Nancy (who changed her name to Atlantis at 17) is molested by a neighbor at age 8. At 13 she cuts her wrists and begins taking antidepressants. By her mid 20s she's addicted to painkillers and suffering from panic attacks. When Atlantis attempts suicide in 1998, Betsy is studying abroad at Oxford. When Atlantis spends a week in jail on a prescription drug fraud charge, Betsy is "island hopping" during a teaching gig in Greece. "That was just how life went for us," Bonner writes in hindsight. "Our destinies were already written."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Books
MILAN It began with some boosterism and a success story; with lobster and lamb's lettuce and lots of chiffon. Political power met economic power in a tag team display of mutual appreciation as the big guns came out for the first day of Milan Fashion Week. Then Alessandro Michele, the creative director of Gucci, put some silk poppies on top. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy flew in for an opening lunch, the first time the head of government had done so. In the shadow of the Duomo here, in a room festooned with urns of ivy and goblets of kumquats, Marco Bizzarri, the chief executive of Gucci, hobnobbed with Pietro Beccari, chief executive of Fendi, and with Stefano Sassi, chief executive of Valentino. Diego Della Valle, chairman of Tod's Group, schmoozed with Patrizio Bertelli, co chief executive and executive director of Prada Group. And Donatella Versace, in an olive green suit (sans shirt) and diamonds, got ready to make her toast. Everyone was there except Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce, who apparently had said they were preparing their show. "The message we can convey together is that this country is dusting off its past," the prime minister said from his podium, after some pasta. "Italy should be a workshop, not a museum." His audience clapped, and then hied their way to Gucci, the first big show of the week, where Mr. Michele illustrated Mr. Renzi's words by marrying the Renaissance to well, everything. "It's rock 'n' roll Renaissance, 1980s Renaissance, street style Renaissance, bourgeois Renaissance, chinoiserie Renaissance," he said backstage. (His show notes said it a little more opaquely, referencing the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari and their "rhizomatic'' system of thought, but the idea was broadly the same.) In practice, that meant long, ostrich trimmed gowns and short studded leather suits; big shoulders and puffed shoulders; fur trim and fur cuffs; putti prints and giant shaggy furs; hostess dresses with fluted sleeves and one with AC/DC sequined on the back. It meant red, white and blue sporty jersey sheaths embroidered with Edwardian diamond necklaces, and cracked leather baseball jackets with double G's graffitied behind. And it meant more (70 exits' worth), just as there was in Mr. Michele's last show and the one before that: a bricolage of muchness that has become his signature. You can understand the repetition: Sales in the fourth quarter of 2015 were Gucci's best in three years, and seemingly every week, one celebrity or another shows up in one of last season's dresses. (Thank goodness they will now have something new to wear.) It's clearly working; why mess with a good thing? Because this is fashion, which is driven by the next thing. There is comfort in familiarity, of course, and in beauty, and Mr. Michele's work now has both, but the one thing missing thus far has been a certain rigor with his own thinking, and with his talent. One that distills instead of decorates. "We are hungry for the future," Mr. Renzi said at his lunch, and the same can be said of Gucci under Mr. Michele. He has set a direction; now he needs to go forward with it.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Fashion & Style
The musical polymath Rhiannon Giddens has mined African American folk traditions and the deep and varied roots of old time music as a founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and a successful solo artist. She also studied opera at Oberlin, and hosted a quirky podcast called Aria Code that deconstructed excerpts from Puccini and Verdi. Now Ms. Giddens is working on a project that promises to unite many of her musical interests: She has been commissioned to write an opera based on the autobiography of Omar Ibn Said, a Muslim African man who was enslaved and transported to the notorious Gadsden's Wharf in Charelston, S.C., in 1807. The opera will have its premiere next spring in Charleston at the Spoleto Festival USA, which commissioned it with Carolina Performing Arts. "My work as a whole is about excavating and shining a light on pieces of history that not only need to be seen and heard, but that can also add to the conversation about what's going on now," Ms. Giddens, who has won Grammy Awards and a MacArthur "genius" grant, said in a statement. "This is a story that hasn't been represented in the operatic world or in any world."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Music
Already battered by the e commerce revolution, traditional retail stores are bracing for another blow new tariffs on 300 billion worth of Chinese imports that the Trump administration is threatening to impose. Retailers and analysts warn the impact will be disastrous for an industry already tormented by vacant storefronts and deserted malls. The reason: Unlike earlier tariffs that mostly targeted industrial and commercial products, the next round is aimed squarely at consumer goods like footwear, toys and apparel. Even for healthy chains, like Walmart and Costco, the new duties threaten the business formula that helped speed their rapid rise over the last few decades: Import cheap products from Asia and sell them at rock bottom prices. The National Retail Federation estimates that China supplies 42 percent of all apparel, 73 percent of household appliances and 88 percent of toys sold in the United States. The government has already imposed tariffs on 250 billion worth of Chinese goods. President Trump has said he will decide on whether to impose duties on the remaining 300 billion in imports but hasn't set a firm deadline. Mr. Trump's trade representative will begin hearings on those proposed tariffs on Monday. "The threat of tariffs couldn't come at a worse time," said Mark A. Cohen, a former Sears executive who is now director of retail studies at Columbia Business School. "It's a squeeze that can't be forecast or predicted." With profit margins of 5 to 10 percent, Mr. Cohen said, sellers of apparel and accessories don't have much room to maneuver. Adding to the challenge, these chains are preparing orders for the make or break holiday season. In a letter last month, over 170 shoemakers and retailers called on Mr. Trump to halt the trade war with China, which supplies almost 70 percent of shoes sold in the United States. The industry cannot easily return shoe production to the United States, because labor costs are much higher here and there is little capacity for new production, said Matt Priest, chief executive of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America. Even New Balance, which manufactures sneakers domestically, imports some material from China. "I do think it's catastrophic," Mr. Priest said. "We are in the middle of right sizing retail here in the U.S., with fewer brick and mortar stores." So far in 2019, American retailers have announced plans to shut more than 7,000 stores, after announcing nearly 6,000 closings last year, according to Coresight Research. Those numbers include liquidations of chains like Payless ShoeSource and Gymboree and store closings by healthier companies like Gap Inc. and Victoria's Secret. By the end of 2019, announced closings could climb to 12,000 stores, Coresight estimated. The tariffs could also hurt the broader economy at a time when recession worries have moved to the forefront. The retail sector has shed 50,000 jobs since January. Torsten Slok, chief economist at Deutsche Bank, estimated that if the duties did take effect and remained in place, they would add 0.4 percent to the inflation rate and reduce economic growth by the same amount over the next year. "That may not sound like much, but consumer spending equals 70 percent of G.D.P.," he added. "It's Economics 101 that as prices rise, people will spend less." 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. Trump could delay the tariffs as negotiations continue a tactic he used in February after initial progress in the talks with China. But the uncertainty is weighing heavily on companies, said Simeon Siegel, a senior retail analyst at Nomura Instinet. "My price targets are supposed to be 12 month targets, and now they're 12 tweet targets," Mr. Siegel said. He added that the new 25 percent tariff could have a "cataclysmic" effect on retailers, especially those that are already in pain. "The retail industry at large is up in arms because they're not just fighting for their trade, they're fighting for their existence," Mr. Siegel said. Brian Goldner, chief executive of Hasbro, said the tariffs would be a setback for the toy industry just as it had begun to recover from the liquidation of Toys 'R' Us last year. Hasbro, which makes toys and games like Play Doh and Monopoly, said that it agreed to join other companies in testifying about the tariffs at a separate hearing the trade representative is expected to hold in coming weeks. About two thirds of the toys it sells domestically come from China, although it has been expanding production elsewhere in recent years, including in the United States. Still, China remains crucial as a supplier and customer. Hasbro's Transformers and My Little Pony offerings are popular there. "We want to continue to enable the China marketplace to be open to American brands that are beloved globally," Mr. Goldner said in an interview. Many companies declined to discuss the tariffs, fearful of being on the receiving end of a presidential Twitter post or other unwanted publicity. But on recent calls with investors and analysts after earnings announcements, tariffs were a hot topic. Five Below, a chain that targets teens and tweens with merchandise that costs 5 or less, said that it was already grappling with the administration's decision last month to raise tariffs on certain Chinese products to 25 percent from 10 percent. The retailer, which sells pool floats, phone chargers, beach towels and more at roughly 800 stores, said that it would raise prices on certain 1 to 4 items and even test higher prices like 5.25 and 5.55 in some stores this summer. "Increasing prices beyond the 5 price point is a decision we do not take lightly," Joel D. Anderson, the company's chief executive, told analysts this month. While the chain would be affected by the new round of tariffs that cover apparel and toys, Mr. Anderson said, "it's too early to speculate as we assume there's going to be lots of exceptions," similar to earlier tariffs. Other retailers also emphasized how difficult it was to predict the Trump administration's course. "It's still a very fluid situation right now," Michelle Gass, Kohl's chief executive, said of the proposed tariffs on a recent call. Art Peck, the chief executive of Gap Inc., said there was "significant uncertainty around what goods the tariffs may apply to and at what level they may be applied." "The stock market isn't pricing in the entire impact yet," Jay Sole, an analyst at UBS, said of share prices of retail companies. "Stock prices would fall further if this takes place because earnings for some companies would be much lower." Walmart, the nation's largest chain as well as its biggest private sector employer, faces a broader challenge. Over all, only one third of the goods it sells come from outside the United States. But China has been a principal source for many items like clothing and electronics that it and other big box retailers sell, enabling them to drive prices down. As China grew into its position as the world's workshop, Walmart prospered with it, said Richard Vedder, emeritus professor of economics at Ohio University and the author of "The Walmart Revolution: How Big Box Stores Benefit Consumers, Workers and the Economy." The relationship dates back to the days of Sam Walton, Walmart's founder. "Walton and his successors looked at China as a source of low cost goods and wanted to be aggressive in exploiting that opportunity," Mr. Vedder said. Now, those prices might not be so low, according to the company's chief financial officer, M. Brett Biggs. "Increased tariffs will lead to increased prices, we believe, for our customers," he said on a call with reporters last month. Retailers have mounted a furious lobbying campaign in Washington as the deadline nears. "We are at a critical juncture for the retail industry, as companies evolve to meet the expectations of customers," said Matthew Shay, president and chief executive of the National Retail Federation. "The imposition of tariffs just creates a further headwind in an already challenging environment."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Economy
LONDON America's traditional allies are on the lookout for new friends. They have heard the mantra "America First" from the new president, divining a Trump doctrine: global cooperation last. Europeans have taken note of Mr. Trump's denigration of the European Union and his apparent esteem for the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. In Asia and Latin America, leaders have absorbed the deepening possibility that Mr. Trump will deliver on threats to impose punitive tariffs on Mexican and Chinese imports, provoking a trade war that will damage economic growth and eliminate jobs around the world. Some allies are shifting focus to other potential partners for new sources of trade and investment, relationships that could influence political, diplomatic and military ties. Many are looking to China, which has adroitly capitalized on a leadership vacuum in world affairs by offering itself ironies notwithstanding as a champion for global engagement. "We've always said that America is our best friend," Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the Eurogroup comprising finance ministers from countries sharing the euro currency said in an interview with The New York Times on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this month. "If that's no longer the case, if that's what we need to understand from Donald Trump, then of course Europe will look for new friends." "China is a very strong candidate for that," he added. "The Chinese involvement in Europe in terms of investment is already very high and expanding. If you push away your friends, you mustn't be surprised if the friends start looking for new friends." On Wednesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany spoke by telephone with Premier Li Keqiang of China. "The two spoke in favor of free trade and a stable world trade order," a German government spokesman later said in a written statement. The swift reassessment of trade relations a realm in which Mr. Trump is directly threatening the order that has prevailed since the end of World War II only amplifies the potential for a shake up of the broader geopolitical framework. Mr. Trump has already criticized NATO as obsolete while demanding that member states pay more, calling into question the alliance that has maintained security across much of Europe for more than six decades. He has provoked fears of a clash with China beyond issues of commerce by taking a congratulatory call from the president of Taiwan, the self governing island that Beijing claims as part of its territory. In shutting American borders to people from predominantly Muslim countries, Mr. Trump risks inflaming tensions with Middle Eastern nations while widening a void with democratic allies over basic values. Through the fractious campaign, weary sophisticates dismissed the extreme talk from the Trump camp as political bluster. Even if he won, he would never follow through on his threats, particularly in trade where his business sensibilities would prevail. But that conventional wisdom looks to be crumbling. First, Mr. Trump delivered on a promise to withdraw from the Trans Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement forged by the Obama administration in part as a counter to China's growing influence. Then, on Thursday, his administration appeared to embrace a Republican proposal to impose a 20 percent tax on all imported goods while asserting the proceeds would pay for a wall along the Mexican border. Word of the tax emerged as President Enrique Pena Nieto of Mexico canceled a visit to Washington to protest the promised wall resonating as the potential first salvo in a trade war. "I'm incredibly concerned that the Trump people mean what they say," said Chad P. Bown, a trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "One would hope that they are using this as a negotiating tactic. But even if you are, that's an extraordinarily dangerous game to play, because, right now, the communication to the world is not flowing clearly." The communication on Thursday came through Mr. Trump's press secretary, Sean Spicer, who during the administration of George W. Bush, promoted the job creating magic of free trade as a spokesman for the United States Trade Representative. Pressed to explain how Mr. Trump would force Mexico to pay for the wall, Mr. Spicer said an import tax would do the trick. He soon clarified the tax was merely one option on a crowded buffet table. At a news conference on Friday, Mr. Trump reported having had "a very good call" with the Mexican president. But he did not sound conciliatory. Mexico "has outnegotiated us and beat us to a pulp through our past leaders," he said. "I'm not going to let that happen." Retail earnings and Black Friday: the week in business. Elizabeth Holmes will resume her testimony in her fraud trial. Within the business world, the prospect of substantial tariffs seems so damaging that many assume it will never happen. Mr. Trump's words have provoked fear among the members of Mr. Russell's work force. "They hear the administration is going to shut down Nafta and deport everyone, and it scares them," he said, referring to the North American Free Trade Agreement. But in the end, he said, business will carry on. "In 31 years, I've been through rapid inflation, devaluations, three major recessions, the violence period and multiple presidential administrations, and every year trade has increased," he said. "We've been through worse. Trade is like life itself. It will figure a way." Most experts have similarly assumed the responsibilities of governance would temper Mr. Trump's trade posture. Given that nearly one third of all American trade is conducted with China and Mexico, a rupture risks severe economic damage. The three countries are intertwined in the global supply chain. China makes components that go into auto parts manufactured in the United States. Those parts are delivered to factories in Mexico that produce finished vehicles sold to Americans. Calling such vehicles Mexican imports misses that much of the value is produced in the United States, employing American labor. "The idea of trade wars these days, what politicians have in mind is really a 19th century or early 20th century conception of trade," said Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano, a trade economist at the London School of Economics. "You don't even know who you're going to hurt with these kind of things. You're probably going to destroy American jobs in the end." Mr. Trump owes his office in no small measure to factory workers who have come to view global trade as a mortal threat to their livelihoods. But their sentiments are grounded not in ideology, but in a desire for jobs at decent wages. If Mr. Trump impedes imports, he could put some of these voters out of work.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Economy
Shake up Father's Day celebrations this year with vacation packages designed for dad. From a private fishing charter on Lake Huron to unlimited golfing in San Diego, hotels across the country are offering deals for memorable Father's Day trips. Here are four of them. At the Mission Point Resort on Mackinac Island in Michigan, consider booking a private fishing charter package. The "Lake to Plate Culinary Experience" includes a five hour private fishing charter on Lake Huron, accommodations for two nights, and dinner, from your catch, of course, cooked by a resort chef. Prices start at 475 per person based on double occupancy, and are available through Sept. 29. All fish caught and not eaten for dinner expect lake trout, chinook salmon, coho salmon and more will be packaged to take home. The "All Play, No Pay" package at Rancho Bernardo Inn in San Diego includes unlimited golf for two adults. Choose between the 18 hole resort course or the 27 hole Oaks North course, or play them both during your stay. The package includes one night of accommodations and start at 329 per night (compared to the regular starting rate of 279 per night and 118 per round of golf). Bourbon and Poolside Drinks in New Orleans In New Orleans, the Windsor Court Hotel is offering a "Suite Summer" package. Starting at 239 per night (compared to the 465 per night regular rate), the package includes suite accommodations plus a 50 per night credit for poolside drinks, dining or spa treatments. Over Father's Day weekend, the package also includes a complimentary flight of bourbons.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Travel
Every Christmas, he and his relatives go skiing. "I go back and forth on being scared of skiing. I like a quiet hill, where there's not a bunch of snowboarders running into you. " Here's what he packs on every trip. "I am one of those ninnies who, if my phone is less than 90 percent charged, I freak out. So when I'm traveling with the family, I'll pack at least a dozen chargers. I bring four portable battery chargers for the plane. But then I need my wall chargers for the hotel! So I bring four wall chargers, four battery packs, and then four USB chargers to charge the portable battery packs. In my carry on I have a separate bag just for my chargers. I'm a mess with the chargers. I'm getting a panic attack just thinking about it." "I never take a regular size toothbrush or other toiletries. I always take the travel versions, so I can feel like a wild man and just throw everything away; then I don't have to take it on the return flight. I'm crazy; I'm in the hotel just tossing it all on the floor. That's how Aerosmith got started, I'm sure. With portable toothbrushes." "I bring it everywhere, and I always use it on the plane before we take off. It's got better reception than using 4G, but only about 10 percent. It's my competitive nature. Why does my Gmail need to be 10 percent faster than everyone else's? Does that make me a winner?"
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Travel
Last week, Sonia Rykiel, the French house owned by First Heritage Brands that has been undergoing something of a buzz renaissance under the designer Julie de Libran (though still struggling financially), announced it was incorporating its more affordable Sonia by Sonia Rykiel line into its main one, the better to rationalize the brand image and message to customers. Or, as Jean Marc Loubier, chief executive of First Heritage, said, to "refocus on one clear offering." There's been a lot of hoo ha since the announcement, which also revealed that a significant portion of the company's employees were being laid off 79 of 330 and that some stores would close, as well as over what that might mean about the admittedly challenged state of the business. But the decision to absorb the little sister collection into the core line may be even more meaningful as a reflection of a broader trend in fashion. After all, the Rykiel consolidation echoes that of Burberry, which announced last year that it was combining Burberry Prorsum, Burberry London and Burberry Brit into a single collection (to the surprise of many who had not realized there were three discrete lines in the stores). And that, in turn echoed Marc Jacobs, which decided earlier in 2015 to stop creating and showing Marc by Marc Jacobs and instead make it all Marc Jacobs not to mention the decision by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton to suspend the Donna Karan main line and focus on DKNY, its contemporary sibling (before selling the brand to G III Apparel Group). All of them following the decision by Dolce Gabbana in 2011 to stop producing a stand alone D G collection. And it comes in the wake of an announcement this summer that Ralph Lauren would streamline its business to concentrate on three brands, as opposed to more than twice that number, as well as before the imminent debut collection of Raf Simons as chief creative officer at Calvin Klein, charged with uniting that brand's myriad lines under a single vision. (Whether they stay different lines with a joint aesthetic remains to be seen.) Vivienne Westwood and Paul Smith have also reduced their collection counts, the first folding her women's wear Red Label and the men's wear MAN collection into the main line, renamed Vivienne Westwood, and the second combining a variety of smaller labels such as Paul Smith Men's, Paul Smith London, PS by Paul Smith and Paul Smith Jeans into two: Paul Smith and PS by Paul Smith. The changes all add up to a major shift in how fashion is thinking about what consumers want and need. Instead of a lot of style stratification by price, now it's all about one unified style point of view. It's an acknowledgment that what makes us desire a piece of clothing, a bag or some shoes what we are looking for when we go into a store on onto a website is less dictated by numbers than a clear identity in which we see (literally) ourselves. Only after that exists do the figures come into play. Julie de Libran at the spring 2017 Rykiel show. She became the brand's artistic director in 2014. But such consolidation isn't cheap for the brands. As Luca Solca, head of luxury goods at Exane BNP Paribas, points out: "It is a good idea if you need to shore up exclusivity perception and reinforce brand desirability over the long term. But it often requires a major financial sacrifice" because of the restructuring involved. Which suggests that the brands themselves believe they are responding to a permanent shift in buying habits. Otherwise, the change wouldn't be worth the effort. So while the moves toward fewer labels may partly have to do with long term cost cutting, they probably also have to do with a bet on even longer term sales growth. In other words, this is not a fad. There are still a smattering of names who believe in the older system of segregation. Armani recently opened a major Emporio Armani store in Paris, reaffirming its commitment to that line. Max Mara still shows Sport Max on the Milan ready to wear schedule. But they are exceptions rather than the rule. Indeed, on an even broader level, the industry is going in the opposite direction, melding not only collections defined by cost but men's and women's wear, as well. Instead of creating more divisions, this is all about creating fewer. We could be in store for a whole new shopping world. Pun intended.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Fashion & Style
MARCO FUSI AND THE KUKURUZ QUARTET at the Italian Academy (Feb. 20, 7 p.m.). This quartet pianos, not strings is joined by a leading new music violinist for a sprawling, free program that culminates with another contribution to the Julius Eastman revival, a performance of his "Gay Guerrilla." Before that, there is music by Salvatore Sciarrino, Giacinto Scelsi, John Cage and Marcel Zaes. 212 854 2306, italianacademy.columbia.edu Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead. WANG LU at Miller Theater (Feb. 21, 8 p.m.). This Chinese born composer benefits from the first of Miller's spring composer portraits, and from the advocacy of the new music royalty on hand to perform her pieces: the International Contemporary Ensemble and Yarn/Wire. There's one world premiere, "A PPA Aratus," as well as "Childhood Amnesia," "Rates of Extinction," "Urban Inventory" and "Siren Song." 212 854 7799, millertheatre.com NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC at David Geffen Hall (Feb. 21, 7:30 p.m.; through Feb. 23). Matthias Pintscher leads the Philharmonic this week, and the conductor composer brings along one of his own works, the violin concerto "Mar'eh," in which Renaud Capucon is the soloist. Also on the bill are Ravel's "Alborada del gracioso" and Stravinsky's "The Firebird," performed in its entirety. After the concert on Feb. 23, Pintscher curates a Nightcap concert in the Kaplan Penthouse, with Nadia Sirota as the host. 212 875 5656, nyphil.org RUSSIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA at David Geffen Hall (Feb. 20, 8 p.m.). Nothing more imaginative than an all Rachmaninoff program is on offer here, but from an orchestra with a unique sound and personality. Kirill Karabits conducts the "Symphonic Dances" and the Piano Concerto No. 2; Mikhail Pletnev is the soloist. 212 721 6500, lincolncenter.org/great performers
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Music
DOWNSTAIRS In the 1950s, James Silvia served as the fourth footman at Alexander H. Rice's mansions in Newport, R.I., pictured, and New York City. CAN'T wait until the new season of "Downton Abbey" starts in January? Well, then, how about the New York version, starring James Silvia, who in the 1950s served Alexander H. Rice as fourth footman in his Newport, R.I., mansion and New York town house at Fifth Avenue and at 71st Street. Now retired from a career of teaching in Manhattan, Mr. Silvia, the son of a Portuguese gardener who worked on the estates of Newport, has a unique perspective on servant life on the American continent. The Rices occupied two mansions by Horace Trumbauer. Miramar, in Newport, was for Mrs. Rice and her first husband, George Widener, but he went down on the Titanic in 1912. Mr. Rice married his widow, Eleanor, in 1915 , and they built a cold neo Classic town house at 901 Fifth Avenue, just north of 71st Street, in 1922. Mrs. Rice and her husband, an explorer, entertained regularly, holding events like a 1931 gathering in New York of the Thursday Evening Club, with an address by the Maharajah of Burdwan. James Silvia, age 14, arrived in 1952 for a summer job at Miramar. Mr. Silvia's grandfather, an ornamental gardener, was brought to the United States by Reginald Vanderbilt, and his four sons, including Mr. Silvia's father, Frank, all became gardeners in Newport. "It was a real network," Mr. Silvia said recently in an interview. "Mostly I polished, brasses, door handles, railings," he recalled. "I also had to start the fire at 5 in the morning and keep it going the whole day the chef refused to cook on anything but wood." As in "Downton Abbey," the butler, Albert Holmwood, was in charge downstairs. "Holmwood was such a charming man in the front of the house, such a beast in the pantry," Mr. Silvia said. "For picking up two pieces of silver with one hand I had bruises on my shins for weeks. But if you searched for the classic butler, Holmwood would be it; on the telephone he sounded like John Gielgud." Peace is elusive on the television series, but there has been nothing like the feud between Holmwood and the chef. "They would scream obscenities at each other through the dumbwaiter shaft," Mr. Silvia said, "and the chef, a mad Frenchman, once waved a knife at him; they hated each other." Mr. Silvia suffered also: "The 'fourth footman' was one of Holmwood's little jokes. When I got there they only had a first and second footman. He used that to put me down." Upstairs, Mr. Silvia was usually not visible. "I was never allowed to serve at table," he said. "But I could stand behind a screen and hand the wine to Duncan," the second footman. And, there was none of the television show's shared confidences between masters and servants.. Mr. Silvia had to stay up late to open the front door for his employers: "They had no key, of course. They never spoke to you directly." Another of Mr. Silvia's jobs was to walk the poodle. "I was bitten by Pierre so many times; imagine being kicked by Holmwood and bitten by Pierre," he said. There were other hazards: the guests. "There was one constant houseguest who would stay for months. He asked me to sneak him a bottle of vodka from the liquor vault every few days, and once I began to balk. He pointed to his cuff links and said, 'See these? I could report them missing and they could be found in your room.' " The vodka flowed. The servants had some old style benefits. "The servants' buffet was a groaning board, huge joints of meat," he said. "It all came from my cousin's butcher shop, and of course, all those bills were padded." Vegetables were sent to New York from the greenhouses in Newport and "at Christmas they hired a whole different staff; we could sit around and drink champagne." 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. At Miramar, Mr. Silvia was in charge of the 42 awnings. "They hated a dark house, but had beautiful tapestries," he remembered. "I had to sit in the front hall, and watch the sun, and when it shifted I had to race, race, to lower the awnings, and then put the others up." Most of the time the male staff wore black pants with a tan linen jacket with the family crest on the buttons.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Real Estate
BERLIN Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany retreated Friday from demands that private financial institutions be pressured to participate in efforts to rescue the Greek economy, a compromise that seemed to offer some breathing space in Europe's efforts to confront its potentially ruinous debt crisis. Her critics in the European Central Bank and in many European capitals had argued that any requirement that private investors absorb some losses risked plunging Greece into a disorderly default on its enormous debt. But after a two hour meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, whose banks are among the most heavily exposed in the Greek debt crisis, Mrs. Merkel relented, saying, "We would like to have a participation of private creditors on a voluntary basis." She acknowledged, too, that there was no legal way of forcing banks to participate. "This should be worked out jointly with the E.C.B," she added, referring to the European Central Bank. "There shouldn't be any dispute with the E.C.B. on this." It was her second major political reversal in a month and could compound her political woes at home. Critics dismissed the change as cosmetic. Yanis Varoufakis, a political economist at the University of Athens, told Skai television that "not even God almighty" as finance minister could redeem the situation. Nevertheless, the combination of the cabinet changes and the agreement between France and Germany on Friday calmed jittery markets. Behind most calculations about the Greek crisis lies the much broader worry about whether financial woes in Athens will lead to a domino collapse of other weak euro zone economies, such as those of Portugal and Ireland, and create a "credit event" similar to the one that froze global markets after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. To stave off an imminent default, Greece needs the next 16.8 billion installment of a 155 billion loan package it received a year ago. But Greece is also likely to need another longer term bailout estimated at up to 84 billion before it can get its budget deficit, currently at 7.5 percent of gross domestic product, into a surplus. The potential for European chaos is immense. The European Central Bank itself holds billions of euros in shaky Greek debt and has firmly opposed anything that could set off what rating agencies call a "credit event," or default. Officials with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund have expressed confidence that an agreement to release the next loan installment could emerge from a meeting of euro zone finance ministers on Sunday in Luxembourg, while the question of the proposed second rescue package could be put off until July. Mrs. Merkel's retreat was all the more significant because German voters have registered loud concerns that their tax money, levied on a country known for prudence and restraint, is being used to spare Greece from the results of its own mismanagement and profligacy. With the demand for private lenders to be brought into the rescue, Mrs. Merkel had hoped to show German voters that the banks would share their pain. The German leader also reversed her energy policies this month, moving up the deadline for Germany to close down most of its nuclear power stations to 2022. While she said publicly that her change of mind was a result of the nuclear disaster in Japan, many analysts saw it as a desperate attempt to recover political ground after a series of defeats in local elections. Mrs. Merkel's junior coalition partners, the Free Democrats, are also weak, leaving her bereft of powerful allies. "This coalition, as everyone knows, is an alliance for ill, not good," The Suddeutsche Zeitung of Munich said in an editorial on Friday. Mrs. Merkel's newest reversal on Greek debt compounded such perceptions, political analysts said, and could expose her to a revolt from within her center right coalition. Only a week ago, the finance minister, Wolfgang Schauble, said that Germany had to "insist" on the participation of private lenders. Politically, any new rescue package depends on the Greek government pushing through more savings to close a widening budget gap a demand that provoked the crisis this week. After the French and German display of backing for the Greek leadership, Mrs. Merkel said Friday that "it would be good if the Greek opposition would also support the prime minister." The conservative opposition, which concealed the extent of the country's debt problems in its last years in power, refused this week to join a unity government in support of the loan package unless the aim was to renegotiate the terms of the deal. The timing on any final accord to be discussed Sunday remains a sensitive issue, with the European Commission, the European Union's executive arm, pressing for a deal by a July 11 gathering of finance ministers in Brussels. By then, it hopes the Greek Parliament will have agreed to adopt the austerity package on which new aid will be conditional. The International Monetary Fund has been reluctant to release its portion of the next installment of aid without a clear picture of how Greece will finance itself over the next 12 months. If a final decision on the second Greek bailout is delayed until September, there is a risk that the fund may have the same worries about releasing its next package of loans in the fall, provoking another crisis. However, some officials believe that the political situation in Greece is so volatile that the new government officials might need time to rally sufficient support for the package of new austerity conditions it will need to implement. On Friday, the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, emphasized the importance of getting a solid agreement rather than a rushed one. "I am content that France like Germany and the Netherlands recognizes the need for voluntary private sector involvement, and I'm confident that ultimately we will reach an agreement. However, this is going to be an important decision, and we must get it just right," he said in a statement.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Global Business
Milwaukee will not automatically lose Antetokounmpo if he declines to sign the extension, but that scenario would set him up to become an unrestricted free agent after the 2020 21 season. Holiday, 30, who has just one guaranteed season left on his contract, can also become a free agent next summer, raising the daunting possibility that he and Antetokounmpo could walk away after just one season together. To bring in Holiday, Milwaukee is thus parting with several draft assets that it would likely need to rebuild if Antetokounmpo decides to leave. Holiday has earned only one All Star appearance in his 11 seasons but is widely regarded as one of the best two way guards in the league. Early Tuesday, shortly after the Bucks and the Pelicans agreed to the Holiday trade, Milwaukee also arranged a sign and trade deal with the Sacramento Kings to bring the restricted free agent Bogdan Bogdanovic to the Bucks after the league's free agent market opens later this week, according to a person with knowledge of the deal who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. Although such an agreement would appear to violate the league's tampering rules that forbid free agent negotiations before Friday at 6 p.m., the Bucks planned to trade Donte DiVincenzo, Ersan Ilyasova and D.J. Wilson in an eventual deal for Bogdanovic and Justin James that can be officially consummated Sunday, the person said, confirming an agreement first reported by ESPN. The additions of Holiday and the sharpshooting Bogdanovic appear to significantly boost the Bucks' potency on the perimeter, which has been lacking in support of Antetokounmpo over the past two postseasons. Holiday averaged 19.1 points, 6.7 assists and 4.8 rebounds per game last season and earned selection to the N.B.A. all defense team in 2017 18 (first team) and 2018 19 (second team). On a podcast in August hosted by the Pelicans' JJ Redick, Damian Lillard of the Portland Trail Blazers called Holiday "the best defender in the league." The Nets' star Kevin Durant said in a subsequent podcast with Redick that Holiday was "probably the best defender in the league at the guard position."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Sports
Lee said it was no secret that his nomination took 30 years in the making. "But I'm not complaining! It's a joyous day." Three years ago, Spike Lee made headlines when he announced that he'd be skipping the Oscars a protest, he said, of the academy's historical failure to honor artists of color. Now, the academy is coming to him. "BlacKkKLansman," Lee's 21st feature, not counting documentaries, was nominated for six Academy Awards on Tuesday, including best picture and best director. It's the first directing nomination for Lee, who, by almost any other measure, has been widely regarded as one of his medium's most important artists and one of his industry's most energetic ombudsmen for at least two decades. Read more about the nominations Check out the full list of nominees See the snubs and surprises. His classic films of the late '80s and '90s ("She's Gotta Have It," "Do the Right Thing," "Malcolm X") reshaped American cinema, helped make stars of Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson, and turned Lee himself into a new kind of celebrity part auteur, part public servant, part sneaker pitchman. But he's had a fraught relationship with film's major honorary body from almost the beginning of his career. At the 1990 Oscars, "Do the Right Thing" lost out in two categories (best screenplay and best supporting actor, for Danny Aiello) and fell short of a best picture nomination, awarded that year to "Driving Miss Daisy." In 2015, during an acceptance speech for an honorary prize at the academy's Governors Awards, Lee implored those in attendance to "get smart" about diversity and foster a creative work force that can "reflect what this country looks like." The same night of that speech, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, then the academy's president, announced a multiyear campaign to diversify its membership. The move wasn't enough to convince Lee to attend the 2016 ceremony (he went to a Knicks game instead), but he credits Isaacs's efforts for clearing room for "BlacKkKlansman." The movie, a critical and box office hit based on the true story of a black police officer who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan, has turned the director, at 61, into the toast of the town once again. Lee spoke about "BlacKkKlansman," the state of the Hollywood and, naturally, the state of the White House, from his home in New York, where he watched Tuesday's announcements with his wife, two children and one flustered dog. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. Well, it feels very good. We're very pleased. We were all watching, sitting in bed, jumping up and down. The dog was barking at us she didn't know what was going on laughs but it's a good day. It's a good day. You've said that ever since your experience with "Do the Right Thing," you haven't held out hope for recognition from the academy. What does it mean to be nominated now, 30 years later? Well, any time there's an award, you should think about who's voting. And the membership of the academy today is much more diverse than it was back then. OscarsSoWhite definitely prodded the academy to open up its membership, and that's why I think that you see films by people of color are getting the recognition now that they didn't get in the past. A lot of people worked on this film, in front and behind the camera. And also the marketing this whole Oscars campaign. I couldn't have done it alone. People were busting their ass. Everyone has asked me from the beginning, "How do you feel about where you are with this film?" I love where we are. We're the long shot. And I like being in that position. I've always been the underdog, always. And you could quote me: We're the dark horse in the race. Pun intended. Does any part of you feel like it's overdue? I mean, look, it's no secret. 30 years is a long expletive time. But I'm not complaining! It's a joyous day. I'm blessed for this day. Blessed for the recognition. And there's a feeling that it's not just the people that worked on this film that have earned recognition , it's the people that have been working on my films since 1986. You've made all kinds of films some independent, some with studios, some that you wrote, some that were written by others was there anything about "BlacKkKlansman" that you thought had the potential to resonate in a different way? Well, when Jordan Peele called me up and gave me the pitch "Black man infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan," I was intrigued, because with the absurdity of that premise comes humor. Kevin Willmott a co writer of the film and I knew that if we could use the movie to connect the past with the present, we could do something that connected with people. And it was a tough thing to do. But it was successful, and it speaks directly to the world we live in today with this guy in the White House. Today, when 800,000 Americans need a break as we go into another week of this temper tantrum about how this guy wants his money for his wall. A wall he wants to be built upon the border of a country that he says is home to rapists, murders and drug dealers. And that they're gonna pay for! Which is not true. This film deals directly with the madness and the mayhem of this Looney Tunes, cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs world laughs . And I feel that many years to come, when historians search for a piece of art that clearly shows what is happening today, "BlacKkKlansman" will be one of the first things they look at. Because this film is on the right side of history. When you think about the journey "BlacKkKlansman" has had, what do you think it says about where the industry is today and where it's going? Well, none of this would have been possible if the academy did not make the heroic move, and the right move to open up its ranks to better reflect what this country looks like. And I applaud the former president, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, for being the one to champion that. I don't think that was an easy thing to do. You once famously said that it's easier as a black man to become the president of the United States than it is to become the head of a movie studio. There still aren't many black people at the heads of movie studios. Laughs And I still think I'm right on that. I think that one of the final frontiers to complete diversity has to be among the gatekeepers. The people at the head of various media outlets who decide what they're making and not making. Until there's diversity brought to that, we're still going to have issues. In 1990, the first time you were nominated for an Academy Award, "Driving Miss Daisy" won best picture. This year, "BlacKkKlansman" is up against "Green Book," which some people have compared to "Driving Miss Daisy." Do you see a coincidence? I have a policy today where I'm not talking about anybody else's films that were nominated. But I will acknowledge that comparison has been made, yes.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Movies
Erika Henningsen as Cady Heron in the musical "Mean Girls," adapted by Tina Fey from her screenplay for the cult favorite 2004 film. Let me say up front that if I were asked to choose among the healthy lineup of girl power musicals now exercising their lungs on Broadway, you would have to count me on Team Regina. That's a reference to the alpha leader of the nasty title characters of "Mean Girls," the likable but seriously over padded new show that opened at the August Wilson Theater on Sunday night. I hasten to add that I am in no way endorsing the crushing elitist behavior of Regina George, a teen clique queen embodied here with red (or rather pink ) hot coolness by Taylor Louderman. I was once a public high school student myself, and writhed painfully beneath the long, glossy talons of many a Regina. But the jokes, poses and put downs that Regina delivers and inspires in others in this musical, adapted from the 2004 film, are a lot more entertaining than the more earnestly aspirational doings of the heroines of "Frozen," "Anastasia" and, their deathless sorority founder, "Wicked." That's because Regina and her frenemies converse in dialogue by the peerless comic writer Tina Fey. That perspective was transformed into box office gold in the film "Mean Girls," Ms. Fey's first screenplay, based on a nonfiction book about the perils of popularity by Rosalind Wiseman and directed by Mark Waters. Starring a young Lindsay Lohan as an outsider who insinuates herself into a high school "in" crowd and loses her identity (a part ably assumed in the musical by Erika Henningsen), the film balanced every nerd revenge fantasies with sunny life lessons, and it lives on as a mood elevating cult favorite. Fans of that movie will be happy to learn that Ms. Fey's script for the protracted stage incarnation which features songs by Jeff Richmond and Nell Benjamin, with direction and choreography by Casey Nicholaw retains many of the oft quoted catchwords and quips of the original. When early in the show, a character hopefully says "fetch" (a neologism for really cool), the audience is chuckling before she lands that final "ch." As for me, I was laughing guiltily even before the show started, gazing at the onstage video wallpaper of annotated yearbook photographs. Representing the title characters' so called "Burn Book," which figures in a crucial plot point, these are images of class portraits decorated with cruel phrases like "If cornflakes were a person" and "Only made the team because his mom slept with the coach." That this "Mean Girls" takes place (still at an Illinois high school) 14 years later than the film has proved no obstacle to Ms. Fey. After all, social media only increases opportunities for social climbing and subversion. The disconnect that troubles this musical isn't a matter of adapting to changing times. Scott Pask's set, Gregg Barnes's costumes and Finn Ross and Adam Young's video designs render sociological exactitude with flat comic strip brightness. No, the trouble lies in the less assured translation of Ms. Fey's sly take on adolescent social angst into crowd pleasing song and dance. Mr. Richmond and Ms. Benjamin's many (many) musical numbers are passable by middle of the road Broadway standards (though Ms. Benjamin's shoehorned rhymes do not bear close examination). Yet they rarely capture either the tone or the time of being a certain age in a certain era. A couple of songs tip their caps to Katy Perry/Pink style ballads of empowerment ("It Roars," "Fearless"), but they lack the energizing pop snap you long for. A rap number, for a party sequence, is embarrassing, and not only because it's intended to be. By the end, when the feuding students have learned the errors of their divergent ways, high volume hymns of uplift have taken over. Only an occasional number like "What's Wrong With Me?," a cri de coeur of insecurity, affectingly performed by Ashley Park offers essential insights into character or truly propels the plot. These songs are why the show weighs in at two and a half hours, as opposed to the movie's zippy 97 minutes. And often when I sensed that a character was feeling a song coming on, a grumpy voice in me murmured, "Oh, I wish you wouldn't." As long as they're talking, the leading students of "Mean Girls" exude an idiosyncratic, carefully exaggerated comic charm. You have, on the one hand, the designer garbed despots of the title: Ms. Louderman's Regina, Ms. Park's terminally insecure Gretchen and Kate Rockwell's terminally stupid Karen. On the other, there are the "Freaks and Geeks" misfits: Grey Henson's "almost too gay to function" Damian and Barrett Wilbert Weed's deadpan goth girl Janis. Kerry Butler is very funny as a variety of grown ups (including parts portrayed by Ms. Fey and Amy Poehler in the film). Ms. Henningsen's Cady, the new girl (she was home schooled in Kenya by her parents), is less specifically defined, but she has plenty of presence. Her radiant, confused blankness effectively summons memories of being young, unformed and desperate to be liked. The show itself suffers from a similar indecisiveness, especially in its structure. It employs two separate, fitfully used framing perspectives that of Damian and Janis as droll narrators and commentators on the action, and of Cady, who grew up in the wilds of Kenya, and sometimes observes her fellow students as if they were zoological specimens. At some point, a choice between these two should have been made. As he demonstrated in "The Book of Mormon" and "The Drowsy Chaperone," Mr. Nicholaw specializes in spoof choreography that both celebrates and satirizes Broadway dance conventions. It's an approach that feels only intermittently appropriate here. He does an amusing, if underdeveloped, riff on "The Lion King" and borrows from "Mormon" for the production's showstopper, a tap sequence called, uh, "Stop." The wittiest musical moments include a Halloween party number in which young women defend tarty costumes as emblems of feminist independence.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Theater
ALEXANDRIA, N.H. For most of his life, Kevin Ramsey has lived with epileptic seizures that drugs cannot control. At least once a month, he would collapse, unconscious and shaking violently, sometimes injuring himself. Nighttime seizures left him exhausted at dawn, his tongue a bloody mess. After episodes at work, he struggled to stay employed. Driving became too risky. At 28, he sold his truck and moved into his mother's spare bedroom. Cases of intractable epilepsy rarely have happy endings, but today Mr. Ramsey is seizure free. A novel battery powered device implanted in his skull, its wires threaded into his brain, tracks its electrical activity and quells impending seizures. At night, he holds a sort of wand to his head and downloads brain data from the device to a laptop for his doctors to review. "I'm still having seizures on the inside, but my stimulator is stopping all of them," said Mr. Ramsey, 36, whose hands shake because of one of the three anti seizure drugs he still must take. "I can do things on my own I couldn't do before. I can go to the store on my own, and get my groceries. Before, I wouldn't have been able to drive." Just approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the long awaited device, called the RNS System, aims to reduce seizures and to improve the lives of an estimated 400,000 Americans whose epilepsy cannot be treated with drugs or brain surgery. "This is the first in what I believe is a new generation of therapy for epilepsy," said Dr. Dileep R. Nair, head of adult epilepsy at the Cleveland Clinic and an investigator in the pivotal trial for NeuroPace's RNS. "It's delivering local therapy. It's not taking tissue out; the brain is left intact. And it's unlike a drug, which is a shotgun approach." Already, Dr. Nair's center has 70 people on a waiting list for the device. Roughly 110 epilepsy centers with sophisticated diagnostic testing have filed paperwork to be able to offer it, said Dr. Martha J. Morrell, the chief medical officer at NeuroPace, based in Mountain View, Calif. That represents most of the estimated 130 Level 4 centers that treat adults with epilepsy. Unfortunately, many patients are not referred to these centers by their doctors until they have spent years, even decades, grappling with their condition. An estimated 2.3 million adults nationwide have epilepsy, and in a third of them, seizures are not controlled by drugs. Brain surgery can relieve seizures completely, but many patients aren't candidates because their seizures start in parts of the brain that can't be removed, such as those needed for language or memory. Without treatment options, people with intractable epilepsy often find it difficult to hold jobs or to find spouses. They can suffer repeated injuries from falls and burns; their mortality rate is two to three times higher than that of the general population. "There are people out there who are just desperate for the next treatment," said Janice Buelow, the vice president of research for the Epilepsy Foundation. With his neurostimulator, Mr. Ramsey, who is partial to ice fishing and wisecracks, is living on his own in a patched up trailer heated by an indoor wood stove. Inside is the mounted head of a deer he shot. He drives his purple Ford Ranger to appointments at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. Lately, he's started to look for part time work. But he's cautious. "Because of my epilepsy, a lot of people don't want to take the risk," he said. His treatment has been more successful than most. In a randomized clinical trial of 191 people at 32 sites, patients received stimulators but did not know whether they were activated or not. Those with stimulators activated reported a 38 percent reduction in seizures over three months, compared to a 17 percent decrease among those whose stimulators were not, according to the results published in Neurology. Over two years, 90 subjects with the devices turned on experienced a 50 percent or greater reduction in seizures. Until he received a stimulator in 2008, Andrew Stocksdale, 32, of Mansfield, Ohio, experienced up to 20 seizures a day. By contrast, in the past month, he's had three. He is now married, holds a full time job, and has a newborn son. "My life fell together like a jigsaw puzzle," Mr. Stocksdale said. "I was afraid to have a son before. I couldn't do things. I was afraid of falling. I couldn't hold him." Implantation surgery requires two days in the hospital, but extensive evaluation is necessary beforehand, including days of monitoring without anti seizure drugs. The device, which requires a battery change every two to three years, works only for people whose seizures start in one or two places in their brain. Electrical stimulation delivered through thin wires placed precisely at those places helps prevent an incipient seizure from spreading. By contrast, another treatment, a vagus nerve device which is a stimulator implanted in the chest to prevent seizures fires "on a preprogrammed basis with no relationship to what's happening in the brain," said Dr. Devinsky of the NYU Langone epilepsy center. Before the RNS is turned on, a patient's unique seizure patterns must be detected, a process that takes months and multiple clinic visits. Then comes a period of trial and error, when the intensity of stimulation is increased or decreased, or the number of pulses altered, to see if the patient experiences fewer seizures. "I like to call it a smart device," said Dr. Christianne Heck, an investigator in the RNS study who is the medical director of the comprehensive epilepsy program at the University of Southern California. "We actually teach the device to detect specific patterns that represent a seizure for each particular patient." Soon after Mr. Ramsey's stimulator was turned on, his major convulsive seizures stopped, said Dr. Barbara C. Jobst, the director of the epilepsy program at Dartmouth Hitchcock, who was also an investigator in the study. But it took three years of tweaking to stop another kind of seizure that resulted in his simply staring. But if seizures originate over the whole frontal lobe, Dr. Roberts said, the same number of electrical leads are "much less likely to have the same effect." Even for patients who are good candidates, access to the new device may be difficult if patients aren't referred to Level 4 epilepsy centers. Such centers tend to be near universities or larger cities. New York City has eight, while no Level 4 centers exist in Montana, Arkansas or the Dakotas. Dr. David M. Labiner, the president of the National Association of Epilepsy Centers, said the "lag time" between diagnosis and referral to a comprehensive center "is still up to 20 years." Another hurdle is cost. The RNS, with the equipment required to download data, is up to 40,000. That figure doesn't include 10,000 to 20,000 for the surgery, or diagnostic testing. Thus far, insurers have paid most of the expenses for five or so cases since F.D.A. approval, including one covered by Medicare.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Health
The author and investor Tim Ferriss in 2017. He has set aside most of his projects to advance psychedelic medicine, "for macro reasons but also deeply personal ones." The announcement on Wednesday that Johns Hopkins Medicine was starting a new center to study psychedelic drugs for mental disorders was the latest chapter in a decades long push by health nonprofits and wealthy donors to shake up psychiatry from the outside, bypassing the usual channels. "Psychiatry is one of the most conservative specialties in medicine," said David Nichols , a medicinal chemist who founded the Heffter Research Institute in 1993 to fund psychedelic research. "We haven't really had new drugs for years, and the drug industry has quit the field because they don't have new targets" in the brain. "The field was basically stagnant, and we needed to try something different." The fund raising for the new Johns Hopkins center was largely driven by the author and investor Tim Ferriss, who said in a telephone interview that he had put aside most of his other projects to advance psychedelic medicine. "It's important to me for macro reasons but also deeply personal ones," Mr. Ferriss, 42, said. "I grew up on Long Island, and I lost my best friend to a fentanyl overdose. I have treatment resistant depression and bipolar disorder in my family. And addiction. It became clear to me that you can do a lot in this field with very little money." Mr. Ferriss provided funds for a similar center at Imperial College London, which was introduced in April, and for individual research projects at the University of San Francisco, California, testing psilocybin as an aide to therapy for distress in long term AIDS patients. The spiritual father of psychedelic medicine was the chemist Albert Hofmann , who discovered the effects of LSD in 1943 after accidentally ingesting it while working at the Swiss firm Sandoz. Dr. Hofmann had at least one bad trip "Everything in the room spun around, and the familiar objects and pieces of furniture assumed grotesque, threatening forms," he wrote afterward. But he also recognized his "problem child," as he called the drug, as a potential therapeutic agent. So did a host of prominent doctors, in time. Beginning in 1960, the renowned Scottish psychiatrist Dr. R.D. Laing gave LSD to patients, some with psychotic disorders, and used it himself. Through the 1960s, other prominent psychiatrists experimented liberally, including Dr. Stanislav Grof , Dr. Humphry Osmond and Dr. Abram Hoffer. These "treatments" showed promise for some problems, like alcoholism, but the results were mixed, and dosing someone with psychosis would never clear an ethical review committee today. By 1970, acid and related compounds had become part of a dangerous menu of street drugs, and governments cracked down, bringing research to a near halt. Other mind altering recreational drugs, like psilocybin (the ingredient in magic mushrooms) and MDMA, or ecstasy, also landed on the lists of banned substances. The revival of interest began in the early 1990s, when the Food and Drug Administration agreed to approve careful, well designed, ethically vetted studies of psychedelics for the first time in decades. The Heffter Institute and the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies , or MAPS, a nonprofit funded by an assortment of wealthy donors, financed projects in the United States and abroad. MAPS collaborated with Dr. Hofmann and Alexander Shulgin, a former Dow chemist who discovered the effects of ecstasy, and with his wife, Ann, experimented with scores of hallucinogens. Experiments using ecstasy and LSD, for end of life care, were underway by the mid 2000s. Soon, therapists began conducting trials of ecstasy for post traumatic stress, with promising results. One of the most influential scientific reports appeared in 2006: a test of the effects of a strong dose of psilocybin on healthy adults. In that study, a team led by Roland Griffiths at Johns Hopkins found that the volunteers "rated the psilocybin experience as having substantial personal meaning and spiritual significance and attributed to the experience sustained positive changes in attitudes and behavior." At least as important as the findings, which were exploratory, was the source, Johns Hopkins, with all its reputational weight, and no history of institutional bias toward alternative treatments. "I got interested through meditation in altered states of consciousness, and I came into this field with no ax to grind," said Dr. Griffiths, the director of the new center. By late 2018, the Johns Hopkins group had reported promising results using psilocybin for depression, nicotine addiction and cancer related distress. Others around the world, including Dr. David Nutt at Imperial College London, were producing similar results. Mr. Ferriss, who organized half the 17 million in commitments and contributed more than 2 million of his own for the new Johns Hopkins center, said he approached wealthy friends who he knew had an interest in mental health. The new venture, he said he told them, "truly has the chance to bend the arc of history, and I've spent nearly five years looking at and testing options in this space to find the right bet. Would you have any interest in discussing?" Craig Nerenberg , one of those friends and the founder of the hedge fund Brenner West Capital Partners , quickly agreed to contribute. "I have lost a family member to addiction and have felt the pain of loved ones who struggled through depression," Mr. Nerenberg said by email. "It's hard for me to imagine a contribution that I can make which if the research data continues to bear out will have a greater impact over the next decade." The remaining half of the commitments for the center came from the Steven Alexandra Cohen Foundation and supports studies on the benefits for people with persistent Lyme disease symptoms, PTSD and other conditions. Mr. Cohen is a billionaire investor; the foundation focuses on education, veterans issues, Lyme disease and children's health, among other concerns. In an email, Ms. Cohen wrote, "I strongly believe that we must dare to change the minds of those who think this drug is for recreational purposes only and acknowledge that it is a miracle for many who are desperate for relief from their symptoms or for the ability to cope with their illnesses. It may even save lives." Investigators at the Johns Hopkins center, its counterpart at Imperial College London and elsewhere still have an enormous amount of work to do to learn which mind altering substances are beneficial for whom, at what doses, and when such treatment is dangerous. The same concerns that shut down similar research in the 1970s are audible in the caution expressed by many psychiatrists today: These are powerfully mind altering substances, and administering them to people who are already unstable is uncertain work, to put it mildly. One scary adverse event could cripple the whole enterprise. But for now, the supporters of a revived psychedelic medicine are taking a victory lap. "It's taken half a century since the backlash against the psychedelic '60s, but cultural evolution takes time," said Rick Doblin , executive director of MAPS. "We're seeing a global renaissance in public and scientific interest, regulatory approvals and funding for psychedelic researc h."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Health
Nearly 14 months have passed since "American Dharma," the director Errol Morris's sidelong study of the former Trump White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon, had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. In February, the filmmaker took to Twitter to express indignation that the movie was taking so long to reach theaters. The objections to the movie are easy to understand. It gives a platform to a man charged with abetting the spread of hate. (While Bannon repeatedly dismisses the notion that xenophobia plays a part in his politics, Morris makes clear that he hasn't exactly discouraged the label, either. In a clip, Bannon tells far right politicians in France to wear being called racist as a "badge of honor.") Bannon already has a tendency to self mythologize, and elevating him in a documentary helps reinforce the idea that he is a political mastermind, as opposed to a fringe figure who may have gotten lucky in one election. And Morris does not push back as aggressively as he might have on Bannon's assertions. (More typically, he intersperses news pieces and headlines to counter Bannon's words.) To those who view Bannon's simple presence before a camera as offensive, no movie about him would be worth seeing. For those eager to watch him look like a fool, Alison Klayman's "The Brink," a fly on the wall portrait released in March, gives him more rope to hang himself. But anyone demanding that Morris's movie end with Bannon's head on a spike ignores that Morris rarely approaches a topic from the expected angle. "American Dharma" continues a thread that he has explored for the last two decades. Like "Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr." (1999), "Standard Operating Procedure" (2008) and "The Unknown Known" (2014), the Bannon film is a study in rationalization, a portrait of a man who bends the world to his philosophy, assimilating or shutting out contradictory evidence. Viewers may laugh at the moment when Bannon learns that Morris voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary . "Oh my God, you just crushed me," he says. He expresses shock that the director of "The Fog of War" and "The Unknown Known" would make that choice. That Morris is not a Bernie Sanders (or Trump) supporter should be no surprise, but part of his point may be that Bannon appears unwilling to comprehend that. Bannon has made documentaries himself (although his style trends toward crude agitprop rather than anything artistic) and regards Morris as an inspiration. Morris meets him on equal terms, sitting down with him for their conversations rather than, as is his custom, interviewing him through a video image. They talk in an aircraft hangar, an aesthetic choice that suits both Bannon's military background and the movies the two men discuss. Morris's fixation on Bannon the film buff might seem trivial, but Bannon's views on cinema say something about how he interprets the world. He admires Gregory Peck's tough guy leadership in the World War II bomber film "Twelve O'Clock High," even though the character is shown to be under inhuman strain at the end. Bannon likens his exit from the Trump White House in 2017 to Henry V's ouster of Falstaff in Orson Welles's "Chimes at Midnight" regarding Falstaff's banishment as an affirmation of the "natural order of things," and not, as Occam's razor might suggest, a betrayal. Bannon's interest in alternate realities, as presented onscreen, in video games or in cyberspace, becomes a recurring theme. In a revealing moment, he suggests that the comments section at Breitbart became more of a community for its contributors than the actual cities they lived in. Even so, Morris prods Bannon on the scrims he has erected for himself. How can a professed populist demonize immigrants? How does someone who rails against government corruption, or elites at Davos, support Trump, who critics would argue embodies many values that Bannon claims to loathe? What does Bannon mean when he says a revolution is coming, and why is his thinking so apocalyptic? As with Donald Rumsfeld in "The Unknown Known," Morris never really cracks his subject, and perhaps it's facile to deem the project worthwhile in spite of that. Certainly, "American Dharma" offers no comfort to those disturbed by Bannon or harmed by the policies he has pressed for. But Morris wants to map how Bannon thinks. The movie he has made is less an act of muckraking than it is a psychological thriller, with Bannon its implacable villain.
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Movies
In Marissa Perel's "More Than Just a Piece of Sky," a bedroom becomes a yeshiva that in turn becomes a planet where a sense of difference creates new ways of seeing oneself and others. Ms. Perel, a multidisciplinary artist whose works often combine choreography and performance art, has turned for source material to "Yentl," a 1983 movie directed by and starring Barbra Streisand that was inspired by a story from Isaac Bashevis Singer. Both story and film center on a young woman who disguises herself as a man to study at a yeshiva, where she then falls in love with a man. Ms. Perel's production, a presentation of the Queer New York International Arts Festival, uses this narrative to explore themes of gender and sexuality, personal and cultural exile, knowledge and power, and religion and nationality, as her characters journey to find their own definitions of identity. (8 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday, Chocolate Factory Theater, 5 49 49th Avenue, Long Island City, Queens; 866 811 4111, chocolatefactorytheater.org.)
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Dance
Ricardo Guadalupe, Hublot's chief executive. As well as innovation on the product side, Hublot has driven its considerable growth through marketing might. NYON, Switzerland The centuries old traditions that define Swiss watchmaking are a world apart from blockchain, the technological revolution that promises to change our lives forever, even if not everyone understands what the term actually means. Minute mechanical movements assembled by hand and a global, yet ephemeral, web of traceable data are opposites in terms of scale, albeit equally complex. And yet Hublot married these unlikely partners earlier this month with the introduction of its Big Bang Meca 10 P2P, a 25,000 watch exclusively available for purchase with Bitcoin, the digital currency powered by blockchain. This union of watchmaking tradition and 21st century innovation is an apt one for the LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton owned brand. "The Art of Fusion" has been its motto since Jean Claude Biver took its helm in 2004. Ricardo Guadalupe, who followed Mr. Biver to become chief executive in 2012 and who has worked at the company since 2004, was in the room when Mr. Biver, laying out his vision for the brand, coined the phrase. Mr. Guadalupe said that Mr. Biver recognized an opportunity: The house could respect tradition but, at the same time, distinguish itself from more traditional brands by integrating high tech materials like ceramic, carbon fiber and its proprietary Magic Gold (a fusion of liquid gold and ceramic) into its watches. "That was the genius idea," Mr. Guadalupe said during a recent interview at Hublot's appropriately high tech headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland. "Nobody had done this before." It was a vision that has paid off. A little more than six months after that initial inspiration, Hublot had developed the first Big Bang for the 2005 Baselworld watch fair and the watch remains its pillar timepiece today. That initial model took the form of a bold 44 millimeter watch with an innovative multilayered case construction that also stayed true to the brand's earlier combination of gold and rubber. In the first year of Big Bang production, Hublot almost doubled its sales, going from 20 million Swiss francs to 35 million Swiss francs, or what today would be 19.9 million to 34.8 million. "The year after, we did 80 million; the year after that, 150 million," said Mr. Guadalupe, 53. "We doubled every year at the beginning." LVMH acquired Hublot in 2008. In a later email, Mr. Guadalupe said that this year the company's sales would exceed 600 million Swiss francs. Hublot's Big Bang Meca 10 P2P watch, exclusively available for purchase with Bitcoin. As well as innovation on the product side, Hublot has driven its considerable growth through marketing might, building a brand profile with partnerships and special editions for worlds as diverse as soccer, music, art and motorsport. "Event marketing is our strategy," Mr. Guadalupe said. "We make partnerships and we activate them through events." There also is an in house studio producing round the clock digital content for multiple platforms (Hublot boasts 3.4 million Instagram followers and almost 4.7 million on Facebook). Hublot constantly tries to engage its young customers, Mr. Guadalupe said, the 25 to 45 year olds who now account for 70 percent of its sales. "For them, images and video speak more than any text," he added. "Our job is to make them dream." So whether it is capturing the appeal of contemporary art with a Big Bang codesigned by the graffiti artist Shepard Fairey or the tattoo artist Maxime Buchi or tapping the technological zeitgeist around Bitcoin, Hublot uses the same kind of strategy that Supreme or Gucci do in fashion: marketing around the desirability of a luxury product that few ultimately will be able to acquire. For example, the brand said that many (although it wouldn't confirm exactly how many) of the 210 piece limited edition Big Bang Meca 10 P2P sold out in presales even before details were released Nov. 6 in Hong Kong. This year, for the third consecutive time, Hublot was the official timekeeper to the World Cup. For the occasion it debuted its first smartwatch, the snappily named Big Bang Referee 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia, which was worn by all referees and 12 team managers, including Didier Deschamps of the winning French team. (Mr. Guadalupe wore it during his interview, too.) Although its 5,200 price is considerably more than that of many other smartwatches, including the 1,400 entry priced model offered by TAG Heuer, the 2,018 piece limited edition sold out in two months. Mr. Guadalupe declined to share the cost of the tournament timekeeping role but he said the return on investment, as far as brand awareness was concerned, was worth every penny. He estimated that Hublot branded boards were on TV screens for a total of 20 minutes during the tournament, which FIFA estimated to have attracted 3.4 billion viewers during the 2014 event in Brazil. In traditional advertising, he said, that kind of reach "would cost you hundreds of millions of dollars." Mr. Biver had sold Blancpain to Swatch Group in 1992 but had continued in its management at the same time as joining Nicolas Hayek's Swatch Group management team. "He had bought it for nothing and sold it for 50 million," Mr. Guadalupe said. "He was already a kind of star." (Mr. Biver, who stepped down as head of LVMH's Watch Division in September, has been credited with enhancing the group's houses, sometimes by taking temporary control himself and is well known as an industry showman, famous for sharing wheels of his own farm made Gouda at events.) Mr. Guadalupe, who is more reserved than his former colleague but demonstrates a strong drive and a ready wit, said their partnership endured for almost 25 years because their skills were complimentary. "Mr. Biver is a genius in ideas and vision about a brand," he said. "I'm a good person to interpret his vision and make the ideas happen." "Sometimes, I also have my own ideas," he added with a wry smile. Working in product development at Blancpain, Mr. Guadalupe said, gave him a complete eduction in watchmaking that has served his career well. "My strength is I'm a generalist, like a doctor," he said. "I know everything in every department, but I'm not a specialist in any one thing. That's why I'm good at what I do." The approach has been valuable as chief executive of a brand that now boasts 90 stand alone boutiques around the world and has plans to have 150 at the end of the next five years. Mr. Guadalupe said that he did not believe the time was right for Hublot to have a full e commerce site, but that he hoped its new digital boutique service would appeal to people used to buying items with a few taps on their phones. When it comes to brick and mortar stores, the soccer fan was in his element in September, when he was joined by four members of the Hublot sponsored Chelsea soccer team during London Fashion Week to open the brand's first independently operated boutique in that city. While he said that being a chief executive in the digital era means he is never entirely away from the business, he had to admit one thing: "It's a good life."
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N24News: A New Dataset for Multimodal News Classification
Fashion & Style